Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 127

Fan Fiction: FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE, Phoenix fan fiction

Now available on Wattpad, a trip very far back in my writing roots in fan fiction: The Phoenix.

FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE is another story where I test-drove characters that would someday appear in my own published books.

Frazier returned with an odd feeling of warning traveling up his back. He moved quietly and paused in the doorway. The stranger knelt in front of the fireplace and pressed both hands against the logs waiting for a match. She frowned, her lips thinning into a line.
The logs burst into flames with a muffled thump -- echoed by the heavy, cold jolt of Frazier's heart.
Anna burst out in delighted laughter and nearly fell from her chair in her hurry to get closer to the flames. Rainbows flickered around her fingers, reflected in the sparks from the fire. The young woman caught her by her arms and gently pushed her back into the seat.

"Remember what I told you already? We can't let people see we're special."
Anna chuckled and looked at her hands, where the rainbows still danced. She wiggled her fingers and the colors vanished.
"That's good." The stranger sat back on the hearth and wiped damp strands of hair out of her face. Suddenly, all her energy left and she looked too pale and thin to sit up by herself. A wave of pity washed over Frazier. He understood her situation, knew the strain she felt.
"You're safe here," Frazier said softly, coming into the room the rest of the way.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean." She stood and reached for her discarded coat.

Book of the Week: BLUE FIRE

Two days later, Rhianni landed at the spaceport on the edge of Core, the main city of the colony, in a Rover Corps shuttle. The official story said she was on medical leave from the Rovers.
It was the truth. Just not the whole truth. Her father had died ridding a Gen-Tek operation on the other side of the galactic axis. As a Rover, Rhianni was entitled to one Standard year of rest and recuperation leave.
That didn't mean the Corps would let her take it.
She accepted this job for her father's sake. He had lived for years believing he had abandoned Mallachrom when his adopted home needed him most. Military documentation said otherwise, but as her father would say, when did bureaucracy override the heart?
"Is it possible to borrow a two‑man sled for the morning?" Rhianni asked the field security team that met her at the shuttle hatch.
"No, Captain. The sleds are for official business only. Sorry," the leader of the team hurried to add, with a nod of deference to the Rover Corps knife-and-flame emblem, scarlet and black on her green fatigues jacket.
"Oh. Could I send a message, then?"
"Until you clear security, no private communications. Verbal?" The leader held out a recording wand.
Rhianni nodded and frowned to fight a grin. She refused to let these brainless drones know they had aided her strategy. She nodded for the man to press the recording button.
"To Mistress Shoreel of the Council," she said, speaking slowly and louder than necessary. "Grandmother, this is Rhianni. The Colonel -- my Dad -- is dead. I'm home on medical leave. When I've completed an errand, I would like to visit you. I should be back in Core by this afternoon."

Silence. The field team barely hid their panic. They had said no to the granddaughter of a Council member -- forget her status as a Rover Corps medic. 

Book of the Week: BLUE FIRE

Excerpt 1:

Rhianni Day went to sleep with the planet Mallachrom staring at her from the screen in her cabin on board the Rover ship, Star Sword.
For the last nineteen years, since the Talroqi invaded the planet of her birth, she had sworn she would never return. She didn't want to see the devastation caused by the hive creatures, didn't want to see the mass graves and the memorials erected after the Talroqi had finally been driven out. Her father, then-Rover Captain Joras Day, had left Mallachrom reluctantly upon the military's insistence that the colony world was too far from the battle lines to ever be invaded.
They were wrong, and Rhianni's father had carried a burden of guilt for nineteen years. Now he was dead, and Rhianni had come home to pay his debt -- if possible.
So she wasn't surprised when the dreams began almost before the image of Mallachrom, the rich colors of life dulled by the ship's sensors, faded from behind her closed eyelids.

The War Room

Lots of new developments.

Keeping very busy!

Right now I have over 70K words on the 1st draft of book 1 of the fantasy series that right now has the working title of "Magic to Spare." The first book is called "Magic and Thorns," and details how a princess with a lot of magical potential gets ... sabotaged. Turned into a spoiled brat. She ends up marrying a wicked king, and then spends the second book, currently titled, "The Kindness Curse," being forcibly reformed.

At least, that's the plan.

NEWSLETTER!
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The plan is to do a newsletter twice a month, featuring news on upcoming Book of the Week titles, sneak peeks at cover art, the 1st chapter of the next book coming out, links to free reads before anyone hears about them, inside news on booksignings and books on sale, maybe some contests. I might just be asking for your input on titles, story ideas, and maybe handing out ARCs in exchange for reviews on Amazon and other sites.

Sound like a plan?


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NEXT NEWS:
I've posted new fan fiction on Wattpad -- "Flame from Another Fire," part of the Phoenix universe, and another story where I "test drove" an original character and storyline. You might enjoy it.

The plan is to post a new piece of fan fiction every month, and then post a snippet from that story every Saturday that month. Up next: "Gizmos," set in the TV series, "Beauty and the Beast."

Book of the Week: BLUE FIRE

Today starts a new "feature" on the blog.

Each week, you'll get the cover art and some excerpts of one of my published books.

When a NEW book is out, the book will be featured 2 weeks, plus the weeks beforehand will be a lead-in featuring other books either from the same series, or similar. For instance, when a new romance book is released, you'll get samples from other romances. When a new Commonwealth book is released, you'll get some samples from previous Commonwealth books.

So here we go!

BLUE FIRE
Published by Desert Breeze Publishing


Rover captain Rhianni Day returns to Mallachrom, burdened with her father's guilt over abandoning the colony decades ago. She intends to find out the truth about the Taken, survivors of an alien invasion, leave, and never return. Mallachrom is no longer home.

Petroc Ash leads the Taken. His responsibilities to the Taken and their secrets are too great to risk, even for Rhianni. Loving her will bind her to Mallachrom forever -- and could kill her.

The quest to solve the mystery of the Talroqi invasion and protect the Taken from destruction pushes them together, shattering secrets and the barriers around their hearts. As time runs out, they take the risk of love, and become a weapon that has waited generations for completion.

Off the Bookshelf: PROPOSAL, A Mediator Novella, Meg Cabot

The other day I was talking to someone about books, comparing what we'd read, what we liked, making recommendations, and I mentioned Meg Cabot's Mediator series. On a whim, I checked B&N -- because I have a gift card waiting to be spent -- and to my joy I found a new novella and a new novel in the Mediator series. Joy!

Essential points to know: Mediators can see and talk to and fight with the dead. They also have other powers that our heroine, Susannah Simon, learns about as she goes through her various adventures.

She's a Buffy-type tough girl from New York, transplanted to California when her widowed mother remarries. Fish-out-of-water story, with complications and culture shock. The most important element in her story, right from the first, is when she moves into her bedroom in her new home and finds it haunted by a young man who was killed in the 1800s.

I'm not gonna give away their trials and tribulations, vengeful ghosts, psychotic rival Mediators, time travel and other problems, but by the end of the series, they're in love, Jesse is alive again and you'd think -- you'd hope -- the two of them would have earned a happily ever after.

Flash forward to PROPOSAL. Susannah is in college, Jesse is a medical student, there's a really pissed-off ghost who's been falsely accused of murder, and is tearing up the cemetery on a regular basis. The novella is fun, a good segue into the story line after several years' absence. I love Meg Cabot's snarky narrative voice, comments on the stupidity of the TV shows that don't tell the truth of what it's like to be a Mediator-type person, her frustrations of having a secret life, a boyfriend who's too good to be true, and oh yeah, that psychotic other Mediator is threatening to return to her life.

The next full-length Mediator novel is REMEMBRANCE. Will they make it to the altar? Read and find out -- that's what I'm doing. Among other books I have on various devices and in print. Yeah, I read several books at the same time. 1 on my iPhone, 1 on my iPad, 1 print book on my bedside table. Something wrong with that?

Fan Fiction: FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE, Phoenix fan fiction

Now available on Wattpad, a trip very far back in my writing roots in fan fiction: The Phoenix.
FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE is another story where I test-drove characters that would someday appear in my own published books.
Dr. Frazier leaned against the window frame and looked out at the thundering downpour. The other conference attendees milled around the lobby behind him, complaining about the weather, trying to borrow umbrellas, or settling down to read or play cards. He didn't mind the storm, actually. He rather enjoyed the noise and crowds, the protective wall of people around him. The storm meant some discomfort or inconvenience for Preminger, whom Frazier had seen across the conference hall two nights before. Maybe the agent would help search for the missing child and get lost.
The main doors banged open as more refugees fled the storm. Frazier looked up and froze at the sight of Bennu helping a little girl across the lobby. Both were dripping, their faces red from the cold lash of the rain. Bennu helped the child into the unoccupied fireplace room and Frazier followed. He knew his face had lost its color and he likely moved like an automaton.

"Stay right here," Bennu said, helping the child into a chair. "I'll get some blankets and -- hello, Ward."
"Hello, Bennu," Frazier said softly.
Bennu turned around and his smile flashed, bright and warm. "I'd like to stay and talk but --"
"Preminger was here two days ago. I don't know if he's still here."
"Take care of Anna for me?"
"You can count on it." Frazier clasped hands with Bennu. Half a moment later, the other man slipped through the door and vanished into the rain.

Off the Bookshelf: MILITARY MACHINES

Subtitle: Combat Vehicles for Land, Sea & Air.

I'm going to get a lot of use out of this book. The title might make you think of just a catalog of fighter jets and battleships and tanks, but this handy little reference book loaded with detailed drawings as well as photos and discussions of how the different vehicles are/were used. There are "cutaway" views of things like siege engines and chariots, pirate ships and bi-planes.

Divided between land, sea and air, there is some history of warfare, as well as diagrams of battles. The back flap of the cover lists all the machines discussed, ranging  from Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Korea, to Italy, Russia, Germany, and the USA. Specs, notable military figures, details of engines, flight patterns. Pretty cool.

I can see role playing gamers using this book, as well as military history buffs and writers of both fantasy and futuristic military novels.

Published by Parragon Books, there were no editors listed. Publication date is 2015. It's a small book, and I bought it at a discount store, but for those who need this kind of information at their fingertips, a book like this could prove to be priceless.

Fan Fiction: FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE, Phoenix fan fiction

Now available on Wattpad, a trip very far back in my writing roots in fan fiction: The Phoenix.

You know fandom is really, really strong when there were dozens of fanzines based on a TV show that only have 1 pilot movie and 4 episodes.

FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE is another story where I test-drove characters that would someday appear in my own published books.

Enjoy!!

Bennu stopped to indulge in a few hours of quiet thought in a clearing on a forested mountainside, despite his longing to hurry back to Satra and Heru. The morning sun shattered into prisms on the heavy dew, creating a garden of rainbows. Like a favorite childhood spot back home. He found a dry spot and sat, closing his eyes and drinking in the peace and overflowing life energy.
He sensed the mind close by after only a few minutes. A girl-child. Bennu felt her silent laughter as she walked barefoot through the dew, kicking up drops and watching them sparkle. He smiled and let the song of her soul join the life music soothing his mind.
Bennu drifted until a gust of cold, damp wind made him open his eyes. Gray storm clouds moved across the sun. Another spring storm, it would attack and pass quickly.
"All the colors are gone," a soft voice said from the far side of the clearing. She was Amer-Asian, six years old, delicate as a fairy. Her name came to him with a soft touch on her mind -- Anna.
"A storm is coming. Can I help you get home?" He stood and gathered up his bag. Another gust made him shiver.

She tilted her head back to look up at Bennu. A delighted sparkle lit her eyes. "You can do it too." Anna held out her hands to a dying beam of sunlight. It shifted, warping into rainbows around her fingers. Anna giggled. "I can make pictures, but this is prettier."

"Very pretty." Bennu touched her mind, seeing the parents who had brought her on vacation. Deeper, he saw the beginning of her talent less than a year ago. Anna had looked at her night light and wished she could make the light grow. It had twisted away from its straight path and did whatever she imagined. No one believed her stories, and Anna learned to keep her toy to herself. "It's going to rain any --" He stopped as a fat drop hit the bridge of his nose. "Any second now. Which way home?"

From the War Room

Recycling is big -- has been for a long time -- but there's a lot more to recycle than just plastic and metal and all that ecologically friendly -- or maybe it's unfriendly, so that's why need to recycle? -- stuff.

I'm talking recycling stories. Finding new uses for old tales told long ago. Especially in the days of learning to write, when it was fun to play in someone else's playground, because the characters and tools and vocabulary and a lot of the rules were already established. You didn't have to create anything new except the characters and problems that made it entirely YOUR story, even if you were playing with someone else's toys.

Case in point -- fan fiction. And case in point again -- using fan fiction as a testing ground or a test drive area for characters that will someday get their own universe or series or playground, whatever you want to call it.

I just posted another fan fiction story on Wattpad. This was part of the Phoenix fan fiction that I
wrote, some of the earliest stories I got published. Lots of fun. Some really hokey stuff out there. Some corny dialog and big goofs in grammar and POV and head-hopping like you wouldn't believe. But what's really surprising and a relief and a pleasure is to discover that -- dang! -- some of it's good.

The newest story is FLAME FROM ANOTHER FIRE, where my -- at that time in my writing -- newest creation, my favorite "Barbie doll" -- met up with Bennu and Dr. Frazier and mean old Agent Preminger.

Enjoy!