Geetha Krishnan's Blog, page 14
September 5, 2020
New Releases
Deathless Ones is due to release on September 16. Don’t forget that it is already available for pre-order from a lot of different sites. Unfortunately, amazon doesn’t allow for pre-order for books not published through them. But you can still get your pre-order in Apple, Kobo and lots of other sites
Get your copies here
Paperback pre-order is available here
September 2, 2020
New Releases
Deathless Ones is due to release on September 16. Don’t forget that it is already available for pre-order from a lot of different sites. Unfortunately, amazon doesn’t allow for pre-order for books not published through them. But you can still get your pre-order in Apple, Kobo and lots of other sites
Get your copies here
Paperback pre-order is available here
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July 28, 2020
The Elitist Supremacy
The Elitist is now available in both e-book and paperback.
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Here’s a sneak peek:
“Mr. Selwood!” The urgency of Quinn’s voice warned him as he flung himself on the nearest person who was Dylan, shouting, “Get down!”
The window glass exploded, raining down shards on them.
“Quinn!” he hissed. “Initiate emergency lockdown!”
This was why he had chosen this house for John when he had told Alexander he was coming back to Prith. Not all houses on Prith had the feature, but every single one that he owned did. When John had bought the house from him, Alexander had ensured that he wouldn’t remove the feature.
Heavy metallic shutters appeared over the doors and windows, and Alexander straightened. John and Aria lay where they fell, spikes buried in their backs, John lying half on top of his wife where he had hurled himself to protect her. Nolan and Dylan were pushing themselves to shaky feet and a girl whom he assumed must be Ashley stood a few feet away, a frozen expression of horror on her face, as she stared at her parents.
“Mom! Dad!” Dylan was on the floor, kneeling next to their parents. Nolan had gone to his sister, putting his arm around her and blocking her view of their parents’ bodies.
“Quinn, how long will it hold?” Alexander asked, his voice shaking.
“Fifteen minutes at the most, Mr. Selwood.” Quinn replied. “But the walls will be down in eight.”
Alexander knelt down next to John who was already twitching, and shook him. “Get up, John. We’ve to leave now! We don’t have time!”
John pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and drew deep breaths. Alexander plucked out the spikes sticking out of his back, wishing he had some way of cushioning the shock that was to follow.
“Nasty things, those spikes,” John gasped as he looked up with a grimace, resignation on his face. His eyes fell on the horrified face of Dylan and he stilled. “Aria.” he said, his voice hoarse, before he started coughing and retching, bringing up blood.
“Dad!” Dylan was at his side, and Alexander rose, watching John hack up blood. John tried to straighten, but was clearly unable to. He looked at Alexander and said, his voice still hoarse. “Take them and leave!”
“No, Dad!” burst from two throats, Ashley still standing rigid and frozen in her brother’s arms.
John was overtaken by a fresh bout of coughing.
“Please, Alexander!” He begged, his eyes pleading. “You know it’s too late for me!”
Alexander knew, had known from the moment he’d seen those spikes stick out from John’s back, but he didn’t like it.
“Quinn,” Alexander said, his voice trembling, strange and husky, even to his ears. “Get Nolan, Dylan and Ashley out of here.”
Their shouted “No!” was cut off in the middle as they disappeared.
“You’ve to go too,” John coughed. Blood dribbled down his chin, staining his beard and moustache a deep red. “You have to get them to Ignis safely.”
Alexander nodded, as he placed a hand on John’s shoulder.
“Damn you, John!” he said.
“Leave, before they come!” John sat down, his hands cradling his wife’s head, and he drew deep heaving breaths before doubling up in a fresh bout of hacking coughs.
Alexander gave John’s shoulder a squeeze and straightened, releasing him.
“Quinn, get me home.”
The wall exploded in a shower of rubble just as Quinn teleported him away, and John threw himself onto his wife’s body, as if to protect her.
E-book is available here
Paperback is available here
For those in India, paperbacks can be purchased here and here
July 14, 2020
July 10, 2020
Happy news!!
Pradyutita got into the semi finals of SPFBO!! So freaking happy
https://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2020/07/spfbo-second-diminution-semifinalist.html
June 20, 2020
Random Nonsense
The kitchen was cold, and Tris pulled the edges of her nightrobe closer as she stepped inside, her bare feet curling in protest against the cold floor. She turned on the light and blinked her eyes against the bright fluorescence. She blinked again, but this time it was not about the light.
Blood.
It was smeared on the walls, on the appliances, on the counter, on the kitchen island. The floor however was untouched, as was the ceiling.
Her mouth dry and heart racing, she moved into the kitchen, shivering again as she approached the object on the small kitchen counter. It was a bracelet, intricately wrought and seemed to pulse with an inner light. She extended her hand, but it hovered above it, not touching. Her heart was pounding hard enough to break through her rib cage as she stared it in mute fascination. Her skin was clammy and goosebumps broke all over.
Something slammed into the window and she jumped, her hand going to her mouth to stifle a scream. Something large and dark had hit the window. Eyes stared at her before going dark and it slid off. Tris hurried to the window, flinging it open and a thread of magic shot from her hand to catch the falling bird.
She brought it into the kitchen, closing the window almost absently, her whole body shaking now as she laid the dead bird near the bracelet on the counter. She drew in a deep breath and let it out in one exhale.
How had this happened? Her eyes were drawn to the bracelet again. How had they known where to find her? Why had they left without doing anything?
She swallowed.
“Why you?” she whispered to the dead bird, “What are they trying to do?”
The bird’s glassy eyes were the only answer as the bracelet kept pulsing.
June 15, 2020
The Lost Race (rewrite)
So, started a brand new prologue for The Lost Race. I’m happy where it is going.
The house was quiet and Richard’s heart was hammering in his chest as he ran inside, hoping against all hope that he wasn’t too late. The blood and the bodies he ignored, his eyes searching for Mira. He moved into the house, trying not to look at the signs of carnage. He found her in the kitchen, and even as he knelt at her side, his hand on her neck searching for a non existent pulse, he knew he was too late. He bowed his head, trying to keep back the scream of rage and grief that threatened to break out of him.
“Richard! Mira!” a voice called from the front and Richard closed his eyes, bringing his breathing and heart beat under control.
“In here, Kevin,” he called, his voice rock steady as he rose from the floor, paying no attention to the blood that had stained the front of his shirt as well as the knees of his pants.
Kevin stood still at the door, his eyes staring at the unmoving, bloodied figure on the floor, and Richard moved towards him, catching him and pushing him out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re too late,”
“Richard, let me go,” Kevin said, struggling. “Let me go, please!”
Richard didn’t release him. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry, Kevin.”
“Richard?” James appeared at the front room. “What-”
“Mira’s dead,” Richard said, pushing Kevin forcefully into James who caught him. “Take him home. I’ll stay. Call the Licits. Tell him I’ll bring her home.”
“Let me stay,” James said, his hands rubbing soothing circles into Kevin’s back. Kevin had stopped struggling and was crying silently into James’ shoulder. Richard’s eyes burned. “Richard,” James said again. “You take him home. I’ll stay. You need to go home.”
Home. Except it didn’t feel so any more. When he had found Mira was gone and where, all he had time for was to take Steve to Helen’s and call Kevin and James.
“Steve is at Helen’s,” he said, putting an arm around Kevin. “I’ll take him there. You’ll be all right by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine,” James said. “And Richard? I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Richard said, choking on the words. Loss was not foreign to him, but this…this was new. He half carried half dragged Kevin on to the car. Kevin slid in, without fighting and Richard followed him in.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin said in a voice thick with tears as the vehicle started moving.
Richard put an arm around the man’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to say that to anyone right now,” he said. “But thank you.”
“She was your partner,” Kevin said, tears flowing again.
Richard hugged him close. “She was your daughter.”
Kevin broke down again, and Richard let him, allowing his own tears to fall. What was he even going to tell Helen? At least, Steve was only four months old, not old enough to know his mother wouldn’t be coming back. Richard’s heart broke all over again for his baby.
Kevin regained some of his composure as they passed Meorn. “Where are we going?”
“Helen’s. I left Steve there.”
“We could fly,” Kevin muttered.
“The next flight is seven hours later.” Richard said.
The car was specially designed for spaceflight if needed. It wasn’t as fast as the spaceships, but it would still get them there quicker than the flight. It would also give them the privacy to mourn.
“James?”
“He stayed back. Someone needs to deal with the Licits, and bring her home.” his voice broke at the last.
“Why did she even-” Kevin whispered. “Without any back up? This was madness!”
Richard wished he knew. Mira had always been her own person, and it was one of the things he loved about her.
“She probably felt anyone she asked would take over the hunt,” he said, his voice tight. “That she would be sidelined.”
She was probably trying to prove a point, but at what cost? Oh Mira, why didn’t you just take me along?
Kevin rubbed his forehead. “I told her to quit,” he whispered. “Whenever she talked about wanting to go back to hunting, I tried to dissuade her, told her she should be focussing on Steve, on you…. Gods, Richard, did I do this?”
“Don’t,” Richard hugged the man again. “Don’t do this to yourself, please. Haven’t you enough to bear already without it?”
“If I had told her she could go back,” Kevin started, but Richard interrupted him.
“Kevin, she was always planning to go back. We both know it. This is not on you or anyone else.”
She had made her decision, and now she was gone and Richard had no idea what to do or say to the grieving man beside him. Hadn’t Kevin suffered enough already? Mira was all he had. Richard tried not to think of his own life and future, of his son, and what this meant for him, for both of them.
I’ll just have to make sure I’m always there for him.
She hadn’t told him, not even a message. If she had, perhaps he could have been there in time. If he hadn’t ignored the nagging feeling in his mind when it started, perhaps he could have saved her. If he hadn’t stopped to take Steve to Helen, and to cal James and Kevin, if he had-
“Stop,” Kevin said. “I can tell what you’re thinking and stop, all right? This isn’t on you either.”
“She was my partner,” Richard whispered. “I failed her… it was my failure that she didn’t trust me enough to come to me.”
“We don’t know what she was thinking,” Kevin said. “We… there’s nothing we could have done, that you could have done… don’t think that… there’s no end if you go down that road.”
“She killed them all,” Richard said, after a moment. “There were four of them.”
Kevin was sobbing again, and Richard could understand why. No hunter had ever taken down more than two by themselves. It was an extraordinary feat.
If only she had lived to enjoy it.
March 22, 2020
Book Review: Visions Hell Bent Book I
I picked up this book as it was available for free in amazon. The whole series was. Due to the Corona and social isolation, I’m having a lot of time on my hands right now and so I decided to catch up on my reading, and this book didn’t disappoint.
This was a thrilling book and I loved the illustrations as well. Kayla Matt is definitely a most talented artist as well as writer. I loved Travis’ hair particularly in the drawings. The characters of Travis and Spencer are both likeable and relatable. They are both so real. The fictional world they live in is so different and also similar in some respects to ours. The plot is so thrilling that at times I just wanted to turn the page to know what happens next. The narration is full of humour and is compelling.
I know I shall be picking…
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February 22, 2020
New short work
A/n: This is the beginning of a new project. It will either be a short stoiry or a novella.
When he woke, it was dark, but that could be because he was in a dark room. Next it occurred to him that he was still alive. Someone had saved him.
Why can’t humans just let others die? Why do they have to go on saving them?
Zeityl rose from the pallet on which he lay. The room was unfurnished and unadorned, and he knew without going outside that it was noon, and that he had been unconscious for a day and a half and that he was on an island.
That was enough to cause the invisible bands around his heart to tighten again, leaving him breathless.
Why did humans extol love so much when it brought so much pain? It was almost physical, how it felt like there was something stuck in his heart, in his lungs, in his throat, something that hurt.
I am not made for pain. No god was. They knew joy, and fun and laughter, and how it was to look at humans from afar and feel contemptuous and to mock them. They weren’t supposed to love humans. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a human. He wasn’t supposed to get his heart broken.
His lungs seemed incapable of taking in air and he stumbled out into the sunshine, gasping for breath. For a moment, he was blinded by the brightness just as a human would have been. His eyes caught sight of a man, standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down into the ocean. His rescuer apparently. His eyes focussed, and he stared, his heart suddenly squeezing painfully.
The figure standing still was so familiar to him, from the hair beginning to grey to the powerful frame and the worn clothes. He tried to speak, to call him by name, but all he could manage was a sound that even to his ears was more of a strangled sob than anything.
The man turned around and the black eyes that meet his were guarded.
“You saved my life,” Zeityl finally managed to croak, an echo of words he had spoken so long ago.
Pel’s expression didn’t change and Zeityl didn’t like the silence, didn’t like it that Pel was so quiet.
“I didn’t realise you were trying to kill yourself,” Pel spoke, the exact same words he had spoken to him that first time except it was all wrong, the tone, the expression on his face… There was no smile on his face, no playful smirk, no teasing note in his voice, and Zeityl was suddenly tired, so very tired of all this. He didn’t want to be saved, he didn’t want the pain, and he didn’t want to look at Pel and know that he had caused this, that he was responsible for that cold look.
“I was,” he said when the weight of the silence was too heavy and Pel moved, coming closer to him.
Zeityl stood still, not moving, till Pelthiel was close enough for them to be sharing air. Pel lifted his hands and cupped his face, the gesture so familiar and intimate, evoking memories of the countless number of times he had done it before. Zeityl wanted to close his eyes so he wouldn’t need to see how Pel now looked at him as if he were a stranger.
“Why?”Pel asked, his voice so expressionless.
Zeityl stared at him, not understanding for a moment what Pel was asking. Was he asking him why he was trying to kill himself or why he lied, and pretended and messed up? He settled for the former because even he was not certain how to answer if it was the latter.
“Because I lost you,” he said, the pain in his chest almost unbearable now.
The hands dropped away and Pel took a step back, his expression clouding. Zeityl wanted to cry but he would not do that, not now, not when Pel was still looking at him, anger and sadness and emotions Zeityl couldn’t even put a name to swirling in his eyes.
“You did,” Pel agreed, his voice quiet and Zeityl turned away, back into the darkness of the hut. He was feeling as if something was ripping him open from the inside.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Pel asked from behind him and Zeityl stilled. “You and your siblings,” Pel continued. “Why do you perceive me as a threat?”
Zeityl wished he could answer. He could answer. Tell him they didn’t know him, that they didn’t know how to feel about his power, his magic, that they didn’t know anything about people, or anyone except themselves, that they- he rather, didn’t know what it felt to love, to fall in love. But he remained silent. Pel had told him he had lost him. What was the point in anything now?
“I’m going back,” he said, turning to look at Pelthiel one last time.”To my siblings.”
Pel nodded as if it was no more than he had expected. “I won’t be here when you return,”
Zeityl supposed he deserved that. Pelthiel thought he was going to his brothers for back up, to fight him. Let him think that.
“Would you really have drowned if I hadn’t saved you?” Pel asked.
It was not an unexpected question, but it still took Zeityl by surprise.
“Yes,” he nodded.”This ocean… it is toxic to us.”
“You’re gods,” Pel said.
“There are things older than us.” Zeityl said. “We can’t travel this ocean without it trying to kill us.”
“And yet you braved it twice,” Pel mused aloud.
Zeityl swallowed. What could he say? The first time had been reconnaissance. But this time… This time he was looking for death.
“I need to go,” he said finally.
“Of course,” Pel agreed, an odd note in his voice.
Zeityl looked at his face once more, fighting his desire to gather the other man in his arms and kiss him. Hadn’t he lost all those rights? If only he could turn back time! He would go back and would tell Pel the truth, he would have trusted Pel, and he wouldn’t have allowed his brothers to try and hurt Pel. He would have saved Leithia. It was too late now, and there was no turning the clock back. Zeityl pulled himself together.
“Good bye,” he said.
