C. Litka's Blog, page 13
February 13, 2025
Glencrow Summer Is Now Available Everywhere
With all my beta readers having reported in, I'm delighted to announce the release of Glencrow Summer on the Google Play Store, Kobo, Apple, B&N, Smashwords, and more. The price varies from store to store, from $3.99 for the ebook on Amazon and Kobo, to FREE most other retailers, with the paperback version on Amazon costing $12.99 Free is my preferred price, but if you are locked into Amazon, it's only a penny less than $4.00, the cost of six eggs. Or less. As I explain below, the Kobo price is an experiment. Pick it up today at your retailer of choice.
Smashwords ebook FREE
Barnes & Noble ebook FREE
Google ebook FREE
Google Audiobook FREE
Apple ebook FREE
Apple Audiobook Submitted (FREE)
Kobo $3.99
Everand ebook FREE to Subscribers
Vivlio ebook FREE
Fable ebook FREE
Amazon ebook $3.99
Amazon Audiobook $3.99
Amazon Paperback $12.99
Kobo Pricing Update
Looking at my recent sales, or rather lack of them on Kobo, I decided to list my books at their Amazon retail price - for three reasons. The first is that I think Kobo buries free books in their listings. I've had trouble finding my books in their store, even when I put in my name. The second is that with the number of sales Kobo has generated, especially recently, I have nothing to lose. The third is that Kobo has its own lending library service like Kindle Unlimited. I'm thinking that maybe being able to read a book that costs money for free using the service might be more appealing than reading my free books, even if they could find them. I'm also convinced that the free book market is a distinct market from the paid book market, so that by putting a price on them I might, for these three reasons, actually find more new readers. We'll see.
And with my Project 2026 tossed into the deep end of the pool, sink or swim, a year ahead of schedule, it's on to Project 2027!
Glencrow Summer Is Now Available Everywhere but on Amazon
With all my beta readers having reported in, I'm delighted to announce the release of Glencrow Summer on the Google Play Store, Kobo, Apple, B&N, Smashwords, and more. The price varies from store to store, from $3.99 for the ebook on Amazon and Kobo, to FREE most other retailers, with the paperback version on Amazon costing $12.99 Free is my preferred price, but if you are locked into Amazon, it's only a penny less than $4.00, the cost of six eggs. Or less. As I explain below, the Kobo price is an experiment. Pick it up today at your retailer of choice.
Smashwords ebook FREE
Barnes & Noble ebook FREE
Google ebook FREE
Google Audiobook FREE
Apple ebook FREE
Apple Audiobook Submitted (FREE)
Kobo $3.99
Everand ebook FREE to Subscribers
Vivlio ebook FREE
Fable ebook FREE
Amazon ebook $3.99 (pre-order) until 20 February
Amazon Audiobook $3.99 coming soon after 20 February
Amazon Paperback $12.99 available now
Kobo Pricing Update
Looking at my recent sales, or rather lack of them on Kobo, I decided to list my books at their Amazon retail price - for three reasons. The first is that I think Kobo buries free books in their listings. I've had trouble finding my books in their store, even when I put in my name. The second is that with the number of sales Kobo has generated, especially recently, I have nothing to lose. The third is that Kobo has its own lending library service like Kindle Unlimited. I'm thinking that maybe being able to read a book that costs money for free using the service might be more appealing than reading my free books, even if they could find them. I'm also convinced that the free book market is a distinct market from the paid book market, so that by putting a price on them I might, for these three reasons, actually find more new readers. We'll see.
And with my Project 2026 tossed into the deep end of the pool, sink or swim, a year ahead of schedule, it's on to Project 2027!
February 12, 2025
Glencrow Summer Production Time Line
The original painting that I used for the cover of Glencrow SummerI began writing Glencrow Summer on 25th of August 2024. The original working title was Glencrow Lodge, it's title sort of a companion piece to Chateau Clare, which, at the time was out to my beta readers. And being out to the beta readers, I had nothing to write. I like to write, and so, idle hands being the devil's workshop, I decided to start on my next book. While I had the basic ideas for the story, as described in previous posts, and enough of the plot to at least set out to tell the story, I did not have the the clearest idea of where it would end up. All I knew was that it was going to be a "What I did on my summer vacation" type of story. Thus, it was something of a leap in faith, not just because I didn't have a clear idea of what I would do with the premise of Glencrow Summer, but I was far from confident that Chateau Clare would find an audience, and seeing that Glencrow Summer is more to the same, the whole project was rather iffy. I had, however decided to write the stories I wanted to write regardless of their reception, so I set out writing it, iffy be damned.
Another painting inspired from the story - the gate to Glencrow LodgeThe choice of naming the book and the locale is a little nod to a family of crows who seem to "own" the top of our hill. Hence, the Loc Lore Rey district river I named the Crow River, so its valley, or glen, and lodge became Glencrow. It would have been more colorful to name it Glenraven, but we don't have ravens around where I live. We have crows. I like crows.
The writing progressed without a hitch. The story fell into place as I went along. The only thing that I slightly unhappy with is it's ending. Oh, it's fine enough ending, but... Well I best not say anymore. I hate spoilers, or even hints of them. You may see what I mean if you read the book.
I finished the first draft on 8th of November, with 90,245 words written in 82 days. As long as I have an idea of what I need to write, I can write 1,000+ words a day, working, these days, an hour the first thing in the morning, and optionally, coming back to it in the evening for an hour or two, when things are going well.
Another painting inspired by the storyI knew however that I would be adding more words to the second draft. Not only because I usually do, but because I knew I had rather sketched in some scenes. I also knew that I had time to do so since neither my wife nor my beta readers would be able to read the story until after the holidays. I expected to add about 10K words in the second draft. I usually don't wait long to start my second draft since the first chapters have already been sitting fallow for three months. So I started my second draft on the 10th of November, and wrapped it up on the 28th of November, coming in at 106,435, i.e. more like 16K than the 10K I was aiming for, which was fine with me. I've never been a believer in cutting, cutting cutting your story like the experts say to do. One reason is that because my stories are first person narratives, the extra words are useful to paint the narrator as a character; for it is the character who is "writing" the story, not some professional novelist.
This was an earlier treatment of the road and gate to Glencrow LodgeI started on the third draft, hoping this time to just tinker with words and sentences rather than paragraphs, and correct any mistakes I might see. I started on the 9th of December and finished my third draft on the 18th of December with a 106,981 word draft. A slight increase. Usually I'm comfortable with three drafts, but with time to spare, I decided to do a fourth read through, this time in Google Docs rather than in LibreOffice. Ideally this would be done on an ebook reader so that I could experience what readers would experience, but that makes corrections cumbersome. Reading in Google Docs not only made it look different enough to see what needed to be fixed, if anything, but it has a better grammar checker than LibreOffice, so I made all the corrections it highlighted. I finished this fourth draft on the 22th of December, coming in a 107,294.
After this, I uploaded the book chapter by chapter to the free, web based Grammarly grammar checker and corrected the errors it found. I ignore it's free grammar suggestions, and its punctuation suggestions, as it doesn't like commas, even in places where you would think they belong. I then took these corrected chapters and upload them, again one by one, to the free on line Scribbr grammar checker. It still finds mistakes - wrong words and such - that both Google and Grammarly missed, and adds commas where they are missing but should be.
Once I reassembled the book, a few days after New Years, I printed it out and handed the paper manuscript to my wife to proofread. Unlike the old days were there were ten or more typos to fix on every page, my current process means that many pages escape unscathed, with no mistakes found at all. Only after I fix the mistakes she finds do I sent it off to my beta readers. I only sent it off to three beta readers this time, as I didn't hear from four other ones with Chateau Clare. I assume they didn't care for it, and this being more of the same, I thought I'd best spare their feelings.
And that is the story of Glencrow Summer's writing.
February 10, 2025
Glencrow Summer Maps
I like books with maps, so I usually put maps in my books. Glencrow Summer is no exception. However, I find that maps in ebooks are too small and awkward to be enjoyable or much use. So I post them on my blog. Here are the relevant maps for Glencrow Summer. I believe that you can click on them and download them to have alongside you when you read the book. The maps are included in the paperback book.
February 9, 2025
The Saturday Morning Post (No. 88) EXTRA! EXTRA!
Having read The Fox Wife by this author earlier in the year, and enjoyed it, I placed a hold on the ebook below in my local library system, and this week, (three months ago - editor) it became available. So was the six plus month worth the wait?
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
This book is likely significantly better than my grade, because for me, it included several things that I am not a fan of. The first is the narration format which alternates chapters between two point of view characters, one a first person narration, and the other third person. Each of these are the two strands of the story that the author twists together until they combine. Choo used this same technique in The Fox Wife, and I wasn't a fan of it there either. Secondly, I am not a fan of dream sequences, and they play a significant part in this story. And thirdly, there are ghosts, which in this story, are people not able, or willing, to leave the living world behind just yet. Plus there is the title weretiger, i.e. a person who can turn into a tiger, or maybe a tiger that can turn into a person. All of which stretches my credibility a bit beyond its breaking point. I'm not much of a lad for magic in general. All of which is to say that you should take my grade with even more skepticism than usual, as this book is, I believe, a very well regarded book. It just wasn't quite the book for me.
That said, I have to say that once again it was a well researched book, one that, I think, brought its exotic setting, Malaysia in the 1930's, to life. Plus, it had characters that you could root for, both of these characteristics are ones which are things that make for a good book for me. It is well written, and yet, I have to admit that I found myself skim reading parts of it - it simply ran on too long and I found it to be too, well, unfocused for my taste. It has its magical realism plotline, with weretigers, dead people communicating with the living via dreams, as it explored the superstitions and customs of the region. It is also something of a thriller, in that one of the plot lines required a character to do something within 49 days or dire results happen. It also has a strong domestic plotline with family tensions, as well as a budding romance, and by golly, a murderer mystery as well, though you'd never know it until the end. In short, there was simply too much going on for my simple tastes.
Still, if it sounds intriguing to you, I have no problem recommending it. I liked her The Fox Wife much better, but then I am more familiar with China than I am with Southeast Asia, and while fox spirits are no less magical, or believable, than weretigers, they are more familiar to me. I am now interested in reading her debut novel The Ghost Bride, but I'd have to drive ten minutes to the library to pick up a paper version of it. Bummer.
February 8, 2025
The Saturday Morning Post (No. 87)
Believe me or not, when I found myself without a book to read, I reached over and down and picked out a Dorothy L Sayer's mystery - Busman's Honeymoon, A Love Story with Detective Interruptions. This is a book that I don't believe I had gotten around to reading back in the day, 40 years ago, when I was reading Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. The book itself is one of my more valuable ones, since it is the first printing of the first paperback version of this novel, the 1945 Pocket Book edition. The first printings of which (as noted on the copyright page) I found on eBay for $60 to $80. Anyway, I read the first part - a collection of letters concerning the marriage of Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, and then the first chapter... and it hadn't hooked me. These days I find Sayers writing rather too dense for me. And well, you can guess what happened next...
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters A (Of course)
I believe that I had remarked in some previous review that Peters often seems to include a murder mostly for marketing purposes, for she could've told a very similar historical fiction story without the murder to solve. And this story is a perfect example of this observation. While there is a murder, it is totally irrelevant to the story she's telling. Cadfael doesn't even solve it. It's just there to make this a "mystery." I don't miss the murders at all, so all's fine with me.
What this story is about is Wales, Welsh culture church politics, love and loyalty. Deacon Mark, who had been Cadfael's helper in the first couple of books, and who is now studying to be a priest, has been sent as an envoy to a Norman bishop newly installed in a vacant Welsh/English diocese, which has ruffled a lot of local feathers. Mark's bishop send him to deliver a welcoming gift and letter, and then to proceed to the other Welsh bishop with a gift as well, balancing everything out. Mark gets to take Calfael along on his mission, because Cadfael is Welsh and speaks the language, which Mark doesn't. A restless Cadfael is delighted to accompany his friend.
The Welsh king is visiting the new bishop at the time and it is arranged that they will travel with him on his way back to his castle and then on to Bangor to call on the Welsh Bishop. Before they set out, we meet one of the Welsh priests who has arranged a marriage for his daughter - celibacy at various times went in and out of fashion, and it was common for priests to marry in the Celtic Catholic churches. Anyway, his wife had recently died, so only his daughter remains to remind everyone that he had been married. And though he loved her, the new Norman/English bishop is from the Roman Catholic Church branch that doesn't condone married priests, and looking to his advancement with the new bishop, he hopes by shipping her off to a marriage some distance away the bishop will forget that he had once been married, and move up in the hierarch with the new bishop.
His daughter, on the other hand, resents being given away in marriage just to free her father of her presence. Still she sets out to meet her arranged husband, traveling with Cadfael and Mark, in the party of the Welsh king. However, she attempts to escape the fate her father has made for her even before she meets her would-be-husband. After Mark and Cadfael deliver their gift to the Welsh bishop in Bangor, Mark feels that they should spend a little time looking for this runaway bride, especially after word reaches them that a band of mercenary Danes from Ireland have landed in Wales. They had been hired by the King's reckless brother, whom the king had driven him from his holdings in response to rash murder this brother had commissioned. With a Danish Viking mercenary army at his back, the brother had returned to force his brother, the King, to reinstate him and his holdings.
Given a clue as to where the runway bride might have gone - a hermitage of a solitary woman/nun, Cadfael finds her - but they are quickly captured by a band of foraging Danes, made prisoners, and taken to the Dane camp where they are held for ransom. What follows is a lot intrigue, between the two Welsh royal brothers and the mercenary Danes, with the King trying to avoid bloodshed, even as the two armies face one another and his reckless brother does his best to make everything iffier, because that's who he is and what he does. Within this story there is also a sweet love story involving the priest's daughter who is determined to choose both her life and her love for herself.
All in all, a very interesting story of historical fiction that looks into Welsh and Irish Dane culture of the period and the ties of loyalty, even to one who may not deserve the loyalty.
February 6, 2025
A British Narrator for Amazon Audiobooks
It was promised for the summer, but it is now here, a wee bit late, but welcomed. Last spring Amazon had said that they would be adding more voices to their collection of virtual voice audiobook collection. They have just now done so, and I have switched the voice of my audiobooks on Amazon of a British English voice (#7). I use the British "Archie" on Google, and in general prefer the British narrators. Perhaps because the American English voice sound a maybe too, ordinary, or a story set on a distant world in the future Plus, a little too eager, and/or too hard or harsh. All I know is they just clash with the voice in my head telling the story.
As I said, this feature is a bit late, but they did go all out in implementing it. They are now offering 12 Female and 9 male voiced for American English, 3 female and 2 male Australian English voice, 10 female and 4 male British English voices, and interestingly enough, 2 Female and 3 male Southern American English voices, ya'all. Back in the spring they also said that authors would be able to have different voices for different chapters, for all those multii-point-of-view stories, but I didn't see any mention of that option just yet.
They also claimed to have improved the voices across the board. I'll just take them on their word for that. From the samples I heard, they sounded quite natural, but I don't listen to audiobooks, so I have nothing to compare them to.
Not that all this matters much, if at all, since my current sales of non-free books on Amazon, in any format, is a mere trickle. But still, that rare audiobook buyer will now hear my stories closer to what I imagine my narrators to sound like, as they spin their tales.
February 5, 2025
Appreciating Literature, or Not
I recently read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, which I understand is a classic. I was able to compare it to similar stories written a hundred and forty years later which were set in the same period, and well... Sorry, no spoilers for the reviews to come, but it had me considering literature in light of several YouTube videos I've watched which outline how to increase your enjoyment of reading. I have some thoughts on that subject.
I will add the links to the videos below, but to sum up their advice in a nutshell; it involves doing everything your English teacher wanted you to do in English class with your assigned reading. You were to study the book's story, plot, themes, symbols and symbolism, and style. You might even consider rereading it in order to be able to see those features more clearly. In short, these videos suggest that you conduct an autopsy of the story in order to discover, and appreciate so much more about it. In other words learn how that particular sausage was made. Or to put it another way, you are to appreciate, even marvel at, how master authors, using a variety of techniques, construct the story in order to present the themes the author, presumably, wishes to deliver to the reader. Once you learn all these tricks of the trade, you can see how various authors apply them, and get an A in class, that is to say, you will enjoy the story so very much more. Which is probably true if you're an English major, or an intellectual. But I'm neither, and I find that I disagree with this approach on a fundamental level.
In my view, books are to be read. Period. If they are written superbly, or even competently, everything the author has to say, will be conveyed within the story as it unfolds. Perhaps paradoxically, everything essential will be said almost inexplicitly. Nevertheless, the reader will be left changed in some ways from reading the story. A clock tells time, novels tell a story. If you care to, you can dismantle a clock, marvel at the intricacy of its gears, motors or springs to appreciate how it tells time, but that is not the purpose of a clock. It's purpose is to tell time. The same applied to fiction. Fiction tells a story, and perhaps explores ideas along sort the way. That is what it does. A novel is not a textbook. Though clearly, it can be used as one, just like a watch with its gears and springs.
Now, there is no harm in dismantling a story, and it may be enjoyable to do so, at least for some people. However, I think it can also be very misleading. Let's take for a example, a rather extreme work that is often cited as a book and a series that requires rereading at least several times to "understand' it. That would be Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series that begins with The Shadow of the Torturer. Almost every reader will readily admit that they don't really don't know what's going on in this book and series after their first read. They attribute this fact to the genius of Gene Wolfe and their own lack of said genius. That may be one possibility. Another one is that the work is actually an incohesive mess. Maybe even on purpose. Either way it's very hard to comprehend, and so, after reading through it several times, in order to finally "get it," it may be that what these readers are actually doing is finding and fitting their own ideas together in such a way as to create some sort of order out of the chaos, so as to make the story seem like it makes sense, or more sense, anyway. It's like finding castles or cows in the shape of clouds. Humans are hardwired to make sense of things. So faced with something that doesn't make sense, i.e. The Book of the New Sun, dedicated readers eventually devise their own meaning of the story, even if the author never bothered to do so. Or maybe he's just a genius.
What I'm proposing is that when readers deconstruct a story into its perceived components, these readers may well be seeing the various story choices, techniques, and themes in the ways that appeal to them, in ways that make sense to them, regardless of the author's intent. Indeed, you can do that on purpose. You can look at a story through a particular "lens" to identify certain elements that relate with some other source. In one such example, Tristan (see below) talked about a piece he read that analyzed Dicken's Great Expectations through the "lens" of Darwin & evolution. Was that Dicken's intent? Who knows? But some sort of case can be made for it. And, I guess, looking for clues like this in Great Expectations can be fun. Another example can be found in the well known phenomena of reader/reviewers often (re)make books in their own ideas. Often to the amazement, if not chagrin, of the authors, who have no clue how these various interpretations arise from the story they wrote. All they know is that they're innocent.
Getting back to Mansfield Park, published in 1814. It was well received, and was initially praised, according to the Wikipedia entry, for its wholesome morality. Fifty years later, the Victorians treated all of Jane Austen's novels as social comedies. It was only a hundred years ago that critics and readers discovered the greatness in her work, elevating them into timeless classics which they are considered today. In the case of Mansfield Park, critical opinion on every aspect of this book ranges wildly, from positive to negative. If analyzing literary work was anything more than a literary parlor game, you'd think that the objective true meaning and value of this novel would have been discovered and agreed on after two hundred years. But that's not the case, because reading is always subjective, no matter how closely you read or analyze a work.
I'm not saying that just because I think all I need to get out of a book, I can get from reading, means that you shouldn't delve deeper into the book, if that appeals to you. I give you the joy of it. What does bother me, however, is the implication, indeed, the often bald statement when discussing this method, that doing so is a superior way of reading, for, it is at least implied, a superior sort of reader. It is something that separates the smart and serious readers from the riffraff and rabble. This simply is not the case. Analyzing a story is, in the end, nothing more than a literary parlor game, an enjoyable pastime. Unless, of course, you are using what you find in doing so as a lesson in writing. Then it's homework.
Links if you are interesting in analyzing literature from am English PhD.'s perspective.
Tristan and the Classics #1 Way to Deepen Your Love for Literature
Philip Chase & A P Canavan How to Analyze Stories Intro
There several more entries in this series if you haven't had enough.
February 1, 2025
The Saturday Morning Post (No. 86)
This week, a science fiction story about an AI generated virtual world, and life within it.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Miira, Innerscape: Book 1 by acflory B
This book introduces us to Miira Tahn, a wealthy woman in her mid-fifties who is dying of cancer and the price she must pay if she is to continue to live, sort of. She has chosen to live a virtual life within the an AI generated virtual world, but it involves sacrificing her body to do so. The story, set a hundred years in the future, envisions people visiting and playing within an AI generated virtual world, with their full senses. People can experience the full range of life, see, smell and feel everything within this virtual world - as well as interact realistically with others who are in it just as in the real world. However, in the case of Miira, once she enters it, she can never return to the real world because her body is wracked cancer and that must be dealt with. A company, Innerscape, offers a service wherein they will dismantle her diseased body, eliminate the cancer, and replace damaged organs with artificial ones that will keep her brain alive, for a time, with her body, what is left of it, maintained in a vat at the facility until the person's organs naturally fail of old age.
This story offers a very interesting take on the idea of living beyond death. In most stories this involves transferring one's consciousness to a computer and some sort of robot. In this story, the person is freed of their body and able to roam a virtual world as real as the real one - without consequences until they die naturally. Flory goes into great detail about how this process is done, and how Miira is conditioned to accept this new reality, plus how the AI generates a flawless reality for her. This is very much a hard science fiction book that takes a serious look at the medical and psychological issues that would be needed to be addressed to make this possible.
While Miira's journey into the Innerscape is primary focus of the story, there are several action orientated chapters - that come somewhat out of left field, and are not directly explained at first - that involve other people and events which, as the story goes along, the reader comes to discover are also taking place in this virtual world and are in some way connected to events in the outside world. No doubt, these interludes will become more significant in the following two volumes of this story, since this is only the first book of a three book series. All in all, I would say that this in a very unique treat for fans of hard-science fiction and cyberpunk.
January 29, 2025
Introducing Glencrow Summer, my Project 2026 Novel
I am delighted to announce the release of my 2026 novel, Glencrow Summer, slightly earlier than scheduled. It's Amazon ebook release will be on the 20th of February 2025 followed shortly by its Audible release. You can pre-order it HERE for $3.99. The Amazon paperback version will likely be released a bit earlier, the date to come. All my other ebook, and audio book versions, the FREE versions from the various retailers, will be available on or before the 20th, depending on when it clears my beta readers. More information on that date when I know it.
While my goal remains to write one novel a year, I believe in making hay while the sun shines, and at the moment, for some reason, the sun is shining brightly on my writing. I intend to make hay writing for as long as it shines and release the books once I finish them.
I have already talked about the influences that shaped this book in previous blog posts, and I will no doubt be talking more about this novel in the coming weeks. But for now, here are the covers, and its blurb. Stay tuned!
Areyou weary of long, dark, and grim fantasy epics? Tired of evilpriests, ruthless kings, sinister queens, knaves, andscoundrels—intricate palace intrigues and endless wars? Are youjaded by blood-soaked tomes of battle after battle, death afterdeath? Need a break from accounts of disembowelment, torture, rape,and murder? In short, are you looking for a different sort offantasy? Look no further.
Again.
Are you in the mood for a summer long holiday in the north woods?
GlencrowSummeris, like its companionnovel, ChateauClare,a leisurely paced, mundane slice-of-life fantasy novel set in apost-magic, Edwardian-era world. While this novel is set in the sameworld, three years after ChateauClare,it can be read as a stand alone novel, since it features newcharacters and a new setting. Once again, the stakes are low, thecompany pleasant.
Ryeth Darth-Ruen is a minorscion of one of the seven remaining Great Houses of Lorria and thepersonal secretary of his uncle Avlen Ruen. He’s asked by hisconcerned uncle to travel to Loc Lore Rey to help look after Avlen's mother, the formidable Aunt Adora Ruen. She intends to spend thesummer in a remote lodge in the north woods, accompanied her faithfulmaid, writing her memoirs. Rye agrees, only to discoverthat Uncle Avlen has a second mission for him – he’s to prevent,or at least delay, the writing of said memoirs. It seems that AuntAdora had a rather scandalous youth, one that Uncle Avlen would rather notwant brought to light. How Rye is to accomplish thisisan unanswered question.
GlencrowSummeris his lighthearted account of a summer spent in Loc Lore Rey. He meets new friends, gets in a bit of fishing, finds a hint of summer romance,and slowly, and quite unintentionally, helps uncover one of the deepestsecrets of the Age of Sorcery – the true story of the legendaryStar Chamber of the Court of Shalott.
C.Litka spins tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richlyimagined worlds. In GlencrowSummer,he has written a novel of a long summer holiday and its unexpectedmysteries with his usual cast of colorful, fully realized characters.If you seek to escape your everyday life, you’ll find no bettercompany, nor more wonderful worlds to explore, than in the stories ofC. Litka.
