R.L. LaFevers's Blog, page 5

Mortal Heart Countdown!

Wow. Where DID the summer go?? But now it’s fall and there are less than two months until Mortal Heart comes out! Gad. I’m nervous and excited and ALL THE THINGS.

To get everyone in the right mood for the Mortal Heart release, my publisher will be sharing some exclusive outtakes from the book. If you’re curious about Annith, you will get a surprising glimpse into her past. (Hint: She does not have quite the sheltered background you might have imagined.)  To “unlock” the scenes, we just need a few more likes on the His Fair Assassin Facebook Page.  (We came  kind of late to the whole Facebook page thing, so it will make my publisher very happy if you like it!)

They will also be releasing the first two chapters in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

In other very cool news, I learned that Mortal Heart received a starred review from School Library Journal! To say I am thrilled is an understatement. I’m not linking to the review because it has a small spoiler in it, but my favorite part was this:

“LaFevers again mesmerizes her readers through the political struggles of 15th-century Brittany and the intrigues of the followers of Mortain. . . . Clear, fast-paced, dramatic prose reveals the story via short, action-packed chapters, and the expert craftsmanship of the writing is worth savoring.”

We will be announcing Mortal Heart tour dates and locations soon, but it looks like the cities I’ll be visiting this fall are Phoenix, Houston, Nashville, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Miami! Again, I’ll post the exact dates and times, etc. as soon as I have them.

And lastly, I seem to have two last ARCs to give away. (USA only. Sorry, blame those international laws and shipping costs.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

And now I must go and obsess about shopping for book tour clothes. (It is hard to overstate just how much I hate to shop!)

ARCS, Books, and Contests!

So yes, Mortal Heart ARCs are making there way out into the world and I’m blithely pretending that they’re not. :: la la la la la la::

But the fact that they are does prompt me to post my annual reminder that please, if you are lucky enough to get an ARC, pleasepleaseplease do your fellow readers the courtesy of not spoiling it for them! There are a couple of wild twists in the book and I would love for every reader to be able to come to it unspoiled. So if you review it early, please make heavy use of SPOILER ALERTS when necessary! Not for me (after all, *I* already know what happens!) but for other readers.

Also, if you haven’t gotten an ARC, my publisher is doing some contest/giveaways over on the His Fair Assassin Fan Page, so be sure to check out those opportunities.

Since turning in the book, I have been doing a lot of sleeping, staring blankly at the walls, and (joy!) reading! One of the hardest things about being on deadline for me is that I am not able to lose myself in other writers’ books. But now I have been inhaling all the books I’ve missed. For those of you impatient for Mortal Heart, I’ve read a few books I think might help hold you over.

STRANGE MAID by Tessa Gratton

I loved this dark book with its wild heroine and Nordic mythology. (In fact, I loved it so much I blurbed it!) If you love the death and fierceness and complex mythology in the His Fair Assassin books, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy STRANGE MAID as well!

THE WINNER’S CURSE by Marie Rutkoski

I adored this book So. Much. I had heard a lot about it, so I was a bit skeptical, but once I started it, I was totally sucked in and realized it deserved all the hype and accolades it had received. Hard, impossible choices, twisted, complex relationships, a fully realized and intriguing world. I ate it up with a spoon and am HUGELY IMPATIENT that I have to wait an entire year for the next one.

SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL by Trish Doller

I don’t read a ton of contemporary fiction, but this one appeared on my radar for some reason, and I loved it. Realistic characters that had me caring about them from the get go, I was immediately caught up in their struggle. When I finished the book, my heart was very, very full and happy.

JELLICOE ROAD by Melina Marchetta

Wow. Just WOW. What a rich, complex, brilliant book this was! I’ve had it for a while, and actually tried to read it a couple of years ago, but for some reason (probably because my brain was busy with my own fictional world) I was not able to get into it. However, I am the world’s moodiest reader and I know that about myself, so I also knew I would try again. And boy, am I glad I did. This is definitely a masterpiece.

OUT OF THE EASY by Ruta Sepetys

Another brilliant, gorgeously written book that just took my breath away with how real the fictional world was. The characters were deftly drawn, the time and place perfectly recreated and rendered, and just all around hugely satisfying.

KISS OF DECEPTION by Mary Pearson

This was another ARC that was passed my way for blurb consideration. For those of you who love the His Fair Assassin books, I think you are going to be very, very happy with Mary Pearson’s new book! Holy cow! Here is the blurb I gave it:

“Full of lush writing and rich, complex characters,The Kiss of Deception is a deeply satisfying, intricately plotted fantasy where no one—no one—is quite what they seem. Readers will quickly become enmeshed in the intricate web of lies that have been woven into the very fabric of the kingdom itself. A thoroughly engrossing read—I couldn’t put it down!”

 

So yeah. Mark your calendars for that one. It comes out on July 8.

In fact, I’m so excited about this book that I’m going to give away an ARC of it on Twitter this week. And also a copy of OUT OF THE EASY (I accidentally bought two) and THE WINNER’S CURSE. Oh, and an ARC of Mortal Heart as well, so keep your eyes peeled–it’s going to be a busy week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Nearly There

(I’m mirroring last Friday’s post from Writer Unboxed over here because WU has been intermittently down since then. Huge apologies for those of you who’ve been trying to find it!)

One of the hardest stages of your writing journey—one that will take the most dedication, commitment, and self exploration—is the ‘nearly there’ stage. This is the stage where your critique partners love your work, you’re getting personalized rejections from agents or editors and highly complimentary reports from your beta readers, and yet . . . no sale or offer has materialized.

Remember those old cartoons, the ones where the character is in the desert, hot sun beating down on him, parched throat, covered in dust, nearly perishing of thirst as he slowly drags himself to the enticing oasis that is just within his reach—only to have it disappear just as he reaches it because it’s a frickin’ mirage?

That’s what the ‘nearly there’ stage feels like. Especially if you’ve been stuck in it more than a couple of years.

But the nearly there stage is a vital, absolutely critical part of our writerly development. In fact I know many agents and editors who would argue that this is exactly the stage that is missing from so many aspiring authors’ journeys and that lack has held them back. So I thought I’d share some thoughts on how to not only survive, but hopefully thrive during this stage.

Yes, I said thrive, because the truth is, this ‘nearly there’ stage where you’ve mastered the basics of craft can be a really, really fun part of your journey—especially if you take your focus off the finish line for a while and throw yourself into the spirit of experimentation and improving.

It can be a gift, a chance to strengthen your writing and your voice so that when you do get published, you have a greater chance of being published well, rather than simply being published.

The critically important tasks of the nearly there stage are mastering the craft at an advanced level, enriching the depth and quality of your stories, and coming to terms with the relationship between you and writing.

Most of us expect to take some time to Master The Craft. A year or two, maybe three. But when our apprenticeship starts to draw out far, far beyond that, it can become dispiriting and discouraging, and all too easy to throw in the towel.

We are so in love with the idea that someone is so naturally talented that they can sit down and write a book in six months, their first book, mind you, and have it published to great fanfare. Those are the publishing stories that get retold the most, so often that they almost become urban legend and that then becomes the expectation rather than the true outlier it is.

But as a society, we are far less enamored of the idea of long years of hard work, mastering the craft one component at a time, until we become proficient enough to master all the elements of craft within the same manuscript.

Donald Rumsfeld once took a lot of flak for talking about the known unknowns vs. the unknown unknowns, and while I’m not a big Rumsfeld fan (at all!) I do think he was on to something.

As writers entering the craft, there are things we know we haven’t mastered, and then there are things we don’t even realize are aspects of craft to be mastered—depth and layers and nuance and white space and subtext and all sorts of advanced techniques. This is partly because many of us come to writing without having been a critical, analytical reader. We come to writing out of the love and enthusiasm we’ve felt for books and we want to, in turn, create that same experience for others.

We often think we know how to write a story. After all, we’ve read thousands of them! It’s only after we dive in and our initial works are met with lukewarm responses, that we begin to realize that good writing makes stories seem effortless, when they’re simply not.

Improving doesn’t happen by accident. If you write a million words or invest 10,000 hours without the express intention of improving your craft and skill—and a plan for making that happen—you can easily end up no closer to your goal.

When I’ve done seventeen drafts of a book, it’s not that I was polishing my words seventeen times, but that it took me a draft to master each of the separate craft elements: character actions in one draft, plot in another, deepen motivation in the following draft, then add in description. Now redraft that description so that it is character specific and carries dramatic weight. Now refine character actions to include subtext, etc. and so on.

Now luckily, I no longer have to do seventeen drafts, but it is highly unusual for me to do less than six.

It has been years of practice that has allowed me to get better at juggling all those elements in a single body of work.

So, dive into this stage. Embrace it. Revel in it. You are about to set out with the sole intention of becoming a writing craft GEEK.

Reread and analyze books you love—if you get caught up in the writing, stop and see what swept you away.
Or it might be easier to study books you don’t love, but others do. You might get less sucked in by the writing and are therefore better able to analyze.
Audiobooks can also be a good way to see what works and what doesn’t because you can’t skip or skim.
There are scores of amazing writers conferences with workshops for all skill levels. Take full advantage of these. BUT, do not make the mistake of doing those things without also putting in consistent and regular writing time. One is not substituted for the other, but instead feeds the other.
Consider developing a curriculum for yourself. I know that can seem a bit anal, but if you’re not getting a sense that your work is improving, create a road map to mastery using blogs, online workshops, real life workshops, and how to books. Alone or with others such as critique partners who are familiar with your writing, look at your strengths and weaknesses, then devise a program of study—and dedicated, specific writing time, to address those weaknesses.
Many published writers get better because they are working closely with an editor who guides and shapes the story. If you’ve attended a number of conferences, consider spending some of that conference budget on a mss critique by a qualified, recommended and respected book editor. You’re looking for big picture, meta level editorial input rather than line editing, although that too can be wildly helpful, but you want to make sure you’ve nailed the big picture down first.
Oftentimes authors, agents, or editors will offer critiques as prizes for contests or for charity auctions, so keep an eye out for those great opportunities as well.
Instead of starting a manuscript with the intention to create a marketable, salable story, start it with the intent of mastering certain aspects of craft: compelling description, evocative subtext, nuanced language, layered characters. Give yourself permission, for just this one manuscript, to ignore plot or structure. Or to concentrate on plot and structure if you normally avoid them. Not all of your million words need be in pursuit of one goal. I would actually argue that they shouldn’t be.
Then, once you’ve spent long hours learning the rules and perfecting the craft—now play with it! Experiment. Color outside the lines. Be daring. Be brave.

 

Perhaps the most important component to the nearly there stage is better developing the Stories We Tell. Take this opportunity to embark on a journey of self discovery. Dig deeper, look under the rocks and stones of your own soul and write as raw and real as you are able.

Experiment with your voice—trying always to uncover your most unique, genuine and authentic voice and core stories.
Find and do exercises to develop your most authentic, strongest story telling voice once you find it.
Give yourself permission to write as if no one—not your mother, not your sister, not your spouse, not even another living, breathing soul—will have to see it. There is great freedom in slamming that door shut while you write.
Force yourself out of your comfort zone, not only craft-wise, but subject-wise.
Spend some time un-learning conventional publishing wisdom and marketing advice and write what you truly love. Reconnect with the sorts of stories that first awakened the love of reading in you and that have provided you with your greatest reading pleasure. What blew your mind? Showed you the full scope of what was possible? Shook the foundations of your world? The seeds of your own voice likely are hidden in those books.
Spend some time thinking about the complex relationships in your own life. Do you characters have equally complex and dynamic relationships? They should.
Are you giving your characters as rich and varied an emotional life as you possess? Do some timed writing exercises—spending twenty minutes tops—and write about the following: Your first kiss, your first loss, your first experience with shame, your first betrayal, your first major mistake in judgment.
Once you’ve captured your emotional milestones in writing, look to your characters. Do you know how they reacted to similar moments in their lives? You should, because the answers to those questions shape our entire worldview and how we interact with everything around us and will therefore play a large part in shaping the story you are trying to tell.

Self knowledge is also a huge factor in surviving nearly there.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Will you have what it takes? Are you truly committed to this writing thing? Even if it takes more than two or three years to achieve your goals?

There is no wrong answer here. Writing might be something that only holds a certain amount of appeal for you, an appeal that will evaporate when it does not come easily or quickly, and that’s okay.

You must know yourself. Come to terms with why you write and who you are and where the two of those intersect. Some people do write for validation and no matter how much they wish that away, it won’t change. Which is fine as long as they are aware of that, the risks involved, and understand how it shapes both their journey and their frustrations. Others write to better understand the world, to make connections, to explore the issues that haunt them, or simply because they can’t NOT write. It is helpful to know which category you fall into.

Take the long view.
Practice being in the moment and enjoying the stage you’re in rather than assuming the grass is so much greener elsewhere and pining to be someplace you’re not. As with life, each stage of the writing journey is full of valuable lessons and opportunity for growth, if only we let it be.
Find a way to get more process minded. Try to remove the onus of publishing=success. I highly recommend Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way as a good place to find help in shifting that perspective.
There are so many ways to define success! Challenge yourself to find/list ten milestones of success that have nothing to do with being published.
The same goes for a publishing career. There are all sorts of highly different and yet successful publishing paths. Spend some time understanding what is important to you: wide readership, critical acclaim, a large fan base, number of books sold, financial metrics.

And speaking of journeys, in the writing journey, this nearly there stage is the equivalent of the Dark Night of the Soul, when all feels lost and as if all your efforts have been in vain. Just like a character in a novel, you will have to dig deep, take a leap of faith, and recommit.

You may even have to quit writing for a while, decide it is taking up too much of your life, distracting you from other things that require your attention. But there is a good chance that the writing monster has already sunk her long, seductive claws into you and you will not be able to leave her behind as easily as you thought.

In fact, a huge number of successful writers I know have all at some point quit writing and walked away at some point. Only to find that they couldn’t not write. It was as much a part of them as their bone and sinew.

And once you discover that, you realize that publishing really is only one piece of it. That recognition can allow us to take a deep breath and step back from the sense of urgency that nips too often at our heels. Or at the very least, give us the perspective and patience to keep on cheerfully slogging our way forward.

 

 

Mortal Heart Cover Fun!

For those of you who don’t know, the brilliant Kristen over at MyFriendsAreFiction does fabulous Lego recreations of YA covers. For her latest, she’s done one of Mortal Heart!

 

 

 

It is hard to say just how much I love this! Look at all the detail they went to! It even has a Lego castle and trees! ::swoon::

You should definitely go check out all the Lego covers!

Mortal Heart Cover!

For those of you who didn’t catch the Mortal Heart cover reveal a couple of weeks ago, here it is!

 

Annith has watched her gifted sisters at the convent come and go, carrying out their dark dealings in the name of St. Mortain, patiently awaiting her own turn to serve Death. But her worst fears are realized when she discovers she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever sequestered in the rock and stone womb of the convent. Feeling sorely betrayed, Annith decides to strike out on her own.

But across Brittany, the tides of war are drawing ever nearer, with France pressuring the beleaguered duchess from all sides. Annith’s search for answers threatens to rip open an intricate web of lies and deceit that sit at the heart of the convent she serves. Yet to expose them threatens the very fabric of her existence and risks an unforeseen chance at love, one that she can no longer deny. Annith must carefully pick a path and, gods willing, effect a miracle that will see her country—and her heart—to safety.

For those of you who are super eager, you can pre-order Mortal Heart HERE:

Mortal Heart Update

So first of all, so sorry to have disappeared for so very long. Writing Mortal Heart in thirteen months is probably the single hardest writing thing I have ever done. Sadly, it required me to withdraw from just about every other thing in my life, including socializing (whether through social media or in real life) and sleeping.

The truth is, it was a big book, not just in word count (although it is that—clocking in at nearly 144,000 words!) but in terms of concept. Ever since I first imagined the trilogy, it was the most ambitious of the three His Fair Assassin books. Not only does it return to the political backdrop of Grave Mercy, but it delves more deeply into the mythology of the world I created and thus involved far more world building.

Far, FAR more world building.

In other words, it pretty much kicked my ass on a daily basis.

So the good news is that it is DONE! And it is BIG! And early reader reactions have surpassed my wildest hopes!

The bad news is, it won’t be out until November 4.

I know, I’m sorry. But I reeeeally needed those extra months writing time.

But! In more good news, there WILL be ARCs! I will let you know when I have a date for those.

In the coming months, I will be posting snippets and possible teasers and revealing the cover and playlists and hidden Pinterest boards to whet your appetites.

And now that the book isn’t demanding every single word that my brain produces, I will be posting on my blog (once I get it up and running again) and on Tumblr more often!

Thanks for your patience!

A Beast and A Monster: The Fairy Tale Influences of DARK TRIUMPH

While Dark Triumph is not a true retelling, it does contain echoes of at least two of my favorite fairy tales: “Beauty and the Beast” and “Bluebeard.”

I suppose it’s inevitable to be influenced by “Beauty and the Beast” when one has a hero named Beast. I was drawn to his character in the first book because as a child, one of my greatest early literary disappointments was when the beast turned into a handsome prince at the end of that tale. I was heartbroken and felt I’d been cheated. I had grown attached to that kind, ugly, dear monster and I greatly resented the boring handsome dude who replaced him. So when I was casting around for some of Duval’s companions in arms, I came up with Beast. Like Sybella, he was larger than life and threatened to take over the story in Grave Mercy. That was when I realized he would need his own book. And who better to pair him with than a tortured beauty who also threatened to steal every scene she was in.

Also, I thought the themes touched on in the “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale worked well for the story I was telling in Dark Triumph—that love can see beyond the external to our true essence. In fact, I think that is what makes a compelling romance; when the hero/heroine is able to see things in the other that no one else can. They recognize our secret hidden selves and respond to that. But there is a strong influence of another fairy tale in Dark Triumph as well. As I researched the history and folklore of Brittany, I discovered that the two historical seeds of one of the most fascinating fairy tales of my childhood—”Bluebeard”—had its roots in ancient Breton history.

The earliest seed for the “Bluebeard” tales can be found in Conomor the Cursed, who had been told that he would be slain by his own son. Consequently, whenever one of his wives became pregnant, he killed her. The second historical basis for Bluebeard occurred only fifty or so years prior to the events in Dark Triumph. Gilles de Reitz had been the Marshal of France and a nobleman who fought alongside Joan d’Arc in the Hundred Years War. But once the war was over and he returned to his holding, he is rumored to have been at the root of over a hundred gruesome child murders, and was tried and hung for those crimes.

“The Tale of Bluebeard” fascinated, even as it horrified me and hinted at a darkness and depravity my seven-year-old mind could only guess at. I was outraged on behalf of the young wife whose only sin was curiosity, and equally outraged that such a blood punishment should await her. And Bluebeard himself gave me nightmares, with his aggressive, bristling blue-black beard and the fleshy lips that were so often portrayed in the accompanying illustrations. I felt there was a warning there, although I was too young to grasp it.

All of those elements were definitely echoing in the recesses of my mind as I wrote Sybella and Beast’s story. Since Sybella’s story was so dark and dealt with many of those very themes I was so disturbed by when younger, it seemed especially important to give her a message of hope as well; that love had the ability to see beyond the façade she presented to the world and recognize her true essence.

The Charbonnerie and the Dark Mother

As I wrote Dark Triumph, I wanted to be sure and populate the book with some of the colorful characters from the Middle Ages that I had come across in my research, and yet it had to feel organic to the story and not wedged in there.

As Sybella and the wounded knight were racing through the countryside, trying to escape pursuit, I had to do some serious thinking as to who they would actually run in to, and of those people, who would help, who would hinder, and who would turn them in in a heartbeat for a reward. Since they would need to slip into the forest to evade capture, I decided to draw from those who lived in the forests or obtained their livelihood from the woods, and settled upon a group of charcoal burners.

Oddly, it is often the outcasts in society who are most accepting of other outcasts. Their very disenfranchisement sometimes makes them more willing to challenge the status quo or thumb their nose at rigid authority. While charcoal burners were not (probably) true outcasts, they did keep to themselves somewhat, confined by their livelihood to dwelling in forests and tending their charcoal fires rather than living in cities or villages.

In the middle ages, one of the most efficient fuels at the time was charcoal. Coal itself was rare and difficult to mine with their technology, but charcoal could be made through the slow burning of wood, then stopping the process before the wood was fully burned to ash. Charcoal burning was a tricky thing, requiring fairly esoteric knowledge of how to build the fire pits just so, how to pile the wood so it wouldn’t burn too quickly, and how to read the smoke to discern when the charcoal was ready. There were a number of occupational hazards, primarily involving collapsed fire pits and burns. It was also an occupation full of hazard, for a stray spark or ember could start a conflagration in minutes.

As I continued to research charcoal burners, I came across a curious mention of the Carbonnari, a branch of Italian charcoal burners. They started off as a guild, as many medieval trades did, and developed into an organization or brotherhood similar to Freemansons, only with their charcoal burning trade being at the center of their rituals and organizations. While their organization and political involvement was most evident in 19th century Italy, it is believed the groups’ origins began in the middle ages. When I learned they had a French counterpart called the Charbonnerie, I knew I’d found my outcasts.

As a writer, a dozen questions immediately went off in my mind. Who were they? What would compel them to become political and engage themselves in the affairs of the kingdom? How would they make those decisions? And, most importantly in a world populated with patron saints, whom would they worship?

Any deviation from normal church doctrine in the middle ages was rigorously opposed, so it made sense to me that they would worship someone not approved by the church, one of the older gods who’d not make the transition to patron saint.

Dovetailing nicely with this was my personal fascination with the concept of the Black Madonna. There are various theories for the origin of the Black Madonna, whether it was simply the color of Jesus and Mary’s skin before Renaissance artists reimagined them as fair skinned and blonde, or an origin that spoke to possible African roots. There is some speculation that the huge popularity of the cult of the Virgin Mary in the middle ages was a redirecting of earlier earth/mother goddess worship.

But interestingly, over the years I’d also run into mentions of the Black Artemis, rumored to have been worshipped by the Amazons, or Black Demeter, the aspect of the earth goddess when she was in deep mourning for her daughter Persephone. I took all those threads and swirled them around until I had the Dark Matrona, the unsanctioned aspect of Dea Matrona, the former earth goddess now patron saint. I decided that her darkness would be of a more spiritual nature, not unlike the Egyptian god Osiris, for in the Egyptian pantheon, black was not only the color of the underworld, but regeneration as the rich dark silt from the Nile river allowed them to grow their crops each year, and so black was also the color of regeneration, which dovetailed nicely with the book’s themes of finding hope in the darkness.

~ Originally used as part of the Dark Triumph blog tour at jennadoesbooks.com~

On Rivers and Jackhammers

photo by Christina Stackhouse

I have spent the last two weeks essentially taking a jackhammer to the 1st and 2nd acts of Book Three, trying to not only delete the words I’ve already written, but to erase the wagon ruts those words have created in my mind so I can envision new ones.

Which is why, for me, it is so unhelpful to just get words down every day and why paying too much attention to word daily counts goals can be so detrimental—because the wrong words aren’t only unhelpful, but they can end up derailing the RIGHT words that I will ultimately need to find.

I’ve heard it said that you can never cross the same river twice, which I take to essentially mean that the fluid nature of water and the ever-changing flotsam and jetsam that is floating in a river at any given time changes constantly so therefore a new river is created every few seconds.

I find this true for writing. If I start a story before I’ve let it simmer long enough, I am forging across the wrong damn river. It’s not the river I want to cross at all, but it’s too late because I’m hip deep in the rushing rapids of the wrong damn river.

Sure, I can wade back out, but by then, the actual river I wanted to cross may have already sailed on by.

It’s the same as if working with concrete. Once you add water to the concrete mix and start to stir, you’re time is finite. You only have so many minutes with which to work with the stuff before it starts to harden and set. And once it sets? You can’t simply erase it or wipe the surface smooth. You have to take a bloody jackhammer and break it apart chunk by chunk.

So it’s best to really think about where you want that concrete, what shape it should have, what you want the surface texture to be like, and then take the time to build the correct form or mold, because once it’s poured, it is no easy thing to change it.

And that’s what happens for me if I start writing a book, a scene, a storyline too soon. It becomes so firm in my mind that it can be hard to let go of it completely so that I can find the truest version of the story I’m trying to tell.

And the thing is, I know this about my process. And still I fall into the trap of rushing things. Usually because of impending deadlines and an ever increasing sense of panic. But ultimately, it does more harm than good and I wishwishwish I could remember that.

So that’s been my week. Hope yours has been better!

One Last Event!

I wanted to let you all know I’ll be sneaking in one last event this summer before I remove myself to my writing cave for the duration of Book Three.

The coolest part about this event? It will be a joint event WITH LEIGH BARDUGO!! Actually, I will mostly just be serving as her adoring handmaiden* but still. I will be there and I will be signing and she and I will be talking about all sorts of cool things like writing fantasy, assassins, heroes, villains, and whatnot.

So if you’re in the Los Angeles area, mark your calendars for this Friday, June 21 at Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach! For event details, see HERE.

 

 

* Hopefully she will not ask me to kill anybody