Celia Lake's Blog, page 6

Idea to Book : Nocturnal Quarry

Today’s Idea to Book is all about Alexander Landry. That’s because Nocturnal Quarry is a character-focused novella about Alexander Landry. While most of my books can be read in any order, this one comes best after at least Best Foot Forward. 

It also has some pieces in it I deeply loved getting to share. A bit of Boston’s magic, a couple of loose ends of other plots, and a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for starters!

Alexander in motion

Part of the joy of this book was getting to explore some new locations. Alexander’s business takes him from Washington D.C. (and diplomatic circles), on a train, brief stops in New Haven, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island. Then it’s on to Boston (Massachusetts) and back south to New York City. I’m born and raised in Boston, and it was delightful to get a few more moments in my home town. (Lovers of Boston can also find a chapter or three set there in Sailor’s Jewel). 

And of course there’s the art. Figuring out what was at least potentially on display in 1938 was delightful. You can take a look at some of the art in the art of Nocturnal Quarry post. We also get a look at some of how the land magic works in the United States. Though there’s a lot more there to potentially explore!

Alexander’s also in the midst of emotional shifts at this point in his life. The events of Best Foot Forward, three years earlier, have had time to settle. He has a routine he enjoys, people he actively wants to spend time with who are delighted to see him. Now, he’s had to leave that behind. The time gives him some chances to reflect on other parts of his life, his past – and his future. 

Loose ends

The second part of this book was tying up two loose ends. I knew America was the most useful place to do this for two separate events.

One of those has to do with someone Alexander and Geoffrey met in Germany. Theodore’s an American out of central casting for the period, down to his shoes. Alexander spotted him in a lie almost immediately. (Though, to be fair to Theodore, very few people would know that one, proportionately. And you wouldn’t expect it of two Englishmen.) 

In Nocturnal Quarry, they meet up again. Alexander gets a chance to share some context about who he is, what they were doing in Germany. And also, usefully, maybe broker some ongoing conversations of particular interest to the Council and Ministry. Not bad for an evening’s work or two. (And I will admit, the geological bit of the demonstration in that chapter delights me. Boston geology, endlessly unusual.) 

The other thread is something out of On The Bias, a lingering worry for the Carillon family. Alexander is of course glad to see about this concern for the people he loves. But the way that plays out is perhaps not what anyone expects. Especially not anyone who’s familiar with Alexander’s reputation as a war dog for the Council. 

Family of choice and of blood

Finally, this book is all about family of choice and of blood. I went into writing it knowing a fair bit about Alexander’s family – and specifically, why he isn’t close to any of them at this point in his adult life. His mother left Egypt in a hurry, a decade before Alexander was born. She kept in touch with her extended family, but after her death (when Alexander was 18), those contacts faded. 

While he’s in New York City, he’s surprised by a connection. Then he finds out what it’s like to be in a space with someone who has a whole set of cultural references in common, the ones he hasn’t been able to assume for most of his life. Better than that, he gets a chance to connect to others of his family, with the promise for more in future. And he has the outside evaluation of someone with his mother’s family’s sort of skills, which is terrifying and reassuring, both at once. 

But the other part of this is the family of choice – how Alexander wishes he didn’t have to be gone for so long. And more to the point, how he’s welcomed back, and timing for something he’d thought would happen in his absence.

(On that note, I am looking forward to some more of the Alexander and Edmund Carillon show when I write Edmund’s romance a little down the line. It takes place in 1948 or 1949, while Edmund is at Oxford and The Academy, but also apprenticing with Alexander.) 

The post Idea to Book : Nocturnal Quarry appeared first on Celia Lake.

Three Books on Sale : FaRoFeb

I’m excited to be part of FaRoFeb this year. That stands for Fantasy Romance February, and it’s a promotion with a number of moving pieces. There are tons of different events planned, including 250+ books available for $0.99 US on February 1st. (That’s tomorrow, when I’m posting this.) There are also author spotlights, a panel discussion, a giveaway of a book a day between February 1st and Valentines Day on February 14th, and more. 

Find out all the details at the FaRoFeb 2024 site including how to follow FaRoFeb on your social media of choice and how to sign up for the newsletter to get the book giveaways. 

And if you follow FaRoFeb on social media (please do!), you’ll see me spotlighted on February 8th.

Me and my books

Three of my books will be on sale for $0.99 USD (and the equivalent elsewhere) through February 15th as part of FaRoFeb.

They are Sailor’s Jewel, Pastiche, and Eclipse. All three are set in Albion, the magical community of Great Britain that is the setting for all my books. They’re a mix of history, fantasy, romance, and a puzzle or mystery to solve. (In FaRoFeb terms, they fall into the gaslamp category.) 

Read on to learn more about all three books!

Sailor’s Jewel

Sailor’s Jewel takes place in 1901, on an Atlantic crossing in one of the Pelagius Liners, a magical shipping line. Rhoe’s brother Cyrus has to make a trip on Council business. He’s convinced her to come along before she takes on a challenging new role at the Temple of Healing. Hugh Pelagius is the younger brother of the owner of the line. Hugh is still figuring out his role in the business after his father’s death a few years previously. 

There are other passengers to talk to or avoid, a chance to talk to some pelagic mermaids. And there the possible terrors of the open ocean. When Cyrus admits that his task is to transport a highly magical jewel, Rhoe and Hugh – along with others on the ship – have to join forces to figure out how to land in America safely. 

A lot of my readers love Rhoe’s size (she’s decidedly fat but also adores some of the aesthetic dress of the time). They also love one of the secondary characters, who helps communicate with those pelagic mermaids. Cyrus has a romance much later in The Hare and the Oak. Rhoe and Cyrus appear in several other books as secondary characters.)

You can learn more about what’s behind this book in my Idea to Book post about Sailor’s Jewel.

Pastiche

Pastiche is one of my books I often recommend as a starting place. It’s got a bit of everything my books have. Married in 1899, Alysoun and Richard have a cordial arranged marriage, holding the land magic for part of Kent.

Besides the land magic, Richard’s often working long hours as a member of Albion’s Guard. That involves both investigating crime and helping keep things running smoothly. Alysoun has been living with increasing pain, fatigue, and brain fog since the birth of their second child. She is admittedly a tad bored in her life. (Alysoun has what we’d call fibromyalgia these days, but they didn’t have that term for it yet.) 

When she stumbles across something odd in a display of stained glass in a museum, she can’t let the problem go. Having a puzzle to sort out gives her a chance to try talking to her husband again. Well, once they get a little help from a couple of others. 

Both Richard and Alysoun appear in a number of books, including the romances of both their children. (Charlotte’s romance, Perfect Accord, will be out on February 9th, and Gabe’s is in The Fossil Door.) The entire family also appears in various books of the Land Mysteries series.

If you like Gil and Magni, their 1884 romance is in Four Walls and a Heart. 

Learn more about what went into Pastiche in my Idea to Book post.

Eclipse

Eclipse is set in the 1924-1925 school year at Schola, the most elite of Albion’s magical schools – and the most isolated. Located on an island off the Welsh coast, there are a limited number of people in any category you care to name. In September of 1924, Thesan and Isembard have been professional colleagues and friends since Isembard began teaching the previous year. When his old mentor, Alexander Landry, takes up a teaching position, Isembard has to reevaluate some of his past history.

And of course, being a school, there are a tremendous number of things going on. Some of them are the ordinary commitments of classes, marking, students wanting to put on a musical revue, even a few pranks. But Isembard is worried about his two particular charges, Claudio and Orion. They’re both sons of members of the Council who need a bit of attention. To complicate things further, Thesan and Isembard begin to notice worrying signs in some of their students. But they’re not able to articulate to the other staff what’s concerning them. Over the course of the school year – and an almost total solar eclipse – they learn exactly how well they work together. 

Eclipse is born out of my own experience as a librarian in a high school. I wanted to write a friends-to-lovers romance about people who care deeply about teaching, but who don’t always have all the information (or influence) they’d like. Thesan is autistic (though it’s not as obvious in this book as in some other places she appears). Isembard is dealing with lingering effects of physical and mental health from the Great War. 

Thesan and Isembard also appear in several other books (I do love them). Their son Leo is one of the point of view characters in The Magic of Four, in the 1946-1947 school year, out in May. Claudio and Orion are main characters later in their lives (along with two women) in Illusion of a Boar. That’s set in 1944 in the run up to D-Day and the Normandy landings. 

Learn more about what’s behind Eclipse in my Idea to Book post.

Happy FaRoFeb!

Whether you’re reading my books or someone else’s, I hope you find stories that delight you.

The post Three Books on Sale : FaRoFeb appeared first on Celia Lake.

Age, characters, and time passing

I got a great question on my Patreon post about what I was planning for 2024 over there, and I wanted to answer it somewhere more visible. (This post also contains the answer to “Will Claudio get his own romance?” and if so, when.)

wiedźma_florentyna asked in the comments whether magic extends life expectancy over what we would expect today (and mentions both Mistress of Birds and Richard still actively working at the age of 73.) And then what that means for some of my oldest characters who are bound to die eventually.

Short version: I don’t want to kill any of these characters I love due to old age, so I’m doing my best to avoid that.

Magic, Age, and Lifespan

Magic in Albion doesn’t make you immortal, people can and do die of all the things that we die of, including old age. However, being magical does tend to extend life modestly, thanks to the low-key effect on things like cell renewal, ability to use resources in the body more efficiently, and so on.

And of course, Healers have some different approaches for treating some things, or add a layer of effectiveness. If you find yourself with cancer in Albion, they don’t have modern chemotherapy (at least not without a tremendous amount of time and investment from a Healer). But they can make sure you won’t die from infection after surgery, and that the healing process from treatments doesn’t have complications.

This in general means that people with magic (especially people who are trained in and use their magic regularly) are likely to be active into their 70s or even 80s, and it’s not uncommon for people to live past 100 or 110. (And be at least somewhat independent in their life until near the end.)

Avigail Levy

Avigail Levy, Rathna’s apprentice mistress, is 118 when she finally dies. She’s declining due to old age when The Fossil Door takes place. That’s partly because she’s used to living in a mixed community, and also she doesn’t think the Healers could do much for her. They can in fact help her be more comfortable and deal with a couple of things that were draining energy and vitality. She gets another decade of life, able to be more active for a few years, before dying in 1932. (When her namesake, Avigail Edgarton, is born.)

Is she out doing remote portal work at that time? No. But is she part of her community, able to go out and talk to people, to help keep an eye on the London portals close to home? Yes.

Should she maybe have retired some years previously? Also yes, but she considers her work with the portals a vocation. Also, Rathna came into her life as an apprentice at a point when she might otherwise have considered retiring.

Mistress of Birds

Mistress of Birds has a character who lives particularly long – and without visible signs of aging. There are reasons for that, and they’re not common. The character gets away with it in large part because she is absolutely a recluse and doesn’t see many people.

The Cousins

Those descended from the Fatae – the Cousins – do age more slowly even than other magical folk. Not only do they have longer lifespans (200 is fairly common), but they look noticeably younger than their calendar age. It’s terribly annoying when they’re in their 20s. That’s part of the reason they don’t often attend any of the Five Schools – they’re in a different stage of development in some ways than their age peers.

They normally have a visible life in Albion until they start to look like they’re in their 80s or 90s, and then shift their focus to the Cousin estates.

Ages of characters in the 1940s

I use Aeon Timeline to help me keep track of everyone’s ages, which means I can easily pull a list of people in, say, the summer of 1945 and the end of the Second World War. Here’s a few of the oldest. I’ve linked to their pages on the authorial wiki if you want a reminder of what they’ve done with their lives.

In his 90s

Arthur Gospatrick : 91. He is actually retired, there’s no way for him to keep interacting with the non-magical Army contacts past about 1925.

In their 80s

Magni Torham : 88 years. He’s still active enough during the Second World War to be assisting with coordination for the Guard, freeing up other people for the field. If you’ve read the As The Ground Shifts extra, still duelling, though in a much more ‘stay in one place and let Gabe do the running around’ mode than in his youth. Age and experience still count for a lot.

Melusina Gospatrick : Also 88, doing some office-based consulting for the Ministry during the Second World War but no longer active fieldwork.

Gilbert Oxley : 85 and assisting Magni with desk work for the Guard, as well as his architectural magic consulting. (During the Second World War, a lot of that is ‘can we make sure this building won’t fall down?’ He would figure out the issues and other people would implement solutions.)

Mabyn Teague : 81 and an active member of the Council (though with an eye to retiring in the next year or two).

In their 70s

Agatha Witt (79) and Elizabeth Mason (about to turn 79) : Both still actively working as Penelopes, though more in coordination, problem solving, and lab work than in the field. (Are either of them ever going to actually retire? No. Just hand over more of the admin to other people.)

Cyrus Smythe-Clive : 77, and like Mabyn still an active member of the Council and also looking toward retirement. He and Mabyn do retire in 1946.

Rhoe Belisama : 76. Her position is not particularly magically demanding most of the time, and it’s by way of a religious vocation. Those are notoriously hard to retire from. By 1945, she’s in the “training up a successor” but not particularly looking to stop what she’s doing just yet. (Her husband Hugh is 72, and running the family business by this point, while contemplating who will take it over in a few years once the aftermath of the war has settled a bit.)

Alexander Landry : 74. He honestly would (by 1945) really love some time to do other things with his life than war, like teach the younger generation arcane magics. On the other hand, he still has things he wants to accomplish on the Council. He won’t retire from that until 1950.

Richard Edgarton : 73. Still active as a Guard (including, in a crisis like the bombing of Coventry described in Upon A Summer’s Day). Most of what he’s doing is coordination and desk work, however. Alysoun, in Three Graces comments that she’s quite sure he’s never going to actually retire, but she does hope the end of the war means he might have a more regular schedule again.

And a few other ages

For comparison, Geoffrey Carillon is 61, many of my protagonists with their romances in the 1920s are in their 50s, and Gabe Edgarton is 45.

All the POV characters have (or should have) their birthdates on the Characters Timeline, if you want to see them all in sequence.

Will I write past the 1940s?

I do have a book that will take place in 1950. That includes Alexander retiring from the Council and the challenge for his seat. However, that’s as far into the future as I’m planning to write. It should leave things in a reasonably tidy place without too many loose ends.

As I said above, I love these characters, and I don’t want to write about them dying of old age. I’d rather leave them drifting off into the future. I do have a number of thoughts about what happens, including with younger characters, but I have plenty of other stories I want to explore.

There’s also an aspect that the 1950s and Post-War period start getting into historical demands and issues that I find somewhat less interesting.

Working backward in history

I’ve got a lot of other history I want to play with, and I expect I’ll be working backwards instead. That includes both a trilogy in 1889 through 1890 (currently I’m finishing drafting the first book in that). These will be out later in 2024 (Mysterious Fields). I also have an idea for a romance duology that would take place in the 1850s, though no idea yet on when I’m going to write it.

In addition, I’m slowly working on research for a series set in the 1480s and the origin of the Pact. I expect this to take another two years or so before I can start writing.

As I’ve said in posts about this, I did do a degree in Medieval and Renaissance History, but for some reason it didn’t focus at all on what the land magic was doing in Albion. So I’m having to go back and look at a lot of things and figure out how that worked at various points leading up to the Pact.

And a word about Claudio

That 1950 book? That book is also Claudio’s eventual romance. I’m really excited to write this one, which will be the third in a trilogy of post-war romances.

Ursula Fortier ‘s will be in 1947 or maybe 1948 (she’s the daughter of Thesan and Isembard). Edmund Carillon (oldest son of Geoffrey and Lizzie) will have his during his time at Oxford and Oxford’s magical Academy in 1949ish. And then we get to Claudio Warren in 1950.

There are some aspects I want to sequence thoughtfully around changes in post-War Albion, Council politics, and other details, so I can’t just jump ahead to Claudio. (Also, I’m looking forward to writing all three of them.)

The current plans have me writing Ursula’s romance in August 2024, Edmund’s in February 2025, and Claudio’s in August 2025, with them coming out in May 2025, November 2025, and May 2026. I know that’s a long time away, but I think the results will be worth it.

They’ll be alternating with books in the 1920s Mysterious Arts series, which include books about weaving, a night club singer (featuring Farran Michaels, Cadmus’s nephew, seen in Seven Sisters), and Gemma Smythe-Clive’s romance.

The post Age, characters, and time passing appeared first on Celia Lake.

Idea to Book: Best Foot Forward

Welcome to today’s Idea To Book post, this time about Best Foot Forward. This is the book that honestly has the best origin story. Kiya – my friend and editor – left a comment in Eclipse in February 2021 when we were editing it. It said: 

I now sort of want the buddy cop story in which Alexander and Carillon team up to utterly destroy a munitions smuggler.

I left it in the Google Doc when I sent it to my early readers, and every single one of them left comments thoroughly wanting this. My early readers are smart people and they have good ideas, so I started staring at it. I stared at it for over a year, honestly. 

At the time, I hadn’t intended to write past 1929 for a variety of reasons.

I wasn’t sure how to handle a number of the complicated pieces of history (some of which get very close to my own family’s history, as I’ll mention below). And yet, the idea was absolutely compelling. I’m so glad I did – and that I figured out a whole series arc for the Land Mysteries books. The final book, set in 1946-1947, comes out in May. That’s The Magic of Four. 

Best Foot Forward deals with the shifts that happen in Europe as the world heads toward war again, and it’s also about dealing with at least a little of the trauma and loss of the Great War, even if it’s been decades. Read on for more of the details.

Alexander and Carillon

Both Alexander and Carillon appear in previous books. Carillon had, at this point, appeared in Goblin Fruit and On The Bias. In the former, he explicitly notes that he is bi, though it is his romance with Lizzie, and so the focus is on her. (And he’s also, at that stage in his life, aware of the need to marry and do his best to have a heir or two.) 

Ancient Trust

Just before I wrote Best Foot Forward, I sat down to write a prequel novella, Ancient Trust, which is about Carillon inheriting his title and trying to figure out what happened. (You can get it by signing up for my newsletter, joining me on Patreon at any level, or joining the Albion’s Delight Discord. More info at the Ancient Trust link about the novella and how to get it in those places.)

Ancient Trust is not a romance – it alternates between Carillon and Benton’s points of view, before either of their romances with other people – but it does get deep into Carillon’s head. It also opens with him waking up, knowing that his male partner for the night had slipped out before he woke up. Carillon is – as noted late in the book – absolutely a hedonist, though he prefers honest country pleasures to purely decadent luxuries most of the time. 

About Alexander

Alexander is a secondary character in Eclipse, a member of the Council who’s been away from Albion for years, who has returned to recover from a nasty curse and teach at Schola. His relationship with Isembard – his former mentee, comrade in arms, and fellow mourner of Perry Judson – is tremendously complex, though they do work out how to be adult colleagues and friends in the course of that book. I knew that Alexander was aromantic and asexual, that he’d never remotely been associated with anyone even in gossip. 

And of course, Carillon has absolutely no reason to trust anyone on the Council. Only Alexander has the skill he desperately needs, and Carillon will do a great deal to get his friend and former lover out of an increasingly horrible situation. It’s one that’s dangerous not only to his friend, but to everyone who might be on the wrong end of what he invents. 

The writing process

Getting to write both Alexander and Carillon was an absolute challenge and an absolute joy. I wrote the main book in a flurry – 36 days of writing, not entirely consecutive (I took a couple of days in the middle to finish a few chapters for a different book in editing.) Then there was the epilogue novella, a series of scenes that sketch out how they go on together. 

It’s the first book – and so far the only – where I had multiple three chapter nights. Normally, I consider a chapter a great day, and I sometimes do a double. Here, though, those three chapter sequences made a lot of sense. Two of them are the climactic points for each character – a chapter to set up the crisis, the crisis, and the aftermath. Writing them all in a tumbling flow worked very well here. Even if I did end up ignoring a lot else in my life besides the basic necessities (and my day job) to make that happen. 

Music

I’ve also said this one before, and there’s a longer post about the music mentioned in this book, so I’m not going to repeat the details. But this is the book that gave me classical music – specifically Common Practice Period music in Europe – back. I’d had a horrible experience with a class at the very end of my college years that made much of it very difficult to listen to.

These two men, with their overlapping loves for the arts and their different preferences and chosen references, pulled me back to that. Part of that was the history – once I realised I could figure out what concerts they actually went to, the researcher in me had to figure that out. That was even more true given that very famous concert in Berlin. 

For all those reasons, this book is particularly near and dear my heart. 

Vienna

And finally, one note. I mentioned that family history, right? My mother was born in 1936 in Vienna and by the spring of 1938 she (and my grandparents and others in the family) were refugees in Northern Ireland. A bit more than a decade ago, I had a chance to go on a trip with her, including Vienna, and we were able to walk down the street where my grandparents had a flat, see the cafe where my grandmother would go (they’d recently refurbished back to the 1930s, all gleaming chrome and tile and amazing pastries and coffee). 

And I got to go and see the Prater, including the amazing Ferris wheel. 

As soon as I realised I wanted to have a scene where they tried things out before going to Berlin and the heart of the story, I knew it had to be in Vienna. The chance to stick Alexander and Carillon in a carriage of the wheel by themselves for a rotation or three was just too good to miss. But I also wrote knowing that they might have overlapped with my grandparents or great-grandparents at a concert, or a bookstore, or even an art dealer (though my family tended to books and music over art). 

Does this intrigue?

If it does, here’s where to get here’s where to get Best Foot Forward. Besides the other related books I’ve mentioned above, Alexander has a novella focused on him (and his trip to America in 1938) in Nocturnal Quarry (book two of the Land Mysteries series), and both Alexander and Geoffrey are point of view characters in Upon A Summer’s Day.

There’s also an extended series of extras for Best Foot Forward (about 35k words total), Interstitial Moments sharing some thoughts from various other perspectives.

The post Idea to Book: Best Foot Forward appeared first on Celia Lake.

Extras in 2024

Time for an update on extras – both how I think about them and where you can get them. 

Extras

Extras are one of the terms for, well, extra bits of writing. Different authors approach them in different ways. It can be bits cut out of the final work, or it can be a treat for readers. It can be things the author had to write to figure out how something in the main novel/novella/whatever went. Often it’s more than one of these at once. 

Some authors never share these. Some of us (hi, that’s me), share more. 

Most of my extras happen because I needed to figure out what was happening in the background during the plot of the published novel or novella. 

Sometimes it’s a side character, who isn’t a point of view in that book but whose later reactions are going to matter to the plot. Sometimes it’s wanting to see how characters feel about a specific piece of information. Sometimes it’s pinning down a larger thread in the world that’s going to matter in a later book in the writing stack. Sometimes it’s just stuff that didn’t fit into the narrative flow of the book. 

For me, they’re often things that don’t have a strong plot connecting them, instead a series of scenes that are illuminating but don’t always have a strong story nature in terms of moving a plot forward or developing a character in key ways. 

Sometimes I just want to spend more time with these characters. That’s good too. 

Some of my extras are short – a couple of thousand words. Some are novella length, with several around 30k. I have at least one novel-length extra in the early stages. (Though I won’t be releasing that as a complete version for a while yet. The last part relates to a book I’m expecting to write in 2025. More below!) 

Getting extras

You can now get most of my extras without signing up for anything. Just click the link for the ones you want and download them. (There are two exceptions, more about that in a second.) 

The complete list is available on my authorial wiki. That index page has a brief summary. You can click through to learn more about what’s involved and get the download link. These are via BookFunnel, and you can get an ePub file or a PDF, whichever you’d rather. (I also share how long the extra is. If you prefer to read short things as a PDF and longer things as an ePub, pick whichever work for you.) 

Special treats as a thank you

I do want to have something a little special to thank people who’ve connected with me as an author in various ways. Because of that, there are two extras that are just for people who’ve signed up for my newsletter, who’ve joined us on the Discord, or who are a patron (at any level) on Patreon. 

One of the thank you extras is whatever the most recently released extra is.

As I write this in January 2024, that’s As The Ground Shifts, an extra focusing on Claudio and Orion (but with appearances by a lot of other people) between the middle of Illusion of a Boar to Three Graces. But again, you can always find the complete list on the index of the extras.

As new extras come out, the new one will be a thank you to people who follow and connect with me, and the previous extra will be readily available for everyone, no need to sign up for anything. (Again, you can find them all at my authorial wiki.)

The other is Ancient Trust, the prequel novella where Carillon and Benton return to Albion after the death of Carillon’s older brother and sister-in-law. 

You’re welcome to sign up for my newsletter, get those links, and unsubscribe. (Just please don’t mark my messages as spam!) I hope you’ll stick around though. That’s also where I share tidbits about writing in progress, interesting historical links, and all the news. 

Extras I have in mind

So what’s coming in 2024? I have a number of extras in progress.

Perfect Accord

First, there will absolutely be one related to Perfect Accord when it comes out in February. Unusually, it will be available as soon as that book comes out (a link from the author’s notes and in the usual places to find extras). That one is two conversations, about 5k in total, that take place at the end of the book, off-screen.

Extras in progress for patrons

Over on Patreon, my patrons (again, any level) are getting an early peek at two different sets of extras every month in 2024. These are all precursors to other books. They don’t include spoilers for books that aren’t out yet in any specific way.

They’re also unedited other than a quick pass to catch obvious typos and other glitches. All of them will have some edits in the final version for consistency, things I noticed while writing other things, etc.  Eventually, when they’re complete, I’ll share the whole thing in a single tidy file. 

The sections for these seem to be running somewhere around 2k to 3k words. Each section is self-contained in the sense of being a single scene, but again, not necessarily full of plot and story nature. 

These include:

Schola Tales: a series of scenes from four students in their first year at Schola: Leo Fortier (son of Thesan and Isembard Fortier), Ros Carillon (daughter of Geoffrey and Lizzie Carillon), Avigail Edgarton (daughter of Gabe and Rathna Edgarton), and Jasper Pride (son of Rufus and Ferry Pride.) I’ve been sharing scenes for this that I wrote as part of figuring out where these four started so I could write The Magic of Four, coming out in May 2024. 

Ritual Time: A series of scenes (one a year, basically) for Cyrus Smythe-Clive’s time as Head of the Council until his retirement from that position. As you might guess, this also contains a fair bit of Mabyn, Rhoe, and in due course Alexander, among others. 

And if we run out of those, I’ve got a series of precursors for Ursula Fortier’s romance called A Fox on the Hunt. I’m also working on a novel-length character study of Silvia Warren, called A Foolish Consistency. I may start sharing chapters from both before the end of 2024, but Silvia’s can’t be finished until I write Claudio’s romance in 2025. I can however easily share the parts earlier in her life. 

Extras for published books

I also have other extras in the works: 

Seeking A Wife: A sequence of failed attempts to find someone to marry, in Geoffrey Carillon’s life from 1922 until the events of Goblin Fruit in 1924. Together With A Common Goal: What Arthur and Melusina were up to during the events of Carry On.A sequence for Old As The Hills and Upon A Summer’s Day (I keep trying to finish one or two more bits that would help the internal arc, and haven’t quite managed it).  

All of these depend on when we can get the editing time together for them. For what I hope are obvious reasons, Kiya and I give priority to the publishing sequence. I’m hopeful we’ll get these out, ideally in the first half of 2024. 

Got something you’d love to see?

Do you have a character you hope I might spend some time with? A scene you’d really love to see? Drop me a note (reply to any newsletter or use the contact form) and let me know.

I make no promises, but I am sometimes highly motivated by a question about a specific thing. 

The post Extras in 2024 appeared first on Celia Lake.

Plans for 2024

Welcome to my plans for 2024. Of course, it’s always possible that reality will interfere at some point, but here’s what I’m hoping for in the coming year:

Publishing

I’m hoping to release six novels in 2024. The first three are fairly straightforward (and they already exist in various stages of draft and editing).

February 9th: Perfect Accord

(pre-order now!)

It’s the spring of 1923 and Charlotte’s brother Gabe is about to get married. Everything’s changing at home. When her friend Victor – the man she’s expecting to marry – gets entangled in a new group with a particular fondness for Arthuriana, Charlotte agrees to go with him for a fortnight at a remote estate in Somerset. Nothing there is what she expected. That goes about triple for Lewis, an alchemical perfumer working on the estate and desperate to help his brother. Third book in the Mysterious Arts series.

May 3rd: The Magic of Four

Did you want a school story set at Schola? This novel, the last in the Land Mysteries series, follows four students in their second year at Schola as the secret societies pick members. They’re Leo Fortier (younger son of Thesan and Isembard), Rosalba Carillon (youngest daughter of Lizzie and Geoffrey), Avigail Edgarton (youngest daughter of Gabe and Rathna), and Jasper Pride (third child of Ferry and Rufus Pride).

There’s a lot going on here – besides the societies, there are the usual school challenges of musical performances, sport, and interpersonal awfulness. There’s also a mystery to solve and more than a bit of Schola’s particular magic.

August 2nd: Facets of the Bench

Griffin Pelson has a problem – or rather several of them. The courtroom in Trellech that is his particular responsibility needs a fix, and no one’s sure what will work best. There are also ongoing questions about whether his health – changed by the Great War – means he’s fit for a step in his professional life he’d very much like to take. When he goes to Whitby in search of a specialist who can work with the needed jet, he meets Annice Matthewman, whose life is increasingly unsustainable. This one is also a love letter to Trellech and her magic. Fourth book in the Mysterious Arts series.

Then we get into the big new thing!

Mysterious Fields trilogy: 

A trilogy (one romance over three books) coming out in the autumn. I’m aiming for September 20th, November 8th, and December 13th, but those dates might shift if needed. I do want to bring them out fairly close together so that people who don’t like the cliffhangers inherent in a trilogy don’t have to wait very long for the conclusion.

These deal with what I’ve referred to as “The Fortier Mess”. Once, the Fortiers – Isembard and Garin’s family – were a much larger and vastly more powerful and influential clan. In 1889 and 1890, a number of things happened to change that. 

The trilogy involves high level politics in Albion – both among the Council and the Great Families. The romance is vastly complicated by an existing betrothal, several deaths, a difference in class and social status, and a need to make sure that a particularly awful magical problem can’t possibly continue. 

The trilogy also contains appearances by a number of other characters who appear in later chronological books, earlier in their lives. (Alexander is just finishing Schola when the first book takes place, and the second book includes Cyrus’s challenge for the Council.) 

(And just to reassure: I don’t like writing third act bleak moments centred in resolvable misunderstandings. The tension in ‘how do they get together’ in this trilogy comes from dealing with external circumstances.)

And an extra

I’ve got an idea for a holiday-related extra for sometime in December. (Kiya had a brilliant idea too late for me to make it happen in 2023.) I’ll likely aim for a December solstice release again, because I do like doing that.

Writing

So, that trilogy involves some ambitious writing plans to make those deadlines. I started writing Enchanted Net, book one of the trilogy in the middle of December, and so far things are going very well. If I can keep this up through to April, everything’s great. If not, I have backup plans, but they’d probably involve pushing at least some of the trilogy into 2025. 

Starting in May

The next book in the Mysterious Arts series, a book that will feature a weaver in some form in 1927. Whether that’s Ferry’s apprentice mistress (as a late in life romance) or another one of her apprentices, I’m still deciding. I’m looking forward to the research for this one, starting with a one-day weaving workshop to make a scarf in January. (Photos will be on the newsletter!) 

Starting in August

Ursula Fortier’s romance in 1947 as part of a trilogy of romances following the Second World War. I’m so much looking forward to this one – it’s about the land magic in several directions. It also brings the Mysterious Fields trilogy into the 1940s, with several people learning more about the relevant history and being able to understand more of what happened and the impact it had on them. This book contains a key character who went to Snap along with more about one of the secret societies we haven’t seen much yet.

I’m excited about a lot of writing in 2024, but this is probably the one I’m most anticipating. I’ve written some prequel extras for it already, and Ursula is a terrifying delight. She’s a bit of the best of both her parents, and also all herself.

Starting in November

Book six in the Mysterious Arts series, set in late 1927 and featuring Farran Michaels (previously seen in Seven Sisters and briefly in Goblin Fruit and Magician’s Hoard, in a romance with a singer at a London night club. And, I suspect, a look at the underground parts of London in some form. 

Plus some extras. Probably.

We know how I get, right? I have a couple in various stages of editing, but I’m also working on a long-form extra about Silvia Warren (Claudio’s mother) in preparation for a romance involving him that’s in the writing stack for 2025 (the third in that trilogy of 1940s into 1950 romances. The middle one is Edmund Carillon, seen briefly with his mother in Three Graces.) 

Other things

I’m so excited with how the Patreon and Discord have been going, and plan to keep that up in 2024. I’m hoping to do more regular blog posts in 2024 as well. 

The Patreon is getting two public posts a month (same as 2023) and two extras from ongoing series a month (up from one a month in 2023). The extras are from series that are running parallel to other published works, and don’t have spoilers for anything that isn’t out yet. Read more details about the Patreon plans over on Patreon.

And I continue to love the Discord and our joyful mixing of historical info, cats, food, and Kiya and I doing back and forth commentary. Learn more about the Discord and maybe come join us?

In terms of other social media, you’re most likely to find me on Bluesky at the moment, but who knows what 2024 is going to mean for that landscape. My contact page has reasonably up to date info on where I am and what content is there.

My newsletter remains the best place to hear from me regularly, with my own news plus interesting links I’ve come across in the week’s writing (and reading).

The post Plans for 2024 appeared first on Celia Lake.

A look back at 2023

It’s the time of year where a recap is called for. Check out the post for the books (and two extras) released in 2023, what I’ve written, and improvements to this website and my authorial wiki.

Books that came out in 2023

I get a little startled every time I look at this list – it was a productive year for writing, and for publishing! (And I also like to think things keep getting better as well as more.) The novellas are noted, the others are full-length novels. The links will take you to the pages here on my authorial site with more about the book, including the content notes.

This year’s published books include five books in the Land Mysteries series (set during World War 2), two books in the Mysterious Arts series, dealing with various arts, crafts, and skills in the 1910s and 1920s, and a novella set in the 1880s.

Bound for Perdition: the creation of the magical journals in 1917, Lynet and Reggie’s romance. Includes a peek at Temple and Delphina Carillon’s life before everything goes downhill for them.

Nocturnal Quarry: A character focused novella about Alexander’s travels in America in 1938.

Old As The Hills: Gabe and Rathna rise to the challenges of the Second World War, each in their own ways. November 1939 through August 1940.

Upon A Summer’s Day: The answer to a question Gabe is asked at the end of Old As The Hills, thus forming a duology within the series. Takes place from August through December of 1940 (including the first months of the Blitz.)

Shoemaker’s Wife: When Owen returns from the Great War, he and Clara have to figure out how to have a marriage. (Also full of Trellech’s theatres and more than a bit of panto season.) Set in the second half of 1920.

Four Walls and a Heart: This novella has Gil and Magni’s romance in 1882, with a trip to the seaside and a small mystery to solve.

Illusion of a Boar: Four specialists are brought together in the spring of 1944 for a secret mission leading up to the D-Day invasion. Two pairs of chosen siblings, magical innovation, a problem to be solved, and a romance.

Three Graces: Lizzie, Alysoun, and Thesan work together in 1945 in the wake of the end of the war in Europe in this novella. They want to solve an outstanding mystery: what happened to cause the deaths of Temple and Delphina Carillon in 1922.

And a bonus, two extras!

And an extra: Interstitial Moments follows Geoffrey and Alexander’s friends during and in the aftermath of Best Foot Forward. On December 22nd, I also shared As The Ground Shifts, an extra that covers both Illusion of a Boar and Three Graces (focusing on Orion and Claudio, with appearances by a number of other people.

You can find out more about how to get the extras here. (I’m about to redesign how I handle extras, so more to come about that in the near future.)

Things written in 2023

I wrote Four Walls and a Heart, Illusion of a Boar, and Three Graces in 2023. I also wrote three books coming out in 2024, Perfect Accord, The Magic of Four, and Facets of the Bench. More about those in next week’s post about what’s to come in 2024.

I also wrote several extras I’m hoping to get out in 2024, including

Arthur and Melusina’s point of view during Carry On A sequence of Geoffrey Carillon trying to find someone he’s willing to marry (between Ancient Trust and Goblin Fruit )Some precursors to Ursula Fortier’s romance, set in 1947. Patreon and Discord

I launched both my Patreon and our Discord in January of 2023. Both have been far more than I’d hoped for! It’s my readers who make both such a wonderful thing, so if you’re reading this, please do come join us.

Both will be continuing in 2024. Patrons over on Patreon will be getting two extras a month instead of 2023’s one. (I have multiple sets that are precursors to the books they’re related to now, so no plot spoilers involved).

The Discord is full of chat, fascinating links, people sharing their historical knowledge with great glee, and of course periodic photos of pets, crafts, and cooking.

Website and Wiki

I’ve made some major upgrades to both this website and to my authorial wiki this year. I’m extremely pleased with both of them.

Here on the website, I revamped the theme. I’m using a new plugin (Mooberry Book Manager) that lets me create connections between books through tags, lists, and grids. That means I can now share books in all sorts of different ways, and make it easier for you, the reader, to find more books in different ways. Let me know if there are other options you’d like. Check out the pages in the menu under “More information” for a good look at these options.

(If you’re introducing a friend to my books, first, thank you! And second, the Reading Order Suggestions page has ideas on where to start.)

Over on my authorial wiki, it got a brand new theme in the spring. This allowed me to do some nifty things with colour coding to reflect character backgrounds. (In most cases, on their page it reflects their education.) I also added some additional ways to connect between books, maps, and timelines, and additional maps for portals and demesne estates.

You can find a guide to all this information if you’d like more details.

Coming shortly

I’ve got a few more updates coming in the near future (by which I mean “before 2024 starts”). They include how I handle extras and adding some family trees to the wiki.

The post A look back at 2023 appeared first on Celia Lake.

Up for a 2024 reading challenge?

It’s late December, which means it’s also the time when various sites post their reading challenges. If you’re doing one in 2024, here’s a guide to which of my books might fit particular categories. (If you’re doing a challenge not listed here, and other people can join in, send me a link and I’ll add it!) You might also want to check out my post about summer reading challenges from the summer of 2023.

The two challenges I’m pulling from for this post are the Book Riot’s Read Harder 2024 challenge and the 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge. They have some overlapping categories, so I’m going to note which challenge applies, and the books I’ve written that might apply.

a cozy fantasy book

(Book Riot #1 and PopSugar 38)

It depends a bit on how you define cosy, but most of my books qualify. The Land Mysteries series has the least cosy plots, since it takes place during World War 2. You can find a full list, chronologically organised, over here.

a genre book by a disabled author

(Book Riot #12. They note this includes SFF, horror, mystery, romance, etc.)

Hi! That’s me. Pick any book I’ve written. If you’d like a book that also features a disabled character, check out the lists on that page sorted by broad category of disability (magical, physical, or mental).

a book based solely on the title

(Book Riot #16)

This one depends on you. My favourite titles are Wards of the Roses, and Best Foot Forward (yes, the abbreviation of that title was entirely intentional, though the full title also suits the book well.)

A (romance) with neurodivergent characters

(Book Riot #19 focusing on romance, or PopSugar 29, any main character)

I’ve got a lot of those! So many that I’ve got a convenient handy list of all the titles with neurodiverse characters. A few of these aren’t romances: Ancient Trust, Old As The Hills, Upon A Summer’s Day, and Three Graces. If you read some of my other characters as neurodiverse, I’m not going to argue with you. These are just the ones where it’s directly relevant to their romances or arcs.

Complementary Bound for Perdition Casting Nasturtiums Ancient Trust The Fossil Door Seven Sisters Eclipse On The Bias Chasing Legends Old As The Hills Upon A Summer's Day Illusion of a Boar Three GracesA Coming of Age story

(PopSugar 02)

It’s not out yet (not even on my website!) but The Magic of Four will be out in May 2024. It’s a coming of age school story set at Schola in 1946-1947, following four fourteen-year-old students and their adventures during their second year at school.

A book about a 24-year old

(PopSugar 03)

Gil is 24 in Four Walls and a Heart. Ferry is 24 in Outcrossing. (Free!) Martin and Galen are 24 in In The Cards. (I think all these ages are clear in the text, but I’m drawing from my timeline.)

A book about a writer/author

(PopSugar 04)

For that, check out Mistress of Birds. Thalia’s an author, trying to figure out her options.

A book by a self-published author

(PopSugar 10)

That’d be any book again.

a travel destination on your bucket list

(PopSugar 17)

I don’t know where you want to go! Most of my books are set in England or Wales, but not necessarily bucket list destinations. (I do have plans for one set almost entirely in London coming, though).

Forged in Combat mostly takes place in Calcutta, India in 1882. Outcrossing takes place in the New Forest, in England. The Fossil Door takes place around Glencoe, Scotland. Best Foot Forward has significant scenes in Vienna and spends a good bit of time in and around Berlin. Nocturnal Quarry takes place along the East Coast of the United States, mostly New York City.

A book that features dragons

(PopSugar 23)

Well, one dragon and some implied others. That’s Fool’s Gold.

A main character who’s 42 years old

(PopSugar 28)

Pross is 42 in Magician’s Hoard.

One-word title needing a dictionary

(PopSugar 30: “A one-word title you had to look up in a dictionary”)

I don’t know about your vocabulary, but my possibly relevant one word title book is Pastiche.

Enemies to lovers plot

(PopSugar 32)

That’d be Best Foot Forward, though I usually frame it as enemies to ‘it’s complicated’. Alexander has some opinions on this topic.

A book with at least three POVs.

(PopSugar 34)

Choose from In The Cards (3), Chasing Legends (4), Upon A Summer’s Day (6), Illusion of a Boar (4), Three Graces (3), and the upcoming The Magic of Four (4). I suspect you could guess two of those from the titles…

A book written during NaNoWriMo

(PopSugar 37, referring to National Novel Writing Month)

For me, that’s Outcrossing (2017), In The Cards (2018), Pastiche (2019), Sailor’s Jewel (2020), Mistress of Birds (2021), Shoemaker’s Wife (2022), and the forthcoming Facets of the Bench (2023, coming out in August 2024). In all cases, the first 50K were written in November, and I finished them up in December (and a couple of cases, into January.) Plus editing later, of course!

A LGBTQ+ romance novel

(PopSugar 45)

Again, I’ve got a handy list for this one. A couple of these, the relevant content is demisexuality or asexuality. The content note at the end of the description on the book page has the relevant details.

Four Walls and a Heart Complementary Casting Nasturtiums The Fossil Door Seven Sisters Goblin Fruit On The Bias Point By Point Best Foot ForwardA character sleeps for more than 24 hours

(PopSugar advanced prompt 01)

This is a little hard to tell, but I think Roland qualifies in Carry On. (He’s certainly not functionally conscious for a chunk of time in there.)

The 24th book of the author

(PopSugar 04)

This depends how you count: if you’re counting 24th published title, it’s Upon A Summer’s Day (which is not where I’d start with my book: at the very least read Old As The Hills first.)

If you’re counting 24th title and counting the three novellas in Winter’s Charms as different books (they were published together, but they’re distinct stories), then it’s Nocturnal Quarry. This also not a great place to start: it’s a character focused novella. You might want to read Best Foot Forward first.

Clearly 2025 has more promise for this question for me!

The post Up for a 2024 reading challenge? appeared first on Celia Lake.

Three Graces is here!

As the war in Europe comes to an end in April of 1945, there’s finally a bit of time and space for Lizzie Carillon to work on an old mystery – what exactly brought about the death of the brother and sister in law she never met. Three Graces is about friends using their skills, what happens as war ends, and what it means to find justice in a community.

In 1922, Delphina and Temple Carillon died within days of each other, leaving Temple’s younger brother Geoffrey as Lord. Over the years, he’s figured out the cause of death – direct action by Albion’s Council. In 1935, he got more information about what brought them to that point. But no one’s known what started the whole awful problem. 

Lizzie brings in her friends – Alysoun Edgarton and Thesan Wain – hoping that the three of them might make some progress and get some answers. 

I loved getting a chance to spend more time with all three, and there are a couple of other tidbits tucked in here about how various other people are coming to terms with the Second World War and its events.

We also have appearances by a number of other characters. Geoffrey Carillon, Alexander Landry, and Isembard Fortier spend much of the novella in Europe, untangling ritual magics in the wake of the war’s end. We get a glimpse of Lizzie and Geoffrey’s eldest, Edmund. There’s a turning point for Garin Fortier. And we get to see both Lapidoth Manse and Reggie Hollis again, if briefly. And, of course, there’s Margot Williams, swanning through the plot in high-fashion clothes and a swath of questionable choices.  

If you’d like to learn more about all these people and where they appear, my authorial wiki has all the links and details.

And if you just want to get your copy, here are all the places you can get Three Graces.

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Idea to Book: Ancient Trust

Ancient Trust is the novella you can get by signing up for my newsletter. (More below on why I did that). You can unsubscribe after, if my newsletter isn’t your thing, I won’t take it personally. Just please, don’t mark me as spam!

It also is a story I wanted to tell since I had the opening scene in my head.

Ancient Trust takes place in 1922, when Geoffrey Carillon inherits the land magic from his brother. Carillon and his valet Benton are in Kenya, as part of a longer expedition between points in Africa, seeking specific materia (plants, minerals, and other items with magical potential) to bring back to Albion. He does it responsibly, but this period is toward the tail end of a massive exploration of natural resources that was not, shall we say, often managed well or sensitively. 

The Carillons

I knew I wanted to write something that was toward the beginning of the larger arc of the Carillon family in this generation. There are in fact a number of of beads on this particular necklace, running from Bound for Perdition in 1917 through the upcoming Three Graces in 1945 (out in December 2023) that will finally bring out some answers to the question of what actually happened to Temple. 

The Carillons are a longstanding family – Ytene, their landed estate, goes back to nearly the Norman Conquest in 1066. There’s a lot of complex history there. And of course, there are recent tragedies, beginning with the death of Geoffrey and Temple’s parents on the Sussex, which was torpedoed in the Channel in 1916. This is an actual historical sinking, and the history about it has a number of unclear aspects, including – regrettably – the total number of deaths. 

In the course of the Great War, Temple is doing secret research with a number of other people. It becomes clear that some of that wasn’t good for him, on an extremely direct level – but Geoffrey has no idea what he was doing, nor is he in contact with anyone who seems likely to know. 

Carillon and Benton

A second reason I wanted to write Ancient Trust is because I love Carillon and Benton together. (Not romantically or sexually, Benton would never. But in all the ways they’re absolutely chosen family for each other, yes.) 

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Benton definitely falls somewhere on the autistic spectrum, but his life circumstances have given him clarity around what rules and expectations apply right now. He started out working as a hallboy and then a footman in a country house. When the Great War began, he served in the trenches, before being assigned as Carillon’s batman or soldier-servant when Carillon was assigned as an officer to their unit. When Carillon was pulled out for Intelligence work, he took Benton along – and discovered along the way that Benton was capable of learning quite a lot more magical technique and practical skills than he’d been taught so far. (You can see some of this in On The Bias, in 1925.) 

By the point we see them in Ancient Trust, they’ve settled into a life of expeditions punctuated by a few months back in Albion. They’re always moving on into some new setting, but Benton is clear about what Carillon wants out of him, and which parts Carillon will handle. And Benton, of course, brings an absolute pragmatism and attention to detail to all his work. 

I loved getting to write Ancient Trust seeing both of their takes on what was going on, and what information was and wasn’t available. Their mutual comfort with each other and trust in each other is an absolute delight to me. 

Connections to others

The last part of this is what I knew I wanted to do with this piece. For authors, this kind of reader magnet is meant to be an introduction to your characters, world, and writing that hopefully entices people to try out more of your work. Obviously, this is going to work better (and honestly, also be more fun) if you can tie in more than a couple of people. 

I’d been putting off writing this piece (despite having the opening scene in my head for quite a while, including Carillon’s comment: 

“I fear, Benton, that we must accustom ourselves to a new mode of address.” 

But as I kept nudging the outline, I realised that the timing of this allowed me to do some fascinating things with other characters. Ancient Trust overlaps with Outcrossing, my first book, which meant I could show Carillon’s meeting with Rufus (the hero of that book) from the other point of view. 

I also knew that Carillon had been friends with Giles for quite some time, since before the Great War, and that one of the things he is quietly furious about is the sort of warfare that involves gas attacks, like the one that blinded Giles. What I didn’t entirely know – until I wrote Ancient Trust – was how the Edgartons fit into that. 

When Captain Kate Lefton (newly married) and then Richard Edgarton showed up at the end of Outcrossing, I knew that these were people Carillon trusted, but also that that trust was relatively new and untested. I also knew he was very new to his title and had only recently returned to Ytene, so he’s not yet confident in his own connection to the estate and the land magic.

(Including, in this case, whether he could reliably pull off the soc-and-sac judicial magic, which requires the Lord of the land’s permission, and also someone who has the land magic connection and judicial magic knowledge to make it work. Richard Edgarton, as a Lord in his own right and also a magistrate, makes an excellent substitute. But of course, when I wrote Outcrossing, there was a lot I didn’t know about any of these characters yet.) 

I loved having a chance to explore how Carillon comes into the Edgarton’s circle, why he trusts them as quickly as he does (largely because he trusts Giles), and he is absolutely clear they’re competent in their own areas of skill and knowledge. 

Again, if you haven’t read Ancient Trust, it’s a novella (so a quick read) and you can get it for free by signing up for my newsletter. Enjoy! 

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