L.R. Braden's Blog, page 6

Personal Demons Excerpt: To go, or not to go?

Mira's avoided going home for over a decade, but she can't hide from her past (and her family) forever.

 

Mira lifted the lid of her laptop and pressed the power button. Theancient device hummed to life. A small icon pulsed at the bottom ofthe desktop, indicating she had a new email. She opened the browserand found a message from Father Bembe, a priest she’d known as achild. She’d helped him with a demon that had targeted hiscongregation. Her hand dropped to her thigh. One of those lines, thevery first one in fact, was for a blue-eyed girl who’d killedeleven churchgoers before Mira put her down. She shuddered. That onestill gave her nightmares. Not the demon, or the eleven victims, butthe eyes of that little girl staring up at her as she drained herlife. The girl had been almost the same age Mira was when the demonfirst possessed her—a vision of what she might have become had herdemon followed the usual pattern.

Shecleared the lump from her throat and opened the email.

Mira,

Ihope this message finds you. I got this address from your abuela , though she says you don’t respond. I fear theproblem you helped me with before may be back. There is no one elseto ask. Please come.

Bembe

Mirastared at the handful of words on her screen. Her mouth had gone dry.It wasn’t impossible for a demon to pop up where she’d alreadytaken one out, but natural rifters—those not created throughnecromantic interference—were relatively rare. What were the odds asecond one would turn up not just in her hometown, but in herchildhood church?

<Lookslike we found our lead. That’s got to be some kind of record.>

Miralicked her lips and forced a laugh. “I thought you wanted to go toCalifornia.”

<Florida’sokay. At least there’s a beach.>

Miratook a shaky breath and exhaled. Florida. She hadn’t beenback there in years. She hadn’t intended ever to go back. Not afterwhat had happened the last time.

“Doyou really think he’s found another?”

Thedemon gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. <We could ask formore details, see if he’s jumping at shadows.>

Miraclosed the laptop then tipped her head back so her skull restedagainst the metal wall. She closed her eyes. Swirls of anxietytwisted like a thunderstorm inside her, threatening to break looseand drown her in a torrent of memories she’d done her best toforget. “Why did it have to be Florida?”

<Wedon’t have to go.>

“FatherBembe isn’t a fool. He saw what happened to the child we weeded outlast time, and he knows about my past. He wouldn’t have contactedme without good reason.”

Thereis no one else to ask. The words floated against the darkness ofher eyelids.

<Soyou want to go?>

“Ofcourse I don’t want to go,” Mira shouted at the ceiling. “Whatare the odds I can investigate a rifter in my old neighborhoodwithout stumbling across anyone I know? And if abuelafinds out. . . .” She shook her head, trying to rein in her rampantemotions.

<Soyou don’t want to go.>

Mirapressed her fingertips to her temples. “I can’t just ignore him.Even if it isn’t a rifter, he’s clearly in some kind of trouble.”

<Okay,how about you just tell me when you make up your mind.>

Shovingher laptop aside, Mira stood up and paced the tiny space, barely twosteps in either direction. She worried at her lower lip and thoughtof all the reasons she’d avoided visiting Florida for nearly adecade. Could she slip in and talk to Father Bembe without anyoneelse finding out? Did she have a choice? If there really was a rifterloose in her old neighborhood. . . . It was a vision of herabuela—her grandmother—becoming some rifter’s victim, like thepoor souls decomposing at the train yard, that finally decided her.

Shestopped her pacing and blew out a deep breath. “This is going tosuck.”

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Preorder Personal Demons now to start reading as soon as it releases on September 29th!

Review: Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic #1)

Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a great time reading this first book in the Circle of Magic series with my daughter. First-off, since this is a middle grade level book, let me just say that my daughter (11 years old) LOVED the book and is excited to continue the rest of the series. She's really taken to both the world and the characters, so I'd say she gives this book 5 stars.

As a grown-up reading this book, I enjoyed the world and characters as well but thought the plot was a little lacking. Most of the book is just introducing each of the main characters and describing how they came to be at Winding Circle Temple (basically a magic school for slightly unusual mages). The writing was smooth and engaging, and the characters were all endearing with unique backstories and voices. They are all outcasts in their own ways, and they're all from very different backgrounds, which provides the reader with a lot of handy windows into the world. Other than the kids coming together and meeting their teachers, not much happens until almost the end of the book. So, if you're looking for a "slice of life" style of story, this is perfect. I tend to like a little more "story" in my stories, which is why I knocked the rating down to 4 stars.

I also found it interesting that this book is labeled as "Sandry's Book." Each of the four books in the series corresponds to one of the four kids who make up the protagonist cast, so I assumed each book would focus on the named child of that book. Not so much. While Sandry is the first character we are introduced to in this book, all of the children have equal page time in the story. And the book is written is such a way that it is constantly switching point of view between the four of them, so it's not like the title character determines the narrator. I'm really not sure why this is considered "Sandry's Book" more than any of the other characters'.

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Personal Demons is now available for preorder!

Personal Demons: Includes bonus short story - Magicsmith Universe by L.R. Braden


I'm so excited to announce that Personal Demons, the sequel to my multi-award-winning series-starter Demon Riding Shotgun, is going to be published on September 29th and is now available for preorder!

While this is book two in the Rifter series, and I highly recommend reading book one, it is not strictly necessary to read the books in order.The Rifter books also take place in the same world as the books in my Magicsmith series, so if you love the world, you can get more of it there. Again, you don't need to read one series to enjoy the other.

I'm also offering a bonus, never-before-published, short story from the Magicsmith Universe at the end of Personal Demons.

I hope you'll take this trip with me. Thanks, and happy reading!

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Behind the Scenes: How I develop my settings (Part 1 - real places)

I just spent two days learning everything I could about the abandoned subway structures under Philadelphia (which I didn't even realized existed until about three days ago). Before that, I used Google Maps to virtually walk the Northwest Territories of Canada in search of the perfect, secluded spot for a secret conclave.Setting my stories in real world places helps ground the otherwise fantastic tales and (hopefully) makes them more believable, thereby allowing readers to fully embrace the less mundane bits without any hiccups. It adds a sense of "this could be true" to the tale. But crafting fantasy settings out of real places comes with its own set of pitfalls. I have to be careful when using real names, real businesses, real streets even. What if a restaurant I mention closes? The book is now dated. What if I describe a specific plaza wrong and someone who lives there notices? They'll get caught up in the inconsistencies and taken out of the story. I have to be careful, but I think it’s worth the risk.I’m curious how other writers come up with the setting for their stories. I usually have the basics of my entire story, the outline, if you will, figured out before I know where a story is going to happen. Then I spend some time brainstorming on what features would best bring out the conflict, what I need logistically to make the story work, and what sort of environment fits the mood/theme of the story. Take my current short story for example.I needed several connected but out-of-the way places that could be creepy/scary where people could fight without anyone noticing. An abandoned building would work, but where could I find three such buildings close together without straining believability? The subway! There are lots of stretches of tunnels, and not all of them are in use at any given time. They’re also a way to travel unseen through the city. Bonus! I can now connect several locations via these creepy passages, and at least one fight can happen in the tunnels themselves.Next step, find out which cities have subways. I didn’t want to do New York. The New York subways get enough attention. I settled on Philadelphia. Then I started drilling down into maps and neighborhood descriptions, and lo and behold, what should I find but a rich history of planned and abandoned subway construction. A partially complete underground pedestrian concourse. Several sections of sealed-off tunnels beneath China Town. A derelict station that’s become a graffiti mecca. I’d struck gold! Not one but ALL of my scenes could find a home in this sprawling underground labyrinth, and I didn’t even have to stretch the truth. History is rich with such gems if we’re lucky (and diligent) enough to find them, and those nuggets of truth can bring a story to life.All this is not to say I don’t LOVE completely imagined settings. Maybe I’ll write a post about creating the totally fantastical fae realms from my Magicsmith series. ;) The point is, while research is by far the most time-consuming part of my writing process, and I sometimes feel not very productive on research days because my word count doesn’t go up, having a solid setting can add a wonderful, engaging dimension to your story—more than just making sure your characters aren’t floating in empty space.

Review: Lorelle of the Dark

Lorelle of the Dark by Todd Fahnestock
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This was a fun, action-packed sequel to Khyven the Unkillable. While I didn't devour this story quite as quickly as the first, it had plenty of twists and turns to keep me fully engaged. As the name suggests, Lorelle is at the heart of this tale, and Fahnestock has given her one heck of an internal conflict. SPOILER ALERT FOR BOOK 1: At the end of the first book, Lorelle literally rips her soul in half to save Khyven's life. Now, the burning shreds of her tattered soul are driving her insane. While I totally believed this distressing state would cause her to act irrationally, I did sometimes get annoyed at her choices and the degree to which she excluded her friends. But then, heroes are supposed to be flawed. Otherwise they couldn't grow. :)

Fahnestock's richly-woven world continues to expand as Lorelle and the found family looking to bring her home uncover hidden histories and interact with more creatures from the noktum. There isn't a whole lot of forward progress made to the overall series plotline, though we do get peeks at potentially important events. Lorelle's adventure feels a little more localized . . . like a personal, one-off adventure between more central quests.

I enjoyed the secondary story arc of the Glimmerblade Zaith, with whom Lorelle spends most of the book. I truly felt for his predicament. I don't want to give anything away here, but I have some definite opinions about how his arc turned out. The other characters in the book, carryovers from book 1, are pleasant to spend more time with. Khyven is much the same as he was at the end of book 1, but Slayter and Vahn both grow as characters in this second installment. I'm looking forward to reading book 3: Rhenn The Traveler.

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A Rant on the Concept of Modern Tipping

At the beginning of Covid, I stopped eating out. We all did. The restaurants couldn't stay open at the height of the pandemic. As the dangers eased off and services started opening up again, I adopted the take-out approach to restaurants. I was thrilled that so many places were able to survive the difficulty of social distancing by offering their products for take-out, and I continue to use that service quite a bit to this day. However, take-out food did highlight a curiosity in the way modern tipping works. At least it did for me.If you look up the definition of GRATUITY in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is defined as "something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service." I'm 100% behind this definition. When I eat in a restaurant, physically sitting in the building, the wait staff answers my questions about the menu, brings me my food, refills my drink, checks in to make sure everything is satisfactory. At least they should. Assuming they do a good job, I'm happy to leave them a tip for their service. If they do an outstanding job, I will leave a larger tip. If they do a poor job, i.e. the food arrived cold or was not what we ordered, or heaven forfend they were rude, I will leave a small tip, or perhaps none at all. The tip is a GRATUITY. It is "voluntary or beyond obligation." To me, this translates to: You go above and beyond, and so will I. My tip will match the level of service.Okay. Assuming we can agree on the fundamental definition of what a tip is, here's where this social tradition starts to break down. When I place a take-out order at a restaurant, there is no wait staff asking if it's acceptable or refilling my drink. The cooks make the meal (which is covered in the base price because providing the items I order is the bare minimum required for them to fill the order) and put it in a box or bag instead of on a plate. I then drive to the restaurant and pick up said bag and take it home to eat it. There's no service above and beyond that bare minimum of cooking my food, which I've already paid for. And yet, on every single online order site, there's a place for the tip, which is usually auto filled to around 20% of your total order price. Why? No one is bringing my food to me, I'm picking it up myself. No one is going to refill my drink or make sure everything tastes good after I get it home and start eating.And here's the real kicker. The part that makes me vaguely queasy when I think about it. You have to enter the tip amount BEFORE you place your order. That means everyone who looks at your ticket can see exactly how much you've decided to pay above the standard amount. And that could impact the product. If an order comes in with a ridiculously generous tip, and another comes in where the person left no tip at all, who's to say the people making those meals won't take the tip into consideration? The generous tip will probably receive exactly what they ordered, which again, should be the bare minimum to be expected of any order, tip or no. But what about the non-tipper? Maybe the person who carries the box to the shelf gets angry they weren't given a tip for walking across the length of the restaurant from the kitchen to the pick-up counter and decides to spit in the meal to get even. (Please note, I'm not actually accusing anyone of doing this. I'm using a hypothetical example to prove a point.) Maybe they just put it at the bottom of the priority list so the person has to wait longer.Now, instead of tips being a form of reward to praise service providers for a job well done, it has become a kind of threat against consumers. Leave a good tip for fear that you may not receive the minimum acceptable service if you don't. Even with a tip, I have received orders that I would have sent back to the kitchen if I'd been in the physical building. And what recourse do I have at that point? I've already paid. Sure, I can leave a bad review, which may minimally hurt the restaurant as a whole, but where is the individual accountability in that? I find this flip-flop of the definition of gratuity totally unacceptable. It is no longer about appreciation for excellence. It's an expectation for mediocrity."But servers' wages are paid through their tips," you say? My response is, "Why?" Why not pay wait staff and other service professionals on the same scale that other workers are paid? They should be paid a standard amount for a standard level of service, just like cashiers at a grocery store or clerks in a library. Why should the customer feel obligated to accound for what should really be the employer's responsibility. I say let gratuity return to what it is supposed to be. I will pay the base price for products and services. If said products or services are exemplary, then I can choose to leave a tip in appreciation. The key word there is choose. I'm totally behind workers being paid for their work, but tips should be earned, not assumed.

Review: White Trash Warlock

White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This was a deep-dive, character-driven story set in a well-realized world of magic laid masterfully over contemporary reality in true urban fantasy style.

The main character, Adam, is a young man from Oklahoma who travels to Denver, Colorado at the behest of his estranged brother, Bobby. Slayton does a wonderful job creating a tension-filled relationship between the brothers, full of memories of love overlaid with guilt and betrayal.Adam and Bobby/Robert were both well developed, nuanced, and easy to connect with. I particularly liked the way the brothers each made realizations and assumptions about the other as they viewed shared experiences through very different filters. Secondary characters were equally well-written, each with unique personalities and functional roles.

The world building was convincing and compelling. While anchored in real places (easily recognizable if you know the area), the way Slater portrayed the twisted, fun house mirror aspect of the spirit world was masterfully done. There were hints of a deep, rich history that I hope gets thoroughly explored in later books. The magic system was familiar, yet carried its own flavor, making it at once comfortable and intriguing for longtime readers of the genre. I loved that Adam was not a badass, he survives by trying to avoid conflict and stay off the radar of bigger, badder magical beings that could swat him like a bug.

The one hiccup I had was that the book could have used a little more editing. All books have some typos and such, but this had more than I could easily ignore. Still, the story and characters carried me through to a satisfying ending. I'll definitely be continuing this series.

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Review: Khyven the Unkillable

Khyven the Unkillable by Todd Fahnestock
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful, well-written adventure! The world building was rich and deep, hinting at secrets and promising more revelations to come. I loved the mysterious history of the world and the strange overlap of the seemingly dead giants' realm full of nightmarish yet intriguing creatures. The characters were well-crafted, with deep motivations, believable struggles, and engaging arcs that made me want to root for them even when they stumbled and made me sad to leave them at the end. In fact, I immediately bought the next book so I can jump back in! Excellent start to a promising series.

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Review: Siege and Storm

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

(I'm going to write this review assuming that you've already read the first book in this series since these are definitely designing to be read in order. As such, there may be some spoilers if you're skipping ahead.)

Unlike the first book in this series, the second is much different than its Netflix adaptation (even setting aside the lack of Crows). The beginning of this second installment was engaging and dived quickly into the plot with Alina being almost immediately recaptured by the Darkling. The hunt for the sea whip and Alina's suffering were well executed, bringing readers up to date with the current stakes and propelling them into the story proper.

After that first burst of adventure, there's a bit of a lull. Decisions are made--not always good, but believable--and Alina returns to Ravka.

Alina is very reactive during the first portion of the book, which is typical. First she's led around by the Darkling, then by Sturmhond, then Nikolai. The only character less in command of their own direction is Mal, who continues to follow Alina around like a guard dog. Mal's position in the book changes as the story progresses and, more importantly, as Alina's status and attitude shifts.

Another driving character is Nikolai, second heir to the Ravkan throne. Again, it's hard for me to know how much of my attachment to a character is from the book vs. my experience with the show, but I believe Bardugo did an excellent job of portraying this lovably eccentric, patriotic rebel. Other side characters like the crown prince, the Aparat, and the golden-eyed twins flesh out the story and provide some diversity to Alina's narrative and the world as a whole.

The world continues to be rich with vivid descriptions. I especially appreciated the attention to the refugees. Bardugo's writing style is smooth and easy to read, propelling readers through the story with little-to-no friction, though there were a few slow points in the plot where Alina mostly sat around feeling out of place.

I would say this book definitely feels like a "middle." It's the deep inhale before the final push. I'm excited to see where the climax takes us.

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Review: The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent sequel! I'd even go so far as to say this story would be excellent all on its own, but I do feel a reader would benefit from the character building of the first book. Still, this story is self-contained, satisfying, and such a fun adventure.

The princes charming and all their associated princesses are back, along with the pint-sized Bandit King, the melancholy Ruffian, Liam's spirited little sister, and a host of new characters to round out the cast. Rather than saving a kingdom, this time they're invading one! Or infiltrating, at least. With their honor as heroes on the line, they'll have to lie, sneak, and otherwise outmaneuver the story's villains to keep the world safe. Too bad they're not actually good at any of those things.

A fast-paced plot, lovable characters, and plenty of humor make this a middle-grade must-read.

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