C.M. Rosens's Blog, page 37

Medieval Murder: Nonfiction Spotlight

As I’m taking a Romancing the Gothic lecture on Saturday 17th July 2021 on GOTHIC HISTORIES AND HISTORICAL GOTHIC: MEDIEVAL TO MODERN WALES, I thought I’d take a dive into nonfiction with you all for a while!

Sign up for the July Romancing the Gothic classes, including mine, here.

As the weeks go on, I’m going to share some of the historical and folkloric research that goes into my fiction, re-share and expand a little more on the Welsh history and folklore posts I’ve done, and maybe give you all a look at the medieval period which is my academic background. I’m thinking about giving you a historical tour of Pagham-on-Sea and blending fact and fiction, so we’ll see how that goes.

Murder During the Hundred Years’ War

First off, I want to highlight my popular history book Murder During the Hundred Years’ War: The Curious Case of William Cantilupe (Pen & Sword Books, 2020). It’s available as a hardback and an eBook. Buy the hardback direct from the publisher, and get the eBook for £1.99! Also available in both formats from Amazon.

Packed with intrigue, secrecy, deception, betrayal and murder, this well-researched book examines the complex murder of Sir William Cantilupe in 1375 and the history and events of the time.

The book includes the potential suspects, socioeconomic conditions, corruption, marriage, occupations, father to son succession and relationships of above and below stairs stairs which are all relevant and provide context.

NetGalley Review

A seminal and original study of detailed and painstaking scholarship throughout, “Murder During the Hundred Year War: The Curious Case of Sir William Cantilupe” by academician and historian Melissa Julian-Jones is a unique and extraordinarily informative and exceptionally well written contribution to community, college, and university library British Medieval History & Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Midwest Book Review

If you like medieval period and are a fan of true crime, like myself, this book is a perfect blend of both. This is a fascinating look at how a medieval murder mystery was investigated.

GoodReads reviewer

Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

I offer a 2-part course on this medieval murder case, where participants get to hear the details and come up with their own creative interpretations of the source material, putting together their own version of events that fit the facts we have.

Cost: £5 per person. Classes held via Zoom. Watch this space for the next course.

Podcast Season 1 Finale ~ Chapter 21 + Epilogue Out Now!

Chapter 21 + Epilogue of The Crows is online today!

CW for head injury, unreality/time skips, arson, immolation, death, grief and facing mortality.

CHAPTER 21: I HAVE YOU NOW MY PRETTY + EPILOGUE: IS THIS THE END?

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 21: I Have You Now My Pretty

…in which Carrie’s wyrd ends…

He’d won. He’d got what he wanted. The future had steamed forth from the guts of the Blue Moon girl, telling him he would, telling him he would Change, he would get the Stone, he would get the house, and the rest was collateral damage.  

…  

Ricky squirmed, battling something nameless and unfamiliar. It didn’t feel like a victory.  

It felt like a trick. 

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, p. 432

In this episode, the theme tune separates the end of Chapter 21 from the Epilogue, so keep listening! Big Bad Gothic finale – lots of emotions and flames.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this – the mp3 version of the book, which I’ll try and make as clear and professional sounding as I can (so there are sections to re-record) will be available to buy soon from my Ko-Fi Shop.

Next season (S2) is going to be the serialisation of Thirteenth.

Author Interview ~ April-Jane Rowan on Folklore, Body Horror and Tainted Love

Meet the Author and the Gurt Dog Press TeamApril-Jane Rowan

April-Jane Rowan was born with a morbid fascination that she turned into writing so she could explain away her strangeness. Luckily for her, she found she rather liked it, so for many years, she has been creating bizarre, dark tales. When not writing, she can be found lurking in graveyards, libraries and museums. She lives in Sweden with her two partners, Linn Sjölin and Nem Rowan, their triplets, and their pack of beasties.

They are the team behind Gurt Dog Press, currently in its third year of publishing LGBTQ+ SFF and Horror fiction, and B Proud PR, the sister company founded by Linn Sjölin, which is a promotion service for LGBTQ+ stories and authors.

Gurt Dog Press was started by Nem Rowan, an author of LGBTQ+ Fiction. His own work has been published by Less Than Three Press and JMS Books, but has now found a forever home at Gurt Dog. He is a transgender man from the UK, and he is especially keen to bring audiences to fellow trans writers in the Horror genre.

Nem founded Gurt Dog Press with the intention of publishing stories for queer readers of Horror and other forms of speculative fiction that don’t focus on the Romance genre as the sole vehicle for promoting LGBTQ+ identities.

April works as Gurt Dog’s Editing Assistant and Social Media Co-Ordinator. She handles the assessment of submissions, creates graphics for Gurt Dog’s social media presence and is the primary point of contact for Gurt Dog authors.

Linn Sjölin is Gurt Dog’s PR manager. Linn liaisons with Gurt Dog authors to provide guidance on promotional campaigns and PR for their releases. Linn is passionate about everything to do with books, especially LGBTQ+ ones, and works tirelessly to ensure every tour she arranges is successful. Outside of the internet, she also works for the charity, RFSL, campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights in Sweden.

New to the Gurt Dog team are Jordan Ray, publishing intern, and L. B. Shimaira, proofreader.

Meet the team at About Us – Gurt Dog Press.

Find out more about April-Jane Rowan: linktr.ee/theliterarychamber

Interview Transcript: Introduction

CMR: Hello, welcome to the next episode of Eldritch Girl, which is our last author interview for this season, and this is with April-Jane Rowan! Hello, lovely to meet you.

AJR: It’s great to be here.

CMR: Would you like to introduce yourself.

AJR: Yeah so I’m April-Jane, I’m originally from the UK, but I now live in Sweden with my two partners and our triplets, and I write horror fantasy with an emphasis on body horror and weird stuff.

CMR: Yay! Body horror and weird stuff!

AJR: All the best stuff!

CMR: And you’re going to read an extract of LOVELORN which is your next novel that’s coming out with Gurt Dog Press.

AJR: The part I picked is when one of the main characters, Harry, discovers a lake, which is very suspicious and he discovers a letter that tells him how he can see the fair folk there at the lake.

LOVELORN: Blurb

In Victorian England, within the sprawling countryside, a small village borders Lovelorn, a crystal kingdom inhabited by the Fair Folk that masquerades as a dense wood. Two unsuspecting mortals stray into the depths of this hidden world.

Harry, a disgraced jockey, stumbles upon a Kelpie and seeks to bind him, intending to use him to regain his former glory at horse racing. He is dancing a dangerous waltz however as Kelpies are a sly and deadly folk, his actions bringing him steadily closer to a grave at the bottom of a lake.

Mabel, a grieving wife abandoned by her husband, searches for her young son, Peter, who was stolen by the Fair Folk, simply wanting to bring her family together again. She makes a bargain with a knight from Lovelorn, entrusting her quest to him, all the while fearful that his word cannot be trusted.

Unbeknownst to them, their paths run parallel. They struggle to navigate the unbalanced and crumbling kingdom, while being opposed by creatures they thought resided only in fables. Can they play by the strange rules of the Fair Folk and win their freedom, or are they fated to lose themselves within the trees?

Extract of LOVELORN

April-Jane Rowan has allowed a longer extract from the novel to be posted here than what is read in the podcast! This is from a pre-published version which is still undergoing edits, as Rowan mentions later in the interview.

The day slipped by, melting like warmed butter, spreading and colouring the sky in yellow and orange before turning into dusk, before I had even realised it was happening. I had been so lost in my mind that I had forgotten that come night fall, I would be in a dire situation yet again and I was not sure I could return to my hiding place beneath the bush once more.

I held the stone in my hand, warming my palm with its smooth edges. Did it really show a different view of the world when it was looked through? The letter had suggested as much. I watched the horses grazing, softly whining to each other and peering over at me when I shuffled or moved slightly. The foal pranced happily, the more daring of the two as he often came close enough for me to touch him if I had desired, only retreating when I waved my stick at him in annoyance, and though I was ashamed to admit, I was afraid. Despite myself, I was too scared to look. With no one to judge me, no one to wound my pride and insult my damaged ego, I could just remain sitting here and not say a word.

Hadn’t I already seen too much?

I couldn’t stop the whispers in my mind, urging me to tame them despite my fear. What started as a means to get home, now was a way to win back the applause, the adoration I had lost in my accident. With such an animal, I could out-race even the fastest mare. No one could stop me and I would be sitting atop of pile of failures, boots digging into their soft, brittle souls as I reigned king. Oh, how I longed to be back upon my throne, more than anything I wanted to rise again, a brilliant bastard that everyone adored. No longer pulling my mistakes around like my useless leg. If I could have such a horse, a grand stallion of the Fair Folk, perhaps I could even cure my leg? Take away the scars and the deep aches it gave me, straighten the bones and make them strong again. The longer I sat, watching them watch me, my fear was swallowed by the hungry, grinning, ambitious monster residing inside me.

Before I could over-think it, I raised the stone to my eyes and looked through at them, telling myself I would see nothing, that despite what I had already seen, it was foolish.

The choked shout that rang through the clearing alerted them, their heads turning towards me. Only they were no longer the long snouts of horses but the faces of men. They had turned from horses to monsters, the foal now a naked little boy and the stallion a large, broad-chested, nude man. They tilted their heads at the same moment, a cruel grin spreading across the man’s face.

Both of them looked human but for their legs slowly turning to that of a horse, tilted back at the knee, covered in fine grey fur and ending in hooves. Their light grey skin was marked with speckles as they had been in equine form. Long black tails hung from their backsides and in the mess of tangled hair, pointed ears stood atop their heads, grey and oval shaped. The little boy’s hair was still plaited around his neck, tickling his belly. The man was also covered in coarse black body hair and his grey eyes seemed on fire, shining in his angular lined face, stubble decorating his jaw. I noticed that they looked wet, puddles collecting round their hooves. Kelpies, lovers of the drowned.

I was unable to move, frozen in terror as they moved forward. The retreating sunset made them into advancing shadows, hooves making hollow sounds through the clearing as I gazed, fixated through the stone.

“Look what you’ve found, little broken mortal” the stallion chuckled, his voice deep and cracked, vibrating through my bones.

The foal neighed, clinging to his side as I struggled to my feet. I realised it must have been him pulling the corpse down into the lake, trying to prevent me from getting the satchel. It must have been them the first night I had been here, dancing and swimming. I shoved the stone back into my pocket, knowing that I couldn’t run whilst holding it to my face, but they didn’t change back. I supposed there was little point now that I knew their true forms.

I hobbled away, my stick sinking into the grass, my progress slow. They seemed in no hurry to catch me, staying back but following my progress.

“Come, broken mortal, let my arms heal you and together we can lounge at the bottom of my lake together” he purred, mouth stretched in a leering grin. “There’s no kiss sweeter than when your mouth is full of water, there’s no love deeper than your soft, yielding flesh. You’d gladly spend your last moments with me and I will treasure you forever. Love is torturous after all. Come mortal, lay with me in my watery bed.”

I shook my head mutely, walking backwards and trying not to lose my balance, my walking stick jabbing into the soft mud. The moment stretched on, like a spider web connecting me to them; I took steps back and they would advance, slowly, slowly. I sensed that if I fled, they would chase just as they now only mirrored me, one terrified stumble could mean my end.

“Don’t come any closer, I know what you are, Kelpies, water folk, and I’ll make sure you’re tracked down and shot. Do you think when people know you’re here they’ll let you be? Let you exist here like a filthy mark on an carpet? These lands are full of proud farmers, they won’t allow you to live” I spat, my false bravery pushing up through my ribcage, puffing me up and making my grip on my stick tighten, my knuckles white.

“Come closer, I know what you are” he purred, face stretched with a mocking smile full of blunt yellow teeth. “A wanting mortal, no longer desired, longing for something you can barely grip in those thin, weak fingers of yours. Do you think once when the folk know you’re here, they’ll let you be? Do you think I will?”

“I am not wanting!” I exclaimed, sneering at him, my cloak of pride rippling around me, warm, comforting, forever a safety net. His taunts burned me even as my leg ached, my jerky movements and the pain only reminding me how true his words were.

“Oh, why ride so far from home, so late at night and so deep, so deep into the woods?” he cocked his head, long black hair falling over one shoulder. “Everyone that enters this wood is searching for something, wanting of something. Ourselves included.”

“Stay back! Just stay back!” I shouted, brandishing my stick at them, trying to keep myself steady as I walked backwards. I didn’t dare look behind me, knowing that if I took my eyes from his deep gaze that he would advance, so fast that I could scarcely blink.

“I’ll love and adore you if you let me; just step into my lake and don’t hold your breath” he whispered, his eyes widening.

My boot sank suddenly and I realised, too late, that I had been pushed towards the water. The frigid liquid sank through the leather of my boots, my arms flailing as I toppled backwards. Seconds before the fall, I saw his face, delight spread across the rough features. The water knocked the wind from me, and I barely managed to take a breath as I sank, my jacket like a fish, trying to float away from me. I was in his domain now, a weak swimmer with only a lungful of breath and a heart beating so fast that it might just stop, just give up. I felt the water undulate as he dived in, the ripples coursing around my sinking body. I thought of the bridle resting at the bottom, caked in algae and mud, my only chance. The only chance I had of living longer than the strength of the air in my lungs.

No fear, no fear.

I began to swim downwards, my lips sealed shut. I could sense him chasing me, his presence closing in. It was so dark down here, bleak and thick, my arms aching from the motion and my lungs burning. I could feel my death slicing through the water, gaining, gaining on me as I sank deeper, deeper into the abyss. Reeds were everywhere, wrapping around me like ribbon wrapped around a gift, concealing shapes in the gloom. No light found its way down here, my bulging eyes straining to make out anything. As my hands cut through a patch of reeds, my fingers curled round something. Startled and fearing it to be the stallion, I pulled back, very nearly losing the air in my lungs as the thing followed me. The corpse of an older woman floated before me, her dress made of layer upon layer of decaying rags that seemed to dance around her frame. Her face slumped onto her chest and hair tightly coiled on her head. Her skin was green, her body bloated and eyes sunken. I frantically turned, gazing around me and began to see each and every one, a graveyard under the water. Countless bodies, resting in the reeds, bones resting upon the bottom of the lake. How many? Hundreds? Men, woman, children and bodies that over time had lost everything that made them discernible. Skulls crushed, bodies destroyed by the roughness of his touch, his love. I continued to the bottom, forcing my tiring body on, my head light and my vision blurred. No fear, no fear. My fingers desperately searched the bottom of the lake, pushing aside bones, stones and oddments, Jewellery fallen from rotten earlobes and wrists. Suddenly, my fingers closed around it, the bridle, and I pulled it from the earth as his hands closed around my waist, pulling me to him. My mouth opened, water rushing in like an invited guest as his strong fingers pulled at my clothes. I struggled, the wooden bridle tight in my grasp.

I couldn’t be afraid; I had to break free. I could see hands reaching for us, so many hands. So many forms floating in the water, watching him cradle me to him, undress me and caress me as my vision blurred, my lungs burning, my heart on fire. I felt his mouth over mine, pushing more water into my throat, his hands down my breeches as their ghastly hands stroked my knotted hair from my forehead. So many white faces peering at me, so close. The ghosts of his victims, bodies pulled apart, smiles full of hate. Soon I would suffer their fate, soon I would be one of them and I would watch the next victim and the next thereafter. Hopeful for it to fill my heart, but it would never dull the pain. The horror of being one of his lovers.

There are no tears under water but I knew soon, soon I would be one of them. My body trapped beneath the water, my spirit wandering aimlessly.

No fear, no fear.

Somehow, I managed to force him away, my eyes focusing past him, past the faces that laughed and grinned, towards the only shaft of light. I swam, pushing up and up, squirming out of his hands, kicking him away as I felt my lungs might explode, bursting with fire and burning me alive. I swam through the gloom, clutching the bridle, feeling him behind me. He was reaching for me, snatching at my clothes but I was nearly there, nearly there, almost, so close…

I burst from the water, scrabbling at the wooden beams of the floor. I had come up into the cottage. I pulled myself up but he grabbed my ankle, and I gave voice to the guttural scream that had hidden inside me under the water. I kicked manically, my boot hitting him in the face and with one last effort of strength, I pulled myself up onto the rotting wooden floor, as it bowed under me. I turned, bracing myself as I raised the bridle. As I had swam through the darkness, it had become a thick twined wooden torc, one fit to circle his neck, and I held it up, breathing deeply.

Suddenly, he shot from the water, enraged, landing on top of me with his hands either side of me, gripping my sides. Before he could rip the torc from my hands, I hastily slipped it over his head, ripping strands of his hair out as it caught on the rough wood. I held fast as he tried to shake it free, the wood already shrinking to cling close to his skin as the floor beneath us sank dangerously, our combined weight pulling it under. Our eyes met, our heavy breathing mixing like smoke and our bodies wrapped together, drenched. His nose brushed against mine, droplets of water falling from his hair to roll down my cheeks. No fear, no fear, but oh, who was I jesting?

I could scarcely take a breath before he pulled me under.

~ April-Jane Rowan, Lovelorn, released August 2021

Find it here at Gurt Dog PressInterview Transcript

CMR: ooh, I really like that part. [I got to read the full extract, reproduced with permission in the post]

AJR: Thank you. Lovelorn will be coming out at the end of August, so if you liked what you heard here, then you can follow me on Instagram @TheLiteraryChamber, for more updates and fun things about the release!

CMR: So what were the main influences for this story, I think there’s a lot of them, isn’t there? I love all the descriptions of the horses, because that Harry is a jockey isn’t he?

AJR: Yeah, yeah he is.

CMR: Do you ride horses, or…?

[windchimes in the background throughout the interview!]

AJR: Well, I don’t. I’ve never really been interested in horses. As a child, horses were not my go to animal, cats were, so um, I had to do a lot of research into horses and the correct terminology for them and I even listened to the kind of sounds horses made so I could make sure that they really did, you know, when I described them, that they sounded like horses. But I guess the the main influence was… I started researching fairies, and the more traditional stories, and how they weren’t like they are portrayed now I guess, in the main media. I know there’s a lot of stories where they do draw from the traditional tales, but when they’re very dark and sinister and menacing, and they would trick people or kill people, and yeah, I just fell in love with them and kelpies in particular.

I just love that they’re meant to lure people to the water and I guess the the idea for the Earl, which is the stallion, just took root from this kelpie that waits for people, and um. He’s just so convinced that what he’s doing is because he loves them, and he, you know.

CMR: Oh God, yeah. That’s so creepy. That kind of twisted love of something that doesn’t really know how to love.

AJR: Yeah. And it just went around in my head, and then eventually the kingdom of Lovelorn just expanded from that, with the Earl.

CMR: That’s really cool, yeah. What’s the appeal of fairy tales as a genre for you and why did you choose to use them as a mode, for this adult Gothic fantasy?

AJR: I guess, like a lot of people I was raised on fairy tales and you know, like the brothers Grimm and these classic ones and Hans Christian Andersen and I’ve always loved them, but as an adult I’ve grown to have more of appreciation for them when I’ve kind of researched why we have fairy tales and how they’re kind of urban legends of the past, mirroring what people were afraid of, or what they wanted to warn you against at that time. A lot like how we have stories now they’re probably passed on.

And one of my favourite things about them was that there are so many fairy tales from all over the world that have very different themes, even some [with] pretty much exactly the same plot. But there’s stories where people wouldn’t have been able to talk to each other to pass them on, like when travel wasn’t as easy, and completely different parts of the globe. I just love the idea of people’s worries and fears being so universal that they come up with exactly the same story.

But yeah I guess I kind of wanted to write something like that, like my own fairy tales that could like expand and change, about this hidden world within a forest, and kind of draw on all these classic fairy tale elements.

CMR: I love that yes, it’s just so interesting I love the world building and I love the idea of this forest that people enter because they need to find things. The other character is a mother looking for her son in the forest… yeah.

AJR: Yeah.

CMR: And I love the contrast between the two characters as well, so Harry has lost the love of his life, which is being able to ride – and is the fame, I would say, he’s lost the fame and that’s what he loves and that’s what he wants to get back, and he’s such a brilliantly unlikable person. Yeah he’s such a – I guess an antihero but bordering on, like – [uncomfortable noise]/

And Mabel is like – I don’t know like Mabel starts off as quite a bit – as a very embittered woman who really just wants to be a good mum but, like her son reminds her of her husband who’s left her, and she calls him her little ghost.

AJR: Yeah she tries to be a good mum but doesn’t go about it in the right way.

CMR: No and she’s quite cold, and I think she knows that she’s being cold and she overcompensates for that coldness.

AJR: Both Harry and Mabel are not in good places at the beginning of the book.

Tainted Love and Twisted Relationships

CMR: No, and I’m halfway through the book so I’m excited to see how their stories intertwine and interact, and the arcs that you’re taking them on, which is really cool. And so I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more without too many spoilers about the central relationships in the novel and why you found those compelling to write about in the first place, what [is it] about those kind of relationships, what about them do you find interesting to explore.

AJR: Well Harry was originally was going to be just one main character, which was Harry and his relationship with the Earl who he sort of tricks into guiding him. He’s, like in the extract I read, he’s trying to find a way to control him to get his fame back. He goes on a quest to find a stronger bridle which will mean that he can order him around.

Mabel was a smaller character but she kind of took on a life of her own. And then it ended up being to POVs [Points of View] because she wanted – I guess she had a story she wanted to get told as well.

CMR: I love that for characters.

AJR: I love that too, it’s like, who’s writing this??

[laughs]

CMR: Yeah.

AJR: And she goes into the woods to find her son and she ends up meeting a fairy knight called Carroway who guides her to try and help her find her son Peter, so I guess, yes, so about two mortals who get lost in the wood and then they each find a guide. Whether they’re actually very good guides or not – um! [laughs] and whether they’re trying to trick them…

CMR: Yeah, because you don’t know, you can’t trust the Fae, that’s like the main… so you know, everyone is very unreliable, you have two unreliable narrators in both points of view to different extents, but you also have the fact that they can’t trust anyone either.

AJR: Yeah, there’s a bit in it, where Carroway says, Oh, you know, the thing about us not being able to lie, that’s false.

Oh, can I believe what I know about fairies because, to make it even more that – like, you know, you have no idea whether they’re going to lead you somewhere good or bad. they’re in a situation where they just kind of have to put their trust in the Fair Folk.

CMR: Yeah, the whole thing is quite disturbing and I love it. I love these kinds of interactions and the just the questioning nature of it, where you’re just kind of it makes for interesting reading experience, where you get lost as well, because you as a reader don’t know what to trust or who to trust.

AJR: Yeah, like what they’re going to come across next.

CMR: It reminds me actually of a very adult kind of Alice in Wonderland logic, which I like.

AJR: Oh cool. That’s a very nice comparison, thank you!

CMR: Or Alice Through the Looking-Glass, you know, where it’s just literally her wandering around finding things and you’ve no idea what’s going to come next and it’s like just this really cool journey to be on. And there’s lots of different kinds of – well, you’ve got the love of the Earl for his drowned corpses.

AJR: His lovers in the lake.

CMR: His lovers in the lake, yeah, and you’ve got Harry and his love for fame, and for horses, to an extent, but like, more the fame. And not really for anyone else, not for any of the other characters.

AJR: No, he’s very self-centred.

CMR: And Mabel and her love for, well, I guess, for her husband, who’s gone, that she did have and then her love for her son, which is compelling her to, but I would say, also there’s a guilt element in that that’s compelling her to look as well.

So there’s lots of different kinds of love in the story which work well with the sort of you know, the Lovelorn kingdom, the name, and what made you choose that as a central theme like was that organic or planned?

AJR: To some extent I’m a big fan of showing all different kinds of love in my writing, and not just the sweet kind, and I guess with this story, I wanted to show toxic love and not just romantic, also between a parent and child or like a kind of toxic love obsession like with Harry with fame, and how that can either get changed and morph into something more healthy, or it can destroy people.

So I guess I was just trying to show the relationships that they have: Harry and the Earl is not a very good one. Also with Mabel and her depression. And yeah, I guess, show a different side to it. It has romance in it, but is it a very good romance?? I guess I want to leave up to the reader to decide how they feel about it in the end.

CMR: I love that. I do like problematic love as a theme. I think there’s just so much more you can do with it. When you explore different kinds of relationships – I was just thinking, it’s very much a theme of this podcast, problematic relationships.

AJR: it’s really good to show those and because love isn’t just like it is in you know, in romcoms [Romantic Comedies], it’s like – there’s all different shades, and it’s… also, you know how love can be problematic, not just between a romantic [couple/group, but] like with friends and family, and yeah I just find it really interesting to look into that and, I guess as a writer, especially with this book, I kind of want to tell their stories. Not to, you know, tell the reader whether the relationships are good or whether you’re meant to like Harry or the Earl or, you know. You can come out at the end and hate them or think the path they chose and how it ended up was awful for them, or maybe you can kind of see their redemption, or maybe see how their relationships going forward could be good for them, or whether you think they’re just going to get destroyed and sink further into the the holes that they’re already in the beginning.

CMR: I like that, yeah, it makes me think of the ending of Jamaica Inn, the bit where she goes off, but I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn’t read it.

AJR: I mean, it’s been out for a long time.

CMR: Yeah! Where it’s like oh you’re just going to go off, and this is, this is not the best ending.

AJR: He was like, you know this kind of life, like yeah it’s probably not going to end up well for you, but you know.

CMR: Oh well. And the romantic people can go to the Happy Ever After, “well, at least she’s got a man!”

AJR: By the low standards of the time.

CMR: We watching the watching one of the adaptations of that and there’s a line when he’s like, “oh am I just a horse thief to you” and it’s like yeah mate, you are? Literally how you were just introduced, yeah?

[laughs]

Is that something that you’ve written about before, you know, those sorts of relationships, [do they] come up a lot in your work in general?

AJR: Yeah, so for my novella, Beneath a Bethel, also deals with these same relationships, I guess, that can either be seen as good or bad depending on who’s reading them, and have that kind of unhealthy element and have people with a lot of trauma and I guess trying to find their way out of that.

CMR: What’s that one about, I haven’t got to it?

AJR: Oh no, describe my own book! I’m so bad at that!

CMR: Oh, don’t worry, someone asked me to do an elevator pitch in an interview and I was just like, no. [laughs]. I was woefully unprepared.

[It was with Sam Hirst via Romancing the Gothic, and you can find my Author interviews here and here!]

AJR: It’s about a city called Elbridge, and there there’s a custom that when children come of age, so around teenagers, they have all of their teeth pulled out in ceremony, that is somewhat like a christening. They get pulled out with pliers, and then they get given magical teeth that they can grant wishes with.

CMR: Oh my God. WHAT.

AJR: It’s like a status thing in the city that some people with more money have really amazing teeth and then the poor people just have a very basic set. It follows Angora, who ends up having his ceremony, but it… instead of being full of celebration and light and you know, it ends up ruining him and he’s left without any teeth at all, which in this society makes you a pariah and you have nowhere to go and it’s how he comes back from that.

CMR: Oh my God I have to read it immediately. I’m just sat here with my hand over my mouth. Oh noooo. Okay that’s amazing. What gave you that idea?

AJR: I can’t even remember, I’ve always been fascinated by teeth, I actually have a collection of human teeth.

CMR: Oh wow, okay.

AJR: Mine, my brother’s, my mum’s… my mum has a problem with her teeth and every time she gets one pulled out, I get sent a little box. Her dentist thinks it’s very weird.

CMR: That’s fair. Bodies are… bodies are great.

AJR: Bodies are weird and when you get to keep something that was inside your body… yeah.

Body Horror ~ Films, Books and Writing

CMR: Yeah I love things like that because that kind of plays into the whole tooth fairy thing as well, and I thought for a moment that’s where it was going, and then it went…!! [laughs] and that’s out as well, isn’t it? Fantastic. So what is it about body horror for you, that you like writing?

AJR: I think I just love, I always love horror that is very like visceral and very gross and I’m just drawn to the body horror and bodies betraying people or morphing, or all of the gruesome details of all you know, the fluids and yeah. I just … I just love it. Those are my favourite scenes to write when I’m like, Oh yes, I got a really gross scene coming up, perfect.

CMR: Yeah, I was just thinking of the Cronenberg films. Do you have a favourite body horror type film that kind of got you into it visually, or a book that made you think, ‘yeah I want to do that, I want to write that’?

AJR: One film I used to watch a lot as a teenager was called Dumplings, [2004 dir. Fruit Chan]. It’s more subtle body horror and it’s not very explosive, like gross gore, but it’s about a woman that wants to keep her youth, so this other woman that basically uses foetuses to make dumplings and then you eat them and it keeps you young, but then it starts to change her body, because she’s eating babies. And I watched that a lot as a teenager and it was one of my favourite films.

CMR: Oh wow, okay.

AJR: And Angela Carter’s one of my favourite authors, and The Bloody Chamber is probably my favourite book with all of the strange, fairy tale-esque body horror of people morphing, like with the werewolves and the erlking, and all of that.

CMR: I like those stories. I’ve got that book. Yeah I just, I find Angela Carter’s whole style is very – I don’t know, now whimsical but like it’s told in that kind of a way. Those short stories have got this very fairy tale feel to them. And I really liked that collection.

AJR: She’s a big inspiration for my writing.

CMR: Yeah I can see that. I can see that in Lovelorn a little bit.

AJR: Very descriptive prose. I mean that’s also why I like writing body horror, because I can just go into the descriptions. Lovelorn still needs some editing with my editor, and when I was querying it I cut a few bits out that were very graphic and I was like I’m not sure an agent is going to like this scene, so maybe you’re just trim it down a bit so it’s less gross. And I’m like, maybe i should just put it back in now.

CMR: I think there’s definitely like – extreme horror and splatterpunk and all that kind of stuff is very much a big genre thing now.

AJR: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot more online. I didn’t know about it before, but recently I’ve seen a few books published under it, which is cool.

CMR: Yeah, it’s quite interesting because I wrote – I didn’t think I wrote horror or…

AJR: I was the same.

CMR: This is just like, it’s a bit… you know, stuff happens, but I wouldn’t I wouldn’t call it horror.

AJR: I was exactly the same. I was like oh it’s just dark fantasy right, and then I was … other people reading it were like oh it’s horror, and I was like really…? Oh, I guess, my bar for what is horror is, just… [laughs]

CMR: Yeah and I think that’s interesting because horror is such a massive genre and it’s so subjective you know, because what scares you it’s not going to scare somebody else. And so, if you’re writing something that you personally find quite comforting to write or quite cathartic to write or interesting and fun to write, you’re not necessarily going to think of it as a ‘horror story’, because you’re not setting out to scare anyone, you’re setting out to have a good time, right?

[See my interview with Nita Pan on writing vibes, aesthetics and a bloody good time]

AJR: I kind of now look at it through the eyes of my mum, who does not like horror in any media, and when I first started getting into horror, especially films, I would say, oh let’s watch this film together mum it’s not that gross! And then I would see it and I’m going oh my God there’s so much blood in this, because I wouldn’t notice it.

And now when I write, as she’s started reading my work, she was like, oh it’s very scary! There’s a lot of gross stuff in it! And I’d be like, oh, okay. So when I write now, I think – would my mum think this was horror?? – as I have a higher tolerance for stuff now.

CMR: [I had] people saying that they hadn’t read any body horror before they read The Crows, and I was like – really? sounds fake. [laughs] Okay! I thought everybody read stuff like this.

AJR: It can be so subtle but it’s still like you know this is such a spectrum, that there are some where it’s really graphic and then there’s others where it’s more like a kind of subtle change, or unsettling. So I think a lot of people are watching so body horror without realizing that’s what it is.

CMR: Yeah because there’s stuff that you would put in as obvious body horror, like The Fly, or John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is more obvious with things erupting everywhere.

AJR: That’s my partner Nem’s favourite thing to watch, I’ve watched that film so much. Whenever we’re like, what shall we watch? He’s like, The Thing!

CMR: But other stuff as you say can be more subtle.

AJR: I think the subtle stuff is kind of more eerie feeling or draws on trauma, like Her Body and Other Parties, have you read that book? by – I’m going to really badly say her name – [Carmen Maria Machado], I think it is. It’s a short story collection and it deals a lot with women’s bodies and body horror and that kind of thing. And it’s more like, subtle, but it’s creepy, eerie body horror.

CMR: Ooh. I like that as well, that kind of uncanny thing. What really freaks me out is that kind of subtle horror where you don’t recognise parts of your own body, the idea of your body not being recognisable to you, just that whole idea really bothers me.

AJR: Yeah and kind of being like, is it really happening or is it in the mind?

CMR: Yeah and everything gets very blurred, and you don’t… I think for me it’s that kind of loss of control. And not just over your body, but like within your own mind, where there’s that recognition that kind of the unreality of it, because I get kind of I get moments of unreality anyway. So I find anything that touches on that is very – no. I don’t like that, you know. And that’s very subtle horror that’s not blood and brains all over the place, or like you know zombies or anything, which I also don’t like. But yes, there’s degrees of it, and I sometimes think the more subtle kind is actually worse in many ways.

AJR: Yeah I think so too, more the sneaking kind.

Future Work by April-Jane Rowan

CMR: Yeah! So what are you planning on tackling next in your future work?

AJR: um well, I have a story that needs editing that’s my least favourite part and I have dyslexia, so it takes me a lot of rounds of edits to get it readable for people. So I’ve been kind of putting off a little bit. And I’m also thinking… I have a new story going around in my head, which is very body horror, it’s about – have you seen this film, I think it’s called The Stuff, [1985, dir. Larry Cohen], where everyone eats this, like, yoghurt, and it makes them go crazy?

CMR: Oh God, no. No. No.

AJR: Oh it’s so good. It’s sort of inspired by that where this new fruit is discovered but it makes people morph into these creatures, and this woman who’s dealing with pre and postnatal depression after having her child is thrust into this changed world after coming out of hospital. So I’m toying with this idea.

Postnatal depression is something that I’ve suffered with so it’s quite a heavy topic for me and I kind of want to write something about it to kind of bring awareness to it. But also, I have to be in a good place and good enough place where I can write about it, so it was kind of going around in my head this idea at the moment and I think, maybe I might place where I could start writing it now.

CMR: Yeah I find that as well it’s like writing is a really good cathartic way, but, as you say, like, if you want to write it and tackle it in any kind of way you do have to have that distancing, don’t you.

AJR: Yeah, so it’s not so raw.

CMR: Yeah, especially if other people are going to read it and it’s going to be, you know, a product that people are going to judge.

AJR: Definitely.

CMR: And you just have to be in that position where you don’t mind if people take away different things.

AJR: Yes. I tried writing it before, but it was too fresh so I think you know, maybe now’s the time.

Gurt Dog Press

CMR: What’s next for Gurt Dog Press as well, because that’s a press you run with your partners?

AJR: Yes, so I run Gurt Dog Press with my partners, Linn and Nem, and it exclusively focuses on LGBT speculative fiction across Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi. But we kind of wanted to make a publisher that didn’t focus just on Romance stories. So it doesn’t have to have any kind of romance in it, or it can do too, but it was more to just focus on different kinds of stories, not just coming out or romances.

We have our first anthology coming out at the end of the year, called Tales from the Hinterland, which is inspired by folklore, and also in July we have our open submissions for next year for novels and novellas. Very exciting, yeah. This is our third year of publishing books, and we’re really excited to see what stories we get submitted and plan 2022 and what we’re going to bring out there.

CMR: Exciting times! Yeah, I’m looking forward to the anthology. It’ll be great.

AJR: Yeah. It’s been fun to work on an anthology.

CMR: Yeah really looking forward to seeing what what’s coming out now I really like the catalogue as well, like I just go, oh I want that one and that one.

AJR: Oh, thank you. Yeah we’ve been trying to pick very different stories from different genres.

CMR: Yeah it’s lovely as well that, like it’s just, people’s identities are incidental to the story as well, like they’re integral to the character, because it’s who you are, but also it’s not the focus, and I love that I think that’s perfect, it’s just good representation of a variety of things, it’s really fun.

AJR: Yeah, we found there was quite a lack in some other indie presses, and also mainstream ones, where it’s just incidental. Nem had published his stories before, but he felt like he didn’t really fit in anywhere because he does romance but also with a lot horror, so kind of a genre-bending one.

CMR: Horrormance, isn’t it, horrormance is an up-and-coming genre mashup I think.

AJR: He didn’t feel like he fitted with other just romances, so he started – he had the idea for Gurt Dog from that, and yeah, we just want to make it a space for just queer writers or queer stories that can go on, you know.

CMR: I love that, yeah, it’s such a cool – yeah I think Nyx Publishing does something similar as well. Queer identities and it’s – yeah, there’s so few publishers where you can find those sorts of stories and that kind of representation and I yeah I just love it. Thank you very much, guys.

AJR: Especially for horror.

CMR: Especially for horror, yeah, and for dark fantasy. Yes. And it’s been really lovely to have you on, I had L. B. Shimaira on as my very first author interview, which was published with you guys.

AJR: Yeah I love My Lord, that’s one of my personal favourites.

CMR: So yeah, just plugging that one again.

AJR: Yes, you should definitely read that one is amazing. And along with Gurt Dog Press, we also as a family have another company, B Proud PR, which is predominantly run by my partner Linn, and it focuses on promoting LGBT stories and authors. So if there are any authors listening, and you’d like your books promoted, you can check us out for that, because Linn does an amazing job with book tours.

CMR: And that’s all we have time for, thank you so much for coming on the podcast!

AJR: Thank you!

Support me on Ko-Fi if you are enjoying my podcast, my blog content, etc! You can also buy all my books direct from my Ko-Fi shop in eBook format, and the audio version of The Crows will also be available to download as an MP3 file from there too!

Podcast S01E22 ~ Chapter 20 Up Now (Season Finale Next Week!)

Chapter 20 of The Crows is online today!

CW for another mild Rob Zombie chapter with horrendous family dynamics, mild xenophobia, parental abuse (including the long-awaited threatened lobotomy by parasites), zombies/treatment of dead girls like dolls

CHAPTER 20: IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU…

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 20: If I Can’t Have You…

…in which Guy makes a choice and things get worse…

“Feed him, George,” his mother begged, “feed him his punishment.” 

Ricky could smell the soup now. His punishment meal. Bits of his mother were in that soup. Bits that would never live long enough to spawn properly but would love to feed on living flesh, living brain, before they wriggled their last dance. Turn your mind to scrambled egg, they would, holey as Swiss cheese, like a foreigner’s breakfast.  

His face prickled with an odd sensation. 

(Is this what fear feels like?) 

“No! No, no, now hang on, hold on a minute, feather, feather doan’ you be doing of it, doan’ you bleedin’ dare…”  

“Blank as water, ye’ll be,” his father gloated, scratching at his string vest. “Disremember your own name.” 

“My baby boy, back to me again,” crooned his mother. “Start all over we will, and you’ll be good as gold.” 

He cricked his neck to seek her out, a looming presence in black lace and shadow. “Mum…” His guts twisted. “I’ll be good now, Mum, I’ll do what you say. Doan’ let him do it, Mum, please, please, Mum, I’ll be good as gold.” 

She shook her head. “He’s lying, George. Listen to him! Why couldn’t we have had a girl, ruby-honest lips she’d have.”  

The soft, susurrus words cut him deep. 

“You always say that,” he hissed down at his chains, scraping the chair on the floor.  

Fragments of a plan formed, shards of a broken mirror. 

He breathed through the pain. 

“I’ll get you another live girl, mother. I know one.”  

“You don’t know any girls,” his father scoffed.  

“I do.” He whipped his head around, the soup getting perilously close to his face now, borne by his father’s elastic, clawed hands. “Keep away, I’ll disremember ‘er, don’t.”  

The bowl paused, tilting towards him. Things bubbled to the surface, every bubble of scum alive with pale, kicking larvae-legs.  

“If y’ lie to me, boy, this goes in yer face,” his father warned, soft and low. “They’ll wriggle in how they like. Up yer nose, through yer eyes…” He sloshed the bowl on purpose, slopping a little of the living liquid over the rim. Something splashed on the bare skin of his hand. A sharp stab, like a horsefly bite, told him it was trying to burrow.  

Gritting his teeth, he shook his hand under the chain that bound his wrist to the wooden chair arm, the burning spreading where the metal protested.  

Behind him, his mother gave a soft little giggle not unlike his own. 

“Let me loose!” he shouted. “Let me loose, I’ll go and get her for you!” 

His father chuckled. “He thinks we’re stupid, Lettie.” 

“He’s not lying, George.” 

“He ain’t lying, no, but he ain’t coming back. You bet he ain’t.” 

Ricky swallowed as the wriggling soup-spot finally plopped off his hand onto the floor, unsuccessful, and lay there like a flat, yellow tick. “She’s got yellow hair,” he said.  

His mother went silent.  

“Let me go, I’ll go get her.” 

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, pp. 402-04

Ricky and his father both have strong Sussex accents and use a dialect that was prevalent in the 19thC because that’s how Beverley Wend and her sisters spoke. While the family have become more ‘Londonised’ and tried to get away from their local accents due to snobbery and middle-class aspirations, George Porter never saw the point and is very traditional and conservative in his outlook. He sees the family as top of the food chain and takes what he wants from everyone else. Ricky has absorbed all this and doesn’t have a clear idea of an alternative life in mind for himself, except one that involves The Crows.

As you can see in this extract, Ricky’s aromantic/asexual orientation isn’t understood by his father, and that’s a theme of the whole book too as far as his character arc goes. That feeds into George Porter’s characterisation and mindset, but also Ricky’s issues with his boundaries being pushed and his lack of awareness around other peoples’.

This chapter was hard to record because I’m not doing the accent, but it’s kind of preserved on the page as well as I could get it. If you want to hear the accent, I have a Playlist on Youtube.

Similar to the accent in Cold Comfort Farm (1995), the adaptation of Stella Gibbons’ novel. Gibbons made up the dialect words for the book, but Rufus Sewell does have a Sussex accent in it I think??

I hope that the lack of accent doesn’t detract from the enjoyment(!?) of listening.

Podcast S01E21 ~ Chapter 19 Up Now!

Chapter 19 of The Crows is online today!

CW for gore, brutal loss of parental figure, burning something of sentimental value, alcoholic relapse POV

CHAPTER 19: LET THE PAST BURN

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 19: Let The Past Burn

…in which things unravel and Ricky says goodbye…

“Burn it down.” 

The dread pooled in Guy’s sore stomach, whispering that this was, obscurely, his fault. He could hear Beverley in his hand.  

“Guy? Guy, answer me.” 

 He raised the phone back to his ear. “Burn… what down?” 

“Fairwood House, of course.” 

“Burn The Crows?” Guy repeated.  

“Set her on fire,” Beverley said, in tones that brooked no argument. “I’ll deal with the spirit. But you deal with the house.” 

“But…”  

Beverley’s rasp scythed through his head, loaded with years of disappointments and the endless rebellions of her spawn.  

“Not you too.” 

Guy struggled upright, lurching away from the wall. “I – burn it down? I can’t, it’s cursed…” 

“For the last time, Guy, it’s not cursed. That’s a story. There’s a protection glamour on it that only affects us, and that’s real old blood magic, it can’t hurt you. It’s a lot of things, that house, but it can’t curse you.” Beverley sighed. “It’s under your skin, isn’t it? Calls to you, somehow. I know. I’ve heard it, too. Now go over there, take some petrol, and set the damn thing on fire. That will take the strength out of this spirit, and it’ll be therapeutic for you. Leave the girl in there, if you like, it will serve her right. Meddling like that, this is her fault.” 

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, pp. 396-7

Loss of father/parental figures is a big theme in this book, and Guy gets the rough end of that on-page in these final chapters. I didn’t write Guy as a ‘villain’ or even really much of an antagonist – he is, like everyone else in Beverley’s orbit, a tool she uses to get her own agenda across. Not that Beverley really has an ‘agenda’ beyond maintaining the status quo.

However, this chapter is also centred on another act of burning that catapults a character into another phase of their life, and is an act of setting the past on fire.

In this book, I guess moving forward or forcing yourself to move beyond things you deem to be holding you back comes with fairly brutal actions and doesn’t always have the effect you want. The impact on you is often not the one you anticipated. It can leave you vulnerable to stuff you didn’t expect. Especially if you have the self-awareness of a tea towel, which is definitely Ricky Porter’s problem, and is the main reason he’s the real ‘damsel in distress’ figure in the novel. I kind of think of him a bit like Rapunzel in a lot ways, and I had that image in my head when I was drafting.

Most of the characters are in some way ‘trapped at home’, whether mentally/figuratively or actually, and their independence is hampered by the long shadows of their upbringing or their parental figures or things buried in their pasts that they haven’t dealt with.

I don’t know if you agree with that? Feel free to chime in by commenting on this post or chiming in on Twitter/Instagram using the hashtag #TheCrows.

Podcast S01E20 ~ Chapter 18 Up Now!

Chapter 18 of The Crows is online today!

CW for drunkenness, mortality/death date, boundary violation, pseudo-injection (brain), amnesia, decapitated corpse

CHAPTER 18: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 18: Death and the Maiden

…in which Ricky tells the truth…

“What the hell’s the matter?” Carrie demanded, a prickle of suspicion penetrating to the front of her mind, willing herself sober. It didn’t work. “Is this–” She gestured at the plate of crumbs and attempted humour. “Is this my last meal, or something?” 

“Oh, shit, no.” Ricky shook his head. “No, not yet.” 

Something in the way he said it sent a shiver down her back. “Ricky…” 

“I saw your wyrd,” he blurted, cheeks strained and red.  

Carrie pushed the plate away. 

“I saw the threads of your fate, and I saw… I saw where they stop.” He looked like he was trying to stop himself, biting on the words as they tumbled out, but a soothsayer told the truth. “I can’t change it.” 

“Stop?” Carrie echoed the terrible word, pronouncing it like a foreign syllable. “What… what happens then?” 

Ricky shook his head. “I don’t know.” 

The image of the crow slamming into the windscreen popped back into her head, making her jump. She hardly dared ask, but she had to. 

“How?” 

“I can’t see exactly. Could be a number of ways. It’s the outcome that’s certain.” 

“When?” 

He looked as if he was going to say the exact date, but he faltered. “Soon.” 

She realised she didn’t want to know. “How do I stop it?” 

“You don’t.” 

She swallowed, not taking this in. “What, so, that’s it? I’m going to die?” 

“Everyone dies.” 

Carrie shook her head, open-mouthed. “Why… how am I supposed to… how am I supposed to live knowing that? What do I do? I’m… I’m going to Dad and Ann’s. First thing tomorrow. Shit, I’ve wasted… so much time, I… I thought I’d see Christmas… won’t I? Why did you tell me at all?” 

“Because.” Ricky knotted his fingers together. A slick smack of his second lips hailed the tendrils as they poured out over his head. “It’ll be because of me.” 

Carrie’s heart clenched. 

A thin tendril snaked out like a questing root, tickling her cheek. She leaned away from it, blinking, not able to focus. It glided, worm-like, towards her earlobe. 

“It won’t hurt.” 

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, pp. 369-70

It’s Carrie’s last day on 13th May, and this is the early hours of the 12th. We’re very close to the end now.

If you’re enjoying this so far, you can check out all the buy links and reviews here.

Please leave a review on Goodreads or any site you usually review on! If you’ve never reviewed a book before, please consider just leaving a star rating (no text necessary). It really helps other readers find books, and decide if they want to pick it up. Plus, on sites like Amazon, books need 50+ reviews/ratings before Amazon starts recommending them to people shopping for similar things.

Please leave me a review for the podcast too if you like it! You can also recommend it (and my books!!) on social media, I won’t mind

Many thank yous! ~CMR

Podcast S01E19 ~ Chapter 17 Available Now!

Chapter 17 of The Crows is online today!

CW for gore, bird death, physical intimidation of an older vulnerable man, murder, body horror and drunkenness.

CHAPTER 17: REVENGE SERVED COLD

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 17: Revenge Served Cold

…in which Ricky finds a tongue and all hell breaks loose…

Harry Bishop laughed in cracked, wheezing gasps, coughing up mirth. “Idiot boy! You never could see what was in front of you, all that farsight turning your brain. Fairwood won’t give up the Pendle Stone to you, it’s using you, can’t you see that? Once it’s got what it wants it’ll reject you, keep you locked out for good.”

This missile, well-aimed, stung worse than the first.

Ricky Changed.

He couldn’t help it.

He ripped off his clothes before he ruined them irrevocably, human skin shredding into raw, bloody rags with the pulsing pressure beneath. He let himself be seen in all his writhing beauty. His eyes opened onto the wyrd, myriad, legion.

Harry gagged on nothing, light years away.

“Christ!” he moaned, but Ricky wasn’t that sort of saviour.

Where’s the tongue, Harry?

He tore the truth from Harry Bishop’s brain, taking it by the corner and ripping it out of his memory. His attention turned to an antique drinks’ cabinet in the shape of a globe, lovingly painted but sun-bleached and cracked with age. A tendril went to work on the tiny keyhole, cunningly hidden by the pink lines traversing the north coast of Africa.

“Jesus!”

He isn’t coming, Harry. It’s just us.

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, p. 359

A really short chapter, this one has the audio of my Dec 2020 Q&A at the end. You can find the video versions of me answering Qs1-10 on my YouTube channel and the blog post for the written form on my website (videos embedded).

CWs include gore, bird death, physical intimidation of an older vulnerable man, murder, body horror and drunkenness.

Author Interview ~ Lyndall Clipstone on Gothic YA, LAKESEDGE and Monster Boyfriends

Interview Transcript: Introducing the AuthorLyndall Clipstone

Lyndall Clipstone writes about monsters and the girls who like to kiss them. A former youth librarian who grew up running wild in the Barossa Ranges of South Australia, she currently lives in Adelaide, where she tends her own indoor secret garden. She has a Bachelors in Creative Writing and a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Management.

Her debut novel, LAKESEDGE, will be published by Henry Holt, Titan UK and Pan Macmillan Australia in Fall 2021 with a sequel, FORESTFALL, to publish in Fall 2022.

She is represented by Jill Grinberg at Jill Grinberg Literary Management.

You can find her on Goodreads, her website, Twitter, and Instagram.

podcast

Listen to the full author interview on my podcast.

LAKESEDGE

Content warnings for LAKESEDGE

Emotional and physical abuse by a parentBody horrorGore and blood (including description of wounds)EmesisDiscussions of death and grief (no on-page deaths)Descriptions of drowning and deep waterDrowning-related imagerySelf-injury (in the context of a curse that requires regular physical sacrifices)Suicidal ideation

A lush gothic fantasy about monsters and magic, set on the banks of a cursed lake. Perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and Brigid Kemmerer.

There are monsters in the world.

When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.

There are monsters in the woods.

As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…

There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name.

Now, to save Rowan—and herself—Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under. 

Photo Credit: Lyndall ClipstoneAuthor Interview: Introduction

CMR: Hello, welcome to the next episode of Eldritch Girl! I’ve got Lyndall Clipstone with me today to do the author interview. Lyndall, hi.

LC: Hi! It’s really great to be here, I was just saying this is my first time on a podcast so it’s very exciting!

CMR: Would you like to introduce yourself to everyone?

LC: My name is Lyndall Clipstone, I write young adult Gothic fantasy, and my debut is Lakesedge, which is the first in a duology and that will be out this year in Fall. It’s coming out in September in America with Henry Holt, which is an imprint of Macmillan, and in Australia with Pan Macmillan. And in October in the UK with Titan Books.

CMR: Lovely, congratulations. And you’ve got an extract from it that you’re allowed to read.

LC: So this is from the fourth chapter in the book and it’s one of the recent scenes that I added. When I started working with my editor she suggested that it needed kind of a scene that felt a little bit like the wolf attack scene in Beauty and the Beast [1991 animation] where the monster character does something to endear himself to the main character that, like, gives her reason to stay with him. And it ended up being like one of the funnest scenes to write him, and so this is actually like a little bit from the aftermath of that, because I felt like the wolf attack was a little bit spoilery, so. The context is that she and her younger brother have been taken away by the monster of Lakesedge and they are ostensibly on the way to his estate where apparently he murdered his entire family in like the lake behind his house. So they stop overnight to stay in a kind of, like, a wayside cottage, and then, when everybody goes to sleep, she and her brother sneak out and try to run away, but they get into trouble in the woods. Which is kind of like the wolf attacks seen in Beauty and the Beast but with, like, a bit of a weird magical twist so.

CMR: ooh!

LC: Yeah and then he manages, just, like – so Rowan, the monster, manages to save them, and they decided to go back with him, so this is just a little bit from the end of that scene, where they sort of speak to each other, before they go back into the cottage to stay with him for the rest of the night.

CMR: Ooh, great.

LC: Okay.

Extract from Lakesedge

Wordlessly, we go back through the forest. The monster ahead, Arien and I close behind. Florence meets us partway with a lantern. Her eyes widen at the sight of the monster with his bloodied face and bandages on his arm and hand.

“What happened?” She reaches out but he pushes her away.

“Never mind that. There’s a blighted grove.” He points to indicate the direction, then takes her lantern, giving her the torch in its place. “Go back and burn the trees. You’ll need to watch the fire so it doesn’t catch the whole forest.”

Florence hesitates, her hand still stretched towards him. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

He glares at her. “Yes.”

She turns with a sigh and vanishes into the trees.

We walk the rest of the way in silence. When we reach the treeline, the monster motions for Arien to go on ahead and pulls me aside.

He puts his gloved hands around the tops of my arms and leans close. My gaze goes from his dark eyes to his bloodied mouth, and I’m filled with a strange, hot feeling that isn’t quite fear. He slides his hands down my arms and holds my wrists loosely. He brushes his thumb against where my sleeve hides the bruises.

“Are you truly sorry I took you both from that cottage?” His eyes lower, and he goes on quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The rest of it echoes, unspoken, made clear by the touch of his fingers on my wrist. I won’t hurt you, not like that.

“And what about Arien? What do you have planned for him?”

He gives me a guarded look. “That’s none of your concern.”

“I don’t care if you hurt me.” My teeth clench at the thought of it, but I don’t pull away. After all I’ve faced from Mother to keep Arien safe, I know I could bear it if the monster was cruel to me. I could. “Just leave him alone.”

“You’ve heard enough about Lakesedge Estate to know I can’t promise you safety.”

He lets go of me and walks back to the wayside without turning to see if Arien or I will follow.

He doesn’t need to. He knows that we have nowhere else to go.

~ Lyndall Clipstone

Cover art and design by Rich DeasAuthor Interview: Transcript

CMR: Oh… That’s such a rich extract, I really like that, there’s such a lot going on.

LC: Yeah!

CMR: Can we start by talking about some of the influences that are visible in the extract?

I had a look at the annotations that you sent out in your newsletter about that one [Lyndall sent an annotated page of her manuscript to her newsletter subscribers, which was this extract with handwritten notes in the margins, as a .jpeg file] which is really interesting. So you’ve talked about how the story itself is based on a sort of a Gothic Secret Garden premise.

LC: Yeah so the kind of original – very original premise was kind of like, what if I took The Secret Garden and turned it into a classic Gothic romance. I think it definitely kept the heart of that. I grew up reading like this very beautiful illustrated version of The Secret Garden that my neighbour gave to me, and so we lived on the top of a hill in the country in, like, near the Adelaide hills in South Australia. And we had a kind of wealthy neighbour who lived down at the bottom of the hill that we lived on the top of, and she would often travel quite a lot. And we would go down to feed her pets while she was away, so I have really, like, fun memories of going to her beautiful big garden, and she had this very inky dark lake. Not like a lake, but a big dam of water next to her house that was black, and a beautiful bluestone house, so I think a lot of that has kind of stuck in my mind as like what Lakesedge kind of turned into a little bit, but she was actually the one who gave me the Secret Garden book. She used to give me lots of books as Christmas presents and things like that.

So I definitely I grew up reading this like illustrated version of it and then also watching like the 90s movie, I’m not sure if you ever saw it.

CMR: Yeah!

LC: But it’s got this beautiful aesthetic and there’s… just like some of the scenes have always just stayed really vivid to me, like where she’s going through the house and looking into all the locked-up rooms and then the scenes where she finds Collin in the middle of the night by hearing his cries, and he thinks she’s a ghost, and I don’t know, there was just something about it that kind of made me feel like it was such a romantic kind of setting and I really wanted to try transposing a young adult fantasy romance into that kind of setting and aesthetic, and the feeling of this beautiful wild environment and kind of isolated sentient-feeling house and things like that, so yeah.

CMR: I really love that and I think you said that you, you named the character Florence after Florence Welch from Florence + the Machine.

LC: Yeah so originally Florence was named Meadow and there was like a second character called Clover and my editor’s like, I can’t tell them apart, which was kind of worrying for me because… Florence is like, 40, and Clover was like, 16, and I’m just like wow I’m really not doing too good at writing these side characters. And she suggested that I changed their names to be a little bit different because, like the botanical names made them blend in with each other so. I thought Florence would be kind of a nice name, because, I’m like a big fan of her music and it’s definitely inspired a lot of my work as well, especially, I guess, like the Between Two Lungs sort of album. And I don’t know, just her whole sort of thing, like I really resonate a lot with her whole creative body of work, I guess.

I saw her live, a couple of years ago now, and she’s like this beautiful ethereal creature, she was like in these big, white flowing dresses on stage, and she does this amazing sort of like Kate Bush style interpretive dancing and it’s just like – she’s just so magical. So I thought it was kind of a nice way to kind of like pay homage to all of the ways I’ve been inspired by her.

CMR: That’s lovely. Yeah and then I think so, the last line of the extract, I’ve got nowhere else to go, that’s that’s a Nabokov reference, isn’t it?

LC: Yeah so I put that in the annotations – I feel kind of weird being like, Oh, I was so inspired by Nabokov while writing a young adult novel because I’m sort of like, please, don’t take it the wrong way. I read a lot of his work when I was a postgraduate at University, like Lolita was one of the books that I sort of looked at quite in-depth for my thesis and I was always just really entranced with his writing style and the way that he weaves so many intertextual references into his work, so I have like this very well-worn copy of the annotated Lolita which has all of the literary references and like, lines in other languages and things like that, that is kind of woven in throughout the book.

And I just love the complexity of it, and how multilayered it felt, like how he had all of these like pop culture and literary and all of these sort of references woven in, and I think it was something that I kind of endeavored to do in my work a little bit, so there’s definitely references to song lyrics and other books and different things, all woven in. Some of them [are] probably more obvious than others, but that’s sort of mine, like, even though it’s kind of funny because it’s such an odd [thing to reference] Nabokov, but it’s definitely not the same sentiment [in Lakesedge].

I felt that actual line in Lolita is so tragic, like it’s just… that’s one of the most heartbreaking moments of the book to me where he’s told her that her mother’s dead and she’s crying in the other room and then she comes into him, and he’s like, ‘we made it up very tenderly because she had nowhere else to go’, and it’s just so heartbreaking and horrible and like, just this perfectly crystallized moment of how monstrous and horrible he is, and how he’s just trapped her. That’s definitely not the sentiment that I was going for between Rowan and Leta, like they definitely don’t have that relationship at all, but there was just something about the poignancy of that line of feeling so powerless and bereft that I really wanted to capture that moment.

CMR: Yeah, I mean that’s a really key element of the Gothic anyway, the isolated protagonist and the entrapment and that sense of… not quite fatalism, but like that, you know, that sense that now you have to face something or you’re stuck in a particular situation or…

LC: Yeah, like there’s always like this very intense feeling of claustrophobia. I really… that’s something that I’ve always really enjoyed… I mean it’s kind of a funny thing to say ‘enjoyed’, about the Gothic, but I think I really like how the horror of the Gothic is so close to you, like it’s, you know, the things that are terrifying are familiar and the environment that you’re in is a closed-in familiar one you know, like, I mean in like such she’s in the house, which is a very sort of well-used Gothic setting, but you know, like a creepy house where you’re isolated and enclosed.

I don’t know, there’s just something about that whole, like, you’re kind of trapped in this tiny space with like the world closing in on you and all you’ve got to get out of it is your own wits. I don’t know, like there’s something about seeing what a character does when put in that situation that’s really interesting as a reader, and as a writer as well.

CMR: So would you say Lakesedge’s setting is an alternative European setting or alternative Australia?

LC: In my head canon it’s like a Southern Hemisphere world, very much based on where I grew up so, where I grew up is sort of just outside the Adelaide hills in South Australia and the climate there is kind of like fairly temperate, like it’s sort of like a bit cooler than the rest of everywhere else, and so it’s comparatively a lot more lush, there’s more sort of the European style, like there’s a lot of pine forest plantations around, and again, like my neighbour where I grew up, she had quite a lot of European plants as well, so I think I was always very entranced with like the European gardens and the Blackberry plants that grew, so they were like a weed, but I just found them so like enchanting. We had these really big Blackberry brambles that used to grow in the area near my house and I just kind of wanted to capture the feeling of what the environment is like here where it’s like this real mix of European – so it’s like European architecture, a European kind of landscaping, a lot of introduced European plant species, but in this environment that’s very arid and rugged.

Yeah, so I think it wasn’t so much that I wanted to write a setting that felt European, I wanted to try and… but I didn’t want to write something that felt like typically Australian either… it’s this kind of like in between sort of space, I guess.

CMR: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’m excited to read it and I’m thinking about the idea of the whole sort of that monster boyfriend, that kind of monster romance element of it as well in this kind of really lush setting, and you’ve got so many really interesting elements.

So why do you think that sort of Gothic horror monster is such a romantic figure – what draws you to write about that sort of romantic dynamic?

LC: It is definitely a popular one. Everybody loves like a really good like Byronic Hero.

CMR: Yeah.

LC: I think everybody’s probably got their own like thing that draws them to the monster crushes, so it’s kind of hard to make like a general statement about like this is why it’s appealing to everyone. I personally have just always always been drawn to the monster, you know, in like the romantic kind of way. I remember being a little kid and watching the Disney Beauty and the Beast (1991) and being terribly disappointed when he turned back into the Prince. The Prince was really ugly and the Beast was so cute. I was so disappointed. I was like, but he could have stayed as the Beast and she could have stayed with him, I was so disappointed, and being a five-year-old I didn’t get what that would mean, I just remember being disappointed.

And one of the extremely formative pieces of media that I watched as a young person was the Labyrinth film (1986) with David Bowie as the Goblin King [Jareth], and I don’t know, I mean like who doesn’t love David Bowie, but that was just something about it that I identified with. I mean watching it now as an adult it’s so funny because, like, Sarah, she’s so petulant and so angry about being asked by her parents to babysitter brother, but that kind of petty anger is so… I think I was very drawn to that as like a young person, especially [because] it’s very believable. I don’t know, I just liked the idea of this powerful, like a monstrous creature, who would offer you everything because he loved you so much. I just I found I was drawn to it so much, and I remember being, like, again, so disappointed that she went home, even though, like narratively it makes a little more sense that she didn’t stay with him.

Like you know you could just stay like it’s fine. Definitely there’s a lot of fan fiction where she goes back when she’s older and things like that, so clearly people have like there’s other people who felt the same.

CMR: There’s a lot of people who felt the same.

LC: Yeah there was that, and then, when I was older in University, one of the texts that I studied… So I did an English Bachelor of Arts and I did a lot of courses that were focused on like Gothic fiction and some of them were like I guess traditional kind of Gothic and then, some of them are modern Gothic, and for one of them, we did Silence of the Lambs.

CMR: Oooh, I love that book.

LC: And there’s just something about like Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter that just drew me in so much. I mean it’s like a canon monster romance too, because if you read the book accountable they actually do end up together in the end which is kind of fun. So it’s funny now that there’s like the Hannibal TV show yeah and there’s this whole other generation of people who are shipping him and Will and i’m just like, no, no, like it’s meant to end up with Starling, this is weird.

CMR: I think there’s room for everything, though.

LC: I really enjoyed the TV show it was really cool and I really loved like Gillian Anderson’s character as well, like, it was very interesting um but there’s just something about like the bit where she’s like I know he won’t come after me because, like he, like, he’d think it would be rude to eat me, or something like that, and there’s so much power in being the one that the monster won’t hurt.

I think it’s it’s kind of tricky because, obviously, like in real life, the monsters are actually monstrous, but I think in fiction you’ve got the scope to have this sort of like a monster who’s safe or palatable and can represent things in a way that makes it all right, I guess, like I know there’s been like a lot of different kind of discourses about writing villainous characters. I don’t know, like maybe you know, like if you start like doomscrolling and fall into like some like thread on Twitter of people arguing about Reylo or something, and it’s just like no that’s an hour of my life I won’t get back. “She can’t love him, he’s a bad guy!” but he’s also not real and also really cute. But you know, there’s a difference between like, falling in love with a real war criminal and falling in love with Kylo Ren who’s a dude in Star Wars.

CMR: Right, yeah.

LC: I do feel like I need to make that distinction clear because it’s tricky when I’m talking about you know, like, Oh, the girl who falls in love with the monster, it’s like my fictional monster that I’ve built who is actually good, not like a real monster who’s actually in real life and he’s Bad. So I don’t know, I think it’s just something about this, creating a character, where there’s this power in being… you’re facing something that’s like terrifying and that’s feared and has the capacity to do great harm, but to you, there’s something about you specifically that makes you special to them and perhaps even more powerful than them and you’re safe with them, so I don’t know.

I think I wanted to play with that a little bit, and I think I kind of doubly played with a because there’s Rowan, so he’s like the monster character in the excerpt that I read and he kind of became, like I guess, like the Beast who stays a Beast kind of character, but with the Lord Under as well, who’s the Lord of the Dead that Leta, the main character, can communicate with. That was very much playing around with the kind of Jareth (Labyrinth, 1986) sort of figure who’s you know, like powerful and everything, except somehow brought to their knees by this like human mortal girl, for whatever reason.

And I don’t know it’s just a lot of fun to play around with that and to like balance the power dynamics between all of them, and to try and make oh kind of you know, like giving Leta who realistically has very little power, trying to sort of give her this story of being strong and empowered and working her way through her relationships with these two kind of terrifying monstrous characters. I don’t know if that answered the question or not.

CMR: Sure! Yes, that answer’s great. But it’s interesting I think she’s getting a lot of her strength from battling against her mother as well, I think that’s part of the backstory that you get, from the sense that you get from the extract is that she’s-

LC: Yeah so I’m trying to think about what to say without giving too much away so… the basic premise is that she has a younger brother called Arien who is in possession of magic that’s not quite the same magic that, like, everyone else uses, so there’s something about his magic that seems to be like tainted or dark or wrong, and then they were orphaned, and so the woman who took them in who they refer to as their mother, she’s kind of afraid of Arien and trying to sort of fix him.

CMR: Ooh, okay.

LC: Leta’s been in this situation of, like, she wants to keep her brother safe, but it’s always this kind of, is it better to stay in the unsafe situation where you know the parameters, or go out into the wider world, where there’s the potential for more unknown risks. So that’s kind of the point she’s at, at the start of the book. She’s been putting herself in harm’s way to protect her brother from the like mother’s abuse, which is in the name of trying to help him, and justifying it to herself where she’s like at least here like I know the risks and I know how to protect him, because, like, I can step between them and take the hurt, versus leaving and going into like a wider world, where there’s so many unknown threats.

CMR: Mmm. That’s always powerful.

LC: Yeah, so it’s a lot about like, sibling bonding, and then this kind of idea of maybe she sort of feels like she’s done the right thing by doing this, but it gets to the point where she has to face the fact that, like, she needs to maybe let him face some risk in order to grow and perhaps it’s like actually been kind of hurtful for him to watch her being hurt to protect him if that makes sense.

CMR: Yeah.

LC: Without giving too much away of the story I don’t know, yeah it’s literally, it’s such a tightly woven, very small-scale story that it’s really hard to talk about the specifics, without spoiling it I guess. But yeah that’s where they’re at in this part of the story anyway.

CMR: Yeah it sounds like there’s so much in it. There’s a lot of very deeply Gothic themes it’s quite a dark – darker kind of book.

LC: I think so, yeah, I mean I don’t know, I’ve always just really like love dark aesthetic Gothic kind of thing, like I grew up you know loving like dark fairy tales and Labyrinth, and like that Addams Family movie from the 90s. I remember being very drawn to all of these sort of very dark aesthetics like Interview with the Vampire, like I read so much Anne Rice. I loved the movie Interview with the Vampire when it came out and I think I just like – it was just this big homage like the goth teenage girl that I was, so it’s kind of dark, but in I think an aesthetically lush kind of romantic, fun way, like I call it kind of … like an art school goth book. You know, it’s kind of like it is dark, but there’s like moments for humor like Leta the main character is quite witty, she’s got like this very dry kind of gallows humour. She defuses stuff by joking a lot. It was a very fun challenge as a writer, to try and infuse humour right into quite a serious book because there’s so many times where she would be a joke and my editor’s like, this is not landing, she should be afraid of him, why is she teasing him there, and I’m like I don’t know, I just wanted her to be funny and um. But that balance is hard.

I really love how authors like Leigh Bardugo do it, like her books are so funny and quite dark and I really loved like, especially in the original Grisha trilogy, like how Alina is so quippy a lot of the time and it’s just I don’t know I loved it and I wanted to try and see if I could infuse some of that into my book, because it’s like it’s really nice to read a book that’s dark and also funny.

CMR: Definitely, I think you can’t have dark books without humour if you’re… you know, if you’re trying to write something that’s … readable.

LC: Well, I mean. Even something like Game of Thrones which is like this completely… grim and dark, it has these real moments of humour with some of the characters who are kind of witty.

CMR: Yeah. Yeah, otherwise you just end up with, you know, 500 pages of despair. And all power to you if you like that, but.

LC: But, like, I think… I think I quite enjoy reading like a very serious grim book too, but I think to me, maybe, writing, I wanted the chance to be a little bit silly and funny as well, maybe.

CMR: I think, for me, as well if it’s… if it’s funnier I think some of the some of the tragedy lands better. I don’t know like I really like comedies that have genuine traumatic parts to them. You know, you’re laughing and then just, tears.

LC: Yeah! Like a real kind of Shakespearean kind of thing. I think like, I mean – for Leta, it kind of functions as a diffusing technique to say, like her brother will be trying to pin her down about something and she’s making jokes, and he’s just like this is not funny, stop it, you know, stop being silly about like whatever, but it’s a kind of a survival technique, I guess, that kind of way of laughing at stuff, like gallows humour I guess, but it’s yeah, I think, especially for young adult, it’s kind of fun to keep it not entirely serious.

CMR: Yeah so what’s the age range that you’re aiming this book for?

LC: So it’s upper YA, 14-18 I think is what my publisher has categorized it as, so I think it’s probably like one of those books where it’s kind of like a crossover like you know, like older Young Adult or Adult, I mean, I still love reading Young Adult so it’s kind of hard to say. I think it would sort of work like, if you like, Naomi Novick’s Uprooted, all those sorts of things, like The Bear and the Nightingale… it might appeal to adult readers who enjoy that, but it’s definitely got a very Young Adult voice and kind of ‘first stepping out into the world’ kind of storyline, and because that’s one of the things that I really love writing about a lot, like this … being on the cusp of everything starting, I guess, it’s really fun.

CMR: Yeah, that’s great, and the second one, FORESTFALL, that’s coming out in 2022, so next year, is that right?

LC: I think at the moment it’s meant to be the end of 2022, Fall, American Fall, so, we’ll see. With publishing it’s kind of like… I just find [it’s better] not to really get to attached to anything until it’s definitely set in stone, but at the moment, I’m about to start should start working on edits, but within the next month will be getting kind of getting a bit more real. I’m really looking forward to it.

I didn’t write it as a duology, it was originally a standalone and I sold a two book deal and nobody kind of asked me what the second book was going to be. I remember, I had an email exchange with my editor fairly early on, and I said to her, did you want to see an outline my other book and she’s like, Oh well, depending on how well Lakesedge does, we might want to turn it into a series.

And so I was like oh okay well I’m gonna have to have some time to think about how to do that, so I was like yeah cool like let’s, let’s turn it into a series, I’ve got an idea of how I could stretch it out, because I think when I was in submission I had this sort of Okay, if anyone asks me when I’m on sub if, like, if I could make it into a series, what would I say, and so I had this very, very rough plan of how I could take like basically the last chapter of the book and stretch it out into like a whole new book, but that was like going from like okay so here’s like a one line premise, how do I turn that into a whole novel?

And then the pandemic happened, and so I was trying to draft this book in the middle of everything being completely chaotic and having my publication date moved ahead because of the pandemic, so originally like it was meant to debut in February this year, so it ended up being ahead which worked out really well for me, because that meant that I had like a lot more time to draft Forestfall, so it was kind of a silver lining in the end, but it was a very really stressful time to be trying to write a new book.

I really love I love, how it turned out, and I think it’s got a lot of the same set of themes that are in Lakesedge, but it’s like a different kind of like, a different newness to it as well. So yeah it feels really weird having like this whole second book finished before the first one even comes out. I’m really looking forward to, like, I guess, this time next year, when I get to talk about it a bit more.

CMR: Yes, I’m excited, but I have to, I have to read this one.

LC: Yeah it’s still so far away, everything in publishing is this slow, it’s so funny where you’re like oh my book comes out in like eight months, and you know that sounds like so far away but I’m starting to feel a oh no it’s already getting so close but yeah.

CMR: Do you have any ideas about what you’ll do after you’ve written those two?

LC: So I have been, like in between everything else, working on a new book, which is a standalone, another sort of Gothic kind of fantasy. So we’ll see where that goes. I haven’t really showing that to anyone, yeah I think my agent has seen like little tiny bits of it.

CMR: Will that be Adult?

LC: I’m hoping like yeah I think I think it will be, I think, in the future, I wouldn’t mind sort of … So when I was writing Lakesedge there wasn’t really much of a crossover adult fantasy market, it was all or nothing really – it was like YA or all like very, very adult, and Naomi Novick and Katherine Arden were probably the two exceptions, but with Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House and Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, like those sort of crossover kind of adult science fiction fantasy books, that’s made me sort of feel like I think I’d really like to push myself to try and write, something that was adult, but we’ll see, because I also really do love writing YA kind of voice and YA situations so.

So I think the way the my new book is going it’s definitely shaping up to be another … Just in terms of like, the characters journey, it’s very much setting off from safety into the great unknown for the first time and finding yourself, and you know, like that kind of thing so. Fingers crossed that it will be able to find a home at a publisher and will turn into a real book someday.

CMR: Yay! Well, it’s been lovely to talk to you, so thank you ever so much for coming on the show, and reading the extract for us as well.

LC: Thank you for having me, it’s been really lovely.

CMR: That’s all we’ve got time for, thank you for listening, on Thursday we’ve got the next installment of The Crows to listen to, so stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe, and see you Thursday. Bye now.

Podcast S01E18 ~ Chapter 16 Available Now!

Chapter 16 of The Crows is online today!

CW for alcohol/drunkenness drug-dealing, relapsed alcoholic character, refs to parental death and maternal alcoholism/death by drink-driving.

CHAPTER 16: SINISTER LOCAL HISTORY

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 16: Sinister Local History

…in which Carrie has a night out and Wes tells a dark tale…

It wasn’t long before the curtain of the snug was twitched aside, and in sauntered a man as lean as Ricky Porter if a foot taller, beer bottle in his hand, conspicuous in a plain black plastic mask covering the top half of his face, sharply dressed in a royal purple silk shirt and black skinny jeans.

Tina hailed him with a grin. “Wes! You made it!” 

“Sorry, Tee.” Wesley Porter went in for a warm hug. “Would’ve been here earlier but I was running a quick errand when you texted. Family thing.”  

Tina raised an eyebrow as they broke apart.  

Wes raised his hands. “Not selling, honest. Gone clean, on my Aunty’s grave.” 

“Yeah, you pass your gear on to one of your cousins to sell for you,” Tina remarked, unconvinced and unimpressed.  

“Naun harmful, recreational only, give us a break, love.”  

Carrie got the impression Wes was a much better liar than his cousin. It was the strangest thing, but after Wes stopped speaking she could remember what he’d said, but not what his voice sounded like.  

“So, how’s things?” Tina shifted along to make room for him, and Wes dragged a chair closer to hers than necessary. 

“Yeah, alright thanks, apart from our soothsayer being an awkward sod for some reason. Insisted on coming to me instead of me going there, he’s never done that before. Bloody weird. Only did me a bone-reading, that’s all, nothing special. Gave him something he can sell to the party crowd.” He turned to the table, running his tongue over his lips as he spotted Carrie, now frozen and staring. The implication left her aghast.

(Unbelievable! ‘No sex, no drugs, no rock ‘n’ roll’ my arse. What an absolute—) 

“Hel-lo. You must be Caroline.” 

Carrie shook his hand. “Carrie.” His palm was hot and dry. “Is it Wesley?” 

“Wes, please.” He finished his beer and set the bottle down. “Don’t mind my cousin, if he’s been sniffing around. He doesn’t get out much. Oh, speaking of getting out, sorry Charlie couldn’t make it, she’s got a date.” He made himself comfortable.  

“Shame,” Tina said. 

“Tee fancies my missus,” Wes said, dropping a hand under the table to rest on Tina’s thigh, “But I don’t take it personally.” 

Carrie noted Tina didn’t brush him off. 

“Right, let’s get this over with.” Wes took off his mask, and Carrie held her breath. The surprise of his average appearance was a terrible anti-climax. She dropped her eyes to her glass and immediately forgot what he looked like.  

Wait. 

She raised her eyes again and fixed his face in her mind. When she looked away, she couldn’t remember his eye colour, hair colour, face shape, the size of his nose.  

Am I that drunk? 

Not that drunk, no, but her frontal lobe was bathed in blissful numbness, and her thoughts felt more her own.  

She caught Tina’s eye and saw she was smirking. 

No, I bet this is a thing, she thought. Alright, I’ll play. 

“Go on,” Wes encouraged her. “What’s my hair like? Took me hours, this did.” 

Carrie closed her eyes and guessed. She opened her eyes. She was wrong.  

Mercy clapped. “God, it’s weird, isn’t it? I’m getting another beer.” She slid clumsily by, knocking the table again.  

“She’s being subtle,” Wes said as she left. “She doesn’t like me. Anyway, Carrie, let’s get to it. I figured I was coming over to be grilled.” 

Tina shook her head. “I think Carrie’s earned a few answers, Wes.” 

“Why’s your Gran trying to kill me?” Carrie blurted out, fed up. “And what’s the deal with your face?” 

Wes burst out laughing. He shook his head, long fingers toying with his mask. “Gran’s not trying to kill you, not that I know of. From what I can tell, Jan just wanted to scare you and it – got a bit out of hand. Gran was a bit pissed off because she, well, she was pretty close to Jan. I mean, she might have reacted…” 

“I was nearly cursed to death.” Carrie scowled, noting how close he was to Tina. “Dr Monday had to Sarcophagus Wrap me.” 

“I’m not sure what that means,” Wes said slowly, nondescript voice easily carrying over the music, “but Tee said all of this – it’s got something to do with a ghost? Gran’s got protection against stuff like that. If anything, she’s just doing a friend of hers a favour, though I’ve no idea who that is.” 

Carrie grated her teeth. “I want some answers.” 

“What d’you want, a potted history?” Wes exchanged glances with Tina, amused. “Cor, she is new here. Yeah, okay. Right. Once upon a time…” 

~ C. M. Rosens, The Crows, pp. 341-44

This is how we meet Wes Porter for the first time, before I knew him properly as a character. He’s now the main character in Thirteenth and the short story Overexposure. If you signed up to my newsletter you get a free version of Overexposure in one of the back issues (#2)

Cover Design: Rebecca F. Kenney

Podcast S01E17 ~ Chapter 15 Available Now!

Chapter 15 of The Crows is online today!

CW for boundary crossing/personal space violation, male erection, nudity

CHAPTER 15: DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

Links on my podcast page.

Chapter 15: Deal with the Devil

…in which Carrie gets off the hook and Ricky is useful…

She woke pressed into Ricky’s chest, wrapped up in a possessive embrace and cuddled against him like a favourite toy. Carrie stayed put for a moment, her alarm running out of steam and snoozing itself for five minutes. Ricky wasn’t Fairwood – wasn’t close. His chest rose and fell in a gentle snore, rocking her back into drowsiness.

She tapped his stomach to wake him up, but that seemed to have settled in the night. He smiled in his sleep, brow un-furrowed, deep in the undeserved rest of the clean-living innocent. She knew exactly what would wake him up: it felt mean, but a quick lesson in why boundaries were important wouldn’t hurt him. She leaned in and planted a deliberate kiss on his cheek.

His eyes shot open.

Carrie recoiled as far as she could, trapped by his embrace.

Ricky realised he was holding onto her and let her go. He stared around the room, raising himself up on his elbows, remembered where he was, and dropped back down. “Bloody hell, don’t do that. What’s the time?”

“Seven.”

“Fuck that.”

Carrie snorted. “Aren’t you an ascetic? Early mornings should be right up your street.”

“Yeah. Well.” He stretched, reached for her, and pulled her back down onto him. “I fancy a little lie-in.”

Carrie settled back, warm and painfully aware how much she’d missed having someone there. Something. She found herself holding him tighter as she yawned.

“You should get yourself back out there,” Ricky said, placid from a good night’s sleep. “If you’re a bit, you know. Frustrated. I could introduce you to Cousin Wes. He bats for whichever team’ll have him.”

“I’m not…”

He shushed her, getting comfortable against the pillows. “Five minutes.” He twitched his knee. “And don’t think that’s for you, it just does that some mornings.”

(He’s not.)

Carrie turned her head to stare down beyond his belly, burning with awkward, illicit curiosity.

(Oh God, yes, he is.)

She masked her discomfort with humour. “Sure it’s not just acclimatising?”

“Don’t tease.” He frowned with his eyes shut. “Are you teasing? I’m not good at… I’m not used to it. Gerald doesn’t tease.”

“Who’s Gerald?” Carrie asked, imagining another cousin.

Ricky tensed. “Nobody.” He answered too fast, the tell of a terrible liar or a guilty man.

~ C.M. Rosens, The Crows, pp. 319-20

Ricky has absolutely no interest in Carrie in a sexual way (which I hope is fairly obvious) but this chapter is still pretty uncomfortable because he has no concept of boundaries or personal space. Carrie is due to die on the 13 May, and this is the morning of the 10th, so time is running out and he’s realising he actually quite likes her.

Ricky is really not the asexual/aromantic representation we needed, wanted or asked for, but unfortunately that’s his orientation, because otherwise any kind of romantic/sexual attraction between these two that isn’t on her side only would be really unhealthy. To be fair, their growing platonic-to-queerplatonic relationship is also not very healthy, but at least he’s not being possessive at this point. Admittedly that’s because he thinks she’s going to die in 3 days’ time.

Again, this was touched on in the Romancing the Gothic Be Gay Do Crimes lecture, which I linked in a previous post.

If you’re interested in actual asexuality or aromanticism, check out AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network) and Stonewall (UK).