Nicole Eatough's Blog

The Burden of Royals

Royal Duty, the first book in The Burden of Royals trilogy, is now out into the world! 

Cynthia is my first heroine within the enchanted races world who is already immersed in the supernatural world, which meant I had to write things a bit differently. For the first two trilogies, the heroines discover the supernatural world basically as the readers do. For this one, Cynthia already knows everything, which meant I needed a different way to explain information to readers. 

I think writing a heroine brand new to this world might be easier than one already in it, but it was fun to have that different dynamic within the story! As for what this story is about: 

Soon Cynthia must choose who among her marriage candidates will stand by her side and help her lead the sorcerer race. Too bad the one she wants isn’t interested—in ruling or in her.

Cynthia’s fate has always been to marry one of the marriage candidates picked out by her father from the top sorcerer families, and the time is soon coming for her to choose. But the one she wants, Jayden Beckett, hates politics . . . and maybe her too. Resigned to marrying someone she doesn’t love, she leaves for a human college—alone—to gather her thoughts and make her choice.

Which works great until a vampire coven leader comes along insisting she hand over a list of all sorcerers with vampire blood. Which, rumor has it, includes Jayden. Unwilling to betray any of her people to another race, Cynthia scrambles to counter the threats from the vampires with a new alliance unheard of among the enchanted races—the werewolves.

Though there’s a growing number of sorcerers in the background unhappy with Cynthia’s method of ruling who don’t appreciate her risking the vampires’ wrath for the sake of mixed bloods. And this might just be enough to tip them into rebelling against the ruling sorcerer family.

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Story Origin – The Burden of Royals

I’m a nerdy person by nature, so I love learning things about the books I enjoy, like how the author came up with the idea – so of course I like to post about the story origin of my own series. And since the first book in The Burden of Royals is almost here, now seemed the perfect time to discuss how the sorcerer trilogy first came to be! 

This story started through a little scene that popped into my mind of a young woman attending college hanging out on campus when a hot guy arrives. She’s annoyed to see him, though the two have an important relationship between them, while the people around her are awed at such a hot guy appearing on campus. 

After I have the initial idea, my stories usually evolve through me asking why. Why was this girl so annoyed at the appearance of the guy? Why was he there when he knew she wouldn’t be happy to see him? Why had she run off to college alone for this guy to NOT be there, and, if he annoyed her so much, why would her father support anything between her and this guy? 

I ended up creating the idea of the head sorcerer family and marriage candidates. After all, for hereditary rulers throughout history, it’s always been a concern to marry a “proper” bloodline, which would be especially important among a supernatural race where the rulers need to keep the magic of their line strong. (But sorcerers are more forward thinking than to straight up require an arranged marriage, so Cynthia has a few options to choose from.) And the reason the girl was so annoyed to see the guy was because she’s trying to figure out who she wants to marry and she wanted space to do that without any of the guys around. 

Though in the actual story I wrote, none of the guys ever suddenly show up on campus. They’re more respectful of Cynthia’s feelings than to go that far . . . even if they don’t exactly give her the space she asked for at all times. 

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The Moral Sorcerers

When I was creating the world of my enchanted races, I wanted my sorcerers to have powers different from what I normally read for sorcerers. (Partly because I often read about them doing spells, which didn’t felt like it fit into the magic system I’d created.) So I ended up giving them their mental manipulation abilities – something I really hesitated over, because there is SO much room for corruption with that, which didn’t really pair well with the low angst, light-hearted stories I wanted these trilogies to be. Not to mention that I wanted sorcerers to be a respected, trusted race, not one regarded with suspicion. So I had to figure out how to make that work – their dangerous powers of manipulation, yet still being a highly thought of race. 

My first thought was to turn to the sorcerer culture. It needed to be something that would intrinsically lead to them being trusted and respected by the other races. It probably says something about our culture that one of the first things my mind turned to was them being big in business 😅 But if the sorcerers repeatedly PROVED to be honest in their business dealings, no matter the race they were dealing with, then there’s less reason to fear their mental powers, right?  

And, of course, they’d need to have strict laws around when and how they’re allowed to use their powers (some of which is covered within The Burden of Royals trilogy). Though I still felt like it made sense within the world that the sorcerers were once corrupt, thanks to everything they can do with their powers. So I gave them a history where they weren’t always so great, but things changed thanks to Cynthia Mager’s family several generations ago. 

So within the trilogies, I get to have the sorcerers as the upstanding citizens I wanted them to be, with corruption within them a rarity. (I mean, it’s difficult to hide doing something bad when other sorcerers can pop into your mind to look at your memories.) Though, of course, there are still the bad eggs, as was seen with Slade within The Hidden Hotel trilogy, and there will be more problematic sorcerers within the upcoming trilogy . . .  

But, at least for now, the sorcerers are known as the respected financial power houses of the enchanted races world. You’ll just have to see whether Cynthia can ensure they keep that title within The Burden of Royals 😉

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Writing Setup

You know what’s really important for all of us who spend most of our day seated at a desk? Ergonomics, which involves having a workspace that puts your body in its most beneficial position to support how your body is supposed to sit. I.E. no slouching or weird craning to get your work done at your desk. 

My list of low back problems includes two bulging discs, stenosis, and a modic change in my spine, so sitting with the correct posture, as much as possible, is very important to me. You can see the somewhat elaborate setup I have. A foot rest (a very fancy wooden rest made by my grandpa and topped with a seldom used cookbook, lol) to elevate my feet so my knees rest at a 90 degree angle. A chair that theoretically supports my back. An elevated screen so I’m not bending my neck to stare at my laptop. And a separate keyboard and mouse to keep my elbows near a 90 degree angle while I work. 

But when I’m working longer hours than normal, or when my back is particularly hurting, or when I’m sick but working anyway, I have a tendency to bring my laptop to my couch and work there instead. Which I don’t feel is completely terrible for my back (though maybe that’s just what I like to think!), but there IS a terrible problem that sometimes happens with my back and working on my couch. And it’s completely my fault.  

You see, my cat Lily sometimes likes to lay on my lap when I’m on the couch, and this is something I want to encourage. So whenever I was using my laptop for watching videos or reading after work, I’d move my laptop off to the side for her, essentially training her that she can stare at my computer and it will be moved for her. This is a problem when I need constant access to the keyboard and mousepad, because I have to crane my back oddly if I’m still going to work.  

Or, you know, I COULD tell Lily no and not let her lay on my lap right then . . . but I’m unwilling to take that option, so this will continue to be a problem 😅

Thankfully, I don’t work on the couch that often, so it’s not normally an issue! 

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Word Usage

Continuing my recent topic of words where I talked about tricky words and common analogies, the words used in a book, especially a fantasy book, really helps sets the tone. Which means it’s important to choose the right words.  

When I’m writing in a new world, I’ll often start very basic with the terms that I use, because that’s the first thing that comes to my mind. For example, the first draft of Dark Obsession had the role of Chief Advisor. I really didn’t like it. It didn’t fit into the fantasy world I’d created and I wanted something more stately sounding, but it sufficed for a first draft. 

Before starting on my second draft, I searched for synonyms for chief advisor. Sadly, Google was certain I was looking for synonyms for chief financial advisor and gave me many unhelpful ideas. So instead I search for the titles of high-ranking advisor positions throughout history. One of the ones that came up was Grand Vizier, which was common in Islamic states. Vizier didn’t match the world I’d created, which is more inspired by Europe, but I loved the term grand, so I switched out chief for grand, and now monarchs within this world rule with a Grand Advisor by their side.  

I also initially titled alchemist creations spells and potions. But potions is commonly used, so I decided elixirs would be more fun and atmospheric. And using spells was not quite right to begin with, because those have a physical form. After a bit of brainstorming, I decided to go with arcanum instead.  

Yet another change I made is to one of the native supernatural races on the new continent. They only receive a minor mention in Dark Obsession, but there’s the conjurors and the essence weavers. The conjurors got to keep their initial name, because I feel like it’s more unique, but the other race I initially called shamans. And then I decided that term was too broad for what I wanted, and I didn’t like any other terms I found for magic users, given the powers I wanted this race to have. So I made up my own term and called them essence weavers. 

These are small changes, but I feel like they have an important effect on the overall tone and atmosphere of the book. 

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Analogies and Tricky Words

Writing fantasy, the way we often speak (at least where I live in the United States) comes up for me a lot, and I’ve realized how often I use cliche statements and/or comparisons. Sometimes those are okay, if they fit the world and the characters. When I am writing characters NOT from our world, most cliche statements don’t work at all, so I have to replace them with an alternative that fits the world I’m writing in. 

But one almost slipped by me with my latest release, Dark Obsession. Ronan thought to himself that Reina’s brilliance was almost “on par” with Genesis’s. Thankfully, while editing I caught that par is from golf and most certainly would NOT be part of Ronan’s thoughts because golf does not exist in this fantasy world. 

I also almost made other silly mistakes with words that are similar to each other. Those darn tricky words don’t register as a problem in my brain, because I know what I meant to write, so that’s the word my brains reads (hence the importance of a good editor).

Once such word swap is that I initially wrote that King Ronan sent a whole continent of guards to bring Reina to the castle rather than a contingent of guards. (Though I’m certain he’d send a whole continent worth of guards for her safety if he could manage it.) 

Another similar word with two very different meanings that initially ended up swapped in Dark Obsession? Vial and vile. I promise I know the difference between those words . . . I just don’t pay attention to which I type as I’m writing. I have continued to make this mistake while writing book two.

Another mistake that I did NOT catch before my editor (thank goodness for her): all my world building notes say Tenets of Alchemy, which is a list of characteristics that alchemists feel govern both alchemy and life that they’re supposed to live by. However, in writing the books I put Tenants of Alchemy. To be clear, a tenant is someone who lives inside a building owned by someone else, while a tenet is a principle or belief. I’m so glad the books didn’t go out like that. 

One final mistake (which I caught) was me at one point putting ‘Matriarch’ instead of ‘Dowager’.  Matriarchs are what the leaders of celestial guardian clans are called in my enchanted races world 😅 I promise, there are NO matriarchs in this world, as this world is entirely separate from the enchanted races. Thank goodness for editing!

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Dark Obsession Release Day

Dark Obsession, the first book in my new no spice romantasy series, is out into the world! 

Inspiration

I’m honestly a little dazed that it’s finished and released. Back in about November 2024, I got the absurd idea of, “I can totally write a book from an entirely different world WHILE writing The Missing Heir trilogy” and started to write Dark Obsession. 

Spoiler alert: I could not do it. I don’t remember how far along I got, but I ended up having to set it aside, and then came back to it near the beginning of this year. I keep trying to tell myself that if I work things right, I really can write two books at once. Except, I can’t. However, I don’t think I’ve fully learned this lesson yet, because I’ve been playing with the idea of just writing novellas while I work on full books , as though that’s somehow different 😓 Some lessons, you just have to keep learning until they finally stick, I guess. 

But onto the summary of this darling new book!

The ruling alchemists of the Midwest, the Kings of Darkhaven, have nothing to fear from anyone or anything. Until their mothers give them an ultimatum of marrying or abdicating their thrones.

The moment King Ronan’s mother decrees he must marry or abandon his throne, he knows exactly who will be his bride. The woman he’s been obsessed with since they met as children. The utterly brilliant and beautiful Reina . . . who despises his very existence. Minor issue, though. The bigger problem will be that she’s an elemental, and no alchemist will quietly accept a non-alchemist as their queen. But he’s not a King of Darkhaven for show. Power, intimidation, and, of course, proving to everyone that Reina is the superior choice is all that’s needed.

Elementals are little better than servants to their alchemist overlords, and all King Ronan has done to Reina since the day they met is torment her. So why is he suddenly insisting she marry him? She may have pledged to both herself and to the Elemental Council of Darkhaven to do everything in her power to better the lives of elementals, but marrying one of the Kings of Darkhaven is asking a bit much to accomplish that goal. Especially if that king is Ronan.

Unfortunately, ‘no’ isn’t a word King Ronan is very familiar with—at least, not if he’s not the one saying it—and he’s determined to have all of Reina, heart, soul, and body. And the more time she spends with him, the more difficult it is to remember why she hates all alchemists. Too bad powerful factions among both the alchemists and elementals would rather see the pair dead than ruling together.

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Dark Obsession Inspiration

Sometime last year I was in that terrible state of affairs where I find myself too often these days where I can’t get into any books. So I read outside my normal genre. The result? Me getting inspiration to write Dark Obsession, and creating a whole world and series around it. 

Inspiration

The genre I chose to check out was contemporary rom com, because I’d recently seen an advertisement for a book called ‘How to Find Love when You’re Weird’ by Camilla Evergreen that looked cute. And it was. So I read a few other books in her ‘How to’ series and was ENTHRALLED with her book ‘How to Destroy Your Lifelong Bully’. (In fact, I’ve already reread it.) 

It’s a version of bully romance, though takes place after their school days where the heroine was heavily bullied by the hero, and she slowly finds out that, while the hero’s actions were warped, the situation wasn’t quite what she thought it was. And since I enjoyed the book so much, my mind went down a path of wondering what kind of a situation would lead to a guy adoring a girl, yet treating her poorly. And my mind created King Ronan, the hero of Dark Obsession. 

But though I will (on rare occasions) read contemporary books, I do not write them. Any story idea I come up with invariably includes fantasy elements. And while Dark Obsession was inspired by a bully romance, I can’t really call it that. Ronan only bullied the heroine because he thought it was the only way he could ever be close to her. When he finds out that HE gets to choose his bride rather than it being some noblewoman his parents pick out, his attitude is along the lines of, “Whoops.” But he’s totally confident he can make everything up to the heroine and get her to fall in love with him, so it’s fine 😂.

The other books in the Kings of Darkhaven world won’t have any bully romance elements, though a common theme will be pushy rulers used to getting their way with an attitude along the lines of, “I’m king, I want to marry you, so you’re going to marry me.” 

But, of course, I don’t write dark romance, so their attitudes will have to shift a bit by the end of the novel! I do really enjoy writing powerful and pushy heroes though, along with women who challenge and change them. 

And, as a side note, if you know of any good clean bully romances, feel free to recommend them 😉. I love a good redemption arc in stories. 

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I Made a Map

I’ve never really paid attention to maps in books, nor did I ever think I’d write the kind of book where a map might be needed. But while I was planning out the world where my new series, The Kings of Darkhaven, takes place, I needed a map. I also had the thought maybe readers might appreciate one . . . but didn’t give it much thought. Then one of my beta readers, after reading the first book, suggested that a map would be fun, so then I considered it more seriously.

Now, when this map was just for myself, it was a very rough, very sad map, as you can see. I just used an outline of North America and divided up the space, because that was all I needed to keep track of where everything was. But if I was going to put a map inside my book, it had to look a lot nicer than what I’d made for myself. 

Now, as an author, I’ve taken a wide variety of courses. Ones on marketing and advertising, various craft topics, character development, world building, etc. Map making was not among those courses. 

So I searched around online and found a program called Inkarnate with various map making capabilities and combined what I created there with Affinity Publisher to create the second map pictured here. Which looks a whole lot nicer than the first one. The Kings of Darkhaven series takes place in the center territory, Darkhaven. And if it does well, I plan to write series for the rest of the territories, Irontide, Leviathan, and Silverfall, as well. 

I’m quite grateful I ended up making more of a real map for the story, because it helped solidify some story elements inside my head, and I really like having a quick reference for what the terrain is like at border areas for the story, which my first map most certainly did not provide. 

And, fun fact, the continent where this story takes place, The United Territories of the New Continent, is vaguely inspired by the United States, which is why I turned to North America for my first map. And the country where the main characters’ ancestors fled from is based off Europe, which is why I named it Evros, a name the Greeks used for roughly that area. 

So how do you feel about maps in books? Are they something you pay attention to or something you generally ignore?

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Best Side Characters

Apparently, when it comes to favorite side characters in my writing, I have a type. And that type is competent, powerful, and ruthless (with a side of handsome of course). 

Inspiration

How have I come to this conclusion? Because my favorite side character in The Hidden Hotel is Dante and my favorite in The Missing Heir is Romeo. And they both fit that description to a tee 😅 They can both also be absolutely charming, if they so choose, and both for less than selfless reasons. Dante, of course, is quite charming to all the hotel’s guests to help them have a wonderful time and tell all their friends to visit, while Romeo is more than happy to be charming to people to lull them into a false sense of security and get information out of them. 

They were both so fun that I want to write more of them, so hopefully I’ll find excuses to pull them into future trilogies. The trilogy releasing this fall, The Burden of Royals, focuses on the sorcerers, who are more cunning than ruthless, so I won’t have any of what is apparently a side character type that I adore in that trilogy. 

Though in The Burden of Royals, my favorite side character kind of does a complete 180 from the type listed above. Remember how The Hidden Hotel states that sorcerers adore their spirit beasts? So OF COURSE I had to include a spirit beast. He is a red panda and he is my favorite side character from my upcoming trilogy. He might not be competent, ruthless, or powerful, but he is adorable and loyal! He bites though. So watch out. 

The enchanted race trilogy after The Burden of Royals will focus on the vampires. I expect there will be plenty of opportunity for ruthless side characters there. But since we already know that Elias and Benjamin are ruthless with getting what they want, I might want to go a different direction with side characters just for some contrast . . . It’ll be fun to start playing with that once I start plotting this series later this year! 

In the meantime, feel free to let me know who your favorite side characters are so far in the enchanted races world!

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