Nicole Eatough's Blog, page 3

The Missing Heir

Somehow, we’re at the end of the year already. Since this is my last blog post of the year (so Merry Christmas and happy holidays!), I figured I’d give an update on my latest project: The Missing Heir. Even though there’s a pre-order up for book one, so you guys already know when it’ll come out 😅

Inspiration

I just got the first book, Heavens’ Captive back from my editor! I have more of my own edits for that book than I generally like to have after I’ve sent it her way but that’s bound to happen sometimes. And I could have gotten to those edits before I sent the book to her . . . but that would have meant delaying what I was working on with subsequent books in this trilogy, so I decided to wait. 

As readers of the The Hidden Hotel know, the seer Luca, the hero of this next trilogy, is a touch out of things, which is because of his visions. And I’ve wanted to write a hero like this for years (one who struggles to tell the difference between his visions of the future and what’s actually happened). I had SO much fun with him. I also enjoyed him because he starts out the story in love with the heroine, thanks to his visions, where as Zavion falling for Dahlia in The Hidden Hotel was a slow process that he fought since he was predisposed to dislike her. 

With The Missing Heir trilogy, the mixed blood controversy will still be part of the plot, though not near as much in the previous trilogy. There are those in the heroine’s clan unhappy with her human blood . . . but she’s also the leader of the most powerful of the celestial guardian clans, so it’s not like she’s weak. Not that she knows that yet, but Luca certainly does!   

There’s a lot of other things I’m excited for with this upcoming trilogy, though one of the biggest things is that the heroine has both parents around, they’re both wonderful, and they’ll both be part of the story, which is kind of new territory for me. Dahlia, of course, is a semi-orphan, the heroine of my Genie Whisperer series comes from controlling and less than stellar parents, and many of my unpublished books follow the common trope of young heroines not really having their parents in their lives (either physically or emotionally) for some reason or another, so it was quite refreshing to write a heroine where her parents are not only great and still around but also a huge part of her life.   

If I have that in a story again, it’ll probably be a long time before that happens, so I hope readers enjoy it!

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New Bonus Story!

I’m so excited to announce that there’s a new bonus story up for The Hidden Hotel! I wanted to do something for Christmas, but wasn’t sure I’d be able to get around to it. Thankfully, I was! 

Inspiration

You can probably get the gist of what the story is about from the title, First Christmas. Of course, there’s arguably a couple firsts going on in the story. It’s Dahlia’s first Christmas at the hotel, her first Christmas with Zavion, her first Christmas reunited with her dad . . . all the things. But of course I wrote this for Dahlia and Zavion 😉

And we’re now less than THREE months away from the release of the first book in the next trilogy in the world of the enchanted races. Can you believe it?! I had a mini-heart attack when I realized that while writing this, but book one is with my editor and the other two are scheduled to go to her early next year, so everything is on track! And maybe next year we’ll get to see the next trilogy’s couple at Christmas time.  

I hope you all enjoy this new bonus story!

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Just had to share this . . .

Fun fact: I LOVE crystals and rocks. So I had to share this picture from my calendar . . . which is a calendar featuring pretty gardens, so why there’s a picture of a single, pretty crystal, I can’t imagine, but I love it all the same. 

Inspiration

I was one of those kids who collected rocks, bought gemstones, and then, as an adult, have gone rock hounding with my dad and grandpa, who love driving out into the desert. Rock hounding is the official term for going out and finding your own rocks, a term I only discovered because a former coworker’s husband was an avid rock hounder. There’s just something so satisfying about going out and finding something on your own, though I’ve never found something as spectacular as the crystal in this picture. Just obsidian and small bits of sunstone, but it was still really fun!

But back to crystals, there’s just something so fantasy-esque about them, in my mind. Maybe that’s only because stories put the idea there in the first place . . . or maybe crystals only ended up in stories because lots of people agree there’s something mystical seeming about them. 

My love of gemstones is partly why I have my genies come out of gems rather than lamps in my Genie Whisperer series. I put a fair bit of thought into the colors and types of gems I wanted, ultimately choosing sapphire, imperial topaz, aquamarine, green diamond, yellow diamond, ruby, and black opal for the main genies. The gems were largely chosen based on the color scheme I wanted the genies to have, since each genie’s hair, eyes, and clothes match the color of their gem. 

I also, admittedly, chose gems as genies’ homes rather than lamps because the main character ends up with seven genies (initially) and carrying around seven lamps would be incredibly cumbersome. It also would have looked strange to have multiple lamps on the book covers, like I do multiple gems, though I suppose I could have simply featured a lamp with different coloring for each book . . . but then I would have deprived my cover artist of digitally drawing each of those gems, which, ultimately, I believe was a fun experience for her.  

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The Beast Mongers

I’ve talked a bit before about how I created the world of the enchanted races. After reading K.M. Shea’s Magiford Supernatural City trilogies, I thought it was so fun that all these stories took place in the same world, though was sad that I couldn’t do something similar, because all of my story ideas took place in entirely separate worlds. This was a very face palm moment in my life, because it took me a couple months to realize that I do, in fact, have full control over my writing and could therefore just expand those planned stories so that they DID take place in the same world. 

Inspiration

After I made that decision, I went through my folder with all my urban fantasy story ideas to pick out which ones I wanted to stick in the same world, which was a big factor in deciding which races would exist here. Based on the stories I planned to include, I needed celestial guardians, vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, sorcerers, and alchemists. Then I added some other races for fun to spice up the world – sprites, pixies, nymphs, sirens, and light and shadow phantoms.

Once I had those twelve races, I still felt that something was missing in this world. You see, I LOVE animals. I’ve almost always had cats and dogs, I’ve always enjoyed going to the zoo and aquarium, and I also love animals that aren’t real (as evidenced by the dragon plaques lining my office wall). So I sat at my parent’s desktop computer (because my laptop was being serviced and my mom graciously allowed me the use of her desktop so I wouldn’t fall behind on planning out/writing in this new world) and wondered how I could best include animals. 

I considered having mythical animals exist in this world and be used as pets for the supernatural races, but that didn’t quite fit the role I had in mind for the animals. Instead I ended up creating spirit beasts and then the beast mongers to go along with them. I’m quite happy with how they turned out in The Hidden Hotel and really look forward to the role they’ll play in subsequent trilogies. Especially, of course, in the trilogy focusing on beast mongers, where Veer will be the main character.  

I find the spirit beasts super fun because of the eclectic role they play in the world of the enchanted races. They can essentially be pets (though also closer to genuine friends because they’re more intelligent than regular animals), guardians, messengers, etc. And while I can’t promise they’ll cameo in every trilogy, I do expect them to make frequent appearances. 

And, I have to say, that if I could be any of the races within my enchanted races world, I would probably choose to be a beast monger. And I would own cats in so many varieties. 

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Strong Female Characters

It’s not often that I go on a rant, and I wouldn’t call this a rant per se . . . but kind of. And it’s about strong female characters. 

Inspiration

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might have already heard me talk about my opinion on this in some variation or another. ‘Strong female character’ has been a buzzword in books for several years now, and I think some authors and readers have an interesting definition of strong. As in I think some heroines listed as strong are jerks and I would in no way want to be friends with them or hold a conversation with them, which, in my opinion, isn’t how books are supposed to work. 

While I enjoy a good plot, I read for characters and their relationships. I want to find characters who I adore, who I would love to be part of their lives (hence why I’m spending my time reading about them!). I very much feel that a heroine being a jerk to jerks or getting vengeance for any wrong done to her or those she loves does not make her strong, nor does wielding a sword the best (though I do prefer a good sword wielder to a jerk). 

It reminds me of a former coworker taking her daughters to see the live action Cinderella and them disapproving of her and calling her weak. I immensely disagree. Being kind to those who are cruel to you takes so much more strength of character than snapping back at them or getting even. Doing those things are what someone who is mentally weak does. 

So with an opinion like this, obviously I would have a very particular type of heroine in my own books. I want ones who save the day because of who they are, not whatever special abilities they might have. In my Genie Whisperer series, the heroine is a science-obsessed engineer college student who frequently saves the day, so to speak, with her clever thinking. In The Hidden Hotel, Dahlia saves the day with her excellent people skills.

I did strongly consider giving Dahlia powerful abilities she didn’t know about, and I very reasonably could have since her father is so powerful. But I decided that instead I wanted her NOT having great power to be a strength for her. It allows her to do her job at the hotel better because no one needs to posture around her since she’s no threat. 

As I’ve previously mentioned, I have several trilogies planned in the world of the enchanted races, and while many of the heroines won’t be almost powerless like Dahlia is (I mean, the next heroine will be the matriarch of Heavens, obviously she’ll be a powerhouse), I don’t intend for the main characters to save the day simply because they’re the strongest, most powerful, super secret weapon, but instead because they both have power AND because they’re good people in a way that makes them stand out from others around them. 

Mind you, I do enjoy stories with heroines who save the day because they’re the strongest (so long as they’re also nice), but I wanted to write heroines who win the day a different way. I hope readers enjoy! 

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Hidden Hotel Backstories

If you listen to authors talk about their craft with any kind of frequency, you’ve probably heard that a lot of things they brainstorm while crafting a book doesn’t actually make it into the story. This was very true of various backstories I created for the employees of The Hidden Hotel, but I think it’s fun information, so figured why not post about it here!  

Inspiration

Now, maybe it seems a little silly to craft backstories that are never mentioned within the story, but they help me get a feel for the character. For who they are, for why and how they turned out like they did, etc. It’s sometimes an important part of the story and character development process for me. So without further ado, let’s start off with Oliver’s backstory! 

Oliver is the result of a one night stand, which is common for mixed bloods. People don’t generally intentionally have them (so maybe someone needs to do a better job of teaching the enchanted races how to use birth control). His sorcerer mother didn’t want to acknowledge he was hers, and his fire sprite father was okay keeping him . . . but sprites are free-roaming people with lots of wanderlust who don’t do well with set rules. Like being a responsible parent who sets limits. For the average fire sprite, that’s fine, but for Oliver who’s half sorcerer, that left him feeling lonely and like he never had a real home.

Clara was also unintentional, though her parents’ relationship was a fling rather than a one night stand. It was kind of a long-standing friends with benefits situation. Both her parents were in her life, but her siren mother raised her, with her light phantom father visiting her regularly, but clearly considering her something to hide.

Lola has a happier backstory. Her pixie mom and alchemist dad are married, and she was intentional. They’re a pretty adorable couple who were (and are) doting parents. They really encouraged Lola to explore her abilities so she could discover everything she’s capable of as a mixed blood and where her passions lie.

Stella, Zavion’s mom, was a slightly more complicated situation, given her mother’s status among the shadow phantoms. Rosalia – Zavion’s grandma – was in an unhappy arranged marriage with a controlling man. After her first daughter was born, she had a rebellious affair with a light phantom which led to the birth of Stella. When Rosalia’s husband tried to refuse allowing Stella to live in their home, Rosalia finally lashed out against her parents’ wishes of her being a complacent wife, using her powers to show who was more powerful and threatening his life if he ever touched her daughter. Did Rosalia ultimately do right by her daughter? No. But at least she protected her physical safety, and not being a good enough mother to Stella is something she deeply regretted after the death of her younger daughter, thinking she never once told Stella she loved her or did anything to help Stella achieve her potential. Seeing what Zavion achieved while having the blood of four different races makes Rosalia feel even worse about this. 

We’ll end with Dante’s backstory, since he’s the only non-mixed blood in this bunch. Dante was never terribly close with his family. He always looked down on his younger brothers as pathetic compared to him (he definitely had a superiority complex, but he is a powerful and capable shadow phantom). He largely ignored Zavion for quite some time, but came to respect his little cousin who refused to crumble, no matter how many times the twins tried to knock him down, as well as admiring how Zavion took his, in some respects, limited abilities from his mixed blood, and turned them into something useful. He started siding with Zavion against his family, which made things even worse for Zavion, so Dante had to back off from that. When Zavion revealed the hotel idea, Dante eventually came to be passionate about it as well. After all, if Zavion could be so amazing, how many other mixed bloods could be? Dante liked the thought of the challenge of helping other mixed bloods achieve their full potential through the hotel. He was also able to convince Rosalia to invest in the hotel. (Which might have been a touch easier because of some of the guilt she still harbored toward Stella.) 

I hope you enjoyed getting this peak behind some of the backstories unmentioned within the trilogy!

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Blursings

I bet you’ve never heard the term blursings before. I hadn’t until I was at an event with a speaker who spoke about them. It’s a term she made up to describe curses in our life that are also blessings. I loved the concept enough for it to stick with me through all these years, so figured I’d talk about how blursings played a major role within The Hidden Hotel, and, more specifically, who Zavion and Dahlia are as people. 

Inspiration

Let’s start off with Dahlia, since she’s the main character. After ending up with Peona, she had a fairly difficult childhood. Being Peona’s emotional support human aside, she was often looked down on by classmates and peers for not having a “real” family, which led to various forms of bullying. 

Obviously, that very much falls into a ‘curse’ sort of category. But it was only because of these difficult experiences that Dahlia cultivated a personality that was charming, honest, wholesome, and disarming. She found this to deescalate a lot of bullying situations, either because people didn’t receive the reaction they’d hoped for so they moved on or because her reaction confused them. All this made her uniquely equipped to handle a supernatural hotel where plenty of others initially looked down on her for being human. Which is the blessing part

As for Zavion, he grew up in an outright abusive situation, not being wanted by anyone for not only being a mixed blood, but the child of two different mixed bloods. He was unwanted and unloved everywhere he turned. Obviously very much a curse in his life. But that same terrible childhood is how he was inspired to create something as amazing and impressive as The Red Adler, something someone without his bloodline and experiences couldn’t have done in the same way. This isn’t only a blessing to him but a wide variety of other people from his mixed blood hires to the important guests who are able to meet in neutral territory. 

I love these kinds of things both in stories and in real life. I fully admit that when I hear people say they’re grateful for trials because it led to this or that, my thought is often, “You’re a better person than me,” because I’ve spent the past decade (including right now) enduring an increasingly painful physical trial very poorly from an emotional standpoint a lot of the time. But the truth is that hard things do build us into better people if we let them. But it’s our choice whether to let them tear us down or build us up. I’m most certainly not saying it’s an easy choice (as I just admited, I fail at that plenty), and sometimes it’s a daily or hourly or even minutely choice. But it’s still a choice.

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First Impressions

I feel like first impressions don’t necessarily get the same emphasis they used to when I was younger, but they really are important. We humans are often quick to make judgements, so whatever we first see of someone often makes us think, “Oh, this person is like that.” Whether the that in question is positive or negative. This is especially true if our first impression of someone is repeatedly reinforced – such was was the case with Zavion and Dahlia. 

Inspiration

Dahlia’s first several impressions of Zavion were very much not positive. With good reason, of course, but then Zavion unintentionally set up a situation where Dahlia had a very particular image of him that was exceptionally difficult for him to break. 

Not that Mr. Oblivious really noticed. In his mind, come book two, he’s treating her as a normal employee with even a little bit of special treatment, but Dahlia can’t see past her first impressions of him to notice the difference, still viewing everything he does with suspicion. Especially since he never looks particularly happy. I’d feel more bad for Zavion if he hadn’t brought it on himself (says the author who made Zavion the way he is). 

Regardless, Dahlia and Zavion’s first meeting definitely wasn’t a meet cute. Nor can the meeting of our next protagonists be called a meet cute either. Not that Luca the seer is anything like grouchy Zavion, but, if you’ve read the synopsis of the next trilogy, you know that the heroine’s first introduction to the celestial guardians is by being kidnapped by them, so she’s not exactly happy to be meeting anyone. Come to think of it, I’m not sure there will be any meet cutes within the world of the enchanted races, but I suppose such is the nature of fantasy novels! Love interests meeting each other is often far more mysterious or rocky than in contemporary novels.    

Also, fun (yet currently irrelevant) fact, the sorcerer race doesn’t only dress nice when they have a conference or meeting. Being so heavily involved in the business industry and so aware of the image they present at all times, sorcerers always dress nice in part to always be ready to give a great first impression.   

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Nixed Hidden Hotel Plot Line

Little known fact: the last book in The Hidden Hotel trilogy, Whispers of Truth was originally going to include a whole subplot that ended up getting nixed because of how much was going on in the book. While I think it would have been fun, I also don’t regret not including it, since I like what I chose to focus on instead. 

Inspiration

What was this nixed plot line? A whole mystery of Dahlia looking into her mother’s past and why she died. In that version of the book, Dahlia was completely ignorant to the drama her mom was involved in with the construction company looking to tear down Alderon’s forest, so when Dahlia gets her memories back, she wants to investigate what happened to her mom. 

In this plot line, though Dahlia was angry with Zavion after learning the truth, Zavion insisted she take Oliver with her for protection on her investigation. (While Oliver might not the best source of protection, he can be dangerous against humans!) Dahlia was going to look into the construction company and even reach out to the sorcerers for help to have them look into the humans’ minds, and I was going to have Cynthia’s love interest help out (because, fun fact, Cynthia, the future head sorcerer, is getting her own trilogy!).  

But between the light and shadow phantom conference, the vampire drama, and the beast mongers’ interference I felt like a lot was already going on and that it would be best to simplify things and have Dahlia already aware of why her mom was killed once she gets her memories back. 

As much as I like the sorcerers, it was more fun to spotlight the beast mongers instead in this case, so readers will just have to wait until Cynthia’s trilogy (which will publish after the celestial guardian trilogy) to learn about her love interest. Who technically was in Whispers of Danger, but wasn’t even named since Dahlia was never introduced to him.  

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All Thirteen Races?!

Fun fact: all thirteen races that I created for my new urban fantasy world appear within The Hidden Hotel trilogy! 

Inspiration

This wasn’t an intentional decision on my part, though I did write The Hidden Hotel first out of all my planned trilogies in part because of how many of the races I could introduce there. A place where everyone is welcome was the perfect location to start things off.  

And I’m extra grateful because at least the next few trilogies I plan to write will be very race-centric, so there won’t be a whole lot of representation from the rest. The next trilogy, as has already been announced, focuses on the celestial guardians, who are fairly isolated. Basically the only time they deal with other races is during their annual meeting – which you will get to see once again during the first book of the next trilogy (The Missing Heir), just from the celestial guardian perspective this time!  

The celestial guardian trilogy will feature a few cameos from the other races, but all thirteen definitely don’t make an appearance. Actually, I’m not sure all thirteen will ever make an appearance within the same trilogy ever again, because that’s quite a few races. I didn’t necessarily set out to create such a big world so much as I looked through all of my urban fantasy story ideas and pulled out all the ones that I thought would be fun to stick inside the same world, and then ended up with thirteen races. 

As for the races, we have modern fantasy classics like werewolves, shape-shifters, vampires, and sorcerers. Classics taken from myth like nymphs, sprites, and sirens. I also added pixies and alchemists for fun (my alchemist story idea was actually in my high fantasy story idea folder rather than urban fantasy folder, but I decided to throw the alchemist story into the mix and just change up the setting). Then there’s the races I made up: light phantoms, shadow phantoms, beast mongers, and celestial guardians. 

I hope that readers look forward to learning more about these races as I write more trilogies set in this world!

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