Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 2

Review | A Marvellous Light – Freya Marske

About the Book

Set in an alternative Edwardian England, this is a comedy of manners, manor houses, and hedge mazes: including a magic-infused murder mystery and a delightful queer romance.

For fans of Georgette Heyer or Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton, who’d like to welcome magic into their lives . . .

Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he’s actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren���t for this administrative error, he���d never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world.

Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor ��� but he���ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart. Unwillingly thrown together, Robin and Edwin will discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles.

377 pages (Kindle)
Published on October 26, 2021
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Note: Any US spellings of “Marvelous” in here is due to my computer autocorrecting the word and me being too lazy to fix it. (At least I’m honest.)

I really loved��Witchmark��by CL Polk, and when I saw��A Marvellous Light,��which very much gave me the same vibe, I was on it.��

Set in Edwardian England, this book follows the story of Robin Blyth and Edwin Courcey. Despite having recently inherited a title, Robin is in desperate need for immediate income. Due to a clerical mishap, he ends up landing a job in the office of Special Domestic Affairs and Complaints, after the person (Reginald Gatling) who had previously held that position suddenly went missing. Soon, Robin meets Edwin Courcey, who was the special liaison to the Chief Minister of the Magical Assembly.

The two men start out the at odds, and there are plenty of reasons for this, which the book explores. However, Robin wants to find out what happened to his missing predecessor, Reginald Gatling, and to do this he must join forces with his magical counterpart, Edwin. Slowly, peace develops between them, and then friendship, and then something more. Fans of enemies-to-lovers tropes will probably love this. 

While the drama the book circles around is large and has potential to alter the course of history, the narrative scope is actually quite narrow and focused, switching between both Robin and Edwin. This choice has some benefits and drawbacks, and I really think it���s just going to depend on what kind of reader you are as to whether this actually works for you or not. On the one hand, this book knows exactly what it is. It���s a romance set in the midst of a life-altering mystery. The narrow scope allows the author to keep the story intimate while giving readers a doorway to walk through so they can get to know more about the world through the perspectives of the characters. On the other hand, readers who might want a book with a larger scope and a broader plot may find that there might not be enough here for them to chew on. 

The dynamic between Edwin and Robin is truly charming. Edwin is a fantastic scholar, but he has very little magic in a family where magic is extremely important. His family treats him, often, with contempt, and as a result, he has a hard time opening himself up and trusting. His emotions are buried deep, and at the start of the book I had an extremely hard time warming up to him as a result. However, once I got settled enough in his perspective, I realized that still waters do indeed run deep, and there is far more to Edwin than first meets the eye. On the other hand, Robin is far more open and carefree, easy to feel than Edwin, balancing the other���s brooding nature quite well. 

The romance is well done, though there are some graphic sex scenes in the second part of the book that readers should be aware of. The author knew when to lean into the sweet notes of their budding relationship, and when to lean into the sex. Whether or not you enjoy sex scenes is up to you, just know you���re getting them if you read this book. 

The worldbuilding is another aspect of the book that I think will be hit or miss with readers, depending on what proclivities you enter the book with. A lot is left implied, and there are things aren���t explored fully. If you���re looking for a well-developed world that you get to fully experience through the characters, you won���t really get that here. You���ll learn about the world, yes, and you���ll experience the magic, but a lot of things, like the Magical Assembly or the history of magic in England aren���t explored as deeply or as hands-on as I might have preferred. That being said, this is a story about two men thrust together due to circumstances beyond their control, more than anything else, so it is logical that the author would keep the scope narrow and leave so much of the world implied rather than explored. 

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of infodumps and the author���s ability to avoid unnecessarily complicated explanations for things. I left the book feeling like I understood exactly what I needed to understand about the world in order to truly enjoy the story, and not much more. There are doorways open, however, for the author to return to this world and add layers and texture to it as the series proceeds. As a foundational book for whatever comes next, this one is solid. 

If I was going to quibble about aspects of the book here, I would say that unfortunately, I found most of this one predictable. The plot wasn���t terribly surprising. The villains were easy to spot, and the secondary characters were two-dimensional to the point I got them confused quite often as I read. 

Despite those points, however, I truly did enjoy this book. I loved the exploration of power dynamics, and the slow revelations of both self and secrets. The world, while our own, is also strange enough to really captivate me, and I am eager to explore more. This is sure to be a raging hit for readers who enjoyed Witchmark by CL Polk, or who like their fantasy mixed with a bit of history. 

Is this a perfect book? No, but perfect is boring. 

4/5 stars

Review | Reign & Ruin – J.D. Evans

About the Book

���All magic is beautiful,��� she said, ���and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine? You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.��� 

She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy.

She is order and intellect, a woman fit to rule in a man’s place. He is chaos and violence and will stop at nothing to protect his people.

His magic answers hers with shadow for light. They need each other, but the cost of balance may be too high a price. Magic is dying and the only way to save it is to enlist mages who wield the forbidden power of death, mages cast out centuries ago in a brutal and bloody war.

Now, a new war is coming. Science and machines to replace magic and old religion.

They must find a way to save their people from annihilation and balance the sacred Wheel���but first, they will have to balance their own forbidden passion. His peace for her tempest, his restlessness for her calm��� 

Night and day, dusk and dawn, the end, and the beginning.

420 pages (paperback)
Published on January 18, 2020
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It seems like everyone who talks about this book says something like, ���I don���t read/enjoy romance but������ And look, I get it, we all have tastes and flavors and preferences and the like, but this book is a whole lot more than just romance, so sit back and let me tell you all the ways this one delighted me. 

Reign & Ruin was a pretty unexpected book. I honestly didn���t realize it won the SPFBO until like��� the day I checked it out on Kindle Unlimited. I���m just so busy, I���m not really tapped into that kind of thing anymore. I saw the cover art floating around a lot, and I knew a lot of readers I respect have read and enjoyed it but I basically knew nothing else before I started reading.

I like to go into books as ignorant about them as I possibly can be, and so I didn���t know what the book was about or really anything about it until I started reading. I think in a lot of ways, this was a benefit. I had no preconceived notions. (Well, I had one, but we���ll get into that shortly.) I thought the cover art was interesting and I���ve followed the author on social media and that���s about all I knew. This left the book a lot of room to captivate and surprise me, to enchant me with the story itself. 

Here we follow two characters. One is Naime, who is the heir to the throne of Tamar. We find her on the cusp of change. Her father, the sultan, is slowly sliding into dementia and Naime knows her future and the future of her land hangs in the balance. However, as a woman, whoever she ends up marrying will rule rather than her, and so we get a front row seat to what many women throughout history have faced: the bartering of her life for the happiness and security of others.��

On the opposite side is Makram, the younger brother of Sarkam���s ruler and leader of the military. Buttoned-up and somewhat aloof (at first), Makram is a character that I quickly loved. His surface is so controlled, but there���s a seething storm beneath that fa��ade and emotional depths to him that really rounded him out nicely. Torn between family loyalty and personal obligation, Makram secretly travels to Tamar to meet with Naime. Insert political machinations here.��

The characterization truly shines in��Reign & Ruin, which is necessary, especially when you are dealing with romantic elements. Readers need to fundamentally care about the characters involved to care about the relationship that forms. One of the first things I noticed about Evans was how well she balanced their internal and external journeys. The emotional landscape is just as vivid and carefully crafted as the external one. Weighed down by family, loyalty, and obligation, both of these characters struggle with the face they must show the world, and the people they are beneath their facades. This personal touch, the care put toward exploring all of the layers that makes someone who they are, had me instantly invested.��

Naime and Makram are different people at the end of the book than they were at the start. Not literally, of course, but figuratively as Evans does a magnificent job of pushing them to points where they are forced to grow and evolve past who they thought they were, straining the limits of self as they rise to the challenges they face, neither saving the other but rather complementing each other well. The ending, due to this felt extremely satisfying because I was so invested not just in their external arcs, but the emotional ones as well.

I mentioned a few paragraphs up that I went into this book with one preconceived notion, and that sort of held out and sort of didn���t at the same time. Due to the cover art, I knew I was getting a court-style fantasy. I expected it to be a typical European court-style fantasy but I was quickly surprised (and delighted) to find myself in a world with realistic Middle Eastern notes. Evans fleshed out all the aspects of her creation perfectly, making sure elements worked together when necessary and added just enough friction at other points to keep things interesting.��

Due to situations in the book, this isn���t really a light read. It’s not something you need to brace yourself for either, but there are deeper themes at work here and these deeper themes are my playground. This is where I was happiest. One such theme is balance, and it reverberates throughout the book, impacting everything from the magic to the politics, to the characters themselves (as well as giving the book a really interesting yet subtle play between past and present). Along with that, Evans touches on dementia, PTSD, bigotry, misogyny, and more. Don���t misunderstand me: this book is not what I���d consider to be dark, but it was unexpectedly heavy in some regards and I loved the caring, poignant way Evans fearlessly explored some of these deeper, more difficult themes.����

Naime is not a woman who needs to be rescued, and Makram knows that, which is part of what made their romance so delightful. By the time the book gets to that point, it felt more like a natural evolution of two people rather than anything else. I absolutely adored how Evans stayed true to both characters and their strong personalities. While romance was had, it wasn���t always easy. The author knew how to build atmosphere with carefully chosen words and descriptions, and while that impacted the book throughout, I really felt it keenly in what develops between our two protagonists.

Focusing primarily on the romance really isn���t being fair to all the other aspects of the book. Yes, this is a romance, but it���s so much more than that as well. This is a tale about lives becoming entwined as people desperately try to do the right thing for them and those they care about, about risks and rewards, and yes, balance. It���s a story with a whole lot of soul, and high stakes. The action happens mostly with intrigue and relationships, whether romantic, familial, or otherwise. The world is vividly crafted with meticulous attention to detail and the characters are so real, they breathe on and off the page.��

Yes, here be romance. But here also is transformation, the evolution of individuals as they break the ties that bind them and become who they are meant to be, and it ended in such a way that left me eager to read more.

Reign & Ruin ultimately is a human story with a vivid emotional landscape matched only by the politics and turmoil the characters navigate. Evans holds nothing back, but neither does she glorify in pain and darkness. As in all things, this book is an exploration of balance, and it is in the careful execution of this amazing tale where Evans truly shines.��

5/5 stars 

Review | The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean

About the Book

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon���like all other book eater women���is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger���not for books, but for human minds.

304 pages (hardcover)
Published on August 2, 2022
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This book was an ARC sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Somehow, I managed to nab an arc of this book about a hundred years ago. I read the entire thing in two days, and then I went online to gush about how amazing it was and realized the book didn���t publish for months yet. So, I sat on all my thoughts. I recently realized the book published and I���d forgotten to gush about how much I loved it (I���ve been so busy it���s ridiculous), so here I am. Better late than never, right?��

I don���t even really know where to start with this one, which is surreal because books are my livelihood and I always seem to know what to say about them. This one, though, crosses a lot of streams, all of which I love, and it left me with so many thoughts. How do you discuss a book that defies explanation?

Basically, living on the fringes of UK society is a secret group of people known as book eaters. They consume books for food, and then retain the knowledge they gain by eating said books. This subset of society is dwindling, and Dean shows how they���ve survived. It���s a secret society wherein women are bound by strict rules, obligations, and marriage contracts. Devon Fairweather is the only daughter of an ancient clan. When her firstborn daughter is seized and she gives birth to a son, who is a mind eater (an even darker subset of book eaters), she sees the writing on the wall and goes on the run with her son, Cai.��

However, her search for freedom is not all it is cut out to be, and soon Devon finds herself mired in a situation where the cost for freedom might be too high, and the promise of of it might not be all she���s anticipating. While she and her son try to live among the humans, Devon is forced to do ever darker things to survive. There���s a whole lot of soul searching in this book, and crossroads where decisions must be made, and no matter which way you go, it���s going to hurt.��

The thematic threads in��The Book Eaters��highly appealed to me. The cost of freedom, the battle to liberate oneself from an extremely restrictive upbringing, and the relationship between choices and consequences are the lifeblood that run through this book. Explored in many different ways, these themes give the book a soul that is undeniable and unavoidable. Not only are we reading a story that is entertaining and engrossing, but we���re exploring fundamental parts of the human experience, made even more dramatic through the world Dean has created.��

Told in alternating bursts between the past and the present, Dean uses a distinct narrative style to show how past choices impact present decisions with some delicious and delicate layering that added so much dimension to the story without ever being overwhelming. I loved the choices Dean made in how she wrote this book. She didn’t just want to tell a story, but she made fundamental decisions in how she told the story that made the story itself that much better. This is what I mean when I tell authors they need to make narrative decisions. Don���t just fall into the plot, but make a distinct choice in how you navigate your book’s terrain, because as Dean shows, those decisions can push your story to a whole new level. Showing the impact and relationship between past and present as a narrative style was nothing short of inspirational.��

Devon is an amazing character to follow, and watching her change and grow throughout the book is that much more dramatic due to the interplay between past and present. This is the artistry of character development, and the subtle grace of character-as-plot. It was… magnificent. Here, we don’t just see a woman pushed to her limit and left to flounder, but we understand what pushed her and we see the results of all that pushing. Dean takes us on a subtle emotional exploration as Devon descends into disillusionment and then her fight for both her and her son’s freedom. We witness the transformation of self through both choice and pressure. It was profound and captivating, and done with such a delicate hand, but with such purposeful intent.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this book, however, is the atmosphere. Gothic horror is something I love, but I read very little of because I think it���s hard to get right. I wouldn���t call this horror, per se, but I would absolutely call it gothic, and Dean knows exactly when to make those gothic notes sing, and when to pull back and let implication reign. This isn���t a light book, so I would advise readers who enjoy more uh��� happier and jovial tales to probably be aware. Go into it with the right mindset. This one will make you hurt, and it will make you uncomfortable, but sometimes that’s the point.

And oh, that atmosphere. It truly does reign, filling each page until Devon���s world, her story, were more real than real, and I couldn���t tell where the book ended and I began.��

All of this works together to create a nearly flawless story that explores themes that profoundly resonated. I loved how Dean dove into aspects of self, motherhood, love, and control. Ultimately, as someone who edits full-time, reads a whole lot, and writes my own books, the thematic exploration of how stories can shape our minds and even our realities was hit my soul just right, and resonated with me in a way that very few things have thus far.��

The Book Eaters��was an absolutely brilliant debut. Stunningly written and crafted with such purpose and intent, it truly shines. This book deserves every bit of praise it is receiving and more.��I don’t know what Sunyi Dean has in store for her literary future, but I recognize a star when I see one.

This is an author to watch.

5/5 stars

Guest Post | Rebekah Teller on The Opera of Peace

(Flowing in the Trenches, Book 2)

This lively poetry wanders the forest of the mind, battling to shine light on unconditional love and the politics of woodland creatures.

Poetry was something I always kept private. I started writing in middle school, wrote more in high school, some in college. As I got older, I wrote less and less, until it was long forgotten. In 2020, so many things changed, but one of the best differences for me was that poetry reentered my life. I wrote 3-4 poems a week that year to help myself through recovered memories. After a few months, I made plans to publish my work and decided how to sort my poems into books. 

I wanted my first book,��Song of the Leviathan, to focus on the love story of my life. My husband Jesse and I had several rocky years before we worked through things and got married.��Leviathan��tells that story��� mostly. My new book,��The Opera of Peace,��focuses on family dynamics. It shows a lot of happenings behind-the-scenes, events or arguments that added complications to my relationships.��

The title is inspired by a short story Jesse wrote called ���The Opera.��� And it just so happened that the word opera fit so well as a metaphor for my idea of finding peace. Peace isn���t empty or quiet, it���s full and harmonious. That kind of peace takes a lot of work. That���s the struggle of this book.��

Noise

I���m drowsy

In these noisy sounds.

I cannot snooze. 

I���m down to

Laying loose.

Without a doubt,

I���m hopeless about

Passing out.

All I can think is

To complain

About these noisy sounds

That drain 

My restless mind

After a day

Of messing up

In lots of ways.

I call out to my mom and say,

���I���ll never snooze again this way.

How can I sleep

With all these heaps

Of oozing 

Drowning out relief?

I���m only losing 

So much sleep.���

She leans into my door and says,

���There���s one thing you can do to rest.

Open your ears to understand

Cicadas are not from your land.

The noise they make is not for us.

They play their very own chorus.

So close your eyes and fall asleep

And find the melody they seek.

To still your mind,

Unwind

And let their kind 

Play out their own sweet beat.���

The forest of the mind is a well-known metaphor. This book is well-suited for it. Where��Song of the Leviathan��showed emotional struggles,��The Opera of Peace��is about mental struggles. Dealing with strong opinions, manipulation, gaslighting, situations where it becomes a battle to hold onto who you are or what you want. So I embraced forest imagery throughout, including characterizing people as animals, which was a great way to also convey their personalities in a short amount of time.��

These books are part of a trilogy called Flowing in the Trenches. The third book, Composing Ripples, releases July 2023.  

Author Bio

Rebekah Teller grew up in the wild backwoods of southern Missouri. Raised by crawdads and water gliders, she became fascinated with language at an early age. One day, while stumbling through a cave barefoot, she rescued a lost storyteller, who ensnared her heart and taught her to speak.

Her love affair with poetry is long and sordid. Writing influences include Richard Bach, Daniel Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shel Silverstein.

Links

Song of the Leviathan
The Opera of Peace
Website
Twitter
TikTok

Review | The Art of Prophecy – Wesley Chu

About the Book

An epic fantasy ode to martial arts and magic���the story of a spoiled hero, an exacting grandmaster, and an immortal god-king from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lives of Tao.

It has been foretold: A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, a cruel immortal god-king, and save the kingdom. 

The hero: Jian, who has been raised since birth in luxury and splendor, celebrated before he has won a single battle. 

But the prophecy was wrong. 

Because when Taishi, the greatest war artist of her generation, arrives to evaluate the prophesied hero, she finds a spoiled brat unprepared to face his destiny. 

But the only force more powerful than fate is Taishi herself. Possessed of an iron will, a sharp tongue���and an unexpectedly soft heart���Taishi will find a way to forge Jian into the weapon and leader he needs to be in order to fulfill his legend. 

What follows is a journey more wondrous than any prophecy can foresee: a story of master and student, assassin and revolutionary, of fallen gods and broken prophecies, and of a war between kingdoms, and love and friendship between deadly rivals.

528 pages (hardcover) 
Publishing on August 9, 2022
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Disclosure: This book was provided by the author. I am also working on this series. 

Ah, this year has been a thing that���s happened. I���m going to try to get in the habit of writing at least one review a week from now on, but I���ve been extremely busy and I just haven���t had time. So, here I am. 

Now, before I actually start the review, I need to be a bit honest about my relationship with this series. I���m actually editing these books. I did not edit this specific book, but I am editing books two (I’m almost done with it now and it’s un-freaking-believable) and three. Before I could work on book two, I had to read book one so very early on, Wesley Chu emailed me an early draft of The Art of Prophecy, and that���s what I���m going to be reviewing here. 

The Art of Prophecy was a book I knew less than nothing about before I started reading. I enjoy going into books ignorant. I read so much (and edit so much) that unless I do, I end up predicting most of the story before I even start to read, which diminishes my enjoyment. So, not knowing what this was about was really a benefit.

Soon, it became obvious that this was a book unlike any other. Here, we are introduced to Jian, the ���chosen one��� but instantly you���ll realize that this particular chosen one isn���t like any of the chosen ones you���ve probably come across in fantasy. Jian, the Champion of the Five Under Heaven, lives a lavish life where he is granted his every wish and has a bevy of servants and teachers whose job is to hang on his every whim and only challenge him just enough. 

Taishi (one of my favorite characters ever, full stop) arrives to evaluate Jian���s training and realizes that he���s woefully underprepared for what he is to face. Taishi sets about changing Jian���s life, his training, his��� everything. As you can imagine, there are growing pains as Jian and Taishi seem to rub each other wrong for a good chunk of the book, but Taishi is determined, and her stubborn nature and fundamental belief in her task, and in Jian, keeps her going when most everyone else would have probably given up. (I also really love her wry wit, which tends to lift a scene exactly when it needs it most.)

Jian, however, is a character I wanted to hate but ended up loving almost instantly. He starts out the book spoiled, yes, but Chu works him in such a way that even his haughty nature is endearing, and when his life starts changing, his confusion and turmoil is genuine and heartfelt. The transformation he undergoes might be the most obvious in the book, but I’d venture to say The Art of Prophecy is, at its core, about people challenging the roles that have been thrust on them and while Jian might be the most obvious in that, he is far from the only one undergoing fundamental change.

Mixed into this is the Grass Sea, which is some of the most intense, incredible worldbuilding I���ve ever seen. Harkening unto elements of the Great Khan and reincarnation, it’s easy to see where some of the cultural and mythological backdrop was inspired from. Chu, however, makes it his own, transforming it in a way that could only exist in his mind, in these books. The Grass Sea, quite honestly, really does it for me. Here is where Chu flexed his creative muscle. You���ve got creatures the likes of which you���ve never seen before, cities, technology, cultural elements that frankly worked out so well, and in such unexpected ways, they kind of blew my mind.

Sali, our point of view character in the Grass Sea, is fantastic. With a very ���takes-no-shit��� attitude, Sali has a way with walking into a room and just owning it (she also has one of the coolest weapons I���ve ever read in fantasy). Sali is one of those characters I could sink into so easily, and yet while she has a hard edge and she���s prone to uh��� hurting people who cross her, she has a spine crafted of loyalty and love to her people and those she cares about. She has her own moral core, and her raw humanity is what makes the Grass Sea, this incredible, strange place that Chu created, so intensely captivating and immersive. 

Qisami is a character I almost hesitate to say too much about because half the fun with her is the introduction. Suffice it to say, she’s a fantastic character, well-placed to show some other aspects of society readers won’t really pick up on in the other threads quite as clearly. She has an extremely unique voice, and a dry sarcasm that speaks to my soul and her arc in the second book is one of my absolute favorites. Lushly written, Qisami is the knife hidden in the pages of this story, and she slices whatever she touches. She is positively brilliant.

Now, the fighting. I’m not big on fighting, battles, weapons, etc. I can edit that stuff all day, every day but on a personal level, I tend to disengage.

Imagine my surprise when the fighting, training, and weapons ended up being some of my favorite parts of the book. Honestly, the fact that I loved the fighting so much was probably the most shocking aspect of this book for me. I went into this book thinking, ���the fighting will be cool but I probably won���t care about it as much as the other parts of the story��� and now I���m at the point where I crave these battle scenes, these moments of training, these stunning shows of martial prowess.

It’s hard for me to really explain why the fighting in this book works so well. Part of it is down to description. Chu knows exactly when to lean into a scene, and exactly when to pull out and let the reader fill in the gaps. He gives the reader enough information to be able to “see” all the parts of the battle and understand it without ever going overboard with too much information (which can be overwhelming), or not enough information (which can be confusing). He strikes a happy middle ground, giving enough to pull even those who don’t have a clue (me) effortlessly through the scene without losing any of the chaos and frenzy that make fights so compelling. More, these fights are pure magic and artistry, a choreographed dance and it’s absolutely stunning to behold. There are some moments where the silver screen unfurls in my mind and I can actually see it like I’m watching a movie. Sometimes it gets so acute when I’m editing, I get full-body goosebumps and have to pull away for a few minutes to catch my breath. These books would look incredible on a screen. Incredible. When they get optioned for television/film, I reserve the right to say, “I told you so.”

Now, I don���t know if I can really explain what a big deal this is. Other editors might be nodding along if they read this paragraph, but one of the biggest issues I run across when I edit fantasy is muddy battle scenes, and that���s probably why I sort of just turn off and mentally disengage when I read them now. Battle scenes take forever to edit, because there are so many pieces of them and so many ways to lose the clarity and intensity in a scene. A lot of writers get a bit lost in the details and as an editor, picking apart all the threads that create the knot that is an action scene can be��� hard. But I never had an issue with any of that with Chu���s scenes, more, he managed to infuse them with magic and wonder that, while never losing track of what the scene actually is, turned it into something almost transcendent. It’s a physical battle, yes, but each of these characters is engaging in a similar internal battle as well, and Chu operates effortlessly on both planes. 

I tell a lot of my authors to remember ���You have five senses and your characters do too. The more senses you engage in a scene, the more real it will be to your reader.��� That���s another thing Chu excels at, and it���s part of what makes this book shine so bright. He engages all of the reader’s senses, and it makes this strange, dynamic, complex, vibrant world he���s crafted feel more real than real. This realism trickles through everything, from the characters to the plot itself. I genuinely cared, because Chu thrusts his readers into a world that is just as real and dynamic as their own, and engages all of their senses in so doing. I am invested in Taishi, Jian, Qisami, and Sali, because they are so real to me, and so is the world they live in. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the book lies in the core of the story told: the growth of the characters. At its heart, this is the kind of story I really, really enjoy. It���s about people thrust into certain roles and archetypes, and then defying them, outgrowing them, pushing themselves past the limits they’ve had imposed upon them. As events get rolling, everyone grows and changes. Everyone challenges the structure and norms of the life they���ve been living. I���d dare say, this is a coming of age story that spans all age groups. At the end of the book, no one is who they were at the start, and it���s that journey that Chu portrays so incredibly well. He not only created this dynamic, vibrant world but he filled it full of people who are messily growing and pushing beyond the roles they���ve been thrust into. Perhaps Jian���s evolution is the most obvious, but Sali, Qisami, and Taishi are powerful characters, whose growth throughout the book is masterfully worked and impressively executed.��

So, where does that leave us? 

The Art of Prophecy blew my mind. Every part of this book impressed me, from the worldbuilding to the character dynamics, to the fight scenes and the weapons (Reader, I think I fell in love with Sali���s weapon of choice. I���ll let you read the book to find out what it is, but it is the coolest weapon I���ve ever read in my life and I want one really, really bad). This is the kind of book that shows you what fantasy is capable of when written by an author who is a master of his craft.

I cannot wait for you to read it and love it as much as I did. 

5/5 stars

Personal Update | It just keeps happening…

Macro picture of a flower in my garden, which I took earlier this week.

I’ve debated on how much to say about any of this, and while I’m not terribly comfortable talking about it right now, I also feel like normalizing disability and chronic illness is extremely important, and one of the ways we do that is by talking about it.

So, let me talk to you, dear reader, about what’s going on.

Back in 2019, my hip started hurting. And when I say “hurting” please understand, this is coming from someone who has chronic pain. On a good day, my typical pain level hovers somewhere between a 6-7 on a ten point scale. So, when I say my hip was hurting, I mean I was in so much pain, I almost went to the hospital due to it numerous times. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. It was horrible. The only other pain that can compare was when I had my severe spine injury.

Anyway, I tolerated it for as long as I could, but I ended up going to the doctor, who sent me to a specialist. Now, I was born with some gnarly hip dysplasia. My parents were told that I needed to have corrective surgery before I was a certain age, but the surgery is… I mean, it’s a beast, and my parents didn’t want to put me through that at such a young age. So my specialist was this hip dysplasia guy who also had passing familiarity with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

What I really need is my hip joints to be re-formed. It’s this absolutely incredible surgery where they break your bones in a bunch of places and put in plates and screws and stuff. That’s the surgery my parents passed on when I was a child, and this doctor was telling me that’s the surgery I really need, but he won’t do it for people over the age of about 20, because it’s so extreme, and the older you get, the slower you heal. With me being in my upper 30s, it was just a lot. Plus, you add the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome too it, and it really is a risk that I am not a good person to take.

So basically, tough luck kid. You get to live with this. This is life with hip dysplasia and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. However, what he could do was a fairly minor surgery (respectively). He went in and cleaned up my joint, and then sort of “shaved” my bones and re-shaped them as best he could. he gave me some cadaver parts and I think I have a staple or something in there. Anyway, it was a surgery and it helped for about three months.

For three months, I could walk.

And then the pain came back. Not as bad, but absolutely present. I ignored it. I thought, “Great… here we go…” because my body doesn’t heal from surgery the way a normal person’s body would. The reason I’ve had five shoulder surgeries isn’t because I enjoy them. It’s because all the work comes undone again within six months. So, I thought the same thing was happening to my hip and I was pissed.

But the pandemic started and life was happening, so I put it off.

Then, other things started happening. My left leg started hurting. It’s usually just my right, so that’s noteworthy. I started falling a lot. Like, my legs would just buckle and I’d go down. Once, my left leg gave out on me and I fell down the stairs. I ended up in the emergency room. I have not been having small falls. These are big and they cause numerous, prolonged injuries. But you see, my RIGHT side was impacted by my spine surgery. Not my left. It was never my left. So while it was weird, I sort of thought my left leg was just tired after all these years of making up for my right leg’s lack. I shrugged it off. It sucks, but so does my body. Life goes on.

The pain never went away, so I started falling a lot and I was still hurting. I thought the hip pain was due to the hip dysplasia and that’s just life so I needed to learn to live with it. Since I have dysplasia in both hips, maybe it’s just how hip dysplasia goes when you’re over thirty-five. I went back to my specialist who basically said, “Well, there’s nothing else I can do for you so have a nice life.” Then I went and got a second opinion. This doctor did some tests and took a lot of x-rays, and then he came into the room, sat me down, and said, “Sarah, it’s not your hip, it’s your spine.”

Now, this fell on me almost as hard as “You have cancer” fell on me all those years ago. I mean, me and my spine do not have a good working relationship and I get very, very, very emotional when I think about it, much less talk about it. So I’m going to be writing the entire rest of this post through a haze of really embarrassing tears.

Let’s talk a bit about my spine.

In the year 2011, before I knew I had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (I just thought I was weird and injured easily), I grabbed a towel off the rack because I was about to take a shower. It was nothing special. Just a towel on a rack. Didn’t have to reach or bend. Just grabbed the stupid towel and my lower back basically collapsed on itself. Smashed everything. I couldn’t walk. I was in so much pain, I literally thought I was dying. I’m absolutely positive I went into some kind of shock. I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. They did an MRI and gave me a lot of drugs.

The MRI showed that I had herniated basically my entire lumbar spine. Grabbing a towel had turned into pudding. It smashed the nerve root that goes down my right leg. I lost the ability to walk. I lost the ability to feel anything in that leg. I was in so much pain (and pregnant) that they worried the pain was going to affect the baby. When I say I didn’t know someone could hurt that bad and survive, I’m not lying. I never knew agony like that existed. It was the most terrifying, unbelievable thing.

Due to being pregnant, I couldn’t have surgery right away so I had to wait, and I was in and out of the hospital a lot, on IV pain medication, the whole nine yards. When I did finally get that surgery, they didn’t want to do a fusion on someone so young, so they did a discectomy first. I remember telling them, “This isn’t going to work. I’m going to be right back here. I need the fusion, because my body doesn’t do half-measures. It’s the whole thing or you will be operating on me again.”

And this guy looked at me and said, “You’re in your twenties. You’ll be fine.”

And I didn’t fight it. I didn’t fight that, and I didn’t fight him because he’s the doctor and the doctor knows more than I do. So, he did the discectomy. It worked for about four months. The pain and issues came back, and he did a second discectomy (instead of a fusion, because EDS matters less than being in my twenties, or something) and the day I got home from the hospital my spine did a thing, and I screamed and went down, and I was immediately rushed to the emergency room. The doctor booked me for a full fusion the next week. The surgery took over six hours and required almost a complete reconstruction of my lumbar spine.

So I had three major spine surgeries in like… six months. Two of them were a week apart. It was great.

But by that time, my nerves had been smashed so long, no one knew what would happen. Would they regrow? Have they been injured so long this is my new status quo? We didn’t know, so me and my entire team of doctors just waited to see what would happen. I did physical therapy. They had to teach me how to use a leg I can’t feel. It was… really a surreal experience.

As freaking usual, my body didn’t perform well. The nerve pain never went away, I think I just got as used to it as I can be. I still can’t feel my right leg and I never will again. It’s gone now. I’ve now had a spine stimulator put in (Electrodes imbedded in my spinal column. They send out bursts of frequency that interrupt the pain signals traveling up my spine to my brain. It sort of mutes it a bit so the pain center in my brain gets “white noise” as my doctor puts it.) to help me deal with the pain. It takes the edge off. I’ve been in and out of physical therapy. Then the hip thing happened, and then the hip thing started happening again…

And this doctor tells me it’s not my hips but my back, and I just… broke.

I got into my car, drove down the street, pulled into an empty parking lot and screamed. I cried. I pounded the steering wheel. I lost it. I had no idea part of my own body could upset me so much. Talk about trying to slay a dragon. I’ve been fighting extreme, unbelievable pain due to this stupid spine since 2011. I’ve been fighting with my legs for that long. I’ve just been fighting, and getting defeated constantly and it was just one more blow and I sort of collapsed on a soul-deep level.

So all of this brings me to now. Now that I know it’s not my hips, but my delightful spine crapping out on me. Again.

We’ve first got to get this pain under control, because I can barely think through it most of the time. I’m seeing a pain management guy now who is largely directing the ship I’m floating on. He knows all about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (And, for what it’s worth, he’s the first doctor I’ve ever worked with who actually is familiar with my condition), so things I’ve fought with doctors about for years, like “Steroids don’t work on me. I swear they don’t. I’m not just saying that because it’s fun” he says, “Of course they don’t work. Ehlers-Danlos bodies don’t process steroids.” It’s SURREAL to not have to fight with him about every tiny thing. He’s educating me about my disorder in a way no one has before, and so many things I have to really push doctors on, he just says, “Of course, your body doesn’t do that. Here’s why…”

He’s helping me manage the pain, which I need because it’s really getting up there again, and he’s doing it in a way that works for an EDS body like mine. Opioids don’t really work on me, so we’ve moved me over to the state medicinal marijuana program, which has honestly worked so much better than anything I have ever tried before, and I cannot stress that enough. I have never in my life taken a pain pill and thought, “Man, this was really worth it” because largely they don’t impact my pain (apparently that’s an EDS thing too), but cannabis actually helps. If I still hurt, at least it dulls the edge enough so I can think and function past it, at least a little.

We’re going to get me a medial branch block, which is a test to see if radio frequency ablation is a good option for me. Basically, this is when they go in and apply heated needles to nerve roots and basically burn them until they stop working. It takes about six months to two years for the nerves to grow back (depending on the person) so I’d have to get it again, and again, and again. That kind of sucks, but if it helps it might be worth it. He’s also got me in physical therapy.

Physical therapy is pretty awesome. They are likewise very EDS knowledgable, and they’re really trying to help me keep what mobility I still have. The muscles in my legs aren’t triggering correctly, so I go about three times a week, and it’s just hours of trying to get my muscles to work, damn it. It’s… really emotional, because I know I’m doing this because…

Well, you don’t work on your mobility if your mobility is doing fine.

Meanwhile, we had to get a CT scan (I can’t get MRIs because of my electrodes) done to see what exactly was going on in my lumbar spine and if the nerve stuff we’re considering is really even an option.

I got the results of said scan and they… weren’t good. There are a lot of new things wrong with my spine that weren’t present in my last scan in 2020, and it’s, quite frankly overwhelming. I told my husband last night, “What I understand from this, is my entire lumbar spine is pudding.” There’s a lot of very fancy language, but basically the scan shows severe multilevel degeneration of my endplates and my facets. Apparently when this happens stuff can leak fluid, and that leaking fluid lights the nerves up like a Christmas tree. I also have severe bilateral foraminal narrowing, which means I have two hunks of compressed, inflamed, screaming nerve roots on both sides of my spine. These specific nerves are the ones that go down both of my legs.

Both. Of. My. Legs.

What I’m not saying right now is that I’m losing my ability to walk, and while I’ve spent the past ten years thinking my right side was the only affected side, apparently my spine has decided to do its thing again, and now my left side is impacted too.

Remember all those incidents I mentioned earlier, with my legs giving out? It never made sense to me until now. It’s been my left leg giving out, which is weird because it’s the right leg I can’t feel. It’s always been my right leg. My left leg has never been an issue. But now my spine is re-injured, and it has decided my left leg needs to be as much fun as my right has been.

If the condition is left untreated, I could lose the ability to use my legs, permanently.

I am already losing my mobility. I’m already fighting to walk.

I’m not sure what the next steps will be. They recommend I see a neurosurgeon. I’m predicting at least another surgery, but who knows. I see my doctor in early July, so we’ll talk more then. My physical therapy team is focusing on stability and mobility right now, with varying levels of success. They asked me how I was doing the other day, and I said, “I feel like I’m drowning” and he said “keep swimming” and god, I’m so tired. I’m so unbelievably tired of having to swim.

A strange thing happened yesterday, though. There was this mindset I had to get into when I had cancer, where part of me was always braced and fighting. I was very much a house divided. There was the “me” that showed the world her okay face, and then there was the “me” that was just constantly fighting to keep myself floating despite all the bad news, the sickness, the fear, the anger, the poisonous thoughts. And yesterday, I felt that flip on again. It almost scared me because I just associate this headspace so much with cancer and I’m in remission, so feeling this way again really spun me out a bit.

But then I thought about it, and I realized what was happening. I was getting into “fight mode”. I am at war. I am pitted against myself and I can feel it deep in my soul.

It’s strange how things like this trickle through my life. I was writing last night, and I realized that now, suddenly, my protagonist has a bad back. She can’t use her leg. She’s in pain. I didn’t even think about it at the time, but my situation trickles into my writing, sneaks in there like a thief. Part of me is at war, and another part is trying to understand and I do that through my books. I gave Rosemary a cane that blooms a profusion of flowers when she touches it.

Beauty.

And pain.

There are a lot of emotions that go into something like this, and perhaps I should touch on it a bit because I don’t think we talk about the emotions that go along with disability enough, as irrational as a lot of it might seem.

There’s guilt. I feel bad for putting my family through this. I feel bad for how much it will cost. I feel bad that I can’t take my kid to the concert she wants to go to tomorrow because it’s not accessible enough. I hate that my kids always ask someone else to take them places, because they know I can’t. I’m not fun. I’m thirty-nine years old, and I struggle feeling like I’m not a good enough mom because I can’t be as fun as everyone else’s parents are.

For whatever unbelievable reason, I am afraid of using my cane or wheelchair in public. I’m afraid of how people will see me. As horrible as that is to admit, that fear is there.

I’m scared, because I don’t know what is going to happen next. I think of how old I am now, and I wonder how horrible it will be when I’m 80. The future, in this respect, terrifies me.

I’m so unbelievably fucking angry I can’t even. There are no words for this level of anger. I’m just a roaring, seething cauldron of rotting, festering fury.

I’m sad. I’m really, really sad.

I’m crying a lot when people aren’t looking.

And I’m tired. I’m so unbelievably tired.

Yet despite that, I’m also grateful that I live at a time when medical intervention like this is even possible. I’m overwhelmingly glad that I’ve finally found a doctor who knows how to treat this body. I’m glad that, for the first time in years, I feel like I have a plan in place.

I am still dealing with the shock of the CT scan results, I think. Of seeing it all in black and white.

I am filling my life with things I love because those are the things that will get me through this. Family. Friends. Books I love. Edits I adore. All the parts of my life that are not my legs are being infused with things I love, and I am viciously cutting the rot, the things that do not bring me joy. Because I am at war now, and I have no room for things that do not bring me joy. Thank god I am the luckiest editor alive, because even my workdays are amazing and that really balances a lot of all this other stuff. Having places I can go that are comforting, and things to do that make me feel fulfilled, even professionally, is a true blessing. And so is being busy. Thankfully, I’m too busy to dwell.

My family and all of my authors right now are saving me in ways they don’t even realize. You are all keeping me floating.

When I get upset, I go to my garden, because it’s beautiful.

It reminds me that no matter how bad it seems, life is still pretty incredible.

Who knows what the future will bring, but I sure am enjoying the flowers.

Audiobook | Research, Part I

As I promised, I’m going to be documenting this audiobook process from the ground up with nauseating detail and a lot of transparency and I finally feel like I have something to say. (If you’d like to read why I’m doing this, click here.)

I spent about a week asking people in the industry for opinions and insights about audiobooks. Basically asking, “What do you recommend I do and why?” The thing is, I have this grant but I’m also going to be investing my money too, and I feel like I really want to make sure I make the right decisions, not just with money, but with my writing career. So, I could do it the easy way, or I could figure explore my options. Maybe there’s a way that’s not so easy but might actually end up working better for me in the long run. I won’t know unless I do research.

So I asked questions and got a whole lot of answers. A lot. A ton. Too many. The odd thing is, most indie authors were telling me to just do the whole thing through ACX, but when I talked to authors who were more hybrid or trad, and especially when I spoke to narrators, I started getting a whole other story.

Yesterday, I had a long phone call with Bradley P. Beaulieu, and then I emailed back and forth with Travis Baldree, and I have ongoing conversations with three other narrators happening right now. I feel like between all of this, I finally have a bit more understanding of how this works, and the things I need to research.

I guess this post is going to be less “here’s all this information” and more an update about where I am, and what I know now that I didn’t before. It’s not a whole lot… yet… but like I said, I finally feel like I have a direction and things to research and I think I’m closer to making some decisions. So, here we go. Here’s the rundown of how I currently understand things.

Basically, there are three main ways to get this done:

Do the entire thing through either Findaway Voice or ACX, from audition on. Hire a studio. Hire the narrator directly. The ACX Situation

I need to do more research with ACX and Findaway Voices (Especially Findaway Voices, though I really haven’t looked into either of these enough to make any decisions about them either way.) However, ACX had some instant red flags. Audiblegate is a thing, and so a lot of my time this past week has been quietly asking authors who have gone through ACX if they have any issues with that particular company, things that should warn me off, or if it should even factor into my calculation.

Audiblegate is a situation I’m still researching, but basically it has to do with royalties not being paid out, and returns and etc. You can read more about it on the website I just linked. However, my issue is, if authors aren’t being treated right, then I’m not sure I’m comfortable with going that particular direction. So that is going to factor heavily into whatever I decide.

That being said, I asked around a bit, and I got a lot of “Ehh… I haven’t noticed anything but I know authors who have” stories from ACX authors. I also had a lot of authors say something like, “It used to be a problem but I don’t really notice it as much anymore. I think they’re working on fixing things.” When I googled this, I didn’t see many stories about it dated this year, so I am genuinely wondering if the largest part of Audiblegate has been cleaned up, or if it’s sorting itself out or something. Again, something to research further and consider.

The main consideration with Findaway Voices and ACX, that I can see, is the same question you have when you publish your books: Do I go Amazon exclusive, or do I go wide? Findaway Voices is the “wide” option, while ACX is the “Audible exclusive” option. There are pros and cons in both camps, and again, I’m going to have to research more about financial stuff before I come close to making a decision either way.

From what I see, both companies are basically ways for you to distribute your audiobook. Through Findaway Voices, you can distribute it anywhere audiobooks are sold. Through ACX, you only distribute to Audible.

Part of the issue, as I see it, is if you do not go Audible exclusive, the author payout gets decreased to some really, really low rate (more here). The question then becomes, does going wide earn me enough money to make up for the lower rate I’d earn through Audible? IE: Would I make enough sales elsewhere to make going wide worthwhile?

I really do need to research this, but my gut instinct, from having done a very similar debate with Amazon/going wide when my books published, is that no, I would not make enough sales by going wide to make the decreased payout from Audible worthwhile. However, I need to do research and I love being proved wrong so we shall see where I eventually fall on that.

The other thing that was mentioned to me yesterday which I really need to consider, is that ACX apparently gives authors exactly 0% control over price points, and that has to be really annoying. I know with indie books, sales are often when you get most traction, more readers, etc. Is not having control over my price point going to make it harder for me to get readers, or will that not really be that big of a factor? Again, I have to research.

I need to also look into ACX contracts. I’ve heard you get locked in for 6 or 7 years, and I’m not sure if that means your book can only be Audible exclusive for 6 or 7 years, or if I have to use the same narrator across all books for 6 or 7 years, or what. I don’t quite know what this part of the contract entails and before I decide anything, I need to understand it.

So, some information and a lot of questions on this front.

I will say, every single narrator I’ve talked to has told me basically the exact same thing: “ACX is really your best bet, at present. It’s free to publish a book there, you’re paid monthly, and if you go exclusive (which you want to do – that means just Audible/iTunes, but a 40% instead of 25% royalty, and quite frankly, Audible is all that really matters) it’s the best financial return you’re likely to get on your audio.”

Hiring a studio

The issue here is a few fold, and Brad Beaulieu walked me through the rates and etc. yesterday, explained to me where fees come in and all that. Basically, when you hire a studio you end up paying more. Now, that kind of sucks, but also you have to think with a studio you’re paying overhead and employees and rent and etc. That right there is going to increase your fee a bit. The benefit, however, is that they do it all in house, from the narration to the editing. Therefore, you also have to worry a bit less about getting stuff done on your own, I think. It’s a bit of a trade and here, I have to ask myself how much time I actually have to devote to this. If it’s not much, the idea of a “one stop shop” really appeals to me.

However, I’ve heard that you really have to be careful about the studio you hire because some of them will promise you the moon and you’ll end up getting a book read by a high school student using her iPhone and lunch, so if I went this route, I’d need recommendations, referrals, and to listen to a few books the studio put out so I can be assured of their quality.

But I mean, I’d have to do that with any narrator anyway, so that’s not really that big of a deal.

What concerns me here, is the added cost. Then, I spoke to a narrator a bit late last night, and he told me flat out, that he records all his stuff in his house and he hasn’t gone into a studio in years, so he really, really recommends not paying extra for a studio. Most narrators don’t use them anyway because they record at home, so you end up paying more for… anyway, you get it.

That’s something to consider.

I will say, most everyone I’ve spoken to has said not to go the “studio” route. It just costs more, and from what I gather, you can get a product of equal or better value just hiring the narrator independently.

Hiring the narrator directly

This seems to be the way to go. Across the board, most people are saying that with this option might work better for all parties involved. I feel like not worrying about the extra studio fees is nice, and it seems like only using ACX/Findaway Voices for distribution is highly recommended by just about everyone I’ve talked to across the board.

What appeals to me with this option is maybe the lack of the middleman.

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about hiring the narrator directly yet because I’ve just started looking into it. It is, initially, appealing to me the most. My concerns here are a few fold:

What is the best way to find a narrator? Just listen to books? Or is there like… a list somewhere or is a recommendation system best? It seems a bit overwhelming, honestly. Do narrators audition if you approach them? I expect to give authors a sample edit. Is there an equivalent of that with narrators? I’d also need to hire an audiobook editor who would be able to edit the final product because I don’t know how and I don’t have time to learn. I’m not sure how much this would cost. If hiring a narrator plus hiring an audiobook editor would cost as much as hiring a (good) studio, then why not just find a studio that’s good and have it all done there? I’m sure there’s stuff I’m not considering. In fact, I know there is. I don’t know nearly enough about this option to really even talk about it.

So, there’s that.

I have a lot of income/expense questions to ask. A lot of things to research that may or may not ultimately impact me, and a lot of people to talk to still before I make any decisions about any of this. I really, really want to understand more about both ACX and Findaway Voices. As you can see, I’m just chipping off the iceberg here.

Now, the last thing I’m pondering is actually about what book I want to do this with, and it’s something I spoke to a few people about yesterday. I’m very much leaning one direction, but since I’m being transparent, I’ll put the whole inner monologue up here for you to see.

My initial idea was to get the audiobook done for Of Honey and Wildfires, but even as I said that’s what I would do, I had some concerns, and my concerns have only solidified as I’ve done my research.

The issue with Of Honey and Wildfires, is that it is a few years old, so it’s lost that “new book” glow and that particular glow is a selling point for a lot of books. Furthermore, it’s the first book in a trilogy. The worry is, if I do the audiobook on the first book, I’ll feel kind of obligated to get the other two done, and what if the first book doesn’t sell well? Then I’m investing all this time and money into three books when book one hasn’t done well enough to earn it.

The other possibility is doing the audiobook for my upcoming release, The Necessity of Rain. It’s a fantasy, standalone, and it’ll have that “new book” glow. It’s recognizably mine but it’s different from my other stuff. And having a standalone might be a better way for me to dip my toe into this particular publishing pool, rather than obligating myself to getting a series recorded right off the bat.

As you can see, I’m leaning more toward doing The Necessity of Rain than Of Honey and Wildfires, but again, I have to do more research. I’m not sure if standalones tend to sell well (or at all) in audiobook format. I also don’t know if anyone cares enough to read it. I do know Of Honey and Wildfires has a market. It might be a few years old, but for whatever reason, it’s also been gaining a bit more traction recently. So yeah, it’s older, and it’s the start of a trilogy, but I know it has an audience and that’s important. Then again, I’m pretty sure The Necessity of Rain will too. How big of one? Therein lies the gamble.

Anyway, that’s it. That’s where I’m at right now. I have more information, and a lot of things I need to research still.

A few things I did think were extremely interesting were these two points:

One, I’ve been told a lot that name recognition is super important for a narrator, but when I asked the narrators this, they all sort of shrugged and said that name recognition is basically more important in ensuring you know the quality of the product you’ll get, but it doesn’t really tend to generate more readers. The success of the audiobook is largely based off the success of the ebook.

Two, the narrators all told me that working through Podium or Tantor isn’t that wonderful because those companies function more as middlemen and you can get the same quality product if you work with a narrator independently, without giving up a cut of the earnings to said middle man. They also only pay you quarterly or twice a year, whereas ACX will pay you monthly.

Okay, well that’s where it’s sitting now. There’s my first installment of my research. I have absolutely nothing decided, but I have a lot of research I need to do. My next post will be a lot about the details, contracts, earnings, etc.

Announcement | An audiobook? An audiobook!

As you may or may not know, Hillary and Zack Argyle started an Indie Fantasy Fund. Authors applied for the grant and five were chosen to get $1000 to put toward something like editing, marketing, artwork, audiobooks, etc. The fact of the matter is, going indie is great but it’s not cheap, and this little extra boost can make a whole world of difference to a lot of people.

Surprisingly, Hillary and Zack ended up choosing a sixth person to get this grant and that person ended up being me.

I learned about this not too long ago, and it’s taken me a while to really come to terms with the fact that someone was handing me $1000 to go realize a dream.

So, I’m going to get Of Honey and Wildfires made into an audiobook. I have always thought this book belongs in that format. I think with the right narrator, it would just sing. The issue is…

Well, let me get to that.

The thing is, I have a lot of very severe, very expensive incurable and degenerative health problems. So while I do make a good living off of editing, every red cent I earn gets put right back into my healthcare with a bit left on the side to do things like buy groceries. Mostly, though, my income goes toward healthcare. Even with insurance, healthcare is hard in this country. I have had cancer, on top of my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome-related health issues, so I’m always paying that off as well as something else (usually a surgery), and then saving for the Next Big Thing (Which, right now, is a CT scan that will cost about $3000 even with insurance, after that? There’s a list.). So while I’ve always wanted an audiobook, due to how expensive it is for me to just LIVE, getting an audiobook is something that absolutely never would have been possible without this grant.

To say this was an unexpected gift is the greatest understatement. When Zack approached me with this, my first instinct was to write him this long, long letter about all the reasons I’m a terrible person to bet on, along with a detailed list of reasons why (I absolutely never do publicity. I don’t even look at my sales so I have no idea if my books are popular or not. I don’t beg for reviews. I just basically write the thing, put it in the world and walk away. None of that makes me a good bet.). Then I had a conversation with two very good friends about this. I said to one of them, “Look, I need to talk to you. This is being offered, and I’m freaking out for all the wrong reasons. Can’t he see I’m nothing? Why would I deserve this?” Basically, I spent an entire twenty-four hour span having this massive existential crises. Once my friends kind of talked me off that particular ledge, I realized this is an opportunity that will never come around again and I’d be a total fool if I passed over it. I’ve always wanted an audiobook, and unless someone throws money at me, it’s just never going to happen because healthcare.

Anyway, now I have this money for an audiobook, and I suddenly realized I have no blooming idea how to go about getting the thing done. I couldn’t begin to tell you what I need to do first. I never researched it because I’d never be in a position to have one, so I just don’t know. I’m completely blank. I listen to a ton of audiobooks (It’s mostly how I do my “fun” reading these days) but I’ve never actually looked into getting one done.

And then I thought, “I can’t be the only person who doesn’t have a clue.”

So I’m going to be documenting my journey getting an audiobook, from the ground up, and I’m going to be very, very honest and transparent with the entire process. I’m going to document my research, my concerns, my pros and cons, what the process is like and more. I figure maybe I can turn my “I don’t have a clue” into a resource for someone else who might find themselves in a similar situation someday.

I’m starting my research now, so I’ll probably start putting posts up in a week or so.

More, Of Honey and Wildfires is actually on sale this week, from May 15-22 for $.99. Awesome timing. So if you want to read the book, check it out here.

So, that’s what you can look forward to. I’m getting an audiobook made of Of Honey and Wildfires, and I’m going to be documenting the entire journey with nauseating detail, from A-Z right here.

Before I go get some work done today, I do want to say something.

I have thanked Hillary and Zack profusely for this, but more, this has been a very hard year and it’s been hard for a lot of reasons. I’ve had some big family stuff to deal with. This war in Ukraine has been tearing me apart (read more here). My own health issues have taken a bit of a turn and I’m looking at a very, very long stretch of some extremely invasive and painful treatments on my spine to hopefully keep me walking for just a little bit longer. It’s going to be an experience and I’m bracing for it.

And it’s been hard.

I want to say that no matter how dark it gets, there’s always light. Sometimes we just have to look for it.

Perhaps, this quote from Of Honey and Wildfires says it best:

���There are good people in this world, silent and stalwart, practicing quiet acts of bravery each and every day.���

And because I believe in paying it forward, I’m going to be donating my editing services to the Indie Fantasy Fund Grant.

Thank you, Zack and Hillary, for giving me an opportunity to realize a dream I never would have been able to otherwise, and thank you both for being a light in the dark.

Readers, watch this space for updates.

Review | Morning Glory Milking Farm – C.M. Nacosta

About the Book

Violet is a typical, down-on-her-luck millennial: mid-twenties, over-educated and drowning in debt, on the verge of moving into her parent���s basement. When a lifeline appears in the form of a very unconventional job in neighboring Cambric Creek, she has no choice but to grab at it with both hands. 

Morning Glory Milking Farm offers full-time hours, full benefits, and generous pay with no experience needed . . . there���s only one catch. The clientele is Grade A certified prime beef, with the manly, meaty endowments to match. Milking minotaurs isn���t something Violet ever considered as a career option, but she���s determined to turn the opportunity into a reversal of fortune.

When a stern, deep-voiced client begins to specially request her for his milking sessions, maintaining her professionalism and keeping him out of her dreams is easier said than done. Violet is resolved to make a dent in her student loans and afford name-brand orange juice, and a one-sided crush on an out-of-her-league minotaur is not a part of her plan���unless her feelings aren���t so one-sided after all.

Morning Glory Milking Farm is a short human/monster romance novel, featuring a high heat slow burn with a lot of heart, and a guaranteed HEA. CWs include: cock milking, non-human anatomy, size difference, and a lot of fluid. It is the first book in the Cambric Creek monster romance series, and can be read as a standalone. 

250 pages (paperback)
Published on August 3, 2021
Buy the book

I am an editor. The main genre I edit is fantasy. What you may or may not know, is that the second genre I mainly edit happens to be erotica. Don���t ask me how that happened, it just did. Now, I don���t read erotica. It doesn���t really appeal to me as a genre, and I generally struggle with it. That might be why I���m good at editing it: I don���t get distracted by the sex. Anyway, I like to know what���s going on in the genres I edit, so when I have an erotica novel coming down the pipe at me, and I know generally what it���s about beforehand, I typically try to find a popular book or two on Kindle Unlimited to read so I can sort of educate myself about what���s working in the genre regarding this particular trope, and what to watch out for as I edit.��

Which is how I found myself reading��Morning Glory Milking Farm. I had an erotica coming down the pipe. It had a certain trope. I went on KU to see if I could find anything somewhere in the same neighborhood as what I was about to edit and uh��� yeah. There I was, reading a book about a bunch of minotaurs getting milked at Morning Glory Milking Farm on their lunch breaks, after work, before work, etc. Their spunk is then used for medicine, and they get compensated for their time. Love happens, and there���s a happily ever after. It���s an erotica, so there���s graphic content and plenty of equally graphic details, dirty talk, etc. is all present.

Why am I writing a review about this book? I got into a conversation today with one of my (epic fantasy) authors. I made a snarky comment on someone���s Facebook post and a second later a message popped up, ���I saw your comment on (insert person here���s) post. Have you read Morning Glory Milking Farm? It���s an erotica but also a satire on modern ills like crushing student debt, healthcare, and etc.��� And you know what? It is. The book, when you get down to it, is pretty genius, as it does somehow manage to tackle a lot of complex issues in a way that never strays from lighthearted. And there are graphic scenes on nearly every page (I mean, she works on a farm where dudes get strapped to tables and… yeah) to keep those who enjoy that kind of thing hooked.��

I guess the main reason I���m writing this review is to showcase how sometimes you can find really unexpected treats in seriously unpredictable places if you stray out of your comfort zone a bit. 

Satire is an art, and it can be hard for people to nail it down. Terry Pratchett was, in my estimation, one of the greats when it came to satire and the ability to poke holes in serious issues without being extremely offensive about it. As he famously said,�����Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it’s not satire, it’s bullying.��� That���s the line that people often cross, sometimes without meaning to. It���s hard to pin down, and with such minefields as social media around, it���s harder and harder to be able to say anything about any topic without offending someone, somehow, even unintentionally. An author who can manage that is skilled indeed.��

And maybe that���s what surprised me most about this book. It���s smutty and graphic in all the ways readers of erotica want, with a bad-mouthed, hard-working minotaur love interest who is coming out of a divorce and a woman who is working at a milking farm for said minotaurs to make ends meet. There are moments throughout the book which were flat-out funny. Training new employees on how to uh��� do their job, for one (I could almost feel how awkward that entire situation was, which was fantastic). And then there were some interesting requests by some of the clientele which kept things uh… quirky. The interest between Violent and Rourke is slow at first, but soon their attraction is evident, and all the right romance/erotica beats are hit at the right points in the story.��

All of that is as it should be for an erotica book. Where the author takes this erotica and elevates it a bit is all the other details she wove in there so effortlessly. Rarely have a I seen a world in erotica built this well. Here, humans and other species you hear about in urban fantasy or paranormal books live side-by-side, are friends, have neighborhood block parties. From minotaurs to vampires, you���ll find a lot of beasties and creatures in this book, all of whom coexist peacefully, living their lives as best they can. It’s all so… normal.

There are no show-stopping sexpots in this book (Or maybe I’m just not attracted enough to men in general to notice. A distinct possibility.). In fact, the mundanity, the normalcy, the shocking amount of ���this is just the way this world works��� was a factor of the story that kept it well-rooted and easy to relate to. Entertaining, even. I wasn���t so much reading about this other world, as I was reading about a world I fundamentally related to, because aside from the fantasy creatures sprinkled throughout it, it’s essentially the world I live in.��

Perhaps it was the ���other��� of nearly everyone in this fantasy-esque modern world that made the common problems they all faced stand out more, and perhaps that is why this book worked so well. The erotic factors were so perfectly balanced with this fascinating worldbuilding where not a detail was overlooked. More, the issues that the satire worked so well with���the crushing student debt, the need for healthcare, the cost of living���were covered in such a way that the fundamental humanity of all those facing these issues leveled the paranormal playing field. It���s hard to talk about these issues, especially now, when they seem to polarize everyone so quickly, yet somehow Nacosta managed it.��

It���s more than just adding romance and sex to the plot, though. I was truly fascinated by the worldbuilding, by the details, by how the author managed to take a book that was lighthearted and fun, never lose that lighthearted, fun aspect of it. Yet still manage to talk about real world issues that dramatically impact people’s lives and the decisions they make.��

I wish I could say something about Nacosta���s signature wit or something clever like that, but the truth is, I have no idea who this author is or what they have written aside from this book. I stumbled upon this on accident when I was doing some ���homework��� reading before an edit job landed on my desk, and this one fit the bill. I read picked it randomly and read it in one sitting, staying up far too late to finish the story.��

It’s erotica at its core. Minotaur men get strapped to tables and��� yeah. So yes, there is graphic content. There is dirty talk. Fluid is both a noun and a verb in this one. Nothing is glossed over. But that wasn���t what kept me rooted to my chair. What kept me turning pages was the substance, the snark, the wry, witty humor, the Pratchett-like satire, the flawless writing, the detail-laden worldbuilding. How unexpected the entire book really was. ��

Admittedly, I���m not a big erotica reader, but this one came out of left field and delighted me in a way no erotica book ever has before. The last thing I expected was to read a book about milking minotaur men and leave it thinking about how healthcare and tuition costs impact things like job performance. 

So, uh��� yeah. I���ve been running this website for twelve years, and now I���ve written my first erotica review.

Review | Sins of the Mother – Rob J. Hayes

About the Book

In her darklight the world will burn.

Eskara Helsene is missing. She left her queendom, her friends, her children, even her own name behind. No one has seen the Corpse Queen for a decade.

Someone is murdering Sourcerers, forcing them to reject their magic and opening scars in reality, and monsters from the Other World are pouring through.

When an old acquaintance turns up out of the blue, Eska has no choice but to investigate the murders and the holes in reality. Can she stop the killer before the entire world is consumed? And will the conflict reveal her true nature?

Published on May 3, 2022
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I edited this book.

This is the fourth book I���ve edited by Rob Hayes, and while I���ve enjoyed all of them, this has to be my favorite so far. Here, we have the same old Eska, but she���s different as well. Time has passed, and Eska is older and wiser. She���s still grumpy, sarcastic, abrasive, but she���s also matured a bit like a finely-aged wine. 

The Eska in Sins of the Mother is not the Eska you���ll remember from previous books. I mean, she is, but she���s not at the same time. Hayes took great care developing his character, and this is really where the book shines. Eska���s characterization is nothing short of perfection. She���s older, and time has tempered a lot of her brashness, but she���s also got this edge of emotional vulnerability throughout the novel that really nailed it for me. Here, you see Eska���s brash actions, but Hayes lifts the curtain a bit, and shows us the vulnerable woman haunted by past decisions and deeds, and how that has impacted her over the years. 

Eska has turned into a bit of mythology in the decade she���s been away, and the struggle between who people think she is and who she actually is fills a lot of her personal arc and thrusts her into no small amount of emotional turmoil. I loved this aspect of Eska, and Hayes knew just how to lean into it, how to make it sing without hitting it too hard. This is just one example of what he does so well. I was blown away by how complex this new, older Eska is. Her voice remains true to who she is, and who she has always been, but there���s��� more to her now. And so much of what she experiences, what she thinks and feels, were things I profoundly related to. It was nothing short of breathtaking, how he took a character I already loved so much and somehow pushed her over the top and made her even better. 

I said no few times when editing this book, that Rob Hayes could teach a masterclass on characterization based on Eska in Sins of the Mother, and I stand by that. She was��� brilliant. 

More, though, you’ll see some familiar faces. Old friends return, and they are all a bit different as well. Time has passed, and it���s left is mark on everyone. The care Hayes took with developing each of his characters, determining how that time would change them, especially after what has happened in previous books, really shows off his capabilities as an author. There���s a lot of substance here, a lot of things to sink your teeth into. Decisions and actions never happen in a vacuum. In Sins of the Mother, Hayes follows a lot of these changes, both personally and politically, and sees where they end up after everything has had a few years to really settle in and stew. 

Rob Hayes has always excelled at battles, and it���s no different here. He works tension like a song and uses battles to power the crescendo. The result is this wham-bam gut-punch of action and plot that will certainly keep you rooted to your chair. With attention to detail, and Eska���s missing arm, her age, and the like, the battles aren���t always how you���d expect a battle to be written, and that���s part of the beauty here. Throughout, Hayes remains true to his characters, and throughout, you have moments of emotional and physical tension that pull plot threads together in surprising, unforgettable scenes peppered throughout the book. There���s never a dull moment. After releasing numerous books and a myriad of series, Hayes knows what he���s doing, and it���s easy to let him take the wheel and steer. I always trust him to guide me, and it always pays off. 

I cannot even predict what will happen next, but I���m dying to find out. 

Sins of the Mother takes the series in a new, unexpected direction. The ending closes some doors (painfully) and then opens another. It���s impossible to predict what is going to happen next, but I cannot wait to find out. Eska has always been a character who has straddled numerous lines, and that doesn���t stop, even to the bitter end. There���s a lot that Hayes hinted at in previous books in the series which will come into play here. In fact, I was nothing short of shocked by how well Hayes wove together plot threads from previous books, and how things I didn���t think were important ended up being pivotal. That ending is where all the magic happens, and the ingredients all come together to make something truly magical. 

Sins of the Mother packs an unforgettable punch. Hayes works masterfully on numerous different levels, pushing the plot and characters toward a tension-filled ending that truly left me reeling and wanting more. Eska, however, is where the story shines. She���s still Eska, but she���s also more somehow, and I felt that ���more��� in my soul. I have always loved Eska, but I didn’t truly feel like I profoundly connected with every aspect of her until this specific book. 

There is one more book in this series, and I know I���m going to have a love/hate relationship with it. Eska has taken me places and left a mark. There is no recovering from her, and I���m already dreading the fact that at some point, her story is going to end. But for now…

Sins of the Mother is what happens when an artist has mastered his craft. 

I don���t know where Rob Hayes will take me next, but I know as long as his name is on the cover of a book, I will read it and I will love it. 

It���s impossible not to. 

The guy is that good. 

5/5 stars