Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 8

Review | Paladin Unbound – Jeffrey Speight

About the Book

The last of a dying breed, a holy warrior must rise up against a growing darkness in Evelium.

The most unlikely of heroes, a lowly itinerant mercenary, Umhra the Peacebreaker is shunned by society for his mongrel half-Orc blood. Desperate to find work for himself and his band of fighters, Umhra agrees to help solve a rash of mysterious disappearances, but uncovers a larger, more insidious plot to overthrow the natural order of Evelium in the process.

As Umhra journeys into the depths of Telsidor���s Keep to search for the missing, he confronts an ancient evil and, after suffering a great loss, turns to the god he disavowed for help.

Compelled to save the kingdom he loves, can he defeat the enemy while protecting his true identity, or must he risk everything?

334 pages��
Published on July 1, 2021
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I go into books these days purposefully not looking into them. I don���t usually even want to know what they are about. I think half the fun, at least for me, is reading a book and then getting this ���ah ha��� moment where the light in my dusty attic turns on and I say, ���Oh, so that���s what this book is about.��� 

Paladin Unbound��was sent to me by the author, and I was really excited to read it. I didn���t know much about it aside from the fact that I���ve seen it in the hands of a lot readers I respect, which intrigued me. Also, I enjoy stories about paladins. They remind me of Ye Olde D&D days.��

So, that���s about all I knew before diving in. 

In truth, this was one of those books that hit me right when I needed it to. It has hearkens unto the glory days of quest fantasy, and yet there are a lot of new elements thrown in for good measure. A sort of interesting blent of horror and fantasy at times. Fast paced, with a lot of action the book instantly pulled me in, and it relentlessly dragged me along until the very last page.��

Now, I know I���ve been on a bit of a kick recently regarding fantasy that reminded me of my fantasy-reading roots, and I will say this felt a lot like one of those books. Some elements of the story, and the paladin himself, reminded me a lot of those days when I actually had friends (ha ha), and we played D&D in the library. Also, though, of those first books in the genre I read and fell in love with. I���ve really been on the look for stuff like that recently.��

Somehow, Speight managed to take all these elements that I love so much and make them his own, never making this book feel borrowed, or too-similar to anything else. The worldbuilding, for example, was superbly done. Carefully crafted, the world, at least on the surface, feels a lot like your traditional fantasy world. However, it doesn���t take long for the reader to see the darkness lurking behind so much of what you���re presented. A dark and storied past is hinted at, adding not just depth but a bit of texture to everything that transpires. I loved how history was dealt with in the book, and the way it seemed to touch every part of��Paladin Unbound��in subtle and not so subtle ways.��

Umhra was a character I absolutely loved. A half-blood orc, Umhra doesn���t really have the easiest go at it. He faces a lot of prejudice in his day-to-day life, which Speight shows in a way that is both poignant and carefully done. Often passed over for jobs, I got the feeling that Umhra is sort of just hanging on. Despite that, however, Umhra might be one of the most positive characters I���ve read in a long time. He felt like the beating heart of this book. He had goals and desires, and a lot of personal confusion and decisions to make, but at the heart of it all, his motivation was personal and that personal motivation really worked for me.��It made the entire story matter in a way it might not have otherwise.

The magic system was one I really enjoyed too, because there were a lot of times when Speight just let magic be magical because it was magic. I think, sometimes, in a lot of books like this, the plot gets bogged down by details, and while there are details here, and nothing is quite so nebulous as you might anticipate, Speight also seems to know when he just needs to let something be magical because it is. There���s a few different kinds here, divine magic, nature magic, sometimes objects can be imbued with magic. I loved how it added to the story, never really bogging down the plot or pace to make room for itself at the table. It was a nice addition to, rather than a defining characteristic of.��

The plot is breakneck. Once our merry band of mercenaries is off on their task, things move along relentlessly. You���ll read about places you don���t expect to go and see things you don���t anticipate. Everything drives toward this incredible finale that is really just superb. For a fast, short(ish) book, I was amazed by how much was covered in the space of these pages. Speight keeps the elements of his book balanced, despite the quick pace, effortlessly weaving together the action and adventure with character development and dark fantasy elements that created something that both reminded me of the days I���d stay up way too late reading��Dungeons and Dragons books all night, and gave me a feel for something new and all the author���s own as well.��

Paladin Unbound��really made an impression on me. I devoured it in the way I haven���t devoured a book in a long time. I could feel the author���s passion on each page. More, it reminded me of my early fantasy days when I would devour book after book, reading late into the night just so I could enjoy one more chapter.��I haven’t done that in a while.

5/5 stars

Review | Voice of War – Zack Argyle

About the Book

While preparing for the birth of his first child, Chrys Valerian is tasked with uncovering the group responsible for a series of missing threadweavers–those able to see and manipulate threadlight. With each failure, the dark voice in his head grows louder, begging to be released.

A young girl from a secret city in the center of the Fairenwild veers off course to explore the streets of Alchea. She never expected that her journey would end in chains.

Far in the deserts to the south, a young man’s life changes after he dies.

When Chrys learns who is responsible for the missing threadweavers, they come for him and his family. He must do everything in his power to protect those he loves, even if it means trusting strangers or, worse, the dark voice in his mind.

Together, they will change the world–whether they intend to or not. 

380 pages (kindle)
Published October, 2020
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I���ve followed Zack Argyle online for a while. He seems like a nice guy, and he puts out some interesting content. I honestly kind of avoided reading his books for a while because I knew so many people were lavishing them with praise, and I get nervous at times like that. What if I���m the one person who reads this thing and��doesn���t��like it? Then I feel like a terrible person and it���s a whole thing.��

So, with some trepidation, I picked up Voice of War. 

I���ve been on a bit of a kick recently wherein I���ve been actively searching out books that more or less remind me of classic fantasy, the stuff I read when I was falling in love with the genre. Groups of people pitted against big odds, with magic systems that are cunningly crafted, and huge battles looming on the horizon. I have been wanting to read fantasy with a lot of soul. Books that remind me why I love the genre. 

And I���ve been finding them. I have been lucky enough to edit a few of them, but I���ve also been lucky in finding books like��Voice of War, wherein these elements are all present, and yet different, as well. Twisted just enough to make this book feel fresh and new, and completely Zack Argyle���s own.��

I have seen a lot of comparisons between Argyle���s books and Brandon Sanderson, and I do feel like there are some threads there. There are similarities in the manner of storytelling and specifically some elements of the magic system, but I think we devalue Argyle���s work as a whole if we compare it to Sanderson too much. I feel, almost, like some of the elements of this book were put there as homage to authors and stories Argyle admires, and I found this to be both touching and extremely well done. I love trying to pick out author���s influences, and I got a real kick out of finding some perfume in these pages, Eau de Sanderson with notes of Brent Weeks and a few others as well.

It was obvious to me from the start that Argyle wrote this book with a lot of passion and a whole lot of his soul was poured into this. The worldbuilding, in my estimation, was one of the places where the author���s love for his subject really shone. Crafted with care and put together with a lot of thought and attention to detail, his world is dynamic and multi-facetted with peoples and creatures that are as complex and layered as our own. I love a world steeped in a variety of cultures, and I love when authors show how these cultures coexist, both in harmony and not, and Argyle did this well. There are points of peace, but under all of this, is a feeling of tension. And these textures in his worldbuilding, this attention to detail and the diversity of the places and cultures we are introduced to go a long way toward building up the atmosphere, tension, and stakes in the book as a whole. 

His world interested me, his story gripped me. 

The characters are all well done, though perhaps a bit weaker in development than the worldbuilding. Flawed and complex, they are captivating, each in their own way. We have the brutal wartime hero, Chrys. Laurel, who is a messenger, and Alverax, who was dead and now very much is not. The characters were an interesting but mixed bag. I loved Chrys, and the weight of his legacy. Laurel felt like the best crafted of the characters. Alverax was a bit weaker (due largely, I think, to his shorter amount of stage time than the other two), but his voice was the most memorable. Regardless, I think Argyle laid a good foundation for the next book in the series, and I cannot wait to see what he does with the character development he���s established in��Voices of War.��

With unexpected twists and turns, this book is a fraction of a length of a lot of the epic fantasy out there. Yet due to careful pacing, attention to detail, and plenty of surprises, it proves that a book does not need to be 1,000 pages long to be a sweeping epic.

The magic system was just as interesting as the world building, though this is probably where the author will see the most comparisons to Sanderson and Weeks, and yeah, I see those similarities there, but this is also where Argyle shines. Complex and layered, this magic system truly is all Argyle���s own. I���d go into the details, but I don���t really want to give anything away. Suffice it to say, I loved it. I loved not just how magic was used and how threadlight was manipulated, but I loved how it impacted society as a whole, taking this already complex world Argyle has created, and dividing it even more. Status and station are pretty big deals in this book, though often subtly so, and Argyle deals with a lot of nuance and implication deftly which could have huge ramifications in the rest of the series.

So, where does that leave us? 

This was one of those books I went into not knowing what to expect and left absurdly glad I���d read it. The world building and magic systems shine, and some of the character work is just stunning. The book isn���t overly long, and yet I felt like Argyle packed every page to the brim with memorable moments and interesting developments.��

Voices of War was both a love letter to fantasy, and remarkable story unlike anything else out there. This was extremely strong start to a series I cannot wait to read more of. Argyle is an author to watch. 

4/5 stars

Review | Heavy Lies the Crown – Ben Galley

About the Book

You don���t have to save the world, you just have to survive it

The battle for freedom has left Emaneska reeling and desolated. Both Scalussen and Arka are scattered to the winds. With the Blazing Throne now empty and the Arka Empire for the taking, the race to claim Emaneska has begun.

Farden and Mithrid have been stranded alone in strange eastern lands by errant magick, They battle not to return home, but to uncover an ancient weapon capable of defeating a god. A god who desires nothing but chaos.

In Emaneska, Elessi leads the survivors of the Rogue���s Armada to safer havens, something rare and lacking in the uncharted waters of the south.

Treachery and pain await them both, but the price of failure is steeper. New enemies lie in wait on those foreign paths. Dark creatures born of nightmares and forgotten powers. Warlords set on mastering magick. And an old threat reborn, doggedly pursuing one fate:

The death of Farden.

550 pages��
Publishing on August 3, 2021
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When Ben Galley contacted me about editing this book, I kind of freaked out. You see, something you might not know, is this: Editors have inferiority complexes too. Ben is a big author. Everyone knows his name. When his books drop, the genre pays attention, and here he was, asking piddly old ME to edit his book. Yeah, I did freak out, and then I was super nervous the entire time. Then my stupid computer screwed up all the apostrophes and it was a whole thing (we figured out why it did that and how to fix it, but let me tell you, this is exactly what you DO NOT want to happen when you���re editing for a big author��� or any author, for that matter.). But I did it, and Ben wasn���t terrifying to work with (except for the fact that he is such a big deal). He was a nice guy, and this book really blew me away.��

I���ve been avoiding writing this review, to be honest. There are a few books that I just��� have a hard time talking about, so I put them off, but I figure it���s time. It���s time to tell you how amazing this book is. It���s time to tell you why it matters.

I primarily edit fantasy. I write fantasy. I read fantasy. Sometimes, I can get a bit burnt out. Usually when I get burnt out, I read historical nonfiction and romance, but with my editing and writing obligations these days, needing a change of scenery happens more and more frequently. It���s not really the genre���s fault. It���s just, when your full-time job is eight hours of fantasy, five-plus days a week, and then writing your own fantasy on top of that, you start to feel it.��

Sometimes, however, a book comes along that reminds me why this genre is so powerful. Why I love it so much.��Dragon Mage��did it for me when I was editing that book, and as I told Ben,��Heavy Lies the Crown��did it for me as well. It���s a book that reminded me of the stories I read when I first started to love fantasy in high school. It got under my skin and breathed new life into me. It stoked the flame of my passion for fantasy, and made it burn bright.��

What I���m saying is, I was feeling really burnt out. Then I read this book, and I remembered why I love this genre so much. It���s due to stories like this. It���s authors who know their craft, and somehow manage to not only breathe new life into their books, but also touch on those bedrock elements of fantasy that bring up massive amounts of nostalgia at the same time.��

In Heavy Lies the Crown, we have a story about a group of people on a quest. I am not typically the kind of reader who enjoys quest-fantasy, so understand, I was prepared to not be over the moon about this book. I knew it would be good, because everything Ben Galley touches is gold, I just didn���t think I���d like it as much as I ended up liking it. 

This book takes off after the events of the first book. There are a few groups, all of which are worn down, exhausted, and scattered. In a different part of the world. They are pretty lost, not just literally, in some cases, but metaphorically as well. Galley starts the book out with this incredible feeling of the characters being unmoored. The feeling was so pervasive, it seemed to infect every aspect of the book. It���s hard to find fantasy that realistically deals with the physical and emotional consequences of (insert big event here) but I felt the start of��Heavy Lies the Crown��did just that and did it magnificently.��

At the heart of this book is a story about magic, and about how it���s changing and how people want it to change. (I know I���m being vague here, but spoilers.) An object must be found, but to find said object, the world basically has to be upended. There are a ridiculous number of tense scenes, and a whole bunch of parts where things happen I did not expect and I had to stand up and walk away from my computer for a few minutes to let the implications sink in.

Heavy Lies the Crown follows a few different perspectives, dipping in and out of their stories naturally. Each group of people are on their own quest, some for this object, some for safety, some for��� other things entirely. Lands are visited I���ve never come across before. The map of Galley���s world is expanded by leaps and bounds, and you���ll run into peoples and cultures that are remarkable just for the fact that in the brief moment they are on the page, they shine. 

There is a lot of forward momentum here, and very little downtime. Every group in this book is almost constantly moving. Yet, for all that motion, the quiet moments Galley inserts into his narrative are all the more powerful for being there. Short and sweet as they are, there are quite a few moments I was brushing away tears, because I felt so profoundly, and I couldn���t help but ache for them. There were surprises, which not only upended the group as a whole and the characters themselves, but left me swearing at Galley in an email because HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO RECOVER FROM THIS? 

Mixed into all this human drama, is a saga of the gods, which really unfolds as a subplot in this book but added a rich layer of depth to everything that happens. The gods are, as it turns out, not really that pleased with things happening the way they are happening. Discontent amongst the divine is causing rifts, and while, as I said, this does sort of take a back seat to the main story itself, it���s present and the implications are incredible. I don���t know where he will take this in future books, but the setup is amazing, especially when added to this sprawling landscape he’s playing with. I have a feeling the next book may give me a heart attack, because the stakes are just so high, both amongst the mortal world, and the immortal as well.��

The ending of��Heavy Lies the Crown��made me cry. I���ll admit it. By the time the ending came, I felt like I was living this story, and when the stuff happened that happened, I felt like I might not recover from it. That���s what Galley does. He writes a story that is so real, it becomes part of you. This book not only reminded me why I fell in love with fantasy, it showed me what truly remarkable storytellers are capable of.��

I have the best job.

Heavy Lies the Crown is absolutely unforgettable.��

5/5 stars

Review | The Art of Kerby Rosanes

Recently, I realized I needed to make some personal changes. You see, I’m a full-time editor, and I’m also an author, which means I spend hours upon hours upon hours on my computer. That’s fine, it’s all part of the job, but sometimes I get so lost in what I’m doing, I forget the real world exists around me. And while I love books, I think it’s good to remember things exist outside of books.

Usually, I turn to photography for this, but currently my meatsack isn’t meatsacking very well, and my mobility is still in the toilet from my delightful foray down the stairs, so doing things that require much motion is out. I’m not a big fan of movies, and because of the fact I can’t walk much right now, my pain is spiking pretty high, and we’ve had just intense, amazing heatwaves, my entire garden is dead.

So my usual means of getting off the computer and reminding myself the world exists are out, at least for now. I needed something else.

Insert adult coloring.

(I’ll post some of the images I’ve done at the end, but keep in mind, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, so prepare yourself to be unimpressed.)

Now, to put this in perspective, I took an art class when I was twelve, and I am now just shy of forty. I go out of my way to never draw, because I’m pretty sure I’m the worst drawer on the planet, and I can’t paint or color worth a damn. My dad is an oil painter, and he passed absolutely none of that skill on to me. So when I thought, “maybe I should give this a try” I figured I’d be horrible at it. It would be something I did to relax and not something I wanted to show off.

I ended up going onto YouTube and looking up adult colorists. I wanted to see what they frequently used (should I buy gel pens, markers, or colored pencils?) and I wanted to look at some books they used. After a little bit of that, I decided on splurging and buying a set of 120 nice colored pencils in this cool case, which I love. I figured colored pencils would be more forgiving than markers and pens, and as I’m completely inexperienced with any of this stuff, “forgiving” is the name of my game.

I wish I could give you a good review of these pencils but I don’t really know what artists are looking for when they buy these things. I know they are cheaper than other artist colored pencils. I’m absolutely in love with the range of colors, and they are soft and blend really, really, really well. So, I’m a fan.

Anyway, after I did that, I decided to look at some books. I saw a ton of mandala books, but that doesn’t really look like what I’m after. I saw a bunch of steampunk-themed books and garden books and those are all great but I’m a storyteller, and I wanted a book where I could spend a really impressive amount of time on each picture. Furthermore, the rule in photography is to always make sure your pictures tell a story and I wanted the same thing with my coloring book. Basically, I wanted to invest in something that would challenge me in unexpected ways, and force me to learn a bit more about how things like shading and blending work. I didn’t want to sit down and pop out a mandala picture, I wanted to learn how to color a picture I’d be willing to hang on my wall.

I happened across Kerby Rosanes completely by accident, but once I saw his books I knew I had to get them. Currently I have Worlds Within Worlds and Mythomorphia (though I’ve ordered Fragile World and it’ll be here sometime today.)

I am no pro, but Kerby Rosane’s art is exactly what I was looking for. He specializes in really interesting fantasy-esque art that requires a lot of thought and tinkering to color well. Every picture challenges me in ways I didn’t anticipate or expect. Each picture tells a story, or is a unique twist on something mundane you just don’t expect to see. While his lines and art are carefully controlled (yet fun as well), each artist will handle each picture differently. These aren’t one-and-done pictures, either. They take days and days to work on (at least for me, some colorists I follow can blast through a picture in a day). They require thought and concentration.

I am not a big fan of instagram, but I’ve recently discovered a vibrant community of colorists on there, and I learn a lot by pulling up their feeds and trying to figure out how they do what they do. If you have an instagram account, I suggest you look up the following hashtags: #Kerbyrosanes and #Mythomorphia to see what some artists who absolutely know what they are doing can accomplish with these pictures.

What I love about Rosanes’s art, is how easy it is to get lost in it. There are always so many details in each picture, and yet somehow you know that they’ll take forever to accomplish but in the end, they’ll be so worth it. His books are packed full of scenes of mermaids, kraken, lions sprouting trees, cats with cities on their backs, orcs, nymphs, fairies, trolls, subways morphing into snakes, Medusa and the list goes on and on. The artwork is absolutely incredible, which makes the coloring of it that much more exciting. It makes it feel like this isn’t just a thing I do to get my mind off the cybersphere a bit, but like I’m learning how to art.

Kerby Rosanes is, from what I’ve read, an artist in the Philippines. According to his page on Amazon, he now works as an artist full-time, and enjoys making pictures of his “doodle-world” for public consumption. His fanbase is huge. It seems like nearly ever colorist I follow these days loves to work on his books, and there’s a reason for that. Quite simply, there’s nothing else like his artwork. It’s not only visually interesting, even in its black-and-white form, but it’s absolutely stunning when colored. Due to the nature of the images, no two people will end up with the same results, which is part of the fun. I absolutely love flipping through the aforementioned hashtags and seeing how different people can make one image appear.

The books themselves are extremely high quality. I’m not well-versed enough to be able to talk about tooth, and I can’t talk about bleed (I don’t use markers or pens so I don’t know). I can say the paper is extremely thick. I tend to use a dab of water on the end of a q-tip to blend my colors, and I’ve never had an issue with it wrinkling the paper or warping anything, or even effecting the picture on the back side of the page. The spine is easy to crack (I know this sounds bad, but when you do a double-page spread, you need to crack the hell out of that spine). There are images on both sides of the page, which may or may not be a drawback to some colorists out there. I know some people prefer to only have images on one side of the page when they color, but this doesn’t really bother me. I figure it is worth noting.

Each book is thick, absolutely full of images that will be so fun to color. I work on a picture for at least an hour a day. I turn on a podcast (I’m on a true crime kick right now) and let myself go. I’m no master colorist. I bought some Faber-Castell pastels (a very small kit) and now I try to see how I can use both colored pencils and pastels in each picture. I always tend to go into an image with an idea of how I want it to turn out, and somewhere in the process of doing it, the entire thing turns on its head and I end up with a very different product than what I’d anticipated. I like some of my images more than others, but by and large, Kerby Rosanes’ art forces me outside of my comfort zone. It demands I pay attention to detail, and requires me to learn how to blend, shade, and layer. Each picture tells a story, and that storyteller part of my brain engages in that.

More, though, it’s just really, really fun to see the product of such a talented artist, and somehow be a (very small) part of it.

If anyone out there enjoys coloring, I cannot recommend Kerby Rosanes highly enough. I am going to probably slowly acquire all of his books. Currently he’s an auto buy for me.

Here are some of my completed pages:

First picture I ever did. This one is from Mythomorphia.
July, 2021 Second picture completed, from Worlds Within Worlds.
July, 2021 Probably my least favorite picture so far. My first attempt using pastels as a background, and just ugh. Oh well, live and learn. From Mythomorphia.
July, 2021 Current WIP from Worlds Within Worlds.
July, 2021

Review | The Four Winds – Kristin Hannah

About the Book

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. 

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli���like so many of her neighbors���must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

464 pages (hardcover)
Published on February 2, 2021
Buy the book

I���ve been fascinated by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression for a long, long time. Not only is it an interesting era steeped in tragedy, but there���s an entire culture surrounding it that I find really compelling in that dark sort of way I like things to be. I���m about to write a series of books highly, highly influenced by these events, so I���ve been on the lookout for novels or nonfiction about this sort of thing. On one random wander through Audible, I found��The Four Winds, which was exactly what I wanted, and a whole lot more engrossing than I���d expected it to be.��

I don���t read a whole lot of fiction. Usually what I read is either fantasy, science fiction, or historical nonfiction, and I���ve never read a book set against the explosive, broiling backdrop of the Dust Bowl, made only worse due to the Great Depression. Part of the reason I was so entranced by this novel is due to the fact the author obviously put a lot of effort into her historical research. There were a ton of details thrown in that I didn���t know before. For example, the storms they would encounter that blew the dust around were so big, so monstrous they���d basically block out the sun. They destroyed houses. They were forces of nature. For some reason, in all my life learning about this stuff, I didn���t realize the storms that blew all this dust around were actual STORMS, dark and brooding, unpredictable and destructive. In my head, I���ve always equated it to just a constant, dry blowing. This book really took that little myth my head had created and dropkicked it.��

Set in this quaint North Texas town, Hannah drops us into a world steeped in the era. Technology is changing, the role of women is shifting. The economy on the local level is booming, largely due to the fact our protagonist, one Elsa Martinelli, is born into a family who rules the local roost, so to speak. Her father is a well-to-do businessman in the area, her mother is the perfect wife, and her sisters are likewise exactly what they should be. For one reason or another, Elsa just doesn���t quite fit. Something about her is just off enough to keep her from being the docile perfect woman, easy to marry off, and easy to ignore. Elsa is turning into an old maid. So, does what young women do, and in a desire to fit somewhere, to belong, she finds herself pregnant by the son of an Italian immigrant who owns a farm somewhere up north, near the Oklahoma border. Her parents drop her off at this man���s house, informing them that basically, congratulations, she���s your problem now.��

Her family is just swell. /sarcasm font

Elsa is a fascinating character to follow. I was nearly as entranced by her story as I was about the story of the changing world around her. She���s quiet, keeps her head down, and works hard, and yet her observations of the changing world and her place in it are nothing short of compelling. Furthermore, she has this stubbornness that keeps her rooted in place, determined, and incredibly protective even when it seems like the world is falling apart around her. When everything else crumbles, it seems as though Elsa is the only person left standing, a mountain in her own right. 

I don���t read a lot of books about mothers and children, and I must say, I lament the fact I don���t read more stories about these relationships, because the bond between parents and their children is every bit as tense and fraught with drama as any other kind of relationship. Elsa���s love for her children can move mountains, and determines so much of her life, whether it is sticking it out where she���s at for as long as possible or desperately migrating across the country in the hope of finding a job. When her husband disappears, it’s Elsa���s love for her children that sees her through that tragedy. When her son is sick and in the hospital due to breathing in too much dust, the frantic run to get him medical care was something I felt in my bones. Her relationship, her potent, often quiet love for family was so powerful, it almost became a character all its own.��

The writing was amazing, and the story was perfectly paced, with enough focused on plot and on the historical details and character development to make it all feel like it worked in perfect harmony.��The Four Winds��is full of quiet moments of contemplation where big decisions are made in near silence, and life changes completely at the drop of a hat. Unpredictable, is what one could easily call this time, and yet Elsa might be one of the most predictable characters I���ve ever read. However, I think the story needed that. Someone stalwart and unyielding in the center of all this relentless, unforgiving change and tragedy.��

I learned a lot by reading The Four Winds, not just about the Dust Bowl, which came to blazing life under Kristin Hannah���s deft hand, but about the nature of family as well. Fantastically written and intensely researched, this book blew me away. It was exactly what I was looking for. All these weeks later, I still find it haunting the corridors of my mind. 

5/5 stars

Review| Where Shadows Lie – Allegra Pescatore

About the Book

Speak the truth.
That is what Elenor has been taught to value above all else, but when her brother dies, leaving her next in line for the Throne of Lirin, truth becomes a matter of opinion.

Stand for what is right.
Gabriel thought his years of fighting against oppression were over when he agreed to assassinate the royal family. He never expected to end up helping one of them.

As the carefully woven webs of deception surrounding Elenor and Gabriel begin to unravel, Princess and Rebel must set aside their differences and work together for the sake of the Kingdom they both love.

Meanwhile, from the rainy streets of Lirin to the scorching dunes of the Mondaer Desert, the ripples of their actions have inadvertently broken a chain of events five centuries in the making. Ancient forces move in the shadows, calling in debts and striking deals. A monster with a thousand faces fingers his knife, ready to kill, and a pair of fugitives run for their lives.

With Magic itself misbehaving and old alliances crumbling to dust, it is up to an unlikely group of friends and enemies to pick up the pieces the chosen one left behind. 

Published January, 2021
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Allegra Pescatore and I have something in common, and I didn���t even realize it until she reached out to me. It is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It’s something we both live with, and I think, in a lot of ways, the experience of living with this chronic illness informs, to a certain extent, the stories we tell. What interested me in��Where Shadows Lie��when I first saw it, was the wheelchair-user on the cover. I���ve never seen a fantasy book with a wheelchair-user on the cover before, and, as an ambulatory wheelchair-user myself, I didn���t realize how much I needed to see that until I actually saw it.��

At the end of the day, disabled people deserve to be in stories too. We can be main characters, front and center. We can save the day. We exist, and we should be in books. It really is as simple as that. And having that kind of personal connection with not just the author, but the character front and center on the cover of this work, really profoundly moved me to an extent I doubt the author will ever realize.

Where Shadows Lie is one of those books that immediately pulled me in. The first line is quite a hook, and from there I just sped along. The story is told from five points of view, which allows readers to really get a fleshed-out view of the plot and its evolution from different sides of the conflict(s). Each of the point of view characters were well fleshed out and felt real. None of them dipped into Pollyanna territory, and none of them ever felt two-dimensional. Pescatore obviously spent a lot of time carefully crafting her characters, making them all unique, with memorable voices and likes and dislikes. Small details that made them so terrifically real. 

Furthermore, Pescatore gives her characters room to make mistakes, and bad decisions. They love fiercely, and they fall hard. They grow and develop in unexpected ways, and each of them are pushed past their comfort zones as well. None of them are purely good, all with foibles and darker desires to balance out the elements that shine so bright. Furthermore, I really appreciated the LGBTQIA+ rep, and how it was never a defining part of anyone in the book but just one element of who they were. 

No, you won’t always agree with the characters or motivations. There were a few times when I wanted to shake someone and say, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” But isn’t that what good books do? If characters always did what I wanted them to do, books would be boring.

The other place where Pescatore really shines is her worldbuilding. The world itself is cunningly created, with a ton of depth and history, details woven throughout the story make the world feel large and sprawling, as complex and dynamic as the world we live in. No detail was overlooked, no element haphazardly thrown in. I had a real sense that Pescatore probably geeked out a lot when creating both her characters and her world, and had a lot of fun doing it, because I felt that excitement throughout the book. These elements of development, the careful way they were created and used in the book, really spoke to me. While extremely well done, it was perhaps the author���s passion for her world and characters that spoke to me more. I kept thinking, ���This author really loves what she���s doing here��� as I read, and those tend to be the books that stick with me the most. An author���s passion is infectious. 

The magic system is interesting and layered, with different kinds of magic used by different people for different reasons. It���s something that causes a bit of conflict throughout the book, as many of these places, including Lirin, where the book takes place, have tried to control and limit the use of magic. This has a way of creating a certain amount of social tension, which ripples just about everywhere. There are interesting explorations of economic impact, as well. The ultimate impact of a lot of these magic-use limitations results in a further-divided society where there are obvious haves, and have-nots. Those who have opportunity, and those who don���t, and that particular chasm is made even wider by numerous other strains, like politics, and social and religious pressures. Pescatore really spent a lot of time exploring the gulf that separates people, not shying away from uncomfortable conversations, nor from showing the harsh reality and impacts of these divides to both her characters and her readers alike.

The main religion here involves five gods. While most people view them as abstract and remote, figures that exist but at a distance, they really aren���t that at all, and that���s where the book truly shines. These gods take a very real interest in the events on the world they rule over, and they often manipulate them through human counterparts: pawns, and loyal subjects. Their reach is wide, and powerful, and I found the insertion of these gods and their mysterious aims to be just as interesting and dynamic as just about everything else. In a society that is already torn in so many different ways, this particular element of the story was that final push it needed to take it from a really good book to a book I absolutely loved. 

There���s a lot in Where Shadows Lie. I mean, this book has a ton going on, and it���s just relentless in every respect. It���s very obviously the first book in a series, where so much is being set up, and while there is resolution, there are doors open for expansion in the world, characters, and plot as well. It is epic in every possible respect. If I had to pick on any parts of it, I would say some of the dialogue felt a little cumbersome, and there were one or two shadowy figures who perhaps didn���t feel as fleshed out as the rest of the cast, but those are small potatoes. I had an absolute blast with this book and I really can���t wait to she where Pescatore takes the series next. 

At the end of the day, it seems like Where Shadows Lie is largely an exploration of change, whether personally, socially, politically, religiously, or magically. Everything in this book seems to be in flux, and where Pescatore seems to find solid ground as an author is exploring how those changes personally impact the characters she���s chosen to experience it through, and then ripple from them into the wider world. It���s politically heavy and there���s a lot of intrigue here, but there���s also a lot of very quiet personal moments as well. 

Where Shadows Lie was absolutely fantastic. From the first page, I knew this was a book I would love reading. It put Pescatore on my radar as an author to watch. I can���t wait to see where she takes this series next. 

5/5 stars

Review | An Altar on the Village Green – Nathan Hall

About the Book

���If one suffers, I suffer. If one is chained, I am chained.���

My faith called me to become a Lance. My compassion drew me into one of the fallen lands. Through my connection with the Chained God, I alone can find and destroy the Horror that stains the land.

Death can no longer chain me.

But I couldn���t have imagined the madness waiting for me in this village. I���m not sure my faith can withstand the secrets I���ll uncover. Or that my compassion can survive the violence to come. This Horror may swallow me whole.

Death can no longer free me.

A creature stalks in the dark. Buildings burn. People die. An altar has been built on the village green.

Published on July 5, 2021
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I edited this book.��

To be honest, I���ve put off writing this review. I know that���s a terrible way to start anything like this, but it���s true. I���ve put it off. Why, might you ask? Because in some ways I don’t feel like I have the required experience I need to fully appreciate the story being told.

Let me elaborate.

I���m not a video gamer, and I think that���s where I���m having the biggest problems here. I���m just not. In fact, I actively avoid them. It���s not even because I don���t like them. Some of them have really cool stories (my husband is a big gamer and he often fills me in on that), but I can���t even watch someone play them because they make me intensely motion sick (I���m weird). So, when I say I don���t like games, I mean, they make me physically ill. Something about the motion on the screen just flips my switch and I end up vomitus. So here���s a book based on a video game, and I am a person who literally hasn���t even SEEN a video game in so many years, it���s ridiculous.��

There���s a lot of elements in An Altar on the Village Green that, while I was editing, Nathan sort of educated me about how they tied into��Dark Souls, the game this is largely inspired by. I think maybe if I had even a passing familiarity with the fact that��Dark Souls��is a thing that existed in the world, I would have probably appreciated some of these elements more. For example, the protagonist, Lance, is never physically described or given a gender or name. He told me the reason why he did this was influenced by how characters are presented in games. I had no clue. Zero. And I really thought how he crafted Lance in that way was really, really well done and pure artistry. I just absolutely never would have picked up on it unless he told me.

What I���m saying here, is a lot of the reviews for this book in the future will probably wax poetic about gamer inspiration and how various plot points were a twist on (insert thing here) and you won���t get that with me. The entire aspect of this book that marries fantasy storytelling with videogame elements is going to be completely missing. There is an art in how Hall paired those two, and I���m sorry that those aspects of the book flew right past me. 

So, while we have now examined what I lack, let���s talk about the book itself, shall we? 

This isn���t your typical fantasy book. The pacing isn���t what you���d expect, and neither is the plot. Hall doesn���t follow typical markers for storytelling, and instead blazes his own trail. There are elements of expected epic fantasy here, like the world in peril, but that���s about where any similarities ends.��

In fact, let���s talk a bit about the world being in peril, shall we? 

Most epic fantasy I read involves empires, either the rising or collapsing of them. Hall takes the concept of a world in peril and makes it his own. Out there, beyond the city where the book starts, are Horrors, which, in my mind, sort of operated like an infection. The Church���s job was to send out specially trained Lances to go and battle these horrors, cleanse areas of them, and purify them so the people trapped in this cycle of Horror could finally pass on to whatever comes after.��They are essentially battling for souls, and for the world itself, one place, one person, one village at a time.

Lances didn���t work as armies, but in solitary numbers, or sometimes two would run into each other. It was a horrible, dangerous task to do this, because each time you die, and the longer you spend out there, the more the Horror infects you. Names of Lances who have battled Horrors are celebrated. They become heroes, but you don���t really see the truth of the (often dark) truth of these stories until our Lance dies, and relives them before rebirth.

The Church, however, hasn���t had a functioning Lance in years and years, and the Horror is spreading. So, our protagonist, who starts out as Page, turns into Lance in the first few chapters of the book, becoming the last lance in the church, the only one left, is sent out into the world, toward this one town, to go battle the Horror there.��Instantly readers understand not just how much is riding on Lance’s shoulders, but how this church is a crumbling edifice, and how they are losing the battle against the encroaching Horror.

Part of Lance���s story is a mystery. In order to defeat this Horror, Lance has to learn what it is (it manifests differently everywhere). However, each time Lance dies, they get a little more infected by the madness, and by the visions of previous lances battling their own Horrors, until slowly, as Lance���s sanity is slipping, this dream world experienced between rebirths becomes nearly a real and vivid as Lance���s own reality.��Reality, in Nathan Hall’s hands, is just as slippery as morality.

A lot of this book is spent dealing with incremental steps forward, followed by crushing defeats, towards an end goal Lance doesn���t even really understand until pretty close to the end of the book. There is an altar in the center of this village, where Lance���s god���s blood (ichor) is pooled. It���s this ichor that allows Lance to heal from injuries (which is agonizing), and it is also the point where Lance���s rebirths happen. 

I will say, this book is heavy on the details and nuance. You can���t read it with partial attention. It demands your entire focus, or I guarantee you will miss things. And the pacing is unique to this book. While it works, and it works well, I think some readers who are more into sweeping story arcs and obvious signs of forward momentum toward a clear goal will likely find this book frustrating. So much of what happens here is below the surface, and while that sort of thing really gets me going, I know it isn���t everyone���s cup of tea, so be aware of that before going in.

The worldbuilding is done well, but like the rest of the book, choices were made in how it was done that cause it to be one of those aspects that is unique to this story alone. A lot of the worldbuilding happens in these flashes, these visions Lance has after a death. These visions are woven throughout the book like short stories, and while they show what other Horrors in other parts of this world are like (some are absolutely bone chilling), they also show what being a lance was like for others and allows reader to see the wider world in fits and starts. Furthermore, there are lessons in these visions that Lance uses almost like touchstones throughout the book to bring them further to the ultimate end goal.��

In some ways,��An Altar on the Village Green��reminded me a bit of those closed-room books, where some big murder or mystery happens, and everyone is locked in this room together, so you have to figure out who done it. The Horror isolates these infected places from the rest of the world, and from time itself, so everything that happens there happens on a loop, and time and place, fundamental details, lose all meaning. As Lance starts putting the pieces of what is happening together, I really began to realize how well Hall was playing with��how to tell a story. By liberating these Horrors from the root of time and place, he gives his book more freedom to expand in its own unique ways, cutting it off entirely from how things are typically done. This gifts him with the liberty to explore his own storytelling art, unfettered, while he sinks deep into the mire of this one smaller catastrophe lost in a world of tragedy.

There is a lot of action in this book. There���s hardly a moment where Lance isn���t battling something, or making impossible, hard choices, or doing improbable things��� or dying. It���s a dark book, epic fantasy in the fact that the battle is epic involving the world itself, and souls, and all that, but also horrific due to some of the creatures, moments, themes, decisions therein. Morality, and the decisions that define morality, play heavily in this book. And yet, Hall���s prose brings you through it with ease, painting vivid pictures of poignant moments, and making them matter. He never once loses that menacing undertone that threads the book, or the tension that seems to overshadow everything, or the religious, ardent zeal of Lance to save.

An Altar on the Village Green is an ambitious debut novel, full of layers and meaning, depth and texture, dark moments, and moral quandaries, all poised perfectly on a knife���s edge of grace. 

This is unlike any fantasy you���ve ever read before. 

5/5 stars

Writing with an Emotional Landscape

The other day, my parents came to visit. My dad and I were talking and he asked, “What are your books known for?” I thought about it for a minute and then said, “I’m pretty sure I’m known for writing with emotional intensity.” My dad laughed and said, “You’ve always been pretty emotionally intense.”

I have been, I know that. I have often experienced and interpreted the world through a kaleidoscope of emotions. When I have a story idea, it’s not the situation that interests me as much as the emotions that get all tangled up in these moments. It’s that tangled emotional web I like to explore. I tend to think the character’s inner journey is just as important, if not more so, than the story itself. I’m one of those people who likes it when authors make me cry. That’s when the book stops being something I’m reading, and starts being something I am living.

An example of two moments I’m sort of rolling around right now for parts of An Elegy for Hope.

One: My husband and I watched a show (I won’t say which one, for spoilers). The woman’s husband slept with a teenage girl and got her pregnant. The girl ended up with a son, and then a year later, the teenaged mom was murdered. At the end of the show, they figured out who done it. The husband ended up going to prison for the crime. He asked his wife to raise his son (by the teenage girl) because there was no one else to raise him. She agrees to do it. Emotionally, it almost kills her.

This moment really, really appeals to me, not only because of what happened, but my brain keeps going over the tragedy of the situation. This poor boy without parents. This woman who is being asked to, and agrees to, raise the child her husband had with a sixteen-year-old girl. It’s less about the situation, but more about, “I really want to explore these emotions.” This quiet, explosive personal tragedy appeals to the writer in me.

Two: I read a book last year about Afghanistan. This American war correspondent went to Afghanistan and wanted to tell the story of the Afghan War more from the perspective of average citizens impacted by it. One of the stories he told was about this professional woman in Kabul. When the war came to the city, she and her husband decided to flee and go to where he was from, this serious backcountry area that didn’t have electricity, plumbing, or roads. She learned, when she arrived, that women only see the sky two times in their life out there. Once, when they enter their husband’s house for the first time and once when they die, and leave it for the last time.

Apparently when some American troops went through that area, they pulled all these women out of their houses to ask them if they knew where the Taliban were, and a whole bunch of these women basically had nervous breakdowns and heart attacks and stuff. They hadn’t been outside of their houses since the day they were married, and couldn’t cope. It freaked them out.

Again, really interesting situation that’s worth playing with in a story setting, but specifically, it’s the emotional texture that appeals to me more than the situation. What would it FEEL like to go from living your entire life within the walls of your home, to suddenly being outside it and looking at the sky? That’s a huge transition, and the emotional impact, the vast swing between stagnate and predictable to unpredictable, and the different kinds of fear felt (inside fear verses outside fear) really, really appeals to me. I want to explore that.

I’ve been asked a lot recently to write a bit about emotional prose, and I really want to, but I had an accident (Fell down the stairs, have a severe high ankle sprain, I hyperextended my foot, and I’m missing a huge chunk of skin on my leg.) and now I feel like I still don’t quite trust myself to write intelligently for other people yet (I’m medicated, and all my brainpower is being used on editing) so I figured I’d write a thing up on my website.

I wrote a post on my Patreon a while ago about emotional and evocative language, so I’m going to move it over here, and polish it a bit. Basically, I’m going to write today about the emotional landscape, and how to write using one.

Please understand, these are generalizations. Not all of this will be applicable to every book or author, furthermore, it’s not absolutely necessary either. Some people don’t want to tell stories involving heavy emotions, and that is fine.

Most of the time, when an author hires me to edit their book, they mention something, as we set things up, about how I am an emotional writer, and they struggle with emotional writing so they hope I can help them level up in that area of their book. A small nudge here or there, a few “take this moment and make me cry, here are some things to keep in mind and some ideas with how to use that” comments, some well-placed suggestions is all it takes. 

However, I get asked a lot for tips and tricks all the time. I never usually give any because for me, writing this way is as natural as breathing, and it’s really hard for me to sit here and parse out how I do what I do, but I decided to try to write a few down. 

I will say, there are some basic things I won’t bother mentioning, like make sure your reader can relate to your protagonist. I think, on some level, we know you can’t really feel something for someone who is unbelievable or unrelatable.

1. Emotions are usually bigger and far more powerful than we acknowledge. 

I know this is just a personal belief of mine, but hang on and let me explain why I feel this way. We humans get trained at a young age that feeling strongly shows some kind of weakness, and so we learn to moderate these emotions. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but a lot of the time, I think these powerful feelings are there, they are just buried. 

Many of us have learned that to show emotion is a bad thing/frowned upon/shows weakness. I think many of us have also learned that if you aren’t showing emotion, you aren’t feeling emotion, and I disagree. There is so much going on beneath all of our surfaces. Should that be any different to our characters?

We experience the world through our senses, and then an emotional interpretation of that. You go outside on a summer morning. The breeze washes across your skin. You feel… what? 

There’s a moment when I go out to my garden when my entire body unclenches and my soul seems to sigh and says, “Yeah, this is where you need to be right now.” That’s part of my emotional landscape. It’s a powerful part. That unclenching is what makes me love gardening. 

When my mother announced she had cancer, I could literally feel the information sinking into my mind, and then changing over to fear once I’d processed the magnitude of it. My mother’s cancer diagnoses was processed through the lens of fear and fear has it’s own sensory landscape. It felt cold. It felt very, very dark and all-consuming. It felt a lot like winter. 

In my own mind, emotion is the bedrock by which I understand and interpret the world. Something happens, our mind says, “Oh, this happened” and then my emotions click on and I decide how this happening will feel to me. Angry? Sad? Afraid? Happy? Relieved? Those are all emotions, and they underscore every one of my life events. And what are the sensory details of those words. “Happy” doesn’t tell me much. What does happy FEEL like? 

I do feel that sometimes we ignore that component of things, but I also think I have always been acutely aware of the fact that I see and experience the world through an emotional lens, and so that is how I write my books. It’s one thing to say, for example, “Jenny’s dog died, and she couldn’t believe it.” I get that, and it’s fine. It’s another thing entirely to dive a little deeper and really bring me into that moment of disbelief. What does disbelief FEEL LIKE to Jenny? Don’t tell me her dog died, and don’t summarize how she feels, but bring me into that level of discovery, and make her feelings come alive as she processes the event. This happened, and then interprets it through her own emotional lens. 

Basically, if someone was writing a story about you discovering your dog died, what would they say? How would that moment feel for you? Write in a way that brings me under your skin. Bring me into Jenny’s experience. Let me experience it as it happens. Let me feel the emotions she feels as she interprets this moment, as it sinks into her heart and becomes real.

I urge my writers to remember, feeling powerfully does not make a person weak. We all have feelings. We all understand the world through that lens on some level. Perhaps we express it differently, but it’s always there. It’s part of being human, and that added emotional note will not only humanize your characters, but it will help connect them to your readers. It will increase the chance of your readers relating to your half-orc battle crazed killer. It will bring your story from fun, to something a bit more dynamic, fleshed-out, and real.

Happy, sad, determined… all those emotional words have sensory landscapes, and it’s those landscapes I want you to bring alive. Fear feels like winter. That kind of cold means a lot more to me than “I am afraid.” 

2. Use the surrounding area to set an emotional tone with evocative language. 

Where a lot of this post will involve working from the inside out, this is the opposite. Atmosphere is hugely important, and I usually like to think of creating one as working from the outside, in.

I edit books routinely where I remind the author to use the world around the characters to give readers cues about the character and set the tone of the scene. For example, if you have a character walk into an office to talk to someone, explain some of what the character sees in the office. That will give the reader cues about the impending situation and even some world and character development. If the character in question has pictures of his kids on his desk and a sign that says, “Love is kindness” on his wall, I’ll feel a lot differently than if he has a skull on his desk and a bloody axe hanging next to the door, but as the reader, I need to “see” these things. You need to bring me into that room with that character, and describe it as they’d see it. 

When you walk into an office, you don’t just ignore the room. You sort of scan over it and then, on some level, draw a conclusion about what you see, and that’s what your character needs to do for your reader. Don’t forget, the surrounding environs can be a huge, huge tool in your writer arsenal. 

More than that, though, setting can be an emotional instrument, and I advise my authors to lean into the potential there. The more senses you use to describe a scene, the more realistic it will be. Furthermore, the language you use to describe your setting matters. “The room was red and blue” could be, “Sunlight spilled through the high, arched windows, painted the room with shades of gold. Red and blue wallpaper hung, faded and forgotten, from nearby walls. In the corner, a piano covered in years of collected dust sat, the memory of better times.” 

The first example is fine, but in the second example, I not only see the room better, but I instantly get an emotional reaction to it. This place was grand once, has the potential to be grand again, but there’s a bit of sadness about it. All this majesty faded, peeling, covered by dust and forgotten. It’s not just a room, it’s suddenly a room that taps into my emotions subtly, and just enough to make me sit up, notice, and care. I want to know more. Why was it so forgotten? Why is this room important? Why are we in it again?

Why does it make me feel a bit morose?

3. Colors

This one might be weird, or might not. I’m not sure how everyone’s going to react here, but I try very hard not to use normal color words when I really want a scene to stick to someone’s ribs. One of my favorite things when I write, is to set transitional and emotionally powerful scenes at a transitional time. So, for example, if something is happening to a character and I want them to feel lost and therefore, I want my reader to feel lost as well, I’ll usually put it at sunset and I’ll make the sunset chaotic but powerfully so. You’ll almost never see me say, “The sun was setting, the sky was orange.” No one cares about that. Instead, I get up my googlemachine, and I look up colors. “Shades of orange” for example, and then I pick a few from that and use them to describe the sunset. 

For example, “The sun was setting, the sky was orange” turns into: “The sky swirls and mixes together, cobalt and coral, marigold around the edges. That burning firmament putting on a show just for me, and I can���t even enjoy it through the haze of my tears. Beauty and pain are married in the coiled tension of my body. I can���t experience one without the other.” (Glass Rhapsody)

Saying, “It was red” is fine, but there are a lot of different shades of red, and I guarantee, if you branch out and and use a descriptor that specifies not only a shade of red, but will mean something to your reader as well, the entire scene will pop. Now, I will say, there is a time and place for this, but I advise in moments where you want the emotions and evocative language to draw on your readers feels, think of other language to use to describe colors. 

Red, turns into merlot, and merlot means a lot more to me than, “It was red.” I think of dinner. I think of celebration. I think of happy scenes, with dramatically dark, yet subtle, undertones. Shades of blood. I want to explore that.

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4. Time and Place

I mentioned this briefly above, but I do tend to pick a certain time and place for scenes that I want to emotionally draw readers in. Transitional scenes, scenes where I want to hit on some emotional turmoil, usually happen either at night or during a sunset or sunrise in my own writing. I like the parallel there, of the world being in transition and so is my character. Lost in a swirl of colors. It appeals to me. In a broader sense, though, there are times and places where you can use the setting and time around the character as a tool to heighten the emotions in a scene. 

There’s a scene coming up in my book The Reason for Stars that happens in a kitchen, for example. And it’s the mundanity I drew on there to make the discomfort of this confrontation hit readers even harder.

There’s a moment in Glass Rhapsody where Cassandra is burying someone she’s spent her whole life loving, and the moment is killing her. I decided to use the night sky to show her inner emotional landscape.��

They are all gone, all of them.

Gone and gone and gone.

Bodies in graves. Dreams along with them. Hopes and futures.

They meant something to me, every one of them. All of them took up space inside of me. Now I am full of holes. I look at the sky and its cascade of stars. I���ve never felt so celestial. Shine a light on me, and I���ll look just like that. All that glitter. All that pretty.

No one will think to ask how much it hurts.

It could have happened during daylight hours, or at sunset, but I don’t think the moment would have been as powerful without the darkness, and the stars.

The point is, time and place can be huge emotional tools, and I try very hard to make my time and place as much of a character in these scenes as the characters themselves. I don’t want Cassandra to just stand there and hurt, I want my readers to understand the unfathomable level of her pain, and I want to do it by comparing her upset and disquiet to something equally unfathomable: the sky, the stars, the unexplored darkness of the deepest night.��

Metaphor is a hugely powerful tool in your emotional and evocative kit. Use it. Use it. Use it. The world isn’t just a world, is a parallel. Your emotions are a landscape, so describe them like one. Make me feel your fathomless depths by describing your sorrow like the ocean. Show me how hard it is to navigate these treacherous fears, because they’re a desert and you’re all out of water. Make me understand your character’s inner journey by drawing on things I know and experience. 

We are worlds, universes, entire soulscapes that writers can use to draw on to heighten emotions and increase character depth. There are mountains and valleys inside all of us. There also is within our characters. When I read, I want to explore your character’s topography, so don’t forget to use that universe. Bring me into their emotional mountains and valleys.

5. Get rid of words like “felt” and “was”. 

If you hand me a book to edit, and your character feels sad, or your character was sad, 98% of the time, you’ll get a note back that says, “Okay, but don’t tell me what they’re feeling. Bring me into the moment. What does ‘sad’ feel like to her?” Honestly, I treat phrases like “he felt/he was sad” like adverbs. Use them sparingly, and only when they carry the most impact. These are telling words, not showing words. 

I’ll use myself as an example here. When I was diagnosed with cancer the first time, I remember getting the phone call and the doctor saying, “Your biopsy came back, I’m afraid you have cancer” and “sad” was absolutely not what I was feeling. I will never forget that moment. I was standing in front of the living room windows. The sun was setting. I’d just been told I had cancer and I felt like the sky was falling, the walls were closing in, and I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry. I wanted to get really, really drunk. 

I was not sad. I was ruined. Absolutely ruined. 

And that matters. “Sad” is what I feel when one of my plants I loved dies. Whatever I felt when I was diagnosed with cancer was an entirely different beast, and it’s a very dark place I never want to go again. To say I was merely sad, or upset, is doing a complete injustice to that moment. 

However, if you’re writing that moment into a story, and you say “Sarah felt sad” that’s wrong. I didn’t feel sad. I felt fucking ravaged, and as a reader, I want to know what “ravaged” feels like. To do that, you’ve got to bag your “he/she felt” and “he/she was (emotion here)” words. To bring readers into this emotional landscape, you need to paint it for them the same way you’d paint the room they are standing in. These words like “felt/was (emotion here)” are words that signal to me that you’re telling me what a character felt, rather than bringing me into the moment, into the character, and allowing me to feel it alongside them. 

6. Emotions are a landscape. 

See the theme here?

We describe landscapes, rooms, people, situations. This is common sense to a writer. You bring in as many senses to a scene as you can, and you lay it out in detail for your reader and there you are. However, what people rarely think of is that emotions are a landscape all their own. In order to write emotionally, you need to tap into that emotional landscape and give it the time and attention you’d give the physical landscape. Remember, we experience the world, and then on some level, we emotionally interpret that experience, and it’s that emotional interpretation that is a landscape all its own. You can use cues in the surrounding world, in the character, language, color, time and place to help establish your emotional landscape, but emotions absolutely are a landscape, and it’s one your characters can use to interpret the physical world and their inner journey. It’s one you can use to draw your readers in.

It’s that landscape that will elevate your story from something interesting to read about, to something that matters, viscerally, to your reader because they’re actually living it as they read.

Emotions can surprise readers, help establish characters, develop the world and setting, make situations and people matter, and help you bridge that chasm between the reader and the writer. What I usually tell writers when they ask is, “If you’re just getting to the point where you think you’re hitting the emotions too hard, it usually means you’re just starting to get it right for your readers.” 

That being said, in order to write this emotional landscape, you have to understand your own emotional landscape, and that takes a lot of time thinking, at least for me, “This happened, now what do I feel? How do I see this through my emotional lens?” For example, it took me a while to understand that being diagnosed with cancer didn’t make me sad. Sad was a bandaid used to cover up all those emotions I really felt that I have no words for.

Understand that feeling things does not make you weak, and if your emotional interpretation of an event is “I am bored and boredom feels like (insert here)” then that’s fine. Not everything has to be an eleven on an emotional 1-10 scale, but even those emotions that register a two are valid, and worth having a place in both your, and your character’s landscape. Sometimes, “This sucks and I hate it” is enough. Most of the time, I’d argue, you could lean into that a bit harder, but that’s up to the writer.

Once I start tapping into that emotional landscape, it’s easy for me to say that sad/happy/excited/hurt are usually not what I’m feeling. Those are simple words that cover up the deeper roiling truth. Somewhere a bit lower, I’m a fucking mess of emotions, and I believe, firmly, we all are. Every action causes a tapestry to emotional reactions, and its those tangled threads that make things matter to me. So, when I write, I want to bring my readers into those moments. I want to make you feel that fucking mess. When I read, I equally want to feel that fucking mess. It usually doesn’t happen with language like sad, mad, and happy. Emotions are too complex for such simple words.

Our books are full of emotional highs and lows. There’s the peaks and the valleys, and it’s important to understand that, just like a mountain range, emotions have those ups and downs as well. Landscapes our characters need to traverse, and in order to do it well, we need to tap into their deeper emotional depths. What is beneath “sad”? What lingers under “hurt”? Describe them to me. Bring me into the moment, and let me experience “sad” as the character does. What does “sad” feel like? It might feel different to me than to you. I want to feel my heart hurt. I want my chest to burn right along with your character’s. I want this situation to be so real, it hurts.

So, my big advice for writers looking to write more emotional and evocative prose? 

First, realize emotions don’t make you or your characters weak. We all feel them, we just, perhaps, got used to ignoring them or moving past them. Understand, your readers will connect to your characters for a lot of reasons, but a lot of times, it’s the emotional pull that brings readers into the book and turns your story from something interesting to something they viscerally experience. Use setting, time, place, and evocative verbiage to bring readers into a scene. Get rid of words and phrases like, “he felt/he was sad”. Sometimes it’s okay, but sparingly. Treat those phrases like adverbs. Only use them when they’ll carry the most power. 

Use the surrounding world to not only build your story and characters, but to help establish their emotional landscape. Remember, time and place are not just important tools to further a story, but important tools to further develop a character’s emotional landscape or emotional moment.

And emotions are a landscape. Once you stop thinking of them as one-word descriptors and actual landscapes with forests and mountains and hidden lakes, sunrises and sunsets and all that, and give them equal attention in that respect, you’ll realize your characters will stop being people on the page, and start living and breathing and take on a life all their own. 

Review | A Dragon’s Chains – Robert Vane

About the Book

Dragons are slaves.

Using stolen magic, the human Kingdom of Rolm has risen to power on the backs of the world’s most formidable predator, but that is about to change. Bayloo is the first of the free dragons. Born into slavery, his shackled mind has awoken to find a human giving him orders and his race enthralled to an evil king. The world shall now face the rage of dragons.

Experience a fearsome struggle of magic and cunning between humans and dragons, where victory will determine the fate of the world.

267 pages (paperback)
Published on May 19, 2021
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I edited this series.

When I was first contacted to edit this five-book series (plus a novella), I was nervous. That���s a��huge investment of time, especially if I end up not liking it. I knew I had to be careful. I had the author send me a sample bit, which I edited. I realized when I saw this sample portion, this wasn���t my typical fantasy book. The protagonist is��� different than the norm, and his voice is equally unique. This, reader, is what made me say yes to this project. I wanted to read more about Bayloo. I wanted to see how an author would tell a story from the perspective of an enslaved dragon.��

Maybe that���s why this series gripped me so hard, at least at first, until the story really swept me under (which didn’t take much time at all). In epic fantasy, we read stories as told from the perspectives of orcs, trolls, humans, elves, witches, warlocks, and whatever else, but there have been precious few books I���ve read told from the perspective of a dragon (I think I read another one by Jo Walton a few years ago). Furthermore, this isn���t just any dragon. Bayloo has spent his life enslaved (Robert Vane���s novella, which you get if you sign up to his newsletter, tells how the magic that allows this enslavement to transpire began). Bayloo has spent his life basically living at the whim and will of his ryders. And it doesn���t quite end there, because this particular form of enslavement takes all his personality and independence, thought and emotion, and subsumes it, so his only will is to please his ryder, and his only whim is to make them happy.��

When Bayloo accidentally frees himself from these bonds, everything changes, and it sets him on a course to not only get to know himself, but also steeps him in conflict that ends up getting bigger and bigger as the series progresses. You catch hints of it in this first book, but it isn���t until the second book and on when I realized how absolutely huge this story actually was. Here, in A Dragon���s Chains, the reader learns about Bayloo, enslaved by a fairly typical feeling fantasy kingdom (Meaning, European-esque). We learn about how he liberates his mind from bondage, and then��� well, a lot more happens as well. 

In truth, this book never stops its forward momentum, and Vane drops in hints and clues along the way, things that, in book three, you���ll remember and be like, ���Holy crap, this tiny detail from book one ended up being a pretty big deal!��� The book itself moves forward at an incredible clip, never stopping, never relenting. Poor Bayloo really goes through it, and it is probably even more heartbreaking because while he is free, his kin very much are not, so in one way he���s shaking hands with himself for the first time ever, and in another, he���s mourning the loss of those around him who cannot seem to break free from their mental bondage in the same way he has.��

Of course, there are politics involved as well. Things are happening in his kingdom home, and things are happening abroad. Bayloo goes on a bit of an adventure and learns some surprising details from his past that both reformulate his present and open up a doorway into the wider series you���ll find past book one. A Dragon���s Chains ends with an incredible battle, as well. In fact, Vane has a knack for writing battles. They are visual and tense, and things don���t usually end the way I expect them to. 

A Dragon���s Chains��is very much a setup to the rest of the series, and it is absolutely a wonderful book. Just a whole lot of fun, but there���s some really subtle artistry going on as well, which readers of the full series will truly appreciate. Vane lays down some groundwork here that is so cleverly done, you won���t even realize he���s doing it until you���re like three or four books into the series looking back on what you���ve already read and drawing connections and conclusions. Furthermore, Bayloo���s voice is second to none. Snarky and heartfelt, this dragon goes on one of the most remarkable character journeys I���ve read in a very long time, and yet no matter how much he grew and evolved, he never once lost his sarcasm and humor. He never lost his voice.��

This first book in the series is more character focused. It is establishing Bayloo as a presence in the world. It���s letting you get to know him, and his story, his fight for freedom and discovery of self. Around all of this, are political goings-on. Battles, and secrets, betrayal and mystery, and a world steeped in magic that is only just starting to be explored in this book. A Dragon���s Chains opens up the rest of the series, but where it truly shines, is its unique protagonist���s voice. Bayloo is unforgettable. 

So, where does that leave us? 

A Dragon���s Chains is an epic fantasy romp that is both fun and thought provoking, with a character who is equal parts snarky and thoughtful. Well-written with obvious passion, this book really blew me away, and kicks off a series that will forever be one of the delights of my editing career. Readers who love epic fantasy and might enjoy it with a bit of humor and levity to balance out the serious elements should look at this series. 

5/5 stars

On Editing Teardrop Road by Jesse Teller

About the Book

An immersive first-hand account of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Jesse Teller is a fantasy novelist, and in this work, he shares the story of his own insanity. Coping with the effects of childhood trauma led to his survival through hallucinations and storytelling. From the discovery of his alternate personalities and the stories they shared, Teller pieces together the memories that made him, and the moments that saved him.

606 pages (paperback)
Published on June 23, 2021
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Yesterday, my parents came to visit. I was in the middle of discussing Stalin with my father (we���re both a bit obsessed) when I got a message from Jesse Teller. ���I���m going to publish my autobiography,��� he said. I sort of let that sit with me for a while before I replied. I didn���t honestly know what to say, and I felt like I needed my reaction to this decision to be as serious as the decision itself. So, I let those words sit with me. I let them settle, and then when I did write him back, I asked him if he had cover art for it, because apparently communication is not my forte. 

The truth is, I���m still a bit overwhelmed by this entire project, so when Jesse talks to me about it, most of the time I feel like I don���t know what to say. It���s not his fault. In fact, if anything, this reaction to his work shows me how important it is, and how fundamentally it���s touched my soul. It has moved me so much, I usually am beyond words when we talk about it. Everything I say feels somehow inadequate.

I am not an editor who specializes in nonfiction. In fact, my fundamental rule is that I will not edit nonfiction, period. The fact that I don���t edit it, allows me to easily read it without my inner editor picking apart every page. So, when Jesse contacted me about editing his autobiography, my first reaction was a very foundational, ���no.��� But the truth is, I couldn���t say that to him. I couldn���t just cut him off and say, ���Nope, sorry, it���s nonfiction and I don���t go there.��� I know Jesse, and I���ve read a lot of his posts and talked to him personally about mental illness and abuse, and I knew that his autobiography was important, and the world needed to see it. 

For Jesse Teller, I broke my rule. 

When he sent me some sample bits of his autobiography, I was overwhelmed. I���ll admit that. He didn���t go easy on me, and I���m glad he didn���t. He threw me right into the deep end. It was a smart decision on his part. You either sink or swim, and the best way to learn which way you���ll go, is by being thrown into those churning waters and seeing what will happen. So, he sent me this bit of his autobiography that was��� well, the title says it: unreal. And yet it was so viscerally real. It���s this interesting divide and I found it throughout the story of his life: the impossible balanced with the possible and done so in a way that makes both feel just��� real. 

Editing an autobiography is a lot different than editing any other kind of book. With a normal fiction work, I can tell the author A, B, and C don���t really add up to D, so I think we need to massage these plot elements a bit and here���s some suggestions on how we can do that. With an autobiography, you can���t say, ���Well, this part of your life doesn���t work, so I think we need to massage it a bit.��� I mean, this is someone���s lived experience, and I can���t say it did or did not happen. I can���t edit someone else���s story like that. So, I really had to reframe what ���editing��� meant when going into this book. I had to look at Jesse Teller���s story, and rather than saying, ���This works, and this doesn���t work��� I instead chose to focus on line editing, making the prose really shine, and making sure some of the elements were clear enough for the average reader to understand. 

In doing this, I had to talk a lot to the author himself. I got to know Jesse and Bekah really well, to the point where I genuinely consider them family now. When Jesse was recently going through some things, I sent him a bunch of cake (because cake won���t fix your problems, but it certainly does taste good), and I only send cake to people who I consider really, really, really close family so that should tell you something. But levity aside, I did have to get to know Jesse really well when editing this book. I talked to him a lot about some of the things I read about, and I talked to him a lot about his experience in the world. I remember, in this book specifically, there were aspects of the timeline that confused me, and when we were talking about that he told me that was one of the things he was proud of, because people with DID really struggle with time, vast chunks of it will just go missing. So, that aspect of the book that confused me, was just one of those incredible bits of execution that brought me even deeper into how Jesse Teller experiences the world. 

It can���t be easy to write about traumatic events, or mental illness, and there���s an incredibly vulnerability Jesse willingly took upon his shoulders when he made the decision to lay himself bare in this autobiography. There���s a lot of emotions tangled up in this, and we���ve spent many, many hours talking about them. I���ve spent an equal number of hours feeling like I���m the least helpful person on the planet. My inclination is to make it all better. To say, you���ll be okay. I know it���s hard, but you���ll make it through��� but that���s not really how life works. I can���t begin to understand what it much feel like for Jesse to not only write his lived experience in such raw, real terms, but to also thrust it at the world. ���Here is my life and my psyche, world. Enjoy this journey through my soul.��� 

When he told me yesterday, he was terrified, I believe him. I think anyone would be terrified. On the other hand, I also think the most important things are scary. Writing is always a very vulnerable art. We all put a bit of ourselves into everything we create, but this autobiography is a whole other level, and the strength it took Jesse to write it, and then publish it, is beyond what I can comprehend. Allowing even one person outside his immediate family (me) to get to know him on this deep of a level bestows an amount of trust on me that I don���t think I will ever, ever, ever fully understand. 

In truth, the way Jesse chose to tell this story has never quite stopped captivating me. There is a lot of pain in this book, but there���s this kernel of brilliant optimism and love at its core that balances the whole thing out. Ultimately, there is also a lot of grace, because no matter what part of the story Jesse is telling, he never loses the core of his humanity, nor the magic that illuminates his soul. 

Whenever he would be afraid that the book was too dark, or too��� whatever��� I always, always told him how yes, it is dark, but it���s also honest and real. There is so much love and hope throughout the book that despite its dark elements, despite the parts that just made my heart hurt for Jesse Teller, it always kept me from feeling like I was slipping over the ledge into hopelessness. While Jesse���s life has been a series of struggles, and trials, and battles, the armor he wears, and the weapons he welds are crafted out of love, and I felt that throughout the book. The one thing I took from editing this, was that Jesse might have one of the most brilliantly illuminated souls on the planet. 

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is not something I understood, and I think I still don���t understand it fully. I never really will, but I do know that this book will help a whole lot of people who either have DID, or know someone who has it, or want to learn more about what it���s like to live with it. Jesse is so honest about his experiences and how he lives in the world. With brilliant prose, and a master craftsman���s grip of story, Jesse tells his story, and the story of Shadow, Servant, Guardian, Artist, and many more. He lays himself bare, in the hope his truths will help others. He tells you not just about the darkest parts of his life, but the parts that saved him as well. Ultimately, his greatest gift is the hope he gives his readers. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Jesse Teller is someone who, at this point, I���d consider my best friend (Excuse me while I go wipe away some tears). He dropped into my life unexpectedly, and completely and absolutely changed not just how I see the world, but how I see mental illness, trauma, relationships, healing, and the power of hope and love. He���s an absolutely amazing human, and this book is one of the most important things I have ever worked on. I genuinely hope it reaches those who need to read it. 

This autobiography has the potential to change lives. Hell, it already has.