K.M. Shea's Blog, page 29

HoB&M Universe: Wizards

In order to make things easier on myself with this new world, I’m releasing blog entries about Hazel’s and Killian’s world. I’ll link back to them in the Urban Fantasy book section, and I’ll occasionally update them/add new information, so keep an eye out for them on the website. Today, we’re going to take a look at Wizards!

Wizards are humans born with the ability to pull wild magic through their bodies and transform it into a form that they wish, though it mostly has to stay in an elemental form–like fire, water, air, electricity, etc. While there are humans that specialize in other types of magic (in example, seers, who can see bits of possible futures) that technically fall under the umbrella of being wizards as they are magic-wielding humans, the actual term wizard is applied only to humans are only able to use elemental magic. (Meaning unlike Fae, a wizard can’t cast hypnosis, use glamours, etc.)

Because they are essentially magic humans, wizards are considered the weakest of magical society despite their strong streak of magic. This is mostly due to the role modern wizards have taken on. Previously they were key players in wars, but wizards have ceased studying most forms of combat magic due to supernatural society turning away from wars and anything that would cause massive casualties/excessive bloodshed.

Wizards live together in a House, which is named after the family line that established it. The House possesses powerful magic of its own, and a special bond with the Adept–the leader of the wizards who have sworn oaths to the House. Houses will grow/shrink according to their bond with the Adept when the Adept “Ascends.” Ascension is the official ceremony that bonds the House and Adept together with the use of a signet ring–the conduit between the House and Adept that allows them to communicate and improves the Adept’s the ability to cycle magic through the House.

Wizard Houses have different focuses and talents. One House might be more prone to academic pursuits, while another focuses more on political power. Regardless of their focus, the House shapes itself to suit the needs of the wizards that live in it. Wizards typically congregate to the House that best suits their end goals–in example, a peace-loving house over one that has the tendency to be used as a policing force.

Wizards may leave their old House and swear their allegiance to a different House–provided they submit the proper paperwork and follow the correct registration procedures. However, the majority of wizards remain in the house they are born into. Wizard frequently wear their House colors or coat of arms on their clothes, and their magic matches the House as well. For example, all House Medeis wizards have blue magic, because House Medeis’ colors are blue and gold.

Wizards who have sworn oaths to a House don’t necessarily have to live there–this is especially true for larger/more popular Houses who have more members than they do space–but it is a fairly unusual practice.

It is worth mentioning that due to the magic in their blood, wizards smell horrid to vampires, who might normally be tempted to drink from an unwilling wizard because consuming wizard blood grants the vampire immunity to that wizard’s magic. However, the magic in a wizard’s blood with smell so horridly to a vampire that they are unable to partake, unless they come to trust the wizard, which will make the scent of their blood change. Even that doesn’t guarantee a vampire can safely drink the blood of a wizard, however, because unless the wizard in return trusts the vampire, the magic will make the blood taste rancid and the vampire won’t be able to swallow.

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Donkeyskin: The Similarities, Part 1

It’s time to go over the similarities between the original fairy tale, Donkeyskin, and my loose retelling in the Hall of Blood and Mercy Trilogy. Unfortunately the series is a trilogy, and I put parts of the original story in each book and I don’t want to blab spoilers, so we’re going to split the similarities up into three separate blog posts!

Before we get started, if you haven’t read my extremely sarcastic paraphrase of the original (creepy) story, you might want to click this link to check it out, or there’s a good chance you won’t know what I’m referencing. Now, let’s get started!

Straight off the bat, the first similarity you can see between Hazel’s story and the unnamed princess from Donkeyskin is that their mothers die, and both sets of parents aren’t exactly acting honorable.

Hazel experienced and continues to go through a lot of pain because of her parents’ inexplicable decision to seal her magic when she was a baby, which was a nod to everything the princess goes through because of her parents–Queenie-the-selfish and Gross-King–and their inexplicable and inexcusable actions.

Obviously, just as the princess lost her mother, I knew I needed Hazel to lose her mom…but I wasn’t touching that weirdo dad-daughter-marriage thing with a ten foot pole. So I decided the best  way to make the story play out in a not-icky way, but keep the pain caused by parents was to have both of them die in a car crash and betray her together in a certain sense.

However, I still wanted a forced marriage to be a key factor in the book. When I started working on Mason and building him up as the villain character, I decided I wanted him to try and force Hazel into marriage. I couldn’t go through with making the marriage offer only because he was a total creep–that didn’t seem like a deep enough motivation for him if I really wanted him to play a worthy villain–so I made it part of his plan to take over House Medeis.

The next part was the entire driving force behind the series, and it was the reason why I was even willing to tackle this creepy story: I wanted to make the heroine flee an admittingly bad guy, and seek safety with a character who–in the original story–was prince charming, and instead I wanted to make him worse than the bad guy.

As you Champions know, I love to make little twists to fairy tales that are a bit like me sticking my tongue out at the original story. You can see it in the way Elle breaks her leg instead of getting kidnapped, witness it in Cinderella’s step-mother who isn’t cruel and unfeeling, spy it out in my Little Mermaid retelling where Dylan uses a slate to communicate instead of wandering around like an idiot, and possibly most strongly view it in Quinn, the soldier-hero of the Twelve Dancing Princesses while some of the actual princesses are closer to villains than the heroines they were in the original.

This act, making Hazel flee to a character who was more dangerous and lethal than Mason, was my gleeful twist on Donkeyskin in which the princess flees to a prince who appears to be noble but is secretly a pervert. (Well, this and the fact that I don’t kill a donkey for the story, but I would hope you guys know I’m never ever capable of hurting any animals in my books anyway.)

Once Hazel is granted safety by Killian she–like the original princess–is made into a kitchen servant. (Admittedly, her kitchen career is pretty short lived.) After that, the similarities/borrowed threads slow down for a bit, and you mostly just get glancing references (Until Magic Redeemed…

Magic Redeemed

Wow, wow, wow. So much has happened and I am so far behind because, SURPRISE, Magic Unleashed was longer than I expected. (My team, shockingly, was not surprised, and was rather sarcastic about this revelation.)

But while I’m going to be rolling out a bunch of Hall of Blood and Mercy themed posts this week, we’re going to start with the happy reminder that Magic Redeemed is now available for pre-order, and launches this Friday!

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I thought life would be easier after I unsealed my magic.

Spoiler: it’s not.

I want to free my family from my traitorous cousin, but with all the allies he’s got guarding his back, even my new powers won’t be enough to beat him. My best bet is to use my parents’ signet ring to prove my claim of leadership.

There’s just one problem…

I can’t find it!

Things aren’t looking so good for my vampire housemates, either. As Killian Drake’s conflicts with the fae get worse, it’s clear that war will break out soon if something doesn’t change.

Plus, Killian has gotten really weird about smelling me and invading my personal space. Every time he comes near my heart almost pops out of my chest, but I’m sure that’s just terror caused by being so close to the most feared vampire in the region.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

So, I’m a wizard searching for a ring while trying to survive living with a bunch of vampires and their deadly and suddenly touchy-feely leader. Yeah, life is definitely not easier.

Wheeee, only…*tries to do math, gives up* a few days until It’s available to read! As usually I am preparing a short story to celebrate this book’s launch! This time the short story is from Rupert’s point-of-view! Ooooohhhh!!

Now Back to Our Show!

The radio silence is over! Due to some bad planning and tight deadlines (why are my books always longer than I plan for??) I had to go missing for the last two weeks or so, but I’m back, and ready to party!

I’ve got some fun posts planned for the next few days, and we’ve got less than a week until Magic Redeemed launches on Friday, so let the fun and games begin!

But in all seriousness, thanks for hanging in there as I shouldered through this project. In happy news for Hall of Blood & Mercy fans, both book #2 and book #3 are longer than book #1, so there is that silver lining to all the new gray hairs I have from pulling off this deadline, haha!

How to Adopt A Wizard

The launch of Magic Forged and the Hall of Blood and Mercy trilogy has been amazing!

Thank you so much to all the Champions who gave the series a try! I’ve been hearing from a lot of you who don’t normally read urban fantasy, and I can’t tell you how honored I feel that you decided to go for the series anyway and have enjoyed book #1! (I sincerely hope it’s made everyone laugh–or at least silent smile!

Magic Forged Available Now!

It’s out! Magic Forged is finally available to purchase or borrow from KU!

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A big thank you to you Champions for supporting me through out this endeavor! The Hall of Blood and Mercy series was so much fun to write, and you have no idea how much fun I had with you all when I was first revealing the series’ details. From the bottom of my heart, I can’t thank you enough for going through this with me so I could take a much-needed break from Angelique.

I sincerely hope this little series makes you laugh, and entertains you even if urban fantasy isn’t usually your cup of tea. (And I hope you enjoy the short time between the book releases!) Hats off and cups up our community, Champions! May you enjoy this new trilogy.

The post Magic Forged Available Now! appeared first on K. M. Shea.

Hazel’s Adventure Begins

Magic Forged is FINALLY available for pre-order!

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Just a few days until it launches on the 28th! I can’t wait for you guys to experience this trilogy over the next seven weeks, wheeee!

As usual, to celebrate the book launch and to serve as my thank you for all the love and support you Champions show, I have a free short story to share! This one is from Killian’s point-of-view, and I’m particularly excited because it was fun to be able to show some of his behind-the-scenes reasoning! I’ll post the story when the book reaches approximately 90 reviews across the various Amazon stores and Goodreads!

Thank you in advance to everyone who takes the time to leave an honest review. They really help new readers figure out if the story is something they’ll be interested in, and it’s always helpful to me to see what you guys liked most about a book. (Magic Forged’s Killian Drake is actually partially spawned off some of the things you guys said about Benjimir of Royal Magic and Farrin from the Snow Queen series!)

Have a great day, Champions, and stay tuned for more Hall of Blood and Mercy fun coming your way!

Magic Forged QUIZ!

 

We’re not far out from the book launch, and I’m so excited!

To give you Champions a sneak peek at the kinds of fantasy creatures/races you can expect to see in the trilogy, I made a quiz, so now you can find out what creature/race you’d be if you lived in Hazel and Killian’s world! (Click here to go take it!)

Myrrhlynn is a vampire, but I’m apparently a Fae…

Although as the creator of the quiz, I’ll admit I think it mostly depends what kind of mood you’re in when you take it. But I hope it’s entertaining! Share your results down below in the comments so we can see who is representing!

Donkeyskin: the original story

While my reimagining of Donkeyskin carries out over the entire Hall of Blood and Mercy trilogy, I figured we should get an early start and go over the fairy tale for those of you who aren’t familiar with it.

Donkeyskin was written by Charles Perrault–a Frenchman who is famous for many French versions of fairytales, including Cinderella. It was first released in 1695 and republished in 1697 in a book that also contained Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and more. As you read through the original, you’ll find it is reminiscent of a few other fairy tales–including the original fable I based my Princess Who Chased Sheep on.

Most people are familiar with this fairy tale through Robin McKinley’s Deerskin, which–truthfully–captures more of the original story that I wanted to. (Spoiler: Donkeyskin is another one for the Creepy category. It’s perhaps just as bad as Sleeping Beauty, though in a different way.) As a warning, I’m more sarcastic than usual with this one. With all the icky stuff that happens I had to let the sarcasm flow or I wouldn’t be able to get through it. So let the ‘fun’ begin!

Once upon a time there was a super rich, super handsome, super kind King and his gorgeous and charming Queen. They had a beautiful daughter, and were the most powerful rulers in the whole world, probably because they had a magic donkey that literally pooped gold. Everything was great…until the Queen got sick.

No one could heal her, and the Queen knew she was dying, so she called the King to her side and told him “Only marry someone wiser and more beautiful than me if you want to provide an heir for the throne.”

PAUSE! The King always gets a bad rap in this story–AS HE SHOULD–but a lot of people don’t see the treachery in the Queen. So we need to get a few facts straight. 1) She is aware her daughter can’t inherit the throne–she specifically acknowledges the King needs an heir which means his people will be putting a lot of pressure on him. 2) She knows she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, so by telling him this she’s trying to get him to promise he won’t remarry.

You probably think I’m overthinking this, but I know the Queen is a hag, because the story tells you she knew what she was doing. The original story says… “Confident that it would be impossible to find such a woman, the Queen thus believed that her husband would never remarry.”

In other words, dear old Queenie knew that by making him promise this, she was screwing him over politically–not to mention blocking him from any kind of romantic relationship which could give him happiness later in life–and she didn’t care.

HAG!

After Queenie-the-Selfish died, the King mourned her for months, crying 24/7. (I’m assuming this means the princess was raised by her nanny, which is probably a good thing considering how her parents act.)

Eventually the courtiers started nagging the King about remarrying and producing an heir, and he agreed. He tried to keep his word and looked all over the world for a woman as beautiful and wise as dear ol’ Queenie. Unfortunately, Queenie was right, and the King couldn’t find anyone…except for his daughter. (And this is where we start calling the King GK for Gross King.)

GK proposes marriage to his daughter, who is legitimately  grossed out by the idea. Disturbed, she seeks out her fairy godmother who lives in a grotto of coral and pearls. (Does this mean her fairy godmother is the sea witch from Little Mermaid??)

The Fairy godmother tells her not to worry, there’s now way GK is that far gone, but in the meantime ask him for an impossible task–a dress that resembles the sky. Since he won’t be able to have one crafted, the Princess will be safe.

The Princess does as she is told. GK rises to the challenge and tells the tailors that if they can’t produce a sky-dress, he’ll hang them all. (Geez, what happened to being the kind king that the story took pains to point out at the start?)

The tailors pull it off, and it’s the most beautiful thing ever, filling the Princess with both happiness and fear because GK succeeded. She runs back to fairy godmother, who tells her to ask for a dress that is the color of the moon. Threats are issued, the embroiderers encounter stress overloads, and the dress is successfully made. This happens a third time when the fairy godmother tells the Princess to ask for a dress as bright as the sun, and some severely stressed-out jewelers produce a gown of gold and diamonds.

It’s becoming pretty obvious that GK lives in a really fashion-forward country, so the fairy godmother finally decides to change the task, and tells the Princess to ask for the skin of the gold-pooping donkey. (She assures the Princess there’s no way GK would kill his wealth-producing donkey–he’s not that crazy.)

SURPRISE!! GK immediately has the creature killed and its skin brought to the Princess.

By now Fairy Godmother has figured out how cray-cray GK is, so she tells the Princess to pretend to give into GK, but then run away using the donkey’s skin as a disguise and hiding her new fabulous dresses and jewels in a magic chest. (This furthers the notion that the fairy godmother isn’t so bright. Not only did it take her 3 dresses and a magic donkey to figure out GK had lost his marbles, but she also suggested taking these easily-identifiable dresses ON THE RUN.)

Run, Princess. RUN! (Illustration by Gustave Dore)

The Princess makes a break for it, and with her disguise no one is able to find her. She travels all the way into a different kingdom and is hired to work in a farm owned by the royal family as a kitchen servant. During the week she wears her donkey skin disguise–it’s a little sketchy how anyone can mistake a DONKEY for a person, I think they actually knew but thought she was just weird, but whatevs–and on her days off on Sunday she cleans up and puts on her famous dresses to feel pretty again.

Since she’s on a royal farm, of course the Prince of the Kingdom makes it a habit to drop by this particular farm after his hunting excursion. Apparently the prince was really handsome because the Princess–in disguise–enjoys gawking at him. She notes how gracious his manners are, and thinks that if he gave her even just a simple dress, she’d love it more than the fancy ones GK gave her. (I’D HOPE SO! EW!)

One day the Prince visits the farm on a Sunday and wanders around all the way to the servants’ quarters where he happens to put his eye to the door key hole. (Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Pervert.) Since it’s Sunday, the Princess was wearing one of her gowns–the sun one.

The Perverted Prince was astounded by her beauty, and almost bursts into her room, but barely manages to restrain himself. Since the dude has apparently never heard of leaving a letter or verbal message, he meanders back home and proceeds to pout.

He won’t hunt, won’t go to any balls, he refuses to have any fun and sighs all day long. (Poor thing.) Finally he loses his appetite and sinks into a deadly melancholy, and only THEN does he bother to ask the farm managers who ran the place who the gorgeous girl was. The farm managers tell him the room belonged to Donkey Skin, who isn’t pretty at all.

The prince doesn’t believe them and moans and sighs some more until his mother–the Queen–asks him what’s wrong. He tells her he wants Donkey Skin to make him a cake. She is mildly weirded out, but commands it to be done.

Our Princess-in-disguises makes the cake while wearing one of her jewels–specifically a ring. Proving that she is GK’s and Queenie’s daughter, the princess purposely drops the ring in the cake because she knew Prince Pervert was watching her through the keyhole. (What can I say? They deserve each other.)

The Perverted Prince almost swallows the ring (no one ever called him smart) when he eats the cake, and is very happy to find it, but he still grows sicker every day. It seems it was his method of protest, because he’s so sick his parents don’t object when it is claimed that marriage will cure his lovesickness. (And YES that is a line from the book, it seems Perrault a sarcastic streak) Perverted Prince decides he fancies a Cinderella story, and declares he’ll only marry the person whom his cake-ring fits.

The ring trials begin, and all the princesses, duchesses, and titled ladies of the land give it a try, but none of them can get the ring on. Eventually everyone from the middle class, and even the servants are given the chance to try on the ring, until our disguised princess is the only one left.

Illustration by Henry Justice Ford

The princess–being Queenie’s and GK’s daughter–knows what’s going on, so she asks permission to change, and dresses in her sun dress and puts on all her jewelry. The King is stoked she looks so rich while the Queen delights in her manners, so when she tries on the ring and it fits everyone is happy.

Preparations for Perverted Prince and our no-longer-disguised Princess’s wedding begins immediately, and invitations are sent everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

So it was no surprise when GK shows up–still super rich and handsome, but thankfully no longer cray-cray. He’s so glad to see his daughter and begs her forgiveness–and Perverted Prince’s parents are now twice as thrilled to see that their son’s father-in-law was such a rich and powerful king.

The borderline useless fairy godmother shows up at the end and insists on telling all the wedding attendees the whole story–because that wouldn’t be awkward or creepy–and the disguised Princess is happy.

So. That was…something.

I’m not afraid to admit I like the stories that borrow aspects of this tale but skip the whole creepy-king/selfish-queen aspect of the princess’s parents. To reassure you guys–I DON’T DO THAT. EW. NO. Also, NO DONKEYS ARE HARMED IN THE DURATION OF THIS STORY!

But I borrow many other aspects of the story that we’ll go over after Magic Forged is launched. Until then, have a lovely day, Champions!

The post Donkeyskin: the original story appeared first on K. M. Shea.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day, Champions! We’re taking a break from all the Hall of Blood & Mercy news in honor of this special occasion.

Valentines Day is one of my favorite holidays ever. An entire day devoted to giving out chocolate so I can let people know just how much they mean to me? Sign me up!

Since I’m so thankful for all of you Champions–for your support, for the kindness of our community, and that you’re all willing to join me in this crazy adventure–I wanted to give you a Valentine’s Day gift, too! And since we’re all bookworms, there is no better way to treat you guys than by giving you all a FREE EBOOK!

I asked my K. M. Shea and A. M. Sohma newsletter subscribers what book should be made free for today–and let me tell you it was a very small pool to choose from since so many of my books have been free or on sale in the past three months.

This year’s winner is Royal Magic! So you can pick up a copy of it for free right now!

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If you’d like some Valentines’ cred, tell friends and/or family who might enjoy it! (Do it for Sour Face “Benji” the Grudge-Holder!)

Royal Magic won out over Desperate Quest by FOUR VOTES, but A. M. Sohma, fans, do not lose heart! Because I have a Second Age of Retha Short Story for you!