K.M. Shea's Blog, page 9
March 2, 2023
Character Profile: Charon
Let’s learn more about everyone’s favorite ferryman driver/butler! Important: character profile posts do contain spoilers! If you haven’t read King’s Captive or King’s Shadow, I suggest you wait to read all Gate of Myth and Power character profiles until you finish!
Loosely inspired by Charon, the ferryman of Hades in Greek Mythology who carried souls across the river Styx into the underworld. Since the Greek myth’s Charon’s appearance varies greatly, I focused more on Charon’s elven characteristics, although I did give him the traditional cloak/hood that a lot of artists today (and in the past century) typically draw on Greek myth Charon. (Our Charon also serves as the official Group Driver as another nod to his mythic counterpart. I thought I was soooo funny when I came up with that.)
Reserved, quiet, and loyal, Charon is quite strong for an elf, and is scary strong for an elf that isn’t a member of a royal line. (Good thing Chloe never realized that, or she would have been even more reluctant to practice!) Charon is so powerful because he, like Noctus, has excellent control over his emotions, and thinks things through first instead of impulsively lashing out as elven society had a tendency to do. (I mean, there’s a reason why fae learned to be so capricious.)
Unfortunately, that strength also means it’s pretty hard for him to make friends, so his only true friends are Aristide, Ker, Noctus, and–now–Chloe.
Despite his crusty exterior, Charon does have deep feelings and will act out of kindness–as Chloe experienced frequently as Ama when Charon was desperate to keep the cat happy in a bid to keep Noctus happy. You can see a similar spark at the end of King’s Shadow when Charon desperately wants to assure Noctus that Chloe is alright, but he’s so dedicated he won’t say anything unless asked.
I had a lot of fun with Charon, as he views his service to Noctus in a very different light than how Celestia of Hall of Blood and Mercy serves Killian Drake, or Skye serves Queen Leila in Court of Midnight and Deception.
So what do you think of Charon now that you know more about him? When you first read about the elves in the Magiford books were you picturing a character like Charon and the rest of the elves in the city?
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February 21, 2023
Character Profile: Aristide
It’s time to talk about Aristide! Important: character profile posts do contain spoilers! If you haven’t read King’s Captive or King’s Shadow, I suggest you wait to read all Gate of Myth and Power character profiles until you finish!
Aristide
Aristide is Noctus’ only companion who is not named in homage to a Greek myth, which I chose to do because Aristide is such a strong, specific character there’s no one who could hold a candle to him.
Aristide’s background of vampire thief—and the only non-shadow supernatural to successfully infiltrate the Mors—testifies just how strong he is. Additionally, the fact that he got smacked by an elven curse and is still alive and kicking? Yeah, he’s got power by the boatloads.
Even with all his power, I wanted to show how the loss of his eyesight did alter the way he interacts with the world. Aristide needs to find ramps rather than stairs, and his tussle with the velvet rope and metal pole dividers in the Curia Cloisters are true to life. (Dividers that don’t go all the way to the ground are a problem for seeing eye dogs, since dogs don’t comprehend/understand what they mean/stand for.)
I did a lot of research while trying to figure out to how accurately represent Aristide’s life—or at least how to represent it as accurately as possible for a vampire living in the magic capital of the Mid West. My best resource was actually youtube, thanks to the diligence of youtubers like: Lucy Edwards, Molly Burke, and Blind Surfer Pete Gustin.
Lucy and Molly had great information for how they process the world differently, but Pete Gustin was extra helpful when it came to estimating just how far I could take Aristide’s battle prowess given that he enjoys surfing, skateboarding, and target shooting despite being blind.
I also have to give a special thanks to, Leilanor from our community discord server. Leilanor proofread Aristide’s scenes to make sure I hadn’t written any boo-boos in regards to his vision. (In example, originally I had Aristide rolling a walking stick ended with a ball back and forth in front of himself when he walked as it’s what I’d seen Lucy Edwards and Molly Burke model in their youtube videos. Leilanor suggested that Aristide–with his vampire hearing that he already used for other tasks in the books–would be more likely to tap his cane to listen to the differences of his surroundings instead of using the ball method that relied more on feeling.) Thanks again, Leilanor. I really appreciated all of your advice and wisdom!
Back to Aristide, in addition to his battle prowess, Aristide is the voice of reason among Noctus’ companions. Ker is always game for anything, and Charon is too fond of Noctus to interject reality in situations that won’t harm Noctus, so it’s up to Aristide to keep everyone in line.
It’s Aristide who, in King’s Captive, constantly reminds Noctus that Ama is a cat, and that he needs to respect her boundaries. He’s also the only one who snarks at some of Noctus’ more questionable decisions—like carrying a cat into the Curia Cloisters during an attempted break in.
He may come off as wry/jaded, but the reality is Aristide’s sarcasm always has a point of wisdom in it…he’s just used to his good points being ignored so he’s become snarky about it.
As seen with his rescue of Ker after her Pack died, Aristide is fiercely protective of his friends. While he’s the first to accept Chloe after it’s revealed that she’s a shadow, it’s not because he doesn’t care. Rather, it’s because he cares so much, he knows what Ama meant to Noctus, and in putting together what Chloe has done—run away from the house to save others when the tracker was after her—he knows that she’s still safe for Noctus.
And that’s more about Aristide! Was there anything that surprised you about him? Do you have favorite podcasts you like to listen to as well?
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February 16, 2023
Announcing: FebFest!
Come one, come all to SheaCon FebFest! For one afternoon only (Central time), Kitty’s discord server will be hosting special Sheacon activities like: Drawing with a Twist, Trial of Trivia, Bingo, and Printables. We hope to see you there on Saturday, February 25th starting at 2 pm Central time. (This event will last approximately two hours, so don’t be afraid to arrive late!) If you haven’t joined Kitty’s discord server yet, learn how to here!
I’ll be attending–hopefully I’ll have successfully finished writing King’s Queen by then, so I’ll be ready to party! See you there, and thanks for reading!
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February 13, 2023
Happy Valentine’s Day 2023
Happy Valentine’s Day, Champions! Valentine’s Day continues to be one of my favorite holidays–an entire day dedicated to sweets and showing everyone I love how thankful I am? Sign me up!
In previous years I used to do a free book to mark the day, but we’re kind of in the middle of Magiford stuff, so I’m shifting my annual Newsletter-Champion-Picked book to the summer so we can properly mark it. But! I still want to give you Champions a valentine, so here we have it, a new coloring page!
Above is the JPEG version, but you can also download the PDF version and print it out–here’s the link!
This coloring page is for Cinderella and the Colonel, my stand alone, fantasy retelling of the traditional fairy tale, without the insta-love. Cinderella is closer to Leila of Court of Midnight and Deception with both her sarcasm, and her obsession with money (Cinderella is also destitute, and has something of an enemies-to-lovers romance.) but her spit fire temperament is accompanied by the kindness that is so key to the Cinderella fairy tale. (Though her spend thrift ways make this book one of my favorite fairy tales. I can’t help it, I love budgets!)
If you want to check out Cinderella’s story, you can find it in Kindle Unlimited/on Amazon here, but feel free to share the coloring book with friends/family! I asked @olena_shkavron to make this page specifically for you, Champions, so have fun with it!
I hope you have a wonderful day, Champions, filled with love from all the people you hold dear! (And maybe a few sweets and good books, too!) Thanks for reading!
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February 7, 2023
Character Profile: Kerberos
Kerberos and Aristide are two of my favorite characters in the series, so I decided to start my character profile talks with them! (Aristide will be in the next post.) Important: character profile posts do contain spoilers! If you haven’t read King’s Captive or King’s Shadow, I suggest you wait to read all Gate of Myth and Power character profiles until you finish!
Kerberos
Let’s start with it. Yes, I thought I was absolutely hilarious when I decided that my version of Kerberos would be a werewolf.
Kerberos is known as the three headed dog of the underworld and serves as a guard. When I was designing Ker’s character, I first considered having three siblings serve and calling them “Ker,” “Ber” and “Os,” but I decided it was more important to flesh Kerberos out as a deep character than to make her reflect mythology, so I centralized her into one character.
Ker is the oldest living werewolf—by centuries. Given that she was around before the war with the elves and lived through it, she’s been around the block. And yet, her cheerful temperament has kept her kind and gentle when time could have easily made her jaded. Her age does create a bit of a conundrum, though, as it means she can’t exactly go strutting around in her human form, creating records of her presence, or supernaturals are going to start wondering why there’s an immortal werewolf running around, which is why she typically acts as Aristide’s guide wolf when they’re in public.
As we learned in King’s Shadow, Kerberos lost her *entire* Pack in the war against the elves. We know from Pip’s series—Pack of Dawn and Destiny—that to a werewolf, nothing is more important than Pack and family. Normally that means it’s shocking Ker survived, but the truth is she made it because Aristide is a stubborn mule who was going to keep her alive even if it killed him, and because Ker herself was determined to live and love again.
Still, despite all the years, you can see that pain has left an impact on Kerberos, she just chooses to keep on living with her friends—and with the help of her beloved affirmations! Additionally, because her friends are her new Pack, you can also see that due to her love, she is going to help them whether they want it or not–whether that means trying to cajole Noctus into taking a break from work, or to tease Aristide about being a Nostalgia vampire to keep him from becoming one. (In particular, fans of Pack of Dawn and Destiny might be able to spy additional insights on the way Ker treats her friends and how it relates to pack dynamics/hierarchies.)
And that’s our closer look at Ker! What do you think now that you know more about her? Has she inspired you to read How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie?
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January 24, 2023
Hades and Persephone, the Original Myth
King’s Shadow is out! The extra story–which I had the most fun EVER writing–is also out. Sooo the only thing left to do is to wait impatiently for King’s Queen, right? No! We’re a community! We’re going to wait in misery together, and I’m going to attempt to entertain you during the wait! So I thought I’d begin with my infamous practice of sarcastic summarization, and sarcastically retell the myth I loosely based Gates of Myth and Power on, Hades and Persephone!
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Important: I love to use sarcasm and modern humor in my summaries–I poke fun of the stuff I love. I’m more interested in entertaining you all and giving you a base idea of the original myth than aiming for 100% accuracy.
Additionally, this is more than likely going to be the only Greek myth I ever retell. Some of the Greek myths make even the creepiest fairy tales–like Donkeyskin–look mild in comparison, and that’s not my jam. Hades and Persephone’s story is possibly the happiest myth with the healthiest relationship, which is saying something considering it all started with a kidnapping, which is why I wanted to retell it in the first place.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s begin my sarcastic–and hopefully funny–summery!
~~~
Our two main characters are Persephone–according to the Greek mythology, the goddess of spring and the daughter of Demeter, who was the goddess of harvest/cultivation AKA growing things–and Hades–King of the underworld, and god of death. (He sounds like a fun guy, right?)
Hades was a shockingly good king considering the antics most of the Greek gods and goddess got up to in their spare time. He was also a bit of a workaholic, so he didn’t leave the underworld a whole lot and thus was a bachelor–unlike his brother, Zeus, who I’d consider enemy number one of women everywhere due to his creeptastic ways that I wouldn’t get into to save my life.
On one of his rare trips out of the underworld, Hades saw Persephone and instantly fell in love. Despite being a decent king, Hades apparently lacked common sense, because instead of trying to talk to Persephone, he decided to consult Creepy-Crawler-Bro, Zeus. Zeus–who was also Persephone’s father–was like “Nifty, you should abduct her! I’ve got some mad tips for you since I do a lot of kidnapping, lol.” (See? Public enemy #1!)
There are a few variations of how our budding Father-of-the-Year and Good-King-Bad-At-Boundaries bros exactly captured Persephone, but the general consensus is that one way or another they split the ground open underneath her, and she fell into Hades’ kingdom where he trapped her and married her.
Some variations say the goddess Hecate heard the Persephone’s kidnapping, but didn’t see who took her, but the sun god Helios. Depending on the story, Hecate and Helios help Demeter figure out what happened, but that’s on Demeter’s side of the myth.
Most variations make it clear that initially Persephone was not happy about her kidnapped status, but she came to love her new hubby and actually enjoyed her life in the underworld–possibly because her mother was famously domineering and Hades had given Persephone power and called her his queen, which was a big deal in the mythos and didn’t happen that often. (So Hades’ romance skills are bad, and I’m still displeased about the kidnapping thing, but at least he was aiming for the end result to be a balanced relationship!)
Back on the ranch, Demeter–Persephone’s mother–lost it. Since she couldn’t find Persephone, she didn’t let anything grow, and actually went off on an adventure on her own, dressed as an old woman, but we’re not going to get into that since Hades and Persephone are our focus. Eventually, Demeter figured out where Persephone was–the exact method depends a lot on the variation, sometimes Helios tells her, sometimes Hecate guides Demeter to Helios who tells her, there’s a lot going on, but basically Demeter gets help and figures out where Persephone is.
Demeter demands Hades release Persephone, and her refusal to let things grow gets Zeus to actually do something useful for once, moving him to tell Hades that Persephone needs to be released.
Now, we don’t exactly know how Persephone felt about this–there is a really old written version of this legend and this specific part sustained some damage–but it’s relatively agreed upon that Persephone was not thrilled with this turn of events as she seemed to truly love Hades. Keeping that in mind, I’d like to think that she chooses to fall for Hades’ obvious ploy when he gets her to eat pomegranate seeds–which the Greeks considered to be the fruit of the dead, which would have been a flashing warning light to our intrepid heroine. There is some basis for this theory, as other Greek myths and stories note that Greek gods and goddess didn’t have to eat, so it’s not like she was hungry and wanted a snack.
The number of pomegranate seeds she eats changes drastically in each story. I looked all over the internet and I different sources said she ate three, four, six, or seven seeds. As you’re probably guessed, there isn’t a truly correct number due to all the variations of this story, although one website I used for research mentioned the different numbers are possibly because of different calendars/ways of recording seasons and months.
Regardless, she ate some fruit, which then tied Persephone to Hades so she had to return to the underworld for several months every year, aka, winter! (Again, the span of time she has to return to the underworld changes greatly per variation.)
Demeter wasn’t very happy about this, but there was no other choice, so Persephone split her time between serving as the goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld. Demeter got her for spring/summer, and Hades was rejoined with his wife for Fall/Winter while Hecate–the goddess who usually helps Demeter find Persephone–ends up serving as Persephone’s companion and goes to the underworld with Persephone every year.
Circling back, when Hades gives Persephone the seeds, and Persephone chooses to eat them, Hades gives Persephone a touching speech about how much he loves her, that he’ll give her all his wealth, and she’s his queen–it’s basically an adorable confession scene that is also threaded with Hades essentially giving Persephone power in his kingdom. This little confession is what sold me on this myth as a kid. There are fairy tale princes who could stand to learn a thing or two from Hades in terms of healthy relationship dynamics, despite his rocky start.
So, that’s the original source material I worked with! Eventually I’ll go over what I used from this source material, but until then, what did you spy from the original myth, Champions?
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January 20, 2023
Magiford Sale: Hall of Blood and Mercy Boxset
Hey Champions!
I’m still hard at work on King’s Queen–book three of Gates of Myth and Power–but I do have some fun Magiford themed posts planned for the future, starting with, another huge Magiford sale!
Right now, the Hall of Blood and Mercy boxset–that’s the complete trilogy–is on sale from it’s usual price of $9.99, to 99 cents!
Get the Complete series Boxset: Amazon.com | All other Amazon Stores
If you haven’t read this series yet (or if you read it through Kindle Unlimited) now the time to grab the whole trilogy at a huge discount. This series is also perfect for binging in a long weekend, making it a great winter time read!
Here’s the description from the first book if you want to know more about what this series is like:
I’m one scrappy wizard.
As someone with barely a flicker of magic, I’ve spent my life being mocked and surviving fights with bullies. But when my parents die in an accident, and I find myself responsible for our whole wizard house and family, I know my usual tactics aren’t going to cut it.
The situation veers from bad to catastrophic when my backstabbing cousin stages a coup and takes my family hostage.
I barely manage to flee, but the only supernatural willing to help me is Killian Drake–the most feared vampire in the region, and a far more deadly villain than the jerk threatening me.
Is Killian sexy and charismatic? Heck yeah.
He’s also so powerful that my flight or fight instincts kick in every time our eyes meet.
But he is also the first person to believe I might have more than just a scrap of magic. And if I can convince him to train me, I might get strong enough to free my family and get my house back.
I’m not sure what happens when a scrappy wizard is taught how to fight by a hall of deadly vampires, but I’m about to find out.
Tell any friends/family who you think might like Hazel’s story! (Or tell anyone you’ve been trying to induct convince to give Magiford a try.) In the meantime, thanks for reading, Champions, and have a lovely weekend!
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January 14, 2023
Short story: A Clocktower Meeting
It’s party time, Champions!
King’s Shadow is out, and I’m so grateful and happy for all the support and love you’re showering on this book! I’m SO glad you’re all enjoying it. (I am especially pleased to see you’re enjoying Aristide’s zingers and French Fry’s…French-Fry-ness!)
To celebrate this amazing launch–and as my thank you for King’s Shadow getting over 100 reviews across the various amazon stores and good reads–I have a free short story I wrote: A Clocktower meeting: Click Here for the PDF!
I’m mega excited to share this short as it gives you a glimpse of some of our favorite Magiford Heroines/Heroes. Timeline wise, it takes place before Chloe’s series and before the epilogue of Fated, Pip’s final book. I hope it makes you laugh! Spoiler warning, this short has spoilers for King’s Captive (book 1 of Chloe’s series) in that it is about side characters from her trilogy.
I wanted to end this post with a huge thank you for your support, not just for Chloe’s trilogy, but for the continued grace you Champions have extended to me.
King’s Captive and King’s Shadow have been the most chaotic and crazy launches I’ve had in terms of getting information to you. Earlier this week I shared the wrong launch date for King’s Queen over on Facebook, I actually forgot that I hadn’t finished writing this short until Thursday morning–it’s been a bit of a mess.
Thank you so much for your kindness and patience with all of these bumps in the road. I’m SO grateful that you’re all taking my mix ups in stride and clear things up for each other. And also please let me assure those of you who I can feel giving me the side eye right now, my health really is getting better. The chaos is a result of me using every available brain cell I have to write King’s Queen so my brain is gelatinous after I finish writing for the day. 
I really am getting slow but steady progress!
Once again, I hope you enjoy the short, thank you for your support, and thank you for reading!
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January 13, 2023
The King’s Shadow: Spoiler Post
Greetings, Champions! The King’s Shadow is released! Did you binge it yet? Have you started a second read through?
The Spoiler Post I made for book 1 was so well received I decided to do it again! I want to give you blog-reading Champions a place to voice your reading thoughts during this initial book launch so please talk away!
Warning: If you are waiting to read this series until all the books are out, or if you haven’t gotten a chance to read The King’s Shadow yet, then I’d suggest waiting before you check out the rest of the post or read the comments, or you’ll spoil the story for yourself!
As usual, I’ve written a short story as my “thank you” for King’s Shadow’s launch and for it reaching 100 reviews–that’s 100 honest reviews pooling from Goodreads and all the Amazon stores! Reviews and ratings are a big deal for authors. Honest reviews can help readers decide if a book is their thing or not, and I’m so thankful that you’re willing to spend your time leaving a review–which is why I’m happy to write the shorts! And based on how quickly the reviews showed up for book 1, you can expect to see the short story….very soon. (Hahah, thank you, you guys are the best!) But until then, let’s talk spoilers!
So, Champions, what was your favorite part? Was there anything unexpected? Now that you know more about Shadows, what do you think of their skill set?
Were there any parts that made you laugh? I know Aristide’s zingers were a favorite in the first book, but which character(s) had the best lines in this book?
Anything you’re looking forward to seeing in the final book?
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January 10, 2023
King’s Shadow: Available for Pre-Order
As I’m sure many of you know, King’s Shadow is available for preorder, and is releasing in a few days on January 13th! What’s even more exciting, though is we finally have a description! (IMPORTANT: This description contains SPOILERS for book 1, King’s Captive! If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll want to skip reading this description!)
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I just spent the last month pretending to be the pet cat of an elf king. Today, I discovered we’re enemies.
In a supernatural society filled with vampires, werewolves, and wizards, I’ve always been an outcast with my ability to turn into a housecat. No one knew what I was.
Turns out, I’m a shadow—a race of supernaturals that were wiped out by the elves centuries ago.
Who explains this to me? Noctus, the elf king I’ve been staying with while pretending to be his pet “cat,” not knowing I’m the archenemy of his people. Talk about the most awkward ancestry results ever.
Now I’m stuck staying with Noctus because he can’t let me go thanks to all of his secrets I unwillingly learned as a cat. At least he hasn’t killed me. Yet.
If that isn’t bad enough, I’m being tracked by a creep obsessed with killing me because I’m a shadow, and he doesn’t mind doling out collateral damage during the hunt.
So I’ve got a mysterious elf king holding me captive in his hidden home, a slew of new powers to learn with my revealed ancestry, and a psychopath on my tail. Wow, things are looking up.
It’s time to find out if cats really do always land on their paws.
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