Thanks for reading CLOAK OF WOLVES & a CLOAK OF ASHES preview!
I’d like to thank everyone for the kind words they’ve sent about CLOAK OF WOLVES!
The core idea of the book was simple:
“Nadia hates law enforcement. What if she had to work with an officer?”
That made for an interesting conflict. The officer in question, Owen Quell, assumed that Nadia was exactly the sort of powerful criminal he hated. On the flip side, Nadia assumed that Quell was a thug and a bully. Both had their reasons for assuming that, but didn’t see the entire picture – Quell didn’t see that Nadia ripped herself apart to save her brother and then the world, and Nadia didn’t see that Quell was a devoted family man who took his job and responsibilities seriously.
It was also fun to write Nadia’s developing “frenemy” relationship with Governor Arnold Brauner. Brauner’s a bad guy, but he’s not that bad of a bad guy – more like a “get out the vote” machine politician and petty racketeer and not someone like, say, Nicholas Connor, who tried to blow up a stadium full of soccer fans. So Nadia doesn’t like him, but she can respect him, and deal with him.
One of the common complaints about long-running fantasy series is that the characters become overpowered. The key to avoiding that problem is to remember that 1.) there are different kinds of power, and 2.) not every kind of power is applicable in every situation. Nadia is one of the most powerful human wizards and can mow her way through a small army of Shadowlands creatures, but that kind of power would not be helpful in her problems with Owen Quell and Arnold Brauner.
I want to start writing CLOAK OF ASHES in December or January, so let’s have a short preview of the book!
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My name is Nadia, and I’m a shadow agent of the High Queen of the Elves.
I don’t have many friends, but I look after the ones I do have…and I pay my debts.
So when Hakon Valborg’s teenaged granddaughter Lydia is arrested for the murder of her computer science teacher, I agree to help.
But there’s more going on here than just murder.
Because an ancient enemy of both humans and Elves just might have taken up residence in Lydia’s high school…
-JM
