Untold - Book Summary + Cover Reveal!

So if you're wondering why I've been strangely absent since the release of Shadows of Ourselves (which has been my best selling book yet and gotten good ratings so far, so thank you guys <3) it's because I'm already working on a million other projects.

I have the sequel to Blood of Midnight to get out, plus Maelstrom, both books in the Dreamworld Duet, and two standalone titles I want to release soon. Yeah, there's a lot on my plate...but that's just the way I like it.

And now I can actually talk about one of those standalone projects, because I just posted the page for it (it's called Untold) and it now has a tab at the top of the blog! You can also add it on Goodreads here!

Untold is an urban fantasy novella about a group of humans called sentinels, who are tasked with policing the dangerous mythological creatures that still roam our world, long after the fall of the gods.

It has ifrits and basilisks and selkies and nixies and ogres, and it's a heap of fun! Plus, hot boys!

Here's the cover:

And here's the summary:

Lyra and her sister Rachel are sentinels—humans tasked by the ancient gods to guard humanity against the beasts they left behind. Living in a sheltered Canadian island community, Lyra and Rachel have always been kept away from most danger by the magical protections that drew their parents to the island in the first place. But now those protections are wearing off, and Lyra and her sister have no choice but to face beasts out of their worst nightmares—gorgons and nixies and basilisks—if they want any hope of saving themselves and their town.

When a charming demigod named Callum strolls into town hot on the heels of a blast of magical energy, Rachel is weary of him, and cautions Lyra to stay away—but she can’t deny her attraction to Callum. Or the fact that he could be their only chance of turning the tide against the horde of monsters descending on their home.

Now, Lyra will have to race against time and conquer her own weakness. . .or risk plunging the entire world into chaos. 

I'm pretty excited to write it. It's set in a small Canadian town on a secluded island, and it really touches on my roots: I grew up in and around the biggest city in the province of New Brunswick, and my time was split between living in various parts of the city and in really rural areas.

I remember stretches of months growing up where the only other humans I saw were my parents and my brother, because neighbors were just too far away.

This novel is set in a place that really feels like home in a lot of ways.

Also, it's got interwoven threads of different mythologies and legends. A large chunk of things are from Greek mythology, though, and I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from hero myths.

My family is Greek, and growing up I was so, so, so fascinated by those myths. My mother's name is Athena, and she has a tattoo of the goddess on her ankle. When I was in elementary school, some of the first writing I ever did, in one of those daily journals they made us keep, were stories of Zeus, Aphrodite, and Athena, going on adventures and exploring caves together during lightening storms. I still have relatives in Greece who I would love to meet some day, and all in all, I simply love the richness of the mythology and the scope and scale of those myths - interpersonal conflicts and really contained events have ripple effects that touch on the rest of the world, and that's a big part of the plot here; what these characters do and what they choose will change more than just their own lives, and they're decidedly aware of that.

I'm really excited to share all of these projects with you, but for now this is the one I'll probably be talking about most! I'm hoping to put it out within the next 15 days, at the very most.

Coffee, enthusiasm, and writing strategy are all on my side with this one. Can't wait to share <3

Ideas of Shadow

So, in honor of Shadows of Ourselves being out (you can buy it here) I thought I would talk today about how I got the idea and inspiration for the book!

Shadows really exists because of the scene in the alley in the first chapter. I had the image of Hunter protecting this boy from a pair of Charmer Hounds, and it was really the monsters that drew me in - I wanted to know what they were and who had sent them.

 

I'd always wanted to write a main character who could tell when people were lying - because wouldn't that be the best power? But Sky hates it, and as I wrote him I started to understand what kind of toll it would take. And, of course, since I'm a glutton for punishment, I made the magik hurt.

Originally, the book was supposed to be a novella set in Chicago, but after a few false starts where I played around with the character ages and verb-tense, I started my outline from scratch, moving the book to Saint John. I grew up here, and I've always wanted to set a full-scale paranormal novel here. I think the city really lends itself to magic, and my upbringing really factors into my writing and how I view cityscapes when I'm writing. Plus, looking at the city through the eyes of a bunch of powerful, often immortal, beings, was really fun.

 

 

With the changes, I rewrote my outline, and the story kept growing. I knew I wanted Sky and Hunter to be on a race against time - some of my favorite fantasy novels take place over the course of a few days, and I wanted to keep my timeline tight, so Shadows takes place over the course of five.

I think the thing I love about novels that are fast, that are races, when the villain is chasing the heroes around, is that you're jolting through these intense, magikal landscapes in a very fast, but very close-up way.

Sky gets a bit of magik culture shock throughout the novel, traversing places like the bazaar and the Seelie Court, and I wanted to make those settings as colorful and mesmerizing as possible.

I really can't wait to write the second novel, because I think the direction the series takes will surprise a lot of people. The books get bigger and bigger in scope as they go, and I'm going to have so much fun turning over the city to look at the magik beneath the surface...

Dreamseeker Book + Cover Reveal (Free book!)

Dreamseeker is my new novella, and it's got best friends falling in love and pretty alternate worlds and teenagers hunting monsters in small Maine towns. What more could you ask for?

Dreamseeker is going to be up on the Kindle store in a few days for 99 cents, but it's also free to read on Wattpad here!

Here's a quote, to entice you:

Thinking Your Way Back

Earlier I was reading old posts from January, which is only two months ago but feels eons ago. It was eons ago, because time is relative and time doesn't exist, but I'm not here to blow your mind or lose my thought process talking about weird time jumps. There are shitty B movies that can do that for you better than I ever could.

I'm here to talk about thinking my way back to when I felt, for a while, like things were really looking up. I wasn't in the greatest place, but the world still felt brimming with possibility.

And with my birthday coming up, I've been freaking out - you know, that old paralyzing anxiety about aging and death, right? And I had a bit of a breakdown for a month or so, there. I'm back now.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm fine when just the other night I was talking about mental illness and suicidal thoughts, but I feel like I worked some stuff out of my system and I'm in a slightly better place after a day of reflection and calmness.

I'm still stressed about nineteen million things, but I can't change any of it, I know I can't, so I have to stop blaming myself for things I have no power over and just take it as it comes, because that, how I react to it, is something I have power over. I'm gonna use that power.

So that's how I'm feeling today. I'm dealing with school stuff (stressful) because after easter I have to go and get my diploma. I was originally going to go for an adult diploma but I think I'm going for my GED or equivalency now, because I know if I go back to that school not only will I not learn anything I need to, but I'll also A) have a relapse with my mental illness and B) get into a fistfight with one of the various racist, sexist, and homophobic students there. I'm not even joking - I have an inability not to start a fight if I see a wrongdoing. But basically I just need to not go back into the Canadian public school system, ever.

I started outlining a new project the other night and I have a cover for it, it's gonna come out a few weeks before Shadows of Ourselves, I think. It's longer than a novella but probably not a novel. I think it should be around 35 thousand words, but I'd like to stretch it to 40k or so if I can. I know there's enough story there, but I refuse to add words unless they're needed for the story to function, so we'll see.

It has the best cover of any of my books, ever, in my opinion. Better than the cover for a (possible) sequel to Shadows of Ourselves, which nobody has seen yet. Better than the cover of Maelstrom, which no one has seen yet. I just love it. Not sharing yet, but I love it.

But the book has a Pinterest board, and you can find that here for some glimpses about it. You should also check out the boards for my other books, and I dunno, maybe follow me? For reasons. For science.

And, for fun, some facts about the book:

• It's inspired by magical girl animes.
• And some mythology I love but feel is underused.
• It's paranormal, and the main romance is a lesbian one.
• It's standalone for now but there's room to tell other stories in the world that would also stand on their own.
• MONSTERS.
• A private academy.
• Long lost family members.
• Biracial main character! (Kat is white and Japanese.)
• FANCY BALL GOWNS GALORE.
• Did I mention the monsters?
• Romance!
• Slightly odd romance - or just more realistic? I'm going for a kind of Rainbow Rowell angle on the romance, so while there's a bit of romance genre cheese, for the most part the romance develops in kind of lowkey, average, everyday ways.
• Dragonflies.
• Magic weapons.

So yeah. I'm excited. I'm taking a break from SOO editing to draft this over the next four days, then I edit Shadows in around a week or two, edit this, do my copy edits on Shadows, and then put them both out around the same time. Maybe a week apart?

I have no clue, nothing's official right now, but I'm excited.