happy pride month!!

FIC WRITER QUESTIONS

Thank you to the lovely @allwaswell16 @runaway-train-works @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @uhoh-but-yeah-alright and @evilovesyou for tagging me to answer some questions about my writing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

47

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

901,445 (Hoping to hit the Magic Million by the end of the year!)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

1 (One Direction)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When Tomorrow Comes 1155

The Baby Whisperer 950

Love, Ever After 898

Harry Poppins 856

Play Me A Memory 760

More under the cut…

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh gosh. Uhm. I don’t really write angsty endings? All my fics have Happy Endings and most have epilogues to round them out and tie them up in a bow. Perhaps I’d say If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow) purely because (spoiler ahead) the epilogue is written 100 years into the future so they’ve both passed.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Interestingly, I would actually say the answer is the same as above, If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). The epilogue is so uplifting and I cry happy tears every time I re-read it. It’s written from the POV of their granddaughter and you get to see the world they had a hand in changing for the better through her eyes, so you get a sense of how impactful their lives were on the rest of society. Oof, tearing up right now just thinking about it.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yeah, I have actually. I really enjoy doing new takes on an existing universes, although they aren’t always the easiest thing to pull off tbh. I’m not sure which I would say is the craziest, but the hardest to write was definitely The Peter Pan/Hook AU.

Harry Poppins - Loosely based on the book/movie Mary Poppins, but without any magical aspects.

Playing To Win - Set in the Big Brother house.

The Pirate and The Piper - A Peter Pan/Hook AU which I took a lot of liberties with.

In The Still Of The Night - My Dirty Dancing AU.

A Hungry Heart - This is a Great British Bake Off AU that is due out in September for the Cliche Fic Fest!

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Whoa Nelly. Yeah, I do. All the time. Every fic actually. There’s only one, Exposed, the only fic I’ve published that’s not rated Explicit and doesn’t have smut. But, to be fair, the challenge was to write exactly 666 words and I still managed to get the implication in there. Plus, Louis was naked and Harry was applying body paint for the majority of the story, so like, I think I can get a free pass on that one - I tried!

In terms of what type of smut, I guess it varies depending on the story. I tend not to push the boat out too far, but I do dabble in BDSM in quite a few of my fics. A recurring theme in the comments I receive is that my smut scenes are well constructed and detailed, without being too tedious or drawn out, which is lovely feedback to get because they can be challenging to write.

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Absolutely. Every single one.

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not often, people are usually so kind, but there have been a couple.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, quite a lot, particularly on Wattpad, all with my full consent. That said, I’m thinking of stopping this because it’s getting a bit out of hand and I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about it recently for various reasons that I won’t bore you with here. 

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! I don’t think it’s really my thing tbh. I get very in my head about writing and struggle even to brainstorm or share too much until I’m well into a story.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

Of the 47 fics I’ve written, there are 45 Larry, 1 Narry, and 1 Louis/Dermot O’Leary (I think mine is still the only fic with this ship hahahaa), so that’s probably a good indication of my fave writing ship.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have one lonely WIP sitting on AO3 from 2018. I keep promising myself I’ll finish it and it’s on my schedule every year, then I get distracted by other fics/fests and it gets pushed back. Plus, it needs a complete rewrite because my style has developed so much since I started it, so it’ll be a big job. Based on that, I think that the fic, in its current form, won’t ever be finished as the rewrite will completely wipe out what it was, although the underlying plot will still be there.

16) What are your writing strengths?

World building (or so I’m often told). I write very visually and people often say they can imagine the scene exactly, or that it’s like a movie, or that they think it’s actually a real place I’m describing, when most of the time it absolutely isn’t, it’s just something I’ve created in my weird brain.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue (although my lovely beta disagrees) and telling rather than showing. They’re both things I’m actively working on.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never really considered it. It’s not something I’d shy away from necessarily, but it’s just never come up.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

One Direction. First and only.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Wow. This is really tough because it changes over time. I find that once I’ve finished a fic I don’t want to revisit it for a few months because I’m kind of over it. But I find comfort in them after a while, like I get to go back to that happy place and immerse myself in that world and the characters again, similar to catching up with an old friend. It’s familiar. I think I also like different stories for different reasons and I’m drawn to various ones depending on my mood. My top 3 (although, ask me next week and the list will probably be completely different!) would probably be:

1. If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). Written for the hybrid fic fest (a fest I created just for this fic lol). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea due to the hybrid aspect, but it’s one of the stories I feel is the most rounded from a character development perspective and the world building was pretty epic, if I can be so bold as to throw that out there myself!

2. No Going Back. One of my Big Bangs from 2020. I adore the way their relationship develops in this fic and the setting (as remote lighthouse keepers) was such a lot of fun to write. Plus I got to collaborate with an amazing artist who created an entire website as an accompanying travel blog which was truly wonderful.

3. From The Heart. This is a series I wrote for wordplay back in 2019. I had no idea that what I was doing was so unusual and so meta by having Louis essentially write for the equivalent of wordplay in the fic. It was such an fun way to share my writing process and challenges I encounter (exactly how many synonyms tabs do I have open at any one time?!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the outcome (although getting there was definitely a struggle).

~

This was really fun and thanks to anyone who made it this far! Writing brings me so much joy and is a wonderful outlet for all the imaginings in my head, so I appreciate everyone who supports me and joins me on that journey.

~

I’m pretty late with this and I’m not sure who has already done it but I’ll tag @fallinglikethis @homosociallyyours @lululawrence @reminiscingintherain and @beau-soleil-louis if they’d like to do this and haven’t already.

send your a character impression asks: Seth and Kate if you don't have those already, and Jeff Winger and Annie Edison! ❤❤❤

Seth Gecko

First impression: I think I loved him right off the bat. He’s snarky and quick witted and those are usually the characters I like first. 

Impression now: Not much has changed. I suppose I have more of an understanding for how he handled his demons now compared to my initial reaction to his heroin use. And I definitely think he’s at his healthiest in season three. 

Favorite moment: Oh jeeze, he has so many good ones! I suppose I rather like him in Shady Glen. Just like his whole taking charge of the group and his awkwardly trying to smooth things over when he and Richie busted in guns drawn on that woman and her son. Reminded me of the convo between him and the Dew Drop Inn clerk.

Idea for a story: Nothing new, but I’ve got anther tUA-inspired AU snippet brewing that touches more on Seth’s Bad Ass Normal superpower though.

Unpopular opinion: I don’t know that it’s all that unpopular, but I’m not convinced Seth used again after season two. I’m not convinced he didn’t either, but it’s never been a personal headcanon or something that I’ve felt was a given or anything. I mostly feel that he went back to popping prescription pain pills and probably mixing them with alcohol (not smart) when he was feeling particularly shitty.

Favorite relationship: Probably him and Richie (although he and Kate are a close second.) Their relationship is pretty much the heart of the show and I don’t think I would’ve loved it nearly so much had it not been.

Favorite headcanon: It’s a tie between Seth getting a cross tattoo to represent Kate after season three, and that Seth started questioning his faith after the blood-transfusion-that-shouldn’t’ve-worked. And as a tie into the second one, that he and Kate do not have compatible blood types, something Seth learned after the fact.

Kate Fuller

First impression: That she was a typical, albeit a bit on the mature side, teenage girl, lol. At least for most of season one. I think I probably stereotyped her a bit, because I remember not realizing just how quickly Kate grew unafraid/immune to the Gecko Brothers until my first rewatch.

Impression now: She is so much a “there’s bravery in remaining soft”/”world’s nicest badass”/”do not mistake my kindness for ignorance” character. She has this quiet strength and is unwavering in who she is at her core.  

Favorite moment: Pretty much anytime Kate meets someone new and they inevitably get attached and decide to go to the ends of the earth for her (or they’re evil and decide they want to possess her *cough*Malvado,Tanner,Oculto*cough*)

Idea for a story: I’ve been wanting to write a fairytale!AU, particularly with my favorite fairytale, but it doesn’t fit SethKate all that well. Maybe I’ll just expand on that crack!ficlet I wrote...? Idk. I’ve got too many wips anyway.

Unpopular opinion: I can’t think of one I haven’t named before. I suppose with the increase in purity culture here on Tumblr the fact that I really don’t mind the age gap between Seth and Kate nor do I think it makes any difference if Kate’s underage or legally an adult would count.

Favorite relationship: In show it’s probably her and the Gecko Brothers, but in those inbetween moments I really love her and Scott.

Favorite headcanon: Currently I’m think about how I headcanon that Kate has some lingering muscle memory about swordsmanship from Amaru. Its nothing too exciting, especially since Amaru’s pre-Earth memories -and therefore her memories of learning to use a sword- are fuzzy at best, but her body practiced with one enough during those six months that it falls into place easy enough when she picks up a blade.

Jeff Winger

First impression: Like Seth, he’s that brand of snarky and quick witted that I immediately like. 

Impression now: I don’t know that it’s changed much. I love how the show let Jeff grow but also let him slip back into old habits. People don’t change overnight, and while Jeff didn’t need each lesson hammered over his head repeatedly, he did need to learn not to fall back into his default mode whenever he could.  

Favorite moment: Anytime Jeff shows genuine excitement to hang out with the study group. Like when he showed up early to the apartment for the wedding.

Idea for a story: I’ve had this idea for a while where Jeff never got caught and is an even worse version of himself than he was circa the pilot. And he somehow meets a few (maybe all?) of the study group only they don’t make him a better person so much as he manipulates them into being part of his life as he unwantingly grows attached to each of them. It’s kind of dark for a Community fic, not counting some of the darkest timeline fics, but the idea entered my head one day and has been living rent free there ever sense.

Unpopular opinion: Its mostly unpopular among Jeff/Annie shippers, but I rather like how the Jeff/Britta storyline played out. It makes sense to me that they became friends with benefits and that the sexual tension between them faded as they got to know each other on a deeper level since they were incompatible. Plus, I really like their friendship.

Favorite relationship: I really loved his and Abed’s dynamic at the beginning of the series, but for the bulk of the show it’s a tie between him and Annie (romantic) and him and Britta (platonic)

Favorite headcanon: I fully believe Jeff is demiromantic. Its why he doesn’t think romantic love is real, he so rarely experiences it and only after getting close to someone, something he actively avoids doing, and why he figured that having a friend he gets along with and is sexually attracted to is all that was needed for a romantic relationship.

Annie Edison

First impression: Mainly I just remember not liking her crush on Troy in the first season, lol. I’ve never been that into ships where one side is super obvious and kind of desperate while the other is oblivious and/or sees them as just friends. I was really proud of her when she decided to not let Troy use her grandmother’s blanket (which is coincidentally also the episode I started to ship her and Jeff, albeit mildly at the time) and their friendship later on was wonderful.

Impression now: She’s one of my favorite characters on the show, although on Community I love them all so that’s not saying much, lol. Troy says it best when he says that Annie expects everyone to be better than they are and for herself to be better than everyone.

Favorite moment: I can’t just pick one moment, grr. Fine, the first thing that popped into my head was Annie saying the line about “a C? Why don’t I just get pregnant at a gas station?!” or something like that. Just her absolute insistence that anything less than perfection in herself is some kind of a epic failure in life is just amusing to me.

Idea for a story: I don’t think I really have any off the top of my head that aren’t Community as a whole fics. I’d love to write an AU for the show someday, it lends itself to the concept so well that just about any sort of AU would do. An I still have the FDtD crossover fic that is sitting all messy in my wip folder.

Unpopular opinion: I don’t really care where they went with her character in seasons five and six (I particularly don’t like how it was played for laughs that she started taking pills again between seasons 4 and 5). Her storylines are mostly fine, but I prefer the way her character went in the seasons that came before.

Favorite relationship: I was trying to think of someone besides Jeff, but even not looking at them as a ship I really did love their dynamic throughout the show. 

Favorite headcanon: Annie’s parents where the ones who got her hooked on Adderall, telling her what to say to her doctor to get a prescription or maybe bringing home a bottle themselves, so that she could keep up her perfect grades and do all the right afterschool activities to get into an Ivy League school and make them proud. They were mostly embarrassed that Annie “couldn’t handle it” and tried to quit, saying she needed to try harder and “really, Annie, stop being so dramatic” when she OD’d.

JK Rowling’s Track Of My Years choices:

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush

Heaven by Emeli Sande

Big Country by Big Country

Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell

All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix  

River Song by Dennis Wilson  

Ramble On by Led Zeppelin

Waitress by First Aid Kit

Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers  

Dream On Dreamer by Brand New Heavies

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush – being a student in Paris:

JK: [Cloudbusting] came out in 1985 when I was still a student… because I was studying French I spent a year in Paris… I was teaching students in a lycee, basically a comprehensive on the outskirts of Paris. It was a very particular experience going away, I left a boyfriend back in Britain and we were all quite young and we were all quite broke… we had some wonderful adventures during that time… there’s something very wistful about that track… we were all people who like to travel and there was a sense of being lost, but in quite a nice way I suppose, we were exploring life a lot at that time… I don’t know how I managed to get Paris because a lot of my friends ended up in tiny little towns in the middle of nowhere so we all had very varied experiences. I couldn’t believe that I’d got Paris which was of course my first choice.

Heaven by Emeli Sande – remembering the fear of doing the London Olympics Opening Ceremony

JK: I love this song so much, but I have a particular memory attached to it which was the London Olympics Opening Ceremony. They played this track during the ceremony and that was probably the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life, being part of that Opening Ceremony and, in fact, I told Danny Boyle twice, ‘I can’t do it, Danny, I just can’t, I would be too scared’. I’ve got better, but I find public speaking an ordeal. I’ve got better at it and I’ve made myself get braver about it, but I said to him I can’t do it in front of that large an audience, I can’t do it live, please don’t ask me and he kept asking, kept asking me and finally he just said to me, ‘Look, we’ve got the Queen jumping out of an aeroplane’ and when he told me that I honestly thought, [that] no-ones even going to remember I was there. If that’s happening, that’s sort of takes the pressure off! But I do remember just rehearsing and practising and practising this little piece I had to read and when it was over I cannot tell you the sense of exhilaration that I’d done it, I hadn’t fallen over, I hadn’t messed up the reading so I went up into the stands to sit with some people I knew and then we watched this extraordinary ceremony and they played this Emeli Sande track and I will forever associate it with that night…. I said to my husband on the night, ‘On my deathbed, that will be a moment I remember, going out into that stadium.’ It was the most epic event that I’d ever been involved in and I think all of us who participated would say the same thing, nothing will ever come close.

Big Country by Big Country – first ever gig

JK: Now I had to put Big Country by Big Country on the list because this was my first ever live gig. I went to Dingwalls in Bristol with my teenage boyfriend… and they were amazing live… and I just thought they were wonderful, they really were.

Ken: You’ve lived in many different places, where do you feel home is, where do you feel drawn to?

JK: Well, home now is definitely Scotland. I’ve lived most of my life now in Edinburgh, I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, but when I was younger I had very itchy feet and I’ve lived in London, Manchester, Paris, Oporto… I’ve moved around a lot. I also, within those cities, kept moving. I just do have very itchy feet. But when I had my daughter, I decided consciously, not that that has to stop because I love travelling and as a family we travel a lot, but I decided that she needed roots so we stayed in Edinburgh, which I now love and really do consider my home and my city… [Travelling] is a useful thing to have done and to have seen life from a lot of different perspectives… and I love exploring.

Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell – on inspiring her latest book

JK: Before I began writing Troubled Blood… I looked up all the albums that came out in 1974 because the whodunnit… concerns a women who vanished in 1974 and I wanted to peg her disappearance to an album that she would have loved and I saw that Court and Spark… had come out then and I thought that’s perfect, perfect for this character. So then I began listening to it and listening to it and listening to it and then I loved it so much I now literally own everything that Joni Mitchell has ever brought out and I can now honestly call myself a mad Joni Mitchell fan. It was an odd way to discover all her other work, but I think she’s just untouchable, and as a lyricist I think there’s no one better. My husband last Christmas bought me a book of all her lyrics and it can be read like fine poetry. She’s absolutely extraordinary… Court and Spark is now one of my very favourite albums.

All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix  – playing it after a bad break-up and being insecure

Since first hearing this song when I think I was probably 18 or 19, I’ve always had it in my music. I do remember playing it very loudly and drunkenly after one bad break-up and I think the attraction there was the opening line, ‘There must be some way out of here’. But it’s just a great song and he again, what a talent and at the venerable age I have reached now, looking back at artists who died so young is particularly poignant I think. I mean you ache for them because you think what would Jimi Hendrix have achieved if he’d lived to past the age of 27? It’s just extraordinary that people produce work of that quality when they’re so young… I think the thing I admire most is having the confidence because I had the idea for Harry Potter when I was 25 and I’d done a lot of writing before then, but I was extraordinarily insecure and very rarely shared anything that I’d written. I wrote some spoof things for friends to make them laugh, but I never shared anything that I’d written in earnest because I was quite insecure. But of course performers are different and they are driven to share in a way that writers don’t do; obviously we live in a far more introverted life, but… I am drawn to biographies of people like Hendrix because I am just in awe of what they did and what they achieved.

River Song by Dennis Wilson – reminding her of the pandemic during lockdown

This is always going to remind me of the pandemic, this song, because I’ve been listening to his album Pacific [Ocean] Blue which is a bit of an undiscovered gem. I’d had it for a while and listened to it, but it seems to be speaking to me in lockdown and River Song – maybe it resonates because certainly lots of my friends have talked about rediscovering being in the natural world in lockdown – having space and time to appreciate the small things. That’s not to say that any of us wouldn’t change things in a heartbeat, but it has brought a lot of us closer to family. Just having time to enjoy small things has been one small upside of the pandemic

Waitress by First Aid Kit – reminding her of an old friend

I think they’re kind of wonderful. This song in particular reminds me of one of my oldest friends Lynn she and I were in Paris together, we’d never have met otherwise because she’s American. There’s something about our shared nomadic tendencies in this song because it is a song about escape and reinvention. Now I’m very fortunate, I no longer feel the desire to escape or to reinvent myself I am very happy and I have a wonderful family. But I think this is a song about young women feeling displaced and feeling anxious and I think that’s the reason both of us particularly love this track.

On her lack of belief/confidence in writing

You have to push through your lack of belief. Certainly with Potter and with other things I’ve written, I’ve put them down for months at a time. I have got better at believing that I can push through. I remember when I was writing Potter I was writing two other things simultaneously and slowly but surely I realised that Potter was the best of them. And even though I was very insecure I just kept pushing on, pushing on. Actually, the thing that pushed me to complete the book and really to have belief, was having made such a mess of my life generally. In fact I do remember feeling, ‘Look, so you get turned down by every publisher in the country, what’s to lose now?’ Well you know, it was even that I thought it would be a massive success because I certainly didn’t. What I did believe was, I came to a point where I thought, ‘This is a good story and I’m going to put everything into this and see what happens.’ And I’d lost the fear of failing or rejecting that had probably hampered me a little bit early on in my writing.

On the Robert Galbraith books being a desire to that that the writing was as good as she thought it was and it wasn’t her name that was selling?

Yeah, that was definitely in there. I think I had a real yen to go back to the beginning, to go back to what’s important. And to get unvarnished criticism. And so I became Robert and it was a fantastic experience. I can honestly say the rejection letters were fantastic. I know that sounds bizarre and masochistic, but it was satisfying because I was getting unvarnished feedback and I was resilient enough to think, ‘Well that is a fair comment, but no I don’t agree with that comment’ because you’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing but I’ve never been arrogant enough not to believe that I need feedback and a good editor is essential, however successful you are.

Ramble On by Led Zeppelin – growing up

When I was really young, I mean sixteen or seventeen, growing up on the Welsh border, Led Zeppelin was a real thing for me as an adolescent and my oldest friend Sean he loved Zeppelin and it was something we shared. I just love Ramble On.

Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers – on a moving marital moment and lockdown being a special time with her family

JK: Well I think of all the love songs written, this might be my favourite. It’s such a beautiful, simple sentiment, but I have an additional reason for choosing it, which is that it took lockdown for my husband to say to me… I was playing it in the kitchen while cooking something; he walked in, he said,  ‘This always makes me think of you when you’re down in London’ and that was a very moving marital moment so now it has an extra layer of meaning for me. [On lockdown]…. Well, I hope that all listeners have had the happy experience that I’ve had of it being quite a special time. We also have teenage kids and it’s been kind of wonderful to spend that extra time with them.

On being involved with the screen adaptations of her work

JK: Well, interestingly, I’ve been much more involved in the TV show than I have been with the movies. With the TV show, because I’m writing a series about my detectives, Strike and Robin, I have been very involved because I didn’t want the TV show to take them to places that I know they wouldn’t go because I know what’s coming, so that’s been such a happy project. I’ve loved all of it and I think and believe it’s been a very happy experience for everyone involved… a lovely cast and amazing crew, it’s been really satisfying…. It’s always a challenge because certain changes need to be made between novel and screen and I’m always sympathetic to that; different media have different demands, but the tv adaptations of the Galbraith novels I think have been very very faithful.

On fan feedback before it was known she was writing as Robert Galbraith

JK: The first three months I had, when no one knew it was me and I was Robert Galbraith, and Robert started to get letters… and fan feedback which was so genuine and so lovely. I think what people are mostly drawn to are the central relationship between the two detectives and I’m constantly being asked, ‘When are they going to get together?’ So, yeah, I think people will be happy with this book because they certainly do advance in their relationship, though possibly not quite the advance that everyone’s hoping for, but I loved writing that [latest book], it was a joy.

Dream On Dreamer by Brand New Heavies – on dreaming that Potter might be a success

JK: This is such a personal and meaningful track to me. When I was finishing the first Potter book, this track was being played constantly on the radio, and in one of the cafes that I used to write in, it felt as though this song was played every three minutes and I can remember more than once asking myself, ‘Is that who you are, are you the dreamer?’ [for] thinking that this can be published or will be published? But I still had this degree of belief in the story that quelled my doubts and made me keep working, difficult though it was at that time, so it always takes me back to just being on the threshold of the insanity that then ensued, because at that time I could have had no idea what was coming.

Coda to a Sixteen Book Epic Fantasy Series I Will Never Write

“How are you?” the Wizard says, and there’s a part of me that squeezes around panic, but most of me is shivering in profound relief because if he’s here then he’s real.

“Oh, gods,” I say, and it’s more of a prayer than I’ve ever said it before. There’s an image of laughter that keeps coming up, several of us around a campfire, and it’s not a cool day but I can feel the cold steaming out with the image of flames.

He looks at me in concern, looks around, looks back at me when he can’t seem to figure out what it is that has me frozen in place, all the muscles in my face gone slack. If he’s real, then the farmer is real too, and the farming tips she gave me that dance in my head. The blacksmith is real, and those comments about shoeing my horse.

“You’re real,” I say, and that wasn’t what I meant at all, what I meant was that was real, the bard, the mage, the thief, all of it was, but he seems to know what I mean anyway.

“Oh, if I’d known,” he says, and sighs, and scrubs at his beard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would be so confusing to you. If I’d known I’d have come sooner.”

“Nobody remembered me leaving,” I tell him, and there’s a whine in my voice, a pleading that won’t go away, higher and more fragile even than I expect it to be. Louder than it was the first time I spoke in that tavern, two weeks in, more confident, but still that old voice that I thought I had left behind. “Every single person remembers me here for the last five years, tilling the land as I always have. Going to market every Saturday. Nodding hello. Giving the trinkets I dig up from the garden to the neighborhood children to play with. Living my life here as if I never left.”

“It’s local,” he says.

I turn to look at the Wizard, really look at him, and he’s drawn now, looking haggard and rundown in a way he never does in my memories. Dark and mysterious and certain, stepping out from behind corners or just being where we planned to rest, offering up a knowing not-quite smile as he spoke to each of us in turn. He really is just an old man with too much magic swirling around him, but then, what else could he have been? He was never cruel, but we were none of us free to make our own choices.

He places an arm around my shoulders, gently, tentatively, but I feel no need to protest. After all, I know him better than anyone else in my life.

“The spell,” he says, “it’s local. It’s not – I don’t know how much you know about temporal mechanics? But if I’d really rewritten your history, that would’ve been Big Magic itself, and sort of counterproductive, don’t you think?”

“No one remembers,” I repeat, staring out at people just going about their day. No one remembers hands held in silent prayer, no one remembers fasting in solidarity or removing the curse, no one remembers voices raised together, none on key and yet together sounding exactly as intended in the quiet of the woods.

“No,” he says, “no, your friends don’t remember, as per the bargain. Everyone else does. Even the townsfolk would, if I hadn’t – admittedly it’s a bit intrusive of a spell, but it’s just an obfuscation focused on your person. Not true time dilation, it just takes what you’ve been doing and covers the gaps between when you left and when you returned, and it’ll fade as their memories fill in. It’s only so strong now because they keep questioning it. A little misdirection, a little credulity, and of course they’ve always trusted you.”

“My house was pristine when I returned,” I say, not looking behind me at the home I had assumed would fall to ruin. I had more important things on my mind, at the time. Though of course I’d forgotten the supplies I should have known to have, all of us had, and those first few nights struggling to fish for our dinner were a master class in patience for her, and you’d think a farmer would’ve been able to hold on to a struggling animal but we were neither of us used to it, though at least she managed to hold on and one of us had something to show for it.

“Oh, yes,” he says, “I had some people in to fix it.”

“You what?” I say.

“That’s hardly Big Magic,” he says. “It wasn’t even Small Magic. Well, the crew used some magic, I would wager, but they do this all the time. It wasn’t even ten gold for the whole house, and they threw in the vegetable garden for free.”

“Why would you do that?” I ask him, as he makes stern faces at me. It reminds me of being scolded for being too obtrusive while committing crime, and that from both sides of the law, the same expression I can see so clearly even when I can’t make out the features.

“Well, I felt bad, you know,” he says.

“It was a bargain knowingly made,” I say, and turn away from him. My mistakes are my own, and anyway, I’m not sure I should count it as one, even now. It feels in error too removed from the immediacy of the threat and not yet home as I should be.

“And it was the best one I could offer,” he tells me. “I never wanted to hurt any one of you. That’s why I wouldn’t take a death. I thought – I thought what you’d learned, what you’d fought for over the years, you could take that home and build a new life. Find new friends. That’s why I didn’t take your memories, even though it would’ve been kinder.”

“You could have left me their names, at least,” I tell him, as he looks at me with astonishment, and my mouth snaps closed. I just want something to cling to other than adjectives, jobs, the colors of their clothing.

“No, I couldn’t,” he says. “If I did, you could look them up anytime you wanted to, and it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice. It can’t power the magic if you’re just going to seek them out and rebuild everything I repurposed into the spell.”

“Oh,” I say, staring out into the middle distance again. It makes sense, of a sort, I suppose, and nothing for it now but to try to pick up the pieces of who I was before and start again. Soon I’ll have enough for another horse, perhaps a dog. The neighbor’s cat does well enough in my grains, but I suppose it can’t hurt to find a kitten or two. One of them had a kitten on the road, the tiniest thing, we fed it scraps and it gazed at us with orange eyes that only brightened with age. Of course, it was a familiar by then, and there’s no call to teach a mouser magic just for the barn.

“If you wandered out of town – I suppose you haven’t – you would’ve figured it out right away,” he tells me. “All those innkeepers and stablehands and oracles you met along the way would remember you, if you cared to venture back. I just thought you could use some peace and calm. Somewhere people wouldn’t ask questions you’d have trouble answering.”

“Seems a bit of a liability,” I tell him, thinking about all the hundreds, thousands of souls who could unravel the fabric of the thing with one misplaced word. A warm smile with bread offered freely in a town where the harvest fell short even so. New clothing from the same hands that pulled us from the river. Wary eyes, but clear directions still.

“Why?” he says. “Do you think they’d visit? All of them heroes in their own homes, congratulated on their victories? Even you haven’t left, and all you have to your name is quiet.”

“True enough,” I say, and wonder whether it’s fair to them, everyone who helped us achieve the impossible, why their names should all be forgotten to us as if they never mattered to the grand scheme of things. A coven and none else, that was the prophecy, but it’s never really none to save all, how can it be?

“Besides, again, far too much power,” he says. “I’d have to do Big Magic again, or else travel your footsteps for the last half-decade, looking each person in the aura, and who even knows if they would remember whether they remembered you? Besides. The number is off by one, and chances are they couldn’t describe you well. I doubt they know your name.”

“No,” I agree. What would be the odds they’d name me well enough to tug at strands of memory? No, not memory either, it would have to be emotion buried deep enough it would surpass the need for that. The Wizard promised all of that was gone, and nothing to fear. No single footstep fallen behind as we let the horses rest, no bed rumpled as I took a turn at watch. I didn’t give up all of it to be put right back where I started. Although, in a way, I suppose, it’s come to that regardless.

“Do you think you could be happy here?” he asks me.

I look around, but I see nothing I haven’t been looking at these past months. Nothing jumps out at me to spark either a yes or no, and I lapse deeper into silence.

“You always meant to retire here,” the Wizard says, “that’s what you told me. If too much has changed, I can find you somewhere else. It wasn’t meant to be a punishment.”

“Wasn’t it?” I ask, and too harshly. Someone yelled this at him already, not me.

He looks away from me. “I asked as little as I could, but there’s only so small of magics you can work with when you’re trying to save the world from destruction. All those little bits of energy, they have to come from somewhere, and there wasn’t time left to send you on a quest as I used to. If you’d been earlier – but there was so much in your way, and we didn’t have the luxury of sending you up a mountain to the blue roses that grow under the waterfall, did we? So I made do.”

“Would they have worked?” I ask, and there’s something else. Not roses. Smaller flowers, less ambitious, a soft yellow in color, and so many of them. A hand trailing through, someone asleep in the meadow, and a tale of childhood games.

“I don’t know if they’re real. It’s just an example,” the Wizard says. “It isn’t the roses that do the job, really, it’s the quest. You walk a spell into the land and the energy fills it back and forth, powering the Big Magic. That’s the idea, anyway.”

“Was it real?” I ask him, not daring to look him in the eye as I do.

“Your friendships? Of course they were. Taking them away wouldn’t have powered the magic if they weren’t.” He leans over to look me in the eye. “Hey. They were.”

“Any of it,” I say. Eyes meeting mine but I can’t put words to even what emotion sits in them. “How do I know it was real?”

He opens his mouth to speak, and pauses again. We wait in silence for an eternity before he finds a piece of proof strong enough to convince me against my own certainty, and even then he struggles to make it clear to me. “The prince has described things well enough, hasn’t he?”

And I have to pause to match my own recollections against those proclamations that have been issued, and perhaps they are close enough after all. Still. A few details bound in silk against the haze of words to a song I know I should recall.

“Write down what you remember,” the Wizard says, “little details, as many as you can, and I’ll tell him to fill in his side of the story, and you can compare them.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why would he do that for you?”

The Wizard pauses, unsure if he should go on, and I wait for him to speak for far too long before I realize his dilemma. I’m picturing instead a cobbler we visited once and the shine of a single buckle the whole time he’s contemplating answering what I’ve asked.

“He’s one of them,” I say. “He’s one of my companions.”

The Wizard nods in agreement, quietly, wary of breaking the silence.

“Should you have told me that?” I ask, picture the regal tilt of the head as he counted out coin to the cobbler’s hands.

He laughs. “What, you, a nameless farmer no one remembers? Yes, I guess you can just stroll right in and demand an audience. Or break in.”

“I could break in,” I tell him, lecture complete with disorienting reappearance fresh in my mind. “I haven’t lost the skills yet, I shouldn’t think. It’s only been a few months, and I still wake up thinking I need to practice.”

“Too many guards,” the Wizard says. “Please don’t, anyway. I shouldn’t have slipped up like that. I don’t think you’re likely to run into each other, though.”

“Which one was he?” I ask. “Did we know, did I know, he was the prince?”

“Oh,” says the Wizard, “I suppose you wouldn’t remember that either. I don’t know whether any of you knew. I would’ve thought you picked up on it, but I suppose we’ll never know for sure now. I mean. It was obvious from my end, but maybe I had more information than you did.”

“But you can’t tell me?” I ask. A word on the lips in candlelight, but I can’t make out which one. “It would be nice to put at least one name to my memories. At least one real name, anyway.” At least one name that isn’t just a bastardized pun.

“You never called him by the name we all know him by,” the Wizard says, softly, and there’s the lightest sprinkling of early morning rain amongst the trees, and there’s a name to the memories after all, a face, and everything in sharp clarity, and the pain, too, of knowing that whatever was there is gone. I hadn’t felt it so directly, not when they were still just impressions. When I gasp, my breath feels cold against my face, and I run my hands along my cheeks. His thumb was there, once, brushing them away.

“Oh,” I say.

“I can give you all their names, all their faces, if you promise never to seek them out,” the Wizard says. “If you don’t think it’s too much temptation.”

“No thank you,” I say, in a whisper, because I can’t go through this heartbreak again, not a dozen more times, temptation notwithstanding. Though I don’t think that’s an issue either, because how could I walk up to them and see their unsmiling faces, staring at me with blank distaste, knowing there was no way to get through to them? That even if I did, they’d never feel it, that if I ever did make them feel, even by accident, the whole magic would come crashing down around us? Better not.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and we sit in silence for a while.

“I can’t believe I slept with the crown prince,” I say.

The Wizard’s head snaps up as he turns to look at me. “You what?”

“What?” I ask him. Lips against my throat and a hand in my hair and now I can finally make out his whole expression. “The memories are real, aren’t they?”

“No, I mean, they are,” he reassures me, “I just. I didn’t know that. I mean, it tracks. But still. My gods. And that he was willing to give up.”

“What was?” I ask. “He’s the crown prince. I’m sure he can find sex anywhere he pleases, and it was never anything other than that.”

“Wasn’t it?” the Wizard asks me.

“Why should it be?” I return, but my heart isn’t in it. He whispered in my ear, holding me close before the others arrived and the distance between us with them. Maybe it wasn’t, but there’s no sense dwelling on it now.

“I knew he was in love with someone,” the Wizard tells me. “It wasn’t enough to power the magic, I didn’t think, but it was enough to be noticeable. But if it was you, maybe it would have been. I mean, you were central enough that it might have counted. Maybe I should have asked, but I assumed it was some barmaid or stableboy you’d found on your journey, not another major player.”

“You’re telling me the crown prince was in love with me?” I say.

“I think so,” he says. “And obviously he was willing to give that up, so I should’ve just asked him in the first place. It all would’ve been so much simpler.”

I sit there with the Wizard, watching them all say their goodbyes to me again, something I’ve been doing more than is healthy already, only now when his hands linger on mine his face is cast in sharp relief and I remember him, and the way his words echo make me want to claw my way through the memories to him, and now I know why the magic took their names and faces from me. He cries when he bids me farewell as always, but the tears are more immediate this time. Not just my sacrifice, but all of theirs, and him, if he was in love –

“What did you ask him to give up?” I say. “What was so much worse than lost love?”

“I don’t know if I should say.” He huffs and shakes his head. “I shouldn’t. It’s private. Yours to share, or not, as you will.”

It’s true. I never would have shared mine but they wouldn’t remember, and I needed the chance to say the things left unsaid. I stole your book, I broke your promise, I lied to you. Tell me what you need me to hear before you let me go. I don’t think any of them said what he asked them to give up, or if they did it’s too tied up in who they were for me to recall the details.

“Fair enough,” I say, and rest my head on my hands, phantom breath on my neck.

“You wouldn’t like it, anyway,” he says.

“Something he would value more than love?” I say. “It would have to be of utmost importance to him, and we don’t decide what we hold dear so carefully that I would judge him for it. There are always prices too high, and convictions too precious.”

“I think you would,” the Wizard says.

I glare at him. “Clearly you would like to tell me whether you say you would or not, but no, something he held in higher esteem than true love, as you so clearly think he was caught up in, is obviously a bit too important to make that kind of statement about.”

“It was a hundred thousand gold,” the Wizard says.

“What?”

“It was a hundred thousand,” the Wizard tells me, “that was enough to buy the reagents wholesale. You know what I said about your magic working as you work the land, and that feeds its way into the things you gather? Labor creates the magic, and enough small magic is enough to do Big Magic with. I would’ve just gone to the market, and fair compensation, no one needs to sacrifice anything at all. He said no.”

I stare at the Wizard in horror. “That motherfucker –”

Marissa Meyer Reflects on Her Iconic Lunar Chronicles Series

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New editions of The Lunar Chronicles has author Marissa Meyer looking back on inventive cosplay and forward to new fairy tale retellings.

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Upon glimpsing the dynamic covers for the new paperback editions of Marissa Meyer’s reimagined fairy tale series The Lunar Chronicles, one can’t help but notice there’s something familiar about them—especially the gorgeous stepbacks that feature Cinder in a ballgown and Cress staring wistfully in the opposite direction of the strapping Thorne, silhouetted by moonlight. They bring to mind… Sailor Moon.

Meyer laughs when this comparison is brought up, considering her background as a Sailor Moon fanfiction writer, but says that it was not intentional: “I think that’s just Tomer [Hanuka]’s style.” However, when her publisher Macmillan sent along the artist’s portfolio, she was certainly struck by Hanuka’s work.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why I was so drawn to him," says Meyer. "Because it does have a little bit of that Japanese/manga vibe to it, which I love. And coming from that fandom and that background, there’s definitely a lot of influence in the books. So, I think that it plays really well; the artwork very much complements the series in a great way.”

While The Lunar Chronicles concluded with its fourth and final novel, Winter, in 2015, fans have been able to spend more time in Meyer’s science fiction fairy tale universe with subsequent releases including the short fiction collection Stars Above and the graphic novel Wires and Nerve.

Now, a re-release of the original quartet with brand-new covers showcasing each of the key characters proves that the series is still relevant to readers today. To wit, part of the new covers process involved crowdsourcing favorite scenes from the active and enthusiastic fandom via Instagram. Meyer describes seeing the same scenes suggested over and over, which made their way into the new designs: Wolf spiriting Scarlet away from danger. Winter and Jacin in a romantic clinch in her menagerie.

read more: Marissa Meyer's Renegades Trilogy is Riveting Superhero Fiction

It’s quite the departure from the original covers, each of which featured one key element from its respective book: Cinder’s mechanical leg (in place of Cinderella’s glass slipper); Scarlet’s (or Little Red Riding Hood’s) cape; Cress’ Rapunzel-esque hair; and Winter’s plague-laced apple. While the series has long been celebrated for centering the stories of princesses of color—Cinder is Asian/Caucasian, while Winter is black—and for its representation of mental illness, now those women are actually on the covers in the (human and cyborg) flesh.

“They’re so beautiful and so vibrant,” Meyer says. “I love what [Tomer] does with colors, and so when you see all four of them together, it just stands out so much. I couldn’t be any happier with them.”

That said, this is not the first time that the series has been illustrated. In addition to the aforementioned Wires and Nerve, there is also The Lunar Chronicles Coloring Book. While most authors do not experience the opportunity to see their work adapted thusly, let alone three, Meyer says it feels “incredible,” though she hastens to add that there is a fourth lens: fan art!

“It’s unbelievable to think about these characters and this world that lived inside my head for so many years, and then to see other people putting their interpretation behind it,” she says. “And in a way that there’s such wonderful justice to it, and [that] really captures the same sorts of emotions that I was trying to put into my writing. It’s just like one giant compliment. There’s nothing quite like it!”

Recent years have seen more and more science fiction and fantasy authors talking candidly about their fanfiction backgrounds, including N.K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth series), Naomi Novik (Spinning Silver), Tamsyn Muir (Gideon the Ninth), Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby), and Brooke Bolander (The Only Harmless Great Thing). But Meyer has always drawn a line connecting her professional work and her fanfic persona, Alicia Blade, as seen on her old website via the Wayback Machine. It’s no surprise, then, that Lunar Chronicles fan art and fanfiction began cropping up online not long after Cinder was published in 2012.

read more: Den of Geek Book Club Podcast Talks with Marissa Meyer

“That’s the fantasy,” Meyer says, “for there to be fanfic of your own work, because I know what love goes into creating fanfiction, and how fandoms can really rally around it.” And how must that feel for a former fanfiction writer? 

“It’s a little weird, honestly! But it’s wonderful, and I’m hugely honored to know there are so many people who have taken the characters and gone off and done their own things with them.”

Early on, Meyer had to decide whether she would actually read the stories on Fanfiction.net and the Archive of Our Own (AO3). Despite her burning curiosity, she considered that “if Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon, regularly went on and read Sailor Moon fanfiction, I think that that might have changed what I was writing and what I was putting out there. And so early on I decided, ‘No, I want that to be for the fans; I don’t think I should be involved in that side of it.’ But knowing that it exists brings me much, much joy.”

Another way in which The Lunar Chronicles’ heroines have made their way into the world has been through cosplay, which Meyer describes as “one of my greatest pleasures” to see at conventions. One group costume that stands out in her memory is a quartet of women in ballgowns representing the albino wolf, peacock, and other animals in Winter’s menagerie on Luna: “It was this amalgamation of ballgowns and formalwear on Luna, but also the animals of the menagerie, and I just thought it was so clever.”

In addition to fanfiction, Meyer is an alum of another online-centric writing community: National Novel Writing Month. Cinder and four subsequent books began as NaNoWriMo projects, but the life of an author has made it more difficult for Meyer to time drafting to every November. When asked if she might participate this year, she says, “I hope so! I haven’t been able to do it for the last couple of years; it never seems to line up with my deadlines anymore. [...] It’s a tradition for me, and one I would love to continue. I can’t say for sure if I’m doing it this year or not; but if I can make it work, then I definitely will.”

However, Meyer fans who are considering undertaking NaNoWriMo themselves will have to juggle a tempting distraction this November: Instant Karma, her contemporary romance novel with a magical twist, will be published November 3. Meyer describes the story, the first in a planned four-book series, as “about a girl who lives in a sunny, beachside town and one day inexplicably gets the power to exact instant karma on people. And she goes around punishing all of the snobs and the bullies and the people that she can’t stand. There’s one boy that she absolutely despises, but every time she tries to use this power on him, it ends up backfiring on her. It will be a love story and secrets will be revealed, etcetera etcetera.”

On her Alicia Blade website sometime before 2012, Meyer described herself as “beloved Sailor Moon fanfiction author and future romance novelist.” While each of the Lunar Chronicles books featured romance, there is something exciting about seeing her fulfill that description with her first romance novel. “It’s been a big change from my previous works,” she says, pointing out that “this is the first thing I’ve written that doesn’t have huge superpowers or futuristic technology. There are no fight scenes! Which is awesome. [...] It’s been really nice now writing something that still has romance, still has a theme of good versus evil and what is true justice, and all of these same sort of themes I like to play with, but in a much more subtle, quiet, sweet sort of way.”

But while she expands the Instant Karma world with contemporary happily ever afters, she won’t stay away from fairy tales for long. Meyer teased a new fairy tale retelling—and while she couldn’t say which story she’s adapting, she did share that it will be an epic fantasy what-if story...

“It is going to be fantasy—kinda my first ‘quest’ fantasy novel, which I’m super excited about because growing up, Tolkien and epic fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons—all of that was my jam. It was always weird to me that my first published book was science fiction, because I thought for sure I would write an epic quest story. So this is kinda my first [of] going back to my teenage roots a bit.” The book is tentatively scheduled for fall 2021, though that timing may be subject to change.

Even as she explores new genres and stories, Meyer will never forget the idea that first set her on this path. “I have so much love for this series,” she says, “and not just because it was my first series. I think for every author, the first one you get published is always going to feel really special. From the moment that I had this idea about writing about fairy tales in the future, and this cyborg Cinderella character, I was just so smitten with it, and I loved the idea of bringing all these characters together and throwing them on a spaceship and seeing if they could save the universe."

"That spoke to my heart and to my nerdiness on so many levels," she continues, "and I just had so much fun writing it. To see it now in the world, and see how readers have responded to it, and that there’s so much love and interest in the characters, it’s really been incredible. And of course I hope to have many more successful book series throughout my career, but I don’t know that there will ever be anything that’s quite the books-of-my-heart as The Lunar Chronicles have been.”

Close to a decade since Cinder was published, with a dedicated fandom returning to the books over and over, Meyer has one hope for the legacy of the series.

“Gosh, it’s so cheesy—I’m gonna say world peace,” she says. “That’s one of the things that I loved writing, was a world in which Earth and the countries of Earth have obtained world peace, and they have been at peace for over a century. I don’t know if it’s naïve, but I truly like to think that that is a potential future.”

The new, gorgeous paperback editions of The Lunar Chronicles will be available for purchase on February 4th. You can order them now via the official website.

As a former fanfiction writer herself, Natalie Zutter is mightily inspired to finish all of her WIPs. Talk fairy tale retellings with her on Twitter @nataliezutter.

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Feature Natalie Zutter

Feb 3, 2020

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The Home We Built Together, part 13

Two young Vikings. An arranged marriage. Hiccup always wanted to win the girl of his dreams, but not like this. Now he and Astrid must learn to live together and maybe one day, learn to love…

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9| Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Writer’s note: Wow, this chapter clocked in 2300 words and the entire story so far is over 20k+ word count! That’s a big accomplishment for me :) 

He couldn’t kill a dragon. All these years of dreaming of killing a dragon and receiving the glory he longed for. The countless hours spent inventing dragon killing weapons that would help him obtain his goal. He’d failed at the one task he set out to complete!

Out of all the dragons he could have shot down, he aimed for the most prized. The elusive and deadly Night Fury. He would have been revered a hero. His father would have beamed at him with such immense pride that would last for weeks, maybe even months. Astrid would have planted a long-awaited kiss on his lips in front of the entire village. Everyone would have cheered. Hiccup Haddock would no longer be a useless loser.

But as he raised the dagger over his head, pumping himself up to kill the mighty beast…he couldn’t. No, Hiccup reasoned within himself, he wouldn’t. This dragon gazed into the depths of his soul. He saw himself reflecting from this dragon. The very thought stilled his hand.

I did this.

In that moment, he gave up all the glory and fanfare he’d strived for nearly half his life to accomplish. Within two seconds of cutting the rope, Hiccup found himself accepting his doom as the dragon pinned him to the ground.

I deserve this.

He feared dying, but he was prepared. The dragon’s mouth opened to, nonetheless, chomp off his head or blast him to bits. The mighty roar that followed engulfed Hiccup like a screaming wind tunnel and then…the Night Fury was gone.

There was no denying as Hiccup dawdled back to the village (with his ears still ringing) that he’d have to live with the consequences of his actions. No Night Fury meant no one would believe him, and that’d make him more of a laughingstock.

How could he burden Astrid the rest of her life being married to the most useless person in the known world? He had to do what was best for her. A gaping hole would be left if she accepted the offer, but Hiccup couldn’t live with himself if he kept their marriage selfishly for himself. He cared too much for her to keep her bound to him.

The morning sun had just begun to peek over the horizon when he’d set out on this epic fail of a dragon killing quest and was now crawling above his head. Late morning was approaching.

Hiccup paused at his front door. He leaned against the wood, shutting his eyes and sighing deeply within his lungs. What he was about to do would hurt more than anything he’d gone through so far in his young life. He pushed open the door with all his weight, his side lingering against the grain as he entered the house.

“Where have you been?”

Hiccup froze. After Astrid didn’t return during the night, Hiccup assumed she didn’t wish to come home and stayed overnight with her parents. Here she was, fierce and beautiful, before him. A hand was planted on her hip and her bright eyes flashed with ire.

“I…” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. That he had a Night Fury tied up like a bow on Snoggletog just for him. That he’d intentionally freed the dangerous beast to continue wreaking havoc on their village. What kind of future chief would do that? “I went to search for the Night Fury by myself.”

Astrid’s jaw clinched, but a tiny fraction of hope laced her words. “Did you find it?”

Hiccup averted his gaze, catching a glimpse of the white bandage wrapped on her injured hand. His chest ached. “No.”

A frustrated sigh blew from Astrid’s nostrils, but she remained quiet as she glared at him.

“How’re your parents?” he asked, weakly.

“They’re fine,” her tone was clipped, “Only a little roof damage.”

A tremble was rising from Hiccup’s stomach to the top of his head. He had to lay the offer down soon or he’d lose the courage to. He finally dragged his eyes up to look at her.

“Astrid, I know I don’t deserve it, but could you forgive me for what happened last night? I should have been worried about you, but all I could think about was finding that dragon.” Before he could stop himself, Hiccup reached for her injured hand and brought it to his lips to place a tender kiss atop the bandage. His heart began to thud painfully at his next words. “If you…if you want an annulment from our marriage, I won’t stop you.”

He awaited the hammer that would soon fall upon his head. The seconds of silence stretched out for days.

“Are you that thick?”

Hiccup raised his bowed head. “What?”

Astrid looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I’m not leaving you and we’re not getting an annulment.”

“I don’t want you to be stuck with a useless husband all your life. I’d understand if you-OW!” Hiccup yelped as Astrid’s uninjured hand balled up into a fist to punch his shoulder – harder than she’d ever hit him. He really should have seen that coming.

The next moment Astrid’s palms were pressed onto his cheeks, hauling him into a kiss. It wasn’t the collision of a kiss they’d shared not long ago when he’d doubted her. This was slower, savoring the touch. Hiccup body melted in the palms of Astrid’s hands as he forgot all his troubles at the touch of their lips. His hands rose on their own accord to gently hold Astrid’s forearms.

She broke the connection, leaving Hiccup’s mind in a daze at the surprise show of affection. He blinked away the stars, focusing on the beautiful blues eyes that were still agonizingly close to his.

“I’m still mad at you.” Astrid’s breath mingled with his, causing a shiver to shimmy down Hiccup’s back. “But I made a vow to stand by your side for the rest of our lives, and I’m not backing out of that. I’m not backing out on us. From here on, try harder to not cause disaster.”

Hiccup swallowed noisily. “For you, milady, I’ll try.” He glanced down at her lips, wishing to press his to them once more. He leaned forward. She was so close he could feel her warmth…and he nearly toppled over as Astrid got to her feet. He looked up at her, a bit peeved at the tiny smirk she wore. He deserved the brush off.

The events of the evening and early morning had faded away into a hazy place in the back of his mind. He wouldn’t forget the epic fail that was his inability to kill a dragon, but Astrid was still here and committed to him. If all he had was her on his side, he would be happy with his life. With the life they were making together.

She was still mad, of course, but she had forgiven him. Astrid held out a hand to help him to his feet. “Come along, husband. Breakfast is waiting for us in the Great Hall.”

***

This wasn’t happening.

Hiccup stared at the mouth of the kill arena wondering why the gods were using him for a good laugh. Why would his father choose now of all times for him to enter dragon training?

The Chief had stopped by the evening before, and without any greeting, informed Hiccup he’d begin dragon training the following day. Hiccup barely got a word in during the drawn-out, one-sided conversation and by the time Stoick left, he’d given up even attempting to convince his father that killing dragons was not in his blood.

Astrid wasn’t too keen on the idea either. She knew how he handled a weapon and it hadn’t improved much since they’d began training in the forest. Sometimes it was downright terrible. But she’d stuck with him in weapons training. With the whole raid debacle, Hiccup killing a dragon was a sore subject.

“Remember,” Astrid prompted firmly with gentle undertones, “to grab a shield. If you have to choose between a weapon and a shield, take the shield.”

Hiccup nodded. His gaze lingered on Astrid’s injured hand, the reason she was sitting out on training for the next few days. “Got it.”

Astrid’s blue eyes pierced him with such intensity and concern. Her uninjured hand tangled in the ties of his tunic, drawing him closer as she planted a quick kiss to his cheek. The shape of her lips were increasingly becoming seared into his skin.

“Be careful, Hiccup.”

Her fingers loosed from his ties, leaving her palm resting on his slim chest. Hiccup was sure she could feel his racing heart. “You know me-“

“I do.” Fixing him with a sharp look, she spun him around and pushed him down the ramp toward the mouth of the arena.

Hiccup stumbled into the foregrounds, pausing to take in the massiveness of the structure. He’d had no reason to ever enter the arena before. Only a few times did he trail behind his equally massive father when the Chief had come to inspect the structure’s conditions. Most times, Hiccup would watch from above as a spectator. He’d witness enough guts being spilt and heads being chopped off to last him a lifetime. Once the gruesome images were something to look forward to, but now, the memories made his stomach turn.

How one moment - one decision - could change everything.

“Great, who let him in?” the first remark flew at him, thanks to Tuffnut.

Snotlout stabbed a hand in the air. “Hey, Hiccup has an unfair advantage since he already, y’know,” the brawnier boy couldn’t keep the sneer off his face, “killed a Night Fury.”

The twins joined Snotlout in a round of snickers.

Ignoring the teen’s comment, Gobber stung an arm around Hiccup’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’re small and weak. That’ll make you less of a target.”

Hiccup diverted his view to the dusty stone under his boots, wondering how he was going to make it through his first dragon fighting lesson. He’d watched many times from the spectator’s point and knew Gobber believed in “learning on the job”.

This was going to be a disaster.

Gobber pushed Hiccup behind him to join the rest of the teens in a clumsy line. “Today, we have our third lesson in ‘Survival’.” The broad blacksmith pushed down the lever of the pen and out shot like a battering ram, a brownish-green Gronkle. It slammed into the wall on the other side of the arena and eagerly gulped down several large rocks to replenish its firepower.

“I expect you sorry lots to be better at avoiding blasts this time!” Gobber shouted out from the side-lines.

Astrid’s advice leapt into his mind, and Hiccup dashed toward the closest shield lying on the floor. A worry whine escaped him as he fumbled to slide his hand into the handle. Gobber yanked him upright and pushed him back into the fray. Thankfully, the Gronkle was chasing a terrified Fishlegs around the encircled area. That is, until it flew over the twins and fired a blast between them as they fought over a shield.

The vague thought of how the new recruits could still be this lousy at dragon fighting crossed Hiccup’s mind. How did he miss such a bumbling spectacle all the times he’d watched the training when he could get away from the forge? Maybe he was so engrossed in watching his wife in all her vivid glory that he’d paid attention to nothing else.

A banging noise echoed across the arena, causing the Gronkle to shake its head, disoriented.

“It’s working!” Fishlegs shouted in triumph, throwing his arms in the air. As soon as the noise from his hammer against his shield stopped, the Gronkle fired a blast toward the sound of his voice. The shield flew out of Fishlegs’ hand and the burly boy ran off screaming.

“Looks like it’s you and me, cuz,” Hiccup remarked as Snotlout joined him watching Fishlegs high-tailed it.

Snotlout scoffed. “Nope, just you, loser!” He ducked behind Hiccup as the Gronkle buzzed toward its next targets.

Hiccup didn’t have time to move before the Gronkle’s blast knocked the shield from his grip. The shield rolled off as Hiccup tried desperately to chase it down. The shield switched directions suddenly and Hiccup couldn’t maneuver that quickly without the Gronkle catching him. He found himself between a rock and a hard place. The rock his back pressed against about to be splattered with his charred guts.

He was going to die. The Night Fury may have spared his life, but this furious, caged Gronkle would not. He shanked into the wall, clinching his teeth and preparing for the scorching heat of the blast. He hoped he’d find a little mercy if it would kill him instantly.

Hiccup jumped, covering his head as the blast fired just above him. Rocky debris and sparks rained down on him. He chanced a peek from behind his arms to find Gobber wrangling the beast.

“Not so fast,” the blacksmith’s hooked appendage yanked at the Gronkle’s mouth. “Go back to bed, ye overgrown sausage!” He swung the dragon back into its pen, slamming the lock shut.

Gobber hobbled back towards him. “Remember,” he leaned down closer to Hiccup, “a dragon will always - always - go for the kill.”

Hiccup stared up at him, speechless. His mind raced and his lungs burned from the exertion and unease of nearing dying – again. He didn’t even register Astrid’s voice until she was right in front of him.

“Hiccup!” her concerned face filled his view. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He nodded absently. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He finally made eye contact with her, surprised at the worry that clouded her blue eyes.

Astrid pulled him to his feet, and Hiccup allowing her to lead him out of the arena. He would have been delighted over her apparent concern if his mind would not have been on a certain black dragon and why it didn’t go for the kill.

@martabm90 @chiefhiccstrid  @justatranquilcloud  @saieras 

Dawnflight

The Dragon's Dove Chronicles Book 1

by Kim Iverson Headlee

Genre: Historical Fantasy

 Print Length: 415 pages

Publisher: Lucky Bat Books

Publication Date: February 25, 2013

 What if King Arthur’s queen was every bit as heroic as he was? Find out by immersing yourself in this epic story of the power couple whose courage and conviction would shape the destiny of a nation. Gyan is a Caledonian chieftainess by birth, a warrior and leader of warriors by training, and she is betrothed to Urien, a son of her clan’s deadliest enemy, by right of Arthur the Pendragon’s conquest of her people. For the sake of peace, Gyan is willing to sacrifice everything...perhaps even her very life, if her foreboding about Urien proves true. Roman by his father, Brytoni by his mother, and denied hereditary rulership of his mother's clan because of his mixed blood, Arthur has followed his father's path to become Dux Britanniarum, the Pendragon: supreme commander of the northern Brytoni army. The Caledonians, Scots, Saxons, and Angles keep him too busy to dwell upon his loneliness...most of the time. When Gyan and Arthur meet, each recognize within the other their soul’s mate. The treaty has preserved Gyan’s ancient right to marry any man, providing he is a Brytoni nobleman—but Arthur does not qualify. And the ambitious Urien, Arthur’s greatest political rival, shall not be so easily denied. If Gyan and Arthur cannot prevent Urien from plunging the Caledonians and Brytons back into war, their love will be doomed to remain unfulfilled forever. But there is an even greater threat looming. The Laird of the Scots wants their land and will kill all who stand in his way. Gyan, Arthur, and Urien must unite to defeat this merciless enemy who threatens everyone they hold dear. 

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Arthur said, “I advise caution.”

“Caution, indeed.” Urien’s look adopted a hard edge as he ground fist to palm. “I don’t trust these Picts. In fact, I don’t understand why you didn’t obliterate them with Caledfwlch when I”—he stabbed a thumb at his chest—“gave you the chance.”

With effort, Arthur resisted the impulse to touch his sword’s ruby-pommeled hilt, the smith’s inspiration for naming it Caleberyllus, Latin for “Burning Jewel.” After Abar-Gleann, Cai had coined a Brytoni name for Wyllan’s finest creation: Caledfwlch, “Caledonia’s Bane.” It was perfectly apt, and it had almost caused a diplomatic disaster.

He spared a glance for his friends and was thankful they were too far away—and too engrossed with flirting with two more serving women—to have overheard the exchange. Two months was enough time to heal flesh wounds but not enough time to salve Cai’s pride for having to endure Arthur’s public rebuke in order to preserve the fragile peace. He returned his attention to Urien. “Do not forget that your charge was carried out under my orders.”

Urien glared but let the remark pass. “The Picts have been a menace to our borders for time out of mind. Why didn’t you—”

“The same can be said about the Saxons, Angles, and Scots.” These last two Arthur spat like the curses they were to him. The Angli had killed his father. And the Scots… he banished a grisly memory with a long blink. “None of them have demonstrated a willingness to negotiate with us for peace. The Caledonians were willing, and Brydein will be getting a much stronger cavalry as a result.” Arthur grinned. “You should thank them for your promotion.”   

Video Trailer: https://youtu.be/mHOESkv-R_c

The Dragon's Dove Chronicles Book 2

 Print Length: 439 pages

Publisher: Lucky Bat Books 

Publication Date: June 11, 2013

 “Magnificent.” ~ Kathleen Foley, author of the Faith in Uniform series In a violent age when enemies besiege Brydein and alliances shift as swiftly as the wind, stand two remarkable leaders: the Caledonian warrior-queen Gyanhumara and her consort, Arthur the Pendragon. Their fiery love is tempered only by their conviction to forge unity between their disparate peoples. Arthur and Gyan must create an impenetrable front to protect Brydein and Caledonia from land-lusting Saxons and the marauding Angli raiders who may be massing forces in the east, near Arthur’s sister and those he has sworn to protect. But their biggest threat is an enemy within: Urien, Arthur’s rival and the man Gyan was treaty-bound to marry until she broke that promise for Arthur’s love. When Urien becomes chieftain of his clan, his increase in wealth and power is matched only by the magnitude of his hatred of Arthur and Gyan—and his threat to their infant son. Morning’s Journey, sequel to the critically acclaimed Dawnflight, propels the reader from the heights of triumph to the depths of despair, through the struggles of some of the most fascinating characters in all of Arthurian literature. Those struggles are exacerbated by the characters’ own flawed choices. Gyan and Arthur must learn that while extending forgiveness to others may be difficult, forgiveness of self is the most excruciating—yet ultimately the most healing—step of the entire journey. 

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THE CLASH OF arms resounds in the torchlit corridor. Blood oozes where leather has yielded to the bite of steel, yet both sweating, panting warriors refuse to relent.

Her heart thundering, Gyan grips her sword’s hilt, desperate to help the man she loves. Caledonach law forbids it.

Urien makes a low lunge. As Arthur tries to whirl clear, the blade tears a gash in his shield-side thigh. The injured leg collapses, and Arthur drops to one knee. Crowing triumphantly, Urien raises his sword for the deathblow.

Devil take the law!

Gyan springs to block the stroke. Its force jars her arms and twists the hilt in her grasp. She barely holds on through the searing pain.

Urien slips past her guard to slice at her brooch. The gold dragon clatters to the floor. Her cloak slithers to her ankles, fouling her stance. As she tries to kick free, Urien grabs her braid, jerks up her head, and kisses her, hard. Shock loosens her grip. Her sword falls. She thrashes and writhes, but he holds her fast, smirking lewdly.

“You are mine, Pictish whore.”

Urien’s breath reeks of ale and evil promises. She spits in his face. He slaps her. She reels backward, her cheek burning. He grabs her forearms and yanks her close.

“Artyr, help me!”

No response. 

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Video Trailer:

https://youtu.be/Bk0uPDfq7TY 

The Dragon's Dove Chronicles Book 3

 Print Length: 415 pages

Publisher: Pendragon Cove Press

Publication Date: March 11, 2019

 Outcast, clanless, and but a junior officer in Arthur the Pendragon’s army, Angusel struggles to rebuild the life stolen from him through betrayal by the person he had held most dear. His legion allegiance thrusts him onto the campaign trail as one of Arthur���s forward scouts, stalking Angli troops and being among the first to clash with these vicious enemies at every turn. But the odds loom high against him and his sword-brothers, and they will need a miracle just to survive. Pressured to make the best choice to ensure her clan’s future leadership, Eileann struggles with her feelings for Angusel, whose outcast status makes him forbidden to her as a mate. When Angli treachery threatens everyone she loves, she vows to thwart their violent plan to conquer her clan. But she is no warrior, she has no soldiers to command, and she will need a miracle just to survive. How can one soldier make a difference? How can one woman save her kin and clan? In the crucible of combat, Angusel must surrender to the will of the gods, and Eileann must invoke divine power to forge the most dangerous warrior the world has ever known. 

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“Where is the brush?” Eileann asked, as much to forestall the inevitable as to seek an answer.

A heartbeat later, she chided her fear. Outcast or not, Clan Tarsuinn needed him.

Them.

“No brush. The anointing is as much about the connection between the anointer and the anointed as it is about the connection between the anointed and the gods. Use your finger, like this.”

Neoinean dipped Eileann’s index finger into the dye, tapped the excess on the rim, and guided it to sketch the shape of a salmon on Angusel’s forehead, near the hairline. Eileann felt a wee tingle as she completed the fish. His surprised expression told her he had felt it too.

“Now state to the anointed the god-mark you have drawn and its purpose.” Neoinean stepped away and regarded Eileann, cocking an eyebrow as the silence stretched.

Eileann cleared her throat and gazed at Angusel. “The salmon of Clota. For wisdom.” She wasn’t sure how a warrior fighting in the throes of battle frenzy could exercise wisdom, but she was not going to cast doubt upon her teacher’s example or the purpose the goddess had revealed.

Angusel bobbed his head, his curly black hair obscuring the fish.

Palms angled upward, Fioruisge changed the chant to echo Eileann’s words and embellish them, begging for the goddess’s gift to be bestowed upon the anointed.

“Use what you know of the gods and their abilities, my lady,” said Neoinean, “to draw their marks upon the anointed where you believe those divine gifts will benefit him the most.”

“Please draw the god-marks so that my armor hides them.” Angusel glanced at Neoinean, uncertainty creasing the salmon. “Does the anointing permit this?”

“It does,” stated the apothecary.

“They are meant to be seen!” Eileann itched to shake sense into him, but touching the anointed was forbidden save to craft the god-marks. “How will the gods find you if you hide the marks?”

“The anointed does not wish to offend those who have rejected him, and that is a worthy consideration.” Her teacher, apparently exempt from the touching stricture, patted Eileann’s shoulder. To her surprise, Fioruisge wove Neoinean’s words into the chant. “Fear not, child. The gods will see the marks as you draw them, and they shall not forget. Priests and warriors may choose to make their god-marks permanent, but the rite does not require it.”

Eileann inclined her head at Angusel. “As you will, then.”

Behind shuttered eyelids, she cast about for an image to draw and received a double blessing. Upon opening her eyes, she asked Angusel to lift his arms so she could anoint his biceps. The sketches looked crude, childish, and incomplete. She prayed for them to work; she hoped that the longer and stronger tingling was a sign that they would. “The bull of Lugh on your sword arm for strength, and the stag of Cernunnos on your shield arm for cunning.”

Fioruisge added Eileann’s pronouncements, raising her arms higher with each new verse.

Whatever concoction Neoinean had given Eileann must have taken full effect. In swift succession she drew the spear and rod of Nemetona on Angusel’s right thigh for fierceness, the mare of Epona on his left thigh for speed, and the sun of Lord Annaomh over his heart.

“For hope,” she told him about the sun, and wondered at the word choice the god had inspired. The sun of Annaomh represented justice, leadership, and truth. Lord Annaomh was revered for those traits, as were the warriors who honored him. And yet hope was appropriate, since the strengthening sun delivered salvation from winter’s grip, and the Lord of Light embodied salvation from the eternal ravages of his twin brother, Annàm, and the evil Samhraidhean.

Angusel beamed without touching her, as was proper for this phase of an tùs. The time for their touching would come, but not soon enough for Eileann’s liking.

The final image burned into her brain and killed her swelling excitement.

She gasped, fist to mouth.

“What is it, child?” asked Neoinean.

“A mark I dare not draw upon the anointed,” Eileann whispered. That the image was unlike any she had seen for this god represented the least of her worries. “I fear what it may do to him—to us both.” 

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Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, Great Pyrenees goat guards, and assorted wildlife. People and creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins--the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-twentieth century--seem to be sticking around for a while yet. Kim has been a published novelist since 1999 with the first edition of Dawnflight (Sonnet Books, Simon & Schuster) and has been studying the Arthurian legends for nigh on half a century. 

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Open Internationally: $20 Amazon,  Gift codes for e-books (several titles, including some not being toured); and audiobooks of Dawnflight, and related novellas The Color of Vengeance and The Challenge.

 US only: Print copies of The Color of Vengeance, The Challenge, another related novella titled Twins, and The Challenge comic book (one winner each)

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway! 

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/the-dragons-dove-chronicles-book-tour-and-giveaway 

All The World

People think the story begins when the curtains draw open. They are wrong, it starts much, much earlier than that. You should know that my love, the playwright that you are. And he knew it too. The person I am indebted to tell you about.

This will be a long letter I hope you trust me enough to read all of it. You know off course that I was once a forest spirit, I have whispered it to you at the end of long nights when we were about to fall asleep. He is the reason I no longer am.

He would write songs underneath my tree. Capturing words of wonder and mourning as I sat next to him with my head on his shoulders. I remember how startled he was the first time I appeared. You know I do not resemble you mortals with hair that changes with the seasons. It was the fresh green of spring then.  Most people dismiss it as a dye these days but he recognised me for who I am. I have told you parts of it before, you deserve to know.

He used to tell me I was the reason for his music. That it would not exist without me. I do not think you understand how much that meant to me. His music is still the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Cascading melodies like a thunderstorm ravaging the land with quick trills in between. Quieter symphonies with a soulful build up to a slow pattern of clandestine notes. The turning of dusk to night. Quick trills were interspersed in those too, stars coming to life in the sky. He said it was my laughter he had tried to capture in those quick succession of notes. They were present in every piece of his.

You must be wondering why I’m lingering long on this. It must be painful for you to read in spite of your unwavering patience and understanding. This is supposed to be a love letter to you. I need you to understand that I loved him as much as I loved you. Magnificently, perfectly, simply, with all my heart because I do not know how not to.  We were twin stars revolving around each other. I was the centre of every symphony he thought off, the reason for every perfect note he coaxed from an instrument.

I need you to see that what we had was true. That both of us did what we did for each other. Please don’t judge me for it.

We lived in a small town you see, he wanted to play to the whole world. It would not happen if he stayed here, he had to go away. Even I wanted him to.

Time is cruel. After all the years I can still remember the laughter in his voice as he made up ridiculous lyrics just to annoy me but I have forgotten the exact shade of his eyes.

You would have loved his music I think. I do not think anyone would dislike it but you would never be able to let go of it. I would remember him forever even if the memory of his name and appearance is wrenched from me. I had hoped the world would remember him for me. He was a shining beacon in the winding paths of time and space. There have been only a handful with that raw talent and potential. Trust me, I have checked with all the other immortals. Even you don’t compare to them.

There are conditions and powers we are born with due to our extraordinary positions. The most important being that we could never stray far from our life force. My forest was the centre of that once. But that was what was holding him back. He could not leave me behind in a place he had no other reason to return to. So I tied my life to his music. I had utter faith it would live forever.

It was an evolutionary tactic we had. To be able to switch the centre of our life force once in our lifetime. It was usually done when our original source was in danger. If my forest was being cut down for example. It is much harder than you can even imagine. I was the forest itself. Every microscopic particle of it. Most go crazy after the switch, but he had made his music me. The shivering of leaves, water gurgling over the smooth stones, the feeling of standing in dappled sunlight. Everything his world revolved around. He had all of it in his music. The switch was easier for me than most.

However when I went to find him after the switch was done I found that he had left. Left without telling me as he did not want to pain me further. All he left for me was a stack of letters that outlined his dreams and his promises to return. None of which happened of course. He died just two months after. I still do not know how, I was not able to find him. I just felt the life slip away, the stopping of new music. I have never regretted my decision however, it is only fitting that his music is keeping me alive and I do not think I would have ever met you if it were not for my sacrifice.

I am prepared to forgive the world for all its sins, simply because I got to meet you. There is so much I want to tell you, a lifetime of letters would not be able to contain it. But you will get only this one letter and I do not have a lifetime, merely hours. Let me start by saying I love you. I love you for understanding my immortality and sticking by me nevertheless. I love you for every nonsensical dialogue you have worked into your plays just to make me laugh. I love the way you flick your  hair out of your eyes in your failed attempt to be sexy.

Do you remember the time you knocked over our kitchen table and your only response was “Ouch.” There are tears blotting this table right now because I still can’t comprehend how much I adore you. There are so many more memories I wish could be preserved till the end of time. Like our first date. Do you remember the conversation we had at the end of it? You were still thinking that I had just asked you out for a bit of fun. That I wasn’t serious in the least when I said I was already fallen for you. I had found myself wanting to bare my heart to make you stay. I remember every detail. I had said “I didn’t think I would fall in love again. I know everyone says that after a heartbreak but the difference is that I am not heartbroken. I am not cynical or a pessimistic, or sad. I’m just someone who once felt something, bigger than anything else I’d ever felt and when I lost it, I honestly believed I would never have that again. But I was 22 then and life is long. And I’m feeling things right now. I haven’t felt in a long, long time.”  A little over a hundred years to be precise but you did not know it then.

“You make me feel invincible.” You had whispered, your eyes sparkling. “You make me feel as though I could take on the world. I was so afraid to say it before but I have to tell you.”                          You have no reason to be afraid darling. You are capable of taking on the world at any moment. You do not need me for that. Although I would have liked to be there by your side.

There are so many things I want to do with you. So many places I want to visit with you. You will never know how loving you feels like.

He used to call me his muse. Kissing him made me feel like a goddess at the height of my power. You don’t have any special names for me but you smile at me as though there is nothing more you could ever want. Kissing you feels like coming home.  You are incomparable to anything on this earth. For there has never been anyone like you and there never will be. I am so lucky and privileged to have been able to swing your hands while walking to my house. To have been able to gaze into your steady eyes for hours. I am imagining you sitting by me right now. You would have your knees drawn up to your chest and you shoulder would be resting against mine.

I had hoped to remember you forever, so that at the end of time when everything starts again I could whisper your name into the universe coming into existence.

There is so much more I want to tell you. So many things I still need to thank you for but time is running short and I only have time for an apology and an explanation.

I am so sorry my dear. I’m sorry for all the things we could not do. You will find a ring with the letter. I had picked it just a week ago. I must end the letter now. I can feel my mind slowly unravelling. I cannot leave you with a letter filled with nonsensical ramblings.

I feel as though you must have figured it out by now, what I’m trying to say. You were always excellent with words. I wish I could tell you not to cry but I know you will not listen.

I am tied to his music remember? If it disappears, so will I. I suppose you are wondering why I did not try to collect his music, try to keep it safe. If only it were so easy darling

He reflected the world in his music and I see his music reflected in the world. When winds swirl up dried leaves, when birds freewheel in the sky, as the sun rises and set, I hear his music. It is the background symphony when you stare at me from across the room. My life however is tied to his actual works. Something I cannot locate as I see it everywhere. Only a single piece of his sheet music remains. It is being burnt as I write this to you, I can feel it tearing away at my soul. I wonder if it is being consumed by a wildfire. I think I would like that. Forest fires may raze everything   to the ground but they give rise to a forest much grander than the one before. Maybe it will be the same for you. The phoenix from my ashes. I hope you do something epic so that I may have the privilege of being remembered as someone who was once your lover. I will be gone soon. I only wish we had more time. Ah my love, the curtains draw to a close for the last time.

I wonder if there will be an encore.

Flaunt Magazine 2004 interview

David Fincher – “It goes kind of like, ‘How   can you tell when Jared is lying? His lips are moving.’”

Rock & Roles –

Flaunt Magazine, by Shari Roman

December 2004

“This is fantastic,” murmurs Jared Leto as the relentless Moroccan   sun sears destiny into his bronzed, bare skin. He is sweating under his tight  armor. His dark horse, Mateo, quivers beneath him and paws the ground nervously. A signal is given.

Leto howls a great animalistic yowl straight from his belly to the ears of   the gods. There is another howl, then another. Thousands of voices fuse into   one animal cry. A legion of alpha males surges forward to meet the enemy, Leto,   blond hair hair streaming past his shoulders, muscular thighs gripped bareback   on his galloping horse, rides hard into the thick of a bloody combat. His sword   cuts through all who oppose him.

This is the filming of Oliver Stone’s Alexander and the legendary battle of   Gaugamela, Alexander’s greatest victory over the Persians - a turning point   in his conquest of the known world. Stone’s sweeping historical saga charts   the life and the legend of one of the greatest figures in world history. The   story is an epic that is a daring and ambitious as its subject, a relentless   conqueror who, by the age of 32, had amassed the greatest empire the world hade   ever seen.

Through the clouds of dust, Leto can see Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great,   his massive blade slicing into flesh and sinew. There is the director, Oliver   Stone, shouting, moving rapidly behind the camera line. There are hordes of   men bellowing, bleeding, bodies everywhere. On the fringes lurks famed military   trainer and Stone cohort, Captain Dale Dye. Today, the Captain isn’t wearing   his favorite T-shirt emblazoned with the motto: “Pain is weakness leaving   the body,” but Leto needs no reminders.

Leto has always propelled himself into physical extremes to live inside a character.   As the champion runner Steve Prefontaine, he bled his feet to the bone. In the   drug-fueled Requiem For A Dream, he reportedly swore off sex (with then girlfriend,   Cameron Diaz) and lost 28 pounds to play a junky. Then there was Fight Club   (he’d been recommended for the part his friend, fellow pretty boy, Brad Pitt.),   in which he begged to have his angelic face beaten to a pulp by a jealous Ed   Norton to prove his fealty. Suffering, pain, causality, creation through transformation.   Leto has pledged himself above and beyond to those epithets years ago.

“Killing people face to face for a living, that was their job,” explains   a laidback Leto a few months later from a low-key restaurant in Southern California.   It’s early afternoon. His clothing is relaxed and he looks pleasantly tired.

“It’s not jet lag. I’m over that. I just couldn’t sleep.” It’s not   due to time spent with his (purported) new, luscious It-girl Scarlett Johansson.   He’s been concentrating on working on some new songs for his band, 30 Seconds   To Mars, taking meetings between rehearsals before he heads off to New York   and South Africa for three months to play another aggressor of sorts - an arms   dealer - in the film Lord of War, with Nicolas Cage and director Andrew Niccol   (Gattaca).

He is still pretty tan, making those pioneering blue eyes even more startling.   His long, blonde warrior-god locks are gone now, dyed and clipped into a light   brown Erik Estrada-style shag for the new movie. But there is still a trace   of the Irish lilt he took on for Alexander. (Aside from gearing it toward Farrell’s   natural tones, Stone’s rationale for the accent was that historically, the Macedonians   were to the Greeks what the Irish have been to the English.) Most of the 15   pounds of muscle weight that he strapped on for the six-month shoot has slipped   from his slim frame. Even so, the intensity of that experience is still on his   mind and in his body.

“The film has plenty of f***ing and fighting and killing and death and   blood. My job was to murder people and stand by Alexander.” who, according   to history, was his best friend since childhood, and his lover.

“Hephaestion, the character I play, and [Alexander] have a really special   connection. It’s a strong, strong relationship. I don’t think there is a term   we have today to define their relationship,” he says, deliberately muddling   around the oft-asked erotic question.

Farrell says, “There was no term for 'bisexuality’. It was just the way   society was. People made love to men and women. It was only later on you had   to pick one side of the fence.”

“But I promise you, in the film,” Leto teases, despite the magnetic   charms of Farrell, and costars Rosario Dawson and Angelina Jolie, who play Alexander’s   wife and mother, “the only kiss I gave out was to my horse. My one true   love.”

He takes the tape recorder and places it gently against his chest, which holds   within it the soul of a man who many have tried to reveal before. “I always   tell the truth. What else do you want to know? What do people really want to   know? What is the truth?” His face is a pure cheeky choir boy dare. “When   have I ever not told you the truth? How can you tell that I’m lying?”

I remind him that the last time we met, he told me he owned three Uzis, that   the first girl he kissed was a 47-year-old tranny named Jorge, that he was 19,   raised by circus performers, and that he studied art at the American University   of Paris for a semester, but was booted out when he wouldn’t give in to the   attentions of the headmaster. And he wouldn’t back down to any of those “facts”.

He laughs. “Really? As Ronald Regan used to say, 'I have no memory of   saying such things.’ ”

Says producer/director David Fincher, who worked with Leto on both Fight Club  and Panic Room, “When it comes to his acting, he is beyond method. He gets  into this whole image of his character. It is interesting how that kind of pain and sacrifice can translate. I mean, look at Requiem. I wish I had 100 Jareds   working for me. He was amazing.

"Jared definitely strives not to be a victim of his genetics. On the films   we did together, he was the guy who is constantly curious, the one you couldn’t bottle up. The one who wouldn’t hit his mark. He was like, 'Hey, I’m living it! Over here!’ But he does like to tell stories. It goes kind of like, 'How can you tell when Jared is lying? His lips are moving.’ ”

Leto, who prefers to see his playful fibbing as a way to keep his private life   private, was born the day after Christmas, 33 years ago, in Bossier City, Louisiana. His mother was an artistic soul, and with his father out of the picture, he and his brother, Shannon (who is also in 30 Seconds To Mars), traveled a great deal while they were growing up. After a stint at New York’s School of Visual Arts, he says, he came to Los Angeles around 12 years ago with a couple hundred bucks in his pocket, no friends, and nowhere to stay. For awhile, he slept on Venice Beach. Then kaboom! a role on television’s My So-Called Life (opposite Claire Daines) and for the next few years, he reigned as a teen pinup - a tag   and a look he has been successfully living down ever since.

According to Leto, “Luck is the residue of destiny.” It’s a phrase   he’s heard which he likes very much. He feels it means that we can get caught up in so many things, but the world has what it has for us. That, in our natural state, everything is the way it’s supposed to be - free and joyous - and that our own insecurities get in the way of all that. It’s an idea which could be   applied to his early life.

“When I was young, all that traveling was exciting,” says Leto. “You   do develop an ability to read people more quickly. You have to learn to adapt to whatever comes along, to survive. Maybe the way I grew up is why I’m drawn to acting, to different characters. From film to film, I’m constantly finding myself, reaching different places outside and inside myself. I want to change, to morph into something else.” To be able to do that for Oliver Stone is a gift, says Leto. “He is one of my f***ing heroes. He is a great man. Present, connected, very physical. I find his way very endearing.”

To work with Stone, he traveled to Morocco, where the oncoming sunset had turned the world orange, into the color of dark rust. But the sky was growing dark, the golden scorpions were scuttling under the rocks, another sandstorm was moving toward the camp, fast.

Within moments, Leto, wearing his usual training gear - a T-shirt, tight shorts,   boots covering his calves - couldn’t see two feet ahead of him. The sand whipped raw against his skin as he made for his tent. Inside, he tightened the flap and listened to the wind howl. He had switched off his cell phone, his e-mail. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in the U.S. for months. Apocalyptic fantasies crowded his brain. Many in the cast had already been horribly sick. There was a virus in the dust. His tent was next door to the latrine and he could hear cast and crew heave by the dozens.

One night, Leto got so sick, he thought he was going to toss a spleen.“I lay in bed for a couple of hours staring at the stars, just breathing really   slow, willing it away. I fell asleep dreaming strange, surreal dreams. When   I woke up, it was gone. That’s the desert.”

Says Dawson, “It was beyond primal, all those men bonding - horse training,   fighting, all buffed up wearing nearly nothing. And as soon as a woman came   on set, the energy was so damn erotic.

"One time Jared came to visit the hotel [where women stayed]. He was so   happy to be there. He got to take a shower, have some proper food.So he’s talking, sitting there, and just sort of adjusting the package, not sexually, but in   this slow, languorous way, like there was no one else around.It was all suited   to his character, but I was like, 'Hey dude…’

"And he was like, 'I’m sorry! We’re out there in our underwear and boots   all the time… maybe it’s got us a little too relaxed.’ Maybe. But it was all   good.” She bats her eyes.“It was wonderful being around that kind of really masculine environment.”

“Oh, Rosario,” responds Leto, “she is so beautiful. Such a great   woman.” He drops his head, smiling, not exactly asking for forgiveness.“Working on Alexander was an amazing experience. It’s all about connectivity. There is an old saying that the greatest leader is the servant of them all. Meaning, you are the most powerful when you are giving.”

“I think that as an artist, in any kind of expression of creation, that   you must have to be in love with the process. It is the most exciting part of the work, and that if you have a desire for greatness, you will have to be willing to f***ing bleed. I think it’s true for me.That’s what drives me.”

He claps his hands over his face. “F***. People are going to read this   and think, 'What the f***? Is weirdo Leto on crack? Hitting the old acid tab again.’ But honestly, it’s what I believe. One of my favorite things about getting older is that my intuition is often wrong.To me, it means I’m uncovering something   new about the world.

Listed: Leverage Models

Leverage Models started as the latest project from Shannon Fields (late of the much-missed New York collective Stars Like Fleas, and who’s also worked with everyone from Helado Negro to Rhys Chatham, JOBS to The Silent League). After 2013’s highly-praised self-titled debut on Hometapes, Fields wound up assembling a touring band that would wind up making Leverage Models’ newly-released sophomore record Whites(which, for reasons both personal and political, was made in 2015 but is being released now, partly as a fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center). Joined by singer Alena Spanger (of Tiny Hazard) and all three members of the very powerful trio JOBS, among others, in their own words "Leverage Models makes pop songs about transubstantiation, ritual abuse, political apathy, divorce, white collar criminals, poverty, white liberal guilt, anxiety, & self-harm. With roto-toms." In his review, Dusted’s Ian Mathers says about Whites, "Musically, this album would be just as impressive if it had come out in early 2016, but back then maybe more people would assume the high-stakes intensity of the songs here were worrying too much. Sadly, the subsequent time has only shown again and again how appropriate that aspect of Leverage Models’ work really is." For Listed, Fields and Spanger provided a list of current inspirations and overlooked art pop.

Alena’s Current Inspirations

Life Without Buildings—"The Leanover"

The way that this singer, Sue Tompkins, approaches melody and lyric is hypnotizing to me. I love how she continues to repeat words—almost slogans—and alter their pronunciation until they seem to lose their original meanings and become more about the sound of the words. I typically wouldn't love the 90's alt rock aesthetic, but the steady, unobtrusive accompaniment provides the space needed for her vocals to live in.

Francis Bebey—"Pygmy Love Song"

I've been incessantly listening to Francis Bebey for months now. He seems to lean into the rawness and outer edges of what the voice can do. I love the way he mimics the bamboo flute with his voice on this song.

Lizzy Mercier Decloux—"No Golden Throat"

I sometimes feel like I need to shake off everything I learned from years of studying music and get to back to a more fundamental, raw approach. Lizzy is one of those untrained inspirations for me. She barely knew how to play the guitar and started singing not long before this album came out. This resulted in such adventurous, unselfconscious music. She is at once playful, unbridled, and searingly direct. She wasn't really respected in the NY scene when this record came out, and was by some seen as an imposter, reliant on her male collaborators to hoist her up. After digging deeper into her music, it's obvious that she possessed great artistic autonomy and vision and her lack of recognition was a result of unfortunate industry circumstances and sexism. The lyrics in this song are her response to the pressures that's she experienced to sing more conventionally.

Lonnie Holley—"Here I Stand Knocking at Your Door"

I saw Lonnie Holley play in NY recently and was so moved by the freedom with which he sings and the purity and untouched quality of his music. Every aspect of his performance- down to the smallest movements of his body were connected to the sound and channeling into one cohesive and beautiful statement. He is one of those rare, singular artists, who seems to make art out of everything he touches.

Brigitte Fontaine—"Moi Aussi"

She is such a badass. I love the simplicity of using just a drum as accompaniment. In this song, she's singing with her partner at the time, a French/Algerian musician, Areski Belkacem who brought some traditional folkloric sensibilities to their music. The effortless blending of theater and music is something I really strive for in my own work.

Shannon

I needed to give myself a theme so I decided to select some of what I think are overlooked vintage art-pop coming out of the post-punk 80s into the and slick new-agey, ‘world music’ appropriating 90s. I’m completely taken in by that era of experimentation and production right now, though I can’t say why. I find myself drawn most to the songs that effortlessly stumble into choices I don’t always understand. They don’t seem like they’re out to destroy any genre conventions so much as they seem blissfully ignorant of them. Certain moments shock me as to how much more relevant and contemporary the MIDI/electronic, experimental and arty music is as compared to the 60s & 70s guitar-based music that’s ruled for so long (and which has nothing at all to offer a lot of younger musicians I talk to these days). I could have easily made this list 20. This was hard.

Che—I ‎(Narcotic, 1987)

What a confusing record. Half of it is very eccentric, slightly woozy funk. With the subtlety-obliterating rhythm section of Art of Noise or later New Jack rhythms, cock-rock guitars, and these drunken almost a-melodic passages. The ending of Scream Like A Swiftcould be a codeine-fuelled pass at Jensen Sportag’s contemporary hyper-MIDI, vapor-wave smooth-jazz. Moving The Silencesounds like The Blue Nile but with the kind of ironic detachment (think Arto Lindsay & Ambitious Lovers) that leaves you creeped out and confused rather than crying in your drink. And while I’m a bit black-hearted and prefercrying in my drink, I’m also completely transfixed by this. This song, Jerusalem,just kind of takes my breath away with something entirely unfamiliar: built from slabs of goth and pure Peter-Gabriel world-cheese, it somehow alchemizes into something I have never heard. A whole album of this and I’d have it on repeat with Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter(which also belongs on this list and is one of the best ‘confuse-core’ records ever made).

Akira Inoue—サファリ・オスティナート (Splash, 1983)

I’ve seen this song title translated as "Safari Ostinato". I know very little about this person or this album. Somebody help me. It’s the kind of album that repels and compels alternately. It gives you whiplash in the gentlest, most covert way. It’s a sort of adult contemporary, New Wave, jazz fusion MIDI album and this song is both beautiful and bonkers. The whole album is. I wonder if Dutch Uncles have heard this album. I could draw a line from here to there.

Andréa Daltro—Kiuá (Kiuá, 1988)

Released by the amazing Dutch reissue label Music From Memory. Originally released on Estudio De Invencoes in 1988. Andre Daltro was a singer and the song was, I believe, originally recorded with the band Brazilian "spiritual jazz band" Sexteto do Beco in 1980. But this version trades organicism and chops for drum machine, keys, MIDI sounds, and rattling ambient chatter, both acoustic and synthetic, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard…it rivals Arca’s new s/t album for this kind of strange, winsome cyber bel canto transmission from an alien jungle, though far less brooding, no less arresting.

Jane Siberry—Lena is a White Table (The Walking, 1987)

I knew Jane Siberry later hits and didn’t much care for them. I knew she worked with both Hector Zazou and Barney the Purple Dinosaur. I was not prepared when I first heard this album, The Walking. I believe when she was first signed the industry thought of her as the "new Kate Bush" and wanted to cash in on the mass tolerance for ‘art-rock’ a-la Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. But The Walkingis to Hounds of Loveas The Blue Nile’s Walk Across The Rooftops is to Laughing Stock’s Spirit of Eden. I love all of the above, but what Siberry and The Blue Nile share in this example is the same kind of epic freedom and reach but a sort of fragility and limitation and ramshackle, almost amateurish quality that make them really humane and relatable to me. The first time I heard this song I confess that my first thought was how much it reminded me of Alena’s old band, Tiny Hazard, who were one of my favorite bands in Brooklyn. I know it seems silly to say it, but somehow this track feels so much less ‘theatrical’ then the same era of Kate Bush…more interior. It feels like a very intimate experience to listen, to the point that I find myself feeling embarrassed for listening in.

Gary Numan—Cry, The Clock Said (Dance, 1981)

I hesitated to use one of my choices on an artist I feel like everybody knows. But I almost never meet anyone who really knows THIS album (and I know because I push it on everyone). If you only know the playful, cold cyber-punk of the first couple of Gary Numan/Tubeway Army records (which are, to be clear, brilliant, and a big influence on me) you really need to hear this album. At its most extreme corners (of which this song is one) I don’t know anything like it. Gary Numan’s great magic trick, the one I endlessly faun over, is how his disaffected, conventionally ugly, robot voice transforms into something heartbreaking and relatable by the time it reaches my heart (especially on Telekon’s piano-based tracks). I know that’s a cheesy thing to say but fuck you, I need sentiment these days. Anyway, nowhere is it more the case than in this songs arrangement. Musically, it feels entirely alien and also entirely familiar, with Japan’s Mick Karn barely there alongside what sound like Casiotone boss nova beats and the most heartbreaking little chiming synth arpeggio that come and go like a kitten that wakes up momentarily from its drug-induced nap. It’s 10 minutes long. I’ve had it on loop for hours without getting tired of it. I’ve wanted to make something like this for a long time now. Some day I’ll have this kind of restraint.

#11 Bonus Track!

Né Ladeiras—Cruz (Corsária, 1988)

I also know next to nothing about this Brazilian album, dedicated to Greta Garbo. I read that it was produced and arranged by Luís Cília ,who wrote a song that became a sort of second anthem for the Portuguese Communist Party. The MIDI harps sitting matter-of-factly on top of those plate-reverbed guiro, clave, bells…I want to live inside the room they build. And it’s a lovely, airy progression that never grows tiresome as it modulates in a drifting-down-the-stream sort of way. The ending lifts so high with barely a shrug’s worth of effort. Gorgeous.

Chapter 3 You might seem to think that you live in a city with so many people walking pass through you in the street. Though this town is populated with so many busy, crazy, loud and fun people, this city is also filled with ghosts. Well in fact each one of us has our own ghost. We bump into them for every once in a while. The worst part is, we bump into them when we are in our "not so ready to bump into my ghost" look. When our hair are blown by the wind and we are not in our perfect outfit. When we are not that thin anymore than we used to be. If you are in that shape and situation, that's really a very bad time to meet your ghost. Your ghost is that one person from your past that somehow made you who you are today. Well for me, I have so many ghosts. I rarely see ghost number one anymore. I was so young when I met this person. Sometimes I forgot his looks. There was a time when me and a childhood friend would bump into my ghost number one and I would ask "who the hell was that?". Then my friend would tell me that's your ghost number 1. Like oh? Did he change his looks? But the truth is, I can't even recall his looks anymore when we were younger. Maybe because he's never been really there for me. But I can still recall the time and the moment we met and started talking. During our time, before the millennials came along and before I consider myself part of them, there were emos and then there were jejemons. My era was somehow a mixed of both. We were part of a texting group with code names and meet ups. I was really young by that time, I was the youngest in the group I can still recall. Then me and my ghost number one got partner code names from an anime. We were partners only on texting. But that was the first time and first moment when I felt something worth while. But that didn't get along so good. He turned out to be the first heart break by choosing a friend of mine better than I am. And fuck that shit, first times are the best and worst specially when it comes to love. But because of him I learned that young butterflies are the most fragile part of my belly. Touch them and they'll be dead already. However, ghost number two lives a few blocks from where I live, thus we see each other most of the time. We go to the same church near our homes. Good thing, I took a different schedule of the mass that I attend so we didn't see each other for quite some time now. But still he was the crush of the 90's. Most of my childhood friends had a crush on him. Actually, I believe that he was the real reason why most of us are not friends anymore. But I gave up easily on him knowing that my childhood friends were already drifting apart because of him, so I didn't took a part of the pizza and just watched my friends silently while they were fighting whether who will have as many slice as the pizza could offer. But there was just this one summer before the heart ache. A special summer month of May, where I got so conscious of how I look and how I dress specially when I know that we are going to bump into each other. But that was just one summer that made me feel love could really bring the best and worst out of you. Actually, when we see each other most of the time the colour of our cloths are the same, we even had the same pair of shoes and pair of slippers without knowing that we both had those. I don't know what will I call that kind of shit. But we don't speak anymore. Specially when we cross paths every once in a while. But we still had those awkward how will I handle situations specially when there's no turning back because we really had to bump into each other. I just know that he knew and I don't have to speak it out loud. Ghost number three is everything during my junior and senior years in high school. I used to believe on the future I could have with him. I can say that this was the first time that I felt something really really special because he let me felt it. There were times when I felt like I'm important to him. But there were also times when I was not. He was a year ahead of me in high school, when he graduated our conversations didn't stop. Until it did. I admit that I was so immature during those times. But he was really important and I know that I was to him also. Then a year passed of not having a real conversation with ghost number 3 and I was on my college days. I rarely bump into him once in a while. One day, when me and a friend were strolling in the mall, looking for some things to buy and then there he was. Looking and smiling, He was this sexy, white skinned, perfect teeth type of person and there I was, in a grumpy physical education uniform, not that ready to have that one conversation that I was longing to have for a very long time. I turned around, walked myself out of that awkward situation and never looked back. I know I was so bullshit during that time, what's running in my head was he had a different world and I am not part of that world anymore. Why would I push myself to sync into a place that has no space for me? Everything in my college years was about ghost number 4. For five years, I rove around corners just to see him and know that he sees me as well. I never thought that my attention would be drawn to just one person for a very long time. He made me do and feel things I never imagine possible. Even when he did nothing, I fell for him. Ghost number four was a mysterious and vague type of person. We went to church together, ate in one table in a cute restaurant. I would like to consider those as dates. I don't know if those were the same as for him. I also want to consider what we had was love. It was for me. But maybe for him it wasn't. But it was something maybe, something that no one could explain. A feeling so mysterious and so vague just like him. Maybe it was just long glances on corridors, saying hi and hello. Maybe if was just making each other feel important, giving time, ideas and inspiration to each other. It was something, I knew it for sure. I felt like the ocean is going to devour me whenever I think of him. So much regrets, disappointments, anguish, hate but also fun and happy memories of him. When he had his first job I was there making my way out of college. He was a year ahead of me in college and I had a five year course so there were two years of him already working while me stuck in the four corners of the university where I first saw him. I can't remember the last word he told me and the last word I told him. But the first time the we started talking, that I couldn't forget. When our worlds drifted apart, I don't know what job he's doing right now, I started my own life as well with the career I took. I only heard a few about him. He's in love with someone else. That was the only one I know. I don't wanna know who that someone else is. But I want to know if he's okay. In all my ghosts, ghost number four is the only one I want to see. I want to talk and then finally say a wonderful good bye to him. I want to release my ghost so I won't be haunted for the rest of my life. I don't care if I am not in my "I'm not ready to bump into my ghost" clothes or I am fatter than yesterday, my words for him are ready. I want to have that chance, I want to have that opportunity to talk with ghost number four again. I may screw it up but I don't know because that is what I am feeling right now. Maybe I still do things because of him, I still wear my best because I believe that one day we will bump into each other again and had that one meaningful good bye conversation that I want. Some stories are epic novels, some are short stories but that does't lessen the love you give for that person in that story. Eventually, the person you are with right will one day be one of your ghost, some may haunt you for the rest of your life. And that is one of all the truths that lies on the surface of love. And you will never know that one day, you will be a ghost to someone else also and the city you live in will be nothing but a ghost town.

The show made me do it....

Hi @tinkdw , @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper , @elizabethrobertajones I wanted to post this to a couple of meta writers / bloggers I follow here re my thoughts about Destiel. 

Firstly, just so you know where I’m coming from, I’m a writer of fantasy/crime/thriller/romance fiction. World building a subtle development of characters is part of what I do.

I watch crime dramas – I’m horrible to watch them with because I ALWAYS work them out – because I PAY ATTENTION to what is on screen, both textually and sub-textually. I also believe that TV is an expensive media and what screen time there is is short. So if something has made it to screen, no matter how small, it is of significance. Writers, directors, actors, editors all felt this was MEANT to be seen. I also believe that just because two characters have great chemistry doesn’t mean they have to be a canon couple. (Morgan and Garica from Criminal Minds is one of the best one screen platonic friendships on screen, I’m glad the writers were brave enough to keep them that way and not push them into a relationship.)

I’m a whoivan so I am no stranger to fandom and there is no way you can be in ANY fandom and not know of Destiel.

Now, until last year I had not seen Supernatural. It was one on my watch list but never got around to it. So I decided to start with series one DVD and see how I got on. And ok, some of series one was a bit shakey, some of the stories not great… but the premise, the backbone of Sam and Dean, their relationship – THAT was great from the start and kept me watching. It still keeps me watching.

As I got to season 4, I wondered if everything I’d heard about Destiel was real. It wasn’t why I was watching, it was the brother’s journey that kept me going. Shippers are passionate, GIFS can be created to emphasize a point, but when those GIFS are out of context of the episode – did they still stand up as “Destiel”? So I went into season 4 open minded. (PS I’ve also had no issue accepting that Dean is a repressed bisexual – hints have been made all along, character building)

Oh.Dear. Lord. It’s real.

But let me take a step back. When watching S4 most of the time I was watching Cas on screen, his intensity with Dean appears to be him trying to work out the man he saved. His orders were to pull him out of hell, put him back together again. He did that, and in doing so he knew EVERYTHING about Dean until that point. He returned him to Earth the same bright souled, flawed human that he was, along with all his loves, fears, hopes and dreams. Everything he was, and everything he hid. His self loathing. Castiel KNEW everything about Dean.

But knowing someone and understanding them are different things. What I see in most of S4 is Cas trying to understand Dean. Because the man he put back together is not the man he sees and knows is really there. (He sees performing Dean before the other important people in his life do.)

Dean for his part mostly looks like his every hidden fantasy walked into the barn that day. And because it’s not a door he’s even prepared to peek through, it’s all unsubtle looks at Cas, his body language screams attraction when his actions say otherwise. (And “The Rapture” was fantastic as showing that he is drawn to CAS not JIMMY.)

S5 was seemed to build more on above, but if their plan was to end at S5 then you could say that they are brothers-in-arms. Castiel the angel that can’t quite figure out the human he saved and Dean the human who never felt worthy of this new friendship/crush, which also left him bemused.

S6, Dean with Lisa. Well this was where I was wondering if Destiel would be ticked to the curb. But no. Dean needed to experience what he thought he had wanted. What he believed his parents had before that November night.  He tells Lisa in S5 that when he pictured himself happy, if was with her – but the reality wasn’t what he wanted. He cared about them, loved them. But when he walked away from them after Cas took their memories, he wasn’t broken.

Cas in this season is clearly falling for Dean. He goes from intrigue and mild jealousy (Anna) in S4/5 to full on heart eyes by the end (The Man Who Would Be King) is just epic.

S7 – despite the reduced role of Cas, it was great for setting up grieving Dean for later seasons. When Cas is lost to the Leviathans, Dean is equal parts upset and angry for Cas’ actions. But in the end he still carried that trenchcoat around for months, in various cars. But he did the same with Bobby and the flask, and there is no ambiguity as to his feelings towards Bobby. For me he grieved the loss of family in both cases and in similar ways – that was until they both return. Dean’s reactions are different to the return of Bobby and Cas. Subtly different, but different never-the-less. (Then you compare the loss of Cas and Bobby in this series to S13? There is NO comparison. He hasn’t lost a friend/crush or father figure, he’s lost the absolute love of his life).

And Cas/Meg? Well there is a great relationship. Two great actors and chemistry, with an obvious set up for a possible “impossible romance” (which could have been enthralling in its own right if Destiel wasn’t pushed in my face 😉 ) but their chemistry worked so much better in the platonic sense.

I’m only half way through S8, Cas is out of purgatory and this is for me when Destiel the ‘romance’ is going canon. Benny’s reaction alone when Dean and Cas reunite is telling. You can see his brain going ‘friend my ass!’.

For the most part, what I’ve seen is subtle acting by all parties, a slow progression from strangers to comrades, to friends and now friends who are clearly falling for each other - it could have stayed platonic with some odd but explainable behavior between Cas and Dean. It is all there, on screen if you look. Now, I may be a few seasons behind but I know what is happening currently and I’m highly encouraged they are showing a deeply complex, touching and enduring love story where the characters have gone on an epic journey to find that love. The genders of those characters means fuck all.

I know for many of you what I’m saying is old news. But I wanted you to know that someone who has only recently started watching Supernatural and went in with an open mind, I can clearly see what is in front of me.The show made me do it. I ship Destiel. They are one of the greatest OTP’s of all time. It isn’t imagined. It isn’t exaggerated by GIFS.

For those of you who have studied this series into the minutest of details (and not just for Destiel) and those of us who are observant and see these small things as we have watched – we are being rewarded. For those who choose not to see, or have their own petty reasons for not wanting see such a powerful love story, well they are the ones losing out on something spectacular.

Wow, this ended up being longer than expected (a theme in my writing, haha!) and it didn’t go into any real detail!

Keep on meta writing and being awesome in this fandom - your blogs make me smile.

Tasmania

Marketing executives of Australia, I bring good news. Your advertisement campaigns are working on my five-year-old daughter. Ivy only needs to hear the words “Did someone say KFC?” and she’ll instantly launch into a chorus of I Love It by Icona Pop. When asked what she hoped would happen in 2021, she didn’t wish for anything existential or even material, but rather answered: “That I get to watch Holey Moley.” But there’s one brand which stands out among the rest. We’ll pull up behind a ute at the traffic lights and hear from the back seat those immortal words: “Oh, what a feeling - Toyota.”

And there were certainly plenty of those moments as we started the new year with a road trip around the island state of Tasmania - 240km south of the mainland across the heaving Bass Strait. Right until the last moment, it looked like the trip might be scuppered by COVID as clusters in Sydney and Melbourne prompted other states to shut their borders but on this occasion, we were in the right place at the right time and the Apple Isle lay before us.

Needless to say, there were a few raised eyebrows along the way when we declared we had travelled from New South Wales - at one point we were even removed from a queue and had to answer further questions from management before gaining entry - but Tassie’s welcome couldn’t have been warmer. The people we met were so friendly and as for the place: well, where do you start?

At the beginning, I suppose, and the absolutely stunning Cataract Gorge in Launceston. Photographs simply can’t do its forested cliffs, glassy lake and ancient boulders justice and the temperature of the public swimming pool in the centre of the gorge took our breath away for a second time as Rachel wisely watched on with the towels poolside. We emerged from the water shivering - and with fellow tourists peering down bemused from the chairlift above - but very much refreshed.

Launceston, the second-largest city in Tasmania, hadn’t been forecast as one of the trip’s highlights but it proved to have been rather under-sold. The macaque monkeys (behind glass) in City Park, the windswept Tamar Island Wetlands and the hands-on Queen Victoria Museum were free attractions you’d pay good money to see elsewhere and Riverbend Park, in the city centre, boasts the best children’s playground I’ve ever seen. It’s no exaggeration to say Ivy would have spent all day there, so vast and varied is the site. Peering down over the park are four huge grain silos, now converted into a plush hotel with a fancy restaurant on ground level. Pricey, yes, but quality grub.

When you’ve been to Peppa Pig World, the bar for any other ‘world’ is set pretty high but where Seahorse World in the Tamar Valley might have been lacking Grandpa Pig’s Little Train, it compensated with a genuinely interesting tour of the tanks and even a chance to hold a little seahorse. From this breeding centre on the banks of the Tamar, seahorses are shipped to aquariums all around the world so if you’ve ever seen one, it probably came from there.

Our four nights in town were spent above a pub - better than it sounds or than we thought when we first pulled up - but there was a change of pace when we hit the east coast.

We quickly realised the weather in Tasmania can change almost as quickly as Boris Johnson’s COVID response and so it was that we huddled on a beach somewhere along the Bay of Fires eating our picnic lunch wrapped in jumpers and waterproofs as some pretty mean waves pounded the white sand. Even us crazy northern hemisphere types weren’t about to try swimming here.

Conditions at our east coast base were more clement, and naturally we hit the pool hard but also made full use of the other sports facilities - putting green, table tennis and basketball court to name but a few. Ivy’s ping-pong skills have improved exponentially since the turn of the year and some of our rallies were even worthy of the name. But every now and then comes a wild shot from the other end of the table which forces you to take evasive action as if facing a Pat Cummins bouncer.

Down the coast we drove, into the spectacular Freycinet National Park where the views across to Wineglass Bay are postcard-perfect. Peer over the edge and it’s a sheer drop to the rocks and waves below, look down at your feet and lizards are scurrying for cover. Disaster was averted at the last minute when the family parked next to us managed to retrieve the stuffed toy whose temporary loss had sent a little girl into floods of tears. What looked like a little elephant had in fact only been dropped a few yards from the car park at the top of the cliffs.

Swansea was a handy stopping point after that - a bit different to its Welsh namesake - but it was now all about the long run into Hobart. Of all the driving we did in Tasmania, less than 5% would have been straight and flat at the same time and those sweeping bends and undulations were never more evident than on the Tasman Highway which hugged rock faces and followed the bends of the Prosser River on the challenging and invigorating approach to the state’s capital.

Hobart, with a population of 250,000 or so, must be the hilliest city I’ve ever visited. There were cars parked at angles that didn’t look natural and even a walk to the closest intersection could be enough to raise a sweat.

But on flat ground a stone’s throw from the waterfront, the Salamanca Market truly showcases Hobart in its best light every Saturday. From tourist tat and cuddly toys to ornate wood carvings and local farm produce, there’s something to lighten everyone’s wallet although by far the longest queues were at the coffee vans. Classic Australia. The pandemic has forced Salamanca to trim its stall numbers and patron capacity, although social distancing in a market is about as likely as it is on the London Underground. However, in a part of the world which is totally COVID-free at the time of writing, mingling in a Tasmanian crowd carries none of the worries it would elsewhere.

Our thoughts were constantly drawn back to the UK not only by the daily news bulletins - reporting daily infection rates higher than Australia has faced in 12 months - but also its role in shaping Tasmania as we know it today. Nowhere is that more evident than Port Arthur, the former penal settlement where thousands of convicts were shipped in the 1800s for crimes ranging from cheese theft to murder. The remains of the penitentiary and neighbouring prison buildings are beautiful; their stories by comparison quite chilling and utterly thought-provoking as to the physical treatment and mental disintegration of so many men, young and old, having been extracted from their homeland with no hope of ever returning. Walking around the site makes you acutely aware of your liberty, even more so in the current climate.

You see, for all the places we visited in Tasmania, for all the experiences, the food tasted and selfies taken, it was simply the freedom to choose and to move which we had to be most thankful for. With the majority of our friends and family locked down on the other side of the world, doing it tougher than ever, there was absolutely nothing about our trip to take for granted.

It’s said Australia is the lucky country, and that rings true to an extent, although political choices have more to do with the state of play around the world than luck. Australia’s consistently tough stance on international arrivals during the pandemic has been a huge factor in keeping the COVID numbers here so low. Two week in hotel quarantine, at your own expense, is mandatory. Around the corner from where we were staying in Hobart was one such hotel with two soldiers guarding each door. Rules are rules here and they don’t muck about. On the one hand, it’s reassuring that we are in such a safe corner of the world right now - but what about getting back to England to see those loved ones again? When will a journey of that nature be feasible and, more to the point, when will Australia relax its stance to the point where we know we can make a ‘normal’ re-entry to the place we now call home? Forget the quarantine, simply getting a plane ticket is like finding a needle in a haystack. We hope to see you all again soon, we really do, but it's just impossible to put a date on that happening.

Meanwhile, sun-kissed Hobart looked a picture from the top of Mount Wellington and equally from the water as we took a ferry to MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art). The exhibits here were all to an incredibly high specification but often weird for the sake of being weird. More rewarding was the time we spent outside in the grounds, watching a band on stage while chowing down on chicken burgers (in the case of the meat-eating members of the family).

Another ferry carried us and the car to Bruny Island, where the pendulum of Tasmanian weather swung like never before. One minute we were slithering along muddy unsealed roads in search of the Cape Bruny Lighthouse (where the winds were too strong to reach the top of the walking track), the next emerging into warm sunlight at the Truganini Memorial overlooking the ‘Neck’ - a narrow spit of land joining the north and south parts of the island.

After the best part of a week in and around Hobart, it was nice to put the hammer down and cruise through the straw-coloured Midlands on the way north. A long line of red bricks running the length of the high street in Campbell Town bore the names (and crimes) or convicts who had not even survived the epic voyage to Australia, dying in transit. There were reminders everywhere of Tasmania’s convict past; less so the treatment of its Indigenous people.

While we had already been exposed to the island’s varying landscapes and weather patterns, entering Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park can only be likened to walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. Gone was anything even resembling summer as harsh alpine vegetation stood out against steely skies, with a cold wind blowing down the back of the neck in the way that makes you instantly reach for hooded tops. The steep climbs and harpin bends were all worth it just to witness the spectacle at altitude approaching 1,000 metres above sea level. “It’s due to snow the day after tomorrow” said the girl behind the Visitor Centre counter as she handed over our shuttle bus tickets. You could spend days bushwalking around Cradle Mountain, if you like that sort of thing, whereas we chose the hop- on-hop-off approach and still copped a fair pasting from the wind, rain - and UV. The chance to see Tasmanian devils and quolls up close, as well as a wombat in the car park, further added to the experience.

Back through the wardrobe into summer, or at least a north coast variant of it, and the final stop on our tour at tiny-but-picturesque Boat Harbour Beach. With water so clear you could almost count the grains of sand on the bottom, and rock pools and caves to explore every time the tide flowed out, the beach in itself might have fully sustained our four-day stay had the temperature been a smidgen higher.

As it was, we ventured slightly further afield to The Nut at Stanley (where one of the information boards mused ‘when is a nut not a nut?’ - an important consideration for allergy sufferers), Sisters Beach (horizontal rain although not unpleasant) and to Burnie one night to see Little Penguins emerge from the sea and return to their burrows. In rather less salubrious surroundings than the corresponding experience on Phillip Island, the night sky was pierced by the luminescent green glow from a nearby BP filling station. David Attenborough meets Alan Partridge, if you will.

Soon enough, those penguins would be heading back into the Bass Strait and so it was for us, boarding the Spirit of Tasmania for our overnight crossing which marked the end of our Tassie adventure. Housed in a cabin at the extreme bow of the vessel, our plunging path through a sea that was even choppier than normal felt like taking a ride in a washing machine being hit with cannon fire, so loud was the metallic crash of the hull against the waves every few seconds.

So the mouth of Port Phillip Bay had never looked more welcoming and it was a relief to set foot - or rather, wheels - on terra firma back in Melbourne.

But what a journey. In the land that time forgot, the extraordinary diversity and natural beauty of this island have carved out unforgettable memories. The devil is in the detail and I’ve no doubt we’ve only scratched the surface.

Oh, what a feeling - Tasmania.

Hi dear!! So sorry to bother you (again because i've asked you for fic recs before and they WERE amazing so im back aha) but would hav any good jerejean fic recs?? Ive become kinda obsessed with them

hii you’re never a bother!! sorry this took so long i lost my list of jerejean fics that i’ve read r i p zoe! they’re all under the cut and * means i haven’t read it yet, and please make sure to look at the warnings if you have any triggers!! have fun reading:)

thanks again to everyone who offered me some more recs :)

*hair dye by profslupin

Renee convinces Jean to let her dye his hair. The rest is exactly what you’d expect. (2k)

*mirrors by profslupin

The Trojans help Jean learn to look in the mirror and see himself instead of his scars

“Jean had a complicated relationship with his appearance. It wasn’t that he was insecure about his flaws, necessarily, but rather that they reminded him of his time in the Nest. Of his time with him.” (2.6k)

*watermarked by fairietailed

He hops into the kitchen on one foot, catching his mother before she carries the bowl of peas she’s holding into the dining room.

“Jeremy?” Her eyebrows pull together in concern at the look on his face. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sticking out his foot. “I think it’s my soul mate?”

–

In which bruises and scars from your soulmate appear on your skin, and Jeremy’s skin is a myriad of colored stains. (4.6k)

*and i wanna come home to you. by redhoods

He’s so absorbed in staring at the way the sleeves are pulled up around his wrists that he doesn’t realize the team has filed out to the locker rooms until Jeremy crouches into his line of sight, “Everything alright?”

No, he thinks desperately, you’re too much.

“Sure,” he says eventually, standing up and walking away.

this is actually two parts, so it’s about 6k total

*the smell of honey by lilaliacs

Martha’s was a cozy little coffee shop that always smelled of honey, lilacs and something that couldn’t be described as anything less than home.And that’s what it was to Jeremy, who had spent his childhood sat on a stool at the tiny bar, coloring in the patterns of the menus, or watching his mother creating the most beautiful cakes and pastries that he had ever seen.

The place was filled with good memories and everyone who came in could sense the atmosphere of peace that seemed to fill the soft light falling in through lacy curtains at any time of day. In fact, multiple patrons had stated that they came in for exactly this, for a break from their everyday stress, to just grab a coffee and absorb whatever magic the smell of Martha’s cakes emitted and it was something Jeremy’s mother was very proud of.It was also something Jeremy was very proud of, and the reason for him to put his all in making the customers’ time there worthwhile.He never thought that one day, doing that would be a challenge.

(AU in which everything is the same only that Jeremy isnt captain of the trojans but works in his mom’s coffeeshop instead) (11k)

*eyes wide open by jaylocked

Jean blinked. Blinked again. Was sure he didn’t recognize the man on his doorstep, with his bright eyes and enormous grin and wavy blonde hair. Waited for him to explain himself with a simple raised eyebrow.

“Hi!” the man finally chirped. The sound was happiness channeled into a single word, and Jean wasn’t sure how he didn’t hate him already.

(based on the prompt from tumblr: “hi sorry I live below you and I hear your dog running around and barking all the time and– no no it’s fine I was just wondering if I could pet it?” au) (13k)

*i’ll come crashing by exyfexyfoxes

Hades/Persephone in the modern world where Jean runs an underground club that herds the souls of the dead. It’s a place where even gods die if they stay too long, regardless of how many pomegranate seeds they eat. Jean wants out. Jeremy wants in. Everybody wants them far away from each other. (19k)

*je reviens by laarusthefirst

‘Moreau is a rain cloud,’ Alvarez muttered, annoyed and bruised, watching Jean stalk ahead to the changing rooms. ‘He’s the human embodiment of a headache. He is the opposite of a Trojan.’‘Fucking good though, isn’t he?’ grinned Connor, jogging past.‘Can’t we all just be nice?’ Jeremy asked. (20k)

*this ink is still drying by ghostqueen

You can’t control who you want and you can’t control who hurts you

Jeremy was staring at Jean’s arms, tracing the bright swirls and splotches of ink that made up his sleeves with his eyes. His sleeves had been months of work and they still weren’t quite complete, he was still figuring out how to finish them. The first tattoo on his arms had been eight months ago, his first tattoo had been long before that. (26k)

*thick skin, an elastic heart by badacts

Jean sleeps around and learns how to make friends rather than alliances. Jeremy falls in love and can’t stop fucking up. (26k)

*ask the messenger by metis_ink

Jeremy Knox and the soulmate.

Guest starring: Exy, a transfer student, generalized anxiety, older sisters, drunk lesbians, bread, cake, a shed, the beach, the absence of Hennessy, Star Wars, Renee Walker, self-taught smooth talking, gratuitous French, No. 1 Trojans fan Kevin Day, relationship drama, general drama, the power of Friendship, questions, answers, team spirit!, and, of course, romance. (32k)

he could taste the stars by subtlehysteria

Jean is still adjusting to being a Trojan, Jeremy tries to help Jean open up to his new team. (47k)

*shield for a heart by neilskey

“It’s your choice, but you’re rotting away in here, Jean and no matter what she says, you can’t live in Abby’s spare bedroom forever. Time to start fighting again.”

Kevin’s hard and commanding tone was no surprise. The softness had been beaten out of him around the same time as Jean.

“What if I don’t want to anymore?”

Maybe it was because he had been half hidden in shadows-Jean had kept the shades drawn, but light still seeped in the cracks- but Jean thought he had seen something akin to understanding paint Kevin’s cool expression.“He’s gone. You survived. Play or don’t, it’s up to you, but you need to get out of this fucking house.”//Jean’s first year at USC. Jeremy falls hard, Jean comes around eventually. (55k)

*a little illumination by lazarusthefirst

Jean’s a lonely firefighter, and Jeremy teaches kindergarten. Everyone learns something about themselves. (56k)

*shooting for the stars, desperately reaching for something in the dark by cryptidkidprem

“He just won’t be back in black.”

A look at Jean’s first year with the Trojans, and his slightly rocky path to recovery. (146k)

WIPs:

*these streets by profslupin

alternate title: Jean and Jeremy’s Guide to an Epic Cross Country Road Trip

After one of Alvarez’s pranks leaves the boys stranded in South Carolina after a game, they decide to take the long route home. (1.6k, chapters 1/?)

*under the sun by knox_moreau

Jean Moreau is an exy player, not a writer. At least that’s what he thinks. His newfound therapist, however, has other ideas. Seeing as Jean refuses to talk to her in his hour-long therapy sessions, Ms. Dawson suggests perhaps writing down whatever he’s keeping inside. Jean can’t possibly see how he’s expected to write when he has nothing to write about. Then comes Jeremy Knox, in all his brightness and magnitude. Maybe, Jean thinks, he has something to write about. (7.2k, ch. 5/?)

*daffodils & gardenias by profslupin (any and all works by meg sponsored by this blog)

Jeremy Knox is the owner of a tattoo parlor when Jean Moreau opens up a flower shop next door. Jeremy gets a crush, but thankfully Laila and Alvarez are there to play matchmaker, with the help of Renee. (14k, ch. 9/?)\

*leaving marks by blackcatiiix

In a world where your soulmate’s injuries appear as bruises on your skin, Jeremy is… struggling. And that’s even before he meets Jean Moreau. (46k, ch. 12/?)

*marrow without bone by exyfexyfoxes

Onscreen Jeremy didn’t hesitate, displaying an eagerness that translated well across television. “Yeah, I spoke to Jean earlier this week. He’s definitely done for the year but he’ll be back in the fall.”Then, impeccably, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “He just won’t be back in black.“Jean’s eyes narrowed.

(The season hasn’t even started yet and Jeremy already wants to cut their newest player from the team. Making the switch from Raven to Trojan isn’t quite what Jean thought it would be.) (68k, ch. 18/20)

Amazon First Reads for August 2020

This month with Amazon First Reads we are back to a choice of eight books again after being given nine books to choose from last month. So if your an Amazon Prime Member like me you can choose which Amazon First Read book download for free.

This months choices are:

Psychological Suspense

The Other Girl by C D Major, Pages: ??? Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: They thought she was insane. But what if she was telling the truth?

1942, New Zealand. Edith’s been locked away for a long time. She was just five years old when she was sent to Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Fifteen years later, she has few memories of her life before the asylum, but longs for one beyond it.

When she survives a devastating fire that destroys her ward, Edith is questioned by the police and a young doctor, Declan Harris. Intrigued by his beautiful patient, Declan begins to doubt the official reasons for her incarceration. Is she truly mad—or could the impossible stories she told as a child actually be true?

Time is running out. With Edie awaiting a new and permanent treatment, soon there will be little of her left to save. Meanwhile intrigue has tipped into obsession—Declan needs to uncover the truth, but in doing so he will risk losing everything. As he sets out to save her mind, will he lose his own?

Police Procedural

Don’t Ever Forget by Matthew Farrell, Pages: 384, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of What Have You Done comes a mind-bending page-turner involving a series of dark crimes from the past.

When police investigator Susan Adler is called to the roadside murder of a fellow state trooper, she’s tasked with finding the people responsible for the cold-blooded act caught on the trooper’s dashboard cam. She traces the car to a nurse who, along with her elderly patient, has been missing for days. At the old man’s house, she finds disturbing evidence that instantly revives two cold cases involving long-missing children.

The investigation takes a chilling turn when people involved with both the nurse and old man begin to turn up dead, and Susan enlists the help of her friend and forensic investigator Liam Dwyer. Together they must untangle the threads of this ever-more-complicated case—and stay ahead of whoever’s trying to slash their progress. The old man’s failing memory adds urgency: wherever he is, he’s no doubt lost, confused, and in extreme danger.

What started as a traffic stop gone wrong quickly unfolds into one of the darkest cases of Susan’s career, and it all leads to a sick, desperate killer. Susan and Liam must work fast to save the old man’s life and keep future victims from the killer’s grasp.

Thriller

Deadly Waters by Dot Hutchison, Pages: 302, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of The Butterfly Garden comes a suspenseful new series for the #MeToo era about vigilante justice, close friends, and getting away with murder.

Florida journalism undergrad Rebecca Sorley is like any other college student. She tries to keep up with her studies, her friends, and her hot-tempered roommate, Ellie, who regularly courts trouble with the law.

When a male student’s remains are found in alligator-infested waters, the university warns students to stay away from the reptiles. But then a second body shows up, and the link is undeniable. Both men belonged to the same fraternity and had a reputation for preying on and hurting women.

Ellie has previously threatened to kill men who don’t take no for an answer. Rebecca and her friends thought Ellie was kidding. But now a vigilante killer is roaming campus—someone who knows how to dispose of rapists. Someone determined to save female students from horrible crimes.

With each passing day, those who know Ellie become more convinced she’s responsible. But if she is, stopping her might not be in everyone’s best interest…

Technothriller

Interference by Brad Parks, Pages: 397, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: From international bestselling author Brad Parks comes an emotional, heart-pounding thriller that explores the scientific unknown—and one woman’s efforts to save her husband from its consequences.

Quantum physicist Matt Bronik is suffering from strange, violent seizures that medical science seems powerless to explain—much to the consternation of his wife, Brigid.

Matt doesn’t think these fits could be related to his research, which he has always described as benign and esoteric. That, it turns out, is not quite true: Matt has been prodding the mysteries of the quantum universe, with terrible repercussions for his health. And perhaps even for humanity as a whole.

Then, in the midst of another seizure, Matt disappears. When foul play is feared, there is no shortage of suspects. Matt’s research had gained the attention of Chinese competitors, an unscrupulous billionaire, and the Department of Défense, among others.

With Matt’s life in clear danger, Brigid sets out to find him. Will Matt be killed before she reaches him, or could the physics that endangered him actually be used to save his life?

Contemporary Fiction

Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor, Pages: 343, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: From bestselling author Mary Ellen Taylor comes a story about profound loss, hard truths, and an overgrown greenhouse full of old secrets.

Adrift in the wake of her father’s death, a failed marriage, and multiple miscarriages, Libby McKenzie feels truly alone. Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it’s also a distraction from her profound pain.

When asked to photograph a wedding at the historic Woodmont estate, Libby meets the owner, Elaine Grant. Hoping to open Woodmont to the public, Elaine has employed young widower Colton Reese to help restore the grounds and asks Libby to photograph the process. Libby is immediately drawn to the old greenhouse shrouded in honeysuckle vines.

As Libby forms relationships and explores the overgrown—yet hauntingly beautiful—Woodmont estate, she finds the emotional courage to sort through her father’s office. There she discovers a letter that changes everything she knows about her parents, herself, and the estate. Beneath the vines of the old greenhouse lie generations of secrets, and it’s up to Libby to tend to the fruits born of long-buried seeds.

Young Adult

Find Layla by Meg Elison, Pages: 185, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: A neglected girl’s chaotic coming-of-age becomes a trending new hashtag in a novel about growing up and getting away by an award-winning author.

Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn’t used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother.

Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame. With a borrowed video camera, she captures it all. The mushrooms growing in her brother’s dresser. The black mould blooming up the apartment walls. The unmentionable things living in the dead fridge. All the inevitable exotic toxins that are Layla’s life. Then the video goes viral.

When Child Protective Services comes to call, Layla loses her family and her home. Defiant, she must face her bullies and friends alike, on her own. Unafraid at last of being seen, Layla accepts the mortifying reality of visibility. Now she has to figure out how to stay whole and stand behind the truth she has shown the world.

Literary Fiction

The Woman in the Moonlight by Patricia Morrisroe, Pages: 381, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: A stirring and romantic historical novel about nineteenth-century Vienna and the tragedy and dynamic passion that inspired Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

Vienna, 1800. Countess Julie Guicciardi’s life is about to change forever. The spirited eighteen-year-old is taking piano lessons with Ludwig van Beethoven, the most talented piano virtuoso in the musical capital of Europe. She is captivated by his volatile genius, while he is drawn to her curiosity and disarming candour. Between them, a unique romance. But Beethoven has a secret he’s yet to share, and Julie is harbouring a secret of her own, one so scandalous it could destroy their perfect love story.

When Beethoven discovers the truth, he sets his emotions to music, composing a mournful opus that will become the Moonlight Sonata. The haunting refrain will follow Julie for the rest of her life.

Set against the rich backdrop of nineteenth-century Vienna, The Woman in the Moonlight is an exhilarating ode to eternal passion. An epic tale of love, loss, rivalry, and political intrigue. A stirring portrait of a titan who wrestled with the gods and a woman who defied convention to inspire him.

Children’s Picture Book

Rosie the Dragon and Charlie Say Good Night by Lauren H Kerstein, Illustrator Nate Wragg, Pages: 42, Publication Date: 1 September 2020

Synopsis: Rosie the dragon and Charlie are ready to tackle bedtime—dragon-style!

Rosie the dragon’s bedtime routine has been a little bumpy lately. But not to worry! Charlie is prepared with his lists, rules, and fire extinguisher—everything a boy needs to help guide his pet dragon (and best friend) to a peaceful night’s sleep. But with bath-time bubble trouble, fiery-hot pyjamas, and stuffed animal search-and-rescues, tucking this dragon into bed is not an easy task. And what happens when thunder strikes? Snuggle up with this adorable duo as they conquer bedtime the best way: together!

*** Which book will you choose? I have no idea which book I’ll choose as none of them so far stand out to me! ***

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