Good To Begin Well, Better To End Well: Eve

Showing posts with label Eve. Show all posts

Monday, October 30, 2023

Braving Fate: A Fate of the Gods Novella and a COST OF LIVING/Patreon update!

Yes, yes I did write another Fate of the Gods novella, and it's releasing as a serial on Patreon beginning THIS WEEK!

Would you like a cover?

Have a cover!

BRAVING FATE takes place during the contemporary timeline of FORGED BY FATE--in fact, it's the events of that portion of the book from Thor's perspective!

Thor is Oathbound to protect the House of Lions as well as to keep Adam and Eve apart. When Adam finds the House of Lions at the very same moment Eve has returned to them, engaged to be married to its heir, Garrit DeLeon, Thor has no choice but to involve himself far more closely in her life than he'd prefer--as much as he loves her and desires her happiness, he never wished to endure a front-row seat to her marriage to another man. Particularly when he finds the man in question so unworthy of her.

Unlike WIELDING FATE, this novella is not nearly as spoileriffic for the entire rest of the series, and it's complete as is, so eventually I'll be releasing it wide--but it's been pushed back to 2025 at the earliest because, if you did not read my newsletter and already learn the news:

I'm taking a SABBATICAL from PUBLISHING!

This is not a sabbatical from writing. I'm just not going to be doing production and publishing work. I hate it and I am tired and I have 40+ individual titles in my backlist across three pen names now, and I just want to opt out of the content mill grind for a little bit, so I'm going to take some time to enjoy writing just for myself, rather than inside this "content creator" ecosystem we've built.

Which is all to say that everything that is currently Patreon Exclusive will be REMAINING Patreon exclusive that much longer! So if you want to read it, that's where you'll find it!

THIS INCLUDES:

WIELDING FATE: Part One, A Fate of the Gods Novella (The beginning of Ra and Athena's book which was staying Patreon Exclusive for the foreseeable future anyway.)
KING OF THE LAPITHS: A Helen of Sparta Side Story (Pirithous and Polypoetes's short story which takes place during the events of Helen of Sparta--I never made up my mind about releasing this wide but that can is getting kicked way down the road now!)
BRAVING FATE: A Fate of the Gods Novella (which will wrap up in December as a serial for $1 and $2 patrons. Patrons at the $5 level will get a downloadable epub of the full novella mid-November!)
OF GODS AND JOTUNS: A Collection of Short Stories (the paperback is available wide, but the ebook collection is Patron only, and I intend for it to stay that way, for everyone at the $5 and up level!)
COST OF LIVING (my Ur-Novel, which is getting an extremely limited special edition physical release but otherwise will remain Patreon exclusive--but the serialized edition is coming down at the end of the year, and will be replaced by a downloadable epub edition of the full novel, available only to patrons at the $5 level or above. This epub will REMAIN patreon exclusive basically forever!)

THERE ARE EIGHT SIGNED AND NUMBERED LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVERS OF COST OF LIVING UP FOR GRABS FOR ANYONE WHO PATRONS UP AT THE $25 TIER EITHER IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER OR NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER! See this patreon post for more info!

Phew, okay. That's a lot of information. And let me drop a quick reminder that you can listen to the whole of A BROKEN HORSE, my Trojan War retelling PODCAST on Patreon right now, too!

So there are plenty of reasons to Patron Up before the year ends! GO FORTH, FRIENDS!

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Amalia Dillin/Theresa on Goodreads

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Amalia Carosella on Goodreads

Amazon | Bookshop

Thursday, October 10, 2019

A Note about the "Present Day" Timeline of Fate of the Gods

It occurred to me while writing Concealing Fate (Pre-Order Now!) that I probably needed to clarify the when of Eve and Garrit's courtship a little bit more precisely. Things have changed so much, so quickly--the way we meet one another, the means by which we communicate. Even five or ten years makes a huuuuuuuuge difference to a story set in the now. And the now of when I wrote something and the now that is NOW, when it is released into the world are--well. Always going to be different. A lag of between a few months and several years, at least.

Goodreads | Kindle Pre-Order!

I started writing Forged by Fate in MY present day of 2002/2003. Garrit and Eve would have been a handful of years older than me, then, because they'd both graduated from college and were living their Adult/New Adult lives. That was when I STARTED it. But when I FINISHED it, finally figuring out how all the pieces should fit together into a whole novel, and then a whole trilogy, it was 2009.

There is a lot of difference between those two sets of years, technologically, socially, maybe even culturally. The biggest one being that I'd caught up to Eve and Garrit, age-wise. And since they were my contemporaries then, I just went with it, and kept the book in what was ostensibly a present-day setting--contemporary to me.

Of course Forged by Fate didn't release until 2013, several MORE years after that. I fudged some of it with Eve being, by nature, more of a traditionalist. When you've lived however many thousands of years, adapting to technological change probably gets a little exhausting--and both she and Adam show a preference for the physical over the ethereal of the digital in a way that's not so different from the gods who cling to the trappings of the times and periods when their power was at its height. (But now I digress.)

Fast forward to the year 2019, and I'm writing Concealing Fate, a prequel to the "Present-Day" timeline of Forged by Fate, which probably actually begins in 2009, four years prior to its publication. This is the story of Garrit and Eve in college together--at University, in Paris--and, if Forged by Fate starts somewhere around 2009, that means Concealing Fate begins at least two years earlier, in 2006/2007 or so.

More than a decade ago.

I don't know about you, but by that time in my life I'd gotten a cell phone finally, but only just, and after fighting with my parents about the need for one--to put behind me the endless gifts (and purchases) of phone cards for long-distance calls to avoid having to worry about paying for long-distance service in my dorm room (I can't tell you how many times I would call one of my siblings and after they answered, we'd hang up, and they'd call me back on THEIR long-distance service to save me the minutes) and then to avoid having to have a landline in the apartment I shared with my roommate, who had embraced the cell phone life years prior. I was late to that game, and Eve is slightly later, still--too poor in Paris to afford a cell phone even if she'd wanted one.

(Remember when we paid for long-distance calls by the minute? Now it's all bundled into your service unless you go out of your way to refuse it, even on a landline.)

There's no texting in Concealing Fate. No Facebooking--though there could have been, I suppose, since Facebook opened to anyone in late 2006 (it isn't clear that French Universities were included before then from my research), but if you're Garrit DeLeon, you probably went out of your way to NOT be on it, regardless, and Eve being Eve... I think it's fair to say she probably wasn't an early adopter.

In Concealing Fate, the question of identity--and revealing one's self to a romantic partner--is pretty central to the story. Could Garrit have attempted to Google Eve as Abby Watson in 2006? Looked her up in some student directory? Sure. And probably he did, giving into temptation at some point--off-page.

If the events of Concealing Fate had happened TODAY, it wouldn't even be a question. The history of their lives would have been all over the internet to be found by one another. They'd both have cell phones, almost certainly, and texting would probably be a foundational pillar of their communication and engagement with one another--or at least Garrit would make the attempt even if Eve wasn't entirely all in on responding. They'd be connecting on Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook. And that's the difference more than ten years makes. The reason why I needed to write this post to clarify--

In Concealing Fate, the "Present Day" isn't now.

It hasn't been for a long time.

Amazon | Barnes&Noble

Amazon | Barnes&Noble

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

Concealing Fate Cover Reveal

It's Here, It's Here!!!! CONCEALING FATE's Cover!!!!! I have been DESPERATE to show this one off for MONTHS and MONTHS and I'm so excited!!!!

I also have a Kindle Pre-Order link for you AND a Goodreads link! It releases NOVEMBER 7th! WITH a Paperback Edition, too, because it is NEARLY 45,000 words long!!! I refuse to apologize!

Please do Klikk Klikk and/or pass the word along, and give Concealing Fate some love!

As I may have mentioned before, Concealing Fate begins about two years before the events of the "Present" timeline of Forged by Fate--and next week-ish, I'll have a little bit more to say about the present timeline itself, so tune back into the blog for that!

Here's the back cover copy:

The only peace Eve found in her last life was the time she spent with her family, her House of Lions, so it's no wonder that in the modern world she'd choose to return to France, eager to live her new life honestly among the only people she can trust.

Until she meets Garrit, a man she has no business falling in love with, and finds herself building a relationship on a foundation of secrets and lies.

Because of all the men in the world she might meet, Garrit is the only one who knows the truth of her Creation, of her entire history from the dawn of time--but heir to the House of Lions or not, he absolutely refuses to believe in it.

Even when the proof is standing right in front of him.

AND THE COVER!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!!

Kindle Pre-Order | Goodreads

Cover designed by me!
(Which maybe accounts for my enthusiasm.)

Amazon | Barnes&Noble

Sunday, September 22, 2019

A Taste of Concealing Fate

(Cross-posted from Facebook)

We're not that far out from Enduring Fate's release, I know, but I'm editing Concealing Fate (available for pre-order!) right now, my next Fate of the Gods Novel(la) and just falling completely in love all over again with Garrit and Eve.

Patreon Patrons have already gotten a sneak peek of this one, which tells the story of how Garrit and Eve met BEFORE the events of Forged by Fate, but it's time to give you all a taste, too, I think! So how about a #WiPpet?

The wine arrived, and her breath caught at the lion’s head on the label. She barely held herself back from tearing it from the waiter’s hands, forcing herself to wait until he had poured them each a glass and Garrit had placed their order. Until they were alone again, and she reached out, only allowing herself to trace her fingers over the golden embossing. The mark of the House of Lions.

“You’re familiar with the label?” Garrit asked, pleased again—just as he had been when she’d approved of his wine choice at the café, before. She could well imagine that her taste in wine might influence his opinion of her, all things considered.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, deflecting. She would have to lie, otherwise, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “A lion’s head on a cross.”

“It was meant to look like one, certainly,” he said. “But the story goes that the DeLeons were pagans of a sort, disinterested in the Christian faith that had spread. But of course, after France became Catholic and their lands annexed, they could not defy the Church so openly without courting trouble, and their hammers, placed four together, formed crosses instead.”

She laughed, not only at the cleverness of the design, but at the absurdity of the conversation. That she might be sitting across from a man who thought he knew more about her family than she did. Perhaps he did know more—of how they were seen by their neighbors, at least, if nothing else. “I almost forgot you’re from that same part of France.”

“Quite near,” he agreed.

“Do you know the family?” she asked, unable to help herself. “One vintner to another?”

He made a soft sound, not quite an agreement or a denial, and raised his glass instead. “À ta santé.”

“À la tienne,” she replied, lifting her own glass and meeting his eyes.

He grinned, taking a drink, and she had no choice at all but to do the same, or risk offending him. The wine—her eyes fell closed, the familiarity, the complexity of flavors and aromas just as she remembered. How much of this wine had she drunk in her last life? How much five hundred years before? She would never lose the taste of it, never fail to recognize its character. No matter how it changed, season to season, good year or bad, she knew these grapes. Had brushed her fingers along every vine.

“I knew you’d like it,” he said quietly, and not without a certain amount of pride. “You have a taste, I think, for good wine, for all you cannot have had much of it before coming to France.”

She snorted at that, opening her eyes. He was watching her with naked delight, as if he’d shared some portion of her pleasure in the tasting just by seeing it on her face. “Because there’s no such thing as good wine in London?”

He lifted a shoulder, dismissive. “It isn’t the same, drinking it abroad. Some wines travel well across the channel, but the DeLeon wines are best enjoyed here, in France.”

“Are you sure that isn’t just clever marketing?” she asked, laughing. “In my experience, there are very few wines that don’t travel perfectly well, regardless of where they’re made and with what grapes.”

“Ah, but you do not have access to their best pressing,” he said, smiling now with just a hint of teasing condescension. “Those wines do not leave the country, bought up too quickly by our own countrymen—which of course drives up demand for the lesser table wines that do. Clever marketing and truth, both, for the finest DeLeon wines do not travel across the channel at all.”