Tour_THE UNWILLING by Kelly Braffet

Review: 

5 Stars!

It takes a special gift, I think,  to bring a genre alive to someone who usually doesn't find it exciting. Author Kelly Braffet accomplishes exactly that, in her fascinating debut fantasy THE UNWILLING.  An adorable, richly imagined, lyrically imaged story, THE UNWILLING riveted me from the very beginning and maintained my attention throughout an admittedly long novel. I especially admired her use of multiple strong female characters.

Prologue

On
the third day of the convocation, two of the Slonimi scouts killed a
calf, and the herbalist’s boy wept because he’d watched the calf
being born and grown to love it. His
mother stroked his hair and
promised he would forget by the time the feast came, the following
night. He told her he would never forget. She said, “Just wait.”

He
spent all of the next day playing with the children from the other
caravan; three days before, they’d all been strangers, but Slonimi
children were used to making friends quickly. The group the boy and
his mother traveled with had come across the desert to the south, and
they found the cool air of the rocky plain a relief from the heat.
The others had come from the grassy plains farther west, and were
used to milder weather. While the adults traded news and maps and
equipment, the children ran wild. Only one boy, from the other
caravan, didn’t run or play: a pale boy, with fine features, who
followed by habit a few feet behind one of the older women from the
other caravan. “Derie’s apprentice,” the other children told
him, and shrugged, as if there was nothing more to say. The older
woman was the other group’s best Worker, with dark hair going to
grizzle and gimlet eyes. Every time she appeared the herbalist
suddenly remembered an herb her son needed to help her prepare, or
something in their wagon that needed cleaning. The boy was observant,
and clever, and it didn’t take him long to figure out that his
mother was trying to keep him away from the older woman: she, who had
always demanded he face everything head-on, who had no patience for
what she called squeamishness and megrims.

After
a hard day of play over the rocks and dry, grayish grass, the boy was
starving. A cold wind blew down over the rocky plain from the
never-melting snow that topped the high peaks of the Barriers to the
east; the bonfire was warm. The meat smelled good. The boy had not
forgotten the calf but when his mother brought him meat and roasted
potatoes and soft pan bread on a plate, he did not think of him.
Gerta—the head driver of the boy’s caravan—had spent the last
three days with the other head driver, poring over bloodline records
to figure out who between their two groups might be well matched for
breeding, and as soon as everybody had a plate of food in front of
them they announced the results. The adults and older teenagers
seemed to find this all fascinating. The herbalist’s boy was nine
years old and he didn’t understand the fuss. He knew how it went:
the matched pairs would travel together until a child was on the way,
and then most likely never see each other again. Sometimes they liked
each other, sometimes they didn’t. That, his mother had told him,
was what brandy was for.

The
Slonimi caravans kept to well-defined territories, and any time two
caravans met there was feasting and trading and music and matching,
but this was no ordinary meeting, and both sides knew it. After
everyone had eaten their fill, a few bottles were passed. Someone had
a set of pipes and someone else had a sitar, but after a song or two,
nobody wanted any more music. Gerta—who was older than the other
driver—stood up. She was tall and strong, with ropy, muscular
limbs. “Well,” she said, “let’s see them.”

In
the back, the herbalist slid an arm around her son. He squirmed under
the attention but bore it.



From
opposite sides of the fire, a young man and a young woman were
produced. The young man, Tobin, had been traveling with Gerta’s
people for years. He was smart but not unkind, but the herbalist’s
son thought him aloof. With good reason, maybe; Tobin’s power was
so strong that being near him made the hair on the back of the boy’s
neck stand up. Unlike all the other Workers—who were always
champing at the bit to get a chance to show off—Tobin was secretive
about his skills. He shared a wagon with Tash, Gerta’s best Worker,
even though the two men didn’t seem particularly friendly with each
other. More than once the boy had glimpsed their lantern burning late
into the night, long after the main fire was embers.



The
young woman had come across the plains with the others. The boy had
seen her a few times; she was small, round, and pleasant-enough
looking. She didn’t strike the boy as particularly remarkable. But
when she came forward, the other caravan’s best Worker—the woman
named Derie—came with her. Tash stood up when Tobin did, and when
they all stood in front of Gerta, the caravan driver looked from one
of them to the other. “Tash and Derie,” she said, “you’re
sure?”

“Already
decided, and by smarter heads than yours,” the gimlet-eyed woman
snapped.

Tash,
who wasn’t much of a talker, merely said, “Sure.”

Gerta
looked back at the couple. For couple they were; the boy could see
the strings tied round each wrist, to show they’d already been
matched. “Hard to believe,” she said. “But I know it’s true.
I can feel it down my spine. Quite a legacy you two carry; five
generations’ worth, ever since mad old Martin bound up the power in
the world. Five generations of working and planning and plotting and
hoping; that’s the legacy you two carry.” The corner of her mouth
twitched slightly. “No pressure.”

A
faint ripple of mirth ran through the listeners around the fire.
“Nothing to joke about, Gerta,” Derie said, lofty and hard, and
Gerta nodded.

“I
know it. They just seem so damn young, that’s all.” The driver
sighed and shook her head. “Well, it’s a momentous occasion.
We’ve come here to see the two of you off, and we send with you the
hopes of all the Slonimi, all the Workers of all of our lines, back
to the great John Slonim himself, whose plan this was. His blood runs
in both of you. It’s strong and good and when we put it up against
what’s left of Martin’s, we’re bound to prevail, and the world
will be free.”

“What’ll
we do with ourselves then, Gert?” someone called out from the
darkness, and this time the laughter was a full burst, loud and
relieved.

Gerta
smiled. “Teach the rest of humanity how to use the power, that’s
what we’ll do. Except you, Fausto. You can clean up after the
horses.”

More
laughter. Gerta let it run out, and then turned to the girl.

“Maia,”
she said, serious once more. “I know Derie’s been drilling this
into you since you were knee-high, but once you’re carrying, the
clock is ticking. Got to be inside, at the end.”

“I
know,” Maia said.

Gerta
scanned the crowd. “Caterina? Cat, where are you?”

Next
to the boy, the herbalist cleared her throat. “Here, Gerta.”

Gerta
found her, nodded, and turned back to Maia. “Our Cat’s the best
healer the Slonimi have. Go see her before you set out. If you’ve
caught already, she’ll know. If you haven’t, she’ll know how to
help.”

“It’s
only been three days,” Tobin said, sounding slighted.

“Nothing
against you, Tobe,” Gerta said. “Nature does what it will.
Sometimes it takes a while.”

“Not
this time,” Maia said calmly.

A
murmur ran through the crowd. Derie sat up bolt-straight, her lips
pressed together. “You think so?” Gerta said, matching Maia’s
tone—although nobody was calm, even the boy could feel the sudden
excited tension around the bonfire.

“I
know so,” Maia said, laying a hand on her stomach. “I can feel
her.”

The
tension exploded in a mighty cheer. Instantly, Tobin wiped the sulk
off his face and replaced it with pride. The boy leaned into his
mother and whispered, under the roar, “Isn’t it too soon to
tell?”

“For
most women, far too soon, by a good ten days. For Maia?” Caterina
sounded as if she were talking to herself, as much as to her son. The
boy felt her arm tighten around him. “If she says there’s a baby,
there’s a baby.”

After
that the adults got drunk. Maia and Tobin slipped away early.
Caterina knew a scout from the other group, a man named Sadao, and
watching the two of them dancing together, the boy decided to make
himself scarce. Tash would have an empty bunk, now that Tobin was
gone, and he never brought women home. He’d probably share. If not,
there would be a bed somewhere. There always was.

In
the morning, the boy found Caterina by the fire, only slightly
bleary, and brewing a kettle of strong-smelling tea. Her best
hangover cure, she told her son. He took out his notebook and asked
what was in it. Ginger, she told him, and willowbark, and a few other
things; he wrote them all down carefully. Labeled the page.
Caterina’s Hangover Cure.

Then
he looked up to find the old woman from the bonfire, Derie, listening
with shrewd, narrow eyes. Behind her hovered her apprentice, the pale
boy, who this morning had a bruised cheek. “Charles, go fetch my
satchel,” she said to him, and he scurried away. To Caterina, Derie
said, “Your boy’s conscientious.”

“He
learns quickly,” Caterina said, and maybe she just hadn’t had
enough hangover tea yet, but the boy thought she sounded wary.

“And
fair skinned,” Derie said. “Who’s his father?”

“Jasper
Arasgain.”

Derie
nodded. “Travels with Afia’s caravan, doesn’t he? Solid man.”

Caterina
shrugged. The boy had only met his father a few times. He knew
Caterina found Jasper boring.

“Healer’s
a good trade. Everywhere needs healers.” Derie paused. “A healer
could find his way in anywhere, I’d say. And with that skin—”

The
boy noticed Gerta nearby, listening. Her own skin was black as
obsidian. “Say what you’re thinking, Derie,” the driver said.

“Highfall,”
the old woman said, and immediately, Caterina said, “No.”

“It’d
be a great honor for him, Cat,” Gerta said. The boy thought he
detected a hint of reluctance in Gerta’s voice.

“Has
he done his first Work yet?” Derie said.

Caterina’s
lips pressed together. “Not yet.”

Charles,
the bruised boy, reappeared with Derie’s satchel.

“We’ll
soon change that,” the old woman said, taking the satchel without a
word and rooting through until she found a small leather case. Inside
was a small knife, silver-colored but without the sheen of real
silver.

The
boy noticed his own heartbeat, hard hollow thuds in his chest. He
glanced at his mother. She looked unhappy, her brow furrowed. But she
said nothing.

“Come
here, boy,” Derie said.

He
sneaked another look at his mother, who still said nothing, and went
to stand next to the woman. “Give me your arm,” she said, and he
did. She held his wrist with a hand that was both soft and hard at
the same time. Her eyes were the most terrifying thing he’d ever
seen.

“It’s
polite to ask permission before you do this,” she told him. “Not
always possible, but polite. I need to see what’s in you, so if you
say no, I’ll probably still cut you, but—do I have your
permission?”

Behind
Derie, Gerta nodded. The bruised boy watched curiously.

“Yes,”
the boy said.

“Good,”
Derie said. She made a quick, confident cut in the ball of her thumb,
made an identical cut in his small hand, quickly drew their two
sigils on her skin in the blood, and pressed the cuts together.

The
world unfolded. But unfolded was too neat a word, too tidy. This was
like when he’d gone wading in the western sea and been knocked off
his feet, snatched underwater, tossed in a maelstrom of sand and sun
and green water and foam—but this time it wasn’t merely sand and
sun and water and foam that swirled around him, it was everything.
All of existence, all that had ever been, all that would ever be. His
mother was there, bright and hot as the bonfire the night before—not
her face or her voice but the Caterina of her, her very essence
rendered into flame and warmth.

But
most of what he felt was Derie. Derie, immense and powerful and
fierce: Derie, reaching into him, unfolding him as surely as she’d
unfolded the world. And this was neat and tidy, methodical, almost
cold. She unpacked him like a trunk, explored him like a new village.
She sought out his secret corners and dark places. When he felt her
approval, he thrilled. When he felt her contempt, he trembled. And
everywhere she went she left a trace of herself behind like a scent,
like the chalk marks the Slonimi sometimes left for each other. Her
sigil was hard-edged, multi-cornered. It was everywhere. There was no
part of him where it wasn’t.

Then
it was over, and he was kneeling by the campfire, throwing up.
Caterina was next to him, making soothing noises as she wrapped a
cloth around his hand. He leaned against her, weak and grateful.

“It’s
all right, my love,” she whispered in his ear, and the nervousness
was gone. Now she sounded proud, and sad, and as if she might be
crying. “You did well.”

He
closed his eyes and saw, on the inside of his eyelids, the woman’s
hard, angular sigil, burning like a horse brand.

“Don’t
coddle him,” Derie said, and her voice reached through him, back
into the places inside him where she’d left her mark. Caterina’s
arm dropped away. He forced himself to open his eyes and stand up.
His entire body hurt. Derie was watching him, calculating
but—yes—pleased. “Well, boy,” she said. “You’ll never be
anyone’s best Worker, but you’re malleable, and you’ve got the
right look. There’s enough power in you to be of use, once you’re
taught to use it. You want to learn?”

“Yes,”
he said, without hesitating.

“Good,”
she said. “Then you’re my apprentice now, as much as your
mother’s. You’ll still learn herbs from your mother, so we’ll
join our wagon to your group. But don’t expect the kisses and
cuddles from me you get from her. For me, you’ll work hard and
you’ll learn hard and maybe someday you’ll be worthy of the
knowledge I’ll pass on to you. Say, Yes, Derie.”

“Yes,
Derie,” he said.

“You’ve
got a lot to learn,” she said. “Go with Charles. He’ll show you
where you sleep.”

He
hesitated, looked at his mother, because it hadn’t occurred to him
that he would be leaving her. Suddenly, swiftly, Derie kicked hard at
his leg. He yelped and jumped out of the way. Behind her he saw
Charles—he of the bruised face—wince, unsurprised but not
unsympathetic.

“Don’t
ever make me ask you anything twice,” she said.

“Yes,
Derie,” he said, and ran.





Excerpted
from The
Unwilling
by Kelly Braffet. Copyright ©
2020 by Kelly Braffet. Published by MIRA Books.
























The Unwilling : A Novel 




Kelly Braffet



On Sale Date: February 11, 2020



9780778309406, 0778309401



Hardcover



$27.99 USD, $33.50 CAD



Fiction / Fantasy / Epic



576 pages







About the Book:



For fans
of S.A. Chakraborty's City
of Brass,
Patrick Rothfuss' The
Kingkiller Chronicles,
and George RR Martin’s The
Game of Thrones, this
high concept medieval/high fantasy by Kelly Braffet is a deeply
immersive and penetrating tale of magic, faith and pride.



The
Unwilling
is the story of a young woman, born an orphan with a secret gift, who
grows up trapped, thinking of herself as an afterthought, but who
discovers that she does not have to be given power: she can take it.
An epic tale of greed and ambition, cruelty and love, the novel is
about bowing to traditions and burning them down.



For reasons
that nobody knows or seems willing to discuss, Judah the Foundling
was raised as siblings along with Gavin, the heir of Highfall, in the
great house beyond the wall, the seat of power at the center of Lord
Elban’s great empire. There is a mysterious--one might say
unnatural connection--between the two, and it is both the key to
Judah’s survival until this point, and now her possible undoing.



As Gavin
prepares for his long-arranged marriage to Eleanor of Tiernan, and
his brilliant but sickly younger brother Theron tries to avoid
becoming commander of the army, Judah is left to realize that she has
no actual power or position within the castle, in fact, no hope at
all of ever traveling beyond the wall. Lord Elban--a man as powerful
as he is cruel- has other plans for her, for all of them. She is a
pawn to him and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.



Meanwhile,
outside the wall, in the starving, desperate city, a Magus, a healer
with a secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years is
newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire,
and at the heart of those plans lies Judah. The girl who started off
with no name and no history will be forced to discover there’s more
to her story than she ever imagined.



About the Author:







Kelly Braffet is the author of
the novels Save Yourself, Last Seen Leaving and Josie & Jack. Her
writing has been published in The Fairy Tale Review, Post Road, and
several anthologies. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and received
her MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University. She currently
lives in upstate New York with her husband, the author Owen King. A
lifelong reader of speculative fiction, the idea for The Unwilling
originally came to her in college; twenty years later, it’s her
first fantasy novel. Visit her at kellybraffet.com.







Social Links:



Author website:
https://www.kellybraffet.com/



Facebook: @kellybraffetfiction



Twitter: @KellyBraffet







Buy Links:



Oblong
Books: Signed, personalized preorders! 




Barnes
& Noble



Amazon



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Books



IndieBound

Review: NOLAN'S ARK (ARMAGEDDON TIMES #1) by Mark Gillespie

5 Apocalyptic Stars!

Before you start any book by Mark Gillespie  (of whom I've been a major fan since reading WAXWORLD), turn off your phone,  disconnect the doorbell,  put the TV in the  closet...cause you're not going to surface till that book is over. Oh, and forget sleep!

The world possesses many authors of Dystopiana and  Apocalyptic fiction; but only one Mark Gillespie.  NOLAN'S ARK, first of a new series,  will turn you inside out and upside down,  infuriated, weeping,  grieving, astounded at both the depths and the heights of Humanity...and once you read about Gillespie 's Presidential character: like me, you'll be looking over your shoulder and pondering "What If?" I haven't been this powerfully impacted by Apocalypse since devouring Philip Wylie 's TOMORROW as a  child (and decades later, that novel still terrifies me).

NOLAN'S ARK is the story of a hero and heroes, of humans trying to do right in the face of  hell-on-Earth, but it's also the story of a Narcissist insane in the worst way possible; and it's scared me horrifically. 

Tour_CAST IN WISDOM by Michelle Sagara

REVIEW:

In this 15th installment of the  Chronicles of Elantra, Kaylin, Bellusdeo, and cohort must brave danger (and court bureaucracy) plus cunning intrigue, to discover if Shadow can breach the Towers, and if do, why, how, and how to prevent,  before it's too late and their world too is devoured. 

EXCERPT:

“You are such a coward,” Bellusdeo said when they’d reached the relative safety of the street. The roads in and around Helen were sparsely populated at the busiest of times, which this wasn’t. They would soon join roads that were crowded at the slowest of times, but Kaylin was dressed for the office. The Hawk emblazoned on her tabard encouraged people to make space.

Had Bellusdeo hit the streets in her Draconic form, she’d have cleared far more of it—but some of that space would be created by panic, and panic could cause both accidents and the type of traffic congestion that caused the Swords to investigate. Also, it was illegal.

“It’s not cowardice,” Kaylin replied, scanning the windows of the buildings above ground level.

“What would you call it?”

“Wisdom.”

“Oh, please.”

“There’s no point in arguing with them now. Sedarias thinks it’ll be months before this ridiculous command performance occurs. We have months to attempt to talk her out of—”

“Out of expressing any appreciation or gratitude?”

Ugh. “You know they’re grateful. This isn’t about gratitude. It’s about rubbing that gratitude in the faces of the Barrani who attempted to brand you a—an army. An attacking army.”

“I believe the term you want is Flight.” Bellusdeo’s eyes were orange.

Hope squawked at the Dragon. Kaylin didn’t understand what he was saying. Bellusdeo did, but her eyes didn’t get any lighter.

“You know as well as I do,” Kaylin said, emboldened by Hope’s entry into the discussion, “that this is not the time to visit the High Halls. I’m not sure the Emperor has ever been a guest there.”

“We visited the Halls—more or less—when they came under attack, and the Barrani needed our help.”

“From the outside. No one invited the Dragon Court in.”

The chorus of Barrani voices that sometimes offered entirely unasked for opinions on the inside of her head maintained their silence for half a beat. The first person to break that silence was the fieflord. His words were tinged with amusement.

You cannot expect that the cohort would suddenly cease to cause any difficulty, surely?

I’m almost certain that the cohort understands why inviting a Dragon—any Dragon—to attend the High Halls would be a disaster.

For the Dragons?

For everyone.

I believe some of the more conservative High Lords might be surprisingly supportive of such an invitation.

Of course they would. It would be their best shot at killing Bellusdeo. If Bellusdeo died, there would be no new Dragons. No hatchlings.

There’s no way the Emperor would give her permission to attend.

Nightshade concurred. In his position, I would not. But I would be prepared, should I refuse to grant that permission, for all-out war. My brother has grown inordinately fond of her; living with you has made him reckless.

He’s not—

He has known Bellusdeo for even less time than you. He is willing to trust her in a fashion no one older would. And do not cite the Consort, please.

Kaylin hadn’t intended to. The Consort seems to like her.

Kaylin, the Consort “likes” me. But she does not trust me.

She does.

“Stop making that face, or it will freeze that way.” Kaylin reddened.

I understand that you are attempting to avoid the Emperor’s ire. I consider this wise on your part. It is not, however, the ire of the Emperor that will be your most significant problem; he will do nothing to harm Bellusdeo.

I know that.

It is the ire of the High Lords. Sedarias is, I believe, genuinely grateful for Bellusdeo’s intervention. She does wish to honor her. But gratitude can be expressed privately—and in most cases, it is. Only rulers feel obliged to make that expression public because the public expression elevates those to whom one feels gratitude. It makes clear to witnesses that the aid tendered—in whatever fashion—is important and significant. The Emperor has codified such significance in public ceremonies and public titles, has he not?

Kaylin shrugged.

For Sedarias, however, genuine gratitude is not an impediment to political displays. She can be genuinely grateful and simultaneously, extremely political. She wishes to highlight Bellusdeo’s aid and import to Mellarionne. Why do you think this is?

Kaylin thought about this. After a long pause, she said, She wants to thumb her nose at the rest of the High Lords, many of whom weren’t helpful at all?

Nightshade’s silence was one of encouragement.

Bellusdeo’s a Dragon. So…her presence means that even Dragons—with whom you’ve had a war or two—

Three.

Fine, a war or three, were more helpful, or at least more of a genuine ally, than any of the Barrani.

Yes. I believe that is some part of Sedarias’s intent. That’s not going to help Mellarionne any.

Perhaps, perhaps not. She will do so as An’Mellarionne. It would be considered a very bold move—but there are those who would assume that Sedarias is confident in her own power, and they would hesitate to challenge her.

“If you are speaking about me,” Bellusdeo said, her voice almost a whisper of sound, “I must insist that you include me.”

Hope squawked.

“Well, yes, that could cause some difficulty,” the Dragon replied. “But I dislike Kaylin’s worry. She is mortal.” Squawk. “The marks of the Chosen don’t matter. She’s mortal. I may be a displaced person in these lands; I may no longer have a home or lands of my own. But I am a Dragon.”

“I’m not exactly worried about you,” Kaylin said. When one golden brow rose in response, she added, “Not about you specifically. But—there’s no way for Dragon and High Halls to combine that isn’t political. Explosively political. On your own, you can survive more than any of the rest of the cohort—or me. But you won’t be on your own. The cohort won’t abandon you.”

It was the Dragon’s turn to snort.

Kaylin reconsidered her words and chose better ones. “Most of the cohort wouldn’t abandon you. Annarion wouldn’t. Mandoran wouldn’t. I don’t believe Allaron would either, from what I’ve seen. And you know what the cohort is like. The minute one of them enters combat to save you, they’re all going to rush in. It doesn’t matter if they’re there for your sake or their friends’; they’ll be there. But this is political, and anything political is far above my pay grade.”

“You don’t seem to find this insulting.”

“I consider it one of the biggest advantages of my rank. Which is the lowest rank I could be given and still be called a Hawk.”

“One of? What’s another one?”

“I’m not in command. I don’t need to make decisions that might cost the lives of other Hawks. No matter what happens in an action, large or small, I won’t have their deaths on my hands.”

“But you don’t like being a private.”

“Well, I could be a corporal, and it would still be mostly true. And the pay is higher.”

“It’s not much higher,” a familiar voice said. It was Mandoran’s. Of course it was. Kaylin didn’t miss a step.

“I don’t suggest you try to enter the Halls of Law looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like thin air.”

“Oh. That.” Mandoran caused other people some consternation as he materialized to the side of Kaylin that Bellusdeo wasn’t occupying. To be fair, most of the street didn’t notice; people always had their own problems and their own schedules. “I was going to follow Teela into the office, but Teela’s not heading there directly.”

“So you followed us?”

“Not most of the way, no. I decided to head straight here to wait, but I caught up because you’re doing the Hawk-walk.” He glanced at Bellusdeo. “For what it’s worth, I think insisting on your presence on the inside of the High Halls is suicidal.”

“Oh?” The Dragon’s voice was cool. “For who?”

Mandoran grinned. “Mostly Kaylin.”

Kaylin watched as flecks of gold appeared in Bellusdeo’s eyes. Mandoran had, once again, managed to set Bellusdeo at ease. Kaylin wondered if that was why he’d chosen to speak when he had. He never treated the Dragon with respect; had the Emperor been present for most of their spats, she wasn’t certain Mandoran wouldn’t be a pile of bleeding ash. Well, ash, because ash didn’t bleed, but still.

“You left the rest of the cohort behind?” Kaylin asked.

“We had a vote, and Helen decided it was safest to send me.”

“She was the tie-breaker?”

“Ah, no. She didn’t consider the first choice viable. But— we can all see what I see anyway, so unless there’s an attack, having more than one person here is superfluous. If Teela had been coming directly to the office, someone would have followed Teela.”

“Not you?” Bellusdeo asked.

“I had to live with Tain for a few years. Compressed into a few weeks, I might add. He’s stuffy and remarkably straightforward. Also, he hates fun.”

“He hates mess,” Kaylin said, as they approached the stairs that led into the Halls of Law.

“Define mess. No, wait, don’t. The problem with Tain—at least for me—is that Teela might actually kill us if we’re indirectly responsible for his death. He’s not like the rest of us; we can’t speak to him without shouting, and even if we can, he doesn’t listen half the time. So…it’s a lot less safe to tail Tain.”

“I imagine it’s safer to tail Tain than it is to tail Kaylin if you’re worried about Teela’s reaction,” Bellusdeo said, frowning slightly.

“You need a better imagination.”

Excerpted from Cast In Wisdom by Michelle Sagara, Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Sagara. Published by MIRA Books.

Q&A with Michelle Sagara

Q: Your Chronicles of Elantra series is 15 books deep. How do you keep up with the characters and the plot? What do your notes look like?

A: I have a wiki that is not online, and I attempt to keep it updated as I write. This is not always as easy or tidy as it sounds. The wiki (I use VoodooPad) is easily searchable, but I have to remember to search it, and sometimes I don’t.

I am not a visual person, at all. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I had known my husband for years, and it wasn’t until someone in the store asked what color his eyes were that I realized I didn’t know. Since he’s blond (Finnish on his mother’s side), I assumed that they were blue, and after some thought said, “probably blue”, which caused mild confusion. Had I not known my husband for years? I went home and this time looked and paid attention to what I was seeing: they were blue.

Because eye color had not--obviously--been of great import to me, eye color was the start of my note-keeping. I needed to try to track eye color of characters because I knew I’d forget. And… I still got it wrong between books. T_T.

But… the internals of the characters--what they want, where they’ve come from, the experiences that produced them, I viscerally know. Height? No, not really. Shape? Well, I remember which ones are human, Barrani, Dragon, Tha’alani, etc. Hates? Likes? Yes. Goals as well, if they have them. I remember their place in the hierarchies they occupy, because in some ways, that’s part of their interior makeup.

But sometimes, when in the flow of the words, I… don’t remember to go and check the wiki for the details that, in the moment of writing, aren’t important to me.

My notes, however, and all cross-linked to each other, because of the wiki format.

Q: What kind of research do you do for your books? Is it mandatory (for you) for all your books?

A: It’s very much on a book-by-book basis. At this point in the writing, most of the research is… all the previous books.

I have had books which are more research intensive, but in general I read history in bits and pieces, and file away what I’ve read. It becomes part of the mental soil from which books grow.

So, there are specific books in which I realized, as I was writing, that I didn’t know something that I needed to know, and that stopped the writing dead as I then attempted to find answers to the questions that arose from my own ignorance. I think, as I get older, I realize far more easily when I don’t know something and need to know it.

But I’m what’s generally called a pantser. I don’t have a plan when I start; I usually only have the ending. To know exactly what I don’t know and need to know is therefore not entirely predictable.

...and I admit that once I’ve started building bits and pieces of world, I become increasingly impatient because I just want to dive in and start writing. So sometimes I start, write, and then stop because something a specific character would know, I don’t know. And then I set the book aside and start to look at things.

I think it’s important to know what my characters know, or at least what my viewpoint characters know.

Q: What is it about fantasy that makes you love it above any other genre?

A: This is a harder question to answer, because it’s so specific; it’s entirely Michelle-context. Does that context overlap with other readers? Yes. But not all of it, and not simultaneously.

I’m a product of my culture, my reading culture, and my linguistic limitations; I speak only English, and can only read French with a fifty percent chance of understanding it.

So: books I read and loved when young had fantasy elements, were fantasy. I read a lot of fairy tales. Anything I could get my hands on. Portal fantasy like the Narnia books. Fantasy like McKillip’s Forgotten Beasts of Eld. Fantasy like The Hobbit, and eventually, Lord of the Rings.

I also read a lot of mythology books--at first for kids, and later, translations of plays and sagas that hadn’t been written with children in mind.

I read other books, books without fantasy elements, growing up--but the things that spoke to me most strongly were those. They were the books of my developing reader heart. As I traversed the divide between childhood and not-childhood (does anyone truly ever feel adult on the inside of their own head? I always feel like I’ve gotten better at performing adulthood, but I can’t quite feel it as my base state), I found other fantasy. I also found books like The Left Hand of Darkness.

And all of the reading overlapped with life experiences; everything on the inside of my head, like the soil out of which story grows and evolves.

I loved fantasy as a reader. I loved reading as a reader. When I made the choice to start writing, I wrote what I loved.

Q: If you didn’t write, what would you be doing?

A: I cannot actually answer that question, because I have always written. From about six years of age, on. I didn’t write for other people, and I hid all my writing because I didn’t want to open it up to judgement and criticism.

If you mean, what would I do to make money, I’m not sure. Work, yes--but I’m not sure doing what. I didn’t expect, growing up, that my work would be my life; a job was a necessity, because having a roof over one’s head and food on the table was a necessity. I didn’t therefore pursue a career about which I could be passionate until I started to write for submission.

If I worked for someone else for a living, I would still write, because I always did. Would I write as often or as consistently? Probably not. There were gap months in university in which I didn’t write at all. But I always came back to it because writing words was an act of communication.

How, if I didn’t share them?

Good question. It was an act of communication with myself. It was a way of seeing, more clearly, things I believed or things that moved me, that I had not fully processed or pragmatically understood.

It was also like an exorcism: I put these words down so that they didn’t envelop and overwhelm the rest of my thoughts.

Q: What is the most difficult thing about your writing process?

A: The answer will depend entirely on when the question is asked, sadly.

If, for instance, I’m starting a new book, the answer will be: beginnings. I start a book several times, trying to find the right tone, the right voice. The longest not right attempt at a beginning was thirty-two pages. Most peter out at between four and six.

At the moment, I’m revising, so the answer is: Revision.

Writing, once I have a beginning, is about flow. The story is like a river; I can follow it. I can swim in it. I can drown in it if I don’t remember to come up for air. But the entirety of the book flows from beginning to end. I don’t write out of order. I don’t write to an outline. Part of writing, or the joy of it, is in the discovery. I have an idea of where things are going and how they’ll get there, but the act of writing the book produces a lot - sometimes a LOT - of surprises.

What I know is the end. I understand the world. I don’t know how the characters will reach the end from the beginning, because even when I do know, I’m often wrong.

So, I now have a finished book. I revise it for submission--but I’m aware that I’m too close to it, and that my editor is going to be reading it and pointing out the parts that didn’t work for her.

Here’s the trick to editing: editors read as readers. Their editorial experience gives them the abililty to explain why they had the reader reaction they did. I’m not going to argue about the editor’s reaction to the book. Even if I disagree with it, what am I going to say? No you didn’t react that way? Clearly, they did.

What I can do is examine why the scene didn’t work for the editor. Why it wasn’t compelling enough or believeable enough. If I want to keep that scene in this book, I have work to do.

But. Revision requires--for me--an entirely different frame of mind. It’s more objective; objectivity is required for me to assess structure and structural changes. Subjectivity is required for me - and let me take this moment to stress that all writers have different processes and I’m talking about only mine - to write.

And I can get caught up between the two states, until I can’t tell what’s objective and what’s subjective.

The corollary to that is that the book is a metaphoric river, and it is very difficult to restructure a river. I can’t just cut out one part and move it to another part if the terrain and the riverbed are not substantially the same for the two parts.

Which means I frequently end up having to take a chapter which mostly works and throw the entire thing out and start it again because I can see the seams in the revision if I don’t.

Q: Finally, what do you want readers to leave with after finishing your books?

A: I write books because reading books moved me. A lot. I could get lost in a book, sink into it, follow it, think about it, daydream about it.

Parts of that were intellectual, but the drive to be intellectual about a book I’d read came from a strong emotional response to it. What I want readers to leave with is the emotional response to the story and characters I had, and built, while writing it. I want to open a window into what the book made me feel as the writer.

Writing story is, in some ways, building a vessel that is solid enough to carry the emotional weight of the ending.

CAST IN WISDOM

Author: Michelle Sagara

ISBN: 9780778309383

Publication Date: 01/28/20

Publisher: MIRA Books

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Twitter: @msagara

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Author Bio: Michelle Sagara is an author, book seller, and lover of liter ature based in Toronto. She writes fantasy novels and lives with her husband and her two children, and to her regret has no dogs. Reading is one of her life-long passions, and she is some times paid for her opinions about what she’s read by the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. No matter how many book shelves she buys, there is Never Enough Shelf space. Ever.

Book Summary:

In the aftermath of the events in the High Halls, there are loose ends. One of those loose ends is the fieflord, Candallar. In an attempt to understand his involvement—with the Barrani, with the High Court, and with the much hated Arcanum—Kaylin has been sent to the fiefs.

She has mixed feelings about this. There’s nothing mixed about her feelings when she discovers a very unusual building in the border zone between two fiefs, and far more questions are raised than are answered. Her attempt to get answers leads her back to the Imperial Palace and its resident Dragon librarian, the Arkon.

Things that were lost in the dim past were not, perhaps, destroyed or obliterated—and what remains appears to be in the hands of a fieflord and his allies—allies who would like to destroy Kaylin’s friends, the Emperor, and possibly the Barrani High Court itself. This is bad.

What’s worse: The librarian who hates to leave his library has a very strong interest in the things that might, just might, have been preserved, and—he is leaving his library to do in person research, no matter what Kaylin, the Hawks, or the Emperor think.

He is not the only one. Other people are gathering in the border zone; people who believe knowledge is power. But power is also power, and it might be too late for the Empire’s most dedicated Historian—and Kaylin and her friends, who’ve been tasked with his safety.