August 2020

A few updates around the place

/ Announcements

If you’ve been by here in the last week, you’ll notice a few updates around here. A new page for the books These include more information about each series, and quick links to the books in order. (Here’s the main books page, the Mysterious Charm series page, and the Charms of Albion page.) Let me know if there’s more information you’d find useful here. Content notes I know that there are some things you might not be in the mood to read (right now or ever), and also that some of you might be particularly interested in finding books that focus on certain things or characters. I’ve got a shiny new content notes page that fills in some of this information. (It does include some spoilers, though I’ve tried to avoid them as much as I can.) If there’s something I haven’t covered, or something you’d like more information about, you’re always welcome to write and check with me. Coming soon I’m working on a way to more easily share some additional information with you, like maps and timelines. Keep an eye out here and elsewhere on social media for updates.

Pastiche is out!

/ Announcements, Charms of Albion

I’m delighted to share Pastiche with all of you. Join me for a romp in 1906 (pre-War Edwardian) to explore the history of two people who’ve appeared in the Mysterious Charm series, Lord Richard and Lady Alysoun Edgarton. There’s an arranged marriage (that might turn into a true love match), a bit of smuggling, a curious museum exhibit, and a couple of my favourite secondary characters yet. And if you’ve wondered how magical duelling works in Albion, this is the book for you! Explore Pastiche and get to know Alysoun and Richard a bit better.

Threading characters through books

/ Albion, Mysterious Charm

One of the things I love most about writing about Albion is being able to weave people through different books. Sometimes this is in a big way. All the books in the Mysterious Charm series deal with people who are friends or allies or co-conspirators (as the case may be) with Lord Geoffrey Carillon. But sometimes it’s more subtle. Take Farran Michaels, for example. He first appears (if you read the series by number, which isn’t chronologically in time) in the first chapter of Goblin Fruit as one of the young men apprenticed to the auction house. He turns up later in Magician’s Hoard as a representative of the auction house (he’s now a more senior apprentice). But how did he get there? And what’s with his particular gift for materia and objects? That’s where Seven Sisters comes in. While it’s his uncle who’s the hero of that book, Farran’s present for much of the action. I love being able to tuck those little touches in. Albion is a sizeable community, but it’s not huge. With only a few more academically focused magical schools, people who went to those schools tend to know each other. Others interact in significant but small professional communities. And, as an author, it’s a lot more fun to do a passing mention of a character I’ve already gotten to know in passing, rather than Random Standin#42. Readers new to the series with that book should be able to follow everything, but people who’ve read and

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Magical creatures

/ Albion, Mysterious Charm

As you’ve noticed if you’ve read Outcrossing, there are magical creatures in my books, as well as the ones we all know about. There are, broadly speaking, three categories. Animals we know and love These include your average ordinary wildlife – badgers, hedgehogs, ponies (Well, most of them. There are some magical ones, too.) Birds, snakes, lizards, all sorts of other beasties. A magical variant Sometimes there are magical variants of a given type. For example, the nightjar is an actual bird (with a very unusual sort of sound – you can hear an American cousin clearly starting at about 1:10 on this recording.) This piece in the Guardian about nightjars (and other fauna of the New Forest) delighted me, and describes them as “somewhere between a kestrel and a crocodile in appearance”. Twilight nightjars, however, are magical. They sound like the non-magical variety, and have the same shape. And nightjars do live in the New Forest. But where the non-magical species are usually brown or buff, the Twilight Nightjar is more like the darker varieties of a Victoria Crowned Pigeon, with a good splash of iridescence. Their feathers and eggs are used in various magical potions and workings. Entirely magical And of course, we have varieties of magical creatures who either live in Silence-warded spaces (so, fully magical), or like many creatures in our own world are not often seen. These include wandermists (a cat-sized winged dragon that appears to be largely made out of mist), or the ginsies,

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