The Pact has been a foundational magic of Albion since 1484. After my post about apprenticeship, I had several great questions from people who wanted to know more about specific aspects. This post covers the basics of the Pact. The following post (up on the same day) gets into making the Pact in more detail.
I had a question from a reader recently about how professional training works in Albion. Today’s post is about apprenticing in general, and next week’s will talk about Healers and related professions in more detail.
It’s June again, and that means it’s Pride Month. As you likely know if you’re reading this, most of my books are M/F romances. But more than a few of them have queer or LGBTQIA+ content and characters!
Several include demisexuality (most of my books are also slow burn). A couple have main characters who are asexual and/or aromantic. There’s an F/F romance, a M/M one, and a couple with a MMF polyamorous relationship. And of course the “Enemies to it’s complicated” Best Foot Forward.
I’ve avoided big plot spoilers below. But of course there are some in talking both about people’s identities and orientations, and about which books that’s relevant in. Some additional characters can easily be read as fitting in the following categories. If they do for you, please read them that way!
I’ve a few more ideas coming! This post covers all of that. Plus it ends with a couple of recs of where to find other great queer romances.
Want a handy list of my books that are particularly LGBTQIA+?
Showing books 1-9 of 9
Period: Edwardian
Romance: F/F, Late in life romance, Closed door, Lesbian
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Demisexual, Bisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Late in life romance, Closed door, Demisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Late in life romance, Demisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1930s
Romance: M/M, Late in life romance, Asexual, Bisexual, Polyamorous
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Showing books 1-9 of 9
Or here’s Geoffrey, commenting on the state of his relationships and the people he loves, not always in easy to label ways.
(more…)“As I keep saying, if I am lucky, he will to the end of our days. See, I am already experienced in complicated relationships that no one understands. We’ve muddled along, far better than fine, for going on twenty years now.”
Geoffrey Carillon, Best Foot Forward, chapter 41
It seems a good time for an update on neurodiverse characters in my books (the last one was back in 2021.) April is one of the months celebrating neurodiversity (Autism Acceptance Month), and there was a recent extensive rec post on /r/romancebooks on Reddit for romances with neurodiverse characters.
As I did in 2021, we’re going to go at this by character (alphabetically by first name), since many relevant characters appear in multiple books. My goal with writing has always been to reflect a wide range of experiences of the world like me and many of my friends. And that includes people who don’t always get to be the ones on adventures or getting a happy ever after romance.
There are a number of other characters in my books you might reasonably read as neurodiverse. I’ve mentioned a few at the end of the post that Kiya and I have discussed back and forth, but some of this is in the eye of the beholder. Reader perception is important too!
Just want to explore some books? Here are all the titles that particularly feature a neurodiverse character.
Showing books 1-16 of 16
Period: Edwardian
Romance: F/F, Late in life romance, Closed door, Lesbian
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Demisexual, Bisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Late in life romance, Closed door, Demisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, First relationship, Late in life romance, Demisexual
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: 1920s
Romance: M/F, Established relationship, Closed door
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Period: Second World War
Romance: M/F, M/M/F, Established relationship
Content notes: Click here to reveal
Showing books 1-16 of 16
You can also find more of a number of these characters in various of the extras I’ve written and shared.
Welcome to the first in a series posts focusing on a specific character. We’re starting with Richard Edgarton, who’s appeared in a number of books over his life. He’s married to Alysoun Edgarton, and the father of Gabriel (Gabe) Edgarton and Charlotte Edgarton Wright, as well as grandfather to their children. He’s also been Lord of the land, a Captain in the Guard, and a magistrate for most of his life.
You can find the complete list of books Richard’s appeared in on his page on my authorial wiki, as well as the arc of books that deal with the Edgartons as a family.
Welcome to the Idea to Book post for Old As The Hills. There are quite a few unusual things about this book, and I’m excited to get to talk about them. First and perhaps most importantly, this is a book centred on two people in a longterm and loving marriage. It’s not a new romance. Second, it’s one of my books that writes closest to historical events. And third, it’s in conversation with a whole line of esoteric history. That means writing about that period in a way I haven’t done before.
Old As The Hills takes place in the first year of the Second World War, from November 1939 through August of 1940. It’s immediately followed by Upon A Summer’s Day, which picks up that evening and carries through December 1940.
I got a great question on my Patreon post about what I was planning for 2024 over there, and I wanted to answer it somewhere more visible. (This post also contains the answer to “Will Claudio get his own romance?” and if so, when.)
wiedźma_florentyna asked in the comments whether magic extends life expectancy over what we would expect today (and mentions both Mistress of Birds and Richard still actively working at the age of 73.) And then what that means for some of my oldest characters who are bound to die eventually.
Short version: I don’t want to kill any of these characters I love due to old age, so I’m doing my best to avoid that.
It’s late December, which means it’s also the time when various sites post their reading challenges. If you’re doing one in 2024, here’s a guide to which of my books might fit particular categories. (If you’re doing a challenge not listed here, and other people can join in, send me a link and I’ll add it!) You might also want to check out my post about summer reading challenges from the summer of 2023.
The two challenges I’m pulling from for this post are the Book Riot’s Read Harder 2024 challenge and the 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge. They have some overlapping categories, so I’m going to note which challenge applies, and the books I’ve written that might apply.
It’s time for summer reading challenges where I am. Whatever time of year it is for you, I thought it might be fun to do a round up of some reading challenges. Some of these come from libraries, and some come from other groups. I’m still waiting on my local library’s challenge (out on June 17th), but I’m thinking about how I’d like to nudge my reading a little bit.
(To be honest, a lot of it has been research reading, one way or another, and I would like to mix it up, and also just read more.)
Here are some different challenges to check out. You can also check your local library systems (a lot of libraries put something together for adults, as well as for kids and teens.) If there’s nothing up yet, check back later in June, my local public library isn’t launching theirs until the 17th.
(more…)Welcome to our Idea to Book post for The Fossil Door! I’ve been spending a lot more time with Gabe and Rathna recently, thanks to writing Old As The Hills and Upon A Summer’s Day (coming out in May and June 2023), and getting to spend time with both of them at two different points in their lives has been fantastic.
The Fossil Door has so much that I love – an amazing location, portal magic, and of course the way Gabe and Rathna get to know and trust each other.
