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Of Fury and Fangs Excerpt #3

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : September 24, 2020

Tags:blog post, blog tour, bruce calloway, dragon hunting, dragons, excerpt, Kamala Anjali, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs, Rhett Jackson, virtual blog tour

We have just one month to go before the fourth novel in the Of Cinder and Bone series, Of Fury and Fangs, hits bookshelves! Here’s the final excerpt. As always, spoilers ahead.

–

Several pounding knocks on the door to her suite awoke Dr. Kamala Anjali from slumber.

The 5’4” scientist groaned into her pillow, but lurched from her bed and shuffled across the carpet to open the door. When she did, she was met with an attractive black man in his thirties. He had a goatee and wore a gun-metal grey Kevlar suit with a helmet tucked under one arm, and he was beaming down at her with excitement.

“We’ve got a live one, doc,” Bruce Calloway told her. “Get dressed.”

Kamala sighed. “Now? I only finished my last analysis four hours ago, Calloway. I’ve just barely gotten any sleep.”

“Oh, I know how to put the pep back in your step.” He leaned in slightly. “It’s a mimic dragon.”

Kamala’s honey-brown eyes widened. “What?”

“Yep. Someone called it in about fifteen minutes ago and dispatch sent word just now.”

“Have any of the hunters caught word of it yet?”

“No. We’re first on the case.”

“I’ll be ready in five,” she promised, and then shut the door. She scurried over to her closet and ripped off her boyfriend’s oversized MIT t-shirt and shimmied out of her shorts in favor of grabbing an armored suit nearly identical to the one Calloway wore. However, hers was much smaller and tailored to fit her curvy frame. She zipped it up and checked that the pouches on her utility belt were all snapped shut before slipping her phone into one, snatching up her helmet, and rushing out the door.

“Where?” she asked Calloway as they hurried down the hallway of the barracks towards the hangar.

“Farm on the city outskirts,” he said, punching in some coordinates in the digital interface built into the forearm of his suit. Kamala’s suit beeped and then she brought up the information he’d transmitted. “Guy went to go check on his herd when he heard an uproar and found the mimic dragon inside munching on a calf. Scared him half to death, so he called it in and holed himself up in the house with a shotgun just in case.”

“Good man,” she said. “I’m glad some of the civilians aren’t trying to go after them on their own. I can’t believe it’s a mimic dragon. They’ve never been seen in North America before.”

“Exactly,” Calloway said as he hit the button for the elevator. “Civvie said that he didn’t want to open fire and cause a stampede, and that after he calmed the cattle, he couldn’t find it again.”

“Incredible,” Kamala said. “Aren’t they the size of a large dog?”

“Or bigger, from what the history books say,” he agreed. “So the chameleon thing must be real. But it begs the question where those clowns even found the DNA to replicate it. Like the arctic dragons, mimics are incredibly rare with less than a hundred ever sighted in the wild before the worldwide extinction.”

“If we get one thing right in this endless mission, I hope we find out just how the Apophis Society is gaining access to those DNA samples,” Kamala growled, watching the numbers on the elevator click up to the launch pad level. “They are insanely well connected. We’ve been keeping tabs on nearly every source of dragon DNA on the planet and yet we’re always one step behind. Did you hear the rumor that some remains of an intact diablo dragon went mysteriously missing?”

“Yeah,” Calloway sighed. “Them’s the breaks. Especially when your evil global organization has access to pretty much all the money you’d ever need to fund your illegal cloning operation. I just pray they haven’t had a successful trial. The diablo dragon’s the second deadliest species on Earth and we’ve already got out work cut out for us.”

The elevators opened onto the roof of an enormous hangar. It was the wee hours, so there was only one helicopter on a designated pad with its console lit up. Spotlights bounced off its polished steel and illuminated the white emblem on the side that depicted a heater shield with the initials K.D. upon it.

Calloway and Kamala climbed inside to find the pilot waiting. He was tall, olive-skinned, and mid-thirties with a thick beard and a winsome smile he aimed at his teammates as they boarded.

Calloway gave him a grin and a fist-bump. “Yousef, my man. Who did they drag you out from under to come fly us out?”

The pilot laughed. “Shit, they offered me time-and-a-half so I told her I’d buy her breakfast when I got back.”

Calloway shook his head. “Incorrigible. Got your coordinates already?”

“Hell yeah. Let’s kick the tires and light the fires, kiddies.”

Calloway and Kamala strapped in while Yousef did the pre-flight check and made sure their gear had already been loaded as well, and then the helicopter took off into the night sky.

“When’s the last time you checked the feed for any hunters in the area?” Kamala asked over the roar of the helicopter rotors.

“About fifteen minutes ago,” Calloway said. “It’s quiet so far, but we both know that doesn’t mean shit since any pissant can give it a go these days.”

“Tell me about it. I will never understand why they endanger themselves for money and the pretense of fame.”

“That’s because you’re a grownup, doc,” Calloway snorted. “Most of these ‘hunters’ are kids. Either adrenaline junkies or rich little Youtubers trying to increase their follower count. Until we get the legislation in place, it’s a damned free-for-all.”

“As if our job isn’t hard enough. You’d think the death toll would dissuade them by now.”

Calloway shrugged a shoulder. “Get rich or die trying. Emphasis on the die part.”

Kamala shook her head. “Every morning, I pray that this world returns to some form of sanity before my daughter is old enough to have to participate in society.”

Calloway gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Who are you kidding, doc? The world was never sane to begin with.”

She gave him a regretful smile in return. “Touché.”

The ride wasn’t terribly long–just under fifteen minutes, and mid-April meant a cool night in the Midwest. They came up on a mid-sized farm with plenty of open acres, its grass and forests already green from the beginning of spring. Yousef found a flat stretch in the field to touch down and they climbed out. Calloway strapped a net launcher across his back and Kamala activated her dragon tracker as they approached the barn.

“Shit,” she muttered as she examined the interface. “The interference with the cattle is pretty bad. It’s throwing off the readings. Plus, they’re almost in a frenzy. We’ve got to get it out of there before they all go berserk.”

“Roger that,” Calloway said as he tugged his helmet on and slid the launcher around to his hands. “What are you thinking?”

“Strobe lights,” she said. “The noise of the cattle is too loud to try an audible distraction, but it’s probably dark in there and it’ll be attracted to light. I’ll be the bait. Just be ready.”

“Yes ma’am.” He offered his fist. She bumped it and then took a deep breath before continuing forward on her own.

The farmer had left the barn’s side door unlocked for them, so Kamala carefully pushed it open to reveal the large space with its dirt floors and iron bars where the cows were corralled daily to be kept at night. By now, she’d gotten used to the stench of the livestock; after all, the smell pervaded the air for miles and she’d gotten a whiff as soon as they left the helicopter.

The cows shifted and mooed in protest with nervous energy, their eyes glowing from the few spotlights in the ceiling. It was almost completely dark inside and the constant shifting of the frightened cattle made it difficult to concentrate, but she managed as she shut the door behind her.

The iron bars that held the animals were securely posted in the ground, but she knew if all the animals panicked at once, they could trample them or bend them out of shape. She walked forward slowly with a small, military-grade flashlight in one hand and her tranquilizer gun in the other. She had hoped the cattle had grouped together in one spot to avoid the predator, but they were scattered throughout the enclosure and seemed just as confused as she was of its whereabouts. The stench of gore and spilled guts reached her and she glanced to her right to see the corpse of the calf the dragon had already devoured. Most of its internal organs were gone, leaving a pool of blood and torn fur behind. She suppressed a shudder and slid into the pen to examine the area.

She checked the claw marks in the dirt and glanced up to see that one of the skylights had been shattered. The dragon had dropped down from above much like an eagle scooping up prey and had killed the calf on the spot. The cattle had run to the other side of the pen to avoid being mauled as well, and currently were bumping into each other to stay away from the fresh kill. She spotted a trail of blood leading away from the corpse and squinted at the cattle. A few of them had scratch marks on their pelts. The dragon had likely gotten spooked by them, or by the farmer when he entered the barn to check on the noise, and would have attacked in self-defense.

Kamala lifted her flashlight to the walls of the barn, going slowly, and checking it against the dragon tracker built into her suit. She didn’t see anything on the ceiling or on the walls. There was a chance it had left the barn again, but her gut told her otherwise. She continued towards the cattle and checked among them for anything unusual, but she didn’t spot the dragon trying to hide among their ranks. With a frustrated sigh, she turned to head back to the door.

Then, her tracker beeped.

There, not three feet from the shredded calf, lay what she had thought was a pile of hay and dirt. The heads-up display in her helmet switched to a different field of vision to reveal that it had been the mimic dragon in camouflage the entire time.

Kamala froze and swallowed hard. “Maa ki aankh.”

And just as she recognized it, the dragon opened one grey eye and stared directly at her.

“Calloway,” she whispered. “I’ve spotted it.”

“Atta girl,” he said over the comm-link. “Are you coming out of the side door or do you think it’s going to make a break for it out of the skylight?”

“Not sure,” she replied. “No scarring. Based on its lack of aggression, it may never have interacted with anyone since it was cloned. We know there are different sites out there, not just the ones planted by the yakuza and the Apophis Society. Did the farmer say it tried to attack him?”

“No. It gave him a warning, but he’s not hurt at all.”

“Then there is a good chance that it will simply be attracted to the light instead of attacking. I’ll try and get it to come out of the side door.”

“Ten-four, doc.”

Kamala muttered a quick protection prayer before she switched the flashlight from a constant beam to a strobe setting.

The mimic dragon opened both eyes, and its scales changed from the dark brown and light-yellow imitating the dirt and hay to a light green with mottled dark green patterns along its back and down its tail. It was roughly the size of a North American wolf, just as she’d suspected; big enough to be dangerous, but not impossible to catch if one had the know-how. The dragon unfurled from a ball and shook out its wings, staring intently at the flashing light. Calf blood dripped from its fangs and dribbled down its mandible as it walked towards Kamala, its nostrils flaring as it took in her scent.

Behind them, the cattle mooed loudly in fright, and the walls of the barn shook as they tried to pack themselves against the far side. Kamala eased out of the pen and took slow steps backwards. The dragon followed her as if hypnotized. “We’re coming out now, Calloway.”

She pushed the door open with her heel and walked through it backwards, her gaze never leaving the creature as it trailed after her. She needed just a few more feet to give Calloway a clear shot and then they’d be home-free.

Just then, a strange buzzing noise sounded overhead.

Frowning, Kamala glanced up to see a drone appear from over top of the barn. “What the hell?”

Before she could move an inch, the drone shot a blast of glow-in-the-dark ink at the mimic dragon. The reptile snarled and shook out its wings, then leapt into the air after it. The drone flitted away into the night sky like a bat out of hell.

“Shit!” Kamala snarled. “Someone else is out here.”

Calloway swore. “It’s probably leading the dragon to whoever owns that damn droid. Come on!”

They booked it through the field after the fleeing drone and the angry dragon, heading towards a line of trees near the border of the property. Kamala pulled a silver whistle from her utility belt and slid up the visor of her helmet, bringing it to her lips. She blew hard.

The mimic dragon swerved mid-flight and circled around, flying towards them instead with a roar of annoyance.

Calloway skidded to a halt and planted his feet, aiming.

“Down in three…two…one!”

He shot the net launcher. The diamond-wire net deployed, but the dragon spun nimbly out of its path and ploughed right into him at top speed. Calloway and the dragon tumbled backwards in the tall weeds in a heap. The dragon dragged the launcher from his grip and slung it several feet away from him. It turned to one side as Calloway sprang to his feet and cracked its tail at his midsection. Calloway brought up a forearm and blocked the blow before grabbing the dragon’s appendage and latching on. The creature wriggled and snapped its head around towards him, much like a captured gator, but he turned counterclockwise out of the path of its jaws.

Snarling, the reptile’s throat bulged and then it spat a fat glob of venom at his head.

“Shit!” Calloway ducked just in time and heard the weeds behind him sizzling as the acidic substance ate straight through them. “Aren’t you just a charmer?”

“Hang on!” Kamala called as she hurried over, but as she did, the drone zipped past her, missing her by mere inches. Bright flashes lit up the clearing as the drone’s camera snapped photos of the beast. The dragon thrashed angrily and lobbed a mouthful of venom at the drone instead, but it veered to one side and kept taking pictures.

The dragon snapped at Kamala’s heels as she scampered past it and dive-rolled in the tall grass. She snatched up the net launcher when she came up on one knee and shouted, “Calloway, down!”

The other dragon hunter released the dragon’s tail and jumped back just in time. A second net shot out and engulfed the dragon. It yelped and fell in a tangled bundle to the grass.

“It’s alright,” Kamala said soothingly, rolling it onto its belly. “Easy, easy, now.”

She retrieved her tranquilizer gun and measured the dosage carefully before injecting the dragon in a soft spot beneath its jaw. The creature’s wriggling slowed, and then stopped altogether. She checked its pulse and sighed in relief that it was stable.

Then she stood, reached for her flare gun, and shot the hovering drone right out of the sky.

It exploded in a shower of sparks and fell to the ground in a mass of broken metal and glass. She stalked over to it and dug out the camera attached, which still had a little red light indicating that it was recording.

“Whoever this is,” Kamala said, seething. “Do not ever try this again. You are not a dragon hunter. You are a reckless, ridiculous child seeking attention and you nearly endangered my life, my colleague’s life, and the life of this dragon. Cease this madness immediately or we will come after you with the full force of the Knight Division and the U.S. government.”

With that, she threw the camera to the ground and stomped it to cut the feed.

“Well,” Calloway said mildly. “That’s one way to make an impression.”

“I tire of these fools,” Kamala growled as she swept off her helmet and dusted the dirt away. “How many more innocents will die while they play these games?”

“I’m sure a few centuries ago, some folks just like us were asking the same questions,” he said solemnly as he signaled Yousef to fly over to them. “Ain’t nothin’ new under the sun, Kam.”

He nudged her shoulder with his own as he removed his helmet and gave her a reassuring smile. “But we’re still making a difference one dragon at a time.”

“We are, but will it ever be enough to change the tide?”

“Guess we’ll find out together. Good work, doc.”

She smiled back at him. “Good work, Calloway.”

Just then, her cell phone buzzed from inside one of the belt’s pouches. Confused, she withdrew it to find her boyfriend calling. Strange, she thought. It was nearly two a.m. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Jack? Honey, what are you doing up so late?”

She heard him exhale shakily into the phone. “I know, baby. There’s…there’s been an accident at the house.”

Kamala’s blood turned to ice in her veins. “Oh God, Jack, are you okay? Is it Naila?”

“She’s fine. We’re both fine, but…I need you to come home. It’s a mess. Everything’s a fucking mess and I need you here.”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can. I swear it.”

“Thanks, angel,” he sighed. “Call me when you land.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you more.”

–

Pre-order Of Fury and Fangs for only 99 cents on Amazon! The price will go up on October 25th, 2020. Don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads To Be Read shelf. Read Excerpt #1 and Excerpt #2. Join me on Facebook for a live reading on release day October 24th. Stay tuned on the She Who Writes Monsters for our blog tour, which kicks off today.

Hindsight is 20/20: My Seventh Year in Self-Publishing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 21, 2020

Category: Inspiration

Tags:2020, blog post, hindsight is 2020, kyoko m, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs, publishing, self publishing, seventh year, year in review

“What’s it like being a self-published author?”

So. 2020, amirite?

The most that I can say is at least we’re still here. I know that these annual posts recap 2019 through the current date, but woof. It’s hard to for me not to talk about the first half of 2020 while discussing the time between now and my sixth year post. And hell, we thought 2019 sucked. We had no idea, did we?

Sadly, thanks to the pandemic, I don’t have a cute pic of me hugging any celebrities. 2019, as mentioned above, was an unkind year to me, same as most people. I did manage to catch up with Charlie Cox and get my Playbill to Harold Pinter’s Betrayal on Broadway signed, but Mr. Hiddleston stood me up this time around and that is a summary of 2019 and 2020 in a nutshell: me, standing outside in the freezing cold, staring at a door that won’t open, my dreams held within it. Melodramatic, but true.

Well, you’re not here for my open wounds, you’re here for what semblance of advice that I can give you, so let’s get to it, shall we? Here’s what I’ve learned in my seventh year of being published.

Expect the unexpected. I know it’s impossible, but there is a lesson to be learned here for 2020 throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink. You can’t prepare for everything, but you can learn how to adapt to an unprecedented situation. No one thought we’d end up where we are now, but in spite of that, those of us who have survived are still here and doing our best to stay afloat. No one ever wants to find out what they’re made of in a worldwide plague scenario, but it’s here and so we’ve all had to tighten our belts, toughen up, and support each other as best as we can.

This sentiment is to remind yourself to appreciate what’s in front of you, for you have no idea what’s coming. All you can do is try to build a foundation that will remain standing when the world winds up a brick and hurls it at you. You have to keep an open mind and be ready for change. Sometimes it’s voluntary change and other times it isn’t. Identify the best way to proceed and set a new course. It’s alright to mourn the things you lost along the way, but nothing kills you faster than refusing to let go. Trust me, I know that from personal experience.

Try to work by your own standards. This past year, someone started a hashtag on Twitter that was about how much published authors make and it was extremely eye-opening for many people, both those in the industry and those outside of it. Truth be told, the publishing world does not like to accurately portray itself to the rest of the world. That hashtag revealed that a lot of us are just tiny fish in the pond, desperately searching for breadcrumbs. There are far more of us who grind out books and cannot support ourselves on writing full time than the reverse, but that’s not what the publishing world wants you to think. They want the world to see us as Stephen King’s, thinking we make money hand over fist.

It’s tough to find the motivation to spend hours writing if your sales suck. That’s the hard truth of the matter. Many of us are busting our asses to make good fiction and still see little to no results. The other truth of the matter is that we’re holding ourselves to an unfair standard. We see these big names raking in the dough and try to match their sales when it’s not realistic. Sure, it would be wonderful if everyone sold millions of copies and secured movie deals with creative control, but it’s not going to happen for a majority of the writing world, both traditional and independent/self-published. That’s the cold, hard facts.

So now what do we do?

Find your spot and plant your feet.

It’s okay if you’re not making thousands of dollars a month off of your fiction. It’s wonderful if you are, but the numbers say that most of us aren’t that fortunate. Instead, focus on what you ARE able to accomplish instead. Break your goals down into something more achievable and take it a day at a time. Often what prevents us from writing or being productive is that impossible standard hovering over our heads and you have to kick it to the curb. Find goals that satisfy you and do your best to meet them as often as possible. At the end of the day, your opinion of yourself and your work is the most important, not that of everyone else’s. They aren’t in your situation, so it’s fruitless to wring your hands trying to emulate them.

Change is scary, but sometimes unavoidable. Some of you may already know, but I originally finished the first draft of my upcoming fourth novel in the Of Cinder and Bone series, Of Fury and Fangs, in early 2020.

And I hated it.

Really. I’ve never hated anything I’ve written before. It was a strange feeling for me to pick it up and slam it back down, sure that it was the worst trash to disgrace the face of the Earth.

I took some time off. I worked on my mental health and managed to get a handle on the fear and anxiety, and then consulted my writing sensei with my problem. He was thankfully able to help me reaffirm what was wrong with the book and helped me develop a strategy to fix it.

And again, that had never happened to me before.

Sure, I’ve hit walls. I’ve had long periods of not writing. But I’ve never written what I felt was a bad story, or rather, written a good story incorrectly. This time, oh yeah, I totally did. I think that the stress of the 2019 to 2020 period had gotten to me and so I was pushing myself to write when I didn’t quite have everything together. I was pushing the wrong angle, so I had to regroup and understand what was needed to fix it. At the time of this post, the revisions for the second draft are roughly half done and the book’s pre-order is live, so I’ll have everything ready by the release date.

Still, this was one of the first times I had to admit my own failure and take things back to the drawing board. It’s also a byproduct of this series being so different from The Black Parade series, which for the most part was planned from A to Z. I knew the plots, but all the things in between were genuine surprises. Of Cinder and Bone was much more off the cuff for me. The stories generate themselves out of thin air rather than being so carefully planned. It may be why I was off the mark in the original draft, but thankfully, I wasn’t so off that I had to destroy most of the book; just retool it and save some of the content for later.

What did end up taking me so long was my own stubborn refusal to admit the first draft sucked. Or, rather, to be brave enough to find a way to fix it. I definitely wanted to give up on the book at a few points, but slowly, I regained my confidence and went after it.

Naturally, most experienced writers know this is totally possible and prepare for it, but to any newbies out there, this is a terrifying feeling. It’s okay. Sometimes you just have to get it on the damn pages and then worry about fixing it later, when you have at least a teaspoon of your sanity back.

Reflect carefully and as often as possible. It’s no surprise that with the pandemic, unemployment is as high as it was during the Great Depression and everyone’s miserable, scared, and broke for the most part. As a result, pretty much across the board, everyone’s struggling to make money. My June sales were sadder than Requiem for a Dream. Well, unfortunately, writing is the same as most businesses: you have to spend money to make money. I’ve had to get awful creative in my attempts to promote Of Fury and Fangs without breaking the bank. Keep in mind, just blitzing social media with links and photos doesn’t work. Don’t believe anyone who says it does. You have to do better than that, as the average person’s ability to simply filter out advertisements on the Internet is very developed by now.

While doing so, I happened past some of my older methods of marketing and promoting, using free or low cost options like digging to find sites that let you post for free or writing guest blog posts. While time consuming, it is helpful for the overall SEO for the book in its early stages to spread the word. It’s not all about mailing lists and expensive site postings. There is value in doing the small stuff that can add up over time to get your work out there to people.

Is it a pain in the ass to produce more content like author interviews or guest blog posts? Totally. But it’s just as valid as the other methods as long as it’s allowing your further saturation. It doesn’t matter how you get yourself into a reader’s vision, just that you get there and reach them in a meaningful way.

Be good to yourself and to others as much as you can. This should be a no-brainer, but it ain’t. Especially not for me. I am my own worst enemy. Always have been, always will be. However, therapy has helped me recognize the impulses that I have to treat myself poorly and while I’m still doing it, the awareness means that I have a chance to do better.

The pandemic has made a lot of us realize that many of the things we used to do to decompress or find happiness are no longer possible. That means doing a bit of soul-searching and finding alternative ways to be at peace, or if you’re lucky, happy. It’s unfair and extremely difficult, but it’s worth doing for overall mental health. To that end, many authors have been stressed out thinking that they should be writing some magnum opus during quarantine. That’s simply not true. It’s okay to just get by. You don’t have to become some award winning author and write the next great novel. The most important thing is to keep your head above water, which does not happen if you’re constantly yelling at yourself for not writing. 2020 is ungodly stressful. If you find a way to weather the storm, go with that. It’s great if you can also help others. Give yourself a break.

After all, 2020 sure ain’t gonna do it for you.

Well, that’s all the time I have this time around. Sisyphus has got to get back to pushing her boulder up the mountain. I hope I’ll see you guys back this time next year. For God’s sake, be smart, be careful, and be diligent. Here’s to seven years.

Things Feud Taught Me About Writing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : June 14, 2020

Category: Inspiration, Things X Taught Me About Writing

Tags:alfred molina, bette davis, blog post, feud, feud fx, jessica lange, joan crawford, stanley tucci, susan surandon, things feud taught me about writing

“Feuds are never about hate. Feuds are about pain.”

Who would’ve thought a mini-series about two aging Hollywood actresses feuding would have turned out so damned good, if you ask me.

Honestly, if I just say it out loud, FX’s 2017 mini-series Feud sounds like a boring melodrama. It’s not. Somehow, it’s not! It’s a tightly written, brilliantly acted, compelling character study of two women I’d literally never heard of before the series and now that I’ve watched and rewatched it, I have to say that it’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve seen in the last several years of frankly disappointing TV. I’d like to take a moment to shine the spotlight on why I found this mini-series so compelling and decided to pick back up on the topic of writing as well.

Spoilers for FX’s Feud, naturally.

However, unlike my other Things X Taught Me About Writing, because Feud is somewhat obscure and today’s 2020 world probably like me wasn’t really in the know about the divas of days past, I’ll give you a bite-sized recap. Feud is about the famous feud between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The two starred in the Oscar-nominated 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Decades of resentment, problems on set, and meddling third parties all contributed to the feud and the series takes real life events and firsthand accounts from their feud and builds a story from it. What’s neat is that the series really does try its best at recapping the events of bygone decades. If you look up the events of Bette and Joan’s lives, they do in fact line up with what is portrayed in the series. Keep in mind that this is going to focus on the series itself and we’re not assuming that everything that happens is an accurate representation of their lives. Instead, we’re analyzing how the show decided to depict them, so remember, I am not dishonoring the memory of either actress. We’re treating this as fiction, same as anything else. Let’s dive in and see what worked as well as what it has to teach us about writing.

Character matters. The focus of the series is on the many intricate, complicated motivations and lives of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. What fascinates me about the series is that it manages to frame both women as completely human. They are both clearly talented women, but their faults are so enormous that it causes them to butt heads even though they certainly share similarities. At the same time, the show never loses focus on what is most important. Each actress is given more than enough time to show us who she is.

Joan Crawford is larger than life. She wears furs and diamonds and needs to be seen at all times no matter where she is. However, that larger than life persona is hiding a vain and insecure woman who has never felt respected and never felt like she was taken seriously despite her hard work at her craft. By contrast, Bette Davis is a hard-nosed roughneck who cares about one thing and one thing only: her work. She is brutally honest to the point of being insulting and would happily dismiss anyone who dares to cross her path, which makes her very lonely. She is also plagued by not being conventionally attractive by Hollywood’s standards, so she had to fight twice as hard to become an actress since we all know Hollywood is a thousand times harder on women’s appearances than men.

What works so well in this series is how it dives deep into the problems in their personal lives and then compares it to what made them clash on set and even in private. Neither women is seen as better than the other. Neither woman is seen as worse than the other. The series helps us understand the best and worst parts of Bette and Joan. It does it so well that you’re captivated with every new development of conflict, whether internal or external. It’s a reminder that it doesn’t matter what the hell the story and plot is about: if you write compelling characters, your audience is going to stick with them through thick and thin. And Bette and Joan’s lives are nothing short of a rollercoaster. You see their highest highs and their lowest lows. You see every facet of their personalities and their performances. The two are just as much alike as they are different and it all adds up to a phenomenal story.

Hubris is a bitch. As mentioned above, the show is excellent at portraying hubris. Joan’s biggest flaw is a mixture of her insecurity and her arrogance, which is a lethal combination. It causes her to act out and lose her temper many times, often resulting in self-sabotage. She destroys several opportunities for herself because she is so unwilling to let go of her vanity and her ego because she needs to feel appreciated and loved. Bette’s biggest flaw is that she is uncompromising in any area and unwilling to forgive or admit fault due to being so prideful. She bulldozes right through anyone at the slightest provocation, thereby escalating her problem of being isolated and lonely. The two of them are already powder kegs and working on the same film together just lights the match and lets you watch that wick burn down until it’s time for the grand explosion. The two gleefully take shot after shot at each other, building and fueling their resentment for one another as they continue to associate with each other over the course of filming the movie, and then again when they try to team up for Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Character flaws are vital to any good character. No one is perfect, and if they are, hell, even that can be considered a flaw, for it means no one can understand them. Bette and Joan’s flaws pull you into the story more and more as you see them start to unravel as they’re at each other’s throats. You can understand why some of the people in their lives might have thought they should have been friends, for the struggles that they come up against are real and scary and often sympathetic. Even though they are both famous Hollywood starlets, it gives them an angle for you as the viewer to understand them.

Female-led stories have a different focus than male-led stories for a reason. One thing I truly applaud this mini-series for is that it very much feels like it’s written by women for women. It’s in everything. It’s the performances, the backstories, the dialogue, the settings, the clothing, the supporting characters. There is a distinct way that it feels when a female-led story has a good writer who truly understands the way a woman experiences the world, but especially Hollywood during this decade. The series takes place during the 1960’s. It’s not a politically correct world in the slightest. Women were still expected to be homemakers or subservient to their husbands. Actresses were—and certainly still are—supposed to be beauty queens who gracefully bow out once they stop being “attractive” and they’re also put through hell by the sexist powers that be in Hollywood.

The series shows some of the ugliest sides of the moviemaking business, from directors cheating on their wives to snotty actors refusing to cooperate with production. What’s more is that the lens is still clearly focused on what is important to Bette and Joan, and it’s very reflective of the things that women have to put up with in our daily lives. It sounds crazy that the average woman would at all relate to two Hollywood starlets in their later years in the 1960’s, but it’s honestly quite easy.

Joan was a beautiful woman in her youth and therefore is unable to adjust to being in her sunset years. She became so accustomed to getting what she wanted out of men that once that power was gone, she couldn’t cope. She had to provide for her children as well during a time when she was struggling to get any roles, and those roles were dissatisfying to her as well. Seeing how Hollywood turned its back on her is very harsh, as fame is truly a cruel and fickle mistress. We all have seen stars who were household names one day and then vanished in the blink of an eye and then forgotten. Joan had to fight and claw her way to become a star and yet it’s taken away from her by what usually defeats us all: time.

Bette is a hardworking actress who had to hone her craft due to not being conventionally pretty, so she has an outer shell that is as thick as concrete. She never wants to let anyone get close to her because her work comes first. It always comes first. Even at the cost of her personal and professional relationships. She’d quickly toss someone aside for the chance at a role that could be worth it in the end because she needs to feel appreciated for her work more than she needs to feel loved by others. Any working woman can sympathize with that, but especially creatives. So many of us have sacrificed things in order to make our art as great as it can possibly be.

What hits hardest is seeing Bette and Joan struggle against so many things being women of that era, where men do not want to give them power but instead want to manipulate them. Jack Warner of the Warner Bros Studio in particular is a good example of what actresses of the era had to come up against. All he cares about is money and appearances. Nothing else matters. Having to answer to someone like that must have been hell and we see the effect it has on the two of them. It’s a sign that the writing is focused on the right areas. Often, women are unable to advance their own careers or even their own lives because of men of power, and sometimes, men who should in no way be in that position of power. It’s a dark reminder that while things have certainly gotten better, it’s still tough in general working while female, as the #MeToo movement has revealed. I have to say Feud is one of my favorite feminist portrayals of women to date, and feminist in its true definition, not the warped one that some of the fakers use to justify their hatred of men. Bette and Joan advocate for themselves and each other, wanting to be held in equal regard with male actors in Hollywood. I think it resonates with many women facing the same double standards and unfair rules in place to stop them from achieving their goals. It’s damn good writing, if you ask me.

I also wanted to give a quick shout out for the supporting characters of Hedda Hopper and Mamacita, who both manage to have their own miniature arcs and are important for carrying along the story and conflict in unexpected ways. Hedda Hopper is a viper and you’re not meant to like her one bit, but you have to admire how vicious she is in going after what she wants no matter what. Mamacita’s no-nonsense attitude and strict demeanor manages to come across as charming and subtle at the same time, as you see how deeply she cares for Joan, but she shows it in a rather particular way. Both women have motivations and ambitions that women share and understand as well, and it’s a nice contrast to Bette and Joan’s as well.

I know Feud certainly isn’t for mass consumption and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I give it credit where credit is due. I’d say if you’re a fan of character introspection and stories heavily based on personal conflict, give it a whirl. It did manage to win two Primetime Emmy awards and was nominated for a bucketload of other things (some of which I definitely think they should have won, but I digress.) If any of the writing lessons above sound good to you, I encourage you to check it out, and maybe even give the life stories of the real Bette Davis and Joan Crawford a look-see as well, for there is much more to them than meets the eye.

Of Fury and Fangs Cover and Synopsis Reveal

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : June 11, 2020

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, contemporary fantasy, cover reveal, dragon hunting, dragons, faye worthington, goodreads, Kamala Anjali, of cinder and bone, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs, Rhett Jackson, science fiction, science fiction novel, synopsis

You’ve been patient and the time has finally come. Here’s the next book in the Of Cinder and Bone series.

Someone wants Dr. Rhett “Jack” Jackson dead.

After surviving a vicious attack from a dragon in his own home, Jack and Dr. Kamala Anjali investigate who sent the dragon to kill him. Unfortunately, their list of enemies is long. Plenty of people have an axe to grind with the two scientists responsible for the rebirth of the previously extinct dragons that are now flourishing on every continent of the planet. Jack and Kamala rejoin with their team at the Knight Division to hunt down the culprit and put an end to their revenge scheme once and for all.

But will it cost them everything?

Of Fury and Fangs is the fourth novel in the Amazon and USA Today bestselling Of Cinder and Bone series, following Of Cinder and Bone, Of Blood and Ashes, and Of Dawn and Embers.

Of Fury and Fangs hits bookshelves October 24th, 2020. Add it to your Goodreads shelf here and make sure you’ve already liked my Facebook page to stay updated for when I post excerpts. The pre-order will be available within the next couple months, so stay tuned and be sure to spread the word!

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Dead Beat

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : April 14, 2020

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:blog post, dead beat, harry dresden, karrin murphy, reread, review, the dresden files, the dresden files reread, the dresden files reread and review, thomas raith, waldo butters

Well.

Look at that.

I almost took as long a hiatus as Jim Butcher did completing Peace Talks.

*rimshot*

Get used to that joke, folks, I’m a bitter old crone.

In light of being stuck indoors for a while due to COVID 19, and in light of the recent explosion of news now that Jim Butcher finally completed Peace Talks and it’s being released July 2020 with Book 17 Battle Ground releasing in September 2020, I’ve decided to pick back up on my R & R. We left off a few years ago on Book Seven, Dead Beat. As always, spoilers for both this book and future books abound. You have been warned.

Just as an aside before we start, I have a bone to pick with Jim Butcher, his camp, and the fandom over Dead Beat. Some years ago, someone started saying that any new readers interested in the Dresden Files should start at Dead Beat and skip the first six books.

That’s the dumbest, wrongest, most irresponsible “advice” I’ve ever heard.

If you’ve read my recaps, you’ve seen the utter bombs that have dropped in the series prior to this book. I violently disagree with anyone who has ever told new readers to start at Dead Beat. I will fight Jim Butcher himself over it. Don’t you dare tell someone new to franchise to skip the first six books.

Wanna know why? Let me give you just a taste of the incredibly important things/people that happen either for character reasons or for plot reasons that have consequences or payoff that continues through the rest of the season:

Harry’s mother, Margaret
Harry’s father, Malcolm
Murphy’s father, Colin
Ebenezar McCoy
The White Court
The White Council and the Senior Council
Thomas’ connection to Harry
The Denarians
The Summer and Winter Courts
The Summer and Winter Mothers
Lea, Harry’s godmother
Jared Kincaid
The Archive
Susan Rodriguez and the Red Court war
Mortimer Lindquist
He Who Walks Behind
Mac and his bar
The Knights of the Cross
The archangels
Waldo Butters

And that’s just a fraction.

A literal fraction.

So I just want to put my two cents in here and say that while Dead Beat is considered a game changer for the books and one of the first big turning points, do not ever tell someone to start in the middle of the goddamn Dresden Files. It’s reckless and it’s going to make them miss out on so much rich story and so many vital character interactions as well as just some plain great novels. Stop it. Stop it now.

Anyway.

I’m a little funny about Dead Beat, personally. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember it very much because I am shipper trash and this is the book with no Murphy in it. I tend not to pay as much attention to the Murphy-less Dresden Files novels because that’s my favorite dynamic. But to be fair, this is still a good novel and the next one coming up, Proven Guilty, is chockful of awesome Harry/Murphy content, so let me get over myself and dive into the madness once again.

We open Dead Beat with a case of sibling rivalry. In case you’ve forgotten by now, Thomas, Harry’s older brother, has basically been cut off and booted out of the White Court mansion—now headed by his older sister, Lara Raith, who is behind the scenes controlling their father, Lord Raith—and is broke due to spending the last of his fortune to pay off Jared Kincaid for the job Harry hired him for in Blood Rites. Thus, the two Le Fey boys are living together in Harry’s tiny basement apartment and it’s not exactly the easiest thing to deal with. Aside from Susan, Harry’s only ever lived alone with a cat, and later, his dog, Mouse, whom he decided to keep. They’ve been living together close to a year, and Thomas is an incubus sex vampire, so poor Harry is having to deal with beautiful women randomly appearing at his place and wrecking it up on a regular basis since that’s how Thomas feeds himself. You can understand that it makes him exasperated.

Plus, there’s the bonus of these women mistaking Harry for gay.

Which…I’m so sorry, that’s one of the funniest damn things in this whole book.

The problem is that Harry and Thomas don’t actually look alike and they can’t tell people they’re related because it’s very dangerous for their enemies to know that, so the two of them hanging out constantly makes people jump to the wrong conclusion.

This will be important later.

Also, hilarious.

Which brings me to my next excellent bit.

After Thomas returns from the shower once the girl leaves, he reveals that he absolutely ships the hell out of Harry and Murphy.

This is also important.

Harry: [Murphy] said she’d be dropping by.

Thomas: Oh, yeah? No offense, Harry, but I’m doubting it was a booty call.

Harry: Would you stop it with that already?

Thomas: I’m telling you, you should just ask her out and get it over with. She’d say yes.

Harry: It isn’t like that.

Thomas: Yeah, okay.

Harry: It isn’t. We work together. We’re friends. That’s all.

Thomas: Right.

Harry: I am not interested in dating Murphy. And she’s not interested in me.

Thomas: Sure, sure. I hear you. *rolls eyes* Which is why you want the place looking nice. So your business friend won’t mind staying around for a little bit.

Thomas gets it.

Seriously, Harry, you had an entire epiphany in Mavra’s lair that you were jealous of Kincaid taking off Murphy’s pants, and yet you’re going to pretend she’s still just your friend? Thomas smelled that lie almost immediately and I love it.

However, while this is quite amusing, Thomas is having a rough time because incubi can’t exactly hold down regular jobs. Thomas is constantly being jumped by other employees and passerby’s, so he’s frustrated and angry once Harry starts to needle him about his control and bails. It is tough to think about what he’s going through, honestly, and it’s part of why I like Thomas so much as a character. White Court vampires typically don’t do what he does. Thomas only feeds on willing partners and only just enough to stay alive. Other vampires take who they want, when they want, and take until they kill their victims or enslave them to the pleasure. It’s got to be hell to fight those impulses when it’s literally what keeps Thomas alive and sane. But we’ll dive into that more later on.

Harry cleans up and takes Mouse for a walk and Murphy is waiting for him when he gets back.

And then Murphy drops a freaking atom bomb on us.

She’s going to Hawaii.

With freaking Jared Kincaid.

You know. The assassin.

The very not human assassin.

Jim Butcher:

Harry is very understandably angry, confused, worried, and jealous as hell. Murphy came over to leave her location and info to reach her hotel in an emergency as well as the key to her place to “water her plants” while she’s gone.

And here’s where things get interesting.

Murphy is asking Harry a question that unfortunately, poor stupid Harry isn’t aware of yet.

Murphy doesn’t need someone to water her damned plants. Does she need to drop off her location in case Kincaid does something shifty? Probably, yes, but she came over for two real reasons: (1) to have an excuse to ditch the trip if Harry was in the middle of a case that required her help (2) to see if Harry finally realized the romantic and sexual tension between them and would stop her from going by sharing his feelings with her.

This scene is infamous. It really grinds my gears, but in a good way. This is great writing because Harry is tragically a couple steps behind Murphy in this case. I love him to death, but Harry is VERY slow on the uptake emotionally speaking and he’s too far into his own denial and self-doubt to respond to Murphy’s unsaid question. However, the interesting part is that Harry senses something is off but he just CAN’T put his finger on it. He can feel her hesitance, but because he’s overly cautious, Murphy still leaves for the trip.

It’s so goddamn frustrating.

But it’s still good writing.

I really would have loved for Harry and Murphy to have had a conversation about their relationship at this point, but he’s not ready yet and the first time they talk about it in the next book is very interesting, so congrats to Butcher on being patient and pacing it out. It’s a really good internal conflict for Harry during this book because he’s out facing all kinds of dangers but he’s also thinking about how much he wants Murphy not to be with Kincaid because he’s jealous and worried because he cares about her a lot.

Mind you, the entire interaction ends with this bit from Harry’s inner monologue: I watched her go, feeling worried. And jealous. Really, really jealous. Holy crap. Was Thomas right after all?

Harry, you’re a fucking moron.

When Harry checks his mail, he gets a nasty surprise: a threatening letter from Mavra with photos of Murphy killing Renfields during the Black Court vampire raid from the previous year as well as a lock of Murphy’s hair. He’s to meet her that night at his grave in Graceland cemetery or she’ll release the photos, ruining Murphy’s career forever and most definitely landing her in jail.

He meets Mavra and is told to find the Word of Kemmler or she’ll have all the photos sent to the authorities, which means both the regular cops and the White Council. She gives him three days to get it, which coincidentally means his deadline lands on Halloween, his birthday. Ah, just another day in the life of Harry Dresden.

Harry heads home to get the skinny on the Word of Kemmler from Bob the Skull, an air spirit of knowledge he keeps in his basement. We find out Kemmler was a necromancer responsible for World War I and II, for crying out loud, so the guy was major bad news in his day. Bob has been owned by a number of people and things in the past and it so happens he was owned by Kemmler before Justin, Harry’s former master and abuser, owned him as well. Bob has purposely forgotten much of what happened with Kemmler since the guy was a walking nightmare. In order to get more knowledge, Harry taps into Bob’s memories but it goes very sideways as Bob becomes rather demonic when they talk, so Harry switches him back to normal.

The Word of Kemmler is his most awful, evil spells and if anyone gets their hands on it, then havoc and death will be everywhere, especially since some of his followers may still be alive. The magic needed to do a big bad thing would require sacrifices in advance, so Harry heads to see Waldo Butters at the morgue.

And here is one of the aforementioned turning points.

Butters gets one hell of a character upgrade in this book.

And it’s one of the most well-done, surprising aspects of the series.

Our delightful dork Butters is in the morgue practicing polka for Oktoberfest when Harry arrives. This will be important later. Don’t look at me like that, I mean it.

Butters has been studying Harry’s X-rays and recovery progress—if you recall, his left hand is burnt to hell—and lets Harry know his theory, which is that his body literally heals itself until an injury is gone, not just to the best it can do for functionality, which is why he thinks wizards live five or six times longer than the average person, which means there’s a good chance Harry will get the functionality back in his hand. This is a very cool, very heartfelt moment when Butters tells him. I love it. Their friendship is gold.

Butters notices something odd about a body and is about to look into it when a necromancer attacks the lab, using the poor dead security guard as a zombie enforcer. The lead Mook is named Grevane and he’s after Butters. They manage to escape and Butters insists that Harry tell him The Truth, to which Harry reluctantly agrees, since Harry learned his lesson from the last few times he didn’t want to tell someone The Truth and they got killed.

Harry gives Butters the abridged version of The Truth and explains that necromancers have to have a “beat” in order to control zombies, so any sound they can generate that’s repetitive keeps their will over the zombie. If it stops, the zombie just does whatever the hell it wants, so they have to formulate a plan to stop Grevane from getting to Butters as well as find the book. Harry got a look at the book Grevane had with him, so he takes Butters back to the apartment and leaves him with Mouse to investigate.

He stops at a bookstore and grabs a copy of the book that Grevane has and meets one of the bookstore’s employees, Sheila. This will be important later.

On his way out, he’s confronted by two previously unknown entities: Cowl and Kumori. They want the book as well, as Chicago only has two copies. Harry realizes he’s seen them in passing before at Bianca the Red Court Vampire’s place. They actually try to parlay with him to just destroy the book if he doesn’t want to hand it over, but Harry is the stubborn sort and doesn’t play ball. Cowl attacks and Harry just barely manages to survive it and Billy the werewolf and his pack show up to back Harry up. Cowl and Kumori retreat and Harry leaves with the pack as the cops approach.

They take him to Georgia’s parents’ place and Harry overhears Georgia and Billy having a very interesting conversation about him. In particular, about his burnt hand and some of his behavior, how he’s angrier than he has been before, and that when he flipped the car on top of Cowl, Billy smelled sulfur. I really like the tension in the scene as Harry has HUGE blindspots about himself—again, this will be VERY important later—and we as the readers forget that because we’re inside his head, we know his motivations, but others don’t. Georgia is asking Billy to consider stepping back if Harry asks them to because she knows Cowl is big bad business that they’re not ready for and she’s also asking him to consider if something is wrong with Harry since he’s also been very distant lately.

Harry tells them about the demon Lasciel and the coin. It’s a tough conversation considering that Harry has tried every spell he can find to try to separate himself from the demon and nothing has worked. Worse still, he’s doubting himself since he picked up the coin instead of Harry the second when Nicodemus tossed it, so he’s concerned about his subconscious desires as well. What’s really important here is the friendship between them as Harry tells them what’s going on and they agree to do what they can and that he thanks them graciously. It’s really such a grounded scene and it’s why I love Harry so much as a character. I especially love that Georgia points out that Harry is basically the supernatural dad of Chicago; he immediately takes anyone who needs help under his wing and puts their needs before his own, protecting them before protecting himself, which is why she was asking Billy to be willing to hang back. She didn’t want them to distract him considering the level of danger that he’s in, which is a great show of what good friends they are to him. It’s very touching.

Once the heat dies down, Billy and Georgia take Harry back for his car only to find it’s been bashed up with a baseball bat by someone clearly trying to send him a message. Billy and Georgia very kindly offer to get the Beetle towed and lend him their SUV so he can continue investigating since he’s on a deadline. Again, this is a really heartwarming moment, showing how much they care for him and trust him and I like it a lot.

Harry goes to see Mortimer Lindquist, a fake psychic but someone who does happen to have enough supernatural talent to be helpful sometimes. Harry wants Mort to ask the dead if they can help him locate the necromancers. He refuses at first, but then Harry tells him Murphy’s in trouble and Mort knew Murphy’s father, so he agrees to help. The ghosts are able to confirm there are six necromancers currently in Chicago.

Harry returns home and Thomas is home and Butters is asleep. Harry starts to read the book he acquired, but he falls asleep and is visited his father, Malcolm Dresden. It’s probably one of the best scenes in the book, if I’m being honest, as the affection and reverence that Harry has for his late father and vice versa is so palpable. I’ve said a million times that one of the reasons Jim Butcher is my favorite author is that he doesn’t skimp on the powerful emotional scenes with Harry and his loved ones, as well as just other characters in general. A lot of the times male authors want to make their hero really cool and don’t want to focus on things that matter to him on a personal level. Harry is and always has been someone who is deeply impacted by everything around him and he’s not afraid to show his emotions, good or bad. The whole interaction is just simple encouragement from his dad and it’s wonderful.

The next morning Harry and Thomas go for a run and Harry gives him an update on what’s going on as well as telling him about Murphy running off with Kincaid. I want to mention that Thomas is in mid-run when he finds out about Murphy and Kincaid and he full-on stops running for a few seconds.

Thomas @ Jim Butcher:

Thomas is all of us.

It is notable that by now, Harry has realized that Murphy wanted him to tell her not to go. However, he’s trying to rationalize it and say that he’s being reasonable by not going after her due to their friendship and professional relationship. Thomas takes a very good shot at him for it and it’s really good and tense because Thomas is frustrated that Harry doesn’t see that the two of them could have the real deal. Thomas is in love with Justine and he knows how good it can be, but he’s been denied that due to being a vampire. It’s comforting to see that Thomas isn’t pushing Harry to go after Murphy just to be a needling older brother or because he wants him to get laid. Thomas cares because he knows they can go the distance and be happy, which is more than he would ever be able to do being who he is.

This segways into Harry confronting Thomas about his hunger and what he’s dealing with. Thomas comes up with a clever way to make him understand: he challenges Harry to race him down the beach back to the car. Naturally, Thomas is a freaking vampire with vampire speed, so Harry has to use basically every last drop of his strength and agility to “win” the race, and is exhausted and is about to gulp down a whole bottle of cold water when Thomas knocks it out of his hand. And then Thomas quietly tells him that’s what it’s like for him every waking moment of his life. Harry finally understands why he’s been tense and frustrated lately and it’s a great bonding moment for the brothers.

Harry drops Thomas back off at the apartment and heads for the nearest use of dark magic on the map, which is at the Field Museum. The museum currently has the infamous Sue on display at the time, aka Sue the T-Rex skeleton. This will be important later. Turns out there’s been a murder, so Harry sneaks into the crime scene to snoop. He of course forgets that he’s like seven-feet-tall, so one of the S.I. cops who is on the scene, Rawlins, spots him mid-snoop. Rawlins is another character whom I have affection for in terms of being a reasonable authority figure and an ally to both Harry and Murphy. It amuses me greatly that he’s been busted down from detective on account of having a smart mouth and an attitude, since it explains a lot of why Murphy trusts him. His intuition and his knowledge that Harry works with Murphy and she trusts him allows Rawlins to feel comfortable enough to let Harry in on some details of the murder victim, Charles Bartleby. It also helps that Murphy’s father, Colin, saved Rawlin’s life a long time ago so he’s always had Murphy’s back.

On a hunch, Harry asks if Rawlins knows what happened at the morgue and he doesn’t, which means Grevane cleaned up the mess and no one knows Butters is missing nor that the security guard is dead. Harry decides to take Butters along to the morgue to see if what the necromancers want is still in the building. They head inside and take a look at the body Butters had been about to examine and it’s mutilated very badly.

While Harry waits for Butters to help with the autopsy, he overhears the two assistants to Bartlesby come in to ask about the body and his personal items. Harry recognizes that the male, Li, is a ghoul. He hustles to get Butters gone before they get in trouble, but the other corpse that got hit by a car Harry recognizes is a smuggler who works for John Marcone. Cue eyeroll.

In case you forgot—and it’s easy to because this character is so dull—John Marcone is Chicago’s mob boss. He has his fingers in pretty much every pie of organized crime and he’s very aware of the supernatural underbelly as well. He and Harry hate each other’s guts, but both are too dangerous to get the other one killed so they mostly just try to stay out of each other’s way.

They go back to Billy and Georgia’s to try to see what’s on the jump drive, but it’s just an empty file with a number that has sixteen digits. Harry checks his voicemails and he’s got a painfully frustrating check-in call from Murphy and then a call from Sheila, the cute bookstore girl, that something’s up. Harry has Billy take Butters back to the apartment while he continues snooping.

Harry heads to the bookstore and is hurt to learn that its owner, Bock, doesn’t want him around anymore since he’s pretty much got trouble on his heels at all times. Harry agrees and talks to Sheila, even landing himself a date with her later, but shortly after he runs into Li and Alicia, trying to find who bought the Erl King book. Alicia demonstrates some very scary dark mental magic and unfortunately the only way for Harry to break loose is to tap into some of the demonic power in his head. He tries to make a break for it, but gets injured and they take the book. He lucks out that Marcone’s bodyguard, Gard, saves him before Li can finish him off. He gets pulled into a car with Gard, Marcone, and Marcone’s other bodyguard Hendricks. Marcone cooperates, giving him a tip since it’s in his best interest that Chicago isn’t overrun by the undead and in retribution for one of his men being murdered.

Harry gets his injured leg fixed and talks to the tip Marcone gave him, which is an EMT who saw Kumori revive a dead guy the previous night.

After that, Harry heads home and Thomas warns him about Butters being too scared to be any use if they get cornered. It’s a really good conversation as Thomas isn’t saying it to be mean, he’s saying it out of concern for Harry dragging Butters around as literal deadweight. Harry sticks up for him in a unique way, which is telling Thomas that they won’t do him any favors if they tell him to run and keep running, as the fear will control him for good. He and Thomas talk through what he’s learned and Harry recounts what he read in Erlking, so to dig for more info, he decides to call up Lea, his absolutely batshit insane, dangerous, hyperviolent “godmother.” Lord help us all.

But to his surprise, when he tries to summon Lea, Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness as well as the Winter Court, also pants-shittingly terrifying, shows up instead, saying that Lea is imprisoned for challenging her authority. However, Mab is still bound by her loyalty to answer Harry’s questions, so Harry instead asks her about the Erlking. Mab tells him that the Erlking is basically the king of goblins and has control over dead hunters’ spirits, which is linked to why the necromancers want to get his attention, so to speak. Harry tries to dig for more but Mab won’t cough it up unless he becomes the Winter Knight. As right now, Mab has her current Knight, Lloyd Slate, imprisoned and tortured for “disappointing” her. Harry theorizes the necromancers want to raise the ancient spirits all at once and absorb their power, which would make them too powerful for pretty much anyone to stop.

And as Harry gets back to his apartment, he gets jumped by zombies.

Harry Dresden, you are bad for my heart, sir.

The wards that protect Harry’s apartment are meant to stop magical beings from entering, but it has a limit to just how much it can take. Once the bad guys throw enough zombies at it, the wards will fail and then it’s just getting through the steel door to bust inside. Butters understandably gets hysterical because the only plan they’ve got is to try to break for the car and leave.

What follows is one of the most notoriously awesome, heartwarming things in this series.

Harry: We’re not going to die!

Butters: We’re not?

Harry: No. And do you know why?

Butters: *shakes his head*

Harry: Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I’m too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die. Polka will never die! Say it!

Butters: Polka will never die?

Harry: Again!

Butters: P-p-polka will never die.

Harry: Louder!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Harry: We’re going to make it!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Thomas: I can’t believe I’m hearing this.

You’re fucking welcome. Everyone’s life has been enriched by witnessing this scene. Legit, if you shout this at a comic book convention or somewhere that a large number of geeks enter, someone will probably shout it back to you. It’s that famous a scene. For good damn reason.

Harry manages to negotiate with Grevane to get everyone out in exchange for the numbers they found on the flash drive. Corpsetaker crashes the party and Team Dresden manages to bail from the ensuing battle. They all head to Murphy’s place to get stitched up and rest.

Which leads to one of the other funniest goddamn jokes in the whole series.

Poor Butters thinks Harry is gay.

The best part? Thomas thinks it’s fucking hilarious. He then proceeds to enable Butters by being fake-nice to Harry while Butters is stitching him up and I can’t even start to tell you what a belly-laugh it gets out of me that Thomas not only thinks it’s funny, but he just makes it even worse for shits and giggles. It’s EXACTLY what an older brother would do and that’s why I crack up every time I read it. Harry and Thomas are arguably my favorite fictional siblings for this exact reason. Their relationship is so realistic.

Thomas pulls a fast one and gives Harry painkillers instead of antibiotics, which make our giant idiot sleepy and Thomas tucks him in. And Harry proceeds to stab us with more feels when Thomas puts him in Murphy’s bed: The last thing I thought, before I dropped off to sleep, was that the cover smelled faintly of soap and sunlight and strawberries. They smelled like Murphy.

Harry, you dope. You’ve got it so bad for Murphy it’s not even funny.

When Harry sleeps, the demon in his head, Lasciel, finally manifests herself. Since Harry had no choice but to use the Hellfire to get out of a jam earlier, she now has permission to be in his head. She’s not the true demon, but an imprint of her, basically, since the real coin is under Harry’s basement under a lot of powerful magical wards. They have a brief conversation in which Lasciel offers Harry her almost endless knowledge and power and Harry tells her to shove it.

When he wakes, he gives Thomas and Butters the low down on his terrible plan, which is basically to call the White Council and get Wardens dispatched to Chicago to fight and then he’ll try to summon the Erlking at the same time as the necromancers, which means if he pulls it off first, then the necromancers can’t steal the Erlking’s power for their evil plan meanwhile Bob, Thomas, and Butters try to decode the numbers to figure out where the Word of Kemmler is so he can give it to Mavra to save Murphy’s life. The entire thing is basically suicide. Because of course it is.

Billy stops by Harry’s office to make sure he’s alright after hearing what happened at the shop and to warn him that people are very worried about his erratic behavior lately, which Harry brushes off due to all the shit he’s dealing with. This will be VERY important later.

Harry stops by Sheila’s apartment and has her recount the poems in the Erlking’s book so he can summon him because she has a photographic memory. Kumori stops by, but reveals that she just wants to talk, so they enact a ceasefire. She wants him to back off and he wants her to back off, but understandably, neither of them can do so. She does reveal that she and Cowl’s mission is to harness death magic to literally end death in general, making everyone immortal. Yeesh.

Harry heads to Mac’s bar to meet with the Wardens, which consist of Donald Morgan, Carlos Ramirez, Anastasia Luccio, and two newbies. Then Luccio goes and offers Harry his own grey cloak, to Harry’s shock. Then Harry finds out that the war with the Red Court has taken out twenty percent of the Wardens forces so far. It got worse as the Red Court chased them through Nevernever, the land of demons and other creatures, and then called to the Outsiders, which are malevolent beings that live outside of Harry’s resident dimension, reality, and universe. Still, knowing how the Wardens and the White Council operate, Harry wants no part of their ranks. For damn good reason, I might add. Morgan is a dickhead bully who followed Harry around for his entire probation period just waiting for a chance to cut his head off and even tried goading him into attacking him so he’d have an excuse to kill him once. Luccio manages to persuade him that they’ll support him and that she at the very least trusts him and it will shift the tide of opinions in the White Council away from him since he technically started the war (but to be fair, the Red Court just needed an excuse, they were planning it already). She makes him regional commander and reassigns Morgan so he won’t be hovering over Harry’s shoulder looking for a place to stick a knife and they start strategizing what to do.

After the meeting, Harry heads back to Murphy’s place. Thomas called his sister, Lara Raith, and implied that Harry—who knows that she is running the White Court and not her puppet father Lord Raith—might spill the beans unless he receives some sort of assistance. She got them some info about where they think the ceremony will take place. Harry sends Thomas out to drop off a message to the Wardens and preps to go trap the Erlking in a circle so the necromancers can’t summon him.

Harry calls up the Erlking and actually manages to hold him, but Cowl jumps him and the Erlking as well as the Wild Hunt are unleashed on Chicago. He and Kumori leave Harry alive out of respect, and out of the knowledge that the Erlking is just gonna come back later and off Harry. Butters and Mouse are thankfully safe inside the house, and it’s now that Harry realizes that Mouse is scary smart and in no way a regular dog, which is adorable. Unfortunately, though, Kumori stole Bob since Kemmler used to own Bob and Bob would probably know how to give them the instructions they need for the Darkhallow spell. Let the good times roll.

Harry and Butters leave, still trying to figure out the combination, and then we get possibly one of the biggest, nastiest bombs in the whole book dropped on us.

Sheila isn’t real.

She’s Lasciel projecting herself through Harry’s five senses to appear real to him, but she’s not physically there or anywhere but in his head.

Feel free to shit an absolute brick and then throw that brick at this bitch’s head.

I’ve not talked about this bit because I wanted to get to it in sequence with the book. This is one of the most intensely fucked up things that’s happened to Harry so far in the series. I mean, the level of cruelty and manipulation by Lasciel is staggering. She outright lied to his face to get him to comply with her “help” and then tries to pass it off as not that bad to him when he finally puts it together that it’s all in his head and that’s why his friends and Bock the bookstore owner have been worried he’s going nuts. He’s been talking to thin air, for God’s sake. Lasciel insists that she actually enjoyed playing the role since Harry didn’t know it was her, and Harry is a very sweet, charming man all on his own, for no reason other than that’s just how he is, even when he’s in danger. She hasn’t interacted with any people in probably a very long stretch of years, so in a way, she’s not all the way lying about enjoy Harry’s company when he didn’t know it was her the whole time.

But it’s so fucked up.

Lasciel is directly preying on Harry’s weaknesses. She knows he’s soft on women. She knows Murphy left him and he’s hurting and jealous and longing for her this whole time, worried about protecting her from Mavra, and feeling bad that he couldn’t act on his feelings before she left. Deep down, of course Harry wanted a friend and ally during this tough fight, and she’s the only girl around who is smart and pretty and interested in him for who he is, seemingly. What a bitch move. It’s a ‘cut out your heart with a spoon’ moment for me. I am so offended on Harry’s behalf that it’s not even funny. She played him like a fiddle and it’s so depressing and messed up that it’s tough to reread the scenes before Harry finds out Sheila’s not real.

The other piece that’s important as well is that Lasciel is self-serving. If Harry dies, she dies as well. She is still a real entity even if she’s just a copy of the real Lasciel that lives inside the coin in Harry’s basement. She really is trying to help him survive the ordeal so that she can survive as well.

However, Harry recognizes the slippery slope he’s on and asserts his will power until she’s out of his head temporarily and reassures Butters that now he’s aware that he’s been played with so badly. Poor guy. It’s also tough as hell on his friends to have faith in him when he’s literally been hallucinating without knowing it for the past couple of days, but it’s a testament to what good people Harry knows that they keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Harry and Butters manage to throw together a tracking spell and find the Word of Kemmler hidden in the skull of Sue the T-Rex at the museum. Grevane confronts Harry and we find out that his buddy that’s been with him the whole time is Cassius, a former Denarian who Harry went to fucking town on in Death Masks, and for good goddamn reason. Grevane leaves with the book and Cassius starts trying to get Harry to tell him where his Denarian coin is. With torture. It is very, very rough and I do not like it and I want to sue Jim Butcher for $300 million in emotional damages.

But luckily, just before Cassius is going to kill him, Butters and Mouse crash the party.

Butters does an admirable job of kicking ass Butters’ style and Mouse makes the final kill, but unfortunately, Cassius gets out his death curse before Mouse kills him. A Death Curse is something a wizard or sorcerer can use right before their final moment. It’s one of the strongest kinds of magic ever, since it’s involved with death, and you can’t avoid it or reverse it usually.

And Cassius’ death curse is “die alone.”

…yeah, I’m suing Jim Butcher for $500 million emotional damages now. Jerk.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Cassius’ death curse is not immediate. It doesn’t kill Harry on the spot. Harry passes out and sees Id Harry and Lasciel in his subconscious, who have a coming to Jesus talk with the fact that he’s basically heading down an assisted suicide path with his solutions. He finally has no choice but to allow Lasciel to help since there’s not much he by himself and with his few allies can do to survive the night.

It is now, my friends, that we reach the most infamous scene in the entire Dresden Files series.

Harry fucking Dresden riding a zombie dinosaur down Michigan Avenue.

Mm-hmm.

Read that again. Drink it in, people.

My idiot wizard boyfriend has outdone himself.

Since he’s read the Word of Kemmler, he reanimates Sue and has Butters use his polka suit to provide the beat as they haul ass to the site where the necromancers are trying to summon all the spirits.

And it turns out Sue’s pretty handy against an army of zombies. She eats Li. Good girl.

Harry takes Sue and Butters over to the Wardens and gets them caught up and ready for the final assault just as the spell starts to rev up. Corpsetaker attacks Luccio, switching their bodies and minds in the attack and Harry just barely manages to realize it in time. He shoots Luccio’s body and kills Corpsetaker.

And of course, Donald fuckin’ Morgan sees this, thinks Harry’s a traitor, and tries to execute him.

Harry is already too shaken by what he did and is about to let it happen, but Luccio revives in Corpsetaker’s switched body and makes him stand down. I know that Donald Morgan has reasons and motivations and a backstory that we will find out later in the series, but honestly, from the bottom of my black heart, fuck Donald Morgan. I hate him so much. He is everything wrong with the White Council and everything wrong with soldiers in general all rolled into one despicable man. I loathe him even though I’ve read the books and I understand that he is a three-dimensional character. Still. Fuck him.

The Wardens except for Harry and Ramirez are too injured to help, so they press on, leaving Butters to be safe with them, and take Sue out towards the Darkhallow. Ramirez turns out to be an absolute hoot and gets along with Harry, trusting his instincts and the actual good things people have had to say about Harry for once, and it’s a relief.

Ramirez kills Grevane, but Cowl and Kumori get the jump on him and knock him out, capturing Harry. Bob is facilitating the spell and Harry manages to get through to the real Bob, releasing him from the skull. Bob flies into the now loose Sue and comes to Harry’s rescue, and Harry is able to stop Cowl from absorbing the souls and completing the Darkhallow.

Go Team Dresden.

Harry wakes to get a nod of respect (and a warning) from the Erlking. He and the Wardens all get cleaned up and he gives Mavra the book, though not without threatening the shit out of her over Murphy and it makes me shipper heart sing. Nothing says, “I love you” like “if you touch her, I’m declaring war on you.” Oh, Harry. You’re such a romantic.

There’s also a lovely scene of Harry standing over his grave and his father visits again, giving him reassurance that while the death curse will indeed hit someday and while Harry had to do really fucked up things to survive this time around, it’s still his choice to be who he is in spite of the dark things surrounding him.

Things wrap up pretty good. Luccio is on leave to heal, so Morgan takes over for her in the meantime and actually admits that he was wrong about Harry for once (and I still don’t care and hate his guts) and Murphy comes home with her arm in a sling, implying that Hawaii had its own adventure for her (that I will never ever read even if Butcher does write it) and Butter gives Harry a guitar so he can start to rehabilitate his hand, ending the book on a sweet note.

So that was Dead Beat. Woof.

Dead Beat is definitely a rollercoaster ride. It’s one of the books that has very few downtime moments and it has momentum like a freight train. Harry is thoroughly trampled both physically and emotionally and so was I rereading the sheer amount of trauma he went through. For that reason, I have to say Dead Beat is kind of tough on the senses. I do admit that I miss some of the brighter spots and the downtime that Blood Rites or Summer Knight had in them. Overall, while it’s certainly not the darkest book, it is one with some of the darkest consequences and where Harry feels so overwhelmed and hopeless, which is a common theme since Butcher is a sadist. It’s a fantastic book, though, and I get why it gets a lot of buzz in the reading community.

Overall Grade: 4 out of 5 stars

Join me next time for another personal favorite of mine in the series, Proven Guilty.

Kyo out.

Of Fury and Fangs – First Line

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 7, 2020

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, dragon hunting, dragons, first line, new release, of cinder and bone, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs

It’s that time of year again! As I near completion on the fourth novel in the Of Cinder and Bone series, Of Fury and Fangs, I thought I’d drop that first line on you while you wait.

“It was one AM when all hell broke loose.”

I hope that whets your appetites. Stay tuned for more news, including cover reveal, synopsis, excerpts, and release date! The fastest way to stay in touch is Facebook and Twitter, so make sure you’re following both and see you soon.

Sincerely,

Kyoko M.

Hindsight is 20/20: My Sixth Year in Self Publishing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 21, 2019

Category: Inspiration

Tags:blog post, hindsight is 2020, recap, self publishing, sixth year

“What’s it like being a self published author?”

One more year. One more set of bumps and bruises.

Though my life right now is the equivalent of the “This is Fine” dog .gif, I can safely say that I’m happy to still be in one piece. By now, you’re all used to me telling you just how bloody difficult it is being an indie author, so I won’t fill your ear with that this time around.

What I can say is that while I’m currently in Hell, at least I got to enjoy a few things along the way, one of which was a literal miracle.

For one, I got to languish in the arms of the incomparably handsome, articulate, kind, funny, charming Tom Hiddleston. Recap here.

In March 2018, I stumbled onto the radar of New York Times bestselling author, and my personal favorite female writer, Ilona Andrews. She downloaded The Black Parade, read it, and then contacted me to say that she enjoyed it and wanted to make a blog post for me. Yes. That is a real thing that happened, and yes, I still am in disbelief, same as you. You can read the recap right here, and there’s even screencaps to prove this truly happened. It’s mindblowing, and by far the kindest thing that has ever happened to me, period, in my entire career as an author.

And I don’t mention that in order to brag. I mentioned it simply because it honestly opened up some opportunities for me to be in front of an audience I would never have a chance to get in front of if not for Ms. Andrews. It was truly an act of complete selflessness, and I am forever in her debt. It allowed me to get a huge surge of sales, and I honestly learned so much from that one conversation with her. It also put me in front of some bloggers and reviewers who wouldn’t know about me without Ms. Andrews’ help, and I am still reaping the benefits of that today.

So what did I learn in my sixth year as a self-published author?

Be ready and willing to help each other. Ilona Andrews’ act of kindness really did remind me that I think all authors have a responsibility to help each other. Even if you’re a small fry, you can contribute something. Your experiences and knowledge of any part of the writing process can be a boon to someone who is on their way up the ladder behind you. This is a pretty dark world we live in right now, so it’s imperative that we continue trying to be good to each other in spite of it. Even if it’s just retweeting each other, sharing links, posting reviews, or simply complimenting each other’s writing styles, encourage other authors. You never know when one of us is struggling and wants to give up, and maybe your help keeps them going.

Learn to manage yourself alongside your work. A large part of why everything’s on fire in my life is that my mental health has been steadily declining in recent times due to stress and financial burdens. As a result, I wrote a lot less during the previous year and this year as I tried to find coping mechanisms, since at the time when most of it was at its worst, I had no outlet for my problems. Now, however, I’ve been able to create a strategy that will hopefully nudge me towards being mentally healthy. Your health is absolutely important, and you shouldn’t dismiss its effect on your writing. Authors always talk about the grind, and some of us can turn out an incredible amount of pages in a short amount of time, but please don’t forget that everyone is different. It’s daunting to read about something like Stephen King writing an entire 200k novel in like 90 days. It can make you feel like you’re just a hack, but everyone is different, and you have to find your own balance. Take care of yourself, and then take care of your writing.

Procrastinate less. Yes, I know. Practice what you preach, Kyo. I’m addicted to procrastination, so I’ve had to teach myself not to do it as much. Baby steps. If you’re the same way, make a conscious effort to tame that self-destructive need to procrastinate so that you can be productive and happy.

Get creative with your regions of discoverability. One fun thing about the Internet is that people can stumble across your work in the most random ways. I made a joke last night about how I always update my TvTropes.org page for each of my novels because “it’s free real estate” and a follower actually commented saying that’s exactly how he found The Black Parade, and it blew my mind. I had just been goofing off creating those pages for poops and giggles, and it actually worked! Therefore, feel free to just go nuts with different things that are of interest to you. Sometimes it can actually drive people towards you, and towards your work as well.

Don’t forget the personal touch and Word of Mouth. I recently attended Black Girl Geek Con’s debut year as a guest, and while it was a small, first time event, I met so many beautiful, interesting black authors, and found a fantastic amount of enthusiasm from the people who came. It was a lot of fun getting to meet the people in the library and even though the crowds were small, the enthusiasm was huge. I actually sold the most amount of paperbacks in one sitting at that con than at larger events that I have been to before. It’s not always about attendance numbers. Remember that someone buying your book is in a way buying a little piece of you. Always be open to sharing yourself with others when you’re out on the con appearance trail.

2019 has already been an uphill battle for me. I’m Sisyphus at the bottom of his mountain. But I’ve got extra thicc thighs and strong shoulders, so trust me, I’ll get my boulder back rolling up again soon. Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far, and I hope that I continue to entertain you as I make my journey up that mountain again with all new works.

Of Dawn and Embers Release Day

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 20, 2019

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, blog tour, dragon hunting, dragons, faye worthington, Kamala Anjali, new novel, new release, of cinder and bone series, of dawn and embers, Rhett Jackson

You know the drill, people. It’s out. Go read it. Spread the word.

Plus, enter to win a $20 Amazon giftcard as we kick off day one of the blog tour. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered! Remember, today is the last day to purchase it for .99 cents. It will go up to $4.99 tomorrow.

Hindsight is 20/20: My Fifth Year in Self Publishing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 20, 2018

Category: Author Events, Inspiration

Tags:annual blog post, back to black, blog post, dragoncon 2017, hindsight is 2020, kyoko m, michael rosenbaum, ming-na wen, nathan fillion, of blood and ashes, of cinder and bone, of dawn and embers, steve blum

“What’s it like being a self-published author?”

Five years. Holy shit, you guys. Didn’t think I’d ever be able to say I survived this long in this brutal, cut-throat career path. I’m just as surprised as you are to still be here, trucking along, trying to survive.

2017, in my honest opinion, was almost as bad as 2016 aka the year the Darkest Timeline started, and the only reason I say that is that because 2016 set the precedent that we’re all screwed until the end of humanity, by comparison, at least I was ready to get my ass kicked all up and down 2017. I’m just about as battered and exhausted as I’ve ever been after making it through another rough year. But there’s often a rainbow behind the thunderstorm, so it wasn’t the worst every single moment of the year.

As far as my personal life goes, 2017 was good to me in terms of vacations. I got to spend a week running around Los Angeles for the first time ever as an adult for my own personal Treat Yo-self excursion. I had an absolute blast. It might be my favorite vacation I’ve ever taken so far. Even though I totally hate Dragon*Con, they lured me in again with the promise of my husband Nathan Fillion, and meeting him was nothing short of amazing, as well as the incomparable Ming Na Wen, Steve Blum, and Michael Rosenbaum. It was an unforgettable weekend and I smile every single time I look at any of the photo ops or autographs I got from those amazing actors.

Back to Black hit bookshelves in 2017 and did moderately well sales-wise, thus proving that readers are still interested in Jordan Amador’s wacky adventures, even without our lovely archangel Michael in the picture. It also has a soft spot in my heart simply because I adore how the cover turned out (huge thanks to Brose Designz—please check out her work; it’s all gorgeous). I also sheepishly admit it was fun to dive back into the dynamic between Jordan and Belial, and I’ve heard from a few of the readers that he’s honestly a favorite of theirs. I don’t blame them. He’s such a compelling bastard. I always muse that Betty Hutton’s “He’s a Demon, He’s a Devil, He’s a Doll” is a perfect description of him.

I also re-designed the cover for Of Cinder and Bone, and was met with a massive improvement in sales. I lament that I didn’t find Brose Designz earlier. I could have saved myself the trouble of re-branding, but to be fair, I searched long and hard and couldn’t find any dragon covers I could afford the first time around. If you’ve never seen OCAB in paperback, I suggest you give it a consideration: it looks absolutely freaking beautiful in book form. The ebook cover doesn’t do it justice. I can happily say the same for Of Blood and Ashes too.

Lastly, OCAB became a permanently free title in December of 2017. I fully admit it hurt my soul to do that for a book with such a hefty word count and one that was easily one of the hardest novels for me to complete, but you’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good as an indie author. After all, the marketing strategy with a free first-in-series gets results even at the expense of my time and considerable effort, which is a good Segway into what I’ve learned this past year.

Write what you love and you’ll find yourself surprised at the results. So I published OCAB back in December 2016, so all of 2017 was basically an enormous learning experience. I was extremely nervous about publishing this novel simply because it’s very niche concept-wise. I started out in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre, and while some readers tend to read both sci-fi and fantasy, I knew there wouldn’t be as much overlap as any known author would have since I’m just an indie author. It went quite slow at first, to be honest, but then it slowly began to pick up consistent sales. What’s more is that while not all of the people who read The Black Parade read OCAB, I found that there was indeed a market for this concept despite how odd it sounds off-hand. One thing I truly find myself surprised with is that people don’t mind as much that the story is about chasing after the dragon rather than being about dragons in general, and that they are in fact drawn into Jack and Kamala’s friendship and eventual romance, and those were two of my biggest worries when I decided to publish it. I sheepishly admit the book is indeed too long—that’s the most common complaint in all the reviews I’ve received, positive or negative, and don’t worry, I intend to rectify the length once I’m back on my feet money-wise—but the reactions I’ve gotten have been better than I expected. I worried that OCAB was a three-star book, and people are generally telling me it’s a four-star book consistently. That’s an amazing thing to hear since I thought it would under-perform in comparison to The Black Parade, which I am slightly more “known” for. It shows that expanding your horizons isn’t always going to be a bad thing and that’s it’s quite easy to underestimate yourself as an author, and to underestimate the readers too. I wrote OCAB because it was fun and it was something I felt passionately about, and for different reasons than the Black Parade series, and it seems as if that’s what is drawing new readers to it.

Be discerning about who you allow to have your time, effort, and content. I have to be a bit vague about this lesson so as not to invite unwanted attention to myself, but should any young authors start looking into the boxed set style of marketing with other authors, please do enough research beforehand to see who you’re getting in bed with. Sometimes results may vary. Sometimes you find out people have bad reputations behind the scenes and it’s too late to do anything but ride it out. It’s hard to see that sort of thing from the surface should you receive an offer or be interested in submitting a book to a set, but I recommend that you do some Googling and check KBoards forums before making that commitment. All I’ll say is that I’ve been dissatisfied with the sets I entered into in 2017 and you honestly won’t have to worry about seeing me post about sets for a long damn time.

Find your flock. I may or may not have stolen this from the tagline of the movie Storks. (Which, by the way, is currently on HBO and if you’re a twenty or thirty-something, you have got to watch that movie. It’s absolutely amazing.) Although it cost way too much money and was a pain in the ass, returning to my hometown of Atlanta was a good move for me because it put me back in contact with local authors, colleagues, and friends. I’ve been able to attend a handful of author events ever since I moved back, and while none of them are anything huge, it’s been great to rub elbows with like-minded folks. We get to discuss relevant topics that the fandoms and readers and world at large doesn’t always find the time to talk about and we’re able to keep each other grounded and motivated. I always recommend for new authors to try to connect with people in their genre or even in their area since it’s nice to chit-chat about the business with someone who gets it. I fully believe that the key to reaching the next level as an author lies in getting Word of Mouth generate. Sadly, if you’re a small fry indie author as well as an introvert, it’s hard to accomplish that goal, but it is possible. One step at a time, I am working towards getting myself out there, meeting new people, and finding those who might be interested in my work.

To quote a catchy tune, “We’ve got a lot of work to do!” and 2018 is half over. I’m happy to say that I am currently penning the third novel in the OCAB series, Of Dawn and Embers, and that you’ll have more news from me in the fall regarding the plot synopsis and release date. Be patient with me, my darlings. I’m so glad you’re still on this raggedy train with me and I hope to see you for the next ride.

Is Loki Evil?

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : May 13, 2018

Is Loki evil?

Doesn’t that sound like such a simple question?

I mean, I could have answered that question quite easily back when we only had two movies to base the evidence on: Thor and the Avengers. Now that we’re at a total of five performances by the lovely Tom Hiddleston, I find myself struggling with evidence for and against this simple little question. It’s sort of made me consider that maybe the idea of good and evil isn’t as clean-cut as I once thought. I’m no stranger to grey area, but Loki has made me examine my own definition of evil now that we’ve gotten a complete scope of who he is as a character over the course of the Thor and MCU franchise. I thought it would be fun to muse over the question and see if I can draw an actual conclusion, or if I’ll remain undecided on the issue.

Naturally, major spoilers for every single film Loki has been in.

Evidence supporting evil:

Arranging Thor’s banishment: Loki of course made the excuse that he was simply trying to stall Thor being crowned King of Asgard as “a bit of fun” and because he believes Thor is a buffoon. He egged his brother on to go after the Frost Giants, knowing Odin would blame Thor and cast him out, leaving the throne to eventually fall to him. Gee, what a nice thing to do to someone who was raised alongside you and shows clear signs of having loved you since the moment you met each other, Loki. You ass-hat.
Plotting Odin’s assassination: Now we get into some tricky territory. Loki planned to secure himself as the hero and savior of Asgard by letting the Frost Giants into Asgard to slay his father and then killing Laufey in a double cross. It then gave him an excuse to wipe out the Frost Giants, thereby erasing his past and whatever feelings of guilt and inadequacy that their existence created in him. He also murdered his own damn father with zero remorse, and while I can agree that I can see why since Laufey appears to be nothing more than a monster who left him to die, it’s still incredibly messed up.
Killing Thor: Yep. There’s no if, ands, or buts about it—Loki tried to kill his brother, innocent people, and Thor’s comrades to keep himself on the throne. He didn’t even seem remorseful about it either.
Attempting genocide on the Frost Giants: This also speaks for itself. The reasoning here doesn’t hold water, either. Loki found out he wasn’t Odin’s son by blood and it twisted up inside him until it completely warped his view on his upbringing. Therefore, to him, eliminating the Frost Giants out of revenge for being abandoned and finding out he’s just a monster who looks like a prince made sense. Out of sight, out of mind. Still, even though the Frost Giants didn’t appear to be anything similar to good, decent beings, there is no excuse for genocide. Loki had no right to kill them all based on the actions of Laufey and Odin.
Trying to kill Thor a second time on the Rainbow Bridge: This is a particular sting to me because Thor so clearly didn’t want to hurt Loki, and certainly didn’t want to kill him. One thing that tears me up about Loki’s selfish, cruel nature is what it does to Thor. Nothing pisses me off more than the fangirls trying to say that any of this shit is Thor’s fault. We never see Thor treat Loki wrong. At most, sure, he talked over him and has probably embarrassed him in the past, but there is no abuse shown in their background. Thor loves his brother to death. Truly, selflessly. It’s so tragic that Thor loves him unconditionally considering what happens next in their joined narrative. At the end of the day, Thor just wants his brother back. He doesn’t care about Loki being a Frost Giant. He wanted to fight by his side and laugh and do all the dumb things brothers do. So Loki trying to kill him twice in the same film where we see how much Thor’s family means to him is just a big fat gut-stabbing to the feels.
Pretty much everything Loki does in The Avengers: the strongest argument for Loki being evil is largely here, in my opinion. I mean, we have blatant murder, mind control, plotting to have the mind-controlled Clint murder Natasha, at least two direct attempts to kill Thor, trying to kill all the Avengers as well as everyone aboard the helicarrier, killing Agent Coulson in cold blood, and then blowing up a good chunk of New York in the process of trying to rule the planet earth. Odin’s beard, this is Loki’s most evil actions that we’ve seen from him period. What’s so fascinating to me is that we still see just a peek that Loki pretends that he’s just an apathetic cold bastard, but then there are moments where we know that’s not the whole truth. The way he quietly asks Thor, “Did you mourn?” with this conflicted look that kind of sums up why I wanted to write this argument in the first place. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t care. Loki cares what Thor thinks of him, to some degree. It’s even in the scene atop Stark Tower where Thor tries again to bring his brother around. It’s very quick, but an actual tear slides down his face right before he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment.” Loki keeps choosing the wrong side, choosing to be a selfish, thoughtless monster, and yet it’s still clear he feels fear, regret, remorse, and other emotions same as Thor does, but he refuses to let his emotions control his actions. He’s set course for the iceberg and he’s just going to crash into that thing no matter what. Good intentions mean nothing. The actions make the man, and the man is a monster in The Avengers.
Guiding Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers: Ooh, if there’s one thing that burns me up with Loki, it’s his constant blame and revenge against Odin. Don’t get me wrong—Odin’s no prize. He’s a garbage father by the time we piece together what he’s done since his sons (and as we discover in Ragnarok, his daughter too) were born and/or found, but in this case, Loki’s in the wrong in so many ways here. Odin showed mercy taking Loki in, and it doesn’t matter his intentions. Odin raised Loki alongside Thor as an equal and Loki, from what we can tell, was just as loved by their mother Frigga. He has no excuse to pretend like his background justifies his desire to see Odin dead. It’s all just to cover up his own shortcomings and envy. It’s just a damned shame that Frigga paid the price for Loki’s hateful nature.
Faking his own death and bespelling Odin so he could impersonate him and keep the throne on Asgard: Once again, this one is such a freaking gut-stab to the feels. I want to slap Loki so hard for lying to Thor and making that poor man think he’s lost his brother again, and after saving his life. It’s just the worst. Loki is the most self-serving, egotistical piece of crap for doing this to Thor. It makes me want to throw Odin’s words right back in his smug face: “All this because Loki desires a throne.” “It’s my birthright!” “Your birthright was to die!” As mean as it is, Odin is right. Loki was shown mercy and what does he do with it? Get his mother killed and try to usurp the throne yet again, and not because he’d be a good ruler, simply to appease his damned ego.
Trying to kill Valkyrie: Thank Odin he was soundly beaten senseless, but it’s messed up that Loki tries to kill Valkyrie so she can’t get in his way. It’s even worse since he forces her to relive the absolute worst moment of her life, although it ends up spurring her to do the right thing and help Thor save Asgard. Loki is such a bastard for that, for driving the knife in and twisting it.
Betraying Thor on Sakaar: Thankfully, Thor had enough sense to know Loki would try it again, but even after all this time, Loki is perfectly happy to throw Thor to the wolves in order to get ahead. It’s worse because he knew the Grandmaster would either continue enslaving Thor or kill him outright. He couldn’t act as if there was some other fate awaiting Thor if his betrayal had panned out for him. It’s even worse when you consider the conversation right before it where Thor tells him, “Loki, I thought the world of you.” Loki’s so quick to blame Thor, to act offended when Thor suggested Loki stay on Sakaar if they get rid of the Grandmaster. He never holds himself accountable, just using that blanket “I’m the God of Mischief” excuse in place of accepting his reprehensible actions.
Stealing the Tesseract from Asgard during Ragnarok: As we come to find Loki’s fate in Infinity War, all I can think is this could have been avoided if he’d left the damned thing there. Loki, Loki, Loki, why are you like this? Half of Asgard would still be alive if he hadn’t taken it from Odin’s vault before Asgard was destroyed. Does that mean that Thanos would have failed? Who knows. But Loki’s decision costs him his life, Heimdall his life, and also the lives of many innocent Asgardians thanks to his power-hungry nature. I suppose this argument is sort of answered in that Loki pays for his selfish act with his life, but it also ends up being a point for and against him, as you’ll see below.

When you add all that up, it makes quite the statement. We have strong evidence to support the “Loki is evil” argument. He is vain, self-centered, ego-centric, callous, and most definitely a sociopath of epic proportions. Everything he does is in service to himself, for the most part. He wants power and he wants attention (or as Tony so cleverly put it, “he’s a full-tilt diva.”) Loki appears to love nothing except himself and nearly everything he does serves that purpose.

But not everything.

Evidence against evil:

Goading Thor into fighting him on the Rainbow Bridge: the action itself doesn’t present a counterargument to the “Loki is evil” theory, but it does poke a hole in it. It’s a very carefully written scene, in my opinion, because now we see the cracks in Loki’s metaphorical armor. Loki pretends he’s this big bad wolf, but some of that young pup comes out through this scene where Thor demands that Loki turn off the Bi-Frost to prevent him from destroying Jotunheim. He’s so desperate to prove himself and to accept this “I’m a monster” mentality that he keeps pressing Thor to fight him, knowing that Thor doesn’t want to and that he wants it all to be over. He could have ended it all right then and there and it’s possible that Loki would have just served a sentence for his crimes instead of being executed, but Loki can’t accept his past and rejects everything in favor of becoming the monster of his origin. What also gives me some massive feels is a line that I’ve long debated with myself about being genuine: when Thor puts together that he can’t stop the Bi-Frost, so he starts destroying the bridge and Loki yells, “What are you doing? If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!” Ouch. You could definitely use that exclamation for both the argument and the counterargument. On the one hand, maybe Loki is just trying to manipulate Thor to get him to stop destroying the bridge. On the other hand, maybe Loki does realize what a selfless thing Thor is doing and some part of him doesn’t want Thor to suffer being stuck on Asgard away from the woman he was falling in love with. It’s a delightfully ambiguous line. Does Loki actually mean it? He still tries to stop him right after this line, but that doesn’t make it completely invalid. It’s a vastly interesting idea in and of itself. The whole struggle between the two is that Thor loves him and wants them to be brothers again, and Loki cut himself off from his adopted family and wants to rule so he doesn’t have to accept being an outcast. So does Loki actually have a remnant of his old self somewhere inside him and that’s the part of him that called out to Thor when he was destroying the bridge?
Loki’s reaction to Frigga’s death: Alright, here’s where the gloves come off in terms of Loki’s characterization over the course of the Marvel films. Loki and Frigga have an argument shortly before Loki guides Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers and unfortunately Frigga dies defending Jane. Loki loses it. He’s a complete and utter wreck when Thor returns after Loki has gotten the news, and Loki knows it’s all his fault. He’s so wracked with guilt that he doesn’t even reveal to anyone that it was because of him. What gets me—and this is a testament to Tom’s skill as an actor—is that vulnerable little question right when Thor sees through Loki’s illusion: “Did she suffer?” Ouch. Oh man. It’s now apparent that the big bad wolf is a scared pup inside, at least for a moment. He knows he’s screwed up and he can’t take it back. It’s definitely sealed on the scene as they travel to meet Malekith on the abandoned planet: “Trust my rage.” One of the only real, true things we see from Loki is his desire to get revenge for Frigga’s death.
Loki saving Thor on the Night Elves’ planet: For once, he actually follows through with Thor’s plan and tries to help him stop Malekith. He even saves Thor’s life, and while it ended up being a con in the end, I still think that was a genuine moment of Loki being Thor’s brother again. He could have let Thor die, let Malekith consume the nine realms, and just rule another world in the ashes of what’s left, or he could have become a true ally of Malekith’s as well, but he didn’t. He stuck to the plan and he saved Thor when he didn’t have to and that’s surprisingly touching considering the monstrous things Loki has done in the past.
Loki shedding tears upon Odin’s death: Tom Hiddleston is a hell of an actor, man. I have to keep giving him props for knocking this complicated character out of the park. There are two interactions that are truly important during this scene: First, the look of shame on Loki’s face as he steps up next to Odin after apparently casting a spell so strong that it took Odin months or years (the timeline is a bit hard to tell, but Thor says it’s been two years since Ultron, so that gives you an idea of how long Odin had to have been on Earth either still bespelled or accepting his exile) and yet Odin doesn’t strike him, yell at him, or even denounce him for it. Odin says, “my sons.” Loki glances over at him, and the look of utter disbelief and vulnerability on Loki’s face is just like a kick in the nuts. That one expression shows that after all is said and done, Loki still wants a family. He still cares what Odin thinks of him, and he’s been wrapped up in this cocoon of hatred only to find out that maybe he was wrong the whole time to assume Odin rejected him for Thor, or to assume Odin hated him after all that he’d done. For just a second, Loki sees the light and sees the truth. Second, as Odin’s ashes float off into the ocean, Loki openly weeps. Wow, wow, wow, does Hiddleston kill this part of the movie. It truly tugs at the heartstrings to see that in spite of how many times Loki’s betrayed Odin, he sheds tears at his father’s passing, and after finding out that after all this time Odin still calls him son. Monsters don’t cry. Human beings do. Loki is still human. Maybe not completely, but there is definitely a part of him that isn’t a monster.
Trying to convince Thor not to fight the champion on Sakaar: Again, this is definitely pretty self-serving here. As much as Loki despises Thor, he knows good and well that Thor is a contender and Thor could help him overthrow the Grandmaster if they banded together. I think Loki actually meant it, personally, that he would get Thor out of the arena fights and they’d just try to survive on Sakaar in the meantime until they figured out what to do. What also seals it is Thor’s refusal to speak and it genuinely bothers Loki. He starts to prod him to reply and gets more agitated the longer Thor just sits there and stares at him. I dig that a lot. That’s a great scene, because in spite of all the horrid things Loki’s done, part of him still wants to be reunited with his brother. He just can’t help himself. He wants acceptance and he wants power and he wants to prove that he’s just as good and worthy as Thor at the end of the day. He even shows signs of worrying about Thor fighting the champion since the champion is undefeated. In the end, Loki just closes back up again and becomes his same old self, but the fact that he reveals his plan to Thor and tries to get him to go along with it suggests that he still cares. He doesn’t want to, but he does.
The elevator conversation during the escape from Sakaar: Thor crushes my heart into paste with this scene, which is a testament to the awesomeness of Chris Hemsworth. It hits me so hard when Loki says, “Do you truly think so little of me, brother?” and Thor just looks at him and says, “Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side by side forever.” Oh, my heart. It hurts so much when the camera pans back and Loki’s honestly stunned. As mentioned above with Odin’s death scene, Loki figures out that he was wrong about what Thor thought of him this whole time and wrong about their relationship as well. Thor has been forced to fight Loki time and time again, and yet he always tries to be kind or show him mercy because Thor is just that kind of loving, genuine person. Loki lies to himself and believes that Thor is a thoughtless bully who always wants to show him up, but here he realizes it’s not true and maybe it never has been. Loki constantly projects his own rejection onto Thor and uses it as an excuse for being the villain. He thinks he’s a monster, and this is what monsters do: they turn on their loved ones and they try to get ahead. For just a moment, Loki can’t help but face the fact that Thor loves him in spite of all that he’s done.
Loki returning to Asgard to help: again, yes, this is mostly because Loki is a full tilt diva and he wants Asgard to know he’s coming back to be their “savior.” (My God, was that not the most satisfyingly over-the-top reveal? I love you, Loki, you little extra shit.) While it’s mostly so he can get some recognition, Loki still risks his life to protect the people of Asgard and help the Revengers defeat Hela. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have gone. He would have stayed on Sakaar and tried to overthrow the Grandmaster. I like the small touch of Thor coming back from facing down Hela and Thor says, “You’re late” and a visibly worried Loki replies, “You’re missing an eye.” Oh, and Thor saying Loki’s late? Another body slam to the feels. Thor had been hoping Loki would come around and believing that he would, and Loki came through. The big dopey smile Thor has on his face when the ship shows up does me a world of good, man. I just can’t emphasize how much I love Thor’s endless forgiveness and desire to see his brother be what he could have been all along: an ally. For just one instance, Loki lives up to the potential he’s been unconsciously seeking the whole time over the course of his journey as a character. He could be that guy. He could be the hero and the brother that Thor deserves, and that he himself deserves to see and believe in. It’s such a great show of the complexities that mix together to form this ridiculous horn-having, hair-flipping demigod.
Loki and Thor’s scene on the ship: “I’m here.” Loki didn’t run away. He’s there with Thor in the end and Thor’s so happy about it that it makes me cry knowing it’ll all go to shit soon afterward in Infinity War. The warmth we see from the two Odinsons in that scene could make the Eternal Flame tremble in comparison. It’s one of the rare scenes that Loki shows some honesty and good will towards Thor, even if he still has ulterior motives behind the scenes.
Loki dies trying to save Thor. Oh, boy. Here is the mother of all convincing facts that maybe Loki isn’t entirely evil. As we approached Infinity War, my gut had been telling me that based on his character development and the arc the MCU set him on, Loki would die giving up the Tesseract in order to save Thor’s life. However, it’s one thing for me to have had this theory beforehand and an entirely different thing to watch Loki die in an attempt to save his brother. It hurt me deeply. It hurt me simply because if Thor hadn’t kept believing in Loki and loving Loki in spite of all his horrible actions, Loki would have simply let Thanos kill him. What really tears the scene is that Loki does try to just let Thanos kill Thor rather than give up the Tesseract, but then he watches his brother scream in agony at Thanos’ hands and he simply can’t go through with it. It just destroys me that there were tears in his eyes as he watched Thor suffer and in the end, he tried to do the right thing, and he died protecting his brother. It was inevitable that Loki would meet his end this way, but it still says so much about the powerful relationship we’ve seen change and grow from the first Thor movie to now. Does it invalidate all the evil he’s done in other movies? Hell no. However, it definitely is the most compelling counterargument for this essay that Loki isn’t completely evil. He made his own bed and he’s finally had to lie down in it, but he went out trying to repay his brother’s love after so many years of betrayal. It breaks my heart, honestly.

So what does it all mean, in the end?

If we go by actions alone, the bad outweighs the good and Loki is evil. However, how do you define evil? If we go by Webster’s definition, we find that evil is: “morally reprehensible” or “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.” Is evil simply the absence of good? If so, then no, Loki isn’t evil. There is good in him. There’s more bad than good, but it’s still there and in the end he chose to do the right thing rather than defaulting into his old ways. Furthermore, is he evil in part of the story and not in the rest? Possibly, yes. What makes Loki so hard to pin down is the fact that up until Infinity War it’s an ongoing story, so if you pluck him out at certain points, it’s still open for debate what constitutes as evil. He certainly is evil for large chunks of his overall storyline, but when he develops, the picture gets away blurry and hard to describe. In that case, what is the measure of evil? Is it the whole journey or the ending? Can the lives he’s taken be weighed against the lives he’s saved? What tips the balance on the scales of the soul?

I hope you guys know, ‘cause I sure don’t.

All I can safely say is that Loki is complex. He’s mostly bad, but the streak of good in him has honestly saved lives, so it’s hard to throw him away completely as the villain. He’s neither totally the villain nor anti-hero, but just this sassy asshole who straddles the fence. Big props to the many writers who brought our brilliant trashlord to life. He shall be sorely missed.

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