I haven't really got the hang of doing these as Reels. But I just found out I have a Sept. publication date for a book I sold back in 2023 -- and I'm trying to get more beta readers for a sequel to my debut fantasy book...
And it might be time to hire somebody. I know they tell authors never to do this unless and until you're in the black with your book sales. But if I wait for THAT to happen, I might actually finish this midlife crisis before I can "afford" it.
Truth is - I can afford it. I'm motherfuckin' retired with mad bank from DECADES of all work and no play. So why not treat this as "play?" Other retirees buy boats - I'll hire a book marketer that doesn't suck.
KILL A KING IN EIGHT EASY STEPS is a romantasy I wrote as satire of SHADOWS BETWEEN US only for adults. I was very angry with BookTok at the time for ramming YA down my throat when I wanted Game of Thrones-alikes. This is a story of an aspiring assassin who falls in love with the crown prince while plotting regicide. It's deeply inspired by Tony McNamara's The Favourite and Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Think bitchy royals sleeping around with debauched revolutionists, plus or minus some murder. Slowburn, enemies-to-lovers*, explicit/open-door spice.
This is the one I'd hire somebody to help me promote. I only earn royalties once the publisher recoups their up-front costs. Based on how it's gone with their other books, I think my best bet is to drive up wishlists as high as I can so I can start earning sooner.
Whatever I learn here can also be applied to my other books...
HERESY OF ARCHMAGES is the sequel to WITCH KING'S OATH. We pick up with Anryn going to war to rescue Maertyn while Ciamon, Griff, and Beatrice race to stop it. High-agnst, high-stakes epic fantasy with the right amount of romantic subplot. Think MISTS OF AVALON x GAME OF THRONES. This is one I'd build a campaign for starting with making Book 1 free for a limited time to get people onto my newsletter.
Last, THE KING'S VIRTUE... I need to finish writing it. I only have about 25% left -- the third act breakup (both justified and necessary), and the grovel/resolution. This is the book I wrote to fill the CAPTIVE PRINCE-sized hole in my heart. Heavily influenced by Baldur's Gate 3 and Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I'm not sure if I can query this successfully in the current market... but it's worth a shot.
*enemies-to-lovers but the psycho kind. Like... he doesn't KNOW they are enemies at first... And when he finds out, he's like, "God that's HOT."
Yashiro x Doumeki and the eternal draw of damaged people
Twittering Birds Never Fly (囀る鳥は羽ばたかない) is one of the longest-running manga I've ever kept up with. I think only Blade of the Immortal comes close for how invested I am in the will they/won't they.
Near zero chance you're reading my tumblr without already knowing the story. But just in case: Yashiro is a yakuza mini boss and Damage Incarnate who hires an ex-cop with an impotence problem to be his bodyguard. Doumeki conceives a platonic hero-worship obsession with Yashiro that eventually cures his impotence and yadda-yadda-near-death-yadda, the devotion turns into romance.
It's fraught and convoluted. There are hundreds of moments throughout the 8+ volumes of story where I just want to shake Yashiro.
"HE LOVES YOU. WHY ARE YOU RUINING THAT? OMFG JUST QUIT THE YAKUZA, YOU DON'T EVEN LIKE IT AND YOU ARE FUCKING 40, GET IT TOGETHER."
etc.
But still I go back.
There's a magnetism to Yashiro's trauma that reminds me of Laurent from Captive Prince. Both are victims of child SA from a family member. Both rise to positions of power in corrupt systems with strict hierarchies.
And yet... Yashiro is twice Laurent's age. His commitment to his maladaptive hypersexuality runs deep and is tied directly to his position in the Yakuza. Even with Doumeki's second confession ("Do you really think I could fall for anyone but you?"), we know Yashiro is gonna do something crazy...
And I am SAT for it.
(New issue comes out tomorrow....!)
P.S. About Blade of the Immortal... Fuck you for that Rin/Manji kiss, Samura-sensei. You know what you did.
Whoever tried to call this book a Captive Prince comp lied through their teeth.
I can appreciate a Gay Achilles. The Greeks were down and I imagine plenty of women in antiquity appreciated all that artwork just like they do nowadays.
But I can't get behind the depiction of Patroclus. He's written almost as "woman in generic fantasy book" -- he yearns, feels, angsts, yearns some more, then becomes a healer to stay useful to boyfriend because, "I'm too DELICATE to fight in a BATTLE."
And the sex scenes are so vague, the anatomy doesn't even matter.
Captive Prince has similarities in the rich language and the historical-adjacent fantasy setting. But it depicts a relationship between two men who occupy male roles in their respective societies. Neither of them expresses particularly feminine traits. And as much as Damen eventually yearns for Laurent... He is grounded in action, not angst.
I'm dragging myself through the last 40% of Song of Achilles. Not because I think it improves, but because I AM curious how the book handles Patroclus dying.
But this doesn't read as a satisfying M/M romance to me at all. It reads more like a reskinned M/F romance.
"Violence slid across the men like oil waiting for a flame."
This was the line -- in chapter 2 -- that made me sit down and really READ this book. Before this line, I didn't rate Captive Prince. Everyone else liked it but I bounced off book 1.
I can't even remember why I picked up book 2. I didn't bother to read the "story so far" summary or the dramatis personae -- I just started scrolling. I knew from the hype machine behind the series that the story is about a captive prince in the custody of another prince who hates his guts. But all the details (Auguste, the Regent's kinks, Nicaise and Laurent's trauma bond) didn't play a role getting me hooked.
It was the language. The prose CS Pacat uses is a unique mix of high falutin' word choice and emotional percision. Where other "fanfic-style" books are dialog heavy and a mishmash of irrelevant details, Pacat kept it tight and flowing. It made me feel smart while never talking down to me.
Newer "adult fantasy books for women" don't do this. I was SORELY dissappointed in The Poet Empress, The Knight and the Moth, The Second Death of Locke, and Ten Thousand Doors of January. All of which are highly praised books! ...but every single one reads like "YA but spicy!"
I don't like being talked down to. I resent the idea that "fantasy for women" is somehow less than "fantasy for men." And I'm deeply suspicious of books with FMCs purported to be over 25 who have the emotional maturity of 13-year-olds.
This feeds into my wish that there were more books like Prince's Gambit out there to read.
I got busted in 8th grade for writing NSFW Star Fox fanfic. My mom had to pick me up early and she was FURIOUS.
Not because I wrote NSFW fic. No, because I infringed on the Star Fox IP.
"Do you want to get sued? Do you want people to think you're unimaginative? A thief? Do your own WORK if you're going to be a writer!"
That's stuck with me well into adulthood. Even after meeting Star Fox lead programmer Dylan Cuthbert and telling him this story. I've always worried that whatever I write will be too derrivative. Too close to something. And whenever I did indulge in fanfic, it was with my head on a swivel, a VPN, and like 10 different pennames to hide my shame.
And now... bitches be getting 7 figure deals for the Harry Potter fanfic. CTRL+F+R is the solution to copyright infringement. All the most demented, plot-broken, unrealistic sex acts are FAIR GAME for the Big 5...
And I'm over here feeling all precious about my Capri fic. Worried that my original works won't find their audience. Angsting over picking the wrong names for my MCs because they sound too much like some other fantasy fuckboi name I read two decades ago...
I'm worried I'm never going to read a series like Capri again. I've tried almost all the recs everyone makes, and it's disappointment each time. No book comes close in terms of plot, pace, or characterization. Some do manage other things, of course, but even the books I finish send me right back to Capri.
Here's what I've tried:
Into the North. Historical, Viking captor/Roman captive. This one came the closest to scratching the itch because it's well-written with solid tension. But the dynamic is nothing like Lamen despite the slavefic DNA.
Knight & the Necromancer. Fantasy enemies to lovers. Well-written at the line level but I ended up DNF'ing because the pacing was all over the place and I utterly stopped caring whether or not they got together by 15%.
The Scottish Boy. Historical enemies-to-lovers. Instant DNF because it's written in third-person present-tense and that just didn't work for me.
The Prince's Assassin. Fantasy enemies to lovers. Reading level too low to keep me interested.
Part of the problem is the stigma of romance books. It's an "escapism" genre where things aren't meant to be deep or researched or believable. "It's not read as literature!" as my librarian grandmother would say when she caught me reading bodice rippers instead of Jane Austen.
Capri, as I understand it, was born from a soup of internet culture not bound to genre conventions. It reads different from other romances because it IS different. And everything else recommended to me wasn't written that way; about half the recs I get are straightforward Romance Genre books and the other half are commercial romantasy chasing "ACOTAR but make it gay!"
There's more books out there for me to try. And if not, I can get off my ass and write more Capri fic or finish my own story about a noble sold off as a ward to the knight who ruined his family.
But what I want is to crack open the next book and fall in love again.
The older I get, the more overlap I find with people who like things that I like also like OTHER cool things I end up enjoying.
So for the people out here enjoying...
Heated Rivalry
Captive Prince
The Summer Hikaru Died
Baldur's Gate 3
Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai
Attack on Titan
...try these things on for size:
Queer as Folk <- walked so Heated Rivalry could sprint
Swordspoint <- has the same grounded fantasy vibe as Captive Prince with a tender, delicate gay romance between two damaged men
Persona 4 (not 5) <- has the Japanese small town horror mystery vibe on lockdown and IMO the better voice acting
Maiden Rose <- same dark yaoi vibes as Saezuru, totally different setting
Valkyria Chronicles <- military fantasy tactics game with some truly great John DiMaggio dubbing
Also, hear me out... try the novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. It has almost *nothing* to do with any of the above, but it's one of my favorite books of all time and if you like the same things I like, chances are you'll like it, too.
Posted a new lamen fic to AO3 last night in a fit of pique.
I've been blocked on my epic fantasy manuscript for almost a solid month -- and channelled all my impotence into some Bottomianos.
Happy Holidays, Capri stans!
My Gift to You
Wintertime in Vere turned the country white and gold. Every castle from Aquitart to Arles glowed with hearthfires shining on fresh-fallen snow.
Damen would have preferred to spend the season in his own sunny country, where even the harshest winter storm left no more than a bit of frost on the ground. But Laurent’s invitation to winter with him in Vere glowed as brightly as the hearths.
“Remember our time together in Vask?” he’d murmured into Damen’s ear, inviting. “I will keep you warm.”
So that season, Damen found himself sheathed in wool and swaddled in furs, shivering on a balcony.
Below, the court rode past in a parade of lamp-lit sleds as part of the Winterdale Festival. He did his best as King of Akielos to enjoy the revels, saluting the counselors as they came by with cups of warm, spiced wine. Behind him, in the castle where once he’d been bound and chained, the King of Vere entertained their guests in a long evening banquet of roast boar and meat pies.
Damen’s teeth chattered. Even his bearskin cloak could not keep the chill at bay. He downed another draught of mulled wine and searched the bright array of sleds for the last in the procession. Ancel had made a spectacle of himself, crowned the King of Winterdale at the start of the season. His polished sled arrived two hours after the parade started, pulled up to the palace by six white horses caparisoned in glittering blue.
“Enjoying yourself, lover?”
Laurent had slipped away from the crush of courtiers to join him on the balcony. The cold touched him only lightly in charming spots of color on his pale cheeks. Damen caught his breath at how the snowflakes dusted his hair. If his own hands hadn’t been so cold, he would have liked to take his gloves off and brush them from the fox-fur waves.
“How much longer will the revels go?” he asked.
“Until dawn,” said Laurent simply. A cool flick of his gaze simmered with the warmth that Damen craved. “But we may retire at any time…”
Below, Ancel had risen from his furs, casting them back to reveal a skintight suit of green velvet. A cheer erupted from the crowd as the King of Winterdale swept down from his sled to toss handfuls of brightly wrapped sweets. He flung a few up toward the balcony, causing Damen to laugh as the treats bounced from the balustrade.
“Come inside if you’re too cold.”
Laurent slid an arm beneath Damen’s. A proprietary touch. Damen felt his fingers curl beneath the fur, seeking firm, hard muscle.
Unexpected. Laurent wasn’t one to paw at him, even in his neediest, most vulnerable moments. But something about the cold and the way that Damen must look brought a heat to Laurent’s face. Something rare and enticing.
He slid his hand down Laurent’s back. “Take me to bed.”
They’d discussed this once or twice in halting heavy voices. Damen still could not quite imagine it. Laurent, astride, his face flushed with pleasure. His cock was not between them but deep inside, where neither of them had been.
Damen drank more wine. Not enough to dull or drunken, but the amount that brought on languor. He forewent the customary chalis — this was no stranger he gave himself to. Laurent alone was all the aphrodisiac Damen needed.
He stepped inside their inner rooms. A cosy fire lit the many tapestries. They had a bed big enough for five, draped with heavy velvet. Laurent’s planning warred with his austerity in the little touches added to their one bedside table: Glass phials. Folded towels. A pitcher of water. Little candles everywhere to make the room glow as it had at the inn in Mellos.
Laurent emerged from behind the dressing screen, nude. He worked the gold cuff on his wrist, a nervous gesture.
Damen stopped just shy of the bed and unfastened the cords of his cloak.
“There’s a rack in the anteroom.” An eyebrow arched. “Would you like to go out and try again?”
“My gift to you is anticipation,” Damen said, smiling at his lover’s tell. Laurent bit hardest when he felt vulnerable. “Are you worried I will be disappointed in yours?”
He watched the column of Laurent’s throat move. The lift of his chin turned dangerous. “Fine — disrobe for me, then. But do it there, by the fire. Where I can watch.”
Damen chuckled, hopelessly charmed. He walked toward the fireplace, crackling with heady warmth.
Laurent sat in the winged armchair to one side of it — the one they’d broken a leg on just that summer when Damen bent him over the back of it. He stretched himself out in a languid pose, one ankle hooked over a knee.
Damen faced him while half-turned toward the fire and began to disrobe the way that Laurent liked. Slowly. He knew the effect that it would have. The sight of Damen unclothed stirred Laurent to violent awareness.
The tension flared with each exposed limb. Damen drew off his gloves and cast them aside. Then shrugged from the padded jacket worn under the bearskin. He took his time with the laces on his sleeves, pulling the ends with his teeth.
“Leave your smallclothes on,” Laurent said, a little breathless, when Damen put his hands to his belt. The click of the buckle and leather sounded lewd to his own ears as he unfastened it. Damen bent to peel the trousers off so that they would not take down the tight breeches beneath. From the corner of one eye, he watched Laurent’s gaze shift to the planes of his back.
Don’t look there, he wanted to say.
The scars of his whipping sometimes stopped Laurent cold whenever they made love. In truth, Damen hardly thought of them. But he knew it was one of many reasons they had not been here before. There would be no way to avoid the sight of them if Laurent took him from behind.
A giddy rush ran down from his head, tightening everything below. Damen caught his breath and pulled his last leg free of the constricting clothes. He stood before his lover, naked but for the loose strip of cloth that ran from front to back and around his hips.
Laurent licked his lips. His own arousal kindled as he ran his eyes up the length of Damen’s naked legs. That perfect tongue lingered outside the mouth as he studied the straining smallclothes.
He rose from the chair in one fluid motion. One hand extended out, palm up.
“Come here.”
Damen felt heavy as he came to take his lover’s hand. His awareness strained against every inch of his skin, warmed by fire. Laurent’s own felt silky under his callused fingers. Damen let himself be grasped by the wrist and tugged forward. Laurent drew him close until they pressed against one another. His naked skin sliding over Damen’s clothed arousal.
He gasped. Questing fingers slid beneath the band around his hips. He looked down into Laurent’s dark-eyed stare, feeling as if he stood at the edge of a cliff. Damen pushed himself into Laurent’s hand, groaning.
“So eager.” Laurent smiled when he took his hand away. He brought his hands to Damen’s chest, palms circling the hardened nubs. His breath tickled the curling hair when he leaned closer still. “There is time. We have a lot of time until dawn…”
Lips brushed against his scar. Damen sucked in a breath as Laurent licked and kissed his way toward one of Damen’s nipples. He captured it between his teeth, suckling it with warm, gentle motions of his tongue.
“Laurent,” he gasped. Instinctively, he put his hands on Laurent’s hips. Had this been any other night together, he’d have turned Laurent’s face up to take his mouth. Long and slow, the way he liked.
But this night was meant for different things. For Laurent to take pleasure in him the way that Damen liked.
The hands on his chest returned to his loins. Laurent took the band of cloth between his hands and tore it. The slight tug against his cock sent shivers all down Damen’s spine, and he gasped again when Laurent ripped the smallclothes away, leaving him all exposed and standing.
“Lie down,” Laurent commanded. Damen started to move toward the bed, and Laurent stopped him with a firm hand and a tip of his head at the discarded bearskin. “Right there, by the fire.”
Damen sank to his knees, quivering. He felt the shift as Laurent moved away — an almost unbearable sundering while Laurent went to take the bedside tray from its place. Firelight spilled across his cuff, and Damen found himself adopting the pose of a slave almost on instinct as Laurent came back and presented it to him.
“Choose.” His breath was barely above a whisper, the tension in him like a knife unsheathed.
Damen lifted one of the phials from the silver tray. Laurent had chosen three different oils to offer as a means of passage and pleasure. He unstoppered the delicate bottle to the scent of sweet almond oil. All the way from Akielos.
“You thought of everything,” he murmured, charmed.
Laurent smiled shyly. He set the tray down and sat beside Damen on the bearskin. His hands slid over Damen’s legs, tentative.
“I wanted the gift to be something mutual,” he said. His eyes dipped, and the planes of his face tightened. The old repression bubbling to the surface. “It isn’t—I simply… I would not do this if I thought you did not want—”
“I do.” Damen cut him off with a fierce kiss. One hand curled in Laurent’s hair, keeping him close so that their breaths mingled. “I want it, Laurent. Because it’s you and because if not you, then no one. I give you this as you give it to me. My first.”
Laurent shuddered. His kiss was returned, warm and sincere, before it darkened. He nipped at Damen’s lip.
“Lie back.”
Damen felt the fur beneath him and the fire just to one side. Laurent knelt above him, taking the open phial to spill a thick stream of oil onto his hands. The first caress of his sweet-slicked fingers sent a juddering breath through Damen. His hips shifted toward the warmth, seeking satisfaction.
“Laurent,” he urged, entreating.
“Spread your legs.”
One hand held him firmly while the other slid beneath, spreading the oil all across his delicate places. The tip of a finger touched the entrance. Damen drew one hot, tight breath. It slid in with decisive intention while the ones around it massaged and stretched.
He moaned. A sound Damen did not often make, not even when Laurent had him in his mouth. He felt his awareness torn between two places. The slow, maddening slide of Laurent’s oiled palm up and down his length. And the quick, fluttering circles of his finger, coaxing more moans from him.
He knew how it felt from the outside. That impossible sense of tightness opening. Damen breathed as Erasmus had told him to, calmly and deeply, to steady his nerves. He gazed at Laurent’s face, the lips parted while the brow furrowed. He focused entirely on Damen’s pleasure, eyes never leaving where his hands worked him open.
“Now,” Damen said, lifting a knee up toward his chest. Laurent’s gaze splayed over him, fixing on the place where they were joined. Where still more joining was needed. “Put it in now.”
Laurent inserted another finger. Damen grunted, digging a fist into the fur beneath him, painfully aroused.
“That’s not what I meant,” he growled.
The briefest glance. The smallest smile. Laurent scissored his fingers slowly.
“I know that, Damen. But you don’t know how big I am.”
That brought a flush to Damen’s face unlike any that fire could kindle. He lay on his back, exposed, aroused, and impossibly shocked by his own inexperience. Some slight, helpless sound slid from his throat as Laurent worked a third finger inside, delving deep to where a hard place tingled.
“Laurent,” he begged.
“Now I think that you are ready.” Laurent planted a soft kiss on Damen’s knee as he positioned. Still more oil went onto his hands. Then onto his shaft, flagging slightly from neglect. He stroked himself as he gazed down at Damen, eyes wide and dark. “I will claim you now, my king. I will stop if it hurts. And when you cry, I will kiss you.”
I’m not going to cry. Damen bit his lip at the very thought. This was where he wanted to be, where he’d dreamed of being ever since that night in Mellos full of the unspoken. He breathed between his teeth, and Laurent eased his way inside the slicked stretch, shifting his leg a little.
…he felt like more than what Damen remembered. He’d had Laurent in his hands, in his mouth — a pleasing proportion easily managed. But, as a question of scale, the King of Vere was a much bigger man than Damen had realized.
“Breathe,” Laurent hissed. His legs quivered, and his hands ran up and down Damen’s thighs. “You are so tight…”
He said it Veretian, breathy and low. Damen moaned at the sweet sound of his voice and felt himself parting. Opening. Laurent nudged his way inside with tight, controlled thrusts until Damen felt the brush of his golden hair against his buttocks.
He’s inside. That single, stunning realization shot through Damen just as Laurent thrust hard in earnest, brushing against that something inside. His cock jumped against his belly, spilling beads of pleasure onto the trail of hair.
“Laurent,” he gasped, and he was dissolving. Laurent leaned down, giving Damen his full weight when he thrust again. Lips grazed along his arms, his neck. Last to lock against his mouth, the hot tongue delving inside as length at the other end quivered within him.
“I can’t—I can’t,” Laurent gasped, staring to pull away. “I’ll come too soon.”
“No,” Damen moaned, locking his legs against Laurent’s back. He wound his arms around his lover’s neck and held him tight, clenching around every inch of him. “I want it—I want you, I’ve wanted this for so long…”
Laurent made a sound, some tangled mess of need and defeat. He thumped against Damen hard, skin slapping against skin. The first spurt of seed into the oiled heat drew a startled cry from Damen. A single tear slid down his cheek.
And Laurent kept his word — he kissed it. Pressed close so that their bodies enclosed Damen’s arousal in delicious friction. The overwhelming sense of tender expenditure washed through Damen as he spent, flooding the space between them with warmth.
They lay entwined, panting, until the last tremors of their joining faded.
