Dead To Rites: Harper and Gable Book One eBook: Sarah Goodwin, Vander Moule: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
HEY EVERYONE :)
So in the interests of ‘following my bliss’ or whatever I chose to give up my first good job in years, all my friends and my social life and move back in with my parents, you know, like a failure, in order to write a new novel for my literary agent.
Unfortunately because it has LESBIANS in it - lesbian WITCHES at that, it is apparently not worth showing to publishers.
What a great time to be a dyke-writer.
Anyhoo, if you like LESBIANS, WITCHES and CRIME NOVELS, you can enjoy my novel ‘Dead to Rites’ on Kindle for 99p. This will help me to drown my sorrows in reasonably priced coffee until I can write a novel that isn’t just so DAMN GAY.
P.S. I also have a podcast about witches in fiction (that’s games, books, tv, films etc) and you can listen to that FOR FREE on Castbox or Youtube. It’s called ‘Witchfix’ and there are episodes already up for you to enjoy.
Owned: Yes
Page count: 254
My summary: Mick Oberon, aes sidhe and private eye, is on his most dangerous case yet. Death has come to Chicago, and it’s coming for him. His allies are dying around him, his bad luck continues, and he’s slowly learning that a powerful witch he thought dead might actually be alive. But more is to come. There’s whispers on the wind - whispers of vampires.
My rating: 4/5
The last Mick Oberon story, although probably not forever. This one ends on a hell of a cliffhanger bringing all of the metaplot into the forefront - it feels climactic, like the next book is going to be the end for Mick. Which is fine, that’s a good length of a series like this. This is also the first of these books that I haven’t read previously. I got the first three out of the library a couple of years ago and devoured them instantly, but this time round I bought it for myself. Anyway, I like this, of course, let’s go!
Vampires. A monster which has been written about a thousand times, so any attempts at making them...not quite new, but at least fresh, are welcome. Mick starts out by finding vampire watermelons, a myth so obscure that he, a Prince of the aes sidhe, did not believe they were real. The actual vampires, when they show up, are definitely more monster than man, on the scale from Twilight to Nosferatu, they’re the Nosferatu from World of Darkness. Ugly, untrustworthy, out for blood, and able to fly. Still, it was a fresh enough take on vampires, and I definitely enjoyed the worldbuilding here.
This book is less standalone than the others - it feels like a penultimate episode, which I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually is. Characters from all over the series show up, and a few of them are horribly imperilled. Pete, Mick’s werewolf BFF, is horribly traumatised in a way that broke my heart into pieces by Mick; it’s a betrayal, but you understand why Mick did it, but also you totally understand why Pete is upset. Poor Pete. Poor Mick. Everything’s going wrong for him, but I never felt that it was too bleak. Mick’s sarcastic humour and tongue-in-cheek narrative style kept things from being overwhelmingly grim, but the events were serious enough to convey the actual stakes at play.
Next up, we go back for some kid lit, and a love story!
Owned: Yes
Page count: 268
My summary: Mick Oberon is back, on the trail of a missing mummy. Seems every magically-attuned person in Chicago wants a piece of this thing. Mick’s got his own problems, though - between mysterious dames appearing in his office, a spate of bad luck, and half the gangsters gunning for him, Mick’s swamped. And until he can figure this puzzle, he’s vulnerable for the attack. Hopefully, he can untangle the puzzle and find the wandersome corpse, before someone else finds him.
My rating: 4/5
More Mick Oberon! Don’t worry, there’s only one more of these after this. Every one of these books seems to be taking on a different supernatural threat - the first book was changelings, the second was the Spear of Lugh specifically and the Fae generally. This one’s about mummies, or rather one mummy. It ties into groundwork laid by the first two books - gangsters with magic, the ongoing plot about the changeling, Fae etc - but adds enough new stuff to keep the reader engaged, while still making sense within the world.
How can I count the ways in which I love Mick Oberon? I know I went on about this in the last one, but the thing that strikes me so much about Mick as a character is his humanity, his compassion. It would be so easy to create a sidhe character who doesn’t care about people, who’s moody and hateful - especially with the private eye genre! But Mick cares. He cares about his friends, and is enraged when they’re put in danger. He cares about people and tries to help them as much as possible. As soon as - spoilers! - the mummy is revealed to be sentient, he gives him the proper respect due to a real live human person and considers his opinion and point of view in his plans. He’s not perfect, but damn, he’s just a decent guy, and I love that for him.
One new character added in this one is Tsura, a Greek Oracle masquerading as a carnival fortune-teller who gets involved in Mick’s investigation. She’s adorable. Her birth name is Fedora, which is a perfectly legitimate Greek name that she hates using because, you know, that’s a hat. Mick Oberon can relate, however. She’s young, she’s overwhelmed by this new world she finds herself in, but she still goes along with everything and tries to help out as best she can. She can’t control her powers, but she’s trying her best, and when she pulls it off in the climax it’s amazing. I love her so much.
There are a lot of pitfalls you have to navigate if creating a narrative about a supernatural mummy, and this book manages to avoid a fair amount of them! First of all, the rash of bad luck Mick’s experiencing is something he initially handwaves away as being probably a mummy’s curse. Nope! It’s completely separate, and there’s no mummy’s curse. But secondly and more importantly, the mummy himself is a character with agency. Everyone wanted to treat him like an object, but this is a real human person with his own opinions. He’s not a monster, he’s not even a threat. And the book uses a fair amount of actual Ancient Egyptian thoughts on death and the afterlife (I’m no expert, obviously, but they seemed legit from what I know) to characterise the mummy and how he came to be. In the end, the mummy just wants to be left alone and sink back into death. And Mick, eternal protector and helper of humanity, works hard to try and make that a reality. It’s a surprisingly nice conclusion to what started out as just a movie monster.
Next up, the last Mick Oberon book - and there’s a vampire in town.
Just got word from my editor about progress on Dead to Rites, the next volume in Jake and the Dynamo.
My publisher is currently rushing some things to get ready in time for Dragon Con (August 29 to September 2), which has pushed my book release back a bit. I’m crossing my fingers for September, but we’ll see.
Speaking of which, I had a sort-of chance to make it to Dragon Con this year, but…
Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites Progress Update
Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites Progress Update #amwriting
Image: Source unknown.
Happy Easter! He is risen!
I know I haven’t posted much lately, but as this has been Holy Week, and I’m Catholic, I’ve been quite busy. I’m also finishing up Dead to Rites,and I’m in the oh-my-gosh-I-have-to-get-this-thing-out-of-the-house-I’m-so-sick-of-it phase of the writing process. I tend to hit a period of malaise and despondency as I’m finishing a project, but this…
'Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites' Progress Update
'Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites' Progress Update #amwriting
I have finished incorporating all of my editor’s recommended edits, so the next phase on the novel is intensive proofreading. I’m going through now and hunting down common writing mistakes. After that, I’ll print the whole thing out and read it through with a red pen. Once I’m done with that, it is ready to go to the publisher.
I know I’m not posting nearly enough. I’m trying to get my act together over here, but it is my novel that needs to come first. I’m definitely in the I need to get this book out of the house right now oh please oh please phase of the writing process, which is also when my blog posts suffer—more than usual, I mean.
At least my taxes finally got done. Something goes weird with my taxes every year,…
