There’s an interview with me up on Hell Or High Water today.

Come a find out all you could ever want to know. 🙂

Like magic? Like UF?

Then you’ll LOVE Genny!

The wonderful Suzanne McLeod’s The Cold Kiss of Death officially releases today. Let excitement and bouncing elephants reign supreme.

I’m reading the first volume in this series The Sweet Scent of Blood (What? I’m a slow reader! Give me a break!) and its awesome.

Don’t believe me? (How could you doubt me?!)

Kimberly at Darque Reviews has given The Cold Kiss of Death a starred read!

‘Ms. McLeod outdoes herself, and takes her fictional world to new levels. The Cold Kiss of Death is a refreshing escape that will keep readers glued to every page.’

‘Great writing, enough sass to make [Genny] believable and above all a tale that makes us all want to visit to see the “hidden” side of this ancient city. . . making [Suzanne] perhaps Britain’s premiere Urban Fantasy Author.‘

Lovevampires.com** has given The Cold Kiss of Death !

‘The Cold Kiss of Death [is] an exciting and satisfyingly complex read. Throw in an imaginatively realised fantasy London with demons, sorcerers, satyrs, vampires, necromancers and a wide variety of faery beings and it’s clear that this book is a sure-fire winner for fantasy fans.’

Go on, you know you want it! Make sure to hop over to Suzanne’s LJ and congratulation her!

I read two excellent blog posts recently. China Mieville’s one on Tolkien, and James Van Pelt’s one on George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.

And, as good posts always do, they got me thinking. And that usually means a long post here, so be warned…

(It also means I will probably end up stating the obvious, or things that everyone else thought of ages ago, so bear with me, smile and nod etc. You can talk about me behind my back later on, ‘k?)
What I ended up thinking about is tragedy.

And whether we shy away from tragedy in our stories. We like our happily ever afters. Our neatly wrapped up Hollywood endings. Our final kiss.

And yet…

So many of the “bigger” stories, for want of a better word, don’t end up that way. Not better stories, I’ll hasten to add. But the sweeping tales, the ones which resonate with us and last. Many of them don’t have that pat ending, that neat wrap up where, as Miss Prism said, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” Or if they do, they get there by means of great tragedy and personal sacrifice.

Is it the case that we’re not as geared up for those sort of endings anymore? I don’t think that’s the case, as the end of Game of Thrones and its phenomenal popularity attests.

I’m in a bit of a weird situation in that I write both fantasy and romance. A happy ending is kind of a pre-requisite for a romance. But that to me doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be trials and tribulations in order to get there. On the contrary, the happy ending is all the more sweet if it has taken effort to reach it, if there has been a real sense of “there is no way this can be resolved” before somehow, it is.

Perhaps its coming from Ireland. Tragedy is a major player in Celtic legends, no matter what the source or derivation. Cuchullain, Diarmuid and Grainne, Deirdre and the sons of Usna, Bran and Branwen, Blodeuwedd and Tristan and Isolde. Even Arthur himself. Not a hint of a happy every after among the lot of them.

I like a story that brings me to tears. I like a story that brings me to tears and then makes me feel good again, so that even if the loss is very great indeed there is a small comfort in that it has been for a purpose.

What do you think?

In the midst of all the fun of Excerpt Monday, I found out that The Scroll Thief is available for pre-order on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Nearly deafened half the population of the western hemisphere alone.

Well, okay, Twitter anyway.

Here are the links:

The Scroll Thief (Amazon.com)

The Scroll Thief (Amazon.co.uk)

eta: AND The Book Depository!

It all looks very sparse right now, but OMG (here I go again!) SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!

*a few deep breaths later*

You can pre-order. How exciting is that????

I’m testing cross posting right now.

Let’s see if this works…

Very very exciting news today. I got the print date for my novel The Scroll Thief: a Tale of Ithian. It’s going to be available from 1st December 2009. Actually in print. On paper! YAY!

Of course, its already available as an ebook if you are so inclined. 🙂

I’ve just signed the contract for The Wolf’s Mate, the sequel to The Wolf’s Sister.

We’re talking about releasing 1 & 2 as a single print volume after epub, and then my writing the third part as a short novel! More details as and when I have them.