Magical Book Bingo

Hi Ink Drinkers!

Welcome to my Magical Book Bingo!  This little beauty was part of my newsletter bundle for spring.  I offered prizes to my newsletter subscribers.  If you're interested in joining, my newsletter is free, it comes out quarterly, and freebies are offered from time to time.  Sign up on my website: https://tigrix1.wixsite.com/stephanievanorman  However, I'll let all of you see the card if you're looking for your next big read.  

Now I'm going to give a sneaky little peek into each book, which means I'll leave a synopsis but a grouchy one like an Honest Trailer (but shorter).  Enjoy!

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen:  This is the first book of a trilogy.  The first book really got me.  It's about an opera singer who is dragged under the mountain to be the bride of the troll prince.  I have tried to read other books by this author and it hasn't worked out for me, but this book kills me.  Overblown romantic stuff always makes me howl with laughter and this is it.  It gets very warlike in the later books, which was a pity.  Eventually, it takes itself very seriously.

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa: This is the first book of a trilogy.  It's fun.  It's like reading an adorable anime.  There is a great deal of combat.  However, it's not oppressive and is generally a fun read.

The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath by Ishbelle Bee: So far there are two books in this series.  This book earns the highest rating from me, in that I feel it might be inappropriate for younger readers as it might scare them.  However, I fell for Mr. Loveheart in a way I have rarely fallen for a fictional character.  I loved him so much I'd switch out the o in loved for a heart.  May as well use a heart for the v as well.  I L❤❤ed him!  Very violent book.  I have rarely enjoyed anything so much.

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson: This is a stand-alone and I wish there were more books like this.  It is a fanciful romance novel.  I went on to read her other book, Sorcery of Thorns.  It was weird because the author had obviously grown so much as a writer, as there were many aspects that were improved in Sorcery of Thorns, but she completely blew the romance.  It was such an incredible let-down for me.  Try this one instead.

Foundling by D.M. Cornish: What are you still standing around here for?  If you haven't read this series, you're failing at life.  This is the first book of a trilogy about monster hunting and though that doesn't sound very thrilling, I have a story about this book. I leant this book out to six adults and had them all return the book with the following review: "It was boring.  I only kept reading it because it was short."  At which time I said, "Well, then you didn't understand it."  I was then accused of being a literary snob (which is true... you can't say horrible, true things to me and expect me to get ruffled).  So, I took them through the plot of the first book and pointed out all the hints they missed and when I reveal what is actually happening, the person I'm talking to is stoked and they've taken the next book, which may be three times as long.  Very excellent.  Top marks.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare: This is a stand-alone about witch hunting.  It's also quite old.  It may be the oldest book I'm recommending.  The reason I'm recommending it is that it was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager.  The other day, I got a new copy of it.  It has aged very well.  

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle: This is a classic stand-alone.  This was my favorite cartoon as a child.  I used to trudge through the snow to my grandma's house to watch the movie rather than go home.  The book is even more enchanting then the film.  

Heap House by Edward Carey: This is the first book of a trilogy and you're going to need a strong stomach.  It's about a boy who is an aristocrat who lives in a collection of mansions in the middle of a landfill.  I got it from the 9-12 section at Indigo.  I also read the first bit of the second book to a class full of sixth-graders and scared the hell out of them.  It's one of my fondest memories.  

Howl's Moving Castle by Diane Wynne Jones: This is the first book of a trilogy.  The second book, Castle in the Air, is really charming.  Since the Studio Ghibli film, I imagine most of you know all about this.  I put it on as an easy square for my readers.  I argued with myself that perhaps I wanted to recommend Fire and Hemlock instead.  If you're looking for a unique read, and you've already read Howl, go for Fire and Hemlock.  It's more romantic and left a feeling of wistful longing inside me that still hasn't been blown away.

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer: This is a stand-alone that is a re-telling of the story of Cupid and Psyche.  As some of you may know, I am a complete sucker for Cupid and Psyche.  I will buy anything on that subject and give it a read.  This was an interesting retelling and it's less academic than Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis.  I am on a never-ending search for the book that fixes the fact that the story gets really boring once she discovers he's Cupid.  This book doesn't fix the problem, but none of them do.  I'm not sure how to fix it myself.  That's why I always want to buy the next book where someone else has tried to conquer the problem.  

Mort by Terry Pratchett: This is sort of a stand-alone and sort of part of a series.  It's a comedy about a guy who becomes Death's understudy.  There are tons of Terry Pratchett books to enjoy.  If you haven't gotten started yet, this is a great one to get the ball rolling.

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier: This is a stand-alone about a girl and her crippled younger brother looking for work.  They get jobs working at a house that has a tree growing through the middle of it.  It might scare the living daylights out of you, or it might tug at your heartstrings so hard you never stop crying.

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy: This is the first book in a trilogy.  I read books like this all the time and of the many series' of fairytale/fantasy parodies, this one stood out to me as the most enjoyable.  This is the youngest of the books I'm recommending, as in this is really geared toward a younger audience.  It's about the princes in fairytales and how they don't get any screentime.  Hilarious.  Really stupid.  Go get it.

The Promise by Monica Hughes: This is the second book in a series and I've never bothered to read the first book.  I recommend you skip it too.  This book is probably the most meaningful to me personally of all the books on my Magical Book Bingo.  It's a straight-up story about a princess who has to learn to become a desert hermit.  It really got me... in the feels... At the very least, it is very short if it's not your jam.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara: This is the first book in a two-part series.  It follows the rules of writing a book in odd ways, so it gets top marks.  It's about a girl who is supposed to choose a husband at a festival and ends up getting hauled off to marry the God of Light, only for things to go completely mental.  TOP MARKS.

Enjoy!  If you have any thoughts on any of these books, I'd love to hear them.  Bite back.

Bad Boys in my Books

The other day, it came to my attention that the bad guys in my books have something in common. 

Luckily, no one pointed this out to me and it was just something I figured out for myself.  Let's go through them.  Be warned of SPOILERS.

Dominic - Whenever You Want

Dominic seems like he's interested in Christina, but he isn't.  He's putting up a facade because he thinks she matches girls he's used in the past to entertain and control his brother, Alexander.  So, he's more like a sex trafficker than a predator for his own needs.  This actually makes me feel better because he's a little different than the others in this way,

Rylan - Kiss of Tragedy

Rylan is Hades in different skin, so when he was the God of the Underworld, he was used to playing by a different set of rules.  Therefore, conquering his woman was par for the course, and if you know anything about pillaging, that means rape.  So, he does that.  Currently, no one likes men who do that.  So, he's a villain.  

Schroder - The Blood that Flows

Schroder is in love with Sweeper, but she's too young when he meets her and he doesn't want to kill her, so he keeps his hands and his fangs to himself.  Until he can't anymore, then he bites Sweeper's older sister, London, in order to get his jollies.  He claims repeatedly that he loves Sweeper and he could never hurt her, but in her place, he hurts her sister repeatedly.  

Armand - Rose Red

Armand wants Paige all to himself.  He wants all her rights stripped.  He wants her to be his slave and do whatever he wants.  It's pretty alarming how much he wants to make sure she is in a position lower than himself.  He arranges for someone else to hurt her in his place, so she'll turn to him for comfort.  He even wants her to be legally his possession with no money or resources of her own... only his.  

Evander - Behind His Mask

If you've read Behind His Mask, it's probably interesting for you that I am characterizing the main male lead as the antagonist, but he is.  All his hangups revolve around his fear of becoming a sexual predator.  He does not become one and in that way, the story is a success and the antagonist is defeated.

Charles - His 16th Face

I nearly wrote something that was HUGE spoiler for the second book in this series, 'If Diamonds Could Talk', but then I stopped myself.  Lucky me!

Antony - Hidden Library

Antony is super bad and I'm going to hold back on him because I have not released this book for free anywhere.  The book opens with him running invisible fingers down Veda's leg, so he's got a sexual fixation with her and it goes badly.

Carver - If I Tie U Down

Carver gets hung up on Shannon.  He sees her kidnap Fletch instead of him and he gets this idea that if she had kidnapped him instead of Fletch, they would have had this really hot romance.  Instead, Shannon is having that hot romance with Fletch and Carver is so jealous, he's about to lose it.

So... why are all the bad guys intent on being sexual predators?  Why don't I have any female antagonists?  Why isn't there another story?

I wondered at my own lack of creativity for about five seconds before I could answer this.  Very simply, I have endured an insane amount of sexual harassment.  I could count on one hand the number of times a girl treated me unkindly in jr. high and high school put together.  Frankly, I don't think any of them saw any point in getting in my face.  I was getting grabbed in the hallways of my school by guys in grades above me and instead of telling on the boy or waiting for someone to save me, I'd fight him in the hallway.  No one was going to save me.   The vulgar, hateful things guys said to me as a matter of course were handled... by me.  The truth is that I can't imagine what antagonism from a woman would even look like.  But I know exactly what an oxytocin switch looks like.  Frustrated lovers get like that.  They love you one day and hate you the next.  

I'd like to write a different kind of antagonist.  I really would, but the most natural enemy is a guy who wants to get with me who I'm refusing.  I wrote a book about my teenage life called A Little like Scarlett, but I left out so much of the sexual harassment.  You've heard it once, you've heard it a hundred times.  

Thinking of the contents of my book A Little Like Scarlett, I recall that I actually have been antagonized by women.  When I left home, I moved into a house with six girls and most of them hated me.  It stemmed from their rage at my popularity with guys, which they didn't experience, and they felt was unfair.  I dunno... it doesn't really feel like novel material.  Or at least, it doesn't feel like something that was not adequately discussed in Gone with the Wind.  Girls who have the audacity to talk to men and amuse them with their prattle are annoying to women who lack the talent.  HOWEVER... I come from a household where I wouldn't have learned how to talk if I wasn't willing to talk to men, so... let's all be nice to one another.  

I feel that settles it.  

I do have a female antagonist in the works, so perhaps all is not lost.  We'll see how she turns out.  

With love,

Stephanie Van Orman

Novelist

Negotiating with the Dead - Part Seven

Dear Margaret Atwood,

Today we are at a cemetery in Calgary.  It's the kind that doesn't have any raised gravestones.   There is snow on the ground and it has covered all the graves nicely, thus we do not know if we are stepping on a dead person's head, or their tail, on their ashes, or on their stones.  

It is to be our last meeting as this is the last chapter in your book.

Negotiating with the Dead

One time I had a conversation with my daughter about what different fascinations really mean.  She was telling me how she found the furry movement to be difficult to understand and how it led to cruelty to animals.  I told her that I thought that it was harmless in most cases.  The furry had probably just got overly hung up on being a helpless animal like a squirrel or a bunny.  They wanted to check out from the stresses of regular life and pretend to be a deer as that best represented their happy place.  

Then we talked about werewolves and the shifter thing when someone goes from being a person to being a wolf.  I told her that I thought it was a little different from the bunny thing.  In that case, a person craved freedom, nature, and close family ties.  They want to run with a pack. 

Then my daughter turned to me and asked me what my thing was.

I replied that I had been a vampire in a previous life.  I told her that the creepiest forms of vampirism ranged from treating other people like food (to be used and abused to feed the vampire's appetite) to necrophilia.  I explained that I have the highest respect for other people's humanity and I have no interest in corpses.  My interest in vampirism stemmed from an interest in death.

As an author, I rewrite the story of Persephone in my novel Kiss of Tragedy where I turn Persephone into a body thief who has found that stealing a drowned young woman's body is the best way to escape the Underworld and Hades.  In that story, I hop over the lines between being dead and alive like hopscotch.  

In my novel His 16th Face, I jump to a different challenge.  How do we even begin to bridge the gap between being what we are now to becoming a god?  Let's break it down into smaller problems and see how we can solve them.

I've always thought my preoccupation with the subject was merely my personal preference, and now you say that all writers seek to answer questions about death as that is the most pressing question on most readers' minds.  How delightful.

Except, I am not concerned about my own death.  I am not rushing to write things down to ensure some kind of immortality for myself.  Having never experienced much popularity in life, it seems kind of hopeless to expect it after death.

And though what you wrote for the end of your book was so beautiful, I almost wept, I don't go down into the hole of the underworld to get the story like it already existed somewhere else and I am the medium that brings it into our world.  I'm a religious person, and yes, Moses says at the beginning of the Bible that all things were created in the spirit before they were created in the fresh.  Thus, spiritual instructions on how to make something like Noah's Ark and the Arc of the Covenant are not unheard of.  Sometimes I write things that way--not the way I want to write, but the way God wants my piece written.  The act is mostly reserved for when I am asked to deliver religious devotionals, which is not often.  When I write my books, I find that spiritual inspiration is there for when I'm stuck, but most of the time, I'm building something intentionally.  I mentioned in the beginning that I build a story with bricks and blocks.  I'm making it on purpose.  I'm not uncovering the blocks like an archeologist.  I'm making the cement that creates the blocks like a builder.

In my dealings with God, sometimes he has a story he wants me to tell.  When I share my testimony, I have felt Him pressing down on me to say what He wants everyone to hear.  In those cases, I am not the author, I am the medium, like a little prophetess who says the will of the Lord.

When I write a book, I am more like His daughter, and like any good father, He backs off so that I can grow up by trying something, failing--using the garbage can he gifted me--and trying again.  Because the story isn't just about whatever book I am writing right now.  It's also about me.  I hate to admit it, but the book might be nothing more than a byproduct of my growth, like I am an apple tree that blooms, bears fruit, and anyone is free to eat those apples since they would go to waste otherwise.  

Perhaps the book created by my growth is meant to be a substitute for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  You read the book instead of partaking of the fruit (experiencing the story through the protagonist) and in so doing, you learn about a particular pitfall that can be avoided.  I've always thought that it was a pomegranate on that tree, the food of the dead.  And that's what books may be.  The dead give us books and we leave food on their graves because we cannot imagine what they want in the next life.  I imagine that what they really want is for us to tell them a bedtime story because even in death, the dead still hunger for more knowledge.

I realize it's time for us to say goodbye and I cry because I can't help it.  I'm a silly little thing.  I've always thought I was a silly writer because all I want to is teach my little reader what a healthy relationship looks like.  I write the Knowledge of Good part of the tree because literally, everyone has tasted the Knowledge of Evil part of the tree.

Now we're standing near the grave of my father.  He has enjoyed listening to our conversation, and he's trying to hide his annoyance because he wanted to be part of the conversation.  Just kidding, he wants us to quiet down and listen to him tell us all about death because we're clearly misguided in some way or another.  

You remind me that it's not really goodbye.  It's just a time to go there and come back again like a spirit going to get a body and coming home without one.  Or like a person giving up their body to visit the Underworld only to one day pick their body up again on the way out.  We will meet again.

Goodbye, Margaret.  I have enjoyed our chats.

Stephanie Van Orman

Novelist

P.S. Write me a few lines sometime.  I'd be happy to hear from you.