5 Reasons To Read THE POWERS OF CALLAIRE

Since POWERS is newly out, I thought I'd give you a few reasons to continue The Legend Mirror series and pick up a copy, and spotlight some of my favourite moments in the book. So here are...

5 Reasons To Read The Powers of Callaire

One

Because you want to read about Vic, one of Yasmin’s best friends, going to the Otherland – literally hell – dressed in a green dinosaur onesie. Was I cruel to have him face to Ruler of All Souls in a onesie? Maybe. Would I do it again? Oh hell yes.

Two

This book goes far beyond the other two in terms of Earth’s scope, and shows the Legendary world in a whole host of new locations.

Three

Bonding of all kinds. Besties fighting and then making up? Check. Girls bonding through crazy dangerous situations? Check. Friendships of all shapes and sizes? Check, check, check. My books are always all about the friends. In this book I tried to show platonic friend love with the same detail and time as I’d spent on Yasmin’s romance.

Four

Everyone loves a tragic love story, right? The love between Fray and Yasmin is fated and doomed and all the other good stuff that leads to tragedy.

Five

This book doesn’t really have a cliffhanger! There are certainly elements, but after the end of DRYAD, this is pretty easy going. And it has a happy, hopeful ending! If The Dryad of Callaire frustrated you to no end (and honestly, I can’t blame you if you’re mad) then you need to read The Powers of Callaire ASAP.

More about POWERS:

Yasmin’s girlfriend is dead, but she will stop at nothing to bring Fray back. Even if that means going to the Otherland and making a bargain with the Ruler of All Souls. If Yasmin finds Pluto’s lost power, they’ll return Fray’s soul to her body.

Yasmin’s search takes her, and two of her friends, from Bucharest to France to Wales, and exposes a horrifying secret with Venus, Yasmin’s mother, at the heart of it. With a murderous, fiery god and the incarnation of death in her way, Yasmin will have to compromise her morals and harness the Legendary power in her veins. If she fails, Fray’s soul will be lost forever.

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4 lessons I've learned in 3 years of being published!

It's been a whole three years since The Forgotten came out! 

It's been an interesting journey since TF's release, and now I look back at the book, I can see it's rife with problems. But it's still dear to me because it's my first release, and because I love the characters. By this time next year, The Lux Guardians series will be complete, and the gang's journey will be wrapped up. You can expect more news on the last two books in the coming months.

Here are four lessons I've learned since publishing The Forgotten. Bear in mind this only relates to my experience as an indie author, and I can't speak for everyone.

Never NEVER announce the Big Shiny WIP

Chances are you won't finish it, and that'll be on the internet FOREVER, looking at you every time you go on Goodreads, wondering why you haven't finished it yet. (I really am going to work on it soon, though.) Don't ever post a cover, mock-up or otherwise, anywhere before the book is fully written either. I wait until I have a solid first draft that I am absolutely sure is going to become a published book before posting it anywhere online. (Series are a little different - if you've written the first book, it's a safe bet you're going to finish the series, so announcing those books or adding them to GR is a little less risky. For a larger series, I'd still wait, personally, until you've written 2 or 3 books.)

Blog Tours don't necessarily = readers and sales

Sure, you get some readers but I got maybe three sales from my last paid blog tour... In no world would I call that a success.

It's impossible to know what will = sales

I thought having THE BEAST OF CALLAIRE on Netgalley would generate interest in The Legend Mirror series and would lead to sales. I did get 10+ reviews but those reviews don't seem to have had any lasting affect. Netgalley exposure really works for some authors and some books. Blog tours really work for some authors and some books. You can't predict it in the least, and while that's frustrating (and costly!) you kinda just have to accept it and keep trying new things. At some point, somethings gonna work.

Keeping a record of writing progress leads to productivity

Now, this could be just me, but since I've started keeping track of my daily writing/editing/revising etc on a spreadsheet, I've had a much bigger output. I've gone from writing 20K or editing 200 pages a month to 40K and 500 pages. It's useful, and encouraging, to see your achievements laid out. Of course this works in reverse too - have a bad week and you have to look at it for a while and feel crappy. But the good outweighs the bad, and I'm more motivated and productive now than I ever was.

~

These lessons have made me a smarter author and a more efficient writer. Some things will never change (I'll always be impatient to announce what I'm working on) and by the time my fifth year as a published author comes around, I expect I'll have five more lessons to tell you. I'm constantly learning (as, I think, all authors are) and I'm interested to see what happens next.

You can download The Forgotten for free at all good online retailers!

~Saruuh

6 Queer Books & Why You Should Read Them!

In an effort to cultivate some actual content for this blog, I give you: A BUNCH OF QUEER BOOKS! These are ones I've read. My next post will be queer books I'm dying to read. It's Pride Month, and #ReadProud is going on, so it seems like the perfect time to waffle on about these books I love.

Lady main character who likes other ladies! Revenants! Super cool mystery & thriller, effortlessly woven with paranormal creatures that feel more magical realism. A damn terrifying villain-in-a-cave. Perfect!

As important as it is horrifying. The romance is hesitant and stumbling and sweet, as you'd expect it to be, and the characters are so genuine it seems impossible they're fictional. The story surrounding the romance is vital, and everyone, regardless of race, should read it, along with an #ownvoices book on the same era.

Super cute f/f romance in a setting inspired by Africa. This book has been written with a lot of love and passion and it shows in the writing. Plus it has unicorns and other mythical creatures, great family relationships, and deals with the ripples of sexual assault.

Another lady main character who likes ladies (I'm 80% sure she's bisexual but my memory is a sieve so I can't confirm.) Vampires and pyramids and a WHOLE LOT of adventure. It's what you would call a romp, and it's damn fun while also meaningful. It has a lot of heart, and family bonds, and is the most creative and thoughtful book I've read in ages.

Bisexual main character. Deals with religion and teen pregnancy. Powerful and memorable. Plus it's in verse, which is so my thing. Even though I was disappointed by the ending, I still love the book.

One of my favourite sci-fi books ever. Found family, diverse crew in ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and species. Just everything I've ever wanted in a space-based book.

Liebster Tag!

I hmmed and ahhed about whether to answer this on my reading or my author blog, since I try to keep my author blog clean of memes, but since this blog is for writing and books, eventually I decided to write this here! About fifteen years later than I was actually tagged in it ... oops. I am the worst at remembering.

Faith tagged me in this post and I am happy to indulge my love of answering questions about myself. Here's the thing:

Since I am a rulebreaker (read: lazy) and don't actually have many author friends, I won't be tagging anyone, or writing any questions. 

What was the first story you ever wrote?

The first story I ever wrote was actually a book called FATE. It was terrible and rife with plot holes, info dumps, and a screaming lack of character development, but I loved the characters and still do. One day I plan to rewrite it and make it awesome. But who knows. Maybe first novels are meant to stay hidden.

What was your favorite book as a child?

The ones I remember are Jaqueline Wilson novels and Terry Pratchett's Truckers, Diggers, and Wings. They lived in a department store!! I LOVED that trilogy like no other. (Except possibly The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. I worshipped that stupid cat.)

You get to have dinner with your favorite fictional family. Who’s at the table?

The Ryves brothers from Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon trilogy. My favourite fictional brothers. I wouldn't decline sharing a dinner table with Mae and Sin and Jamie, however.

What’s your favorite season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? (If you’ve never seen it, I’m giving you the look.)

Three or four. I think four.

Do you prefer drafting or revising? Why?

Drafting because revising is tedious for me, although I've only recently got a properly organised revision method (with index cards and a colour code!) so I'll get back to you when I attempt it in May! Eek.

Do you have a process for naming your characters?

I have a bunch of different ways I name characters. Either selecting at random, or based on meaning, or by origin of the name. I also collect names I like in a document for later. I waffle a bit more about naming characters here.

How do you handle telling people you’re a writer? Do you tell them what you write?

I very rarely tell people I'm a writer. I actually very rarely tell people anything (I'm kind of a shut-in) but if I talk to someone on the internets, usually it would involve caps and exclamations. Most things I say involve caps and exclamations, though, to be fair. 

What do you listen to while you write?

Depends on what I wake up feeling like. Sometimes Lorde, sometimes Marina, sometimes The Audition, sometimes Bayside. It changes depending on the day, hour, minute, and I've been known to go from Haim to Bring Me The Horizon in an hour. Those are the weird drafting days.

Do you prefer to write in the morning, or at night?

I write more in the evening, going into night. Sometimes when the writing hooks me, I write until 3AM. Those are tiring nights. Most days, though, I'll start writing around 7PM once I've got everything else done.

Do you pick favorites with your own characters?

Psssh, me? Nah. Yosiah is my son, my child, my perfect ray of damaged sunshine.

What would your dream writing office look like?

Small enough to keep the heat in, big enough to hold a bunch of bookcases and a desk with a comfy chair. Also a sofa.

11 random facts about me

1 - I am having a terrible time drafting right now. No words are coming. None.

2 - I'm participating in Camp Nano next month and praying it'll drag me out of this writing rut.

3 - My writing beverage changes with the seasons. In summer I drink iced coffee. In winter I drink a lot of water.

4 - All my books have POC and queer characters in them (Yep, even The Forgotten -  Honour, Horatia, and Yosiah are all POC main characters, Miya is intentionally racially ambiguous. there are a bunch of POC minor characters. Yosiah and Timofei are both canonically bisexual, and in later books it's made obvious that Honour and Branwell are also queer, even if they don't quite know how to define their sexuality, and there is a f/f couple of secondary characters) 

5 - I design all the things for my books. Covers, book interiors, book formatting, marketing stuffs. It should be stressful, having so much to do, but it's weirdly fun. I love designing stuff. I actually run a design service, where you can get a free promotion banner and custom book covers:)

6 - My current WIP is The DRYAD of Callaire. My next draft, which I'll be launching right into once this is finished is the third Legend Mirror book.

7 - I just wrote out all these facts and missed number 7. This is a cheating fact because I'm too lazy to think of another one :|

8 - I'm hoping to release two Legend Mirror books this year, along with a couple short stories set in other worlds.

9 - In a semi-related fact, the BEAST of Callaire cover will be getting redesigned to be shiny and new so it matches the new releases. You can keep an eye out for those cover reveals in June/July.

10 - My YA sci-fi series The Lux Guardians is free to download and get in print. (Although the first book is currently out of print, since the waiting list was closed) Visit the page for download links or find them on the sidebar.

11 - I keep trying to read the same genre as I'm writing, but I'm far too impulsive a reader to stick to that for the full time of drafting. I'm currently writing YA fantasy and reading adult PNR.