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Musings & more….
An offer.
Of immortality.
Of power.
Of a future without the trappings of the past.
All I had to do was abandon those who loved me.
All I had to do was die.
– Wisteria’s and Kett’s story continues in Tangled Echoes, Reconstructionist 2 on May 4, 2017.
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Are you new to the Adept Universe and/or the Reconstructionist Series? Book one is Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1). And here is the reading order of the Adept Universe.
The Reconstructionist 2 preorder giveaway launches April 3, 2017.
“I found another dead teen,” Jasmine said, dragging her bag out through the international arrivals area at Vancouver International Airport. She was wearing a heathered brown merino-wool cardigan that fell around her knees, over a long-sleeved black V-neck T-shirt and skinny-legged black jeans. Her brown leather boots almost perfectly matched the laptop satchel slung across her shoulders.
“Where?” Kett asked, appearing out of the crowd of travelers and the swarm of family and friends currently greeting each other ecstatically.
My cousin flinched, whipping her head around and sending a rampant cascade of dark-blond curls across her shoulders. She hadn’t seen the vampire before he spoke. It was unnerving to have a vampire sneak up on you, even when you were expecting to meet one. I knew. He’d been doing it to me all day.
“Kettil, the executioner and elder of the Conclave,” I said formally and as per protocol, introducing them as I had tried to do when they’d spoken on the phone. “Jasmine Fairchild, tech witch and certified investigator. Also, gourmet cook.”
Jasmine laughed at the gourmet comment. But compared to me, she was a five-star chef. As long as her short attention span didn’t distract her.
“Yes,” Kett said, smiling pleasantly. “Wisteria’s cousin. Dahlia’s daughter. Half-sister of Declan Benoit.”
Jasmine thrust her hand toward him, smirking sexily. “Well, you’ve done your homework.”
Kett’s smile widened to reveal a hint of white teeth as he shook her hand.
Jasmine laughed again, enjoying the attention. Me, the vampire decided to keep in a heightened state of fear. Jasmine, he decided to flirt with. Perhaps he preferred effervescent, slightly sarcastic personalities. Or perhaps it was Jasmine’s curls and bright-blue eyes. My cousin’s eyes were a lighter blue than Jade Godfrey’s, but a lot of witches shared that coloring — including my entire family.
– Excerpt from Chapter Five of Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)
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I’m officially ‘releasing’ a rebranded version of one of my very first novels – the standalone fantasy, Spirit Binder – and launching it along with a week long $0.99 sale, starting today.
For this rebranding, Elizabeth Mackey worked her magic on the cover, Pauline did a freshening proofreading pass, and I prettied up the interior with Vellum. The story/plot itself has not been edited/altered.
Spirit Binder is a tale of prophecy, destiny, divinity, and romance set a thousand years after spirit (aka magic) has risen to take back the world in an apocalyptic event.
from February 28 to March 6, 2017
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I took these shots in the wrong season (Dec 31. 2016 and Jan 1, 2017 to be specific) and from a higher floor but I thought you might be interested in seeing the view from Wisteria’s hotel window in Catching Echoes, Reconstructionist 1.
An excerpt from Catching Echoes, Reconstructionist 1, Chapter Two:
I lapsed back into gazing out at the gorgeous city and toying with my bracelet again. I brushed my fingers over one of the two tiny reconstructions hidden among the platinum house and tree charms.
Effortlessly, I pulled a glimpse of a darkly tanned boy with golden-hazel eyes out from within it.
A sudden gust of wind hammered rain against the lower pane of the window, drawing my attention. And for a moment, through the blurred wash on the glass, I thought I saw a blond, pale figure standing in the rain at the edge of the outdoor pool, four floors down.
A figure that I would have sworn in that instant was Kett, gazing up at my hotel room.
Heart thumping, I threw myself out of my chair, pressing my hands against the rain-spattered window and scanning the wide, adobe-tiled patio below.
The image I’d pulled from the reconstruction winked out.
The area around the well-lit pool and hot tub was empty. The lounge chairs were all folded and tucked away along the edges of the sundeck. A slight haze of steam rolled off the tranquil light-blue water of the pool, and what little I could see of inside the hotel from this angle was devoid of people.
I had just imagined it.
Kett.
I was allowing the tension of the day to make me feel vulnerable, even hunted. And that was a state I knew too much about already. I didn’t need to be randomly manifesting monsters stalking me in the dark.
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) is available on
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in paperback and ebook.
I sent Reconstructionist 2 off to the editor for his story edit pass yesterday, which means that I have a few days in which to outline Reconstructionist 3. Unfortunately I made the mistake of showering and blow drying my hair this morning before work, so ALL THE STORIES waiting in the wings of my mind started clamouring for attention.
How many stories are waiting to be told?
Allow me to give you a visual:
These are my (current) notebooks, colour coded by series. The collection pictured above represents Reconstructionist 3, Dowser 7, 8, and 9, Necromancer 1, along with two more that I dare not mention by name because one might not happen and the second is rife with spoilers.
Yes. Seven novels. That’s easily two years of work.
Dutiful writer that I am, I distilled all the perfect scenes that had presented themselves to me in the shower (etc) into a few notes in each notebook. [Scenes are always perfect in my mind, it’s only once they hit paper that I get into trouble.] Then I put the notebooks away, leaving only Reconstructionist 3 on my desk.
So, just in case you were wondering, there is a long term plan. And I’m trying to stick to it!!
GIVEAWAY CLOSED! LUCKY #26 HAS BEEN EMAILED.
This box of beauties just showed up in the mail (finally!!).
So … that means it must be time for a giveaway! Yes? YES!
To enter to win this autographed paperback of Catching Echoes (not including the bracelet and candle) all you need to do is comment below and let me know:
Haven’t had a moment to read Catching Echoes yet? No worries. You can download the sample chapter here.
Notes/Rules: OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. Each comment will be assigned an entry number. ONE winning entry will then be selected via random number generator. One entry per person. Comments without a quote WILL NOT be assigned an entry number. Please make sure to fill out a valid email address in the comment form. Email addresses are not collected for any purpose other than notifying the contest winner.
If you haven’t commented on the blog before, or you comment from a different IP address, the comments are moderated. So don’t worry if you don’t see your entry right away. I will approve it, then assign it an entry number.
No purchase necessary.
Contest closes THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016 at 8 p.m. PST.
Don’t want to wait to see if you win? Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) is available on
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in paperback and ebook.
Reconstructionist 1.5 will be available exclusively to readers who preorder Reconstructionist 2 in the Spring of 2017. Then available widely in the Fall of 2017.
The first book in the series, Catching Echoes, is now available.
I settled on the dungeness crab risotto to start, and had just reached for the wine list to find a Pinot Noir to pair it with, when I realized that someone was sitting across from me.
Not just a someone. A vampire.
A white-blond, blue-eyed, exceedingly pale, tremendously powerful vampire who I’d thought was dead. Well, more dead. I had reconstructed the moment of his destruction myself. In London, three years before, I’d seen him stabbed through the heart with a magical blade. I’d seen him fall.
Kettil, the executioner of the Conclave, was swathed in expensive green cashmere so dark it was practically black, sporting what appeared to be a solid gold Apple Watch and lounging back in the seat across from me as if he’d been sitting there the entire time. His eyes were so light blue, they could practically have been called silver. He quirked his lips in a shallow, pleased smile.
I hadn’t seen him sit down. I hadn’t even seen him cross the room.
My server, who’d been approaching the table from the back kitchen area, flinched. Her human reactions were even more delayed than mine. Startled, she exhaled, pressing her hand to her chest.
“Wisteria Fairchild,” the vampire said. His exceedingly straight teeth were even paler than his face. I couldn’t see any hint of his fangs.
“Yes.”
“Kettil.” He reached across the table.
I lifted my own hand from the linen tablecloth. Pleased that it wasn’t shaking, I grasped his outstretched hand as his gaze fell to my charm bracelet. He wasn’t as cold as I thought he’d be, but perhaps I was still chilled myself. His fingers closed completely over mine, firm but not crushing. Still, I could feel the terrible strength that lay just underneath his hold.
He could tear me limb from limb, slaughter every human in the restaurant, bathe in our blood, and I wouldn’t have been able to do a single thing about it.
I was panicking.
I never panicked.
But I could feel the adrenaline rushing through me as the vampire held my hand.
He lifted his gaze to mine, widening his grin. And without so much as a blink or a breath, he ensnared me. Idiotically, I’d been staring directly into his eyes.
He held his other hand up toward the server. She froze.
His presence flooded my mind in a warm, calming, and almost euphoric pulse.
“Steady,” he murmured.
My heart rate settled. I felt as though my arm was suspended, stretched across the table, lightly cradled in his hand … cushioned by the awesome presence of his mind.
I could have stayed there forever. At peace … protected … cherished …
I could have been his forever.
No Fairchild is weak enough to be ensnared by a vampire.
I wasn’t totally sure whether that was an original thought or a remembered edict of my mother’s, but it was enough to wake me up to the situation.
I gathered my mental shields, imagining a barrier of magic between the vampire and myself. Evoking layers upon layers of magic, similar to the sides of my oyster-shell cubes. I blinked my eyes, then shook my head slightly.
I lifted my hand away from Kettil’s.
He let me go.
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Wisteria Fairchild narrates my newest novel, Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) aka the first book in the Reconstructionist trilogy. But I first introduced Wisteria in Dowser 3, then again in Dowser 4.
From Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
Just before dawn, a knock at the suite door pulled me away from watching Mory sleep. I’d been worrying that she hadn’t woken yet, but was also fretting about waking her to feed her if she needed the sleep to heal.
I’d ordered food the second the kitchen had opened, so I thought the knock was room service. Instead, I opened the door to find a dark-blond woman around twenty-five standing in the hall. She was a couple of inches shorter than my five feet nine inches. Her hair was pulled back and up in a French twist that wouldn’t last an hour on me, and every well-tailored piece of clothing on her dripped money — all without my recognizing a single label, because there weren’t any.
“Jade Godfrey?” she asked politely, already knowing the answer. Her slight accent identified her as American.
I met her gaze and flinched. Her blue witch magic curled and coiled behind her eyes so tightly that I couldn’t distinguish their actual color.
She furrowed her brow at my flinch. I transferred my gaze to her hands where her magic also pooled, though not as intensely as behind her eyes.
“I know you,” I said, and I met her gaze without flinching a second time. Her magic was heavily doused in nutmeg — which wasn’t a scent I associated with witch magic — along with the sweet floral tones I would have expected. Sweet nutmeg was an odd combination.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’m Wisteria Fairchild. The reconstructionist.”
From Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4):
I could see Wisteria settling into a table at the farthest corner of the cafe and ordering something from the server. A tea, I guessed. Oddly, the chairs closest to her had been lifted and flipped onto their tables as if the floor was about to be scrubbed.
Wisteria’s dark blond hair was pulled back into the perfectly smooth French twist she had worn the last time I saw her. Her cornflower-blue, pristinely pressed cotton dress was belted in white to create an empire waist. She looked as if she were about to attend a wedding, but this was everyday attire for the witch. The blue of the dress was a couple of shades lighter than the magic I could see pooled in the palms of her folded hands.
Kett was somewhere in the shadows of one of the storefront stoops just ahead of me. I could taste his magic rather than see him. “Why are you hunting the reconstructionist?” I whispered into the dark night.
“Why do you assume I’m hunting anyone?” Kett murmured back without revealing himself.
“Well, you aren’t working together. Are you? Or dating? Do vampires even date?”
“Your words indicate jealousy, warrior’s daughter.”
“But my tone sounds concerned.”
“Indeed.” Kett laughed. “I would not be hunting a Fairchild witch without permission.”
“Whose permission? And do you have it?”
Kett didn’t answer.
“Have you even met her?” I asked.
“Not officially.”
“And this isn’t any of my business.”
“Not even remotely.”
I sighed. I had my own reasons for being in Seattle, for meeting with the reconstructionist. I wasn’t here to police Kett or Wisteria, if she’d done something to get on the Conclave’s radar.
“She saw you die in London,” I said.
“Yes,” Kett answered. “Perhaps it is best left at that.”
Find out why Wisteria holds her magic so tightly and why Kett was in Seattle – or at least the beginning of their story – in Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1).
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