Dowser Series: avoiding destiny

Putting together Chi Wen’s bio this afternoon, I found this great scene with Chi Wen (and Warner) from Dowser 4. Note: the first use of the title, dragon slayer. And, of course, Jade assumes the far seer is referring to the newly awoken Warner. Poor, poor Jade, little does she know …

Warner stepped out of the portal behind me just as Chi Wen the far seer wandered into the room.

Ah, damn. I’d been trying to avoid destiny today.

Chi Wen, the eldest of the guardians, appeared to be an ancient Chinese gentleman. He loved to smile. As in, constantly. I wasn’t sure he was capable of any other expression. All gray hair and wrinkles, he came up to my collarbone, though he wasn’t particularly wizened.

As best as I’d guessed, he wielded oracle and telepathic powers. The oracle magic was like calling 911, except he was the only operator sifting through visions of disasters and pending worldwide destruction. He then tasked these imminent catastrophes to various guardians depending on their particular power sets. I wasn’t completely sure about the telepathic part, but I was fairly certain he could at least communicate with the other guardians without vocalizing his thoughts. Which was probably a good thing, because I rarely understood a word that came out of his mouth. And that had nothing to do with his heavy accent.

Chi Wen grinned at me like I was his own child safely home from the demonic wars … and in his mind, maybe I was. I curtsied with much more reverence and grace than I had for Suanmi.

I always tried to clear my mind in the far seer’s presence, but today I found myself repeating Please don’t touch me, please don’t read me in my head. The far seer scared me way more than any of the other guardians. Sure, they could all end my very existence with a single glance. But Chi Wen could show me my future, and that was utterly terrifying. Completely soul shaking.

Warner stepped up beside me. He wasn’t a stand-just-behind-my-shoulder-person like Kett, or even Kandy. With him being a mighty dragon — with obvious prejudices against my heritage — I was surprised he didn’t stride completely past me.

“Hello, dragon slayer,” Chi Wen called cheerfully as he shuffled toward us.

Warner cranked his head to look at me, actually taking a step away as he did so.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “The far seer was obviously addressing you.”

“Yes,” Chi Wen said agreeably. “Every blade needs a solid hilt.”

Err … yeah, I had no idea what that meant. But I kept my mouth shut and tried to not flinch when Chi Wen patted my shoulder as he passed.

As he touched me, I suddenly realized I was drowning — and had been drowning for some time — surrounded by crushing water. I started to panic, to thrash, to die — but then I broke the surface, my mouth full of salty water and the warm sun on my face.

I gasped for air, realizing I was in the nexus — that I’d never left — as I filled my lungs with as much oxygen as they could hold.

Chi Wen was gone.

Warner was looking at me like I was a ticking time bomb.

“What?” I asked, as snarky as I could be to cover my near drowning in the middle of a waterless chamber.

“What did the far seer show you?” Warner asked.

Well, that was a rude question.

– Shadows, Maps and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)

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Are you new to the Adept Universe? The first book Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1) is currently free! Click here for the full reading order.

Dowser 4: Bixi, aka ‘doom crosses our footsteps.’

I came upon this scene while putting together Bixi’s biography and it made me laugh. Flashback to Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)!! Click here for the reading order of the Adept Universe. Bixi most recently appears in Awakening Infinity (Archivist 0).

“Earthly delights.”

*side eyes Warner*

LOL!!!

Book cover by Elizabeth Mackey Graphic Design

A jet-black cat sauntered through the far archway. Its casual gait was insufficient cover for the cunning betrayed by its yellow eyes. Its sleek fur shone among all the gold of the decor, not a hair out of place.

Warner, still frowning at me, followed my gaze. Then he went utterly still and pale.

“A black cat in the heart of the guardian temple,” he murmured. He reached for a weapon that he didn’t actually have, then held his hands before himself, wary. “Doom crosses our footsteps.”

I snorted out a laugh. “What century are you living in?”

Spicy dragon magic — all apricots and smoky syrup — gathered around the cat along with a haze of golden light. The creature transformed amid a wash of intense magic, as the shapeshifters did. Then Bixi — doing her best Cleopatra impersonation — stood before us. White dress, gold armbands, heavily kohled eyes and all. She obviously didn’t have to stash extra clothing everywhere like Kandy did when she changed back from her wolf form.

Logically, I knew Bixi wasn’t actually Cleopatra, since she was supposedly only around seven hundred years old. But still, I wondered if there wasn’t some deep ancestral connection going on with the guardian of North Africa. And again, when did ‘seven hundred’ become an ‘only’? It was also interesting that the guardians seemed to decide what physical age suited them best. Suanmi was technically younger than Bixi but appeared to be a youthful forty-five. Bixi looked to be about my age at the most. My father Yazi, the third-youngest of the guardians, appeared to be thirty-five.

Warner dropped into a deep bow beside me.

“Hello, warrior’s daughter,” Bixi said, completely ignoring Warner.

“Hello, guardian.”

“What earthly delight have you brought with you this time?”

Warner started coughing — no, choking — beside me.

I reached into my satchel, fished around, and pulled out a simple yet modern, yellow-papered Sirene chocolate bar. As far as I knew, this was the only bar that the newly established company produced out of Victoria, on Vancouver Island. It consisted of a tasting pair made from 72 percent Ecuador and 67 percent Madagascar cocoa. It was a new purchase I’d acquired downtown last weekend at Xoxolat — a mecca of earthly delights that carried a vast selection of single-origin chocolate bars from around the world. I hadn’t even tried a single square of the Sirene yet, and I’d really been looking forward to it. Normally, I tried to distract chocolate-questing dragons with cupcakes or cookies, but in my haste to get Warner sorted out I’d forgotten to pack a box.

Bixi came just short of snatching it out of my hand. “I enjoy your visits, alchemist,” she said. Then, pressing the bar to her nose and smelling it through its wrapper, she sauntered off in the direction she’d come. Her thin, gold-strapped sandals made no sound on the stone floor.

Dragons had a strong sense of smell and great taste in chocolate. Though regrettably, they never seemed to have any around.

– Excerpt from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)

Day. Made.

So this was waiting in my inbox for me this morning.

Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 11.09.37 AM

How freaking cool is that?

Here is part of the scene from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4).

The single-storey buildings and homes of Hope Town were all painted in bright colors, dominated by seashell pink. Kandy cut up between buildings toward the red-and-white-striped lighthouse that towered easily five storeys higher than any other building in the village. I spotted a few people dressed in bright colors, most of them shopping or hanging around a local coffee hut, but no one gave us a second glance. Kandy had outfitted us perfectly for what was obviously a tourist destination. The sparse population of three hundred — according to Kandy’s brochures — appeared to be a mix of Caucasian and people of African ancestry, but the village didn’t feel desolate. More like everyone was elsewhere — perhaps the cluster of taller buildings on the edge of town that the golf cart was zooming toward. A hotel, maybe.

My stomach grumbled, but I ignored it.

The lighthouse was before us. A pink rope hung across the entrance, which I took to mean it was normally open to the public. Just beyond and down a slight hill, the ocean lapped against a grassy shore. Tiny seaside houses on that shore had boats tied to individual wharves. The low buildings surrounding the lighthouse were painted pink with white-trimmed windows and balconies, which was an odd contrast to the thick red-and-white stripes of the lighthouse tower. We’d left the pine forest behind us. A few palm trees were mixed with the low buildings, but nothing as dense as where we’d come through.

Population of 300!! [wiki link]

What are the freaking odds? Yes, I’m totally jazzed!!

Thanks for making my morning, Jade Mackey! Oh, and I <3 your first name!! 😉

Dowser 4: misprinted paperback giveaway

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. WINNERS: LUCKY #28, 18, 52, and 48. In a startling turn of events #28 has deferred her winnings because of her close personal relationship with the author, so #51 turns out to be extra lucky!

We are gearing up to move into a MUCH smaller place at the end of September, and I need to purge a bunch of stuff before then. To that end, I have a few more misprinted paperbacks that need new homes.

Such as these four pink-streaked but still pretty Dowser 4 paperbacks:

Since there are four books there shall be four winners – quadruple the fun! I’ll leave the giveaway open for four days for symmetry.

Who would like to win an autographed paperback of Dowser 4?

You would?

Okay then!

To enter:

Comment below and tell me your favourite chocolate treat. Perhaps a chocolate bar or baked good that you savour while you read a new Dowser book? Or even what you treated yourself to while reading Dowser 4 specifically.

Notes/Rules: OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. Each comment will be assigned an entry number. FOUR winning entries will then be selected via random number generator. One entry per person. 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.

Contest closes THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015 at 9 p.m. PDT.

<3 <3 <3

Kandy’s birthday s’mores

In Dowser 4 Jade takes Kandy out to dinner for her birthday. They go to Fable Kitchen and have s’mores for dessert. Well, last Saturday I was lucky enough to dine at the same restaurant and partake in the same insane chocolatey goodness.

Behold the beauty! From the menu: chocolate ice cream, brownie, marshmallow.

The only problem was that I had to share it with Michael. 😀

Dowser 4 – the paperback

This seriously pretty proof for Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4) showed up last Thursday, but I thought I would wait until it was available for purchase before mentioning it.

As with all the Dowser paperbacks, the cover and the page break knife image were designed by the lovely and talented Elizabeth Mackey.

While Mark at 52 Novels made sure that the text, formatting, and chapter headings were all pretty, pretty.

A big thank you to both Elizabeth and Mark for helping to bring this beauty to print. I prefer to read in ebook format these days, but there is just something about holding your own paperback that is absolutely thrilling.

Want to grab one yourself? You can order copies through Createspace and Amazon. Coming soon to B&N.

Have a great week!

Dowser 4 – Tease in a Cup

Presenting Tease in a Cup, Kandy’s second birthday cupcake, from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4). These blackberry chocolate cupcakes share the same base with Sass in a Cup but they’re iced with blackberry buttercream! The touch of lemon in the buttercream is definitely the secret ingredient. So tasty!

∞

Tease in a Cup was originally featured on the Reader Cafe on March 14, 2015. 🙂

Oh, happy birthday to my sister!!

Dowser 4: Sass in a Cup

Updated recipe: April 18, 2016

SassinaCup_postcardsize_recipe

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Original Post:

Presenting Sass in a Cup – one of Kandy’s birthday cupcakes – from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4). These blackberry chocolate cupcakes frosted with a generous swirl of blackberry chocolate buttercream happen to be my favourite of the four new cupcakes mentioned in Dowser 4. They’re insanely good, so moist! And the pairing of blackberry and chocolate so works (if I may say so myself).

∞

Tease in a Cup will be featured over at the Reader Cafe on March 14, 2015, then I will post the recipe here.

Dowser 4 – NOW AVAILABLE on NOOK

Sorry if this is the third time you’ve seen this piece of news in a matter of minutes, but Dowser 4 is now available on Nook. Sorry for the delay.

I apologize for cluttering everyone’s inboxes. I promised my nook readers that I would let them know when it was available, but I don’t have my new release email list segregated by ereader so I had to send it out to everyone.

THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE!!

Check out the blog this Thursday for a new cupcake recipe 🙂

Dowser 4 – Happy Release Day!

Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4) is now officially available as an ebook on AMAZON, KOBO, iBOOKS, NOOK, and SMASHWORDS.

ETA: The nook version was delayed by formatting issues, but it is now available! I’m terribly sorry about the delay, but it was out of my hands 🙁

The paperback is currently being formatted, and if all continues smoothly it should be ready by midMarch.

Here are my favourite quotes from the new book. Do you have any favourites yet?

“Are your fingernails green?” Branson asked now, completely bemused.
“Jade is the new black, baby,” I said. “You should see my toes.”
Then I kicked him in the head. – Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic, Dowser 4, Chapter 1

∞

The healer wants to bed you,” Drake said. His tone suggested he was mystified by this discovery.
“Drake!”
“What? Did I use the expression incorrectly? The healer wants to take you to bed? To his bed?” the fourteen-year-old continued. “To have sex, you know.”
“Stop. Talking.” – Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic, Dowser 4, Chapter 1

∞

We stared down at the black leather-swathed dragon at our feet. He was out cold. Everything about him was definitely broad — as in shoulders, chest, nose, cheekbones, and jaw.
“At least he’s damn cute,” Kandy said. “You know, if he’s here to eviscerate us.”
Kandy and I had very different opinions on what qualified as ‘cute.’ – Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic, Dowser 4, Chapter 2

Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaways. You made the week leading up to the release super fun. There will be one more ebook giveaway on The Reader Cafe (along with a cupcake recipe) on March 14.

Now I’m back to writing Dowser 5!