Queer Fantasy – Page 3

Guest Interview: SI CLARKE

This week, SI CLARKE pops in for a chat about her new release The Left Hand of Dog!

Morning, Si! Why are you doing this interview?

I have a new book that just came out a few weeks ago: The Left Hand of Dog. It’s the first in a new series called Starship Teapot.

What started you writing?

I’d dabbled in writing at various points in my life. I’d written the odd article. At one point, I was an avid blogger. And through most of my life, I had certain story ideas I always said I’d turn into a book … eventually. I’d even tried writing a book a few times. But it never went anywhere.

Late in 2017, I was made redundant from my job. I felt myself beginning to slide into a depression. I’d get up in the morning, walk the dogs – and then lie down on the sofa. And I wouldn’t really move again until my partner got home at dinnertime.

I did that for a week. On the Monday of the next week, I lay down on the sofa – and then promptly stood back up again. ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’ Whether I was talking to myself or to my dogs or just to no one, I still don’t really know.

But I walked over to my desk and sat down to start planning my first novel. And even though I have a full-time job now, I haven’t looked back since.

Where do you write?

I’ve been working from home on a full-time basis since the start of the pandemic and I’ve got a really cushy setup with my funky ergonomic kneeling chair and two large, curved monitors. It’s sad, but I spend each work day facing one screen – and then at dinnertime, I turn my chair a few degrees to the right and work on my writing.

But I’ve also been known to write in unconventional locations. I finished the first draft of my first novel on my phone, while weaving and dodging through the underground shopping centre in Canary Wharf. I started the first draft of a book I still haven’t written while weaving and dodging through the pedestrians in Deptford Market on a Saturday. Honestly, it’s a miracle I don’t walk into more stationary objects than I already do.

What do you like to read?

I mainly read science fiction. But occasionally venture into fantasy, mysteries, historical fiction, and thrillers. Once I read a thriller novel set in London. The main character went to investigate the second murder in the story. He named where the house was in relation to the train station and what he saw looking out the window of the main bedroom, where the corpse was still lying. And I realised – he was standing in my house, in my bedroom. Maybe I should stay away from thriller novels.

But really what I love are books that dig deep into characters. And I love characters that aren’t stale, male, pale, cis-het, neurotypical.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I have two dogs, both rescues. Ozzy will be nine next month. I met him in 2015 when I spent my holiday volunteering at a bear sanctuary in Romania. The sanctuary is an amazing place. They rescue and rehabilitate bears from all across Central and Eastern Europe – mainly from captivity, but sometimes wild bear cubs that have been abandoned and wouldn’t survive on their own.

My experience at LiBEARty was incredible – but I quickly realised they had all the help they needed already. So I spoke to the organiser and asked if we could be of more use at the dog shelter run by the same team.

We arrived at the shelter during a thunderstorm when 499 dogs were howling at the top of their lungs. And one dog stood on top of his house, smiling and begging for my attention. Three weeks later, he was lying on my sofa.

Lemmy came from the same rescue group three years later.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

In October 2020, I sat down to write something silly. Something that would make me feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

So many of the early reviews have said something along the lines of ‘this was exactly what I needed right now.’ It was so much fun to write. I loved every second of it and I hope readers do too.

The Left Hand of Dog features an aro-ace agender main character, Lem. Together with her dog, she’s kidnapped by incompetent bounty hunters from outer space. It features a talkative horse, an unswearing robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas. All on the run from the bunnyboos.

The Left Hand of Dog

Escaping intergalactic kidnappers has never been quite so ridiculous.

When Lem and her faithful dog, Spock, retreat from the city for a few days of hiking in Algonquin Park, the last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by aliens. No, scratch that. The last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by a bunch of strangely adorable intergalactic bounty hunters aboard a ship called the Teapot.

After Lem falls in with an unlikely group of allies – including a talking horse, a sarcastic robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas – the gang must devise a cunning plan to escape their captors and make it back home safely.

But things won’t be as easy as they first seem. Lost in deep space and running out of fuel, this chaotic crew are faced with the daunting task of navigating an alien planet, breaking into a space station, and discovering the real reason they’re all there…

Packed with preposterous scenarios, quirky characters, and oodles of humour, The Left Hand of Dog tackles complex subjects such as gender, the need to belong, and the importance of honest communication. Perfect for fans of Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater than Death – especially ones who enjoy endless references to Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. This book will show you that the universe is a very strange place indeed.

Buy Left Hand of Dog! If you opt to buy it direct from me, you’ll get 20% off with code LIMFIC2021.

Meet SI CLARKE

SI CLARKE is a Canadian misanthrope who lives in Deptford, sarf ees London. She shares her home with her partner and an assortment of waifs and strays. When not writing convoluted, inefficient stories, she spends her time telling financial services firms to behave more efficiently. When not doing either of those things, she can be found in the pub or shouting at people online – occasionally practising efficiency by doing both at once.  

As someone who’s neurodivergent, an immigrant, and the proud owner of an invisible disability, she strives to present a diverse array of characters in her stories.

Website : Goodreads : Readerly : Twitter

K. L. Noone: Magician!

Hi, I’m K.L. Noone—many thanks to A.L. Lester for letting me drop by to talk about Magician today!

Magician comes out July 24 from JMS Books, and it’s m/m high fantasy, with bisexual main characters—at least, Gareth is bi, and Lorre is whatever ancient weary shapeshifting magicians are! (He’s been and done quite a lot, over the years, and at this point what he mostly is…is tired. But Gareth’s got a lot of enthusiasm…)

It’s very much about magic—probably obvious! And also it’s about past mistakes and guilt, and redemption, and trying to hide from the world on a deserted tropical island (because one might as well hide and feel guilty for one’s past mistakes in comfort!), and then it’s about what happens when an optimistic young prince shows up on one’s island and believes with all his heart that the world’s last legendary magician has to help with his quest, because that’s how quests go, isn’t it…

(It’s also the novel I once referred to on Facebook as, “Well, now there’s a lot of tea and magical sex diamonds.” So if those sound like your cup of…er…)

This might be one of my favorite novels that I’ve written; it’s one that’s lived in the back of my head for at least a decade. It’s technically a spin-off for a side character (in fact, the antagonist—though he’s not a bad person, just thoughtless!) from my short story “Sorceress,” which was my first-ever romance sale, way back then! I always knew the sequel was Lorre’s story: what does a magician do after he’s been reckless with his power and caused problems? And who would he fall in love with? The answer to the second question was, obviously, an Earnest Young Hero, someone who still believes that other people will help you if you ask them nicely, and who looks at a lonely and dangerous magician and asks how he can help, in turn.

(A fun and true trivia fact: Gareth’s name wasn’t necessarily going to be Gareth! I wasn’t sure it felt like him, but I needed to call him something—I thought I might change it later. But, around 30k in, I’d been writing him and thinking of him as Gareth, so…he was! And I actually quite like it now—the Arthurian reference fits nicely, I think. Gareth would also get along well with Prince Lir from Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, I suspect…)

There are also nectarines. And some discussion of giant turtles. And a bandit or five.

Magician also has two of my favorites of my own ending lines—one for the main story and one for the epilogue. I sometimes find ending lines tricky, but both of these just turned up and felt right. (The last word of the novel overall, by the way, is “yes.” It’s an answer.)

I always write with music, and this playlist has a lot of The Proclaimers, The Pretty Reckless, and Volbeat on it—flavors of Edinburgh, of wild magic, of aging, of falling in love, of finding home at last. And some Against Me! because I suspect Lorre would sympathize with “I Was A Teenage Anarchist,” and The Cars’ “Magic” because, well, magic!

Here’s an excerpt, and buy links, and everything—I hope you enjoy this world and these characters. I’ve loved them for a very long time, and I’m excited to share. And if there’s a third story in this world, it’s got lesbian romance—a sorceress and a princess, in fact, but we’ll get there when we get there…

Buy Magician! JMS Books : Amazon

The beginning of Magician

The world’s greatest living magician, lying on his back on a rocky ledge halfway up a cliff and bathed in sunshine, felt the boat’s arrival on the island shore below like an uninvited knock at a private door. He did not enjoy it.

He didn’t move for a moment. He did not feel like it, and there’d be no rush. Nobody’d get past his wards.

He kept both eyes closed. Sun streaked red behind his eyelids; gold warmed his skin, his hair. His body soaked in the sensations of strong heated stone, sank into stone, became stone: learning how the rock felt when bathed in lush late-morning light. His edges blurred, softened: time slowed, thrummed, grew earthen and deep, salt-lapped and wind-etched. He might’ve been here for centuries, unhurried. Equilibrium and erosion, solidity and reshaping: a balance.

He had needed balance. Something he’d thought he’d known, once. Something he no longer understood.

He’d thought the island might help. Being rock for a while, or the wind, or the seaspray: being suspended amid them all. Being alone, because he was not sure he recalled how to be human, not well enough.

The island was warm—Lorre had always shamelessly adored being warm—and far enough from the mainland that he’d been mostly undisturbed, and close enough to trade routes that he could occasionally walk on water out to a boat and barter some repairs or some healing for some news of the Middle Lands and King Henry’s court at Averene and the Grand Sorceress Liliana. Lorre had promised not to magically check in on Lily or their daughter; he was attempting to keep that promise.

Equilibrium. Difficult. Sunlight was easier. Sunbeams were weightless. Stones did not have to think about human promises. Human perceptions.

The knock came again. It was not physical, or not entirely. It was a presence, an unexpected intruder standing below, shuffling feet in the sand and no doubt wondering where precisely a magician could be found, being faced with a towering blank cliff and no visible habitation.

Lorre sighed, pulled himself back from frayed edges and heavy sleepy light, and sat up, pulling a robe on in an unfussy tumble of blue and gold, mostly just because he liked the caress of silky fabric on bare skin. His senses shifted, dwindled: more human, though not entirely. He’d been a magician too long to not feel the threads of brilliance—cliff, vines, fish, grains of sand, sea-glass polished by waves—all around.

He peeked over the side of the ledge. Behind him the cave yawned lazily, reminding him of sanctuary: he could simply walk back inside, the way he had for several years now, and ignore the new arrival. That generally worked.

He was rather surprised someone’d found him at all. He wasn’t exactly hiding—oh yes you are, said a tart little voice in his head, one that sounded like Lily’s—but the island, after a bit of work on his part, nearly always concealed itself from maps and navigation charts. At the beginning a few enterprising adventurers had managed to track it down, young heroes on quests or proving their worth by daring an enchanter’s lair or begging for Lorre’s assistance in some revenge or inheritance or magical artifact retrieval scheme.

He’d ignored all but two of them. The illusion-wall kept everyone out, simple and baffling; the island had fresh water but little in the way of food. Mostly the adventurers’d given up and gone home, years ago; he couldn’t in fact recall the face of the last one. Two had become nuisances, loud and shouting; one of those had actually threatened to drink poison, melodramatically demanding Lorre’s assistance in collecting a promised bride from a glass mountain, claiming he’d die without her.

The young man currently standing on the beach was neither loud nor melodramatic. In fact, he was calmly considering the sheer cliff-face, which revealed nothing; he stepped back across the small curve of beach, shaded his eyes, seemed to be measuring. After a second he put a hand up, obviously checking the edge of the cliff: having noticed the very slight discrepancy where sea-birds dropped behind the illusion-wall a fraction sooner than they should vanish in reality.

Intelligent, this one. Lorre dangled himself over the ledge at an angle which would’ve been dangerous for anyone else, and watched.

The young man had dark reddish-brown hair, the color of autumn; he wore it tied back, though a few wisps were escaping. He’d dressed for travel, not in shiny armor the way some knights and princes had: sturdy boots and comfortable trousers, a shirt in nicely woven but also practical fabric, a well-worn pack which he’d swung down to the sand. He wasn’t particularly tall, but not short: average, with nicely shaped shoulders and an air of straightforward competence, not trying for impressive or intimidating.

Lorre, despite annoyance at the interruption, couldn’t help but approve. At least this one had some sense, and didn’t walk around clanking in metal under the shimmering sun.

The young man called up, “Hello?” His voice was quite nice as well, not demanding, lightly accented with the burr of the Mountain Marches but in the way of someone who’d been carefully sent to the best schools down South. “Grand Sorcerer?”

Lorre mentally snorted. He didn’t have a proper title, not any longer; if anyone did, it’d be Lily. His former lover, now wife of the brother of the King of Averene, was by default the last Grand Sorceress of the Middle Lands; she’d started up the old magician’s school again, welcoming and training apprentices. Lily always had been better with people. Lorre was not precisely welcome in Averene.

The young man said mildly, “I expect this is a test; I thought you would do that, you know,” as if he thought that Lorre might answer, as if they were having a conversation; and looked around. “I’m meant to find you, is that it?”

That was the opposite of it. Lorre on a good day barely recalled how to be human, and certainly wasn’t fit to interact with them. He’d lost his temper with the melodramatic poison-carrying prince, strolled invisibly onto the shore, asked the poison to turn itself into a sleeping draught, and then poured it into the idiot’s water flask. Then he’d found a passing ship and dumped the snoring body onto its deck. He hadn’t known the destination, and hadn’t bothered to find out.

His current young man was looking at driftwood. Lorre wondered why. He was getting a bit dizzy from leaning nearly upside down; he considered the sensation with some surprise. A swoop of gold swung into his eyes, distracting and momentarily baffling; he pushed the strands of his hair back with magic.

The young man found a stick, one that evidently met his standards for length and strength. He kept it in front of himself; he walked deliberately toward the cliff, and the illusion.

Oh. Clever. Avoiding traps. Testing a theory. Lorre found himself impressed, particularly when the young man watched the tip of the driftwood vanish and nodded to himself and then set rocks down to neatly mark the spot.

The island was not large, and the beach even smaller: a jut of cliff, a tangle of vines, a small lagoon and a trickle of water down to the shore. The illusion hid the cave-opening, but there wasn’t really anywhere else for someone to be; the young man figured that out within an hour or so of methodical exploration, and returned to the shore, and looked thoughtfully at the cliffs. He’d rolled up his sleeves and undone the ties of his shirt, given the heat; he had a vine-leaf in his hair, along with a hint of sweat.

Lorre, in some ways still very much human, couldn’t not stare. Something about those forearms under rolled-up sleeves. That hint of well-muscled chest. The casual ripple of motion, broad shoulders, heroic thighs.

“I suppose,” the young man said, very wry, still looking at the cliff as if perfectly aware Lorre was watching, “I should introduce myself. I think I forgot to, earlier.”

I suppose you should, Lorre agreed silently. Since you’re here. Disrupting my life.

He ignored the fact that he’d had no real plans. Meditation. Quiet. A hope for calm.

A hint of dragon-fire slid through his veins, under his skin. A memory. Restless. Beckoning. Dangerous.

Blurb: A magician in need of redemption. A loyal hero on a quest. And only one bed at the inn.

Once the world’s most legendary sorcerer, Lorre fled the Middle Lands after his own curiosity — and a misguided transformation spell—turned him into a dragon and nearly killed a king. He isn’t a dragon anymore, but he is hiding alone on a tropical island, avoiding people, politics, and his own reputation.

But now a hero has found him. And not just any hero. Prince Gareth’s full of patience, intelligence, a kind heart…and unfairly attractive muscles. And he needs Lorre’s help: his tiny mountain kingdom is under attack from ice magic, and Gareth hopes the world’s last great magician will save his people.

Lorre’s very much done with quests and princes and trying to change the world. But Gareth might tempt him to believe again…in heroes, in himself, and in magic.

Meet K. L. Noone

K.L. Noone employs her academic research for writing romance, usually LGBTQ+ and often paranormal, fantasy, or historical! Her full-length romance novels include the Character Bleed trilogy (Seaworthy, Stalwart, and Steadfast), Cadence and the Pearl, and A Demon for Midwinter, available from JMS Books, and A Prophecy for Two, available from Inkshares. She’s also the author of multiple romance novellas and short stories with JMS Books, and previously with Less Than Three Press, Circlet Press, and Ellora’s Cave. Her non-romance fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress and the magazine Aoife’s Kiss.

With the Professor Hat on, she’s published scholarly work on romance, fantasy, and folklore, including a book on Welsh mythology in popular culture and a book on ethics in Terry Pratchett’s fantasy. She is happily bisexual, married to the marvelous Awesome Husband, and currently owned by a long-legged black cat named Merlyn.

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interview: Allison Temple

Please welcome Alli Temple today. She is celebrating the release of her new FF romantic fantasy, Uncharted!

First question then! What started you writing?

Boredom? Lol. I’ve always been a writer. I have old journals full of terrible attempts at writing a “novel” from my middle school and high school years. But I started writing seriously as an adult when my husband changed jobs and was working a lot of nights and weekends. I needed something to do and since I’m an introvert I wanted a hobby that didn’t involve talking to people. Writing’s great because I only talk to the people in my head.

Where do you write?

Do you want the pre-Covid answer or the current one? Either way, I mostly write at home. In the summer, I like to spread out on the back porch. We have a big tree that gives just the right amount of shade. In the cooler months, I mostly write in the living room on the couch.

When it’s safe to go out, I love writing in Starbucks. I don’t actually care for their coffee, but the people watching is top notch. Throw on a pair of noise cancelling headphones and let the words flow!

What do you like to read?

I’m an audiobook fan and like 95% of my reading is audio. Good narrators are key for me. Recent favourite audiobooks include Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, Manners and Mannerisms by Tanya Chris, and The Last Sun by KD Edwards.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

That’s so hard! I’d take The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater because it’s the kind of book I’d love to write, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier because it’s my all-time comfort read, and Honeymoon Sweet by me because it’s my sweetest happiest book to date and if I’m stuck on a desert island, I need a sweet happy escape I know I can count on.

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

Nothing formal, but I’m in a bunch of different Slack and Discord groups. There’s always someone to help you work through a plot hole, listen to you vent when your book doesn’t sell as well as you want, or sprint when you need to get words down fast. When we could go out and about, I also loved to go on writing dates with writer friends. We’d either meet up at someone’s house or at a coffee shop or bar and chat and write. It’s so important to have writer friends. No one who doesn’t have a writer brain really gets it.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I’ve adopted two rescue pets in the last year. Manny is a mutt from Mexico. He’s a goofy neurotic love bug who just wants a soft place to nap. Maud is a farm cat who is learning how to be a house cat. She rules the roost and eats anything she can get her paws on.

In the before-times, my husband and I loved to travel. We took an amazing trip to Mexico City for his 40^th birthday and I can’t wait to go back and explore more!

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Uncharted is my first fantasy novel. It started out as a silly tweet about changing one word in the title of your favourite movie to “lesbian” and I tweeted “The Princess Lesbian”. And then a bunch of people said they wanted to read that and it kind of took on a life of its own.

Uncharted took forever to write. I started in the summer of 2018 and now it’s 2021. Part of it was learning the conventions of a new genre, part of it was making sure George and Lou’s story was as strong as it felt in my head. While it was really time consuming, I loved writing about adventure and exploring how to redeem someone who has done very bad things, as well as about the love story at its center.

Uncharted

Amazon US : Amazon Int’l

In a world of arrogant nobles and their punishing laws, Georgina will be hung if anyone discovers she is a spy. But when the wicked prince proposes marriage, Georgina must accept. Refusing would expose the secrets she has delivered to a hidden resistance and forfeit her life. With her wedding day looming ever closer, salvation comes from an unlikely source.

Pirate Captain Cinder is a terror on the open sea, striking fear into hearts wherever she sails. Now she has a new target. The vulnerable Princess Georgina should be an easy mark in Cinder’s kidnapping plot. However the legend of Captain Cinder is more intertwined with Georgina’s own history than either of them expect.

Treacherous storms. A mysterious pirate king. The prince’s unrelenting pursuit. Georgina and Cinder can only escape by following the uncharted course of their hearts. Just as a future together is within their grasp, Cinder’s past threatens to drag them both to the deep.

Follow Alli!

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Interview: Kellie Doherty

Today we well welcome Kellie Doherty, Alaska-based author of Curling Vines & Crimson Trades. Welcome to the blog, Kellie! What made you decide to rock up today?

Kellie Doherty, with wonderful orange and red hair!

Thank you for having me for this interview! Today, I’m celebrating my new release, adult fantasy Curling Vines & Crimson Trades. The novel centers on a rare goods trader named Orenda. Her wife gets kidnapped and Orenda has to do these nearly impossible tasks and trades just to get her wife back. Then the unthinkable happens, her best friend Jax tries to kill her. She has a task list too and her final one is to kill Orenda. In a race against the coming dawns and battling at every turn, Orenda has to try to save them all before the sun rises on her wife’s final day. Curling Vines came out on November 30, 2020, from Desert Palm Press, and I’ve been shouting about the new release pretty hard since then. However, I really love interviews, so I’m also here for fun!

What started you writing?

Fanfiction! I loved watching Digimon and Pokemon when I was younger and I wanted to be in their worlds longer, to have more adventures with the characters I loved so much. I turned to writing fanfiction to fulfil that need, and it really sparked my writing career. Fanfiction holds such a dear place in my heart that I still write it to this day! It’s fluffy and fun. Something I can dip into when I need a break from my original stories for a little while. After I felt comfortable in the already created worlds of others and crafting original characters to play in those worlds, I branched into original fiction and created worlds all my own. That was a thrilling transition. Do you know how equally time-consuming and awesome worldbuilding can be? It’s intense! I also started writing stories because I didn’t see many queer female characters in science fiction and fantasy so I wanted to add my own positive representation of my LGBTQIA community into the genres I adored. That’s why all of my main characters are queer ladies!

What’s your writing space like?

I write at home curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and my cats purring beside me. Sometimes they push my computer out of the way so they can sit on my lap and snooze while I awkwardly hold my computer against my knees to write. I let them, of course, because I’m a pushover when my cats are involved. Technically I can write almost anywhere—airports, coffee shops, libraries—but I’m most comfortable at home. I also scribble notes on characters, plotpoints, and worldbuilding during breaks at work and in the middle of the night. (Though in the middle of the night my handwriting is nearly unintelligible.)

What do you like to read in your non-writing time?

Science fiction and fantasy! I am a huge geek for dragons and magic, spaceships and tech. The escape it gives me is honestly priceless. I like high adventure stories with big (and small) stakes, but I also enjoy character-driven stories as well. It just depends on my mood at the time.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

Mm, my first pick would be Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon since it’s such an epic story with so many varied characters and points of view. It’s also a thick book, which means it would take me a while to read if I got stranded there. Second I’d bring Becky Chambers’ novella To Be Taught, if Fortunate because her prose is beautiful and her characters try to see the good in each situation they’re put in, even when—and especially when—it gets tough. I feel like that kind of story would be super helpful in a desert situation. And finally, I’d probably bring a tropical island food book of some sort so I’d know what’s edible! Knowing me I’d probably snack on a poisonous plant…

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

I belong to a local writing organization called the Alaska Writers Guild, and I really appreciate the smaller events they host throughout the year as well as the larger annual writing conference. As you know COVID-19 made the in-person events grind to a halt, but the Alaska Writers Guild swung to virtual pretty smoothly. I also have a weekly writing group that meets over Skype! It’s lovely to have a two-hour chunk of time where we can critique our work together, and I honestly believe we’ve all become better writers because of it.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Oh boy, I lead a rather busy life outside of my writing career. I have my own freelance editing business—Edit. Revise. Perfect.—that keeps my editing eye sharp! I have a lot of different clients and some ongoing contract work too, with both fiction and nonfiction work. I feel really fortunate to have one foot in the business side of publishing like that, even while I have a full time job in a different field. I have two fabulous black cats—Raven and Cinder—who like to dash around at midnight, pounce on hair ties, and curl up on me while I’m writing. As for exercising, I do get at least 7,000 steps per day and I do Zumba every now and then, but I miss swimming. I used to do water aerobics, pre-COVID, and it was just so much fun! Hopefully once the virus settle down a bit, I’ll be able to get back into the water again. Hmmm, what else. Well, I probably watch too much YouTube—Critical Role is an obsession of mine—and I play video games like Minecraft and Zelda. I’ve also been playing the same Dungeons & Dragons campaign with a group of friends for nearly four years, which is pretty fabulous.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Like I said earlier, I’m celebrating the release of my new adult fantasy novel, Curling Vines & Crimson Trades! I got the idea for this five-book fantasy series when I was a teenager, but I didn’t feel comfortable writing it until a few years ago. The idea—having four main characters each with their own standalone books with their own stories and challenges, triumphs and failures, only to bring them all together in the final fifth book—seemed too big for me. And it was back then. It might still be too much for me now, honestly, but I wanted to challenge myself and I knew that if I didn’t start it soon, it would haunt me for the rest of my writing career. And I also wanted to pivot into writing fantasy since I’m such a huge nerd for it. Anyway, for Curling Vines, the story is focused on Orenda Silverstone and for her story, I really wanted to do a deep dive into what a person would do to save their loved one and discover how someone who believes they’re broken moves past that feeling. Curling Vines took me about six months to write but then I submitted it to my writing group to critique so the second draft took a little bit longer to hash out. For the enjoyment factor, I loved writing the interactions between the characters, especially Orenda and Lyra. They clash so often! It was fun for me. For the hate factor…hmmm, that one’s a bit harder to pin down. I don’t really hate anything about writing. One thing I can get lost in is the research aspect. For example, for this story, one of the characters Jax fights with a staff and since I had never written about staff fighting before I had to research. And I say, “had to” loosely there; I actually liked researching staff fights! The problem? I remember one night I literally spent my whole writing time—like three hours—researching…I didn’t write a single word. Research is important, don’t get me wrong, but I need a timer or something so I don’t deep dive like that again and forget to actually write the story!

Curling Vine & Crimson Trades

Book cover: Curing Vines and Crimson Trades by Kellie Doherty

Rare goods trader, Orenda Silverstone leads a happy life with her wife and friends. She’s an Elu—a race whose crafting is centered on protection—but her power is broken. Now, her sword is her strength. When her wife gets kidnapped and Orenda has to use her trading skills to complete some nearly impossible tasks to get her back, a good sword arm won’t be enough. Orenda’s time is rapidly coming to a close. She needs help. But she’s been forced into silence. Two sun goddess worshippers, twins Lan and Lyra, decide to join Orenda’s quest in order to guard one of the rarer items to its destination. Orenda’s not sure she can turn her back on either one, but with no other options, she competes against the sunrises to complete her tasks before her wife is killed. Then, the unthinkable happens. Orenda’s best friend, Jax, tries to kill her. Between racing against the coming dawns and battles at every turn, Orenda’s list now seems insurmountable. No longer certain of who is friend or foe, she must come up with a plan to save them all before the sun rises on her wife’s final day.

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Meet Kellie!

Kellie Doherty is a queer science fiction and fantasy author who lives in Eagle River, Alaska. When she noticed that there wasn’t much positive queer representation in the science fiction and fantasy realms, she decided to create her own! Kellie’s work has been published in Image OutWrite 2019, Astral Waters Review, Life (as it) Happens, and Impact, among others. She’s currently working on a five-book adult fantasy series. The first book Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties (Desert Palm Press, March 2019) won a 2019 Rainbow Award. The second book Curling Vines & Crimson Trades launched on November 30, 2020, and an excerpt from Curling Vines won first place in an Alaska Writers Guild Fiction contest in 2020.

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H. L. Moore: Death’s Embrace

This morning I’ve got a fantastic new release for you, from H. L. Moore. It’s Soul of Ash, the sequel to Heart of Dust. I’ve been waiting for this second novel in the Death’s Embrace series pretty much since I read Heart of Dust in 2018. They are set in a wonderful, complex world with normalised queerness and an incredible slow-burn romance. I’ve got Soul of Ash on my Kobo for this evening and have pretty much told my family they’re on their own! I’ve embedded the preview thing from Amazon so you can read the first bit of each book.

Firstly, Heart of Dust (you definitely need to read this first)

“Doran had a problem, and it wasn’t that he’d been stabbed.”

Iole City is in turmoil. Doran Ó Seanáin, leader of the Black Lung Gang, is determined to bring the Lord Archon – Iole’s tyrannical ruler – down for his brutal treatment of the miners. But Doran has more to deal with than getting stabbed, a stalemate and city-wide lockdown that’s seeing his gang of ex-miners being slowly starved out of their base – his daughter Grace has turned against him, and the weight of his wife’s death two years prior haunts them both.

Things start to look up when he’s inexplicably drawn to Nathaniel Morgenstern, the apotheker with a mysterious past he owes his life to, but Doran is in way over his head. The fate of the mines hangs in the balance; the clock is ticking and the Archon is closing in. Doran’s plan to break the cycle may very well be his last.

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Soul of Ash

You can run, but you will never be free.

Half a year after the events of Heart Of Dust, Doran Ó Seanáin now finds himself trapped between two worlds while belonging to neither. Held in contempt by the upper class for the turmoil he caused during Archon Bryson’s reign and resented by the miners for selling out, Leonora Darkwater’s bid to purchase the mines from the crown may be his salvation. But the offer is far more complicated than it appears, and the only person Doran trusts is the same man who threw his life into chaos.

Haunted by his past, held hostage by his debt to the Archon, and a slave to the poison that keeps him alive, atonement feels perpetually out of reach for Nathaniel Morgenstern. Too much damage has been done and too much has gone unsaid for time alone to heal the wounds between him and Doran.

Unfortunately, time is the one thing they don’t have as their lives collide once more. There are vipers in Arajon; the mines aren’t finished with Doran, and the sand in Nathaniel’s hourglass is running out.

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H. L. Moore

H. L. Moore is an Australian writer of LGBT+ fiction. She is Jewish and of Middle Eastern (Egyptian) heritage, queer, and is an #OwnVoices writer. She has been writing stories since she was old enough to hold a pen. Her biggest literary influences are Adrian Tchaikovsky, Brandon Sanderson and C. S. Pacat. She has had two short stories published: “The Collector” in the 2014 Future Times Award Collection A Tick Tock Heart, and “Entente” in the 2020 Twisted Stories Award Collection Just Alice.

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