All authors have things to love about every one of their releases. For me, though, Faerie Blood remains in many respects the book of my heart. It's the first thing I released professionally, and it's the first thing I ever won Nanowrimo with as well. It's got all the things I love in it: elves (and specifically, the Sidhe). Seattle. Bikes. Geekery. Magic. Music (and specifically, references to two of my major musical fandoms).And since I redid the cover for the second edition release, it remains to this day my favorite cover. This thing gets a lot of eyes on it every single time I take it to a convention, and justifiably so, as my artist did a stellar job!
In the last year in particular, I've even had the pleasure of finding whole new ways to connect with my heroine Kendis Thompson--because I've taken up learning the fiddle. Which, as I've written about before on this very blog, is one of the biggest things I've ever ostensibly done in the name of research. ;) Okay yeah I wanted to learn the fiddle anyway--but I'm here to tell you all, being able to actually describe what playing an instrument feels like from direct first person experience is very, very helpful for writing a musician character!
But what about the actual story? Here's the blurb, y'all:
Kendis Thompson of Seattle thinks she’s as normal as the next computer geek, and up till now, she’s been right. But her world is about to turn on its ear, for she is the daughter of a Seelie Court mage and her mortal husband—and her faerie blood is awakening. Suddenly the city she’s known all her life is transforming before her eyes. Trolls haunt the bike trails. Fairies and goblins run loose in the streets. An old woman who is not what she seems and a young wanderer running from his past stand ready to defend Seattle—and Kendis—from magical assault. She will need those allies, for the power rising within her is calling her fey kin to the Emerald City to find her. And kill her.
And here's a short excerpt!
“Shit,” I squeaked. Then I shrieked in mounting terror at the man sprawled on the trail, “Get up!”
He stirred. His eyes flickered, urgency warring with grogginess in his bearded features as he clued in that he was now up the proverbial creek, unequipped with paddle. But he couldn’t seem to make himself get out of the troll’s way, even when its next strike with the staff missed his skull by scant inches and pounded a hole into the grass instead.
Since he couldn’t move, I did.
Attacking a pissed-off troll with a Swiss Army knife was probably not the wisest thing I could have done. No, scratch that, it was definitely not the wisest thing I could have done. But wisdom wasn’t high on the agenda right then. What I saw before me was a guy getting the crap beaten out of him because he’d answered my scream for help—which made said beating my fault. And that bothered the hell out of me. I couldn’t leave someone to get his head split open like a piñata on my account without at least trying to do something to assist.
So I flicked open the knife and threw myself in a headlong rush at the creature. I’d like to say that a flash of brilliant inspiration gave me the best possible place to hit the troll with my laughably miniscule blade, and how to tackle it to knock it off of my downed rescuer. But I can’t. I can’t even say that I knew what to call the monster, much less how to fight it. My charge had all the finesse of an intoxicated farm boy trying to tip an armed and all too dangerous cow. I almost knocked myself out when I barreled low into my target, catching the staff between it and me before it could take another whack at the stranger.
Blindly I stabbed out with my little knife. I couldn’t tell where I connected; I could barely tell that I’d connected at all, thanks to almost gagging on the troll’s stench and trying not to faint as I got my other arm around it and held on for dear life. But the tip of my blade caught somewhere along its hide—caught and sank in and stayed there.
With another gurgling howl the troll let go of the staff, nearly choking me in the process as the carved wood jammed up against my throat, and started pawing frenetically at the place where I’d struck. It writhed violently, knocking me sideways, away from the tall figure spilled along the trail. And as it writhed, it began to change.
Color leeched out of its form, turning greenish-brown skin, black tufts of hair, and tusks the stained yellow of old ivory to an overall rocky gray. Flailing arms and paws began to slow, their motions increasingly sluggish, till the troll fell over onto me with one fist still reaching for the knife and the other jabbing clumsily against the ground beside my head. One great foul blast of breath from its maw nearly made me retch before that maw, too, began to freeze up and change color inside as well as out. Its screeches of pain dwindled down to a few burbling gasps, then cut off with an unmistakable finality. Before I grasped what was happening, the weight pinning me to the earth had transformed from monster to monster statue.
The troll had turned to stone.Want to know more? You can find out all about the book on its official page on my site. I have the first four chapters available as preview downloads there, or if you prefer, you can read longer previews on Amazon or Overdrive!
Or if you want to go ahead and buy the ebook, here are all the places you can do that!
Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords | Google Play | Scribd
But wait there's more! You can also buy the ebook or the print edition directly from me on my Square store!
If you decide to snap it up, or hey, even if you check it out and want to think about it for later, thanks very much in advance and I hope you will love this book as much as I loved writing it!
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Angela writes as both Angela Korra'ti and Angela Highland, and you can find out all about her books over on her site, angelahighland.com. Or you can come find her on Facebook or Twitter!
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