Writing What You Want to Understand

Every other year or so, I pull all my Austen novels off the shelf and indulge in an binge, complete with all the notes I wrote in the margins during college. At the moment, I’m on Sense and Sensibility, one of her less well-loved books. The happy ending, especially for the passionate Marianne, never feels wholly satisfying. The classic (or perhaps clichéd) spirited young women ends up marrying the stable and sedate older man she once disdained, subverting all the emotional intensity that made her fascinating. As I was reading the critical notes in the introduction (have I mentioned I’m a nerd?), I noticed the following gem: “Austen’s ending reads like a covert acknowledgement that the problem she set out to explore—the antagonism between social norms and individual personality–really has no definitive solution, or at least no happy one.”*

It’s often repeated that as writers we should write what we know, but I think a more satisfying strategy is to write what we want to understand. It’s the things that bother and intrigue me, the things I want to explore, that keep me up at night and drive me to write. Each book in my Shadowminds series has been, in a way, an attempt to understand what it means to find a home for yourself, usually where you least expect it. As a Southerner who’s been transplanted on the West Coast, the sense of displacement and the search for family among strangers are struggles I hold close to my heart.

Austen was clearly fascinated with the tensions between individual desire and social norms, and I think that fascination is what makes her books endure. The opposing forces that anchor those tensions might be in different places now, but they’re no less present. Most of the books that stay with me are those that try to understand enduring human problems, whether it’s something as lofty as the price of power or as mundane as family bonds. (I’m thinking of the Harry Potter series and Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear trilogy of historical romances.) What books do you think try to understand something timeless?

*Paul Montazzoli, Introduction to Sense and Sensibility, 1996

A.J. Larrieu is a Louisiana native and the author of the Shadowminds series, sexy urban fantasy set in New Orleans. She lives in San Francisco with her family and too many books.

Paranormal Fiction: High Stakes or Personal Stakes?

One of the things I love about paranormal fiction is the many different sorts of stakes to be found throughout the genre. No, not the vampire-killing kind of stakes—though those are fun, too—but the stakes of the plot. In what other genre can you find everything from personal love stories to save-the-world thrillers? Better still—those personal love stories often end up determining the fate of the world. Maybe the “chosen one” trope is a cliché, but it sure is fun to read stories where a single character is given so much power to destroy or save.

One of my favorite parts of this kind of connection is how it tends to expand through an ongoing series. Things may start out personal—our heroine has to discover her potential, after all, and maybe discover her fated mate along the way. But by the time we get to Book 3, the plot has thickened, and it’s the fate of all the supernatural beasties in California, then all supernatural beasties in the world that hangs in the balance. 

I think a great example of this is Nicole Peeler’s Jane True series. It starts with Jane learning about her selkie origins and shaking up her tiny little Maine town with a murder investigation, but by the end of Book 6, she’s battling world-destroying dragons and having conversations with the people who run countries. 

Of course, not every series has world-changing stakes, and I’m a big fan of those “smaller” stories, too, the ones where the conflict is intimate and emotional. Marta Acosta’s Casa Dracula series is a great example of a small-stakes series that’s huge in emotional intensity. The heroine Milagro’s personal journey has more than enough angst, plot twists and heart to keep me eagerly turning pages. After all, without that emotional connection to the main character, I don’t care much about saving her world.

 

What about you? Do you prefer your paranormal heroine to save the world, or just save her grandmother’s haunted bed and breakfast? Or somewhere in between? What are your favorite high- and low-stakes series?

Win-A-Book Wednesday with...A. J. Larrieu!

A.J. Larrieu

A.J. Larrieu was born and raised in small-town Louisiana, and yes, she did have an alligator in her back yard growing up. It was a small one. She spent most of her summers knee deep in the mud exploring the swamps or nose-deep in a book exploring other worlds, so it's no surprise she grew up to write paranormal romance and urban fantasy set in the South. These days, she lives in San Francisco with her husband and son, and even though she's been in the Bay Area for over a decade, she still misses those pounding Gulf Coast thunderstorms.

Dangerous Calling 

The Shadowminds - Book 2

Darkness has a purpose.

Dangerous Calling is the second book in my dark, sexy urban fantasy series, The Shadowminds. It comes out on August 18th, and you can be the first to win a copy!

About Dangerous Calling:
After years of denial, Cass Weatherfield has finally accepted her telekinetic gifts. Living with her boyfriend, Shane, has given her the confidence to be herself, but the fear of losing control and harming those around her is always present.

Knowing firsthand the hell of growing up without a mentor, she agrees to meet and help Diana, a young Shadowmind. But when Cass shows up, the terrified woman changes her mind and flees. Cass and Shane track her across New Orleans, and soon discover that Diana is being held against her will by an illicit organization that's selling her rare clairvoyant skills to the highest bidder. In charge is an ancient creature more powerful than any they've ever encountered. And apparently she wants Shane dead.

Cass and Shane work to free Diana. But as Cass uses more and more power, drawing it from her friends in the fight against evil, she feels an addictive pull that challenges her control. And, in the end, Cass may be the greatest threat to those she loves the most.

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Win-A-Book Wednesday with...AJ Larrieu!

A.J. Larrieu

A.J. Larrieu was born and raised in Louisiana, and yes, she really did have an alligator in her back yard growing up. It was a small one. She spent most of her summers knee deep in the mud exploring the swamps or nose deep in a book exploring other worlds, so it's no surprise she grew up to be a biologist moonlighting as an urban fantasy author. These days, she lives in San Francisco with her husband and son, and even though she's been in the Bay Area for over a decade, she still misses those pounding Gulf Coast thunderstorms. 

Twisted Miracles

Twisted Miracles is the first book in my sexy urban fantasy series, The Shadowminds. The second book, Dangerous Calling, comes out on August 18th, so here's a chance to win a copy of Twisted before Dangerous releases!


More about Twisted Miracles:

Cass Weatherfield's powers come with a deadly price.

Cass knows it was her telekinetic gift that killed a college classmate five years back, even if no one else believes her. She's lived in hiding from her fellow shadowminds ever since, plagued by guilt and suppressing her abilities with sedatives. Until the night her past walks back into her life in the form of sexy Shane Tanner, the ex-boyfriend who trained her...and the one she left without saying goodbye.

When Shane tells her that his twin sister, Mina—Cass's childhood friend—is missing, Cass vows to help, which means returning to New Orleans to use her dangerous skills in the search. But finding Mina only leads to darker questions. As Cass and Shane race to learn who is targeting shadowminds, they find themselves drawn to each other, body and soul. Just as their powerful intimacy reignites, events take a terrifying turn, and Cass realizes that to save the people she loves, she must embrace the powers that ruined her life.

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Writing, Biology and the Value of Failure

My debut novel came out a few weeks ago, and one of the most common questions I’ve gotten is this: What’s a biologist doing writing urban fantasy and paranormal romance? I know it sounds weird, but there are more science-types writing fiction than you might think. Jennifer McQuiston is a historical romance writer as well as an infectious disease researcher. Stephanie Laurens also writes historical romance, and she has a former career as a cancer biologist. Diana Gabaldon is another biology Ph.D. who writes…well...no one’s pinned Outlander to a specific genre yet, so I won’t be the one to try. Jeffe Kennedy, another Here Be Magic member who writes fantasy and erotic romance, has a background in neurobiology. And I’m sure there are plenty more out there.

So, what’s up with all these biologists writing fiction? The truth is, I don’t think biology and writing are as different as they seem. Biological systems are complex and mysterious, and every time we try to pin them down and understand them, they slip away again, offering some new piece of data that throws all of our previous ideas out the window. They’re like the best kinds of stories that way, full of surprises.

That’s the good side of things. The other way biology and writing are similar is that they’re both full of failure.

I've never failed as often or as completely as I did when I was in graduate school in biology. Biology is like the Baskin Robbins of failure—31 flavors and then some. Experiments don’t work. Sometimes those experiments take days, weeks, months or even years to set up and perform. Sometimes they work, but they give you the opposite answer from the one you wanted, an answer that means your paper won’t be published or your grant won’t be renewed. And when an experiment does work? You spend years running all the controls and follow-up studies, write a paper about it and submit it to a scientific journal, only to be rejected. You present your data to your colleagues, only to be shot down in an auditorium full of your peers. Biology is full to the brim with more kinds of failure than I ever knew existed.

I don’t have to tell the writers out there that this sounds awfully familiar. And all you can do is keep working and hope for a stroke of luck.

But, it was useful training to go through all that failure as a biologist. It made the inevitable rejections of the publishing industry a little easier to take, but it also helped me to understand the value of failure. We tend to think of failure as something to avoid, something inarguably negative. But failure and creativity go hand in hand. The most exciting ideas are the ones that are on the edge of what’s possible—whether that’s in the world or in your head. There are failures of execution—the times I just didn’t do my work carefully enough—but there are also failures of exploration—the times when a failure was necessary to lead me to some shiny, brand new question I hadn’t known existed. Learning how to fail—and how to recognize the good kind of failure—helped me learn where the interesting things are, where the edges of our understanding are. Where the good stuff is.

Even though it still kinda sucks.

What do you think the value of failure is?
--

A.J. Larrieu is a biophysicist by day and a paranormal fiction author by night. Her most recent release, Twisted Miracles, is the first in a new urban fantasy series set in New Orleans. Find out more at www.ajlarrieu.com.

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New Releases

Cass Weatherfield's powers come with a deadly price.

Cass knows it was her telekinetic gift that killed a college classmate five years back, even if no one else believes her. She's lived in hiding from her fellow shadowminds ever since, plagued by guilt and suppressing her abilities with sedatives. Until the night her past walks back into her life in the form of sexy Shane Tanner, the ex-boyfriend who trained her...and the one she left without saying goodbye.

When Shane tells her that his twin sister, Mina--Cass's childhood friend--is missing, Cass vows to help, which means returning to New Orleans to use her dangerous skills in the search. But finding Mina only leads to darker questions. As Cass and Shane race to learn who is targeting shadowminds, they find themselves drawn to each other, body and soul. Just as their powerful intimacy reignites, events take a terrifying turn, and Cass realizes that to save the people she loves, she must embrace the powers that ruined her life.

Now Available: Buy here!

Win-a-Book Wednesday with...AJ Larrieu!

A. J. Larrieu

A.J. Larrieu grew up in small-town Louisiana, where she spent her summers working in her family's bakery, exploring the swamps around her home and reading science fiction and fantasy novels under the covers. She attended Louisiana State University, where she majored in biochemistry and wrote bad poetry on the side. Despite going to graduate school in biochemistry, she couldn't kick the writing habit, and by the time she had her degree, she also had an addiction to writing dark, sexy urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Nowadays, she's a biophysicist by day and a writer by night. A.J. lives in San Francisco with her family and too many books. 

More about Twisted Miracles:

Twisted Miracles

The Shadowminds - Book 1

Cass Weatherfield's powers come with a deadly price.

Cass knows it was her telekinetic gift that killed a college classmate five years back, even if no one else believes her. She's lived in hiding from her fellow shadowminds ever since, plagued by guilt and suppressing her abilities with sedatives. Until the night her past walks back into her life in the form of sexy Shane Tanner, the ex-boyfreind who trained her...and the one she left without saying goodbye.

When Shane tells her that his twin sister, Mina--Cass's childhood friend--is missing, Cass vows to help, which means returning to New Orleans to use her dangerous skills in the search. But finding Mina only leads to darker questions. As Cass and Shane race to learn who is targeting shadowminds, they find themselves drawn to each other, body and soul. Just as their powerful intimacy reignites, events take a terrifying turn, and Cass realizes that to save the people she loves, she must embrace the powers that ruined her life.

Twisted Miracles really is the book of my heart. I was homesick for Louisiana when I wrote it, and since I couldn't go back myself, I sent my character there instead. I hope readers love Cass's story as much as I loved writing it, and I'm so excited to offer HBM readers a chance to win an early copy!

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On Writing Your Way Home

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware." - Martin Buber

This past Tuesday was Mardi Gras. Ten years ago, I would’ve spent the day in New Orleans watching the parades, or at the very least eating a king cake and hanging out with family. This year, though, like every year for the past ten, I put on a Louisiana-themed T-shirt (this time: my New Orleans water meter shirt from Storyville) and went to work like it was any other day.

I’ve been living in the San Francisco area for a decade now, and I love it out here. There’s a lot to love: great weather, great food, great people. Mountains an hour in one direction, a beach an hour in the other. And, before I had my Small One, there was Wine Country. ;) But no matter how much I enjoy being here, I’ll never love it the way I love home.

I miss the things you’d expect. The food, for one. In honor of Mardi Gras, my day job cafeteria served “jambalaya,” and jambalaya is in quotes because while the food was good, and it contained some of the ingredients one might guess were in jambalaya after looking at a picture, it was not jambalaya. I miss LSU football games. I miss the cadence of Southern accents and the relentless green of the Louisiana landscape.

I miss the things you’d think I wouldn’t. The rain. Real rainstorms, not the gentle, obligingly brief showers we get in San Francisco. I want warm, muddy rivers in place of the clear, cold Pacific. I want humidity so thick it feels like the air is holding you up.

I’m not sure I could have written this list before I left home. Before I’d done much traveling, I didn’t know what would be different enough to miss. It’s one of the great gifts of living in new places—you get to look back at where you’ve come from and see it for the first time, like an astronaut looking down at Earth. But the price of that gift is homesickness.

The thing about this homesickness is, it feels like stretching an overworked muscle. It’s painful, but in a good, needful sort of way. I like reminding myself of what home feels like, even when it hurts. Going back—at least permanently—isn’t in the cards for me right now, and I suppose that’s why most of the stories I write are set in the South. I’m getting there the only way I can.

What do you love most about the place you call home?

--

A.J. Larrieu is the author of the upcoming urban fantasy Twisted Miracles, which is set in New Orleans and does, in fact, contain jambalaya. It releases on April 7, 2014 from Carina Press. To celebrate, she’s giving away a few unique pieces of her home state—find out more here.

Here Be News

New Releases

Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet

In the fifth erotically charged installment of Jeffe Kennedy’s scorching Master of the Opera, a daring young woman follows her reckless desire for the perfect lover-to the point of no return. . .
He is more than just the man of her dreams. He is the master of her destiny. A mysterious masked stranger who haunts the darkened tunnels beneath the Sante Fe Opera House, the Master is like no other lover Christy has ever known. He has lured the beautiful intern to the very brink of ecstasy-and beyond. He has pushed the boundaries of her sensuality and tested the limits of her passion. But now the Master wants more. If Christy accepts his challenge, she must be willing to go further than she’s ever gone. She must surrender to his every desire. She must submit to his every command. She must expose herself body and soul-or bear the scars of a broken heart forever. . .
Tonight is the night she must make a choice: to free herself from one man’s obsession. . .or bind herself to him for life.

Buy

Cover Reveals

A Monster Haven Story, book 4

In her role as Aegis, Zoey Donovan has rescued and cared for hundreds of monsters and mythical creatures. Now humans are the ones in need of her help. Someone with a personal vendetta against the Board of Hidden Affairs has kidnapped all the other Aegises in the country—including Zoey's mother.

With the Hidden government in shambles and a string of deadly clues to follow, Zoey and her reaper boyfriend set out on a cross-country chase to stop the kidnapper from killing the captured Aegises. Along the way, they pick up a miniature golem who's on a quest to find his humanity…and may be the key to solving the grisly clues.

If Zoey succeeds in defeating this new evil, she'll finally be reunited with the mother she lost over twenty years ago. But if she fails, she'll become the final victim.

Coming April 21, 2014. Pre-order: Amazon B&N

Pulling a chariot for the goddess Freya is no picnic, but Hall and Avarr don't mind protecting her from all harm. They're waiting because they've been promised a rich reward for their loyalty—Eira, a stubborn valkyrie who drives them to distraction. Unfortunately, they’ve been told they can't have her until they're ready. And they've been ready for fifty years.

Eira is disappointed that Freya's huge guards are so dull. They won't fight, they barely talk, and to her knowledge they've never used a bow or spear. It's embarrassing, and such a waste of two such mighty specimens. But when she spies them having at each other, suddenly they're not so boring. Or embarrassing. They’re freakin’ hot. When they unleash an enormous rage on Freya’s enemies, proving they really are the bad-asses of legend, she’s not sure that boring is bad. Because they’ve set their sights on her. And battle cats have been known to toy with their prey…for an eternity.

Beasts of Burden   Available May 2014 from Fated Desires 

Coming April 7, 2014
from Carina Press
Read the first 2 chapters &
pre-order here!

Twisted Miracles by A.J. Larrieu
First in a new urban fantasy series: The Shadowminds - Book 1

Cass Weatherfield's powers come with a deadly price.

Cass knows it was her telekinetic gift that killed a college classmate five years back, even if no one else believes her. She's lived in hiding from her fellow shadowminds ever since, plagued by guilt and suppressing her abilities with sedatives. Until the night her past walks back into her life in the form of sexy Shane Tanner, the ex-boyfriend who trained her…and the one she left without saying goodbye.

When Shane tells her that his twin sister, Mina—Cass's childhood friend—is missing, Cass vows to help, which means returning to New Orleans to use her dangerous skills in the search. But finding Mina only leads to darker questions. As Cass and Shane race to learn who is targeting shadowminds, they find themselves drawn to each other, body and soul. Just as their powerful intimacy reignites, events take a terrifying turn, and Cass realizes that to save the people she loves, she must embrace the powers that ruined her life.

Group Announcements

Here Be Magic contributor Veronica Scott's first "Sci-Fi Encounters" column for the USA today/Happily Ever After blog has now been published and will be appearing at HEA on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month.  Veronica plans to talk about science-fiction and fantasy (SF&F) romances (with a little paranormal thrown in from time to time).  She’s thrilled about the opportunity to give a "signal boost" to SF&F romance of all kinds. She’ll provide a mix of news, author Q&As, reviews and reader views.   For her first column Veronica interviewed best selling SFR author S.E. Smith and featured five books including Fighting Cat (Carina Press) by P. J. Schnyder.

Win-A-Book Wednesday Winner

Congratulations to Erin, the winner of last week's Win-a-Book Wednesday! Seleste DeLaney will be contacting you soon about your prize.

This Wednesday we'll have another mystery giveaway; stop by for more chances to win!

Looking at Home Through Someone Else's Eyes

There’s nothing like reading to discover new places, but there’s something special about visiting places you already know through a book. I remember reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast while spending a summer abroad in Paris, and seeing the city through his eyes while I was discovering it through my own was an experience I’ll always value. It’s a rare joy to look through the lens of a gifted writer into a place you love, and see it in a whole new way.

I was born and raised in Louisiana, but for over a decade now, I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. I feel lucky that both places serve as settings for more than their fair share of stories, especially stories of the supernatural variety. Reading fantasy or science fiction set in San Francisco or New Orleans is like going through a rabbit hole to an alternate dimension.

One of my favorite ways to look at San Francisco is through the literary lens of William Gibson. He might be most famous for writing Tokyo and London, but his “Bridge Trilogy” (Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow’s Parties) takes place partially in San Francisco, and he does fascinating things with the Oakland Bay Bridge. It becomes a community all it’s own, filled in like a sideways skyscraper and populated with squatters and some near-future equivalent of food trucks. I never drive across it without remembering his gritty vision of its fate.

There are plenty of other takes on San Francisco and its surrounding towns. Christopher Moore delivers the whole Bay Area in intimate (and hilarious) detail. He even sets part of Bloodsucking Fiends and its sequels in the Safeway where I used to buy my groceries. Seanan McGuire (and her alter ego, Mira Grant) is another author who knows and writes the Bay Area beautifully. There’s a scene in her urban fantasy Rosemary and Rue that takes place in the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, and everything from the ticket kiosk to the landscaping was exactly as I remembered it. (Except for the faeries.)

I'm glad I haven't run into any vampires in the produce aisle or mischievous Fae in the botanical gardens, but imagining them there sure is fun. What are some of your favorite stories set in places you’ve called home?

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A.J. Larrieu is the author of Anchored and the upcoming Twisted Miracles, the first book in her urban fantasy series, The Shadowminds. She's a Southerner, a chocolate addict, and an incurable nerd. Find out more at www.ajlarrieu.com.