Excerpt from Walk the Wards!

While I've been fighting with ongoing long-term writer's block, this year has not been entirely without words, I'm happy to report. I've made some progress on Walk the Wards, which is still planned to be my next release in the Free Court of Seattle series. As a general reminder, this book will not actually be a novel; it'll be a collection of novellas and novelettes.

And just to show that I have actually been writing at least a bit, how about an excerpt?

This is from "The Deepest Breath of Song", a story about a shy young tuba player who discovers there's a lot more to life in his small coastal town than he'd ever imagined when he must help the town's Warder find out who's been hunting the herd of hippocampi migrating through the local oceans.

When Oscar finds the culprit, well... let's just say it doesn't go well. ;D

***

Ashosha. Her name was the very crash of the tide against the sands. Oscar caught glimpse after glimpse of the ocean through her eyes, as she, proud huntress and magic-wielder of the merrow, roved through the wide Pacific waters on behalf of her people.

They numbered fewer every year, driven as they were into the last lingering hidden places of the deep, for the oceangoing vessels of his own kind grew harder and harder to elude. So too did the creatures that could feed the merrow dwindle—for all of them were threatened by not only the ships and submarines of humanity, but the pollutants that fouled the currents even when no humans were near. With such challenges before her people she could not afford compassion, not if it kept her from filling the bellies of hungry merrow children—

Without warning, as her finned hand snapped back from him once again, their connection broke. Or the physical one, at least. Oscar clutched his paddle to him, half-convinced it might somehow balance him against the sudden tumultuous whirling in his skull. This single huntress, this female called Ashosha, roared across his thoughts with a power far greater than the entire hippocampi herd.

How she perceived him he dared not imagine. Yet the wave that bore her drew her back from his kayak now, and he could no longer mistake the look in her eyes for anything but reluctance.

The next words she hurled at him, though, rang with resolve as sharp as her spear.

“I give the herd three days. In exchange, human, you will come to the shore each night and play upon this horn you say sounds like them. Make your case for their lives. If I do not like what I hear, your own life will be forfeit.”

It was no bargain; if anything, it was an ultimatum. Accepting it was the height of foolishness. The sheer thought of it crowded Oscar’s brain with twin thoughts that should have amplified his panic past all bearing. One, that hardly anyone in the town would understand, know, or care what happened to him if the huntress Ashosha should kill him. And the other, that his mother would.

He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why. But he did know that it was important that he return safely to his mother, and that he ask Amanda Beck, the quiet owner of a quiet B&B in a quiet little town, knew of the world Marikat had shown him.

Was his mother a Warder?

Had his father been?

“Promise me you won’t harm Marikat or my mother,” Oscar said. To his surprise, the words sounded steadier than anything he’d ever uttered, for all that his voice had gone quiet and thin. “Or anyone else in the town.”

“The merrow do not come ashore,” Ashosha replied. “None of your people will face our spears if they stay out of our waters.”

Whether he could believe her, Oscar could not possibly guess—but then, the whole night had been filled with impossibilities. Yet something in him, born out of that brief fierce contact with her mind, hinted that perhaps, just perhaps, she was not lying.

And that perhaps, just perhaps, there was compassion within her that he could reach. That made it easy to, at last, put forth his promise.

“I’ll come. I’ll play for you.”

***

"The Deepest Breath of Song" is just shy of 14,000 words as of this writing, and is indeed shaping up to be one of the longer pieces in the book! I hope y'all like my take on the "magical duel" trope. Not to mention my determination to have a musician in a story who doesn't play a traditionally sexy instrument, for once!

I'm fond of Oscar, too. I've had fun researching what a well-played classical tuba sounds like, just to get an idea of how he should sound on his instrument. And, he is totally a Tolkien nerd and named his tuba The Horn of Helm Hammerhand.

Want to know more? Check back with me! I'll be doing Camp Nanowrimo again next month, and hopefully, I'll be able to finish Oscar's story.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear about your favorite story with a musician protagonist who plays an unusual instrument. Talk to me in the comments!

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Angela writes the Free Court of Seattle series as Angela Korra'ti, and the Rebels of Adalonia series as Angela Highland. Either way, come find out about all her books over at angelahighland.com, or say hi to her on Facebook or Twitter.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Warder Soul!

For a writer, there are few things more frustrating than making about 20,000 words into a manuscript, only to realize that it's not working. This has recently happened to me, as I work on Warder Soul, book 3 of my Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series.

The bright side of this, at least, is that I was only about 20,000 words in versus, oh, say, 90,000. And also, I was able to nail down pretty well why what I was writing wasn't working for me, because it was a problem that had come up while I was working on Victory of the Hawk. Namely, that after releasing five novels, three of which had me working extensively with a good editor, I'd developed a tendency to write too superficially in the name of trying to write more quickly.

Because of this, I just wasn't feeling suitably, truly engaged with what I'd put down for the story so far. And if the writer isn't engaged, the reader can't be!

So even though it was irritating to have to go back and rewrite the beginning, I did it anyway. I now have a new opening scene for Chapter 1, and I'm feeling a lot better about it. So I'd like to share it with you all now!

The scene is long, about 2,000 words, so I'm only going to include a small taste of it in this post:

Amount of time it took to get my hair ready for Jake and Carson’s wedding: three hours.

Amount of time it took a flock of fairies to have at it: five minutes.

The little knuckleheads divebombed me the minute Jude and I got out of her truck at the Golden Gardens bathhouse. One minute I was closing the passenger door behind me, taking care not to crinkle my skirt as I got out, because honestly, how often was I going to wear a dress in public? I’d been twitchy the whole morning about tearing it, or spilling coffee on it, or any number of potential disasters. The next minute, my field of vision filled with a disaster I hadn’t counted on: the glittering, swooping bodies of seven fairies, all of whom seemed more pleased to see me than I’d ever seen fairies be about anything. And that counted the time I’d bribed half a dozen of them to find my phone. With red velvet cupcakes. They’d brought me three other phones before I’d finally convinced them that no, really, my own phone was enough.

“Queen!” one of them caroled as it whirled around my head, so quickly that I got barely a glimpse of flashing wings and tiny flailing hands. “Queen is here!”

Want to read the whole scene? I've got it available as a PDF on my site!

The moral of this story: listen to your muse, if it's telling you you need to fix something in the story.

The other moral of this story: cake is awesome.

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Angela writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series as Angela Korra'ti, and the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy trilogy as Angela Highland. Come tell her all about your favorite kinds of cake at angelahighland.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter!

Excerpt from Warder Soul, Book Three of the Free Court of Seattle, now in progress!

A consequence of having a mentally challenging full-time day job is that I'm a slow writer. But I do have works in progress--and one of those is Book 3 of the Free Court of Seattle series, currently with the working title Warder Soul!

I'm a few thousand words in on it so far, and can tell you that the story starts when my heroine Kendis Thompson's housemates and dear friends, Jake Tanaka and Carson Saunders, get married. All is well at their wedding until Kendis and the more magically-inclined of her friends sense... well, something. Which is disquieting when you're trying to hold a wedding!

Here now is an excerpt from this work in progress, as Kendis, her beloved Christopher, and Millicent Merriweather all try to make sense of what just happened.

***

It took a while, ultimately, before any of us could slip away safely to compare notes on what we’d just sensed. With the ceremony done, it was time for the reception, and therefore time for Elessir to take over musical duties. Thanks to the retro Elvis look he favored, including a practiced sneer and a faux Tennessee accent he could turn on and off at will, Elessir a’Natharion was easily mistaken for an Elvis impersonator. If you couldn’t see past Sidhe glamour, that is. If you could, his pointed ears and eyes like evening stars clearly proclaimed him something other than human. So did the singing he sent wafting out through the gathering, a clarion baritone that needed no amplification. To my surprise, he didn’t break out a single Presley song. Instead he kept singing in flawless Japanese, in a range of styles from rock to quieter traditional melodies, none of which I recognized. They did, however, go over splendidly with the Tanakas.

(And with me, though I wasn’t about to admit that to anyone. More of me than I generally wanted to acknowledge—the part of me that in the last six months had developed a deep, fierce pleasure in the breath of living trees and the purity of starlight—stirred every time I heard Elessir sing.)

The music kept everyone occupied for much of the night. Carson and Jake, once they opened the dancing themselves, each insisted on a dance with Millicent. And since Christopher and I had nominated ourselves in charge of making sure refreshments got to everyone that needed refreshing, we couldn’t exactly make ourselves scarce. Not to mention, for one thing, that I didn’t want to abandon the festivities. I’d lived with Carson and Jake as my housemates for years now, after all. The chance to see those boys finally get married was important beyond words.

For another thing, hello, Christopher in a tux. One sight of him dressed like that had been enough to lay down a critical side agenda for the evening: namely, dancing with my man, and if we got any moments to ourselves, find out if Jake and Carson’s change in status was giving him the same intriguing ideas it was giving me.

But that nagging sense of dislocation hadn’t entirely left me. It lingered through the distribution of wedding cake, champagne, and sake to the guests. It lurked in the back of my mind, unassuaged by the sound of Elessir’s singing, a subtle discord beneath otherwise pure and perfect melody. And it set off my nerves in a way that had no place in a celebration, for it brought back recollections of exactly how we’d kept Seattle from being destroyed. That disembodied spirit that had taken over Saeko had also tried to take me.

The reminder of what it felt like to be pulled out of my own body, here and now, was utterly unwelcome.

I tried to keep my disquiet to myself. I hoped I kept my disquiet to myself. Yet some hint of what I was feeling must have shot across the blood-forged magical link between Christopher and me. An hour and a half into the general partying, he commandeered two glasses of champagne, proclaimed to everyone in earshot that the lucky grooms weren’t the only couple who needed time alone, and whisked me outside into the night.

“Oh thank God,” I breathed as soon as we hit open air.

We found nothing to give any credence to my unease. No demons dropped out of portals to attack us. No dragons, child-sized or grown, spat lightning down from the sky. All that met us was the tang of salt in the air from the nearby Shilshole Bay, mingled with the fainter, chillier bite of snow on the Olympic Mountains to the west. There was no danger of it snowing so close to the water, or even of the rain-laden winds that were far more common than snow during a Seattle winter. Somewhere to the north of us a flock of Canadian geese honked to proclaim their presence to the night, while out across the bay, a ferry blew its whistle at a passing barge.

“Drink that, Kenna-lass,” Christopher advised, clinking his glass against my own. “Slow. You’re starting to spark through your shields.”

“The boys didn’t notice, did they?” I asked, alarmed.

“Not that they let on, but we shouldn’t risk it. Not tonight.” He looped an arm around my waist and looked down at me, hazel eyes warm with concern. “Are you all right?”

A cautious sip of the drink gave me a moment or two to think about that. The small motion of drinking gave me something to anchor on, to underscore where and when I stood. I took a moment to think of nothing but the cool glass of the champagne flute, and of the shape of my fingers around it. Of the fizz and bubble of the liquid against my tongue, and of the smells in the air around me allowing the fragrance of the blossoms in my hair into their midst.

It didn’t seem wise to take more than that moment, though.

“I’m okay, aside from wondering what we felt in there. Did something come over the Wards?”

Christopher shook his head, and then gestured with his own glass towards the solitary figure who’d come outside ahead of us, and who now stood some distance away from the bathhouse. “I don’t know any better than you, and that scares me. We’d better go talk to her.”

Millicent, of course. Everything seemed peaceful, just as it’d been when we’d all arrived at the bathhouse for the festivities at hand—save for that one unnerving moment of whatever-it-was. But the old Warder First was turning slowly about on her heel, scowling as if something had mortally offended her. When she scowled like that, chances were good someone or something was about to be shot. Never mind that we were at a wedding reception, out in public, wearing our formal best. Millie usually kept her trusty old shotgun Butch out of sight, Warded against theft or confiscation. If the look on her face was any sign, she was thinking of breaking it out.

She turned in our direction as we walked out from the bathhouse to meet her. Christopher didn’t lengthen his stride; if Millicent hadn’t armed herself already, we were in no immediate danger. Nor did he call out to her. Not until we were in close enough range for quiet speech did he finally ask, “What happened back there, Millie? Do you know?”

“Not to get all Galadriel-exposition-y at you children,” she promptly replied, “but something’s coming. I feel it in the wind. And it’s shaking me to my goddamned bones.”

My restlessness sharpened, recognizing the warning in Millie’s words somewhere below the level of conscious thought—down where my magic lived. “Me too. Whatever that was that hit us, it’s still bugging me.”

Christopher’s gaze went unfocused, while a sheen of gold flared in his hazel eyes, a sign that only Millicent and I could see of his magic. “The city feels normal. But there’s… something. An echo. A shadow.”

“So we’ve all agreed there’s a disturbance in the Force,” I said. We were mixing movie metaphors, but I wasn’t about to care. “How big a disturbance? Do we need to start checking if Alderaan just blew up?”

Millicent smirked; she’d seen A New Hope more often than Christopher and me combined. “I’m pretty sure the Death Star isn’t about to come into orbit. But I can’t nail down what this is. Nothing’s breached the Wards. Nobody in the city’s under threat from anything fey. Hmm.” The elder Warder’s attention came back to me. “Fey. Your magic’s different from mine and the boy’s. How does it register for you?”

“When it hit, it was like I was suddenly somewhere else. Like leaving my body, except I didn’t actually go anywhere.”

“And now?”

I grimaced. “Not as bad now. But I still feel like something’s off. You know how if the alarm clock wakes you up out of the middle of a dream, and it throws you off the entire morning because part of you is still convinced you’re still in whatever you were dreaming about?” Both the Warders gave me slight blank looks; apparently, that was just me. “Well, it’s like that.”

“None of us are dreaming,” Christopher said. “And none of us have had enough to be drunk.”

“We won’t, either, at least not tonight.” Millicent’s tone grew stern now, brooking no argument. “Finish what you’ve both got there, but no more after. Stay on your guard, but try not to be obvious about it. Don’t alarm the Tanakas or the Asakuras, and especially not the boys. Anything short of immediate flood, fire, or zombies, they do not need to care. Jake and Carson’s only priority tonight is to eat cake, drink the sake and champagne we will be leaving them out of the goodness of our hearts, and looking forward to their honeymoon.”

Given how serious her expression had become, I opted not to ask right then and there if zombies belonged on the list of Things Which Are (Surprise!) Not Actually Fictional. “And after tonight?”

“Get the singer and find out if he’s sensed anything we haven’t. Then get him and Jude to help walk the Wards as soon as Jake and Carson are safe off on their flight. I want all our eyes on the city. If something’s about to creep on us, I damn well want it found.”

***

If you're intrigued, more of this book is on the way! And if you haven't met Kendis and her friends yet, you can get caught up on their story in Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, on sale now wherever ebooks are sold, and in print from me!

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Angela writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series as Angela Korra'ti, and the epic fantasy trilogy Rebels of Adalonia as Angela Highland, for Carina Press! Come find her at angelahighland.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Portrait of an Unseelie bard

A friend and reader sent me a link to this story on the newspaper site for the Lexington Herald-Leader, a nice little local color piece about how a bunch of locals gather to make music at a Hardee's restaurant. She thought it'd be relevant to my interests since one of the participants is a gentleman who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator, and she even clipped the picture out of the physical newspaper and sent it to me!

To wit: hurray! A reader thought of me! Thank you, Nancy!

But I do want to talk about what she sent me, because she hand-wrote the question "Elessir?" on the clipping. Since, of course, I have Elessir a'Natharion, Unseelie bard and self-appointed Elvis impersonator, as a major character in Faerie Blood and Bone Walker.

But here's the thing—if you click through to the article, you can find the guy in the carousel of photos. Like pretty much all Elvis impersonators in my experience, he's doing 70's-era Elvis, the Elvis of jumpsuits and scarves.

For the record, Elessir a'Natharion never, ever impersonates 70's-era Elvis.

Part of this comes from my own history as an Elvis fan, and part of it comes from Elessir's in-character experience with Elvis' music.

The part of this that comes from me is that every single time I've seen Elvis impersonators depicted in popular culture, whether on TV or in a movie, it's always played for laughs. And it's always 70's-era Elvis, in full gaudy jumpsuit and scarf glory. The impersonator does up his hair and practices a sneer and drawls "Thank you very much" in as thick a drawl as they possibly can.

I can think of two examples of this off the top of my head—one, an episode in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman back in the 90's, wherein all the cast were inundated with pheromones that lowered their inhibitions. Now, in this version of the Supes storyline, Daily Planet editor Perry White is portrayed as a devout Elvis fan, and I was down with that; I found how he frequently swore "Great Shades of Elvis!" kind of adorable. But in the pheromone episode, what does he do? He slaps on a jumpsuit and a scarf, and tries to imitate Elvis. And it was cringe-inducing for me.

Another example is in Castle, in the episode "Heartbreak Hotel", where Castle and detectives Ryan and Esposito all wind up in Elvis impersonator costumes for plot-related reasons. Not quite as cringe-inducing, but it's still played for comedy.

And none of this is what Elvis actually means to me. None of it touches on Elvis' music.

Now, mind you, I have never actually seen a real live Elvis impersonator perform either. Part of me would be a bit afraid to do so, on the grounds that I'd keep expecting too much emphasis on Elvis-like mannerisms and not enough on actual musical talent.

But there's also the simple matter that I like 50's and 60's era Elvis way more than I do 70's era. The Elvis music I listen to over and over and over again comes from those eras. I'll absolutely break out 70's era stuff every so often—the Aloha Via Satellite concert album is still hugely important to me, as is the live performance of "Let Me Be There" that is one of the earliest Elvis concert tracks my dad ever played for me—but it's the simpler stuff that appeals to me most. The simple 50's-era rock, and the best soundtracks from his movies as well—like King Creole's soundtrack, which crackles from start to finish, and which contains what I consider Elessir's theme song: "Trouble".
Or the sweeter, simpler ballads from movies like Wild in the Country (which I do passingly reference in Faerie Blood), Follow That Dream (which has a lovely little song called "Angel" in it), or Kid Galahad (which has "Home Is Where the Heart Is", which I can actually play on guitar).

And to this day, I have yet to hear of an Elvis impersonator that does young Elvis. Show me one of those, and I might actually consider going to listen to him! (Or her! I do not require my Elvis impersonators to actually be the same gender he was. And if you'd like an idea of how a woman could sound like Elvis, go listen to recordings by his very own daughter. I've heard clips. Lisa Marie sings spookily like her dad.)

All of which swings me back around to Elessir. Something y'all should keep in mind about this boy is, his Elvis affectation, as much as from anything else, is because he likes screwing with the minds of mortals. This boy is Unseelie, after all, and the fey have a long and venerable history of being ready, willing, and able to do exactly that. A big part of him likes to imitate Elvis simply because he knows it screws with humans' heads.

But the part of him he doesn't often show to anybody, the part of him that actually responds to human music in ways the rest of the Unseelie Court looks down on, is drawn to simpler stuff. Elvis singing a simple love ballad with a guitar type stuff. Big, gaudy spectacle like what Elvis did with his concerts in the 70's doesn't impress Elessir. But what will get his attention is the heart and feeling behind a performance—the kind of heart and feeling that made a young Elvis Presley's singing first capture my young ears. The kind of music that in the Unseelie Court, as imagined by me, is a rare and precious gift.

It's the same kind of heart and feeling that has since drawn me to Great Big Sea and Newfoundland music--and much more recently, to Quebecois trad. The kind of powerful joy that comes from being in a session, in a house full of people making music, is exactly what draws Elessir in.

So no, Elessir won't ever put on a jumpsuit or a scarf. He'll be the Elvis impersonator who wears a denim jacket and jeans, with the collar of his shirt turned up behind his neck.

He'll be the one who needs no more instrumentation than a single guitar, and who can enthrall an entire bar just by singing about wild country roses. Hell, if you're an Elvis fan like me, you already know that Elvis was perfectly capable of doing that, and he was a mortal.
But never make the mistake of underestimating Elessir just because of what human he happens to resemble. Because he isn't human. He is born of the Unseelie, a bard and mage, a son of midnight and frost.

And when he unleashes the full strength of his singing, he can call down lightning.

--
Angela writes as both Angela Highland and Angela Korra'ti, and when she's not hanging out with Quebecois fiddle players, she writes fantasy novels with Unseelie Elvis impersonators. Follow her on angelahighland.com or her Facebook page! Or come tell her your favorite Elvis movie on Twitter.

The Magic of Music--More Than You Think

I’m at Conflikt, the Seattle-area filk convention this weekend, and I’m writing this post from my hotel room as we speak. The place is full of filkers, with such luminaries on hand as Cecilia Eng (guest of honor), Alexander James Adams (toastmaster), the PDX Broadsides from Portland, S.J. Tucker, Vixy and Tony, and more! And I can’t think of a better place from which to officially release Bone Walker, Book 2 of the Free Court of Seattle—because we’ve also got the soundtrack that goes with this book and with Faerie Blood, and we’ll be doing a release concert in honor of both the books and the album.

(In fact, if you see this post before 2pm Pacific time on Sunday the 1st, you can actually see that release concert streaming! It'll be available up on fansupported.tv!)

A bit of background! Some of you may recall that Faerie Blood was originally published via Drollerie Press. But when Drollerie folded and rights to our books reverted back to Drollerie authors, I resurrected Faerie Blood via Kickstarter in 2012. I made enough from the Kickstarter to support not only re-releasing that book but also to do Bone Walker. The soundtrack became a stretch goal, offered in digital form to all backers who chipped in at $25 or more.

But 2012 got complicated, since that was also the year I got my contract with Carina Press. I had to let my alter ego Angela Highland do the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy before I could unleash Bone Walker on the world. Meanwhile, medical challenges delayed my wife Dara’s ability to get the soundtrack done. But it all started coming back together the last few months, particularly the soundtrack.

See those names up there in the first paragraph? Some of those people are on our soundtrack album. And some will also be performing at our release concert. We’re particularly excited to have Alexander James Adams involved.

All of this means a great deal to me, because music is critical to the Warder universe. Most of the main cast members of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker are in fact musicians. My heroine Kendis plays violin. Her boyfriend Christopher, Warder Second of Seattle, is a bouzouki player. And Elessir a’Natharion, bard of the Unseelie Court, can pretty much play anything he puts his hands on, not to mention his long and varied history of being able to wreak havoc on mortal listeners with his voice.

The Warder lineage in general is chock full of musicians too—because when your magic constrains you to physically stay in the same city for the rest of your natural life, you need to do everything you can to keep from going stir crazy. For the vast majority of Warders, this means music. Moreover, in my universe, the grand traditions of Celtic and Quebecois music, with their vast wealth of tunes, have the additional punch of magical power. If you see a Warder busking on the street, they’re not just out there to make music. They’re channeling power into the Wards of your city. Every jig and reel is a thread of audible magic.

Because I may be an author first and a musician second—but I’m also a musician. Music has held power for me throughout my life, the power to fan my emotions, to make me sing at the top of my lungs when I’m out walking, and to heal my heart when I’m struggling. It makes me want to grab an instrument of my own every time I see my most admired musicians perform, or to get up and dance and sing along. Sometimes all three at once. (There are reasons my nickname is Anna the Piper!)

It is therefore entirely just and proper that the Free Court of Seattle, the books of my heart, should be full of music that has all that power and more.

And now, some of that music is itself unleashed. The Bone Walker soundtrack is officially available for digital purchase, and you can order the CD too if you want it. Hear it for yourself right over here on Bandcamp, and my official page for the soundtrack with a roundup of other places you can buy it is here!

Meanwhile, Bone Walker the book releases to the world this Tuesday, February 3rd! You can preorder it from Amazon for the Kindle right over here, and many more places to get it are on its official page! You can even order it in print off the Crime and the Forces of Evil Bandcamp site, here!

I hope y’all will consider checking out the book and the soundtrack—and that you’ll see something of the power I hear in music. And if you, yes YOU, would like to win a print copy of Bone Walker for your very own, answer me this question in the comments: what song, in any genre, has magic for you? One week from today, on Sunday the 8th, I will choose a commenter at random and give a copy of the book to that winner.

Thanks for listening!

--
Angela Korra’ti is the author of the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series, and her alter ego Angela Highland writes the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy for Carina Press. Come see her geek out about Quebecois trad at angelahighland.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter!