What Next?

Reign of Magic has had a smashing release, the launch fun is all over, so naturally you Champions are wondering what I’m writing next. Unfortunately, at this point my answer is “I don’t know.” And I’ve decided I’m not going to start on my next book until January.

Part of this is because I am throwing another Christmas event this year–which takes time to prepare–and I have another event I’m planning for in January that I need to work ahead on as well. But some of it is just that I’m really, really tired, and my physical and emotional health took a real beating during Reign of Magic, so before I write any more Enchantress books I really need to recover.

I know the rest of the Fairy Tale Enchantress series is going to take longer to write, and I really don’t like the idea of leaving Second Age of Retha fans out for so long. But that series is almost as complicated as Angelique’s series, and at this point I mentally can’t handle that, so I also don’t know when the next Retha book will come.

Once I stop feeling like an anxiety-ridden squirrel whose tail got run over by a truck, I will try to create a plan for next year. And in the meantime I’ve been prepping for Christmas, I may have written another Retha short story, and I’ve got a few surprises up my sleeve for 2020.

Thank you so much for your patience and support, Champions. All of you are so incredible, and I love our community so much! I’ll get through this, and in the meantime we’ll have some fun! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely week!

Evariste’s Magic

As the final Reign of Magic themed post, we’re digging into a complex topic: the curse cast on Evariste, his magic, and how his feelings for Angelique affects all of that.

I wanted to cover this topic last to give everyone a chance to read Reign of Magic, because the whole post is basically one giant spoiler. So, if you still haven’t read it yet, consider yourself warned!

We know from Curse of Magic that Evariste is blocked from his powers by a dark curse, and the only way to break it is to act out his darkest desires. The spell itself tells Evariste he has to give Angelique a kiss of true love. (So a peck on the hand or cheek isn’t going to cut it.)

We also know from the events of Curse and Reign that Liliane and her minions have been harvesting Evariste’s magic and have used it to cast the various curses Angelique has encountered. (ie: Severin’s curse, the transformation spell Clotilde put on the Arcainian Princes, and we know from Evariste’s thoughts he was used to entrap the elves, etc.) Multiple people–including Liliane and Angelique–have noted that many of the curses they’ve cast have all had an exploitable weakness for love–specifically romantic love.

Reign reveals that this is no accident, but rather a trait of Evariste’s magic. He got captured protecting someone he loved, and in order to break the curse he has to give Angelique a kiss of true love. His magic has reacted to that and thus the weakness has been forged.

But Reign also reveals another aspect of Evariste’s magic, and this time it involves Angelique. As some of you might recall, when the spell that is torturing Evariste so he sees those he’s close to in pain, Angelique’s magic shreds the spell and breaks him free of it.

Though Evariste doesn’t dwell on it overly much–he’s more fixated on the aforementioned weakness–it still is worth mentioning that this is a pretty rare case of two mages whose magic works together. Getting mages working in tandem is somewhat rare. You see it in The Snow Queen Series when magic users team up together, but Evariste’s and Angelique’s case is even more rare because it’s not just fighting together, but rather magic ebbing and flowing regardless of the user’s (in this case Angelique’s) knowledge.

It is a topic future books in the series will address, but it’s one of the most blatant hints yet that that there are two sets of rules that affect magic. Hard, physical rules–like limits/prices, core magic always being stronger than learned magic, etc, etc–and emotional rules–like love can be used to break curses, and everything we’ve discussed in this post.

This is something I’ve kept in mind since I first created the world. You can get peeks of it in Wild Swans, Rumpelstiltskin, and the Snow Queen books. It was something I designed because I feel it reflects every day life and living. We’ve got a set of hard rules we live by that define what we can and can’t do, but things like love and friendship will help us test our limits and, in a way, grow stronger.

And that ends today’s Magic Class. 😉 Thanks for reading, Champions, and I hope you enjoyed this topic!

Reign of Magic: Appearances and Characters

Reign of Magic was tricky to write for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of the sheer number of characters you meet and see. Of course the Summit made things extra difficult–almost every couple in the series appeared in it, and since it was told from Angelique’s viewpoint she obviously had a very different experience in greeting them. She also interacted far more with the mages, bringing in another component of the Summit that the Timeless Fairy Tale readers never got to see.

I think one of the personally most difficult characters to bring back, however, was Rothbart. He only appears in two scenes in Reign of Magic, but readers of my Swan Lake retelling know that he has a very tragic story. He’s actually a lot of fun to write. Between his cynical mind and bluntness, he’s prone to dropping some pretty painful insults on the likes of Liliane and Suzu. But I also enjoy his character because he does love underneath that charade of his. He loves deeply and without boundaries, which is why he chooses the end that he did.

As an author, it was unexpectedly painful for me to send Rothbart off a second time. I can’t even exactly say why, except that it made me sad for him again. (Which proves what a sap I am. I am sad for an imaginary person I made up. Le sigh.)

I had more fun with the likes of Princess Astra of Baris. Fairy Tale Enchantress readers got to see her as a little girl in Apprentice of Magic, so it was a lot of fun to bring her back into the story as an adult. (Although when I first wrote her into Apprentice of Magic I wasn’t nearly so cheery due to all the backwards math I had to do to make sure her ages lined up since I knew she would appear later in the story. Ugh.)

Lovelana is another character I brought back. But while I can confidently say she didn’t enjoy the experience I certainly did. (I always like messing with my characters and shaking their beliefs, muwahah!)

But even with all the characters I brought back, you also get some new people–like the smuggling sisters from Farset, the head librarian in Ciane, mages like Glaze, and more.

I enjoyed writing Glaze because of the change in attitude she has towards Angelique, and both the smuggling sisters and the head librarian and her pages were entertaining because of the sass in their temperaments, but one of the sisters in particular, Neely, meant a lot to me.

I made a short post on Facebook about this, but Neely is named in honor of a Champion from our community: a lovely and funny lady named Kimberly Neely, who passed away this summer.

Kimberly was a long-time Champion and friended me on Facebook ages ago. Even though we mostly interacted on my author page, I always loved seeing her Facebook posts on my timeline because she had the best sense of humor and always posted things that made me laugh even when a book was giving me trouble, like Reign of Magic did.

I never got to thank her for that. Or tell her how much I valued the cheer she spread in our community whenever she chimed in to a conversation.

So brave but sassy Neely is the best sendoff I could think up for her. Thank you, Kimberly, for all the laughs. I hope Neely can make other Champions laugh on in your honor.

And that is all for today, Champions! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day!