A.J. Maguire

Tag: Novels

  • Release Shenanigans – Nora and the Duke of Autumn

    I try to alternate weeks between writing posts and book review posts buuuuuut….

    But this week the paperback edition of Nora and the Duke of Autumn was released and so I am going to steal today for shouting my excitement from the rooftops.

    Mood Board – Nora and the Duke of Autumn

    For those just joining us, Nora’s story sparked with a X (then Twitter) conversation about how I loved the concept of Lucifer having a therapist in the show of the same name. Another writer and I were chitchatting about how the characters in our novels all deserved some therapy after what we put them through, and I made the offhand comment about how a lot of the romance couples needed this too.

    Bam.

    Nora’s story was born.

    An empathic wizard living in Boston who provides counseling to the supernatural living amongst us? The possibilities were endless.

    Mood Board – Nora and the Werewolf Wedding

    In the first book, I had a lot of fun introducing the world(s) where Fairy and Earthside coexist and teasing at the deeper lore hidden behind Nora’s ignorance.

    I knew a couple of things walking in. First, I knew I wanted relationships to be highlighted. In Nora and the Werewolf Wedding, we saw several relationships throughout. We saw a bride and her mother, a bride and her groom, a son and his mother, and a grandson and his grandfather, all of which played significant roles in the story.

    In Nora and the Duke of Autumn, we see Nora struggling with her personal relationships, and we see a young son rebelling against his parents, as well as a broken mother and daughter relationship. I don’t want to spoil anything here, so I’m going to be purposefully vague. There are brothers and lovers and friendships throughout the book that Nora is able to influence in some way.

    The second thing I knew walking into this series was that I wanted magic to be hidden in plain sight of humanity. Don’t ask me why, but this story can only exist with the parallel between Earth and Fairy. In Nora and the Werewolf Wedding, we stuck real close to Earthside, but in Duke of Autumn we take that major plunge into the Fairy. Sixty percent of the novel is traipsing through my steampunk version of Fairy, and I had a blast writing it.

    Everything else about the books has grown over time and will likely continue to grow as I delve deeper into the series.

    Mood Board – Nora and the Siren Song

    SPEAKING OF WHICH…

    I am excited to announce that by the end of April, I will have a completed draft of Nora and the Siren Song. (Yes, that’s only a couple of days away. Yes, I am THAT close. Currently I am sitting on the final chapter and the epilogue.)

    So here is me, throwing confetti for the paperback release of Nora and the Duke of Autumn AND finishing the draft of Nora and the Siren Song.

    Come on, 2024, let’s see what else we can get done.

    PURCHASE LINK – Nora and the Duke of Autumn

    PURCHASE LINK – Nora and the Werewolf Wedding

  • Book Review – The Broken Kingdoms Series by LJ Andrews

    First of all…

    Yes, I discovered this author via BookTok.

    A ton of my friends encouraged me to check out Book Tok and since I was already on TikTok, I decided to check it out.

    Please, no politics and raging in my comments, social media constantly has backlash from people who dislike certain platforms and I’m old enough to remember the rise and fall of many of them. Suffice, anything and everything can be exploited for attention/misdirection or to earn a buck, the responsibility falls on you to do your research and participate with moderation and intelligence.

    SO!

    The Ever King by LJ Andrews has a fantastic book trailer that caught my attention. And I devoured that book in two days only to discover it had a major cliffhanger at the end. Which.. fair. It’s a marketing strategy and it worked well on me since I went out and grabbed Curse of Shadows and Thorns by the same author whilst waiting for the next book.

    Which is a roundabout way of saying how I stumbled into the Broken Kingdoms Series, but there you have it. The books are on Kindle Unlimited, which is good because I have a husband who loves me and wants me to be able to read at my own pace (often quite fast) so we have a Kindle Unlimited account.

    Say what you want about Amazon, Kindle Unlimited is brilliant. One price every month and I have access to millions of titles? This. Saves. Me. Heartache. And it makes authors money who would otherwise have been passed over because my book budget would only allow for X amount of novels that month.

    Anyway, Curse of Shadows and Thorns is the introduction to the Broken Kingdoms series by LJ Andrews and I adored this story. Yes, it’s adult. So walk in with your eyes open. Yes, it’s romance. It’s Vikings meet Fae, full of wonder and hope and tragedy.

    Now, I will admit that I saw the twist coming in Book 3. Yes, there are tropes and some predictable elements by the time you hit books 4 and 5, but at the end of the day… I had so much fun reading them.

    Just… fun.

    And really, as much as I love books that open my heart and mind to other cultures and ways of life, sometimes you just want a girl to see the good man beneath the monstrous exterior, and for love to conquer all the ugliness that came before it.

    Happy reading, everyone.

    PURCHASE LINK for Curse of Shadows and Thorns on Amazon!

  • The World of Nora Grayson – Setting

    With the second book of the Nora Grayson adventures set to release later this year, a couple of questions have reached me regarding the setting of the novels. This is not your typical Paranormal Romance, nor your typical Urban Fantasy. And I should know, I’ve read plenty of both.

    Nora and the Werewolf Wedding walked the line of Urban Fantasy pretty close. We only left Earthside — That’s the here and now for anyone who hasn’t read the book — and went to a safehouse in Fairy, without actually stepping foot in Fairy itself. Instead we were treated to Boston, Massachusetts and Allegany, New York — albeit it with magical creatures walking about in the daylight.

    Why?

    To be frank, because that’s what my Muse wanted me to do.

    There was an argument early on with my Muse about having this as Urban Fantasy, and in truth it does not really fit the framework of your typical urban fantasy novel. On the one hand, yes, you see magical creatures walking in and amongst humanity in a present world, urban setting. On the other hand, humans have been left wholly alone.

    We don’t have a human — or a character who grew up thinking they were human only to discover they were a fantastical creature in hiding — stumble into the fantasy elements of the book. Nora knows she’s a Bright creature, has known it all her life, and has a basic understanding of what that means.

    In point of fact, Bright creatures have been in hiding from humanity for centuries, and the lore of the novels is such that Fairy was created as a safe haven for Bright creatures to run to if they were in trouble. Also, the urban part of the novel doesn’t last long. By chapter six we’re in the woods, sequestered away from human society so that my werewolf socialites can do… what werewolf socialites like to do best.

    In Nora and the Duke of Autumn, we make a shift toward Fairy. 80% of the novel takes place in Fairy as Nora travels to what is known as the Autumnal Estates, where she and the trusty team from the CEB are investigating the murder of a high born sidhe.

    Does this mean it’s not really an Urban Fantasy anymore?

    Heck if I know.

    I’m just writing the books, you guys can categorize as you see fit.

    I will say that my steampunk loving self had a great deal of fun describing and creating Fairy for this book. The village of Delporte is my favorite, if anyone wants to know.

    Since I am midway through drafting the third book and have a clear image of how the fourth book is meant to go, I can state with confidence that we still bounce between earthside and Fairy at a pretty decent clip. I mean, if you could jump into a body of water and come out the other side in a whole different world, wouldn’t you go for it?

    Purchase Link! Nora and the Werewolf Wedding

    Pre-Order Link! Nora and the Duke of Autumn

  • The Importance of Having Fun (With Writing)

    Nora and the Werewolf Wedding will be out for sale on WEDNESDAY the 9th of August!

    Hurray and happy days!

    I absolutely love Nora and her books. She is a lot of fun. And the world she is in is a lot of fun to write. Writing her first book took longest because I was worldbuilding a lot, but her second book took me 4 months to draft. And because I’m editing in preparation for next year’s publication date, I just re-read it and still love it.

    These books are like Jim Butcher’s Dresden files meets Sarah J Maas’s Court of Thorns and Roses and I really am having a blast writing them. And it’s showing in the work. I know because of the feedback I have been getting from readers. They are having fun reading Nora, which tells me I’m doing something right.

    I don’t know how other writer’s work but for me, if I’m not having fun then the work crawls along and I often don’t finish. I move on to something else that is fun and then I dissect the old book and implement the elements I enjoyed into the new work. Which is a legitimate means of morphing your craft, but the point still stands — You have got to be having fun.

    If you’re not having fun, if you’re not engaged and lying awake at night wondering how your character is going to make it through the obstacles in front of them, then I can guarantee that your readers won’t be either.

    This isn’t to say there have been no roadblocks.

    I spent four days grouching about a menu because I had no idea what to serve on board a dirigible.

    I spent a week trying to figure out the ending of Werewolf Wedding. (My husband helped me brainstorm during one of our drives. You guys can thank him for like… everything that happens there.)

    I spent two months revising Werewolf Wedding to make it steampunk 1890’s, and then another 4 months returning it to contemporary urban fantasy.

    But from start to finish, I have been having fun with the story. Even in the middle of the roadblocks. And I am excited to see what comes next, which motivates me to be at the computer long after I should have closed it for the day.

    There are some books that I’ve written that were a grind from the mid-point to the end. Some halted completely for months. In these cases, I have to start from the beginning, remind myself why I started the story in the first place, and ignite that joy again before I start writing. Because readers can sense when you’ve lost your way too and no amount of professionalism is going to cover that.

    So here is me, diving back into Nora’s world to get Book #3 Drafted. In the meantime, the first book is out August 9th! And here’s the placeholder cover for Book #2.

  • When Social Media Goes Right

    I am not awesome with social media.

    But other platforms are used for my professional self – Twitter, Instagram, etc. – and unless the weekend trip included a eureka moment for a work in progress then, quite frankly, I doubt anyone truly cares. Everyone has struggles. Everyone has opinions. NOT everyone wants to hear about my struggles and my opinions.

    Side note: Opinions change as new information is absorbed and thus I find it rather silly to blast what I think at any given moment. Often I am wrong. Often that opinion changes drastically. I would prefer to give myself the grace of being able to change in private rather than get strangled by society.

    All of that said… I have one moment when social media went right for me.

    We were having a weird chat about mashups that we would love to see. I believe the conversation derived from the Lucifer television show and how amusing it was that the devil had a therapist. And then, somehow, we wound up with supernatural creatures needing a marital counselor. And Nora Grayson was born in my head. She just showed up.

    Gentle. Quirky. A little lost. Chocolate loving. Sassy. And an empath.

    Because I love Deanna Troi from Star Trek and I did, in fact, wish to see her in a story of her own. So I snagged the empath ability and shoved it into Nora’s already mildly neurotic mess and wham!

    I had a story.

    Now, I will admit that the original intent was straight murder-mystery with supernatural creatures. In my head it was Clue meets Fairy creatures, but what ended up on paper was a little bigger. Because… c’mon. If Fairy creatures are living next door, wouldn’t you want to investigate a little more than one book would permit?

    So now I’m sitting with two books written and a third getting outlined and I owe it all to that original conversation on social media. I have to put a major shout to the writing community on the Twitter platform. Whatever your opinions are about the swap of ownership, the writing community got me to Nora and for that I am grateful.

    Pre-Orders Available for Kindle, or you can snag the book in Hardback or Paperback from Amazon!

  • Evolution of a Book Cover – Nora and the Werewolf Wedding

    SO.

    Book covers are hard.

    We’re coming close to the release of Nora and the Werewolf Wedding and I thought for sure I had my book cover all settled. You’ll recognize it. Its sort of been everywhere at this point. And I’m not saying I don’t love it, because I do. I just realized that there wasn’t much TO it. And that it might not be a great representation for everything the novel has in it.

    I mean, the title alone tells us it is supernatural. You can’t have werewolves and not be smack dab in the middle of paranormal or fantasy genres. And I suppose the title hints to romance as well because of the whole wedding aspect, but it’s vague because we don’t know if Nora is the one getting married or someone else. (Yes, it’s someone else.)

    So I went back to the drawing board, as it were, and was hunting for maybe something else that might fit. This one got shot down by my husband pretty quick because he felt the wolf aspect was overdone for the genre. I’m still not sure I should have listened to him, but he DOES read the Paranormal/Urban Fantasy genre, which this book fits into. The romance is really secondary to the plight of poor Nora and Derrick, FYI.

    As a woman, I like the picture. It’s pretty. And I want to ruffle some wolfie ears and snuggle in the snow. But. I’m not sure it really tells us what the story is about either. So again back to the drawing board and hunting for ideas here. I want mystery and danger and romance and werewolf-paranormal-magic-something in my cover!

    So, I really liked the moon in this one. There was a sense of romance because of the couple, and that great big moon is a little unsettling. The tree, however, did not really match the setting. The majority of the book takes place in Allegany New York, near the lake and some super pretty forests and such. There seems to be too much black on the screen too. It’s not super eye-catching, you know? And while the wolf aspect can be subtle with the moon, it didn’t quite hit the spot.

    And BEFORE you ask, no. None of these are AI generated.

    SO!

    Now we come to the one I think I have settled on. It could change between now and August, but presently I love the blue in this one. It catches the eye. And I have the romance of the couple, and the wolf howling in the background. And that great big moon.

    (Brief reminder that you can PREORDER Nora’s first book through Kindle!)

  • Nora, Updates, and Radio Silence

    For those who have been following along, they’ll notice that aside from Round Robin Blogs it has been a little quiet on my end. Which is unusual for someone who tries to get a post up a week while shouting excitement about the upcoming novel Nora and the Werewolf Wedding. ((See that COUNTDOWN at the side of the page!!))

    To be blunt, life has been happening.

    And when Life has not been happening, I have been working steadily on edits for Nora and the Autumn Duke – the second book in Nora’s series, due to be released in 2024.

    Which brings me to a Writing Truth — Sometimes you have to sit back and deal with Life. It isn’t being lazy and it isn’t something to criticize yourself for. There is a major difference between procrastination and not having the brain space necessary to approach the page, and it is important to learn that difference.

    And honestly, once you’ve dealt with Life in whatever capacity you need to, your writing always benefits. You’ve learned something new to put in the pages of your work, and that is equally important.

    So.

    Where have I been?

    I’ve been doing Life.

    What am I doing now?

    Still hard at work with Nora’s second book, which I hope to have completed this month. If not this month, then certainly the beginning/middle of next. I’ve included some pretty covers – Nora and the Werewolf Wedding’s official cover is easy to recognize, but we have some placeholder covers for the second novel too.

    Once this book is done, I’m looking at a change of pace. I have several fantasy short stories that I would like to compile into an anthology and set out for sale in time for Christmas. This is partly because Torven – that tiny novelette I wrote all those years ago – cannot be printed anymore due to new guidelines at Amazon. The anthology will include a copy of Torven precisely so that you can get it in a printed version again. So don’t be shocked when you find it is no longer for sale. It’ll be back.

    That shouldn’t take me past August, though, and I still hope to start working on Tango Five – the third book in the Tapped series – starting in September.

    ALSO…

    Advance Reader Copies of Nora and the Werewolf Wedding are starting to generate some reviews. Thus far these reviews have made me smile. Readers are enjoying Nora and I look forward to seeing what more might be said. If you want to join my review team, you can find it at Book Sirens, which is a new thing for me. It’s free, with the request that you leave an honest review after, but the spots are limited.

    Happy Reading/Writing everyone!

  • Character Backstories – March Round Robin 2023

    This month we’re unveiling the topic of Character Backstories, why they’re important, and how we manage to get the information onto the page without a snooze-worthy info-dump. Because nobody likes an info-dump. Even if it’s told in a snarky voice in the narrative, readers recognize an info-dump when they see one.

    So… how do I convey important information on the page?

    First, let me express that not everything in a character’s backstory is necessary for the narrative to move forward. So the very, very first thing I have to ask is if this information is relevant. If it isn’t, it’s tossed. Maybe one day it’ll come out in an anthology somewhere, but if it has no bearing on the current storyline it can be set aside.

    Yes, even if it explains why Character A is so emotionally closed off.

    The truth is, sometimes a little mystery is good. Readers are smart, and creative, and allowing them to wonder is a good thing.

    The character of Johanna Rorry – also known as Jorry – stars in my Tapped series and she is complicated: she’s commanding, overbearing, and too sharp for gentler company. Granted, she’s in charge of a starship and everything in outer space is designed to kill humans. She is also a veteran who has been through a galactic war. Just knowing those two pieces is enough to explain some of that overbearing behavior away, without diving into a major info dump.

    You know there’s trauma hiding behind her, even if it isn’t expressly explained.

    What I do give are small snippets of memory.

    People are the sum total of their experiences. Memories crop up in the natural course of the day. It’s no difficult thing to imagine such happening for our characters on the page. So if the information is relevant, if it hints toward something I’m going to unveil later on, I go ahead and put something in the way of my character that brings out a memory.

    For instance, in my upcoming novel Nora and the Werewolf Wedding we see an empathic wizard coming to terms with how different the cultures are between living in Boston and living in Fairy. There is some trauma in her past, which I reveal through tiny snippets of memory, the first of which can be seen below.

    –SNIPPET — Nora and the Werewolf Wedding —

    Except for the occasional hairdresser, no one had brushed my hair since I was a child and for a heartbeat I was distracted by the gentle scrape of bristles across my scalp. Memories uprooted, unbidden but clear, and I could almost hear the melodic hum of my mother’s voice as she helped prepare me for bed. I could not have been more than seven, hugging a doll whose name was something like Regina, and basking in the attention. She was all warmth and light and gentle teasing, with a soft chuckle that seemed to echo into the quiet room.

    But on the tail of that memory a dark staircase leading down, my own voice sounding small as I called for mother. I could feel the chill of the basement reaching for me, long shadows pooling at the bottom of the stair, and dread crept up my spine.

    Grief pricked fresh and I blinked back the burn of tears, shoving hard at the memories. Meredith was not my mother, she was performing a service, not providing comfort, and I needed my wits to survive whatever dinner was waiting downstairs.

    SO!

    Readers can glean that Nora remembers her mother a little, but thoughts of her mother turn to a shadowy staircase and a strong sense of fear. We know something important happened in the basement, and there’s the promise that eventually this part of her backstory will come to light, but we keep a little mystery in the mix because there are things happening and Nora needs to concentrate.

    Memories like these are an organic means of adding backstory into a narrative without clogging the page with an info-dump. The majority of my books use them and until I learn how to be better at it, I’ll probably keep adding them.

    Check out how my fellow authors manage Character Backstory!

    Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

    A.J. Maguire https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ ((YOU ARE HERE))

    Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

    Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2Sr

    Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

  • The Great Genre Battle

    For those of you who have been along for the ride, you know that I have been writing a series of books that revolve around a supernatural counselor. Or rather, a counselor who counsels the supernatural who live amongst us.

    Both work, really. She is a wizard, after all.

    In any case, I have fought with the defining genre almost since the moment of the book’s inception. I thought at first it was straight Paranormal Romance, but as the story grew I became convinced it was Urban Fantasy because, quite frankly, the love story isn’t the main focal point of this first book. In fact, it isn’t the focal point of the second book either. However, when stepping back and looking at the whole of the series, the love story written there actually is the focal point.

    There’s just a lot of world/setting/stuff to get through in order for that love story to come to fruition.

    I will be honest and say that I thought it couldn’t be Paranormal Romance unless there was a vampire-killing group who all wore leather pants and kicked some serious batoosh on the page. But I am also honest in that I am basing that assumption on a bazillion book covers. It isn’t a genre I normally read, which is weird because internet algorithms keep flashing their covers at me. The books I frequent are marketed as Fantasy Romance.

    Which…

    Yes, as a matter of fact, Nora’s books could feasibly be called Fantasy Romance as well. The only issue being that it is set in contemporary times and in our world, which lends itself to the Ubran Fantasy genre.

    However, the setting is not a major player, which my research tells me is one of the defining elements of an Urban Fantasy. Something about that setting has to be made into a plot issue in order for the book to qualify, and I’m afraid it’s all just trimmings insofar as Nora’s books go. The main driving force behind Nora’s books are the relationships between the people.

    Because she’s a counselor. And an empath.

    This is what leads me to the idea that it is Paranormal Romance, even if we don’t have the love story as the focal point. Nora’s story is complicated. We learn a lot of things about bright folk living amongst humanity, the existence of Fairy, and the policing force set out to keep bright folk in line.

    We’ll put it this way: it bends genres.

    It mixes and matches.

    It’s the beginning of a love story.

    It’s an adventure.

    And it has werewolves.

    So it’s a lot of fun and in the end, don’t we want to have fun when we read?

  • Where I Pretend I Know What I’m Doing…

    I have a plan and it’s a good plan.

    Or at least I think it is a good plan.

    Ask me again when all this is over.

    So here’s the plan… Last Child of Winter is nearly complete. It turned out longer than I intended, which I think is probably good because it means I have more I can edit out come the revision pass. In any case, my beloved husband got me a Planner for Christmas and I have plotted out the first several months of 2023.

    Why am I telling this to you, gentle, kind, lovely Reader (or listener, if you prefer the podcast version)?

    Because those plans include a release date!

    On May 9th, 2023, Nora and the Werewolf Wedding will be out for sale. And, fingers crossed, I hope to have an audio version released at the same time. It’s a learning process with audio rights and things, but hopefully we will see them both available on the same date.

    Nora’s stories are my first real leap into Urban Fantasy, and for those who have been following along, I’m sure you recognize her name. She’s only been stirring around my creative brain for three years now, after a Twitter conversation gone awry. I started her story as alternate history fantasy, based in a steampunk version of our world but her voice was too sharp and by chapter four of the rough draft I had to change it.

    This was the right call because her story opened up as soon as I made the choice and it’s grown enough in my head to be an entity of its own. In fact, her second book was written in three months flat and her third is being outlined.

    And really, it makes sense since Nora’s character was inspired by Deanna Troi from Star Trek the Next Generation. (More on this in a later post.) Trying to shove Nora into 1820’s Boston stymied my creative Muse, as it were, and I came to a standstill. So, even if I think Nora doesn’t wear enough leather pants to truly qualify for Urban Fantasy, this is where we are.

    I suppose it does have werewolves, and that seems to be on the Urban Fantasy Checklist these days.

    This is vastly different from the recent release – Paw Prints on the Wall – which is still doing fabulous and I keep hearing from readers who enjoyed it. Thank you, forever and always, to everyone who has picked up a copy.

    Nora’s book is a popcorn novel. Which means it’s a lot of fantastic adventure and fun, something you can enjoy while munching on popcorn or nestled in for a rainy weekend. I poke fun at a couple of tropes, lean into some cliches because, I mean, werewolves, guys. All around, Nora’s stories are great fun to write and I am looking forward to digging into the book once more as we prepare for that May 9th release.

    P.S. Totally a placeholder cover. I have another cover in the works. A better cover. The best of all covers.