Hot Summertime excerpt from THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL

THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL is out in a little over two months, so it's high time to start talking seriously about its release.  And since the theme at SFFSeven this week is "hot summertime fiction" what better way to kick things off than with an excerpt of the hot summer nights in Maradaine?

THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL releases on October 3rd, 2017, and is available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more.

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The Aventil streets teemed with Uni kids, and Lieutenant Benvin had to be a damned prefect to the lot of them. The captain had made it clear that he didn’t give a barrel of sewage what Benvin was working on. The Grand Tournament of the High Colleges was starting, so every able body in Green and Red needed to show the color on foot, horse, and wagon throughout Aventil.

Benvin knew it made sense. With the Tournament, the population of the Uni campus, and therefore Aventil, increased tenfold. Athletes came from every major college in Druthal, as well as friends, families, and other supporters. Every bed was filled, every pub was packed, and folks were pressed against each other so tightly in the street that even the city’s worst pickpocket could make a year’s pay.

Add in the sweltering summer heat that hadn’t broken all month, and the neighborhood was a stinkhole of trouble just waiting to burst.

“How many nights of this, Left?” Pollit muttered. “Because if it’s more than three, I can’t promise folks won’t be eating their teeth.”

“It’s eight,” Benvin said. “And I wouldn’t believe that promise anyway.”

Pollit flashed a smile. Pollit was part of Benvin’s Loyals, the squad he had put together that he trusted weren’t in anyone’s pocket. Just four footpatrol regulars—Tripper, Pollit, Wheth, and Mal, and two cadets, Jace and Saitle. The rest of the Aventil Stationhouse, they were fine enough folk, but Benvin didn’t have faith that they would really have his back in a pinch. Only his Loyals, and he knew they gave their best because he believed in them. All of them had all been outcasts amongst the Aventil regulars. Benvin had made them his.

“You don’t totally hate this, Left,” Pollit said.

“What makes you say that?”

“You usually don’t wear that pin on your uniform.”

Benvin glanced down at the pin on the lapel of his coat, marking his first-place win in oars for Riverview University at the Grand Tournament of 1202. “Man has a little pride in his school . . .”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a Uni type, Left. Certainly not one of the Elevens.”

“Drop it,” Benvin said. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about the things that led him from prominent law student at a prestigious university to street stick busting up cider rings and dice games. “Something over there.”

A handful of Uni boys—Royal College of Maradaine lads by their purple and yellow colors—were getting heated in front of the Rose & Bush. Looked like the server was telling them they couldn’t come in, and they weren’t pleased with that at all. Also, they clearly had had their fill of any pub for the night.

Saints, it wasn’t even seven bells yet. The sun was still casting long shadows down Rose Street.

“Gentlemen,” Benvin said, Pollit right at his arm. “What seems to be the dispute?”

“She won’t let us in!” one of the RCM boys said, wagging an accusing finger in the server’s face. “We gotta eat something before the opening ceremonies!”

“We’re full up!” the server snapped. “Ain’t barely room for me to walk from bar to tables. Can’t put another soul in the place!”

“Find another place,” Benvin said. “Or perhaps your beds for the night.”

“Pfff,” the lead RCM boy said. He didn’t seem to have registered who he was talking to. “We ain’t about to head in yet. We got—”

“Oy,” Pollit said. “Maybe you should note who’s telling you. Unless you want us to find you some special bunks for the night.”

The RCM boy looked at the two of them, his friends now all growing quiet as they recognized the Constabulary coats in front of them. This boy had definitely had too much cider though, as his eyes didn’t focus on them for a moment. When they did, they settled on Pollit.

“Saints,” he snarled. “You a bird or a bloke?”

That was the wrong thing to say.

In a flash, Pollit had knocked the boy in the teeth. Before he could even blink, the boy was face down on the cobblestone, irons going around his wrists. “Someone found a new bunk for the night!” Pollit shouted.

“Pollit—” Benvin tried to give a gentle rebuke, if Pollit would pick up on it.

Pollit looked up at the rest. “Any of you?”

“Going somewhere else,” the other RCM boys all said, hands up defensively. They quickly dispersed.

“Good.” Pollit had the boy up on his feet, arms bound behind him. “You see a lockwagon nearby, Left?”

Benvin leaned in. “We can’t arrest the boy just for firing your hairs, Pol.”

Pollit whispered back, “Can we have him sit in a wagon with irons on for an hour or so to cool off?”

“Twenty minutes,” Benvin said. “There’s one over there.”

Pollit gave a salute to Benvin, and then one more to the Rose & Bush server with a wink, and took the RCM boy over to the wagon.

Folks in the stationhouse talked about Pollit in not-so-hushed whispers, but Benvin paid them no damn mind. Pollit was a damn good stick, that was all that mattered.

Whistle calls pierced the air—and not just a general call. Three sharp trills: long, short, long. Corpse call.

“Pol!” Benvin didn’t need to look to know that Pollit would soon be on his heels as he ran in the direction of the whistles. He hoped Pollit at least left the Uni with a wagon driver.

“Aside, aside,” he shouted as he approached the source. A crowd had inevitably formed at the mouth of a narrow alley—not that every damn inch of this neighborhood wasn’t a crowd right now—and Benvin nearly had to beat his way through. “Constabulary, people, stand aside!”

The crowd parted just enough to let him pass, to see a young man blocking the alley entrance, whistle in his mouth. He stopped blowing as soon as Benvin approached.

“Hey, Left,” he said, dropping the whistle out of his mouth and catching it. “We’ve got some nasty business here.”

“Jace,” Benvin said, looking the cadet in the eye. “You’re supposed to be off-duty.” The boy was in civvie clothes, at least. But this kid, he never stopped working. Benvin admired him, to be sure, because he had a heart that was pure Green and Red as he had seen. Came from a family eight or nine generations deep in the Constabulary. When that crazy stampede went through the neighborhood two months ago, Jace had nearly got himself killed jumping onto the lead horse to blow out warnings. That was why Jace was part of the Loyals, but Benvin had to fight the boy to get him to go home sometimes.

“I was, Left, honest. On my way home when a couple folks spotted this. Had to put in the call, and then keep these folks off the scene.”

“Fair enough,” Benvin said. “Body?”

Jace nodded into the alley, while popping the whistle back in his mouth to make a new call, signaling that an officer was on the scene and they would need inspectors and the bodywagon to come.

Not that Benvin really wanted any of the Aventil Stationhouse inspectors to come. None of those chairwarmers were worth their rank, none of them could be counted on. Odds were they would come, glance at the body, and leave the work to him.

Pollit was now at the scene, giving a slight nod of regard to Jace. “Sorry about that, Left. Just getting that tosser comfy in the wagon.”

“Anything good?” Jace asked.

“Ain’t you supposed to be home?”

“In this crowd?”

Benvin ignored them, instead looking at the body. Definitely a murder. Four arrows were buried into his chest. Young man, about twenty or so. Scruffy, dirty, and unkempt. Face beat bloody, head cracked. Shirtless, but wearing a fur-lined coat. “A Red Rabbit.”

“Ain’t seen many of them since the last big street row,” Pollit said.

“No,” Benvin said pointedly. He pointed to the chevrons on the coat, and tattooed to the boys’ neck. “And a captain at that. Is this Keckin?”

“Could be,” Pollit said. “Saints, this is brutal.”

Benvin had to agree. The four arrows were all from head-on. Keckin—if this was Keckin—wasn’t running or even fighting back very well when this happened. Looked like he was shot, beaten, and then shot again. Someone wanted to make him suffer.

“Didn’t happen here,” Benvin added. He looked up to the top of the building. “Maybe on the roof, and he was dropped down after shooting him?”

Pollit gave his own glance up and down. “Makes sense. This couldn’t have gone down around this crowd.”

Benvin pulled one arrow out of the body. “And not too many people would use a bow in this neighborhood.”

“You think it’s him, boss?” Pollit asked.

“Nah, couldn’t be,” Jace said. He seemed almost spooked. “I mean, he’s never left a body like this before.”

“Then he’s stepped up his game. Let’s add it to the list of charges we’ll lay on the Thorn when we catch him.”

“I don’t like it, boss,” Jace said. “It ain’t that simple.”

Benvin didn’t like it at all, either. With everything else going on in the neighborhood, the last thing they needed was for the Thorn to move on from being a vigilante menace to a vengeful murderer. This might have been a Red Rabbit scum that Benvin would have ironed and locked up given the chance, but he didn’t deserve a death like this. Nobody did.

But it did mean one thing. Now Benvin had the cause he needed to act.

“Spread the word, boys,” Benvin said. “As of right now, I’m calling an All-Eyes out on the Thorn.”

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Summer and the Grand Tournament of High Colleges have come to the University of Maradaine. If the heat and the crowds weren't enough to bring the campus and the neighborhood of Aventil to a boiling point, rumors that The Thorn is on the warpath—killing the last of the Red Rabbits—is enough to tip all of Maradaine into the fire.

Except Veranix Calbert, magic student at the University, is The Thorn, and he's not the one viciously hunting the Red Rabbits. Veranix has his hands full with his share of responsibilities for the Tournament, and as The Thorn he’s been trying to find the source of the mind-destroying effitte being sold on campus. He’s as confused as anyone about the rumors.

When The Thorn imposter publicly attacks the local Aventil constables, the Constabulary bring in their own special investigators: Inspectors Minox Welling and Satrine Rainey from the Maradaine Grand Inspectors Unit. Can Veranix find out who the imposter is and stop him before Welling and Rainey arrest him for the imposter’s crimes?

Goodreads Page for THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL
Available for Pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more!

Flash Fiction : In the Sweltering Dark

For our summer flash fiction, I submit this 952 word short story.

In the Sweltering Dark

by Linda Robertson

Abigail roused to the sweltering dark, but she was not in her bed. 

Drowse fled away as realization struck: she was in a boat. Tear-shaped, it had only room enough for her, and barely that. As she slid onto a sitting position, she could not straighten her legs. Her pantsuit was dirty and there was sand and mud under her nails.

What in Hell is going on?

Pushing her gray hair out of her face, she scanned around but recognized nothing. The night-shrouded shores offered no explanation. Sweat beaded on her brow, but not purely from the stress of this moment. Despite the lack of sun in the sky, it had to be a hundred degrees here. A hundred and twenty. 

Thinking to splash some water on her face, she dipped a hand into the fluid but drew back instantly. Even the river seemed about to boil. 

How did I get here?

Thinking back, Abigail had trouble remembering. She knew her name. She knew she was an Executive Assistant to the Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art – had been since graduating from Bryant Stratton thirty-two years ago. She had a cottage in a posh suburb. But she hadn't been home… and she certainly wasn't there now.

Eyes closed and hands covering her face, she fought to remember. 

Travelling. 

Snippets of calm, blue ocean shifted into a churning mass of green and gray. A gentle curve of coastline being ravaged by the swells of giant, foamy waves. White houses in the rain.

Mykonos. I was in Greece! A dream assignment and vacation in one.

There had been a storm. The charter boat bucked and heaved under her. She was told to go below deck; she hadn't understood the words but the captain pointed.

She hadn't made it.

Reliving it, she felt the wave grip her, lift her, and pull her from the deck like a monster. Just drops of water, she'd thought. Just drops...but gathered into millions, surging to the whim of a tempest's fury, and she was powerless. The Aegean Sea closed over her head. Gray turned to black. 

I'm dead.

Pulling her hands from her face, she opened her eyes again.

Yet I’m here. But where is here? If I’m dead…this is…no. No. It cannot be.

The speed of the river increased. Ahead, it split. One side flowed into a thick mist, the other seemed alight under the mist. Leaning, she steered the boat toward the light.

Nearing, she found that wasn’t mist on this side, but smoke. And the light on the water was flames.

Leaning again, twisting the boat beneath her, she willed it to change its course. But Abigail could not alter the bearing. Her path had been chosen.

Fear claimed her as she neared the flaming portion of the river. A more tangible version of death was about to seize her.

Hugging herself to keep as far from the flames as possible, the smoke enveloped Abigail and she floated among the flames. Every breath of this steamy air made her lungs feel more scalded.

In seconds, figures appeared to the left and right, near the shoreline. They were women, some ankle deep in the water, some knee deep. All moaned or wept.

At the sound of a nearby scream, Abigail turned sharply as another woman appeared, closer, and waist deep in the river. This one wore a tattered blouse with scorched cuffs, and her thin hair hung like so many threads. The burnt cuffs flaked away like ash as she reached out, broken nails scratching at the rail but finding no purchase. She cackled and cried, though it could have been mad laughter.

Drifting onward, the figures grew more numerous, many much closer to the boat. Their piteous cries filled Abigail’s ears and she covered them but could not block the sound. Her eyes squeezed shut again and seemed to continue burning from the smoke.

This couldn’t be happening.

She thought of her children and her husband, finally acknowledging the pain and loss they must be suffering, and her heart grew heavy knowing they would grieve. In his own way, so would her dog, Dante—

At his name, knowledge connected with thoughts and ideas and bound tight as she looked around again.

                                            

Phlegethon.

“I’ve committed no violent crimes,” she shouted into the smoky haze and drawing the attention of those trapped in the river. “I am not meant to be here!”

She felt and heard the scratch of something on the bottom and the boat lurched to a halt despite the current. Peering over the edge, she saw a wrinkled face barely above the surface of the lake. White hair fanned around her. “Help me!” The woman moved slightly to either side as if keeping the ebb of the heated water from flowing into the corners of her eyes and up her nose. Her arm, beneath the surface must have grabbed the keel. “Help!”

Being restrained in the river, the flames latched onto the boat. They licked up the sides, painting her view in orange and red. “Let go!”

From the river came only laughter. Not just the closest one; all the women began to laugh.

Abigail pulled off her shoe and threw it at the old face. Fire-water splashed across the woman’s eyes and she screamed. The boat began to drift again, but too late. The flames had set in and the heat redoubled at Abigail’s back—

Sitting up in her bed, Abigail gasped. Lightning flickered and thunder boomed outside her window. Aside from the pouring rain there was no sound. No light. Not even the clock.

The electric’s out. AC cut off.

And another hot flash crawled over her.

Summer Fiction Excerpt

It's summer time. Hideous, horrible, sweat everywhere and on every thing summer. When the sun is too bright and more than five minutes in its light scorches unprotected skin.

I'm not a fan. but you know who is? Vadrigyn, the fire-warrior protagonist from my debut Larcout. Even she knows fragile blood beings have no business under the brutal sun.

Here's tidbit of the opening for your pleasure:


LARCOUT Fire Born, Blood Blessed: Book 1

CHAPTER 1

Blood-beings could be chattel or they could be char. There were no other options for them in Agenwold. The four male gods had created these arid mountains as a prison for their sister’s fire-children, the Morsam. The Morsam, in turn, made Agenwold a prison for any male god’s child foolish enough to cross the Pogichan Sea. If blood-beings bothered to think before they fled, they would know freedom did not exist here.

Still, blood-beings ran without regard for their destination.

Vadrigyn os Harlo leaned against the warm mouth of a shale cave, watching her kin toy with their morning prey. The Morsam’s broad golden wings reflected the suns, blinding the bestial Nivurnian as he scrambled down the mountainside, sometimes on two feet and sometimes on four. The Nivurnian’s striped tail and tattered pants showed damage from the heat.

Blood-beings refused to admit the unfiltered intensity of the six suns ringing Agenwold posed a threat to their persons. The turbulent skies over their native nations had shielded them from the truth, yet even when exposed to the facts they clung to the lie.

“Vadrigyn, will you not save that man from the winged monsters?” The Nivurnian behind her spoke with soft deference.

“The entrance to my holdings is no secret. If he wished to be saved he would run toward us and not the sea,” she answered in the foreign tongue of her recently acquired chattel. They huddled in the darkness of the cavern, safe from the suns and bored Morsam. “He is like many of you blood-beings—fragile and willfully blind. He believes he can conquer the terrain, yet excludes the suns from his consideration. He thinks he can run faster than a fire-child can fly, yet he ignores the physical obstacles only he faces.”

An animalistic bray drifted up to the cave. Frustrated keens sounded from the swarm of circling Morsam. Her chattel shuffled back. She returned her attention to the fleeing Nivurnian. He no longer ran. His round furry ears peeked from a ring of boulders. His claws scraped at the unmovable stones to no avail. Another scream and he vanished from sight into a hunting trap—one of hers, to be precise.

Fool.

The stupidity of blood-beings amused her kin. Her kin’s stupidity provided opportunities for her. She leveraged those opportunities to amass more blood-beings. The cycle endured day after day, year after year. One day she would break free of the pattern, and break free from the mountain. One day she would prove to the gods that the burn of her essential fire was more than destructive, it was evolutionary. It was a fire that cleared away the old and fed the new.

Live. Learn. Burn.

Read more here: LARCOUT an excerpt

Fantasy Books I'd recommend

Just back from a convention In this case the New England Writers' Conference, also called Camp Necon. Necon is a delightfully mellow convention where I always manage to get work done. I love that combination

Jeffe write about a recommended list of romantic fantasies. I don't do those, so here's my compromise.

A list of Fantasy novels

First, for dark and grim and gritty, you don't get much better than Joe Abercrombie. His trilogy THE FIRST LAW is powerful stuff and I recommend it.

Obviously no fantasy list is complete without J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.

Just as fine in my eyes are the CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN, by Lloyd Alexander.

Gather up your original Robert E. Howard CONAN books. Learn why the character remains so popular after closing in on a century in print.

Fritz Leiber's FAFHRD AND THE GREY MOUSER series is wonderful fun and hold in the collected volumes a great deal of the powerful prose that was often imitated as Sword and Sorcery fiction took off.

Jirel of Joirie by C.L. Moore is another treasure trove of almost forgotten fiction that is readily available and should be savored.

The CHRONICLES OF NARNIA by C.S. Lewis. Enough said.

The CHRONICLES OF AMBER by Roger Zelazny.

The THIEVES WORLD anthologies edited by Robert Aspirin and written by a plethora of talents.

All great for very different reasons, and all recommended.

Give them a try for a slightly different take on fantasy.

Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads

It's Hot & Muggy Flash Fiction week here at the SFF Seven. In beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, it's never muggy and rarely all that hot. Perfect weather for drinks on the patio! Likewise, I'm not participating in the Flash Fiction, as it always feels like a diversion from what I'm writing.

At the moment, that's my contribution to Amid the Winter Snow, a holiday anthology with Thea Harrison, Grace Draven, and Elizabeth Hunter. The story is tentatively called THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN. Turns out Ash and Ami have a lot of unresolved issues. Until I delved back into it - and from Ash's point of view - I hadn't realized how tentative their happy-ever-after was. It was really a happy-for-now. Nothing like being snowbound in a castle built into a formerly-dormant-now-rumbling volcano with shapeshifting toddlers to bring relationship issues to a head!

And, speaking of heads, I just got mine into this story. I'm not thinking about hot and muggy anything.

Instead I'll share a post I wrote on the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) blog. It went up on May 1 and I totally missed it. But many of you will likely recall when I posted to Facebook about compiling a list of Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads. SFWA asked me for a list of ten authors, so they could also be put on bookmarks. In culling all the terrific recommendations down to ten, I found myself having to take a hard look at how I define the subgenre of Fantasy Romance, so that's part of this article, too. You can read it here.

For some reason the comments on SFWA blog aren't allowed, but I know you all will have additional authors to recommend - and possibly arguments with my definitions. Please feel free to comment here! I wish I could have included everyone, but the whittling down to ten made for an interesting exercise.

Also, check out my local chapter's contest for unpublished manuscripts! I'll be the final judge for Paranormal Romance/Fantasy Romance/Urban Fantasy/Science Fiction Romance. That means I'll mentor my winner and provide promotion support. The overall winner will receive support from the entire chapter! Check it out here!

The Writer's Filter - Piecing Together Real Life

 This week's question - the use of real life events/people/places in fiction echoes a very similar question in acting. Do you mine your life to feed your body of work? 

Uhm. Yeah. Of course. Because what other frame of reference do I have? You think I'm using someone else's life? Oh. Wait. I've done that. But even then, the only way to put that on a page (or into performance) is to internalize the experience set even if I did not have it and present it through the lens of what if I had? 

Right? I mean, the only system any of us has for feeling and conveying that feeling is via our own body/mind/emotions - which represents the sum total of everything we've ever experienced. Granted, I get that we're talking about whether or not I'm writing about Aunt Edna's false teeth falling into her glass of milk during my sixth birthday party.

Sometimes I do. I subscribe to the notion that anytime I experience high emotion (whether pleasant or unpleasant) it has some use in a current WIP. There was one case where a major bad guy was modeled on someone and an awful situation I'd known. It involved restraining orders and threats of violence. Rough several months. Perfect bad guy fodder, but you bet I made darned sure neither the person nor the situation were recognizable by anyone but me. (Also, I don't have an Aunt Edna, so forget about the teeth and the milk.) So yes. Everything I write, every character I create, every play I perform, it all comes through me, and so is indelibly colored by my experiences. Some times situations or people directly influence character or plot development, but not often and never undisguised. The rest of the time, it's subtler than that - more a case of tone and filter. My life and my mental state (such as it is) set my tone and create the filter through which all story passes. Add into that that every place I've been speaks story to me. The shot of the corner shop at top is the local tea shop. I turned it into a main character's tattoo shop in Nightmare Ink. The pyramid played into that same character's story in Bound By Ink. The dragon toothed cave hasn't shown up yet, but it will.  And the stairs - same thing. There's a story there. Who or what comes down those steps? Why? 

Scrapbooking for Real Inspiration

I don't tend to-- consciously any way-- mine too much of real life into my novels.  Obviously there's bits and pieces, some of it more overt than others.  Well, there are two minor characters in Lady Henterman's Wardrobe who are, in fact, very real-life inspired, but I think I'm going to keep the details of that close to the chest for now.  Have to save something for the memoirs.

Now, one thing I do like to do is draw inspiration from places I've been.  A lot of how the city of Maradaine looks in my head comes from places like Mexico City (specifically Coyoacan), Montreal (specifically Old Town) and Boston.  I don't know if I necessarily do a perfect job getting those inspirations across, but it's what I strive for.

 

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In other news, I'm going to be at ArmadilloCon here in Austin from August 4th-6th.  If you're in the area, stop by and say hello.  There might even be a shiny ARC of The Imposters of Aventil in it for you.  More details on that to come.
Now back to the word mines.  Plenty of work to do.

Real Life as Subplots in the Persephone Alcmedi Series

Back in the summer of 2009, the first Persephone Alcmedi novel VICIOUS CIRCLE hit the shelves. 

It doesn't seem like that long ago, and yet...we've come a long way since then. Most of my plotting revloves around Persephone and the intracasies of the witch council and Seph's own destiny, but there are many vampire and waerewolf characters in the mix.

When I learned about local Cleveland authorities planning to demolish one of the predominant buildings I used in the story, it seemed appropriate to include it.

EXCERPT:  WICKED CIRCLE, pg. 178

     Todd was blathering on about a meeting they’d just had with the Ohio Department of Transportation.

     ODOT had put a new compensation package on the table concerning their bid to buy and tear down the Cleveland Cold Storage building for the new I-90 project.   

I figured it was a great way to show that humans had their own notions and goals that had nothing to do with the non-humans. Yet at the same time, this allowed me to show their bias and hate by having the humans be snidely pleased that it was impacting the non-humans in a negative way. It also served as a mechanism to further explore and develop the heirarchy of waerewolves, as the big-wigs sent someone to negotiate for another prime location in Cleveland.