A while ago narrator Will Smith asked if he could perform one of my Kalathan short stories, To the Lowly Dove, on his podcast, The Wandering Tavern. I listened to some of his other performances and was impressed, so I agreed. I think he did a great job!
Click here to listen.
When Korbin returns to Kalathan he must confront old demons as he comes face to face with the man who betrayed him. Not free to worship publicly as he was in the Empire, he is impressed by the courage and ingenuity of a plucky farmer and soon puts himself in danger by coming to her defence.
Another book! This one began as a novella but ended up a novel. It was great to go back to Kalathan itself - not much of the action of Curse or Brothers happens there so it was lovely to go deeper into some of the details of life there. I haven't made it strictly part of the series - rather it is a companion novel continuing the stories of certain characters. This infographic will help explain:
Since I started writing three years ago there have been very few weeks when I have not been working on something or other. I have surprised myself at how much I love writing and how sure I am that I will not give it up now that I have started!
So what have I been working on lately?
At the moment Return to Kalathan, third novel in the series, is in the "drawer phase". This means I close the doc and leave it there for a few weeks before reading it again with fresh eyes. Then I will send to my trusty beta readers who will hopefully give me some feedback. It's a short novel, about two thirds of the length of the other two. I originally intended for it to be a novella but the story took me further than I thought it would!
I also have another novella, Queen of Kalathan, 90% finished, waiting for me to get the last bit done. But in the meantime I have been distracted by another story which I think I started thinking about when my husband and I watched the Netflix series Barbaren. The story (apparently based on fact!) of a child taken in and trained by the Roman Army growing up to have very divided loyalties was a fascinating one. The Empire in the Kalathan books is of course inspired by the Roman Empire; in fact the whole thing began with me wondering what might have happened if it had never fallen and had continued spreading its influence into Asia. Although I never went into it in the first book, the Western Conquerors of Kalathan came from a Germanic branch of this Empire. So even though the events of the series occurred about 1000 years before my story, it the connection inspired me!
So since watching the series, a reluctant conqueror has begun to appear in my imagination - a soldier closely connected to the first king of Kalathan, Albrin. His story will reveal some of the details of the conquest which happened five hundred years or so before the events of The Curse of Kalathan. It will explain some of the culture, the origin of the Temple and even the source of the Devilclaw Curse. There will be romance, of course, a journey, and a battle (or two) as a new nation emerges.
I should be coming up with marketing strategies.
And I'm keen to get going with Kaspar's story, Prince of Kalathan. The more I put off starting the more ideas I get for it. So best put it off a little longer. (Although at this rate it will end up being a 500 page epic.)
Anyway ... for now my mind is full of exhausted conquerors trekking through rain and mud, wary tribespeople staring from doorways, and one man's audacious plan to take back what has been stolen from him.
I leave you with a video of these three beautiful Georgian girls who make me think of Kalathan and Trina :)
TWINS
Jandrin was born first, Jameth only a few minutes afterwards; both screaming inconsolably, the midwife told the queen later, until they were wrapped up and placed side by side. Even as the Temple fatir and the priest leant over them with the vial of pigeon blood, smearing it over their foreheads as the blessing was recited, the tiny boys lay still, downy heads touching, content in togetherness. They were a sign, the priests told the king, of God’s great favour on him, a double blessing: two strong, healthy sons, their fair heads and blue eyes a testimony to the blood of the conquerors that ran in their veins.
The people of Kalathan City rejoiced in the streets for days at the news of their birth, waving red flags, delighting Temple bursars with gifts and offerings of thanks to God and to the great Spirits of Victory and Plenty. For generations the royal family of Kalathan had been hanging onto the throne by threads, plagued by sickly monarchs, barren queens and more recently, a string of foolhardy princes who kept getting themselves killed hunting or riding or engaging in foolish duels. The young king Theoland II, only surviving son of his father and king since the raw age of seventeen, had frustrated the hopes of both nobles and ordinary people by taking more than a decade to find a suitable wife. But ever since he had finally made his choice and married the graceful, accomplished Nuria, Kalthan’s prospects for a more robust monarchy seemed to be looking up. Not only had the queen already produced one strong son, now she had (at no cost to her health it seemed) produced two more at once. The nobility were ecstatic. And as the years passed and then twins grew into handsome, talented, personable young men, followed by three more brothers to make six in all, there could be no doubt as to the favourable status of Kalathan in the Heavenly Realms.
For years no one but Mother could tell them apart without looking at the tiny inked marks on their ankles: one tiny dot for Jandrin and two for Jameth. Even Father couldn’t tell; they were “Jandrin and Jameth” to everyone they knew and even, perhaps, to themselves. “We are tired,” they would say, or “We don’t like that!” often in unison. They insisted that when one felt pain so did the other, prompting sceptical older brother Theo to undertake many mischievous experiments, like pinching one under the dinner table then calling the other one out for not noticing. There were differences, of course: Jandrin was always quicker at his books, always a little more likely to lead the pair in mischief. As they approached adulthood it was clear that he was more confident with the court girls who dotted the courtyards and gardens, ready and waiting to catch the eye of a prince, or perhaps even two. Jameth followed his brother without thought of any inequality: their cooperation was instinctive, without any idea of one being better than the other. So they wore their golden hair long on their shoulders, and sang songs together in harmonies that were sensed rather than arranged beforehand. They rode identical horses through the streets side by side on temple days, waving to the crowds in synchronised motion, dressed alike in bright silks and brocades.
And neither of them, not for a minute, imagined that there would be a time when it would be any different.
Maybe it would have continued that way for the rest of their lives. Perhaps their inextricably connected existence would have continued until they were old men, until they left the world of the living together just as they had entered it. But when they returned from the war, one carried in half-dead on a stretcher, the other half-dead with worry, there would be no more mistaking one for the other. Jandrin was much as he had been when they had left the palace months before – a little thinner, a little harder, new frown lines on his forehead. But Jameth was broken, his hair shaved short by the priests who had attended to him in the hospital tents, his body shattered by the explosion that had killed Dazmar and made possible their escape from behind Empire lines. But the truth was that even before that day, even when it was still all but impossible for a stranger to tell them apart, a shift had begun. From the moment they had begun to run for their lives, from the start of the journey that had taken them out of Kalathan, something had begun to change. The luxury and ease of palace life had disappeared in a moment, replaced with hard ground, dreary food, thirst. Obscurity and dependence, fear and uncertainty had marked each day, pressing each of them to reveal the character that lay beneath. And so it had begun to be apparent, during those long months, that they were different after all. They were still brothers, still closer to each other than to anyone else, still making harmonies, even if their songs rang out in woods and mountains rather than lush courtyards and gilded halls. But by the end it was undeniable even if it was unspoken between them: they were two different men, not one soul after all.
Jameth, miraculously some said, survived his injury, the fever that followed and the long journey home. By the spring after the war, the wound he had sustained in the explosion on the battlefield had healed into a grotesque patchwork of scars and gouges, the muscle all but wasted or simply missing on his shoulder and upper arm. He could move his left hand and lift his shoulder a little, but he would never again hold a bow or a lute. He could barely even hold a fork at the dinner table. He had tried to ride and managed it one handed, but could never keep up with Jandrin, who now had to make do with his other brothers to enjoy what had once been the twins’ shared pursuits.
So when Jandrin rode out on a hunt with Kaspar, or met Theo for archery practice or to spar with their swords, Jameth was left behind to sit with Mother as she worked on her embroidery, to play parcha in the courtyard with Ben or to allow Maikal to read him halting stories from his school books. He had lost one companion, he said to his mother one particularly difficult afternoon, only to gain another: instead of a brother he now kept company with pain. Most of the day he was all right, constant movement keeping the worst at bay. It was at night that it flared up, like a demon in all its fury sometimes, making him want to to cry out and beg for mercy, for rest and sleep and please, God, just a moment of respite from the burning persistence of it.
“Your father has lived with pain most of his life,” she had said, her eyes filling with tears at the desperation in his face. “He was only a little older than you when he had his accident.”
“I know,” Jameth had said. “I wonder what he would have been like without it.”
“Harder,” Mother had replied earnestly. “More reckless, more proud. It changed him, son, and it will change you. Don’t be afraid of it. This is part of your destiny and you must embrace it.”
Jameth had clasped his mother’s hand and not known what to say. He didn't want to be changed, for good or for anything. He wanted a different destiny than this half-life he found himself living. He wanted the life his brother was enjoying right under his nose, a life of music and adventure and the grateful adoring attention of pretty girls. He had not learnt, during the long months of suffering, to be content with his lot. Sometimes he was not even sure that he was glad to be alive.
The cover is done, and there are words in the document - many, many words! But it's not done yet, not nearly done.
After my best critic read my first draft and had some comments to make, I realised there were some major flaws that needed to be fixed. I could have fiddled things around a little and still made it kind of work, but I want this story to be great, not just okay. It needs to be exciting and pacy. The characters need to be relatable and entertaining. The plot must be believable and without holes. All that takes time. I have already pretty much rewritten the entire first half. Somehow on the way my characters changed a little and now I need to bring all that through to the end.
I will get there, hopefully in a month or so. And then the best thing to do would be to put it away for a few months and then bring it out to read with fresh eyes. That's what I did with the first Kalathan book and I think it was better for it.
It's three years since I decided I was going to try to write a book, since I sat down in January 2018 and began work on Alex on the Edge. I don't think any of the words I wrote in those first weeks actually made it into the final book but I am so glad I started!
Some fun facts about this new book:
As always, I need reviews so get in touch for a free digital copy - anyone at all! There are also free copies available on Booksprout if you want to join up there for many more free books to review.
