Please give a big welcome to Yasmine Galenorn who is joining us with her final book in the Indigo Court series, NIGHT'S END!
In writing a couple of the other posts for my blog tour for NIGHT’S END, I started to think about what it means to end this series. While I have made my goodbyes to the series as a whole, I find the characters still lurking around the edges of my mind. Their stories are finished, but I think there’s part of me still holding on to them. And I think that’s because they’re old friends—they’ve lived inside my mind since 2010 when I first started writing their story. That’s a long time to have a connection with someone, even if they are creations of my own imagination.
What people don’t realize is how real an author’s characters can be to them. I know that every time I have to kill or hurt a character—well, a main or secondary character—it hits me in the gut and sometimes I end up crying while I’m writing. I think I’ve cried so much during my work over the years I could support the tissue industry.
But pain and loss happen are no strangers to our lives, and they have to happen in books too, in order for them to be realistic. To quote a line from one of my favorite movies: “Planes are gonna crash. Earthquakes are going to happen. People you know and love are going to die. And no matter what that voice tells you, there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s really all in how the characters handle those losses and setbacks that shows their true natures.
So, letting go of Cicely and her friends…of Ulean, of Grieve and Lannan and Rhiannon and all the rest…I think it will be a process. They don’t just vanish once I type ‘the end’ on the final book. And even though I’m excited about new characters and other stories to come, old characters linger, in the corners of my thoughts.
Now and then, I find myself sending them a wistful, “Hi there, I wish we could have traveled further together…” But sometimes, people leave you partway through the journey. And characters and books and series…well…they have their own time line in the writer’s life. That’s just the way of things.
So, what have been some of the most memorable books and characters that have stuck with you throughout your reading career?
Yasmine
Night's End
(Indigo Court #5)
by Yasmine Galenorn
Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
Published July 1st 2014 by Berkley
Eons ago, vampires tried to turn the dark Fae in order to harness their magic, only to create a demonic enemy more powerful than they could have imagined. Now, in a final push, Myst returns with a vengeance to bring the Golden Wood forever under the rule of the Indigo Court.
Newly crowned Fae Queens Cicely and Rhiannon have embraced their destinies and claimed their thrones. But Myst is rising once more, and now, at the helm of her armies, she begins her final assault on the Golden Wood. As Fae, vampires, and magic-born alike fall under the tide of blood, Cicely and her friends must discover a way to destroy the spidery queen before they—and their people—face total annihilation.
Indigo Court series blurb:
The moon sheds light on a playground for monsters and magic...
Eons ago, vampires tried to turn the Dark Fae in order to harness their power. Instead, they created a demonic enemy more powerful than they dared to dream. Bent on enslaving the world, the Vampiric Fae have been quietly massing their strength for centuries. Now, Myst, queen of the Indigo Court, is rising again...and a long-prophesied war is brewing.
Born witches Cicely Waters and her cousin Rhiannon--who are jet and amber, the moon and the sun--and their friends are the caught between ancient enemies, trying to protect all that they love. Adult Urban Fantasy (Explicit Sex)
Yasmine Galenorn bio:
Yasmine Galenorn is the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestselling author of the Otherworld (Sisters of the Moon), the Indigo Court and the upcoming Fly By Night urban fantasy series. In the past, she also wrote two mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime (one under the pen name of India Ink) and eight nonfiction metaphysical books.
Yasmine is a caffeine junkie (iced, quad shot, almond milk sugar free no whip lattes), and describes her life as a blend of teacups and tattoos--the former in her china closet, the latter on her skin.
She is a shamanic witch, has been married to Samwise Galenorn since 1993, is the mother of four cats, and they reside in Kirkland WA.
Website: http://yasminegalenorn.com/Blog: http://yasminegalenorn.com/Blog/Twitter: https://twitter.com/YasmineGalenornFacebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorYasmineGalenornGoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/101078.Yasmine_GalenornTumblr: http://yasminegalenorn.tumblr.com/
Individual blog contests:
ONE print copy of NIGHT MYST (US only, I’m sorry.)
To enter; just leave a comment on this post answering Yasmine's question and then fill out the rafflecopter below. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Tour-wide Grand Prize contest:
Below is the rafflecopter link for a tour-wide prize, offered by Yasmine. The prize basket includes a Kindle Paperwhite and other goodies. The tour-wide contest will begin on June 29th, and will run through the end of the day on July 7th. Winner will be chosen and notified via email on July 8th.
I find that characters I've written (for fun mind you) tend to kick around my brain at random times long after I've written them. I think part of writing good characters is putting a tiny piece of one's self into each one and that will always make them linger.
ReplyDeleteI think the characters in series stick the most with me. We get to know them better. We see their ups and downs, their good points and their flaws. They become members of our fictional family of characters.
ReplyDeleteThe first memorable characters to really stick with me were the characters of the Twilight Saga... then after I got bored with them, I switched to LKH's Anita Blake series where the characters took extreme and dramatic to a whole other level.
ReplyDeleteSome of the first characters that really stuck with me were from the first adult books I read as a young teen, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, George and Lennie and Estella and Magwitch.
ReplyDeleteLove the series and sad to see it ending.
I'd have to go w/ the Dragon Riders of Pern by Ann McCaffery b/c it was the first "scifi" series I read and I was 12 so I fell in love sooo hard :) Congrats to Yasmine on the series!
ReplyDeleteThe first ones to stick with me was the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series ones by Laurell K. Hamilton.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the chance to win!
To answer your question, I would have to immediately say your books. This series and the Otherworld series are 2 of my favorites. But some other authors coming to mind are the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, the Hollows series by Kim Harrison and the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter. Congrats on this new release! I cannot wait to read it.
ReplyDelete