Burning Questions about The Atwells Avenue Anomaly Answered

The Atwells Avenue Anomaly is a short science fantasy read that really gets people talking! In this video, I answer a few reader comments about my new release. 

You'll hear about a portal to another universe, see a couple of beautiful illustrations, and dream about an infinite library! 

Short and Sweet Radio Interview on Chat & Spin

These people in the Cantigas de Santa Maria
are listening to oldies from the 1280s. 

Click here to listen to the Interview with J. K. Knauss on Chat and Spin Radio. Fast forward to 1:36:00 to skip an hour and a half of awesome 80s music to just hear the chat. 

Chat and Spin Radio is an indie Internet radio station based in the UK and broadcasting to 750,000 listeners daily. They play the best music, which is to say 80s jams (they take requests!), and have little chats with an astonishing variety of literary personalities. Ron Clark was kind enough to sit down with me for a short spell (less than ten minutes) yesterday evening. As I mention above, click here and fast forward to 1:36:00 to listen. 

Here's a transcript in case you have technical issues: 

Ron: And the time now on Chat and Spin Radio in the UK is 7:36 pm, and we've got our next guest on the line right now. Who's calling and where are you calling from?

J. K.: My name is Jessica Knauss. I'm an American, and I live in Zamora, Spain. 

Ron: Jessica, you've written books, you're an author, and you want to mention a book that's coming out in December.

J. K.: Yes, so, my medieval epic novel, Seven Noble Knights is going to be released by Encircle Publications on December 11. 

It takes place in Spain, in the year 974. Gonzalo, a brave but hotheaded knight, unwittingly provokes tragedy at his uncle’s wedding to beautiful young noblewoman Doña Lambra: the adored cousin of the bride dead, his teeth scattered across the riverbank. Coveting Gonzalo’s family’s wealth and power, Doña Lambra then sends Gonzalo’s father into enemy territory to be beheaded, unleashing a vengeance that devastates Castile for a generation.

A new hero, Mudarra, rises out of the ashes of Gonzalo’s once great family. Raised as a warrior in the opulence of Muslim Córdoba, Mudarra must make a grueling journey and change his religion. Then, he chooses to take his jeweled sword to the throats of his family’s betrayers. But only when he strays from the path set for him does he find his true purpose in life.

So, as you can hear, the book is in two parts. It's a substantial read, and that’s because the feud that starts at the wedding continues for years, with the villain laying waste to the beautiful land, never knowing that the hero is just waiting for the right moment to stop him and put things right. Mudarra does this at great personal cost. He’s perfectly competent to avenge his family, but he has a lot of doubts about whether he’s doing the right thing. 

I personally really like to get lost a book, and feel transported to another world when I’m reading. Seven Noble Knights, is, I’m happy to say, one of those books. You can let it absorb you into its sights, sounds, smells. So, if you’re looking to escape from this dismal year the whole world is having, Seven Noble Knights could be a great option. 

Ron: It certainly can. The book is is great thing to read during all this. It's a form of escapism to read the book, and possibly to write it, as well. 

J. K.: Yes, indeed. In times of great anguish, we always to turn the artists, and so we should appreciate them. 

Ron: Seven Noble Knights is coming out on December the 11th. Just tell me how can people purchase that book, and also if anyone wants to get in touch with yourself, how do they do that?

J. K.: Seven Noble Knights is now available for preorder in both ebook and softcover at Amazon. It will be available at many more outlets on December 11. 

Preorders are very helpful to the book and the author, so if you’re interested at all, order Seven Noble Knights now and receive it on December 11! The ebook is specially priced at only 99 cents for preorder in America, that's only 77 p in the UK. And December 11, the price goes up! It won’t be on sale after that, so take advantage of the bargain. 

You can find much more information about Seven Noble Knights and my other books, which are a world apart, at my website, JessicaKnauss.com.

Ron: Okay, Jessica. Is there anything else you want to mention?

J. K.: I thought I would mention what inspired me to write this book, if that would be of interest. There I was, innocently studying for my PhD in medieval Spanish literature, when my thesis advisor handed me an article she’d written about the meaning of the bloody cucumber incident in a lost medieval epic poem. I’m naturally attracted to the bizarre, and this was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard. So of course I had to read the historical records of the legend, and it turns out, throwing random vegetables at your enemies was a common enough occurrence in the Middle Ages in Spain that there are a couple of laws against it. And this ended up being one of the least interesting things about the legend. 

I didn’t get to focus more on this material until long after I’d finished my PhD, when it seemed to me that the best way to handle the exotic locations and complex characters would be to write a novel. The legend has had many adaptations in the Spanish-speaking world, including comic books and movies, in the hometown of the main characters, they have a rock opera that they do every year, but I strongly felt that readers in English would love this story, too. 

Ron: Okay, then, Jessica. Thank you very much, and the very best of luck with the books as well. 

J. K.: Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure. 

Ron: That was Jessica on the line from Zamora, Spain. Thanks very much for coming on. 

Happy Book Birthday to a Great New Escape into Another World

I'm pleased to announce that my author friend Hunter S. Jones has gotten together with loads of other great authors to bring you Once Upon Another World: A Twisted Fairy Tale Box Set. 

Not all fairy tales are as they appear.

Was it actually Red who hunted the wolf? What if the prince was the one in distress? Did the straw really get spun into gold? How well did those glass slippers truly fit?

Where princesses do their own rescuing, princes aren’t who they first appear to be, and beasts are friends, not foe—and maybe something more…

With stories spanning from true love’s kiss to reverse harem, skyscrapers to ancient castles, sweet romance to steamy nights, these alluring tales will satisfy readers of fantasy and romance alike.

Discover 22 twisted fairy tales with a happily ever after unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

Authors included in the box set are: Monique Singleton, Joel Crofoot, Zack Hacker, D.E. Chapman, Erin McFadden & K.L. Bone, Jaclyn Roche, L.R.W. Lee, JB Trepagnier, Silvana G. Sanchez, Cassidy K. O'Connor, Jude Cocaigne, M.L. Garza, Hunter S. Jones, Aldrea Alien, Amari Ara Dreamer, D.C. Gambel, Krista Ames, K.A. Fox, Christa Ann, Iris Sweetwater & Chandra Trulove Fry, and Lianne Willowmoon & Phillip Shadowdragon. 

You're sure to find something you like for the generous price of $1.99. 

Get it in your choice of digital formats here. 

Stories of Plague in the Time of COVID: A Live Event (You Can Now See a Replay)

The New York City chapter of the Historical Novel Society cordially invites you to a live internet event you can attend for free on Tuesday, October 6, at noon Eastern Time. Please adjust for your time zone--I'll be joining from Spain, so 6 p.m. for me.

UPDATE: This event took place as planned, and it turned out great! See the replay on YouTube. 

Stories of Plague in the Time of COVID will unite eight of the nine international bestselling authors from the We All Fall Down anthology for the first time ever! Although the title might sound like a bit of a downer, the overwhelming takeaway from these stories is that the human spirit has survived even the darkest times... and it will survive these dark times. 

The authors attending will be: 

* David Blixt

* Kristin Gleeson

* Jean Gill

* Yours truly, Jessica Knauss writing as J. K. Knauss

* Laura Morelli

* Deborah Swift

* Melodie Winawer 

* Lisa J. Yarde 

You're sure to find a new favorite in historical fiction. 

Sign up here to join via Zoom, where you will be able to ask the authors your own questions during the session! 

Register here to watch on Facebook live and submit your questions ahead of time. 

You'll receive a link to the event the day of. Our NYC chapter of the HNS has lots of experience with these events and things are all set to go smoothly. 

At the end of the meeting, three attendees will be chosen to receive a free copy of We All Fall Down in Kindle or epub. 

So join us for a chat about hope and resilience! See you there!  

Distraction and Inspiration in Lockdown: An Interview with WWII Fiction Author Alexa Kang

I hope all the readers of this blog are staying safe and healthy at this unprecedented time.

In spite of social distancing, I’ve recently met a wonderful author and would like to introduce you to her. Alexa Kang writes fascinating WWII historical fiction. Today she’s going to share with us how she’s holding up during what we in Spain call confinement, some of the inspiration for her latest book, and why now is a great time to read.

Jessica Knauss: Are you currently in quarantine/confinement? How has it been for you so far?

Alexa Kang: I’m in the Boston suburbs and am in “lockdown” here like everybody else. To tell the truth, not much has changed for me. Writing has been my main focus for about three years now. It’s a very solitary pursuit. I was planning to slow down on that front and take on some non-writing related projects. Those are on hold now, and I’m actually glad to have this isolated time to keep writing!

JK: What activities are helping you stay sane?

AK: For us writers, it’s very important to stay active. Since we can’t go to the gym, my friends have recommended “Yoga with Adriene” on YouTube. Adriene is a fantastic yoga instructor and really helps me to destress and relax! 

JK: What is your latest series about?

AK: My latest series is “Shanghai Story.” It is a drama trilogy that starts in 1936 Shanghai. It chronicles how China fell into World War II.

JK: What inspired you to write this series?

AK: My genre is WWII fiction, and I’ve been wanting to write about the Pacific front, as there are so few novels about the war in the East, especially one set in Asia that centers on politics, and the narrative is from a male perspective. My bilingual skills and my cultural understanding of East Asia gives me a unique ability to bring this story to readers in a very authentic way.

JK: What makes it different than other books in its genre? 

AK: Aside from being a WWII story set in Shanghai, the heart of this series is a love story between Clark Yuan, a Kuomintang operative and son of a prominent Chinese family educated in America, and Eden Levine, a Jewish refugee from Munich. Interracial romance between an Asian man and a Caucasian woman in fiction is still rare today. Before the first book was published, I was quite nervous if that might impact sales. But it turns out, the audience was receptive beyond my expectations. This series is still selling very well today.

JK: Tell us more about the characters.

AK: The hero, Clark, is a KMT agent. He comes from a wealthy family of industrialists, as technological advancement was a big part early 20^th century history onward. As I was introducing a main male character who is unusual in fiction, I wanted to make him someone Western readers can relate to, and even fall in love with. So, when the story begins, he is just returning home after graduating from college in America. He has lived and studied abroad for six years, and is quite westernized. He has two younger sisters, and is the oldest and only son. That makes him someone very important and influential in Shanghai. From there, we follow the story through his eyes.

My main female character, Eden Levine, gave me a great opportunity to tell a story about Jewish people who escaped to China. Leading up to WWII, almost all the countries in the world refused to grant Jewish refugees entry. China was one of the rare few that allowed Jewish escapees from Europe to enter without a visa. This story gave me a chance to write about the challenges the Jewish people faced when they had to begin a new life in a country with a culture that was entirely foreign to them.

JK: Are any of your characters based on real historical people?

AK: My main characters were not based on real people, but I did incorporate some real historical figures. In the first book, I have a delicious chapter of the first meeting between Clark and Soong Mei-Ling, China’s first lady. Like Clark, Soong was educated in America. She graduated top of her class at Wellesley. She was very ambitious and cunning. I had a lot of fun writing her.

JK: What was your favorite scene to write?

AK: My favorite scene was one where Clark and his sister took Eden to the Paramount Nightclub, a popular dinner and dance club. Before WWII, Shanghai was the most international city in the world, full of glitz and glamour. At the Paramount Theater, I got to show readers the decadence of the city full of big bad jazz music, bottomless champagnes, and ballroom dancing, with people from all over the world. It was fun to step back in time and make this scene come alive.

JK: I think the readers can sense your delight as you wrote! What was the hardest?

AK: The hardest scene for me was one where I had to retell the torture and death of an important character in Book 3 after Japan took over Shanghai following Pearl Harbor. I can’t say more without giving too much away. To write that scene, I had to read up on historical facts of how the Kempeitai (Japanese secret police) treated their prisoners. It has been generally acknowledged that the Japanese military and Kempeitai were even more brutal than German Nazis. WWII was a very ugly time in history. A lot of things happened that show us how flawed we humans can be. For us WWII fiction writers, sometimes we have to delve into all that, and decide how much to share with readers in our stories.

JK: At this moment in human history, do you think your books are a good escape? Or can they inform and inspire the reader for our current challenges? 

AK: Despite the subject matter of WWII, I think my books can be a good escape. They take us to a different time era, away from what we’re hearing about every day. Also, they show us that we’ve been through worse, and that we can overcome huge challenges and obstacles. Compared to WWII, what we’re facing today is nothing. We’re not going hungry. We don’t have bombs and missiles dropping onto our homes. We’re not asked to go to battlefronts to shoot at each other and sleep for months in foxholes in rain, smoldering heat, or snow. We’re asked to stay home, eat, and watch TV. It really puts things in perspective when we learn about history.

JK: That’s what I always think! Any time in history has had at least as many challenges as we have, and fewer advantages. (Yes, I’m thinking of the bestselling anthology We All Fall Down.)

Alexa, thank you for being here virtually and bringing your unique stories to readers.

Readers, check out Alexa Kang’s books and escape even while you #StayHome. You might even feel inspired or strengthened!  

Alexa’s website • Facebook

We All Fall Down Debut a "Viral" Success

We All Fall Down has hit a nerve. It's the most successful new release I've ever had, though goodness knows I always work very hard, hoping for such results. This time, my new release has so many factors in its favor. A gorgeous cover! The support of loyal readers of eight other terrific authors!  And that little something extra, a relationship to what everyone is thinking about, anyway.

One of our authors said, feeling quite ooky about it, "I feel like COVID-19 is a co-author."

Coronavirus is incredibly contagious, but has a relatively low death rate. Considering the first round of the Black Death wiped out half the population of Europe, there's really no comparison. The stories in We All Fall Down are really universal because they illustrate the way humans bounce back, even after the worst. They're worth a read any time, truly.

The universal buy link is here. Or go directly to your favorite store:

Goodreads | Amazon.com | Amazon.es | Amazon.com.mx | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca | Barnes and Noble | Apple iBooks | Kobo | 24 Symbols | Smashwords | Indigo | Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

It was an honor and a pleasure to work with all the authors. I'm thrilled our efforts are coming to fruition. Thank you so much for making this book a success! 

A Brand New Release with Eight Other Historical Fiction Authors

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for voting for Seven Noble Knights in the TaleFlick Discovery Contest. The week was packed with meeting new people and feeling supported, something that is all too rare for an author. Seven Noble Knights finished in 14th place. It's not a win, but it's not bad, either, considering the competition! I couldn't have done it without your support, so THANK YOU.

I don't have much to show my gratitude aside from some interesting little medieval stories for free:

Get "Trout Riot," a one-act play, in three different formats for free here.















And now for the great cover reveal!

We All Fall Down: Stories of Plague and Resilience is the result of a unique collaboration between nine bestselling and award-winning historical fiction authors: yours truly, Kristin Gleeson, Lisa Yarde, David Blixt, Deborah Swift, Jean Gill, Katherine Pym, Laura Morelli, and Melodie Winawer.

Plague has no favorites.

In this anthology, USA Today, international bestselling, and award-winning authors imagine a world where anyone—rich, poor, young, old—might be well in the morning and dead by sundown.

Readers will follow in the footsteps of those who fought to rebuild shattered lives as the plague left desolation in its wake.

* An Irish woman tends her dying father while the Normans threaten her life and property—

* A Hispano-Muslim doctor fights the authorities to stem the spread of the deadly pestilence at great personal cost—

* A Tuscan street hawker and a fresco painter watch citizens perish all around them even as they paint a better future—

* A Spanish noblewoman lives at the mercy of a jealous queen after plague kills the king—

* The Black Death leaves an uncertain legacy to Dante’s son—

* In Venice, the artist Titian agonizes over a death in obscurity—

* A Scottish thief loses everything to plague and repents in the hope of preventing more losses—

* Two teenagers from 2020 time-travel to plague-stricken London and are forever changed—

* And when death rules in Ottoman-occupied Greece, a Turk decides his own fate.

Nine tales bound together by humanity’s fortitude in the face of despair: a powerful collection of stories for our own time.

In dark and deadly times, love and courage shine bright.

My story immerses the reader in the harrowing final years of Leonor Núñez de Guzmán y Ponce de León, the true love of Alfonso XI of Castile. Alfonso XI was the only monarch to succumb to the Black Death. Though his jealous queen stripped Leonor of all her power, she has gone down in history as the mother of Enrique II of Castile, the first king of the Trastámara line.

We All Fall Down will be available for ebook purchase on March 1! Preorder it at many venues here.

Goodreads | Amazon.com | Amazon.es | Amazon.com.mx | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca | Barnes and Noble | Apple iBooks | Kobo | 24 Symbols | Smashwords | Indigo | Angus & Robertson | Mondadori

Find new authors, locales, and time periods to love in this slim volume packed with substance. Softcover to follow very soon.


¡Grandes noticias para mis lectores en español! Por fin está disponible Mundos impredecibles en las tiendas Amazon: Amazon.com, Amazon.es y Amazon.com.mx.

Subscribers to my newsletter saw the amazing cover of We All Fall Down last night and found out about the magical science fantasy I'm currently working on. Just sayin'.

Here Be Unicorns: The Tin House Summer Workshop

I read my heart out in the splendor of the Oregon outdoors.
Photo by Laura Citino 

Last July was the worst in my personal history, and this July is giving me no reason to love it at home. I'd heard of the Tin House Summer Workshop for writers and decided to apply for it, not imagining I would be accepted, but hoping it could be a way to spruce up a rotten month if I somehow were able to attend.

I was accepted! I agonized over whether to attend for about an hour. In the end, I decided good things are few and far between and I must take these opportunities when they come. 

Am I glad I did. There are few things I would trade that week for. I learned so much about writing, I think I could teach it. I met some rock stars of the publishing world, and they were all good human beings—no egos darkened the week. Most secret and alchemical of all, putting so many writers together to work with each other creates a sense of belonging like I've never experienced. If you are a writer, do Tin House. Even if you never do another writerly community activity, apply and apply until you get in to this one. You won't regret it. 

The bookstore displayed a few of the faculty's magisterial titles. 

This summer, we enjoyed meeting and talking shop with stellar faculty: Margot Livesey, Saeed Jones, Danielle Evans, Karen Shepard, Renee Gladman, Joshua Ferris, Manuel Gonzales, Morgan Parker, James Hannaham, Naomi Jackson, Emily Witt, Jim Shepard, Claire Vaye Watkins, Roger Reeves, Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Natalie Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Mat Johnson, Paul Lisicky, and Mary Ruefle. Additionally, there were agents and most of the editors of Tin House. Everyone took students' work seriously with naturalness and humility that make the world a wonderful place. They divulged their deepest writing secrets without prodding. We were all there for the same reason: to celebrate and create good writing. 

We were accompanied at all times by ravens. They scavenged during our outdoor meals and made portentous paths across the sky at the evening readings. For many, ravens are frightening, but for someone who's seen them up close at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, they're marvels of nature. Many and many a year ago, my old pal Eddie granted them a literary air that felt appropriate for the week. 

Visitors to campus that week got the impression
Oregon is a sunny, warm place. 

Word was that the janitorial staff hates Tin House week because the attendees are always drinking and getting locked out of their rooms. I did neither, but still had a rich, socio-psychologically complex time. I can only report on a fraction of what we packed into that week.

I'd already been deeply impressed with the quality of the other participants' stories as I read them in preparation for the week. I got the feeling I would be working with writers who were not only better than me (which is ideal in a workshop situation), but also were just as weird or weirder than me. Normally, I'm the only writer in a room who's heavily influenced by magical realism and worships the unexpected. I had trouble identifying the emotion that rose up within me when we all met for the first time—could it be a sense of belonging? I feel it so infrequently now that my true love is gone, it seems overly sentimental and out of place, but oh, if I find it again, I'll grab on and never let go! The workshop leader and I weren't the only published authors in the room, and yet everyone was there to listen and learn. Never stop learning. Never close yourself off to new ideas that could make you a better writer/person.

Manuel Gonzales gave a lively lecture
in which he mentioned both his unicorn story
and his friend Marie-Helene Bertino's unicorn story,
which won an O. Henry Prize. 

"Leave your preconceived notions about how a story should work at home," said our workshop leader during the orientation session. I chose to be in Manuel Gonzales's workshop because I'd read his short story collection, The Miniature Wife and Other Stories. I dared not dream the author of those crazy-beautiful creations would grant his proteges access to his mystical mastery of imagination, but I figured at least I would get to say we were in the same room for a while. 

During the orientation workshop, Tin House had everyone bring a paperback book they enjoyed in  a white elephant paperback exchange. Everyone's selection seemed unusual and exciting, demonstrating their eclectic tastes. Manuel Gonzales presented his book last and explained it was no used copy but something he bought specially. It was worth the wait—the lucky student to his left received The Princess Bride, which he admired for its humor and daring narrative techniques! A dopamine rush for at least this student! I knew then that I'd made the right choice.

Gonzales's dynamic reading convinced me to buy his novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack! In his masculine voice, I heard the fast-paced self-deprecation of his sassy young female protagonist. I can't wait to read it, especially after I heard a bit about the book's journey from idea to published novel. The lecture he gave, "In Particular, The Universal," discussed the way fine details help readers relate to the characters and story and take it as their own. He's often asked what his unicorn story is about. It's about a unicorn. It must be a real, physical unicorn before it can take on any further meaning. To take an example from Marie-Helene Bertino's O. Henry Prize–winning story, in order for her unicorn to symbolize inherited family burdens, we must first imagine what would happen if someone tried to transport a real unicorn in an SUV. (It would eat things it shouldn't and do its business everywhere. It's the writer's job to depict exactly what it ate and ruined and how—but only if it adds to the story.)  

Eleven other writers and I were lucky because we got to spend hours with Gonzales, while everyone else got only the short reading and hour-long lecture. He made it clear from the beginning that stories are serious business, and his critiques were jaw-droppingly perceptive, but he approached our work with a biting sense of humor and bone-dry delivery that had us laughing the entire two-and-a-half hours the workshop lasted every day. In the middle of the week, someone from a neighboring workshop came to the door to tell us to keep the noise down. "You can't keep us from loving each other," he retorted, though I'm not sure anyone else heard, because they'd already found the request so humorous. While I perceived straightforward love and tenderness in the other workshops, our atmosphere felt unique. Respect and equality were established among us with vigorous ribbing and creative antagonism no one else seemed to understand.

Our group dynamic followed a character arc I'm not at liberty to discuss here, but it involved a lot of cleverness, trivia night, and the O. Henry Prize. The well-earned finale was when, after the last workshop, one of the students returned from her individual consultation to tell us, "He said he really enjoyed working with us!" Hallelujah, amen. 

In other events of note, a mindfulness seminar run by none other than Aimee Bender's husband brought sanity to the beginning of each day. Writers being as crazy as any other artists, the seminar was an excellent idea I hope they bring back.

Last but not least, my true love was with me for all the ups and downs. He was perhaps most present when I attended Aimee Bender's reading and brought my hardcover of The Color Master for her to sign. I'd bought it when the book first came out, when Stanley and I were living in a hotel in North Carolina. The first edition has an embossed title that's a tactile delight, and Aimee greeted it like an old friend. I told her how Stanley and I had read all her books to each other, and I silently remembered the feel of the hard couch in the hotel and the bizarre futon we had during our lean Arizona years, and the way Stanley would tell me, with his heart-melting voice, his unique impression of each story as soon as I finished. Aimee wrote the lovely inscription pictured, and I retreated to my room so no one would see me weeping widow's tears.

Get more tangible details about this week at Drew Ciccolo's blog post. Takeaway: Always walk back from Safeway!

Thank you, Tin House and everyone who attended.

Busy July: Book Sales, Tin House, and Zamora

The gates to Zamora are still closed to me, but I can see it, practically touch it...
Photo 2005 Jessica Knauss 

I don't have good feelings about July. I never had a special attraction to this month, which in my childhood was usually dreary and lonely, but I developed true antipathy toward it last year, when it became the month when the love of my life died.

Anticipating the heaviness of this emotional milestone, a few months back I scheduled and applied for big, attention-grabbing events to take place around this time. As it turned out, June was so busy I hardly noticed it go by. I had a lot of paid work—three different projects—and the complex visa application process for living in Spain became even more complicated. I have a low tolerance for processes that keep me out of Spain, so I probably won't get into visa details here, but if you're going through the same process, feel free to contact me for tips and tricks. The best event in June was, of course, the Historical Novel Society Conference. Not only did I meet fantastic people and learn a ton, but I also got out of my tiny house with the uncomfortable bed in my little town for three entire days. A little break, a furlough, if you will, filled with life, possibility, and positivity, made all the difference to my weary spirit.

June was also packed with preparations for the attention-grabbing events in July.

After July 4, Awash in Talent is going to participate in a sale I'll be able to tell you about when it's live. I haven't yet earned out my advance for my zany paranormal urban fantasy, and I hope during the sale I can get visibility and support. More about this later.

Beginning July 10, Seven Noble Knights will be featured on Bookmovement.com with a book club giveaway. It's a unique opportunity to furnish your book club with copies of the book and a chance to talk with the author. My darling medieval epic has only two reviews on Amazon, and because book clubs really seem to dig it, I hope this will help raise its profile closer to where it should be. Much more about this later.

Next week, I will be participating in the biggest event of my summer: The Tin House Summer Workshop. It's an entire week of workshops with some of the most awe-inspiring authors writing in English, lectures, readings, meetings with editors and agents, meditation, and karaoke. If I thought I was tired and inspired after the Historical Novel Society Conference, I don't know what I'll be after this. I'll be workshopping a fantasy story set in Providence—and another universe entirely!—that I have high hopes for.

I'll also be doing some private grief work in July.

As soon as I can get some materials together, I will share exciting tidbits about Zamora at this blog. This picture should tantalize you plenty in the meantime!

Books of the Last Year: A Recap

The past year has been a whirlwind, in good and terrible ways. But that doesn't mean I haven't been reading, and today I'd like to acknowledge some of the finest books I've read (relatively) lately. A mention here constitutes endorsement, and I plan to place reviews in the appropriate sites.

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna Van Praag. I wanted something to read on the plane to Spain, but I don't recall how I came across this author. I loved the sense of women's history and empowerment here.

 Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown. A fellow Launch Lab alum wrote this perfectly researched and imagined historical fiction about some of the most universal women's struggles.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I had this book recommended to me many times before I finally picked it up at my then-local bookstore, Antigone in Tucson, Arizona. It was the last in a long and hallowed line of books I read to my husband. He hadn't grown up with adults reading to him, so I started reading him my favorites and exciting new books to him before we were married. When my voice would give out, he would often pitch in, especially if we were at a really good part. This is why my husband put Harry Potter in our wedding vows. I had a lot of trouble getting into The Night Circus. Though my husband enjoyed it, I couldn't see that it was coming to any particular point. We didn't quite finish before my husband checked into the hospital, and after he lost consciousness, I read the last three chapters to myself sitting in a chair next to his bed. Of course, that's when the story all comes together and I ended up finally understanding why so many people recommended it to me.

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. I was nervous to get into this book because the great Manolo García, my idol in all things creative, recommended it to me when I met him in May 2016. If it was no good, what would that say about this artist I so admire? I purchased this book at Antigone two days before my husband passed away, which you might think would mar it for me. But I remember going to pick the book up with my sister-in-law as a much-needed break from the hospital, a slice of normal in a world that was quickly turning upside-down. I needn't have feared any of this. Lucia Berlin's writing is so overwhelmingly fantastic, this book is the only thing I remember about the first month after my husband's passing.

Monterey Bay by Lindsay Hatton. A tour-de-force by a fellow Launch Lab alum.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. On point and familiar, even though everyone's grief is different, with the added benefit of falconry drama—doubly unforgettable. I wish I'd read this before publishing the goshawk scenes in Seven Noble Knights!

The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman. Useful and no-nonsense exactly when I needed practical coping mechanisms.

The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud. This author was a favorite for my husband and I to read to each other, and I was comforted to be able to read this book when it came out on our wedding anniversary. I loved the mind-blowing imagery of life after death and how the two worlds might intersect. And I'm glad Lucy didn't abandon Lockwood & Co. for long.

Odd Adventures with Your Other Father by Norman Prentiss. I came across this gem by a fellow Kindle Press author when we did a cross-promo together. Whimsical, touching, and shocking in all the right places, this book made me realize I love some kinds of horror writing. The end is an unspeakably beautiful fantasy for someone who's lost a loved one to cancer.

Narrow River, Wide Sky by Jenny Forrester. I earned an internship at Hawthorne Books this winter, and focused on setting up the book tour and other publicity concerns for the wonderful author.

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. Thank goodness I came across this daring and truthful memoir in the Hawthorne offices! Read it. Now. You'll thank me.

Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch. A hilarious examination of the gender and age bias in traditional psychotherapy. It made me want to read every other book Lidia Yuknavitch ever produces.

Life is Short—Art is Shorter by David Shields and Elizabeth Cooperman. Astonishingly effective in their brevity, the pieces here inspire you to experiment in this age of short attention spans.

Death's Dancer by Jasmine Silvera. Another wonderfully imaginative book by a fellow Kindle Press author.

The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales. I picked this up because I've been accepted into the prestigious Tin House Summer Workshop, and I'm thrilled I'll be working with Manuel Gonzales in July. Every one of these stories excited me for its approach, its novel logic, its turns of phrase, or the proliferating concepts I sensed behind the imagery, which was always exactly as crazy as I needed it to be.

Violation by Sallie Tisdale. Some of the best essays by one of the best essay writers.

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown. I won this advance readers copy via Goodreads. I think disappearances and faked deaths are a whole genre in themselves. This one had compelling characters and interesting twists.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier. Another Goodreads ARC win. Othello is my favorite Shakespeare, and the way the author transferred it to a 1970s middle school playground is fascinating. Great pop culture references run through the interesting and believable decision to make the action take place over a single school day.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. After a tragedy or trauma, you no longer have Option A available. I'm doing a lot of thinking about what my Option B is, and this book helps with that as well as with not feeling so alone.

I'm astonished I've read so much when concentration has often been a challenge this year—I've left out plenty of books here! Thanks for checking out my recent literary path. Straight an narrow it ain't!

Reading Up a Spring Storm in Oregon

On Saturday, I went with my supportive mother to the Saint Helens Spring into Art phenomenon at the community center. There were culinary arts, rug weaving, paintings and sculptures on display, a dog adoption area, and ukulele band performances, to name just a few.

The community center building houses the town library, and I found my baby, Seven Noble Knights, in really good company on the new shelf.

I wore my shirt with the awesome medieval sleeves in order to read the first chapter of Seven Noble Knights for a diverse and enthusiastic audience in the auditorium.

Audience members told me I brought the story and the time period to life with my reading, so I felt pretty good. This was great community-centered practice for my reading at the Harvard Book Store later this week!

Afterward, I set up Seven Noble Knights (with a printout of its Historical Novel Society review), Tree/House, Unpredictable Worlds, and Awash in Talent in the children's area of the library with several other local authors. Even though we were tucked in the back of the community center where people had to come looking for us, I sold and signed several copies of Awash in Talent and one of Unpredictable Worlds, and chatting with readers and the librarians was a lot of fun.

One male reader asked me what Tree/House was about, and I amazed myself saying, "It uses Jungian archetypal imagery to retell the Bluebeard legend." Tree/House is kind of a hard sell to a male reader, anyway, but I'm not sure what made me venture into the alienating scholarly definition of a book many people have enjoyed without knowing about Carl Jung or the Bluebeard story. Note to self: Tree/House is the story of a woman's empowerment through sleeping in trees.

Another note to self: If I had mentioned the book signing at the reading, I might have attracted more historical fiction readers to the second event. It's not easy to remember to be your own publicist when you're having fun.

Thanks to everyone who listened to the first chapter of Seven Noble Knights and who stopped by my booth! And to my mom, who was my biggest fan on Saturday!

If you just weren't in Oregon on Saturday, I did a special YouTube reading of the first chapter, which you can watch any time here.

Enjoy! And I'll see you at Harvard!

Lincoln Cole's Raven's Peak

Lincoln Cole's popular horror thriller Raven's Peak begins the World on Fire series.

A quiet little mountain town is hiding a big problem. When the townsfolk of Raven's Peak start acting crazy, Abigail Dressler is called upon to discover the root of the evil affecting people. She uncovers a demonic threat unlike any she's ever faced and finds herself in a fight just to stay alive.

Abigail rescues Haatim Arison from a terrifying fate and discovers that he has a family legacy in the supernatural that he knows nothing about. Now she's forced to protect him, which is easy, but also to trust him if she wants to save the townsfolk of Raven's Peak. Trust, however, is something hard to have for someone who grew up living on the knife's edge of danger.

Can they discover the cause of the town's insanity and put a stop to it before it is too late?

A world of intrigue for only $3.49, or free with Kindle Unlimited.

Lincoln Cole is a Columbus-based author who enjoys traveling and has visited many different parts of the world, including Australia and Cambodia, but always returns home to his pugamonster and wife. His love for writing was kindled at an early age through the works of Isaac Asimov and Stephen King and he enjoys telling stories to anyone who will listen.

He has won more than twelve literary awards for his novels from Reader's Favorite, Literary Classics, New Apple, and many other organizations. He has also reached the top #50 rank for all books in the Kindle store on Amazon and bestseller in many different categories.

If you would like to follow and find out what is happening with Lincoln, sign up at:

http://www.LincolnCole.net/signup

...and get two free stories!