Violently Happy

Prepare to get your medieval on!
Seven Noble Knights is on its way! 

Seven Noble Knights is coming out in only ten days! It's available for Kindle preorder now! The Grand Book Launch Blog Tour has already kicked off, and be sure to attend the Facebook launch party on December 15 for fun and prizes!

The Seven Noble Knights release is giving me emotions so intense, you might call them violent.

The end of a productive three-part discussion on violence in storytelling by David Blixt came at an a propos time, in the aftermath of the Red Wedding episode of the Game of Thrones series. It's well argued—check it out!

I've never been sure why I was so strongly drawn to the story that is the basis for Seven Noble Knights. It's violent, and I've never enjoyed stories that showcase violence for its own sake. So, it became my mission to present the violence in a way that would affect the reader deeply at the same time that it examines the conflict from both sides and humanizes the villains. Conflict is necessary for story, and a good story will show the conflict in all its subtlety and let the reader decide what it really means.

After all, this is not a new story. It's already been told, in quite a few different ways, so there's no point in retelling it unless I add value in the form of sympathetic characters with believable motives and emotions.

I began by trying to understand why the woman who motivated the biggest violent act in the entire book—Doña Lambra—was moved to such outrageous and unbecoming behavior. Because I started with her, I fell in love with her, and deeply confused my beta readers and some people who read my first attempts at query letters and a synopsis. I also loved the proper "good guys" in the book, but the fondness I had for writing about Lambra skewed readers' perceptions of the González family in the wrong direction and failed to prepare them for the meaning of the gore to come. I've done a lot of editing to resolve this and think I've ended up with a complex balance of characteristics and perceptions in both camps. Anyone can write a good hero, but a good villain is the mark of the great writer I want to be.

It's an epic story and I hope I've given each character the attention he or she deserves.

Anyway, if you liked or understood or enjoyed being devastated by the Red Wedding, Seven Noble Knights has incidents that I hope affect the reader in a similar fashion.

It's coming out this week, December 15! I hope you've been enjoying the blog tour. Be sure to come by the Facebook launch party on December 15 for fun and prizes!

Remember to put your name in to win one of three first edition softcovers.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Seven Noble Knights

by Jessica Knauss

Giveaway ends December 14, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

How the Battle of the Bastards is Like Seven Noble Knights

The photos in this post are publicity stills for Game of Thrones. 

I think most GoT fans were thrilled with Season 6, Episode 9, "The Battle of the Bastards." It held a special fascination for me because portions of it echoed my novel, Seven Noble Knights.

When Jon Snow was riding around with his troops, I realized for the first time that with the new hairdo and tidy beard, and especially wearing piles of furs, Kit Harington is a dead ringer for my hero, Mudarra. I watched with keen interest to see this Mudarra doppelganger play out some of the battle scenes from Seven Noble Knights. I'll go over them in the order they appear in my book.

This terrifying surround tactic takes place in Chapter VIIII, although I dare say it's even worse in Seven Noble Knights because the numbers are more drastically mismatched. You'll be wondering how they get out of it! So as not to spoil my novel, I'll just say it doesn't happen the way it does in GoT.

If I wasn't sure Seven Noble Knights had snuck onto the small screen without anyone's knowledge, this scene sealed it for me. In Seven Noble Knights, my heroes are unhorsed and overwhelmed, faced with markedly similar scenes to this one, and you're still rooting for them against these incredible odds.

When Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton meet the day before the battle, I thought I was watching a scene from later in Seven Noble Knights, when Mudarra proposes single combat to decide the battle. This is something nice guys proposed in the Middle Ages to spare lives and resources. Again here, GoT doesn't follow the plot of my book, and Iwan Rheon doesn't look like my bad guy, Ruy Blásquez, either.

But wow, the good guy side of the aisle was insanely similar to what I had imagined. I don't know if I can explain what it feels like to have something you've written acted out on film, even unintentionally. In this case it was immensely exciting and satisfying, with a little bit of disconcerting because I know no one on the GoT staff has read Seven Noble Knights.

Let's hope this isn't the closest scrape Seven Noble Knights has with the moving pictures medium.

I'll be putting excerpts from Seven Noble Knights at the link as soon as I receive my galley proofs (yes, it's at that exciting stage!). You may see a battle scene that looks a little familiar if you're a GoT fan.

A few days remain in the Goodreads giveaway of two signed copies of Awash in Talent. Enter for your chance today!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Awash in Talent

by Jessica Knauss

Giveaway ends June 30, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway