Hello Foxes,
Work continues on the Everfire Operation: Magic School edition illustrations, which range from scenes with multiple characters like Gabby and Donovan jumping off a roof to simple items like a toaster or a cup of coffee. Or a candle.
I’m quite taken with this one. Not sure why. I think because I hadn’t expected to sit down and draw a candle without a reference in the space of 10-15 minutes, but there it is! Sometimes the art just works.
Why is there a candle in Everfire? Well, the chapter title is ‘Talking to Dead People’. I’ll let you infer… or you can back the campaign and read the book to find out!
On the other hand, the pair pictured above are very much alive, waking Gabby up with window maintenance far too early in the morning.
There will be 40 of these sketches included in this edition of Everfire. If you want a copy (it comes personalised!), check out the Kickstarter now.
Of Kings and Fairies is back with more beta readers! Very late in the piece, I know – it should be getting edited this week, and then ARCs should be going out. But writing a better book is more important than meeting arbitrary deadlines, so I’m giving it the time it needs.
The last Cursed Princes book progresses. I’m 40,000 words into a 30,000 word draft (yes, I know) and I have FINALLY cracked the romance. Love it when a story comes together.
Love it more when it happens before I’ve reached and then surpassed the projected word count for the project. But hey, we’re here, and it’s feeling good.
As you know, I write (and read) a range of ‘spice’ levels (for the innocent, ‘spice’ generally refers to sex, particularly in romantasy). Personally, it depends on the story for me. I completely understand that for some people, reading is a fun escape, a break from every day reality where they can shut off their thoughts for a while and relax. We all need those outlets, whether it’s reading simple but action-packed thrillers or uncomplicated spicy romance, watching trashy TV, or blowing up hordes of enemies in video games.
(I usually go for the latter option. The more explodey the projectiles or the bigger the hammer, the better. In gaming, size does matter.)
For me, reading is about engaging more deeply with the world, so I’m not usually looking for escapism in the books I read and therefore write. Physical intimacy, like food and fight scenes, have to earn their place in the story. They aren’t just there for enjoyment. Some stories need sex on the page to make sense, just as some stories need a fight scene or a character inhaling emotional support chocolate.
Three of my Cursed Princes stories have explicit sex scenes, for example. The Virtues of Kings because it’s an arranged marriage, and we all know what happens on the wedding night. Add that the main character, Gabriel, struggles with PTSD and doesn’t want to share his bed (or more specifically, his trauma) with another person, I’d be omitting an important part of the story if I skipped it.
Ridiculous I Love Yous, which you can read in this free romantasy anthology, features a rake who uses his sexuality to win people over and get his way. I initially didn’t have a sex scene between the main character and his love interest, but it felt emotionally wrong to leave that out after the main character had been more physically intimate on the page with someone else for plot reasons.
Finally, Of Kings and Fairies (pre-order now!) features a world-weary prince who desperately needs to learn to relax and let his guard down. Unfortunately his love interest isn’t the loquacious or emotional type, and the only way she knows how to do that is with physical release. In this instance, falling into bed (so to speak; it’s actually a rough tumble on some grass) is what starts their intimate relationship.
The Lightless Prophecy (Darkhaven, Everfire, currently getting special edition treatment on Kickstarter) is a YA series, so it’s low-spice. Since Gabby is in her late teens and has her first serious boyfriend, you can bet she is doing it as the series goes on, but this is a story about magic and the world being wrong and Gabby figuring out who she is in the context of the universe and her entire life. It’s much bigger than any one moment with a cute boy, even if he is the self-proclaimed God of Lightning.
This is not to say that big, important moments don’t happen between the sheets – they absolutely do (insert pun about size if desired). But in Lightless, I want to explore a sense of identity and self-worth that is not tied up with being in a relationship – without removing romance as a core part of the story.
For some people, sex is a crucial part of their identity and self-expression, as it is for Patrice in Ridiculous I Love Yous. For others, it might be fun or it might not even be something they care about, but either way, they’re not having epiphanies while getting naked and sweaty. My intention is to read and write stories that express many different aspects of and views on life.
And sometimes it’s a mood thing. With that in mind, you can find spice levels for all my books on my website. And if that mood is ‘no amorous congress please’, I have a collection for you!
This is a lovely collection of Kickstarter campaigns for books with no on-page sex across a range of genres.
Well, that ended up being quite the discussion! I am curious: do you prefer low-spice or high-spice books, or does it depend on the story? Have you read a book where you felt the depiction of sex was particularly interesting or relevant? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you.
Read and be weird,
Kel
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