Today for #HistFicThursdays, I am delighted to once again be teaming up with The Coffee Pot Book Club , this time to share an excerpt from SP Somtow 's fantastic new book Nero and Sporus ! First of all, let's meet the book... Finally available in one volume! The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow's Literary Titan Award-winning novel about one of ancient history's wildest characters. The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena. Nero and Sporus is available on #KindleUnlimited via this link . And here's an excerpt to whet your appetite: I suppose we were anxious to see who the surprise competitor would be, but no one was as surprise...
It's #HistFicThursdays, and I'm super-excited to be sharing a guest post from Nancy Northcott, as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour. Find out about the pros and cons of writing a series rather than a standalone book, the different genres she's written, and explore the world of The King's Champion. But first, let's meet the book...
Blurb
The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy
A wizard’s misplaced trust
A king wrongly blamed
A bloodline cursed until they clear the king’s name.
Book 3: The King’s Champion
Caught up in the desperate evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France in the summer of 1940, photojournalist Kate Shaw witnesses death and destruction that trigger disturbing visions. She doesn’t believe in magic and tries to pass them off as survivor guilt or an overactive imagination, but the increasingly intense visions force her to accept that she is not only magically Gifted but a seer.
In Dover, she meets her distant cousin Sebastian Mainwaring, Earl of Hawkstowe and an officer in the British Army. He’s also a seer and is desperate to recruit her rare Gift for the war effort. The fall of France leaves Britain standing alone as the full weight of Nazi military might threatens. Kate’s untrained Gift flares out of control, forcing her to accept Sebastian’s help in conquering it as her ethics compel her to use her ability for the cause that is right.
As this fledgling wizard comes into her own, her visions warn of an impending German invasion, Operation Sealion, which British intelligence confirms. At the same time, desire to help Sebastian, who’s doomed by a family curse arising from a centuries-old murder, leads Kate to a shadowy afterworld between life and death and the trapped, fading souls who are the roots of her family’s story. From the bloody battlefields of France to the salons of London, Kate and Sebastian race against time to free his family’s cursed souls and to stop an invasion that could doom the Allied cause.
The King’s Champion concludes Nancy’s Northcott’s exciting Boar King’s Honor Trilogy.
The King's Champion is available on #KindleUnlimited via this universal link.
Guest Post
Writing a Series versus a Standalone Novel
by Nancy Northcott
Both standalone novels and series have their advantages and drawbacks, and the labels are subjective. What may give one writer hives may be jam to another.
Let’s consider standalones first. By definition, such books don’t connect to others. They’re a “one and done” reading experience. Having the story complete in a single volume simplifies the plotting process. The story may still be complex, with an intricate plot and several subplots, but it resolves everything in the end.
I’m guessing one upside for the writer is that while all characters need full development, with layering for the main characters especially, they need only enough to engage readers through one book. A setting generally comes into play only once. If it appears in subsequent books, even with different characters, the books arguably form a series.
Judging by the numbers of standalones available for sale, a lot of authors love swimming in that pool. For me, though, having to start fresh with every book would be a downside. I don’t want to come up with a completely new cast of characters with new challenges in a new setting for every book.
As a reader, I enjoy seeing familiar characters and watching them grow and change. I like going back to familiar settings, too. That’s probably why I read more series than standalones.
As a writer, I enjoy creating that growth, seeding traits and inner conflicts bit by bit and having them become more important as time goes on. So, in the vein of “write what you like to read,” I write series rather than standalones.
My Arachnid Files romantic suspense novellas are structurally a lot like standalones. They feature a new lead couple, as romance readers expect, in each book and often involve new settings. But the stories link through the Arachnid Agency, a multinational covert intelligence and operations organization. The hero or the heroine in each of these books works for the agency. Sometimes they both do.
The Merlin Club historical fantasy novella series, with stories set in different eras and featuring different casts, is also a lot like a bunch of standalones. They connect, though, through the Merlin Club, a group of wizards acting covertly to protect Britain. The novella length, which allows stories to be less complex and involved, makes starting with so much new more palatable for me than it would be for a longer work like a novel.
The Boar King’s Honor trilogy, although it’s obviously a series, also incorporates aspects of standalones. Because its structure is more complex than those of my other books, I’ll get to that in a minute.
My simplest series to write structurally is probably the Outcast Station space opera one I write with Jeanne Adams. It features one location and recurring characters with a limited number stepping to the fore from time to time, so I have to do deep characterization on only a few of the players. The world expands from time to time, but we don’t do that with every book.
The Light Mage Wars paranormal romances, which are set in southern Georgia near the Okefenokee Swamp, are probably the next-simplest ones. They feature a recurring set of characters, one main setting, and an overarching plot. I like laying the groundwork for the group’s interactions, using little bits of information to foreshadow each character’s turn to step forward. Because romance readers expect a new lead couple in each book, I have to go from a fairly basic supporting-actor characterization to a more layered one as a character moves to the fore. The hero or heroine usually comes from the established cast and is paired with a new character who, of course, requires complete characterization.
That brings me back to the Boar King’s Honor trilogy, which probably shares more structurally with the Light Mage Wars than with any of my other series but, as I said also has aspects of a standalone in each book.
As the cover art implies the books are set widely apart in time with the entire trilogy spanning 266 years. Each one has a new cast of characters and a new, high-stakes problem for them to solve. So what makes them a series? They link through one set of recurring characters (ghosts, because even though this is fantasy, I don’t want to write any character living for hundreds of years) and a subplot that runs through the trilogy.
The trilogy was born from my fascination with the controversy surrounding Richard III, particularly with regard to the fates of his nephews, Edward IV’s sons, whom history has labeled the Princes in the Tower. As I read about this mystery, I came to believe King Richard had not killed the boys. So who had? The Duke of Buckingham, who rebelled against Richard III about the time the king’s nephews were last reported seen, looked like a good candidate.
My thinking on this point has since evolved, and I’ve come to believe the boys survived their Uncle Richard. That’s a topic for another time, though.
Anyway, if Buckingham or his agents or, indeed, anyone murdered the king’s nephews and buried them under a staircase (as the traditional account claims agents of King Richard did), how did they manage it without leaving witnesses who would come pouring out of the proverbial woodwork after the king died and the Tudors came to power? The Tower of London was not only a prison but a royal residence, which means there were not only guards and other workers but attendants in the boys’ household.
To answer that question, I created a wizard who was in Buckingham’s retinue and, trusting his liege lord, helped the duke’s agents slip into the Tower, commit two murders, and slip out again without being seen. When the wizard found out what he’d unwittingly abetted, he was torn by guilt. He couldn’t clear King Richard’s name under during the reigns of the Tudors, who blamed him for the boys’ deaths, denied his right to the throne, and generally besmirched his reputation. The wizard became desperate to atone for his actions and for the blame wrongly attached to Richard III. Knowing he wouldn’t live long enough to outlast the Tudor dynasty and fearing his heirs wouldn’t care, the wizard cursed his line so that none of the heirs could rest in life or death until they cleared the king’s name.
The family’s quest to lift the curse runs through the entire trilogy, and it’s that connection that makes it a series. That storyline is a subplot, though, because it doesn’t offer enough conflict or high enough stakes to sustain three novels. So the main plot in each book is a big problem the characters must solve, one that does offer the necessary conflict and stakes.
As I said in the beginning the “series or standalone” choice is largely subjective. I write books with these links because I like picking and choosing from the pool of possible links for each series. Many other authors have an oh, please no! reaction to the very idea. That’s a good thing. Just think how boring our reading choices would be if everyone wrote the same kinds of books.
Now, let's meet the author:
Nancy Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction, fantasy, history, and romance.
Nancy earned her undergraduate degree in history and particularly enjoyed a summer spent studying Tudor and Stuart England at the University of Oxford. She has given presentations on the Wars of the Roses and Richard III to university classes studying Shakespeare’s play about that king. In addition, she has taught college courses on science fiction, fantasy, and society.
The Boar King’s Honor historical fantasy trilogy combines Nancy’s love of history and magic with her interest in Richard III. She also writes traditional romantic suspense, romantic spy adventures, and two other speculative fiction series, the Light Mage Wars paranormal romances and, with Jeanne Adams, the Outcast Station space mystery series.
Thank you so much for hosting Nancy Northcott today, with such a fascinating guest post.
ReplyDeleteCathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club