#AbsolutionNovel excerpt

CHAPTER 8 (excerpt)

Story note: Tulen (POV) is living as a servant in the Impian Palace under the name Sabit. Tengku Nawal has discovered that her father is trying to marry her off to Sultan Mikal and is trying to find a way to get out of it. Magda, her childhood nanny, has been out all morning and has just returned to the palace.

Tengku Nawal is delighted to see Magda. 

“Magda, oh Magda, you have to help me!” she says, almost prancing.

“What is it, sayang?” Magda guides her to sit at the table where I’m laying out the various dishes the kitchen has prepared.

“I’ve been thinking all morning, and Sabit has been a great help,” Magda’s eyebrows shoot up, “but she’s not you, Magda, she doesn’t know anything!” 

“Anything about what?” 

“About how to deal with Ayahanda. You know how to deal with him, don’t you?” she wheedles.

“I don’t—”

“He listens to you. I just need to know what to say to him so that he won’t make me marry the Sultan!”

I have to bite my cheek to prevent myself from laughing at Magda’s incredulous expression.

“But sayang…”

“No, Magda, no buts! I’ve already thought about it all night and all morning and I’ve come to my conclusion. You cannot take Ayahanda’s side in this. He has no right to send me into a marriage I do not want!”

“But it’s the Sultan!”

“I know!” she says, stamping her foot. “But it’s not the Sultan’s request, so it doesn’t matter. It’s Ayahanda’s request.” 

She’s beginning to get annoyed, so I quickly push her attention towards the food. She looks down at the steaming hot rice and the freshly fried fish. She makes a face at the fried kangkung belacan but pulls the bowl of cabbage soup nearer.

“Sayang, your father only wants what’s best for you. This is why he is asking. You will have to get married eventually, and all he wants is to find the best husband for you. One who has the power and ability to take care of you and provide for you.”

“Eventually, Magda, but not yet.” She looks up sharply. “I’m still too young for this and Ayahanda knows that!”

“Many women get married at seventeen. This is just an engagement—you won’t have to marry him immediately.”

Tengku Nawal clicks her tongue in annoyance. “But I don’t want to get engaged! Not yet. I’m supposed to have time to enjoy myself and tour the Sultanate first!”

“Who says you cannot do that when you are engaged or after you are married? All you do is delay the inevitable, sayang. One day you will have to get married and leave home. It may not be to Sultan Mikal, but it will happen unless Kudus Himself wills it otherwise.” 

The hand reaching for the fish stills. 

Magda freezes where she sits. 

A look of glee spreads over Tengku Nawal’s face. “Kudus. That’s the answer.” 

“The answer?” Magda says, trying to recover her composure. “How?”

“A pilgrimage. I should seek the face of Kudus to find out if it is his will for me to marry Sultan Mikal. No matter what the Sultan’s reply is, he can’t stop me from doing that.” She starts stuffing her face with rice and fish, satisfied now that she’s found a solution.

Magda’s face darkens. “Do not take Kudus lightly, Tengku. A pilgrimage is not something you should embark on just on a whim.”

“But it’s the perfect excuse!” Tengku Nawal argues. “I will avail myself to the service of Kudus and by the time I return, whatever urgency Ayahanda has for this match will be over. Then we’ll see if he still wants me to marry the Sultan. Or if the Sultan even wants to marry me. I get to travel, and no silly engagement will be involved!” 

“And what if Kudus answers you?” Magda grips the edge of the table. “What if Kudus Maha Esa decides to call you into His service? What will you do then?” 

Tengku Nawal glares at Magda. I want to send her calming thoughts, but I don’t want to risk something that might change her behaviour too much—not while Magda is observing her so intently. Distracting her now is not going to work, anyway.

“What would Kudus want with me? Don’t be silly, Maggie. You know I don’t believe in your fairy tales. You may go now,” Tengku Nawal says curtly.

Jaw clenched, Magda gets up, gives the princess a deep curtsy, shoots me a warning look, then she backs out of the room.

~

 

I was going to post the excerpts yesterday, but it got a little too long, what with the photos and the video. So you get the excerpt today! 

Get Absolution now!

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Series link: https://amzn.to/3zvgo3e

Get the other books in the series at USD2.99 each as part of our Launch Week Sales!

Amok (Absolution, #1)

The Tale of the Hostage Prince (Absolution, #1.5)

Looking for paperbacks?

We're currently working on getting the books printed, but you can pre-order a paperback directly from Teaspoon Publishing if you're based in Malaysia!

Living elsewhere? Ask for Absolution from your nearest independent bookstore!

#bookreview: Climactic Crisis | C G Penne

Climatic Crisis by C G Penne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Emma's life - and the lives of her extended family - are turned upside down when the weather goes crazy. First, a tsunami hits her home in Cornwall, England while tornadoes strand her husband in New York, USA. Then there are the massive fires in Perth, Australia - raging in the middle of winter - where her twin sister Jen lives. The weird weather extends across the world in the span of a few days, sowing devastation in its wake.

The novel is quite fast-moving and dramatic, with many tense moments as the family tries to find their missing loved ones. It paints a frightening picture of the terrible impacts of climate change - and how ineffective our current governments and politicians are at addressing the issue, especially when they don't see it as urgent.

There's what I would call a 'literary' arc to this novel. It's very focused on the moment (looking for the missing children, surviving the flood and the fire and the waves) and whilst there are little snippets of the bigger picture (exposes by journalists, growing movements to petition the government to deal with climate change in the wake of such drastic weather changes) there isn't really a resolution. The arc is pretty much each new weather event escalating to a bigger tragedy. In fact, the ending felt a little like a cop-out to me.

Interspersed between the events, Penne slows down the pace a little with the introduction of each character. This is good in one sense, because there is such rich detail and attention paid to their backstories and the dynamics of their relationships, yet, on the other hand, the execution is often clumsy leading to just a little too much telling and clumps of info dumps.

Overall, I thought the premise was interesting, but the execution clumsy. A little more editing and polishing would have made it a better read.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the author. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

View all my reviews

#booklaunch #guestpost: How the Dwarf kept his beard: Adapting a Fairytale to a Novel

So today's the release day for C.O. Bonham's new novel, Runaway Lyrics! Before we take a look at the book itself, here's a guest post from Bonham.

How the Dwarf kept his beard: Adapting a Fairytale to a Novel.

By C.O. Bonham

So the story of Snow White and Rose Red is odd. Here’s the TL;DR:

Snow White and her sister Rose Red live in a house in the forest with their mother. They are very sweet, get along well, and are kind to all the forest creatures.

One Winter night, a bear shows up at their house, and they welcome it in and become friends. He stays until summer, then leaves. The girls miss him, so they head out into the woods to find their gentle bear friend.

The girls meet a dwarf whose beard is snagged in a tree/bush/bramble (It varies). Snow cuts his beard free, even though he tells her not to. (I thought she was kind?)

They meet him again, and his beard is tangled in a fishing line. She cuts the beard again. When she could have just cut the line. (She doesn’t care about other people’s wishes much.)

Then he is carried by an Eagle. They throw rocks at it and it drops him. (Don’t they know they could have killed him?)

Anyway, the dwarf is angry and wants to attack them. (Can you blame him?) But the bear saves them and scares/kills (it varies) the dwarf. It’s okay because the dwarf is the villain for not being grateful. The bear turns into a prince and marries Snow White, and he has a brother who marries Rose Red.

Long story short: Snow White is sweet and kind, but she doesn’t respect the dwarf enough to not cut his beard.

So I thought, how can I make her kinder? And it turned into a weird message. She isn’t super sweet or nice to the dwarf. He is wasting their time and it would be so easy to just cut his beard. But she respects his wishes and finds another solution.

The story kind of snowballed from there. There’s a difference between being kind and being polite. Some of the worst serial killers in history had pleasant manners and friendly personalities.

Some of the rudest people can be very kind. Once, I was on the side of the road. Car after car passed me by. Finally, one stopped. The guy got out, asked what was wrong and then fixed the car for me. (The problem was embarrassingly simple, so no, I won’t tell you what it was.) He didn’t introduce himself, didn’t make small talk, just fixed it, waved off my offer of payment, and left.

He was very kind to stop and fix my car, even if others wouldn’t have called him friendly. In fact, a super friendly man might have set off a ton of red flags that would have made me hesitant to accept his help.

So the moral of the story: Kindness is not equal to politeness.

I looked at all the girls’ encounters with the dwarf and came up with new solutions, and I made Snow a little put out to emphasize my point. Then the hard part came. How to make a novel out of this.

I made the Bear prince kind of gender-swapped Snow White with the evil stepmother thing. I wanted a dragon, and I knew I needed to give the younger prince a bigger role. Then I wrote until all these random elements made sense together.

The younger brother got a name and a personality and then his part in the plot just exploded from there. 

The girls’ each got a motivation, and it turns out that their mother had an excellent reason for living out in the middle of nowhere. 

The main prince is still turned into a bear for no good reason. There is never a good reason for turning people into bears. 

I added Steampunk because every story is better with steampunk.

So ends the tale of a problematic fairytale turned steampunk adventure novel. 

Now go forth and be kind. Even if you can’t be polite while doing it.

***

Runaway Lyrics

What one sister has, she must share with the other . . .

Snow loves music. She has spent her entire life learning, new instruments and memorizing new pieces, only to while away her life in a country manor with only her mother and twin sister as company. If only she could get out on her own and play in front of a real audience.

Rose loves magic. The things she can do with music would amaze her twin sister, but whenever she shows her, Snow quickly forgets as if the event had never happened. If only Rose could get out on her own and work some real magic.

When an airship crashes near their home Snow’s magical abilities awaken. Together the sisters must learn to use their magic, rescue a pair of cursed princes, and discover their own secrets.

Discover the magic of music in this retelling of Snow White and Rose Red.

BUY NOW!

Add on Goodreads

***

Author Bio:

C.O. Bonham is the pen name for a commonly misspelled first name. She loves stories of all kinds, but really likes the ones that are weird, and outside the norm. A certified book geek, when she isn’t writing stories of her own, she is busy reading stories by others. A homeschool graduate with a degree in creative writing, her goal is to create stories that make people think, feel, and have fun. 

Visit www.cobonham.com to read author interviews, book reviews, and to hear about what she’s working on next. 

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Kindle for PC: Finding your notes file

I'm blogging this mainly because I spent hours trying to export my highlights/notes from an ARC (Advanced Reader's Copy) of Juma's Rain. The only thing you can find online is how to export notes from a Kindle reader (and usually a store-bought book) to a PC but not from a PC to... well, PC.

So basically I had two problems:
1. I was reading an ARC, therefore it was not an Amazon book (at least not yet - it releases next week), and therefore did not appear in my online highlights file.
2. I made my notes on the Kindle for PC, therefore in no universe could I "connect my Kindle to the PC via USB and export the myclippings.txt file." Heck I couldn't even find a myclippings file.

Okay, so the trick is this: look for the .mbp file.
I saw this file earlier and ignored it, and when I looked for it again, it wasn't viewable anywhere. Until I had the bright idea to import files into Calibre (I was trying to see if I copied the .mobi file into Calibre, would I see the notes? The answer is: no). It was then that the .mbp file appeared in the import folder, I imported it, and then opened it with notepad.

Note: I played around with the settings in my folders again and now the .mbp files are viewable. I'm not sure what I did; but I must have accidentally hidden the file type. But well, if you can't find them, rest assured, they are there - you just need Calibre to make them visible.

But anyway, if you want to export your notes/highlights from Kindle for PC and all you get are myclippings files, remember this: MBP files.

(Oh the things you can find once you know what to look for)