When you have the time...

I just want to share this picture I took last month. This place is located on the hiking trail to the Emerald Pools in Zion National Park. The whole hike is beautiful, so if you are in the area or near southern Utah, I recommend you take the time to see it.

re-Awakening

Tonight I am working on the fantasy novel with working title, "The Awakening of Sunatica" and I absolutely love it. It is full of originality and I feel like it has real potential. This story was created by another author who I am co-writing with and this is my first experience as a co-writer.

I find I have less flexibility and often want to bash my head against the wall (as I am sure she does as well), but I am learning a lot from this experience. She has a tenancy to use too much detail, and I know that I often do not use enough detail, but with our different writing styles we are finding a good balance. The benefit of mixing us together is two fold. 1- we are finding a solid middle ground without having much difficulty. 2- I am learning to find that happy medium when it comes to describing things in my own work.

One of the biggest problems is finding times to meet that work with both our busy schedules. We were on a roll last year, but as she moved from NZ to the US in the spring, we sort of lost our momentum. Hopefully we will be getting back on track soon.

Here's to good friends and good stories :)

Review: Flecks of Gold

Flecks of Gold, by Alicia Buck.
****

I picked this book up in a little bookstore located in the authors home town of St.George, Utah. First off, the cover is fantastic. But of course we can't judge a book by that alone. What caught my attention in Flecks of Gold was the interesting and original use of 'lacings' for magic.

In an effort to save her mother, the only family she has, Mary casts a spell she copies from the man who kidnaps her mother. The spell, a lacing of 'threads', sends Mary through a violent tunnel of golden light, taking her from the world we know, to a world where magic is commonplace and electricity is unheard of.

Although Mary copies the lacing well enough to make it to the right world, she arrives nowhere near the same place her mother's kidnapper has escaped to. Luckily she meets up with an attractive young magician who, as Mary finds out later, happens to be next in line for the throne. Breeohan leads Mary to the capital city and teaches her the complicated court etiquette along the way, not to mention saving her neck more than once.

In a society where appearance is everything, Mary's unusual eye color lands her in the royal court under the guise of a foreign princess. But her presence threatens many of the courtiers and there are plenty who would be eager to remove her mask, if given the opportunity.

Having gone to the King for help, Mary inevitably decides the only way she will ever find her mother is if she escapes the watchful eye of the palace and goes on her own, triggering a war between the rightful rulers of Iberloah and those ambitious enough to try to take the kingdom for themselves. Mary's problem is that she, for a reason she couldn't imagine, is the pawn that could put the King in check.

I have to comment that while most of the dialog was fantastic, some of it felt a little awkward, but that's just my opinion. I also noticed a couple of typos in the text. In all, I'd give Flecks of Gold 4/5 stars.

I'm not sure if I have done this book justice, but I enjoyed reading it and I would recommend Flecks of Gold to anyone looking for a good fantasy novel. The book stands on its own but seems open for a sequel which, I haven't heard any word on, but I hope Alicia is considering.

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Current song on iTunes: Daybreak's Bell by L'Arc~en~Ciel

Happy birthday to my brother. I wish I could see you today and I'm sorry that all I could offer was a phone call. One of the downfalls of moving far away, I guess, but hopefully I'll see you next month.