No Nonsense Reviews: The Roman Boy / Wine and Honey by Cally Sharp

Anselm Kahler is sold into slavery to pay off his father's debts.  Scared and helpless at a slave auction in a foreign country, he's bought by easily the most terrifying and imposing man in the whole audience.  But Septimus Tuditanus isn't all he seems, and Anselm now has to learn to navigate Roman society under the tutelage of his new master while avoiding the attentions of Septimus' old enemy--which is easier said than done...

Pros
+ Easy and enjoyable style
+ Great use of present tense
+ Genuinely likeable characters
+ Remarkable sex scenes (very hot)

Cons
- The second book ends quite abruptly

I bought the first book because I follow the author on Twitter and she'd just posted about the second.  It was an enticingly affordable price so I bought it and started reading immediately.

And then I couldn't stop.

I finished it the same day I bought it (it's not a long book) and bought the second one the next day, which I devoured at roughly the same rate.  I was a bit disappointed at the suddenness (in my opinion, obviously) of the ending of the second--especially as the first drew to an end beautifully--but the rest of the book was more than enough to make up for that one niggling issue.

Now I just have to cross my fingers that the author will write a third as I did really fall in love with all the characters--in particular Anselm and Septimus, obviously, and Lyudmila in Wine and Honey too--and would love to see how things progress for them.

• Goodreads page for The Roman Boy

I Appear To Be Doing Camp NaNoWriMo

This has kinda come as a surprise to me.  I saw a post by my friend and co-ML Anika Daniels on Tumblr last night about Camp NaNoWriMo--something I've strenuously avoided doing officially as we as a writing group don't treat it like NaNo proper and I am atrocious with deadlines--and idly posted about whether to do it.

Two responses to the affirmative later (hey, I never said I was popular!) and I'm being swayed.  I really should work on how easily influenced I am.

Normally on the lead-in to a NaNo project I'm scrabbling around like a lunatic, trying to scrape together enough inspiration to keep me going over the month.  More than once I've relied on dreams to give me a last minute plot (neither of which actually made it into the prose).  This time, however...

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm at a loss.  I'm normally struggling for ideas, now they're trying to drown me under a mountain of plot-bunnies.  (They look remarkably like shed dog-hair.)

I have, in no particular order:

1. Prince Til and his dragon/lover, who're still tapping their feet and waiting for me to supply them with an adequate adventure;
2. An unnamed princess and her dragon/lover who turned up and promptly insisted she wasn't going to sit around in her tower for a husband, oh no--she was going to be a knight;
3. A completely out-of-nowhere steampunk AU for Milos and Alex--because one AU is never enough, apparently;
4. Continuing my high fantasy AU from the Ridiculous Challenge (but I usually prefer to start a new project, which is probably why I have so many unfinished ones);
5. Leaping forward nine years in the high fantasy AU and having Alex rescue Milos from his new life;
6. Finally picking up with the real-world stories and starting the new arc that came threatening;
7. Or finally finishing one of the two former arcs that are sitting around waiting to be worked on...

Whatever I do, it'll involve plotting, which comes as a shock.  And I have around a week to decide on story and intended word count and work on it.

Still, I'm anticipating having plenty of time to work on it so with any luck (okay, a lot of luck) and some planning it won't be as disastrous as it currently feels like it might be...

ADDENDUM:  Do any of these look interesting?  I'm more than happy to take suggestions!

Taking The Plunge

I finally did it today.

Nope, not writing (bad of me; I realised with horror that today is the 19th and I don't know where the month has gone) but, instead, registering a domain name.

Yep, today I am the proud owner of www.paxasteriae.co.uk.

It's not much to be joyful over, I know, but that didn't stop me from squealing enthusiastically when I dealt with the DNS settings and finally pointed it to this page--especially when it worked immediately and I didn't need to wait the recommended hour or, worse, a potential 48 of them (according to my domain name provider).

Somehow having an actual domain name makes me feel legitimate--no idea why, I'm anything but--and it's a weird, giddy feeling.  Not just dipping a toe into the water of this name, I've finally just thrown myself in.

And I didn't even have to wait an hour before swimming.

The Plot Bunny Avalanche; I Can't Turn My Back For Five Minutes...

I complained at the start of Alternate Universe Month that I don't normally write high fantasy and that it was, pardon the pun, a bit of a closed world to me.  I'm usually far happier with contemporary fantasy or pretending I know what I'm doing with my sci-fi world.

Honestly, quite recently I'd been struggling for plot.  I've got a few stories in Alex and Milos's contemporary world that need writing (one smut, one small arc that I started and then left hanging for AU Month), and the continuation of AU Month itself--I should've known better than to think I could complete a whole story in a month.  It's not worked for the last ten years of NaNoWriMo, why would it work now?

With these on my mind, I was taken by surprise when my friend and co-ML reblogged a writing prompt on Tumblr and the damn thing started writing itself in my head.  I tried to ignore it, I really did, but the more I ignored it, the more lines spiralled through my mind so in the end I caved in and wrote it.  The prompt was about a dragon rescuing a princess from a knight, but this being me the princess turned into a prince long sick of being called "fair maiden" and the dragon turned into a rather handsome man.  It turned into something quite cute and fluffy and I really enjoyed writing it.  (You can read Rescuing The Princess if you're interested, it's only around 1,500 words.)

And I thought there it'd end.  Cute one-shot fluff.

Except today I find that my prince is leaning on the sill of his window tapping his fingers on the brickwork and giving me this expectant look, while the dragon is apparently engaged in working out whether he can become a dragontaur and they both seem to think that I can provide them with another story.  Which, to my horror, seems to be something my brain is actively working on as we speak.

I went from being distinctly uninspired to having to try to fight off ideas with a pathetic wooden sword--with little success.

All I want to know is: when did my own mind become so rebellious?