Month: February 2022

Music Monday: Man With The Wolf Hood

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Welcome to another Music Monday. This week’s track is from the AC III expansion, The Tyranny of King Washington and is by Lorne Balfe.

Lorne Balfe was the second AC composer I was introduced to, by virtue of his having worked with Jesper Kyd on the AC: Revelations soundtrack, and while he’s perhaps not in my top three composers, he is someone whose music I generally enjoy.

This particular piece is, perhaps, a more traditionally orchestral piece than a lot of what I’ve so far referenced for Valkyrie, but it seemed to fit what I was writing towards the end of the book. It starts with percussion and bass, builds up a layer of brass, then woodwind and finally the main strings in a great cressendo before dying back to the bass and percussion to finish.

It feels like a musical crowning moment of awesome – which is what I hope the climax of Valkyrie is, both for Kari and for you, as the reader.

The Elsehere Soundtrack on Spotify has been updated to add this in.

That’s all for now. Happy reading and listening!

Music Monday: Byzantium

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Another Music Monday, another piece by Jesper Kyd, this one coming from the AC: Revelations soundtrack.

This is easily one of my favourite tracks from the Revelations soundtrack. The melody is picked out in various ways, from plucked strings to played on the cello to a layered mix of vocal and strings and it ebbs and flows like the tides around the Hellespont, a fact that’s emphasised with some in clever percussion. It’s quiet and contemplative, but it’s also complex enough to listen to over and over and still find new bits.

Within Valkyrie it represents the calm after the storm in young!Kari’s journey. Time to think and learn and recover…if she can.

The Elsehere Soundtrack on Spotify has been updated to add this in.

That’s all for now. Happy reading and listening!

Friday Fiction – On The Marshes

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I was all set to post it on Thursday evening, but I ended up travelling for my trip a day early (to beat Storm Eunice) and then I ended up spending a second night away because I couldn’t get home again (because Storm Eunice). So what should have been a day trip turned into an impromptue couple of days away. They ended up being very good days away (hint: this means I’ve got at least one story idea out of it!) but…

So to this month’s Friday Fiction. On The Marshes is another piece of high fantasy and another prologue/beginning. Unlike last month’s piece, though, I do know what this was originally written for! On the Project Notes page the last project mentioned is Mirna, and this little scene is one of my character sketches for that project. It probably won’t be a part of the final project, but it’s important background.

Read On The Marshes

Happy Reading 🙂

Music Monday: Raids of Rage

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This week’s Music Monday is the last track from the AC: Valhalla soundtrack that I’m going to mention and it’s by Sarah Schachner.

This is track has a big sound for such a short piece. The first half is a bombastic charge built up with percussion, horns and cheers. It’s vikings unleashed in an unstoppable wave. The second half is what happens when the unstoppable charge hits the immovable object. One of them has to give way, but the long, single chords of this section don’t give away which one it will be.

For young!Kari she’s now in the eye of her storm. All she can do is go forwards and see where that will lead…

The Elsehere Soundtrack on Spotify has been updated to add this in.

That’s all for now. Happy reading and listening!

February Progress Update

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It’s been a busy few weeks in these parts, one way or another. A lot of it’s been real life stuff that I either can’t talk about or would bore you to tears, but there’s also been a lot of writing and plotting going on too, so an update seems like a good idea.

Cambiante – I’m happy to report that editing is almost finished, so I should be on target for getting this published in April. I do still have to have a conversation about a cover, so no absolutely firm date yet, but I should know more soon.

Mistika – this is now fairly well plotted and I’ve started drafting one or two of the scenes. I’m not as far along with this as I’d hoped to be, but now that the real life stuff is largely over, that will change and probably change quite rapidly. Something else that may very well change is the title. With the redone plot, this is less and less of an appropriate title, so, watch this space!

Book 6 – the book still in search of a title (!), this is another reason Mistika’s a little stalled as I had a sudden burst of inspiration for an early section of this one and promptly wrote a 2.5k scene! I’m not anticipating doing much more with it for now…but if similar inspiration hits I’ll make use of it.

Friday Fiction – I’ve got pieces written for this month (due to go up on the 18th, but it may go up early on account of me being in London on the 18th!), March and April. This is scarily organised!

Music Mondays – there are a handful more of these for Valkyrie, which will go up over the next few weeks (hopefully without any more random glitches or weirdness) and then they go on hiatus until Cambiante comes out.

New Book Alert! The first book in the excellent Fae-Touched Chronicles, Seer’s Choice, is out on the 22nd February. Written by a couple of friends of mine, it has a little of everything: action, adventure, romance and an intriguing mystery. Preorders are available now from all your favourite eBook stores. Take a look!

Lastly, I’ve done a few updates and housekeeping bits on the site, including adding Sage to the list of up-coming releases.

And I think that’s it.

Happy reading 🙂

Music Monday: Rued vs Oswald

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Welcome to another Music Monday post, and another step in young!Kari’s journey.

By Jesper Kyd, this is another minimalist piece. The drums beat an ominious rhythm while a female vocal sings the melody over the top. I love the simplicity of it and the way it builds up the tension and then just…stops to leave you wondering what happens next.

For young!Kari, this is the point in her journey where she has a choice to make: fight or flight? The decision she makes will have consequences, but she has just a few brief seconds to consider…

The Elsehere Soundtrack on Spotify has been updated to add this in.

That’s all for now. Happy reading and listening!