What’s your favorite Beach Read?

The other night I took part in an author panel for the ConTinual: the Con that Never Ends Facebook page and the topic was beach reads. Since it seems like we’ll actually be able to go to the beach this summer – even those who don’t live near one because travel is opening back up – I thought it would be fun to share ideas about what makes a good beach read and maybe suggest one or two.

When I say “beach read”, what kind of book do you think of?

Tbh, my own definition is fairly broad: books that have words strung together in sentences. (That’d be all books, lol.) Maybe it comes from having attended the University of Hawaii, where it’s possible I lugged nursing textbooks onto the sand to “study”, but I’ll read just about anything on the beach.

Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Gospels? Yup. Read that one on the beach. I’m weird.

Having done this panel, though, I know some of you have higher standards. The general theme of our discussion was that beach reads should be both low angst and escapist. Fluffy, if you will. Or if not fluffy, at least not so demanding that you can’t put it aside when it’s time to take a dip or to order another one of those little umbrella drinks.

Based on the (highly unscientific) panel, I can confidently say that the best Beach Reads fall into a handful of categories. Ymmv, but here’s what I learned, along with a suggestion or two for each one…

Romance!

My first suggestion in the Romance category is Totally Folked by Penny Reid. She’s a fantastic writer and a very cool person, and while I haven’t read all of her books, this one looks like fun. I’m always here for intelligent characters acting naughty and falling in love. (lol!) Totally Forked doesn’t come out until July 20th, which’ll be great timing for a late summer getaway!

For those of you who like historical romances, I can absolutely recommend The Labours of Lord Perry Cavendish by Joanna Chambers. It’s actually the 4th book in her Winterbourne series, but it’s the first featuring a pair of side characters from the earlier books, so it reads like a stand-alone. If you’re intrigued by the idea of a Regency cinnamon roll hero falling for a fussy artist, this is your book!

Urban fantasy!

Urban fantasy series make good beach reads because they definitely take you to an altered version of reality and they’re spooky but not too scary. Tbh I haven’t stumbled on a new UF series in a while, so I’m going to recommend a classic of the genre. The Hollows series by Kim Harrison features the witch Rachel Morgan and a whole host of other paranormal creatures. The worldbuilding for the series is complex and interesting, and I’m still angry about a certain death which tells you how real these characters are to me. Highly recommend!

And while we’re at it, my fellow Scribe Shauna Granger writes urban fantasy-adjacent stories. Check out her Elemental books or her Matilda Kavanaugh series, because girlfriend knows her way around the paranormal and her books are a whole lot of fun!

Mystery!

Are you into podcasts? One of my favorites is Shedunnit, by Caroline Crampton. She’s a huge fan of Golden Age mysteries, books that were written between WW1 and WW2. (Think Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers and other authors of their era, and you’ll be right on.) The podcast slices and dices all angles of those Golden Age books, and I generally end up hitting Amazon or Powells Books after each episode. (lol!)

Somehow I managed to get to a fairly advanced age before reading my first Lord Peter Wimsey book, and I regret not having started before now! Whose Body is thoroughly entertaining, and an excellent introduction to both the character and to the Golden Age sub-genre. I also really liked Patricia Wentworth’s The Black Cabinet, because her language is so good and the characters are so vibrant. Spend your vacation getting busy with the classics!!

Horror!

Okay, so, is there a better time to read a Stephen King novel about a beach then when you’re actually on a beach? I don’t think so. (lol!) I’m too much of a wimp to read Stephen King any time, anywhere, but for those of you who are braver, Duma Key is an excellent choice…especially if you happen to be on a beach in Florida.

(And fwiw, my fear of SKing stems from having read The Shining while living in a big old house with lots of shadows and creaking floors and whatnot, during November when the sun sets before 5pm. This was in 1980. I promised myself I’d never do that again, and I’ve kept that promise!)

So there you have it! Books I’ve read, books I’m going to read, and books I’m terrified of reading. (lol!) I hope you have plans for a vacation this summer, and even if it’s not on the beach, that you’ll have some time for a relaxing read!

Leave me a comment with your favorite beach read. I’m always up for suggestion!!

And fyi, click HERE to check out the ConTinual Facebook page. There are all kinds of panels and discussions about books & reading, and while our beach reads panel isn’t up yet, there are lots of others worth watching.

The End of an Era: Saying Goodbye to The Hollows

Don’t worry: this little piece of nostalgia will be completely spoiler-free for the last few Rachel Morgan books. I know many of my fellow Scribes read The Hollows series and aren’t caught up yet, and I don’t want to ruin anything for them!

About nine years ago, give or take a few months, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were talking on the phone and he mentioned this book he was reading. “It’s about a witch. She has a pixie for a sidekick and she lives in a church with a vampire. She has a boyfriend who was once a rat, and she accidentally made him her familiar!”

Cue record scratch. Kristin’s ears perk up. “What on earth is this book, and where can I get it?”

Turns out, it was The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison. (Being less obsessive about doing things in order, now-Husband started with the second book. I put in a request at my local library for the first one, Dead Witch Walking.)

At the time, there were only three books out. Can you imagine, Hollows fans? Three books! I fell hard for the first book and ended up buying all three. I spent my summer living and breathing The Hollows. It was a memorable summer, all on its own: my parents had moved to Wisconsin from Texas while I was abroad in Rome, and I was living in a new place, working a new job, dating a new guy, and everything in my life was topsy-turvy.

But reading about Rachel Morgan reminded me of one thing that had always been constant: I wanted to write. Kim Harrison’s books inspired me and reminded me that fantasy, my genre love, could be fresh and exciting. The Hollows were the first books to expose me to urban fantasy, if you don’t count Harry Potter as UF, which no one seems to. Witches in a modern setting, using spells to hide their freckles and bring down the bad guys? GET OUT.

In a small way, my life changed in a very big way from that moment.

Since 2005, I’ve grown and changed a lot, right alongside Rachel. I’ve made some big mistakes (maybe not quite so big as trying to let my best friend drink my blood or pissing off an entire bureaucratic coven of witches), but Rachel and I have both learned to accept our mistakes for the brave, ballsy, greedy-for-life adventures they were. And we’ve both learned that even if our lives don’t look exactly like what we expected, if they’re filled with love and laughter and doing our damnedest, then they are lives absolutely worth having.

This is actually the first series (again, aside from our friend HP) I’ve read from beginning to end, seeing the main character in myself, growing alongside her, swearing when she made the wrong choices and smiling to myself when things finally fell into place for her. I went from being younger than Rachel to being older than Rachel, but my love for her never really changed.

Book 13, The Witch With No Name, came out just a few short weeks ago.  For nine years, I’ve been reading each new installment in the series eagerly, and this would be the last time. I wanted to do it right. I looked up the tour dates and saw that Kim would be in Indianapolis the day after the book came out. I said to now-Husband, “Unless there’s a freaking tornado, we’re going!”

And we did. It was, in fact, a dark and stormy night, but it was a fantastic one all the same. The lovely Kim answered questions, bantered with her husband, and was all around lovely and totally adorable. She signed our books, smiled for pictures, and was exactly what I wanted her to be: my inspiration, still.

I’ll miss Rachel Morgan, yes, but I’ll read Kim’s next series happily, and I’ll treasure The Hollows for being the series that moved me, encouraged me, and reminded me to never stop fighting for what I believe in.

What series have shaped your lives, even in a small way? Have you ever followed a series from beginning to end?

 

Let’s Make Some Magic

Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings. The Belgariad. The Wheel of Time. The Hollows. All of these influential series have something major in common: they take place outside the realm of “normal” human life.

Magic. They’ve got it.

For all of us over here at Spellbound Scribes, magic is an integral part of writing fiction, whether it’s in small doses or large. Here’s how I go about making mine.

Chinese floating lotus lanterns on a pond. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Make Some Rules

Magic could just run around willy-nilly, but it’s kind of hard to write a story when literally ANYTHING could happen with no rhyme or reason to it. What are the basics that form your magical system? Is it earth based? Spirit based? Blood based? How do the practitioners access it? Is it inborn or can it be taught? Does it necessitate ritual or does it come from within a person?

Once you have your groundwork laid, stick with it. Make sure that if your character has to perform a ritual to do something, you don’t just have them poof it into existence later without the chanty-chanty abracadabras.

Another thing to look at here are taboos. Do most practitioners use earth based magic but abhor blood magic? Or the other way around? Taboos and forbidden corners of magic are fun to play with, especially if you can force your protagonist into using something she doesn’t want to touch. A perfect example of this is Rachel Morgan in the Hollows series by Kim Harrison. She starts out a die hard earth witch, but after a couple books, she dabbles in ley lines and then into what is essentially blood magic. Her transition causes her character to seriously question her morality. This sort of thing can be a phenomenal character developer.

Fire Dancing Treasure Island (Photo credit: davidyuweb)

Set Some Limits — Then Push Them

Everything has limits. Your bank account. Your patience. Your ability to tolerate Jersey Shore. Your magical system should have them too.

In David Eddings‘ Belgariad, death is one of those boundaries. The sorcerers in the books can do pretty much anything with the Will and the Word, but they have some limits that draw back on that seemingly endless possibility. One of those is bringing someone back from the dead.

One point they make with that is that if someone’s dead, they’re probably dead for good reason. Like…a sword in their heart sort of reason. Bringing them back won’t heal the wound, and they’ll just die again anyway. What does Eddings do? He pushes Garion to fight this barrier to save the life of a newborn colt.

Eddings is a great example of magical limits, because not only is death a hard limit, but in this world, doing things with sorcery is almost as physically exhausting as doing them the normal way. Find limits for your magical system, then use them to create obstacles for your characters. Magic’s great and all, but it can’t be a cure-all.

As the time goes and our watches sway, the great magic of the urban beauty and nature stays, it observes people and brings magic into our minds! Enjoy!:) (Photo credit: || UggBoy♥UggGirl || PHOTO || WORLD || TRAVEL ||)

Mix Together that Black and White

The most fun thing about getting to write magic is that it opens up a whole other level of allegorical possibility and chances for your characters to explore their morality. Sure, maybe they can get their annoying sister to stop talking just by waving a hand, but should they? Magic is something that can be clearly abused, but sometimes it’s at its most powerful when your character has to abuse it herself — and justify it.

While I’m not a huge fan of the “magic is addictive” trope (and I think fellow Scribe Kristin will agree with me), there are plenty of gray areas to explore with your characters in the magical world you’ve created for them. The best part is that you’re God of your own world, and you get to control what happens.

Kind of like a magical power, isn’t it?

What do you think about when you’re creating your magical systems? What limits do you like to set?

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• Magic Systems (chrismcmahons.wordpress.com)
• Spiritual Magic and the Second Chakra! (empoweringlightworkers.wordpress.com)