When Natasha and I spoke about her doing a guest blog entry on my blog I was very excited to have her voice speak through this conduit. She’s always been energetic and thoughtful about her approach to writing in the year I have known her. She has a video series on Youtube as well as your usual social media outlets. I suggest you follow her because she is bursting with ideas, and enthusiasm, which can be quite contagious.
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Why the Literary World Needs Fantasy
By Natasha Lane
It’s no secret that when it comes to writing being considered literature, fantasy gets a swift kick in the head. Often so far stretched from reality, many snobs out there don’t consider any fantasy novel worthy of being called literature. “Lord of the Rings” is one of the most renowned book series in the world, some would even say it set the foundation for epic fantasy adventure, yet there are still those who would never equate it to works like “Pride & Prejudice” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Continue reading →
I have been writing micro-stories that are based on images I find in my feed. So far Faerie Magazine has been the source, but I see many things on a daily basis that get me inspired. Here are a couple of micro-fairy tales. Perhaps they are just a nip of something much bigger. You never know. I post them on my Facebook page, so if you wish to catch them, that’s the best place to do it. I can’t promise they will always end up here. PLUS, at the FB page you can click all those little links and learn about the models and the photographers and stuff. Which you TOTES wanna do! 🙂
This is the second of four videos of Erica Smith and Will Hardy reading excerpts from Red August.
In this chapter, titled Talking to Strangers, August/Red is working at an apothecary in town, of which “Wolf” is a customer. He enters the shop and August hides when she sees him. This is their second encounter, the first being on Halloween night the year before. That night August immediately felt attracted to her new neighbor, but he wouldn’t give her his name. He didn’t even shake her hand when she tried to introduce herself, telling her they couldn’t be friends in such a small town.
You can watch the first video in my previous post, or go to YouTube HERE.
What if you found out that you were descended from a long line of clandestine fighters, and that your family was still at war? Or that the love of your life was something other than human? August Archer thinks she’s a normal teenage girl—even though she has been having disturbing and erotic dreams about wolves lately. Still grieving over the loss of her bookish, charming father, and wondering over his final gift of a red hooded cloak, August is uprooted from her New York City apartment to a tiny town in Maryland, and the rambling Victorian house where he grew up. There she meets a wise woman with a gift for herbal medicine, the gentle old man who keeps the house in repair and the grounds thriving, and her new neighbor: an enigmatic, irresistibly fascinating man who refuses to talk to her, yet who seems to know her better than she knows herself, and fuels her most intense romantic fantasies. But it’s when August begins to coax her feisty Scottish grandmother out of her self-imposed catatonia that a strange tale of werewolves and hunters emerges—one in which the man of her dreams may be her family’s oldest enemy—in this modern-day telling of the Red Riding Hood story.
There was a reading of Red August at Scarborough Fair Bed & Breakfast in Baltimore this past Saturday. Actors Erica Smith and Will Hardy read excerpts from the book and we enjoyed warm cider with a tiny audience.
This particular excerpt is one of about four I will post.
The excerpts I chose include those where August and Faolan have interaction. I came to realize that the excerpts may give the impression that the book is straight romance, but it’s a fairy tale adaption of Red Riding Hood set in 1980s small town Maryland.
Find out where to buy Red August by visiting HLBrooks.com.
VIDEO INFO
This is an excerpt from the book Red August, by H.L. Brooks – read by actors Erica Smith and Will Hardy. It is available at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Nobel and iBooks, among other places. Links can be found at http://www.hlbrooks.com
In this scene Red and her handsome neighbor meet for the first time. She is new to town. She’s had a rough several months, including having been assaulted by somebody, which she is trying to heal from. On this night she watches something kind of naughty on TV and falls asleep and wakes up restless in the middle of the night, so goes for a walk along her property.
This reading took place at Scarborough Fair Bed & Breakfast in Baltimore, Maryland.
*This is an abridged version meant to be read out loud.
Book Synopsis
What if you found out that you were descended from a long line of clandestine fighters, and that your family was still at war? Or that the love of your life was something other than human? August Archer thinks she’s a normal teenage girl—even though she has been having disturbing and erotic dreams about wolves lately. Still grieving over the loss of her bookish, charming father, and wondering over his final gift of a red hooded cloak, August is uprooted from her New York City apartment to a tiny town in Maryland, and the rambling Victorian house where he grew up. There she meets a wise woman with a gift for herbal medicine, the gentle old man who keeps the house in repair and the grounds thriving, and her new neighbor: an enigmatic, irresistibly fascinating man who refuses to talk to her, yet who seems to know her better than she knows herself, and fuels her most intense romantic fantasies. But it’s when August begins to coax her feisty Scottish grandmother out of her self-imposed catatonia that a strange tale of werewolves and hunters emerges—one in which the man of her dreams may be her family’s oldest enemy—in this modern-day telling of the Red Riding Hood story.
WE DID IT! Between my editor and my proofreaders and many reads and re-reads and re-re-reads (I could do that about ten times and it would be about right), the manuscript for Red August was uploaded to Smashwords. I uploaded a previous copy, but the formatting was a bit off and we hadn’t linked the Table of Contents – SO MANY THINGS – so Will futzed with all that stuff and VOILA, I got it uploaded. And guess what? You can read 1/3 of the book on Smashwords for free RIGHT NOW, before it’s even released on August 19th. You can also pre-order the book through Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBooks.
Yesterday was kind of a magical day. We got up super early (Will got up super early, I got up an hour behind him). By 12:30 the specially formatted for ebook manuscript was uploaded to Smashwords. Then, we got ready to head down to a birthday party for my beautiful, smart and amazing friend Tracy, who lives about an hour south of us. We were a bit late to her party, but we stayed extra late to make up for it. I had SO MUCH FUN. First of all – BOOK UPLOADED without errors. So YAY. THEN I got to see my wonderful friend for her birthday at a lovely bistro with tasty food and wine. During the party one of her friends pulled into the parking lot in a sexy new red Corvette convertible and I started singing “Little Red Corvette” and then I met the woman who owned it and she took me for a drive. WHICH WAS AWESOME. Did I mention that the weather here in Maryland was BEAUTIFUL? Well, it was. It was the kind of day you would order, if you could order weather, for convertible driving. Everybody was sweet to me and I think I made a couple of new friends. AND somebody pre-ordered my book right there in front of me. Then, on the way home we found out that my friend, talented playwright Audrey Cefaly, won a pretty amazing Samuel French contest in New York city with her play The Gulf — which is now going to be PUBLISHED by them! She’s kind of a big deal, y’all! When we got home my favorite parking space was empty at a time it normally wouldn’t be. I was exhausted from not enough sleep all week and all the fun, but I was excited too, so I had a hard time getting to sleep. So what do ya do? You pull up the social media. I looked at Instagram because it’s the social media choice with the least amount of dissonance and nightmare material. And lo, a nice comment from an instagrammer said they were really looking forward to my book. I finally made it to sleep not long after that.
It’s been a busy and fulfilling week. I’m hoping to get things working on Amazon in the next couple of days and I will be able to just focus on marketing and book 2, Red Archer.
In going through twitter and Instagram promoting my version of Little Red Riding Hood, I’ve come across many others. I thought I would do a few blog entries to provide links to them. If ever finish editing my book and have time to READ a book, I’ll have a handy list of Red Riding Hood adaptations. I’m not specifically recommending any of them, I’m just providing the list.
Let’s kick this post off with a link to National Geographic’s article about the varied origins of Little Red Riding Hood.
At the top of the valley, crags and ferns frozen in mist watched as she climbed onto the boulder, an island almost wider than the stream that rushed around it, heading towards the plunge. The boney bottom of a scrawny nine-year-old girl, naked and cold on the slippery surface, she surveyed her surroundings. A surefooted thing, she stood on the ancient thrust and held her arms out, wide, as if to call down the sky. Long stringy wet hair, dark on pale, clinging to her back, snaking under her arms and making squiggles on her shiny damp torso, hugging ribs and looping around birthmarks and flat nipples. She was by herself, but not alone in this place.
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The Writer’s Circle posted a “story starter” (pictured above) and this is what I came up with. I actually want to know more about this girl, even if nobody else does, so maybe I’ll write more later.
H.L. Brooks 