I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting this blog since July. Let’s just blame Mr Foo the Lovable Pixie for that and move on. Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s writing:
“I have knowledge you need. You have knowledge I need. Truce?”
“I have knowledge you need, and water you need, and a vrykol to carry you out of here before you cut your bare feet to ribbons,” she said unimpressed. “What you seem to have on offer is a con job.”
Rafe considered trying to look small and cute and nonthreatening: but when faced with small cute nonthreatening things, this woman probably broke their necks and fed them to the xenoraptor. “You have such limited horizons.”
Kallisty looked at the sky in eloquent rebuttal. The sun was still very low against the horizon, turning the undersides of the feathery clouds to lemon and lavender. “You think?”
“I think you’re proving my point for me. What have you got here? One planet? Planet and a station? Maybe a solannaformed moon?”
She almost rolled over backwards laughing. Her hat fell off into the dust. He couldn’t help noticing, as the cavalry skirt flew up, that she had a very nice backside. “Rafe-la, I have the vrykol I rode in on, a few scraps of salvage, a pile of debts waiting on collection when I get back to Rivantia, and you. And you ask me whether I just own the whole planet, or maybe the moon as well?”
He snapped his fingers again. “I don’t mean you personally. Well, I could mean you personally, but not yet. You’d have to work for it.”
“Stop doing that, it’s really annoying.”
“So is you smelling like lizards. And the snorting noises you make when you laugh. And the weird colour of your hair.”
“What do you care? You’re not one of my husbands.” She put the hat back on.
She had husbands? He put the thought aside.
“I have seen the sun rise on…” He counted on his fingers. “Solanna.” Solanna always came first, if you were KinHarzin. If you were FSSI too, it was just that the KinHarzin were more honest about it. “Venture. Shimulenga. Admittedly, those two are moons orbiting a gas giant, so what you see rising isn’t generally the sun, but my point still stands. Durrell. Ixion. Herakleion. Fourier-Cabot. Innisfree. And several times daily on Lagedor Station. You have limited horizons.”
Ankaret Wells 
Yay, Kallisty excerpt!
Kallisty has someone to bounce insults off, and suddenly my writing-fu is back!
Excellent news 😀 How’s ‘Firebrand’ going BTW? I may be able to offer my services as an extra beta reader in a few weeks if you have use for me…
Thank you! I’m waiting for two of the betas to get back to me at present, and then I’ll do final edits and design the back cover.
Marvellous 🙂
I don’t think I’ve told you how much I enjoyed the first two Requite books that I read.
Very enjoyable and a bit of a first for me, or rather several firsts.
It’s the first time I’ve bought a self-published book on Amazon on the grounds that people I know seemed to like it and for a few quid it’s worth a punt.
It’s also the first time I’ve read a book that might be described as romantic fiction. Which was interesting. I’ve read quite a lot of fantasy and loads of science fiction so I mainly knew where I was with the tropes but the themes of a romantic novel were strange and unusual and I really enjoyed the new experience.
Looking forward to the next book.
Thanks! It’s always interesting dipping your toes in a new genre.