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The Kithseeker
France, 1680
Liara's defense of the Wizard Nagarath has rendered Anisthe incantate--bereft of magick--but even this cannot guarantee her safety. Because the death of her father-in-magick would seal the girl's fate, necessity demands she and her wizard maintain a watchful eye on the war mage, while protecting her from his dark designs.
Anisthe has embarked on a journey across Europe, aided by his half-fey manservant with an agenda all his own. They search for a legendary mirror that contains the world's most powerful magick. Although the stuff of fairytales, the possibility of its existence compels Nagarath and Liara to seek the artifact themselves. Both know that should Anisthe lay claim to that power, Liara would be at his mercy and not even Nagarath could save her.
Thus, the pair find themselves at Versailles, surrounded by agents who ferret out magick users and destroy them. Uncertain who is friend and who is foe, with their rival on their heels, they must discover the mirror before Anisthe releases its evil, or worse, it lays claim to Liara's magick and brings doom upon them all.
Liara's defense of the Wizard Nagarath has rendered Anisthe incantate--bereft of magick--but even this cannot guarantee her safety. Because the death of her father-in-magick would seal the girl's fate, necessity demands she and her wizard maintain a watchful eye on the war mage, while protecting her from his dark designs.
Anisthe has embarked on a journey across Europe, aided by his half-fey manservant with an agenda all his own. They search for a legendary mirror that contains the world's most powerful magick. Although the stuff of fairytales, the possibility of its existence compels Nagarath and Liara to seek the artifact themselves. Both know that should Anisthe lay claim to that power, Liara would be at his mercy and not even Nagarath could save her.
Thus, the pair find themselves at Versailles, surrounded by agents who ferret out magick users and destroy them. Uncertain who is friend and who is foe, with their rival on their heels, they must discover the mirror before Anisthe releases its evil, or worse, it lays claim to Liara's magick and brings doom upon them all.
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Author Bio –
M. K. Wiseman has degrees in animation/video and library science – both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today, her office is a clutter of storyboards and half-catalogued collections of too, too many books. (But, really, is there such a thing as too many books?) When she’s not mucking about with stories, she’s off playing brač or lying in a hammock in the backyard of her Cedarburg home that she shares with her endlessly patient husband.
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M. K. Wiseman guest post for Cheekypee reads and reviews
Crossing Into Pain; or, on Writing Things I Hadn’t Planned
I began my writing career by ignoring good advice: “Write what you know.”
Sure, my Bookminder series has origins in librarianship and my Croatian heritage. But that’s safely distanced plot and setting. What about the heart of the book? The characters. The message and meaning. Did I put any of me me into The Bookminder, into The Kithseeker?
Really the question could be rephrased: how did I seek to avoid putting myself into my story? Well, for one, knowing everyone I had ever met in addition to complete strangers might well read my novels, provided a level of intimidation that I had not anticipated. I had fallen into writing from a roundabout way. At the time, I was trying to become a Pixar animator. My plan? Hide behind a computer and conceal my storytelling amongst the crowd. Safety in numbers.
But then the story rose within me, I had a publisher wanting a manuscript, and I could no longer just toss ideas onto a page and strive to make them reasonably entertaining. Careful distance? No more.
This came to me as a complete surprise. And late. It was months into the recording of the audio book for book 1 that I even realized how much of myself had snuck into my characters. I recall very clearly a moment where I sat at the kitchen table with my headphones on, listening to the first pass of The Bookminder’s climax scene and saying to myself as I heard my words thrown back at me in the voice of another human being: “Oh my gosh, that mannerism? That’s all me!” This for the story’s antagonist. I was gutted. What else of myself had I inadvertently given away?
And then came the grind of edits for The Kithseeker, book 2 of the series and necessarily bigger, darker, more intense, than its predecessor. Clued in at last to the lines I had drawn in the sand and how much I had danced all over them and then denied it, I was able to see the “me” in the work.
And I could see where I had held back. In the plot, in the emotional clash of characters, in what I put my wizards through, I could see the underpinnings of What I Knew and how it had tried to get itself into the story in spite of my best efforts. And my editors knew … and called me on it.
In the end? I bled onto the page. (Metaphorically. haha) I forced myself to get off the life raft of plausible deniability and own the prose, own the story and its arc and what it means to me. I’m in it now. And you know what? It’s just as scary as I feared it would be … and infinitely more empowering than I’d ever thought it might.
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