It’s Monday. How did this happen?
Most of the renovation is over. We have some shelves that need to be put up, and the front of the house needs stucco repaired and a new coat of paint, but mostly we are done. I’m waiting for it to sink in, so I can exit the crisis mode of the last 4 weeks, but it’s not happening. I’m like a runner who ran a long race and now can’t cope with not running.
I know that the level of stress is pretty high, because I’m watching a really fun Chinese drama, and I became abnormally anxious over the main character’s love life. There are complicated political machinations happening that should be paid attention to, and I’m going, “Can we please break this engagement with A’yao, because he is a Golden Retriever puppy and this is bad for my mental health?” This right here is why romance as a genre requires an HEA. Because sometimes it’s therapy, and knowing everything will be okay helps you through the angst.
It’s a good show, though. I’m not fast forwarding it. A lot of times I watch dramas like this:
Second lead: blah blah blah.
Me: fast forward to the end of the scene.
Kid 1: Mom, why are you doing that?
Me: Because this will be a bonding moment where he will recount childhood trauma, and I’m not invested in his relationship with this side character. They will create sympathy for him here, and then switch to the main lead being a jerk, so they can juggle the tension. See?
Pausing drama in the middle of the flashback and then moving to the next scene, where the main lead is being a jerk.
Sometimes it’s really predictable, like Remarriage and Desires on Netflix. It was so cyclical: heroine scores a small victory, antagonist woman beats her down, heroine comes back, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. You could literally skip big chunks of it and it wouldn’t affect the overall plot any. This device works well but not 10 times in a row.
I still have an episode of Alchemy of Souls left, hehehe.
In better news, I’m can finally clean the house. There was no point before because half of it was covered in plastic. I bought cute little wooden soap dishes, because Gordon likes Irish Spring soap, so I put them in the bathroom and went to get a new bar for him. I open the cabinet and grab the first box I see. Empty.
Second box.
Empty.
Third box.
8 boxes. I open that cabinet daily, and I never noticed them before. Why? How? Who knows.
We are going to try to speed up on Sweep of the Heart for the next couple of weeks now that the renovations are over and we can work from the office. Neither of us felt comfortable leaving renovation crew unsupervised – specifically the painter crew, who kept trying to kill themselves – and now that they are out, we can go back to normal. So to knock out a few things before I disappear and leave the blog on Mod R’s capable hands.
Sweep of the Heart.
Mod R told me that there was some misunderstanding. We are not hoarding Sweep of the Heart and dolling it out in small chunks. We start writing on Monday, and you get whatever we wrote on Friday. Sometimes it goes through proofread, sometimes it doesn’t. We prioritize meeting the Friday deadline. ::smiley face:: So right now you have everything we have.
Sweep of the Heart: release date
Sweep of the Heart will be edited and revised before being released. Right now we are not anticipating major changes and are planning on late fall for the release date. It will be up on the release page once the manuscript is finished and we know for sure we have met our internal deadline.
Yes, there will be regular audio. We are going with Dina from GA adaptations for the reader. Don’t know about Graphic Audio adaptation yet, but it is likely. If it happens, it will be some months away.
Also there will be more from Graphic Audio in the near future. And that is all I can say at this point.
Chat with Grace and Patrick Draven
Tuesday zoom, 7 pm EST, sponsored by Ashland Public Library. More information here, including how to sign up- there are still spaces left. It will also be recorded and posted on the Ashland Library YouTube channel. Signed copies of Grace’s work and ours are available from Blue Willow. By the way, they still have copies of Jeaniene Frost’s Bones retelling. This is a great chance to snag a signed book if you want one.
Mystery Images on Instagram
More on that next month. Not too long now.
PS from Mod R: Here is Ilona’s Instagram account with the images in question- no worries, when the news comes it will be for everyone not just on Insta!
Fights and Battles
How do we select which battles to show? Fights and battles, when written down, are not that exciting unless there is a strong emotional component. They are similar to sex scenes – unless you are invested in the characters’ feelings, the sex scenes can become boring. Fight scenes are the same. She lunged, he parried, she shied from his blade, blah blah blah. The key to making it interesting is high stakes.
When Maud fought Lady Illemina, the stakes were sky high. Her future literally hung in the balance, suspended on the edge of her sword, because if her future mother-in-law viewed her with contempt, her life with House Krahr would be much harder. There was pride there, and survival, and so many things.
By contrast, Bestata and Karat sparring, the stakes are very small. Even if Karat lost that practice bout, nobody would really care. Had Bestata been some mortal enemy against whom Karat struggled for the whole story, we would’ve shown the fight in technicolor detail. Same with the space pirate. The fight wasn’t really important; the fact that he was dead by the end of it was, because the audience wasn’t that invested in the pirate himself. They mostly wanted the Special Snowflake to get her comeuppance for being a back stabber.
Okay, I think I covered most of it. I will see you Tuesday at zoom, and if not, then Friday, when the next chunk will be up.
I am happy for the people who love Graphic Audio that there will be more releases in that format, but I am THRILLED that there is still going to be regular audio!
I love audiobooks, it is my very favorite way to enjoy books since I get so much more time to listen than I do to actually read, but I want EVERY word the author wrote. The fact that GA is abridged (since some of it is acted out and they don’t feel the actual description is required) really makes me hate that format.
I have tried to love it. Eileen Wilks Lupi series is a favorite of mine and I got a bunch of them in GA form as a gift. I didn’t even make it all the way through the first book.
Please, please, please keep giving us “regular” audio, too, with all your books!
By the way, I had to stop myself from buying the Innkeeper books in GA form even knowing that I hate it. It just feel wrong to have something House Andrews sold that I don’t buy!
🙂
There are no plans to stop the “traditional” audiobooks as part of a book release 🙂
THANK YOU!
Haven’t heard much lately from the Mowing Mafia. Maybe they’re holding the Irish Spring as a hostage.
Your bit about fast-forwarding the shows is why I could never get into soap operas. You didn’t need to watch the M-Th episodes because the Friday episode always recapped everything and left with a cliffhanger. At least, that was how it seemed to me years ago.
I’ve been thinking about your feelings during the Chinese TV dramas and remembered this :
Eucatastrophe.
That’s a term invented by Tolkien, the crash of good fortune. He called it
the consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale — or otherworld — setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
The end of The Return of the King is a series of eucatastrophes.
Wow, I had never heard of “eucatastrophe” before, that is very cool, thanks!
When I saw all those Irish Spring boxes, I thought you must have hung the soap in the bushes to deter deer. Given your herd (hoard?) of deer, this made a lot of sense to me. But “un-awayed” empty boxes makes sense too, if one of your household is away-impaired (one of mine is).
“More from graphic audio”…I’m trying to control myself…but I’m hoping for KD…trying to control myself with the hoping…I’d accept hidden legacy too…but KD is like my security blanket series. I need it!!!
Congrats on the Reno being finished!! Looks like exciting things are ahead!
More Graphic Audio? Kate? Hugh? The Baylors? New stuff??? Yes please!
Glad to hear the renovations finally ended without death or or dismemberment.
I am very interested in beta reading Sweep of the Heart if there’s a need! (I beta read Sweep of the Blade for HA. I think I filled the niche of “very familiar with the series but hadn’t read the serialization,” since I prefer to read things in one big chunk.)
I love the graphic audio I just love it and anxiously await the next installment and any more
Same thought for A’Yao; he is just too naive for Naio Naio, who needs someone strong, quick and clever like she is. Her mom is really ticking me off…
I love the graphic audio. Happy to buy whatever is produced. I like how when they are far away they sound far away and somehow the humour comes through better which makes it that little bit more enjoyable for me. It just brings each character to life so well.
I admit I’d rather a Kate Daniels than a Hidden Legacy graphic audio but that’s just personal preference for the series I enjoyed more. (Blood Heir would be amazing though. Derek has always been my fav character).
I’m also enjoying Love Like the Galaxy and find it interesting to watch Asian dramas and see such a different culture to mine play out, particularly the wuxia/historical dramas like LLTG.
When we were given the potential partners I couldn’t help having an interest in Nycati as he reminds me of the merfolk in Mirror: Twin Cities animae (was that partly your inspiration..?).
As I know from previous posts, you also watch animae/donghua and Asian dramas, I have often wondered if you draw any inspiration for your battle/fight scenes from these types of dramas. The vampire knights for example have always reminded me of a character that could easily exist in a wuxia drama.
Congratulations on the paint crew’s survival!
Alchemy of Souls is fun in how it goes about things. Episode 12 is so. good.
I’m also enjoying Extraordinary Attorney Woo a lot right now. Hoping it will finish strong for Woo Young Woo.
A great many times, I put the show on 1.5x or 2x playback and that works very well. Wouldn’t have finished Vincenzo without the feature. Fun but meh, the romance in it was annoying.
Thanks for all the updates and glad things are going back to normal!
Very excited about more from GA! A good narrator makes all the difference and you’ve chosen very talented ones (Steve West is one the best IMHO????) but GA adds a different and fun dimension to the story.
I am also waiting for the engagement with A’Yao to end!
Not because I do not like him, because he is a sweet person and helped her with rebuilding the town. But yes, he is not suited to her.
Love Zhou Lusi ????. She is so talented any funny.
Thankyou for the updates. I am eagerly anticipating the “speed up on Sweep of the Heart” and hope that is code for maybe some extra, unexpected instalments. ( Since intermittent reward is a very powerful motivator I foresee the BDH haunting the site! )
Thankyou ModR for the link to the instagram post. I rely on the blog to keep up to date on HA’s news so appreciated the heads up.
Re the audio/ Graphic Audio versions of Sweep of the Heart I am pleased that an audio version is planned and am happy that the lady who played Dina in the GA production is the narrator as she did an excellent job ( though I will always have a soft spot for Renee Raudman and wish she still narrated the Ilona Andrews books).
I enjoy both audiobooks and the Graphic Audio versions : one as another way to enjoy every word of the story while I am doing other things (like household chores) and one as a dramatic presentation of the story. Both have their challenges that are not always overcome IMO.
In an audiobook telling of the story it takes a really talented narrator to capture all the voices successfully but I think we understand this challenge when we listen and forgive any shortcomings.
The challenge for a dramatic presentation is that if the actor chosen for a particular character doesn’t “ match” how the character sounds in our imagination we are less forgiving because we expect the producer to cast voice actors who can capture the characters. I was a bit disappointed in some of the characters in the GA productions e.g Caldenia sounded to me like a slightly dithery old English lady when I expected someone who can inject steel into her voice ( like Helen Mirren or Maggie Smith ). That said I enjoyed the productions overall and look forward to further additions to the Innkeeper GA presentations.
Can we talk about how absolutely COOL the graphic audio adaptations are? I literally hold out hope for every House Andrews book ever being on there.
I am beyond excited that there’s more coming from them. And I’m hoping nobody’s a jerk about Renee not being Dina’s voice for this next installment. The GA voice actor, whose name I’m sorry to say I don’t know, does an awesome job.
Excited for the book form Sweep of the Heart!
Yao is such a puppy dog and the fact that the actor that plays him is actually older than Wu Lei boggles my mind a little.
I haven’t FF either, depending on how it ends Love Like the Galaxy might be my favorite Cdrama of 2022.
I got enough satisfaction knowing the scaled woman cut the pirate into pieces: I saw enough of it. It brought to mind the fight in the giant alabaster swan where Kate cut Hibla into little pieces. It was good. (I am far more bloodthirsty than I used to think.) 🙂
I can commiserate with you on the empty boxes. I will scan my pantry/refrigerator before I go shopping. As I am putting things away, I discover empty boxes of cereal, pasta, frozen waffles, etc. I ask the family, “Why?” Noone ever has a good answer. However, I have to admit that 8 empty boxes of the same thing is a record my family hasn’t come close to achieving. 8 different boxes empty – yes. So, the crown goes to Gordon. Heehee
We don’t know who the culprit is/are ????
It was six-pack beer cartons in my house. “Like the Beer Fairy’s going to fill them back up!” as a friend said. Not happening.
Speakingof of Sweep of the Blade, I am concerned about the Savoks. Are they getting enough exercise and riders? As Maven, does Maud have enough time for them? Will Helen be taught to ride them?
The space pirate DIES?!!
For those of us waiting for the edited release, too many spoilers today.
Might have to give up the blog until book published, too hard to read chat without picking up pivotal plot points.
I am also loving “ Love like a galaxy “. It’s a cute drama.
YES that description about Romance is exactly why I have difficulties with the genre. I often find it boringly predictable, and tend to stay away from “pure” romance, when it’s not combined with something else. Exception: Hidden Legacy for example,
where there is an exciting plot even outside of the romance, and that’s exactly what I need to be invested. *Side note*: Catalina and Alessandro are one of my favourite book couples ever, just love them so much ????
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post. I am just so grateful to get to read snippet weekly. It gives me something pleasant to look forward to each week because dealing with an advanced senile dementia patient who was/ is my mother with sundowners syndrome is ulcerative for me. Thank you.
Love like Galaxy? I am watching, too.
Super late in commenting but I am stoked to note you are watching Love Like the Galaxy! I’ve watched quite a few C-period dramas and it’s one of the best I’ve seen so far! Team Ling Buyi all the way!