Tangled Magic

The important thing is that after the usual lengthy waltz (or maybe it’s more of a Lobster Quadrille) with KDP, Tangled Magic is finally live in both ebook and print editions. Yippee!

On the writing front, the good news is that I spent September mostly plotting and not going down the rabbit hole of more research. Although there was that one day when I wanted some quotes from the Psalms to throw into a scene and… spent the entire day reading the Book of Psalms. KJV, natch. The not-so-great news is how fast I get tired and how little time I actually put in on writing. Oh well. I’m more or less ready to hit restart on Untitled. Next month I should have a word count instead a humiliatingly slim record of hours spent hacking at the plot!

But for now, I’ll leave you with a shot from Tangled Magic:

My mother has always preferred not to recognize the Hob. His attachment to our family is not consistent with the high place which she likes to think has always belonged to the Rattrays. Why could we not have a more dignified tutelary spirit, or at least an impressive ghost like those boasted by our neighbors? The Graemes of Kinross had a banqueting hall in which fairy music played at midnight. The Dalkeys could boast of a weeping lady in green who foretold the death of one of the family. Even the MacLeans, those coarse folk who were little better than farmers, were haunted by a headless horseman. But no. The Rattrays had only a little, brown, naked Hob – or so he was reputed to appear by those few who had seen him – who bounced invisibly about the house playing tricks on lazy servants and doing chores for deserving ones, who must have his saucer of milk like a farmhouse cat and who added not one whit to the dignity of the family.

“But, Mama,” I said once when she was bemoaning our lack of connections in the society of the otherworld, “would it not be vastly uncomfortable to have a lady in green perpetually weeping around the house, and vanishing into a cold cloud when one walked through her? Consider how many Rattrays there are in the country, and most of them claiming connections with us. And remember how long it took Great-Uncle Percy to die after he took to his bed saying he would never leave it again? We should seldom enjoy any peace in the house.”

I thought my point a reasonable one, but it earned me only a slap and an injunction not to show off my cleverness by meddling in the affairs of my elders. I took my burning cheek and my sense of grievance off to the Hob, who had ever stood my friend even though he did not permit me to see him. It was then he announced his intention of coming with us to Din Eidyn to see me through the social season.

“You will have little to do there,” said I, still petulant about my mother’s rejection, “for I shall not take part in the Season, not unless Izzie finds someone to marry this time. Mama says that it is entirely too much to expect her to shepherd two little, round, redheaded girls to balls and masques and midnight suppers in the search for husbands.”

“Would it not be more efficient to sell off the two of you at once? Perhaps to the same man?”

“That may do in the land of the heathen Turk,” I said, “but here in Dalriada, for a man to have two wives at once is considered quite ineligible. Besides, I have been a younger sister for twenty years. Even were it possible, I have no wish to continue in my inferior position by becoming a second wife. If you are really my friend, Hob, you will help me get a husband for Izzie. ‘Twould vastly improve Mama’s temper. Until then there is no help for me.”

The Hob left me then, saying that even a brownie could have too much of whining and complaining and that there was clearly no time to lose if I was to be turned into a lady fit for Din Eidyn society by the time my older sister was wed. But he got over his miff in time to accompany us to the capital, and had been a material help in getting Izzie well married – though, of course, she had no notion that she owed anything to the thread magic the Hob had taught me.