Update: ill!

Hello! I’m ill this week, hoping to be better soon but it’s gonna be a quiet if not silent week blog wise. Having trouble uploading to youtube as well, sods law. There’s a proofreading video intro already filmed, and I’m not sure what might be amusing as videos after that, so feel free to leave suggestions.

 

See you all soon 🙂

 

Book Review: The Axe, The Elf and the Werewolf by Alexa Duir

 

It’s not every day a werewolf gets a call on British Pharmaceuticals.

Sometimes something is just exactly what you need and this was one of those books. I’ve never come across anything quite like it and apparently there are eleven more in the series so I’m excited.

The main character is Isolde Moonfleet, a werewolf alpha lawspeaker AWESOME LADY *be still my bisexual heart* who SOLVES CRIIIMMEEESSSS (and maybe a little bit commits some)(but shhh). The world is unlike any fantasy world I’ve come across: I’m struggling to articulate what was different here, but I have my suspicions that the author is maybe a bit Pagan. The Axe, the Elf and the Werewolf managed to be a crime thriller whodunnit which also had a nuanced fantasy reality based in Norse and Celtic myth, and had some emotionally challenging relationships and romances going on (TW for anyone sensitive to coercive control in a relationship –  Isolde has a very tricky relationship situation going on which SPOILER is resolved by the end of the book END SPOILER).

I don’t know how to describe this. It will take you places. It will take you for a strange ride through Gloucestershire and Herefordshire with werewolves and selkies and fae and magicians. It will take you so much deeper than most werewolf books, into what people’s hormones smell like, into hidden histories and isolated/oppressed communities and into goddesses and deities and things hidden in paperwork. It makes you ache for a King in the North, something I’ve only ever experienced in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and this was deeper, this sudden longing for something that was totally fantastical. It will make you laugh aloud at the bloody paperwork and the slimy MPs, and snarl at the big companies doing dodgy deals.

You will be punched by reality ( I knew an elm dryad, he died of course. Dutch Elm Disease). You will hurt, but this book is so worth it. I’m excited to see where the series is going, and I have a feeling that the thing that looks like a love triangle is not going to do that…

Rating: read this book. Go and look at the moon and feel a longing.

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Video: Introduction to Tales From Tantamount

Hello! Happy Monday, I hope you’ve survived all the way into the afternoon. Here is video number three, a slightly wittersome introduction to Tales From Tantamount.  Also there’s a lovely skull in the background, isn’t that nice?

I hope you enjoy, catch you later in the week!

Buy Tales From Tantamount: https://tinyurl.com/yxu443k8
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebonnaireMerry
Ko-fi: https://www.ko-fi.com/meredithdebonnaire

Writing Without Time: Indie October Guest Post by Meredith Debonnaire — The Passing Place

This is my guest blog on The Passing Place. It was lovely to be invited to write this, and I had a lot of fun. Check out the other contributors to the Indie October Guest Posts on The Passing Place – they’ve all been really interesting so far!

WRITING WITHOUT TIME: Being a poor indie writer trying to write while juggling with two-and-a-half jobs and the electrified zombie of your social life. I often see advice for writers along the lines of “Write every day” and “set aside two hours every day” and “have a writing room”, and while none of this is […]

via Writing Without Time: Indie October Guest Post by Meredith Debonnaire — The Passing Place

Another Video: The Life and Times of Angel Evans, Introduction and Excerpt

 

I’m having a lot of fun with this video thing! So, please enjoy this short video of me introducing The Life and Times of Angel Evans, reading a short extract from it, and wearing a handmade blanket-cape… I think videos are something I’m going to try to do semi-regularly. I’m enjoying them, and I hope you’re enjoying them too (do let me know!). Plus it makes the blog a bit more lively, doesn’t it?

I’m making an effort to have a subtitle track on my videos so that they’re more accessible, but I’m very new to this so let me know if there are hiccoughs!

Here are the links that I mention in the video:

Jenna Whyte on deviantart.

Read The Life and Times of Angel Evans here. 

Buy me a drink.

Hang out on Twitter.

And that’s it for now – look out for my guest post coming up on the 10th; I shall share it here once it’s out. Next week there’ll be a video talking about Tales From Tantamount, in which there will be a brief update on the sock we saw in the very first video (for those who’ve asked).

Update post – things what I am doing

Good day! Good *checks watch* afternoon. I hope you’re well. Here is a little catch up post of what I’ve been up to.

Reading: Currently I’m reading The Odyssey as translated by Emily Wilson, and The Axe, The Elf and The Werewolf by Alexa Duir. I’m enjoying both, although they are very different. I’ve not read an in-depth Odyssey before (as opposed to the versions that get put in children’s books and what I’ve picked up via being a ready nerd), so this is really interesting. I like the decision to put it into iambic pentameter: if I’m struggling I read it aloud to myself and then suddenly I can feel the rhythm of it all over again, so that’s lovely. I don’t like Odysseus as a person, but it is an exciting story. I’m just over half-way through. The Axe, The Elf and The Werewolf  is an entirely different thing. It’s modern day fantasy as I’ve not seen it before. I’m not entirely sure I’d call it fantasy, simply because it is so rooted in folklore and Paganism. Alexa Duir has created a ripping yarn set in a Britain that has a long history of interactions with the magical. The main character is a werewolf (WOMAN WEREWOLF HAIRY WOMAN WEREWOLF YEEEAASSSSS) who works for an organisation that gives legal advice to magical beings in trouble (among other things). It’s a wonderful mixture of absurd bureaucracy and very grounded fantasy. I especially love how the deities interact with the everyday. There will definitely be a review once I’m done.

Writing: Hahahaha! I’ve had very little time to focus on writing recently. I’m mostly getting poems done rather than anything else (I did write a new one the other day which might come to Piranha Poetry next week). My ongoing story projects are mainly on hiatus while I figure out work, but I’m still planning to do them. I’m struggling with a block on the current one, so I’m taking my own advice and putting it down for a bit.

Proofreading: this is sprouting legs, which is exciting. Obviously I have years of proofreading experience, but that was through a publishing company that I worked for, and then doing pieces primarily for people I knew. It’s lovely to feel that this is growing.

Pondering: Why my back aches.

Listening to: I’m on Of Monsters and Men again, and it’s lovely. They are lovely lovely people.

And that’s it for now, hopefully back soon with some reviews, updates, poetry, etcetera!

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Remember, if you enjoy my content you can always buy me a drink via the internet pixies.

Intro Video

So, I made this video because my Ko-fi page keeps asking me to whenever I visit, and then I thought “well why not?” It’s just a short intro video about me and what I’m doing, and I hope you enjoy it. I had rather a lot of fun typing out the subtitles xD

 

You can always, should you feel the urge, buy me a drink here: