Northlight has a new cover!

Northlight

She's a Ranger, a wild and savvy knife-fighter, determined to get help in finding her partner who's lost on the treacherous northern border. He's a scholar who sees visions, eager to escape the confines of city life and the shadow of his charismatic mother. With the assassination of a beloved leader and the city in turmoil, the two have only each other to turn to. What begins as a rescue mission turns deadly as together they unravel the secret that lies beneath Laurea's idyllic surface.

 

 

Reviews:

 "A beautifully constructed fantasy with characters who grow and mature before the reader's eyes and who are engagingly human while being fantastically heroic. Her writing flows and the point of view switches are interesting and exciting. This book is a keeper." Rickey Mallory, Affair de Coeur

 "A style and manner reminiscent of McCaffrey's Crystal Singer series." The Bookwatch

 "An unusual saga that starts slowly but builds to a startling climax." Sherry S. Hoy, Kliatt

 "Solid characters and a well-designed world make for good reading." Philadelphia Press

"The plot moves briskly from crisis in Laureal to capture by the Norther barbarians to discovery of the true meaning of the Northlight of the title, with ample foreshadowing from the mysterious spooky something in the air of the frontier. And the culmination quite satisfactorily evokes the sense of wonder." Tom Easton, Analog

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2czh4mef

Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/3pvx9cp6

Everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/3L7GXb

ARCHIVES Northlight: Evolving a Novel

After I submitted Jaydium, which was to become my first published novel, I began work right away on my next project. Or rather, I took a look at all the ideas and characters which were screaming inside my skull to be made into stories and tried to decide which one would cause me the most anguish if I didn't work on it first. High on my list was to rewrite the last novel I'd written before Jaydium. It had received careful attention, not to mention three single-spaced pages of critical feedback, from the editor who would later buy Jaydium.

I felt that if an editor had taken that much time and trouble with the book, there was something of value, something that perhaps I was now a good enough writer to bring out fully.

The book's working title was Weiremaster, and it was based on the world of my very first professional short story, "Imperatrix", which appeared in the debut Sword & Sorceress anthology. Weires are bipedal ape-like creatures, seven-feet tall, fanged, silver-furred, immensely powerful and receptively telepathic. In the world of "Imperatrix," they obey people of imperial blood. For the purposes of that short story, no further explanation was needed.

Now, years later, my world-building had matured. I wanted to know how these creatures had come into a human world, how the control worked, and how the dynastic characteristic had been established. I concocted an adventure which would lead my hero into the world of the Weires and back home again, changed. He would carry me -- and the reader -- along with him, a classical hero-quest. 

Story Excerpt Sunday: NORTHLIGHT

Read an excerpt from my novel Northlight on Book View Cafe's blog.

(The horse on the cover is Judith Tarr's mare, Tia.)

I Can Haz Bragtiime Now?

Over on The Book Smugglers, Andrea K. Host offers a grand and rich list of women writers of science fiction and fantasy. And she included me!


Here's what she says about my work:

Under the name Deborah Wheeler there are two science fiction novels: Jaydium (combining time travel and possibility) and the planetary adventure Northlight (where aranger in exile tries to track down a lost friend and discovers layers of conspiracy).

As Deborah J Ross, along with a number of books in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover world, the author has recently embarked on a grandly epic fantasy series revolving around a broken shield that is the key to keeping the whole world in one piece.

I am majorly stoked.

Audiobooks!

Jaydium is now available as an unabridged audiobook, narrated by Molly Elston.

Amazon.com

Audible.com




The audiobook version of Northlight will be released November 4, 2013.

Azkhantian Tales is in the works.

Marion on THE SHATTERED CHAIN ending

Recently, someone asked me why Northlight ended as it does with regard to the relationship between Terris and Kardith. The reader felt confused about the reciprocality of feeling and whether they were ever going to get together. I answered that it's a measure of the respect and care they have for one another that they don't jump into a stereotyped "happy ending." Each still has growing and healing to do. The story gets these characters to the place where they can make those choices, where their futures are not longer enslaved to the past. To me, this is what makes Northlight a love story: love heals us. Love helps us grow.

The reader reaction reminded me of something Marion told me about how some readers were upset at the ending of The Shattered Chain (Jaelle choosing Peter Haldane). They felt angry, their expectations betrayed. I think that no matter how a writer puts together the pieces of a non-stereotyped ending, people will read through the lens of their own experiences and agendas. Marion wrote in a letter in 1980:

My own feeling about the "unsatisfactory" ending of SHATTERED CHAIN was that Jaelle, being brought up to age 11 or 12 in the Dry Towns (and sexuality is perfectly ell established by five or six, most psychologists now feel) would be pushover for any man who resembled her loved/hated cousin but was not overtly exploitive.

Ebook giveaway reminder...

Jaydium and Northlight in one omnibus edition, multi-format DRM free, my birthday gift to you!* Click on over to Book View Cafe here and grab yours TODAY ONLY!

A gorgeous and extravagant bouquet of flowers arrived yesterday from a dear friend in Venice (Italy, not California!) so I've had a running start on local celebration. I'm jellyfishing through the morning, getting ready for a nice slow yoga practice and then Mozart and Marion (aka work on The Children of Kings).



*And if you enjoy them, the best way to say thank you is to post a review. Just be sure it's for the ebook edition and not the old print one.

Northlight reviews on LibraryThing

The ebook edition of Northlight was sent out to LibraryThing Early Reviews and got some lovely responses. Since they got linked to the old print version, I'm offering a few excerpts (it's also a great way to turbo-charge my writing day). I've left out the parts that describe the actual story, but you can read them as well as the complete reviews, and others I didn't quote from, here.