Category Archives: trilogies

Books, trilogies

A Trilogy

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A note from Laura, if you haven’t read The Choice do NOT read this post. Come back when you’re done.

Is THREE books. Three, then done. Over, finished, complete.

The Dragonheart Trilogy. Three books.

I know some readers sincerely feel that asking for more is flattering. It is, it really is. To a point. But there’s been a lot of demanding and haranguing over this one with readers who want, and demand and—sorry, not sorry— whine for more.

(And some do it after EVERY trilogy.)

Why can’t you write all the weddings?????

You know, I gave the reader a big, beautiful wedding, in detail within The Choice. The dress, the vows, the prep, the color, the music. All of it. Not enough, apparently.

Where is Marco’s wedding, where is Breen’s?

Down the road, dear readers. The trilogy ended. Worlds saved, evil defeated, lovers met.

We should’ve seen Sally and Derrick come over.

Down the road again. This is not a story line.

More grieving and a funeral for Sedrick. We did have grieving, but lives are lost in wars. That’s why wars suck out loud. There was no place for more.

We are not going to see Fin bond with his dragon. That was not the story. And the kid’s hardly more than a toddler when the story ends.

We want to see more babies.

 Down. The. Road. This was not the story.

Breen awakened. Breen became. Breen chose.

THAT was the story. Mission accomplished.

I cannot give each individual reader all they want. And I won’t.

I will tell you the story that comes to me, and work hard to make it the best I can. That’s my job. I can’t tie every aspect that every single reader wants up in a bow, and keep going and going. When it’s done, it’s done.

Can’t we just have a fourth book, or a novella, or a short story?

Oh, my Jesus, do you not think, seriously not think, of the time, effort, the work, the creatively involved it that? Like, snap your fingers and give us all what we want? No one can actually believe it works that way.

This will seem harsh to some, and some of you will be pissed at me. I PAY for the books, why can’t she do what I want? Because, dear readers, I write how I write. The story is what it is.

And no, there were no loose ends, I did not leave anyone hanging. Except those who want, want, want, want weddings, babies, intricate word pictures of everything that might happen next.

I worked very hard on this trilogy, I sweated over making it all flow to a natural conclusion. But for some, it’s just never, never, never enough.

I finished The Choice a year ago. I’ve written two In Deaths, a Roberts’s suspense and am working on the first book of a new trilogy. I’m never, never, never going to go back and write weddings and babies for this trilogy.

This is not a book. There is no conflict, internal or external. There are no hills and valleys. There would be just happy, happy, joy, joy. And that’s not how I work.

I loved writing this trilogy, I was totally invested in the characters. But it’s done.

What comes next is up to you.

I’ve been a reader all my life, and never thought of demanding a writer give me more. I want this, this, this. Come on, gimme.

It’s actually astonishing to me that some readers do just that.

I have no obligation to do that, and never will. I HATE some readers are disappointed. But there’s nothing I can or will do about it.

And the next trilogy. THREE books. When it’s done, it’s done. Absolutely no point in demanding more. The Lost Bride Trilogy will be three books. Some will ask for more. I’ll have moved on.

Let me add, please, if you’re going to bring up specifics, spoilers, plot points, you want to comment on, argue about, do it here, and not on Facebook. There are many readers who follow on FB who haven’t read the book or books. Laura is so clear about that, but some ignore it because they’re just unhappy.

I’m also going to add, if it’s not obvious, I’m really tired of some demanding what I can’t give. And begging for what I can’t and won’t give. It’s exhausting.

Nora

Books, Cranky Publicist, Dragon Heart Legacy, trilogies

The Trilogy note

15 Comments

Dear reading pals,

Remember the agonizing days that ensued when you finished the Born in trilogy?  Or the Key Trilogy?  Or The Inn BoonsBoro trilogy?  

Heck, pick any trilogy that you hold dear.  

Remember the book hangover?  The absolute certainty you’d never meet characters as amazing as the Concannons, or the women of Indulgence or the Montgomery Brothers?  That life was bereft of light and laughter now that you didn’t know what would happen in their lives anymore and you were certain Nora NEEDED to provide more?

Even though you could always revisit the books any time you’d like, that first time was finished.  And oh, how it hurts to know you can’t read a book for the first time ever again.

But then…you met the Templetons of the Dream trilogy, the valiant Six of The Circle Trilogy, the amazing cousins of The O’Dwyer Trilogy.  Or you visited Three Sisters Island…the charming village of Ardmore…watched the world rebuild through The One.

Get the pattern?  We all experience deep sadness when we close the final book in a series, sure we’ll never feel that way again.  

And then less than a year later, Nora hands us the first book in a new series.  I know some wait until all three are out, some will read them on publication day, then reread before the next book.  But in the end, all of us will meet a new set of people, even knowing that book hangover awaits at the end of the series.

Isn’t that the reason we all read Nora?  How reliably she gives us new, entertaining adventures that only she knows we need to read? (She wrote about trusting her in a post this fall.)

For nearly a week, I’ve seen a ton of comments wanting –no NEEDING — more of the Dragon Heart Legacy. Dig down, it’s wishing for a little more time with characters before saying goodbye.

If you look at the arc of the three books, Nora finished all she set out to do:  take a woman who has no knowledge of her tremendous potential and lead us to the point when she knows who she is and what she will do with her life.
There has been loss, there has been sadness, but on the whole Breen made her choices and there is happiness ahead. 

Nora took us on that journey and left Breen in a very good place. And we can all use our imagination to think of what happens next.

In my head, I see the comments now:

But Nora wrote a fourth book for The Quinn Brothers!!!  Why yes she did.  She was very upfront that Seth would get a story — after he’d had time to grow up.  So that’s why there’s three years between Inner Harbor (1998) and Chesapeake Blue (2001). Twenty-one years ago.

But Nora wrote four books for The Bride Quartet!!!!  
She had a cast of four characters and took them through a year in the life — New Year’s Day to New Year’s Day.  Quite honestly, my friends, I could hear the wedding fatigue in her voice when she was in the middle of writing Happy Ever After.  Honest to goodness, I experienced ONE real life wedding this year. I’m not sure how she created the details for multiple fictional weddings throughout that series.  So when she wrote The End, she meant it.

But Nora wrote novellas! 
No, she wrote two very short stories for the now defunct Waldenbooks newsletter which you can find here.  The novellas she did write were planned into the writing schedule as a project with friends. And she stopped writing novellas 7 years ago.

Nora of 2022 writes a very different sort of book than the Nora of 2009 who Wedding’d Herself Out writing The Bride Quartet.  She’s creating more complex worlds in her trilogies as well as her stand alones.  Let’s be real here: she writes two In Deaths a year to vacation with Eve and Roarke in a world she already knows.

It’s a huge compliment for readers to want more of characters and the world you create.  Readers have to understand that Nora’s currently deep in the first draft of the first book of the NEXT trilogy and Talamh is firmly in her rearview mirror. It’s been in the rearview mirror since December 2021.

I know a smidgeon of what the next trilogy is about and I think you’ll enjoy it tremendously.  Even as we all know I’ll have to re-post this letter in November 2025 when The Lost Bride Trilogy concludes.

We’ve got a lot more fun ahead of us.  Let’s keep our eyes on that. And enjoy.

Laura

PS. Three posts in a week??? Can the blog be springing back to life? Stay tuned.

Books, Conversation, Dragon Heart Legacy, The Choice, trilogies

The Choice discussion thread

53 Comments

It’s finally here: the conclusion of The Dragon Heart Legacy. And this is the space in which you can discuss all things The Choice freely.

The official description reads:

Breen Siobhan Kelly grew up in the world of Man and was once unaware of her true nature. Now she is in Talamh, trying to heal after a terrible battle and heartbreaking losses. Her grandfather, the dark god Odran, has been defeated in his attempt to rule over Talamh, and over Breen―for now.

With the enemy cast out and the portal sealed, this is a time to rest and to prepare. Breen spreads her wings and realizes a power she’s never experienced before. It’s also a time for celebrations―of her first Christmas in both Talamh and Ireland, of solstice and weddings and births―and daring to find joy again in the wake of sorrow. She rededicates herself to writing her stories, and when his duties as taoiseach permit, she is together with Keegan, who has trained her as a warrior and whom she has grown to love.

It’s Keegan who’s at her side when the enemy’s witches, traitorous and power-mad, appear to her in her sleep, practicing black magick, sacrificing the innocent, and plotting a brutal destruction for Breen. And soon, united with him and with all of Talamh, she will seek out those in desperate need of rescue, and confront the darkness with every weapon she has: her sword, her magicks―and her courage…

Share your thoughts on The Choice in the comments. As always, spoilers will happen, so read the comments at your own risk.

Laura

trilogies, writing

Thankful

179 Comments

I intended to write a blog this weekend about our little Thanksgiving. Well, not little when it came to food—LOTS—but people. Just our little bubble, taking care to be safe, taking care of each other.

And it was lovely.

But some of the comments and responses on The Awakening discussion thread changed things.

I understand, even appreciate the enthusiasm and the impatience for the subsequent books in a series or trilogy. I’ve often felt it myself. There are certainly books I wait anxiously and impatiently for. But as a writer and someone who’s worked with publishers for many years, I understand the process, and the time it takes.

I don’t expect readers to understand that process. Though I’ve felt obliged to explain it as best I can, a number of times because some become angry and accusatory when they don’t get what they want when they want it.

I also don’t expect readers to tell me how to write, how quickly to write (not talking about the ‘Can’t you write faster’ comments which I understand are just enthusiasm) or to pontificate on how publishers need to publish so they, again, get what they want when they want it.

That’s arrogance, that’s misplaced entitlement.

I’m not going to go into all the steps and stages of what goes into turning a manuscript into a published novel again. I’ll simply say this is a process that takes months, even up to a year. In the case of a trilogy, the publisher must, contractually, pay the writer for the manuscript when it’s turned in—the writer needs to be paid for the work completed. And the publisher can hardly pay the writer, the editor, the production staff, etc then sit on the book for a couple of years.

It’s a business, with expenses. It’s a business with a number of authors and manuscripts, and editors and so on.

Over and above the simple practicalities, it’s astonishing to me when a reader dictates my business or my publisher’s—or any writer’s, any publisher’s.

In this particular case, it may have triggered me harder because I’m working so hard to finish the second book in this trilogy right now, stressed that I’ll do so in order for my editor, my publisher to have the time they need to produce it so it meets its current schedule. I’m stressed—as always—that I’ll write a good book that satisfies readers when it does come out.

We do the best we can, we writers. Publishers are filled with people doing the best they can. I am not the only writer my publisher works with, not the only writer whose books needs to be edited, produced, printed, scheduled, marketed, distributed. The covers for my books are not the only ones the art department has to create.

I’m currently writing four books a year, but for some, that’s not enough. Or they blame the time between books on my publisher when they have absolutely no idea how publishing works.

These comments tied a knot in my stomach—I know better, but they did. They piled on more stress and aggravation.

And no—the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is rude and wrong.

At a time we’re hoping to remember things to be thankful for, as we head into the holiday season, maybe we could choose to be thankful for books instead of complaining we can’t have more fast enough.

Things are difficult and stressful enough, so a story that takes us away from that hard reality should be a plus.

Nora

Chronicles of the One, Excerpt, The Rise of The Magicks, trilogies

The Rise of Magicks Excerpt

24 Comments

In yet another way to ease us all back to reality, how about the excerpt from The Rise of Magicks? By my count, as I write this, we’re 92 days from release on November 26 so it makes sense to have a little taste of what’s to come.

Here’s what the cover copy says:

An epic of hope and horror, chaos and magic, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives.

After the sickness known as the Doom destroyed civilization, magick has become commonplace and Fallon Swift has spent her young years learning its ways. Fallon cannot live in peace until she frees those who have been preyed upon by the government or the fanatical Purity Warriors, endlessly hunted or locked up in laboratories, brutalized for years on end. She is determined to save even those who have been complicit with this evil out of fear or weakness if, indeed, they can be saved.

Strengthened by the bond she shares with her fellow warrior, Duncan, Fallon has already succeeded in rescuing countless shifters and elves and ordinary humans. Now she must help them heal and rediscover the light and faith within themselves. For although from the time of her birth, she has been The One, she is still only one. And as she faces down an old nemesis, sets her sights on the enemy’s stronghold, and pursues her destiny to finally restore the mystical shield that once protected them all she will need an army behind her.

Here’s the link to the Prologue + Chapter One.

Enjoy!
Laura

Books, Cover reveal, Golden in Death, Laura's posts, The Rise of The Magicks

Golden in Death cover and stuff

13 Comments

Hello blog family!

I think it’s pretty safe to say this year hasn’t followed the traditional path so far. As you’ve seen over the years, routine – in her work days, workouts, spa trips and vacations – is sacred to Nora.

As the calendar turned to 2019 both of us assumed the posts during the winter would follow the years prior, from Nora’s whole house clear out, to the adventures of being Home Alone while BW was away, then a smooth glide into Spa Girls, Derby, then summer.

But February happened, #copypastecris sat front and center in Nora’s head, and the winter slipped away. Nora wasn’t in the place to share regular happy updates of hearth, home and grandkids. I didn’t think humorous or cranky bits quite suited the mood here. So we — meaning I — let things slide.

Now I’m working at the beach office where I find my balance. Nora’s hit a run of relatively peaceful work days which brings her balance. And so I thought it was time to bring this space back to life with far more regular check ins.

Let’s start with the current book news.

Golden In Death is the 50th book in the series and to celebrate, Entertainment Weekly had the exclusive cover reveal.

Then St. Martins Press created this book trailer which features pulsating music and the cover on a stack of the In Deaths that came before.

Honestly I can’t wait to read it.

Here’s the cover in all it’s glory:

“But, Laura!” I can hear you all say, “What’s it about????

Everyone is mum on that right now, including that crafty JD. All she’ll say is it’s about murder (duh) with a mysterious motive―and a terrifying weapon. Now I really can’t wait to read it.

You’ll find all the US pre-order links here. Nora’s other publishers will have links up well ahead of time. Promise.

That’s all I have up my sleeve at the moment. There will be a few St. Martin’s Press Golden promotions I’ll share as we head into the fall. Plus, there’s something in the works with Little Brown UK. So stay tuned.

Add to that, we have Under Currents in July, Vendetta in Death in September and the run up to The Rise of The Magicks in December. Not to mention the girls + Griffin trip to Greenbrier in July and Nora’s family vacation in Ireland in August. The rest of the year will pick up the pace quite nicely.

Now to take care of the dust bunnies in the media library.

See you soon.

Laura

Excerpt, Of Blood & Bone

Of Blood & Bone excerpt

40 Comments

I know, I know, you’ve been waiting to learn what happens next in The Chronicles of The One.  I’m so happy to share with you the excerpt from Of Blood & Bone.

Here’s the jacket copy:

An epic of hope and horror, chaos and magic, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives.

They look like an everyday family living an ordinary life. But beyond the edges of this peaceful farm, unimaginable forces of light and dark have been unleashed.

Fallon Swift, approaching her thirteenth birthday, barely knows the world that existed before―the city where her parents lived, now in ruins and reclaimed by nature since the Doom sickened and killed billions. Traveling anywhere is a danger, as vicious gangs of Raiders and fanatics called Purity Warriors search for their next victim. Those like Fallon, in possession of gifts, are hunted―and the time is coming when her true nature, her identity as The One, can no longer be hidden.

In a mysterious shelter in the forest, her training is about to begin under the guidance of Mallick, whose skills have been honed over centuries. She will learn the old ways of healing; study and spar; encounter faeries and elves and shifters; and find powers within herself she never imagined. And when the time is right, she will take up the sword, and fight. For until she grows into the woman she was born to be, the world outside will never be whole again.

The excerpt won’t answer all your questions but should answer some.

Of Blood & Bone is out December 4.  Your first look is here.

Laura

Conversation, Excerpt, reader discussions, trilogies

Year One Excerpt – Updated to include Chapter 2

77 Comments

Late last fall, Nora wrote a blog post about New Directions in which she shared the challenges and excitement of starting down a new path.  I watched from the peanut gallery as Nora sweated through writing Year One.  She’d share tiny bits and pieces of what was happening in the book so I first met the characters and situations through her verbal storytelling.

When I had an opportunity to read it in the spring, I nearly swallowed Year One in one gulp.   I remembered the verbal cues and would get to one, then press on for the next.  It’s an amazing start to the ride.

Now,  it’s time for you to get a first taste of the journey that starts December 5.  I’ve read comments from long time readers unhappy with the direction, wanting more traditional romance.  For those readers, I ask you to consider this:  relationships are the framework of this book and Nora’s approach to relationships is why you’ve read her for more than 30 years.  There’s enough familiar to balance the different so I encourage you to give it a try.  Borrow from the library if you’re not keen to invest in something unknown.  But try.

Edited 12/7/17 — Updated to include chapter two here.

Laura

Conversation, Cover reveal, trilogies

First Look: Year One

29 Comments

Nora discussed her upcoming trilogy in this post last fall.  Today, I’m so excited to share the cover reveal video St. Martin’s Press created for this amazing cover along with our first look at details of the book.

The video is here: Year One cover reveal

Synopsis:

It began on New Year’s Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most.

As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive, they really take their job very serious, I’ve met some doctors that don’t care at all about their patient’s life, I’ve seen many of them have trouble with The Medical Negligence Experts due to their irresponsibility.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.

And the umbrella title is Chronicles of The One.

Laura

Conversation, trilogies, writing

New Directions

291 Comments

A long time ago, on a hilltop far, far away, I started writing category Romance. With two pre-schoolers to run herd on, I fed my appetite for reading with short, satisfying Romances I could gulp down during nap time. So when stuck with said pre-schoolers inside for a week during a blizzard, I began to scribble down one of the stories in my head in a notebook. It was intended to save my sanity, and became a career and a passion.

Writing Harlequin-style Romances was a natural choice as I gobbled them during this time period. I’d grown up reading everything–everyone in my house read everything– but at this particular turn of my road, category Romances comprised the bulk of my reading.

My career roots in Romance spread over the next decade or two. One of the appeals to me was this was a genre that could, and did, include everything. You could, especially when the genre and the market evolved, add elements of mystery, suspense, paranormal, horror, comedy, fantasy. As long as the story contained a core romantic relationship, tied things up with a happy ending, you could rock on.

I continued to write category even as I expanded into writing mainstream novels, and produced 100 books for Silhouette before I turned off that road. With Bantam, then Putnam (which became Penguin-Putnam which became Penguin Random House), and now St. Martin’s Press I wrote and continue to write Romantic Suspense, I wrote trilogies–straight relationship or with elements of fantasy and paranormal. I began the In Death series as JD Robb.

The In Death series certainly took me onto another lane of the highway. I thought of these as relationship mysteries/police procedurals with continuing characters set in the near future–which gave them a science fiction light touch.

Mostly they were and are fun and interesting stories for me to write, with core characters I adore and enjoy. That makes them tremendously satisfying creatively.

The Romantic Suspense novels I write drive down another lane on the highway. They’re not a part of a series, sometimes have more than one romantic relationship, generally have other non-romantic relationships–friendships, family–as writing about people is what I do. For these it may be a setting that flicks on the light bulb, or a character type, or a situation. For The Obsession, for instance, that flash was: What’s it like to be the child of a serial killer?

As I write without much of a structured plan, relying more on Let’s See What Happens next, I have to be very engaged in the story, very connected to the characters to see it all through. That first flick on has to pull me in.

The trilogies I do wind down another lane. For these everything’s broader and interconnected. The concept has to tell me, this needs more room, and has a theme or goal that can weave through three books. Whether straight relationship, like the Born In trilogy, or The Bride Quartet, or with those paranormal elements, like The Circle Trilogy or Three Sisters Island, the initial concept always included that central romance, and the romance highlighted in each book would be resolved in that particular book.

I conceived them as one big book in three distinct parts, each containing–whether it be mortal, wizard, business-woman or vampire–that elemental romantic relationship.

Writing on those different lanes of the highway has served to keep me fresh and creatively satisfied–and it seems to me gives readers a lot of choices in my work. Some like the Robb series, some don’t. Some like the more traditional relationship, some are eager for the more magickal, others prefer the suspense.

But when you offer a variety, the downside is those who prefer one gripe when you offer another. That’s just how it goes. If a writer discovers how to satisfy every reader every time, I really want to have a sit-down with him or her and learn the secret. But in the meantime, I have to pay attention to that flick of light and turn down the road where it shines for me.

And so, some time ago, that light flicked on a turn off the highway, a detour, an unexplored road. It’s a little risky to take that turn, see where it takes you. But it’s also exciting. And challenging.

The flash of this light didn’t beam on the Romance of my roots, or how my own work has evolved around it, and frankly, away from what the genre is today. It shined on something different, something I saw as more a Fantasy saga. Relationships, absolutely. Books and stories for me are all about the people in them, how they relate, or don’t. Touches of romance, sure, but at least in the opening book, the story can’t center on a central love story and hold for the rest.

I thought about it for quite awhile, played with it in my head, chewed on it, studied the concept from different angles. The light didn’t dim, so I turned off and followed it.

Year One — the first of this different sort of trilogy — begins a journey, for me as a writer, for the characters within, and hopefully for the reader who wants to take a chance with me. It begins with a global crisis, a pandemic that wipes away much of the population and opens a door to magicks. Black and white, courage and cowardice, the determination to survive and rebuild, the evolution of powers for good or ill. And the light again, that’s hope and love and bravery that shines through.

The process of structuring this story–and laying the groundwork for the two that will follow–presented a creative challenge, the need to take a leap, a lot of sweaty work, a larger cast of characters to develop and connect to, multiple relationships to weave, the logistics of world building. Because even when you’re basically destroying the world, you’re building another.

For the first time in too long to remember a book woke me up at night, or kept me up. What do I do about this, how will I resolve that, how does that even make any stupid sense? It wouldn’t leave me alone, so I knew it had me, however it turned out. I had to follow that light and see where it took me.

Writing it proved hard and bumpy and frustrating and tremendous fun. Finishing it was, for me, monumental. The relief that my editor didn’t say WTF when she read it, beyond enormous. It matters, a lot, to be satisfied with a finished manuscript. It matters, a whole giant bunch of a lot, when an editor a writer knows and trusts, whose purpose is to publish, package, market a book and help it be the best it can be, gives the work two thumbs up.

I already know the following two books that will comprise this trilogy will be hard and bumpy and frustrating and fun. But I’m on the road now, and I’m enjoying the scenery.

Normally, I wouldn’t have a lot to say to readers about a book that won’t be out for a year, or a trilogy that’s only just begun on my end. In this case, since it’s different, since it’s not Romance or built on the framework of the genre, and is a turn off onto a new road rather than a different lane, I thought it fair to let those who follow my work know something else is coming.

I understand some might think: But this isn’t what I want from her! That’s okay, don’t worry. The In Death series will continue. The Suspense novels with that core love story (or stories) will continue to pull me in. But you’ve got to follow the light, go where ideas pull you. And hope that readers take the journey with you.

Nora