The new Princess Alethea's Magical Elixir reviews are up over at Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show! This month I discuss:

Title: Rogue Angel: Destiny (audiobook)
Author: Alex Archer
Publisher: GraphicAudio
EAN: 9781599502052

Title: Bad Moon Rising
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
EAN: 9780312369491

Title: Ophelia Joins the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook
Author: Sarah Schmelling
Publisher: Plume
EAN: 9780452295735

(If you happen to see that last one in the bookstore, pick it up and have a giggle.)

Happy Release Day  Diana Rowland!

Detective Kara Gillian is both a cop and a conjurer of demons, accidentally conjuring sexy  angelic Rhyzkhal during a routine spell. Now she needs his help to catch a deadly serial killer--The Symbol Man--who's back in Beaulac, Louisiana on a killing spree after a three-year hiatus. There's also that handsome-yet-disapproving FBI agent hanging around, messing with both Kara's heart and her first homicide case.

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland is a delicious blend of police procedural and urban fantasy. In honor of its release today, be sure to check out my Genre Chick interview with the superstar author herself. We had a lot of fun. (Almost as much fun as John Scalzi had with Diana at last year's WorldCon. ---->)

I also reviewed Mark of the Demon in my most recent column for Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and blew a whole Saturday reading it in one sitting. I miss those days.

If you're like me at all and yearning for a fun, smart urban fantasy that isn't cashing in on the whole vampire wave (I am so tired of vampires...and no, Dark-Hunters don't count) then be sure to pick up Mark of the Demon at your local bookstore today!

While "Blood & Water" missed the preliminary Stoker ballot, it has been brought to my attention that it is still eligible for the Hugo Awards.

And it's still available to read for free at IGMS.

New book reviews are live at Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show!

This month, Princess Alethea discusses Full Cast Audio's performance of Gail Carson Levine's Fairest, and Christopher Moore's fantastically funny Fool.

Due to the large number of Stoker Recommendations  "Blood and Water" has received from the HWA (thank you!), the lovely crew at IGMS have made "Blood and Water" available to read for free for a limited time. Now's your chance -- click on by and read it while the getting's good! And if you enjoy your time with the fairytale mermaid-vampire and her pirates, definitely consider purchasing the rest of the issue (including stories by Peter S. Beagle, davidbcoe , and kenscholes ) for only $2.50.

Also, if you're a member of HWA and haven't made your recommendations yet, I believe they're due by midnight EST tonight.

(Note: when you cilck on the page it will still say "Preview" at the top, but the whole story is there. I checked.)


artwork by Nicole Cardiff

Princess Alethea's Magical Elixir
Reviewing lots of books, sir
'swhat I do.
Was this one good sir?
Well, it was cut from wood, sir.
With binding like it should, sir.
A positive review!

Check out my debut review Of Elizabeth C. Bunce's A Curse Dark As Gold at IGMS today!
(Or walk the plank, matey...)

The origin of "Blood and Water"
Art by Nicole Cardiff


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"You're a writer? Okay, tell me a story."

Yeah -- my eyes just rolled too. I've gotten this my whole life. I've heard it from friends and teachers. I got it from relatives who expected me to entertain their bored children. I even got it once from a computer tech support guy when I was waiting for the server at my Waldenbooks to reboot.

What the heck? Come on. I've never said, "You're an accountant? Okay, do my taxes" or "You're a dancer? Go on, let's see a jig."

Eventually, I learned to keep some pat stories on hand, shoved in a special mental folder I saved for just those occasions. There's a love story about my Thea Maritza who ran from the Turks as they ethnically cleansed Smyrna…or the one about how my grandfather turned pirate during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Quality stuff at the drop of a hat.

'Cause it's just not that easy for me.

I was born a genius and an actress. I grew up on stage. I've done my share of improv (and your share, and his share, and a bit of that lady's over there). I was surrounded by seriously hyperintelligent geeks in all my classes and was expected to hold my own with a biting wit and a wealth of trivial knowledge. You want a perfect comeback, a great conversationalist, or a frustrating debate partner? I'm your girl.

But I just can't tell stories at the drop of a hat. I can tell you about my sister's latest catastrophe or the funny thing that happened to me on the way to work…but if it's fiction you want I need something. I need a seed from which to grow the flax -- otherwise it's like trying to weave a tapestry out of dandelion fluff on a windy day.

It doesn't have to be big, either. Heck, sometimes it only takes two words.

"Blood and Water" started from such a seed: I was in Charleston one Memorial Day weekend, staying at my friend Brandi's house. I had brought in the little chunky notebook I keep in my car for when inspiration strikes and I don't have a junkmail envelope or Starbucks receipt or roofing flyer handy.

Brandi was flipping through it when she suddenly got a strange look on her face.
What's a 'vampire mermaid'?" she asked.

I took the book from her curiously. Sure enough there they were, just two words, two random thoughts at two completely different times that I just happened to scribble on the same page in close proximity. But it was a good question. What was a vampire mermaid? How would that work?

This is where "what you know" comes in. As writers, once inspired, we proceed to ask ourselves this barrage of myriad questions. We then answer those questions based on what we know. If you happen to know a lot of trivial junk, you can come up with some pretty interesting scenarios.

My brain clicked into overdrive, following the logic. A mermaid lives in the ocean: check. Vampires need blood: check. Why would a mermaid need blood? What's under the ocean that needs blood? I mentally went back to college, my short-lived days of being a marine chemist with dreams of open waters and deep-sea submersibles.

I had been obsessed with the hydrothermal vents, in the deepest ocean where the tectonic plates meet and form fissures. Nobody ever thought there would be anything living that far down…and oh, how wrong they were. In 1979 the infamous ALVIN scoped it out and discovered entire colonies of organisms living off the toxic chemicals spewing out from the vents. There were snails, shrimp, crabs, octopuses…even giant oysters and seven-foot-tall red-plumed white tube worms with complete vascular systems.

Oh, yes…these folks don't need sunlight, but they do need blood.

Check.

With that problem solved, I went back to the mermaid part. Now, I'm not claiming to be the Fairy Tale Queen of the Universe, but I know my way around a bit of Grimm and Andersen (and Zipes and Bettelheim). When I was ten, my grandmother gifted me with a humongous volume of unexpurgated fairy tales -- thank goodness my mother never got her hands on it. Sleeping Beauty's name was "Briar Rose," Rapunzel got knocked up, and Cinderella's sisters cut off pieces of their feet to squeeze into that glass slipper. I read "The Little Match Girl" and "The Little Mermaid" and cried like my heart was breaking.

And then I'd read them again.

If the only version of "The Little Mermaid" you know is Disney, then you are seriously missing out. It's a beautiful tale. But I'll warn you right now: the sea witch cuts out the mermaid's tongue. The prince marries the wrong woman. The mermaid eventually drowns herself in her desolation, becoming foam on the waves. And every girl remembers how excruciatingly painful the mermaid's transformation, so darkly was it painted.

Pain, darkness, love story: check.

The rest of the questions were just details. How does a being who has lived beneath the waves her whole life describe a candle when she has never seen fire? What does splitting her tail feel like if she's never been cut by a knife? What is walking to a woman who has never experience land? How would she be able to spot a predator? How would she learn all these things…quickly?

And -- most importantly -- who would rescue her from the middle of nowhere post-transformation?

Well, that part was easy. Write what I know.

Pirates: check.

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"Blood and Water" is now available in issue 9 of IGMS.