#AMMConnect Bio, Round 4

 

Malous and Jonalee Ilsedine, twin heirs to the throne of Kinh, have spent their entire lives together. They're inseparable, and neither of them can imagine life without the other. That perfect future is shattered when their father, King Liazar, announces that he has set up political marriages for both of them. Jonalee's marriage would take her away from Kinh - and from Malous. The twins take matters into their own hands and plot to steal Jonalee's marriage contract. However, when Malous meets his sister's fiance, he falls for the very man who would take his sister away. 

When Jonalee discovers her brother's betrayal, she demands that Malous accompany her to watch a sacred water spirit ritual to prove his allegiance to her and their plan. Unfortunately, it's forbidden for anyone to watch the ritual, a key tenet of the covenant all members of the royal family must swear to uphold. So when the twins accidentally disrupt the ritual, the water spirits demand one of them in ritual sacrifice - unless Malous and Jonalee can find someone else to sacrifice in their place. And who better to die in their stead than the rebel threatening to overthrow their family's rule? 

The Scion, leader of the resistance, knows that the Ilsedine line is tainted by lies and murder. She knows the king killed his wife for one chilling reason: she was there. She saw it happen. And she made it her life's goal to remove him from the throne in the pursuit of justice. Even so, as time went on, the source of that goal shifted to one much more self-centered, one of putting herself on the throne instead. The Scion has been lying to everyone for so long that she barely even knows the truth anymore - who she is, what she wants to accomplish, why she wants to do it. The only thing she knows for certain is that Liazar and his line need to be torn from the throne - and that she'll do anything to make that happen.

THICKER THAN WATER (TTW) is a YA fantasy, finished at 86K words. What I love most about it is that there are no morally white/black characters; everyone is shades of grey. When I was growing up, I was always frustrated that there were no books where the bad guy wins. Sometimes I just wanted to see the world burn. Everything I wrote as a tween and young teen contained a plot where it turned out that the protagonist was actually destroying everything, or that the antagonist was really the person trying to save the world, that kind of thing. I love watching my characters make progressively more questionable decisions until they realize that they've become the villain.

Those thoughts definitely carried over into TTW. Whether the Ilsedine twins are “good guys” or not is up to the reader to decide. They’re partially victims of things happening around them that they can’t control, but they’re the ones who break the covenant. The fact that they want to take down the Siren could be lauded as admirable, but they don’t fully understand what drives her. They’re kind of sucky people. But still, they're just trying to keep their family together - isn't that at least a little redeeming?

The Siren, on the other hand, seems like a villain, but in my mind she isn’t. She sees corruption and deceit and wants to destroy it. Her methods are morally shaky, I admit, but operating at her level, you don’t really have a choice. If she had another option, I’d like to think that she would take it. To her, though, this is the only option. She’s worked at it for ten years, and now she finally has the chance to take the Ilsedines down. 

Is that evil? 

 

It’s up to you.

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I've long been a writer - haven't we all? Like the rest of us, I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. I have stacks of tiny notebooks, small enough to fit into a hand-me-down velvet purse I got from my older sister, filled with the scribbly writing of a fifth-grader. My chemistry notebooks are an intricate dance between notes on bezene and feverish descriptions of scenes I want to write when I get home. Even now, as a grad student, when I should really be paying attention to my classes, all I can think about is that one little plot point that I haven't quite been able to pin down yet.

TTW is the writing that's been in me my entire life, that bit of fiction that contains everything important I've experienced and read and seen. I'm excited to be a part of Author Mentor Match, because I want this story to be told and held and read again and again. I’ve been working with some CPs for the past couple of months, but I think I need a more seasoned eye to help me really get TTW out into the world. Rejections and harsh criticism only serve to show me that I’m getting closer, and that I can keep making my work better.

I hope everyone finds who they're looking for!