In our continuing series featuring Balloon-Juice author’s latest books. Dorothy Winsor has a new book out this week. I’ll let her take it from here.
Stuck in a city far from home, street kid Doniver fakes telling fortunes so he can earn a few coins to feed himself and his friends. Then the divine Powers smile on him when he accidentally delivers a true prediction for the prince.
Concerned about rumors of treason, the prince demands that Doniver use his “magic” to prevent harm from coming to the king, and so Doniver is taken–dragged?–into the castle to be the royal fortune teller.
Now Doniver must decide where the boundaries of honor lie, as he struggles to work convincing magic, fend off whoever is trying to shut him up, and stop an assassin, assuming he can even figure out who the would-be assassin is. All he wants is to survive long enough to go home to the Uplands, but it’s starting to look as if that might be too much to ask.
Here’s the tl:dr version: Street kid Doniver accidentally tells a true fortune for the prince and is taken into the castle to be the royal fortune teller. Good new? Food and a warm bed. Bad news? He can’t tell fortunes.
I’ve said on BJ before that I got the idea for this book from the old TV show “Psych.” If you recall, that’s about a fake psychic who gets involved in solving crimes. Because I write fantasy, it occurred to me I could twist that into a fake magician responsible for stopping an assassination plot.
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TaMara suggested I include something about my experience writing this book, so I went back and looked at my files and was shocked to see a complete draft from 2008. Yes, that’s right. Ten years ago. I am so slow. Not to generate words, mind you. I can do that. It’s generating insights into my characters, their situations, and whatever I want to say about the human heart that takes me forever. I am super slow about that. Now the parts of the book I like best are the ones I wrote late in the process. That early draft was competent but flat. I hope this one is at least less so!
I’m happy to talk about the book, publishing, and anything else, even Trump. This is BJ after all.
Oh, hell no on Trump. This is a politics-free thread, unless it is what you are writing about. I thought we’d try a later time since I had a few requests for that. Let me know if it works for you guys.
So let’s chat. What are you writing these days? How’s your process? Any questions for Dorothy? Hit the comments.
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