Blog

3-28-2025

Well that was enlightening.

I changed doctors, this time to one who specializes in migraines. They have gotten much worse in the past couple months, including me getting two weather-induced ones. That's never happened before, so it was a touch concerning. Also, my current medication isn't working as well as it used to. I'm not sure if I'm getting multiple headaches, or just one long one that is outlasting the pill. I'm already at the maximum dose, and I already experienced an accidental overdose of that medication once before. It almost caused a collapse, and I'm glad a couple of my students were right next to me and able to steady me against a lab bench. Not fun. 

The first order of business is to keep a headache journal, so I can pinpoint any triggers besides the ones I already know (hormones and bright fluorescent lighting). Second, my meds are being switched! No more sumatriptan! The doctor said that medication was a miracle drug when it first came out, but now there are more targeted therapies that work better with few side effects. Don't get me wrong...the sumatriptan kicked the pain, but some of the side effects were almost as bad as the headache. The new one targets the specific nerve that misbehaves during a migraine and calms it down. From a research and medical standpoint, it is so cool how much migraine treatment has advanced. As anyone who has these delights...they can and will wreck your day. 

Here's the real freaky part. My doctor thinks there is a possibility that my migraines might be related to the car wreck that I was in. In 2008. Yes, you saw that right. A wreck from about eighteen years ago could be causing issues today. I did have whiplash (though being T-boned, spun, and flipped by someone going 60 mph will generally do that), but little other physical damage. My doctor asked if an MRI was done, and while I did have some kind of scan that day, I don't think it was an MRI. 

So guess who's getting an MRI in a couple of weeks? This author! My doctor said he orders one for all of his migraine patients as a rule, but this will also let him see if I do have lingering damage from the car wreck, or any other problems like closed off sinuses. It will be an experience...I've never had one, and the Anatomy teacher in me is curious as to what they are like. He also recommended some PT to address the tension in my neck and shoulders. Gee...why would I have tension? It's not like my job is stressful.

Oh.

Wait.

Never mind.

On an unrelated note, I blew my kids' minds last week when I described how canine legs are set up (we are starting Evolution and Common Ancestry next week). It weirded them out that most animals walk on their fingers/toes (digitigrade) versus palms/soles (plantigrade). The resulting diagram happened while we were waiting for buses. Those kids are better artists than I will ever be.

Hilary

3-27-2025

It's dang near midnight (and will be past that by the time I finish this). Time for a spooky story!

My dad and I are history nerds. Battlefields are the go-to vacation for us, especially American Civil War. I know...weird for a lady. One vacation that I took with a friend, we stopped at the Kernstown battlefield site. It's not big, and not one of the larger engagements of the war (though nearby Winchester, VA is definitely worth a visit), but the volunteers there are top notch. One of them approached my friend and asked if he had any questions about the battle, and he actually directed them to me, saying I was the historian of the pair. From the look on the volunteers' faces, they were not expecting a twenty-one year old blonde college student to be asking the questions. I guess it's more of a guy thing, but they were impressed. I then dropped a couple hundred at a nearby bookstore (hey, cut me a break...I'm a librarian's daughter).

Anyhow...

Gettysburg is a must-stop on these trips, and the last one I took out there with my father was no exception. I had just finished my first year of college, and didn't do summer school that year. My dad and I went all over PA and VA, and MD for good measure. The hotel in Gettysburg where we stayed was literally right in the middle of the battlefield for the first day's engagement. Sadly, that hotel is now gone, but it was really neat to walk out my door and see where General Buford's cavalry hunkered down, or where the highest ranking casualty of the whole war sustained the wound that killed him. Yes, like I said, the hotel was IN the battlefield. 

Now, Gettysburg has a reputation for being haunted. It is. Full stop. Every time I go there, A given area of ground can't catch that many bodies and not end up harboring a few spirits. I experience something. I want to preface this by saying I have never been frightened there. I'm sure there are some less-than-pleasant customers out there, but I've not run into them yet. Frankly, I'm more scared of the ticks than the ghosts. That's not to say that there aren't a few who won't go out of their way to make one uncomfortable. Case in point...

I made my first trip to Gettysburg with my parents when I was in middle school. There was one spot where I was unnerved, and it was right by the Reynolds Monument. For those who have never been to the battlefield, the monument itself is on a small, manmade mound, and is maybe a twenty or thirty feet from the tree line. This is the spot where Major General John Reynolds was hit by a sniper, and died shortly after. Being from a military family on both sides, I am never going to be the one to show disrespect to a war monument of any kind. Mainly out of respect, partly because my parents would have kicked my butt ten different ways if I even considered the notion.  I'm facing the monument with my back to the trees, and I feel something come up behind me. I also picked up on a bristling hostility, like somebody really, REALLY didn't want me there. The temperature also dropped a solid twenty degrees, and with how hot PA summers tend to get, it's noticeable when this occurs. I walked away from the monument, and the feeling dropped off when I was about twenty feet away. 

Creepy, right?

Fast forward to the trip with my dad. I'm now nineteen, though I don't look a whole lot different than I did at thirteen, except being taller and losing the coke-bottle glasses. Went by the Reynolds monument again. Same thing over again. Temperature drops, and I feel like something is rushing up behind me, same feeling of hostility. Nineteen year old me is having none of it. I whirled around and said something to the effect of 'dude, I don't know what your problem is, but I'm not hurting anything. Chill out.' The feeling receded, and the temperature went back up. Here was the weird bit...I got a flash of something in my brain, maybe a fraction of a second. I saw a kid (not me) with some kind of object chipping at the monument. 

That night, I went out at twilight to the road across from the monument. My dad was about fifty feet away from me, and I was looking up at one of the trees. Then I hear footsteps walking up to me on the gravel. Spoiler alert...there's nobody out there but me and my dad. The steps stopped a few feet from me, but there wasn't the feeling of hostility from earlier. My gut told me this was the same person. I greeted him (that's one thing I usually do..treat spirit like people, and politely, unless the give me a hell of a compelling reason not to), and asked if he needed anything. No response, not that I expected any, but the vibe was very relaxed. I went if a few minutes later. I don't know if that more restrained approach was this individual's way of apologizing, but that's how I took it. 

We took another trip a few years later, only this time it was me and my husband. Same spot, same feeling. This time, however, no hostility. If I had to guess, maybe he recognized me? I didn't look very different from when I was nineteen, and I made a point to say hello when I got to the monument. I think we're good now. It just took over a decade.

So, what is going on with this spirit? I don't have anything concrete, but I can make a few educated guesses. I'm going to assume he was Union Army, based on how protective he is of the memorial to a Union general. Maybe he was part of Reynolds' corp. From observations of other families each time I'm at the battlefield, teenagers don't seem to like being between the monument and the tree line. From that little flicker of insight I had, my assumption would be that a teenager, or perhaps multiple teenagers, at some point either attempted to vandalize the monument, or succeeded. I'm thinking that this spirit really doesn't like teenagers, probably from that association. One of the park guides said that vandalism unfortunately does happen, though it's usually caught quickly. No idea when the desecration event I was shown happened, but I don't think it was super recent even at that time. All I could tell was that it was a boy and his back was to me. 

We might take a trip out there in a couple years, once the kids are older. So, person guarding the Reynolds monument, be on the lookout for me, and try not to freak out my kids, okay? I'll make sure neither of them do anything naughty. Peace out until then.

Hilary

3-26-2025

Yes, the conference was amazing. Yes, I am still exhausted. Two agents asked for partial manuscripts for Queen's Night, so we shall see where that goes. I've still met my goal of being traditionally published, so this would just be icing on the cupcake.

I also posted a video on the main Melusine's Endgame page. It's mainly me poking around with Canva, but I'd say it looks pretty good. It's just a list of all the books in the series, but I was able to play around with images, color, and font.

On a more amusing note, I love toying with scammers. They infest most of the writing and author groups on Facebook (though some groups are better than others about policing). The fishing posts are pretty easy to spot. Lots of broken English, and they usually start with some generic opening like 'what's the hardest thing about writing' or something like that. Respond, and one of two things will happen. Some will ask you to friend and DM them. Others go straight to messaging you. Nearly all of these people are selling marketing and book trailer/website creation services of some kind. All of them are crap. I've had a bunch lately who show me screenshots of some little test they run on my website so they can say 'it's not optimized...I can optimize it for *some amount of money.* Yeah, sorry sweetie, I can do that myself. It's not hard. 

But dang, are they persistent. I've had a few become downright threatening. You know, saying things like it will be my fault my book didn't sell because I didn't hire them. It would be funny if I didn't know how many people get scammed by these jerks. They prey on those so desperate to be called authors that they don't think to research who they are talking to and what they really need. Chatting with them for more than a couple minutes reveals that English is not their first language. Some of them even offer to edit my books. Okay, first of all...your English isn't great, which means you will either do a poor job, or use some AI program to edit, and then charge me for that service. No thanks.

The books trailers they show are...trash. Some are even stolen from other places, or not authorized. When I run across those, I contact the real author and ask if they knew about the trailer. Most of the time, the answer is no. One I was shown was legit, but it was so bad that the original author accepted my offer to make a new one for her, free of charge (I can use the practice on Canva).  Another one was not even about the book it claimed to be advertising...I contacted that author too...boy was he mad. I've had a bunch demand that I send them my trailers so they can 'compare' them with ones they made. Pro tip: don't do that. That's an excellent way to get your trailer stolen and used by these folks who will say they are their own. 

I've been able to get some of them to lose interest by telling them I am traditionally publishing, and there is nothing they can do that my publisher and I can't do for free. It looks like these types mainly prey on those who self-publish and don't know any better. Very predatory, but luckily they all follow a similar script. Sometime this week, I will transcribe a particularly amusing multi-day interaction I had with one of these scammers, 'Grace Williams.' This chat started pretty standard, then escalated to the point of 'Grace' showing me profiles of famous authors who used her services. Long story short, I contacted the agencies of both of the authors in question, and they confirmed the profiles were fraudulent. When confronted with this information, 'Grace' first tried to call (yes, call) me, then block me. 

Funny thing...ever since this interaction, I haven't gotten any DMs from scammers. To me, this means one of two things. Either word is out about me and that I will troll these people for my own deranged amusement, or there are actually a comparatively small number of these types and they just have multiple profiles. I'm not sure which is more plausible.

Hilary

3-21-2025

Guess who's writing this from the Warwick-Allerton Hotel in Chicago? This girl!

After the couple of weeks I had, this conference will be a well-earned break. The students have been off the chain in anticipation of Spring Break, the greyhounds are nuttier than usual (and given that Jonah is a walking psychotic event, that's saying something), and my younger child decided it would be a fine idea to swallow a Band-Aid last week. He's fine. It came out the traditional way. I can't say the same for my sanity. In his defense, he is only fourteen months old. 

Since the Let's Just Write Conference doesn't start until about 6pm today, I spent the day at the Field Museum. Yeah, my Facebook and Threads are getting a workout.  The Chicago Archaeopteryx was amazing! Sue was her usual awesome self, and I got to have breakfast and lunch right under Maximo the Patagotitan's rear end. I'd say it was a most excellent start to the day. 

On to the actual conference!

Hilary

3-16-2025

One week until Spring Break. Just one more week. We've got this.

I've only got a couple more days before I drive up to Chicago for the Let's Just Write! Conference.  This will be the biggest conference I've gone to, and I'm excited and nervous. It will be nice to go back to Chicago for a bit, and yes, I am going the the Field Museum to see the Archaeopteryx. I do have a cast of the Berlin Archaeopteryx in my museum, but it's going to be that much cooler to see a real one. Fitting, as there is an Archaeopteryx in Melusine's Endgame. 

A lot of research went into that character. I looked up everything from best guesses about appearance to behavior to flight ability. From a distance, an Archaeopteryx could have been mistaken for a raven or large crow, though with a much longer tail. Based on fossilized pigments found in feather impressions, Archaeopteryx was likely either mostly black or completely black, with iridescent flashes. Sadly, the feathers of the head of the specimen in question weren't preserved, so it can't be said for certain what the color of the uppermost body was. 

Behaviorally, Archaeopteryx would have been active in short spurts through the day  and evening. This is based on its eye structure. In that sense, they would act a lot like modern birds, with burst of activity followed by an extended period of chilling out. Most of the activity would be hunting, as this critter was a predator, though a smaller one for its ecosystem. Its home would have been islands and archipelagos, and may have hunted in the shallow, tidal waters. All of the Archaeopteryx specimens have been recovered from what was once watery sediments (which is ideal for preservation). 

For flight, Archaeopteryx would have been capable of flying, though it wouldn't have moved with the ease and grace of most modern birds. Its wing structure, as well as its torso, indicate it would have flown similarly to how a pheasant does. So, capable of powered flight, but a touch on the awkward side. That said, if Archaeopteryx was sticking to the trees and just going from trunk to trunk or branch to branch, it wouldn't have needed to be super competent, just functional. Now, climbing would have been a different story. A close look at the feet of Archaeopteryx reveals a sickle claw on the second toe similar to that of a dromaeosaur (raptor), revealing that relationship. 

I did have to get creative with vocalization. Since that is soft tissue, it doesn't tend to fossilize (though some mosasaur soft tissue bits have been preserved, and those are pretty wild). I chose to make Petrie the Irate Archaeopteryx capable of vocalizations similar to a parrot, meaning he would use a syrinx. If you watch a parrot 'talk,' you will see that they aren't moving their mouths. They are generating their voice from the syrinx, and organ in the neck. Petrie will 'talk,' and though his vocabulary is limited, he is more than capable of communicating his needs. My main character, Natalie, suspects (correctly) that Petrie is male based on his behavior toward other males (aggression) versus females (affectionate). 

Luckily, even if Petrie does nail you, he can't do much damage.  He's two pounds on his best day, and has tiny teeth. The claws on his feet, however...best avoid those.

Hilary

3-7-2025

Why yes, I'm a nervous wreck. Why do you ask?

It's totally not because I'm pitching Shattered to an agent in two weeks. Not at all.

Yeah, I am so lying. 

On a happier note, I've decided to branch out and support other artists! Aside from the whole 'bracelet with every book complete' thing, I'm also trying to commission some of the critters. Right now, I'm in an awesome collaboration with a crochet artist to make Moonfire, a baby wyvern. We finally settled on the color scheme, and Moonfire is going to look fantastic! I wish I had that level of talent with yarn. I can straight crochet and make a blanket or a scarf, but that's about it. Moonfire won't show up until later in the Melusine's Endgame series, but I saw this person's work, and had to get in on it. She has even expressed interest in taking a stab at Petrie the Irate Archaeopteryx! 

The school year is starting to wind down. We are in the last week of 3rd quarter, and after that, let's just say 8 weeks will fly by. If you're in education in any way, you know that there tends to be so much crammed into 4th quarter that it seems like everything is spinning (which is weird, because 3rd quarter is usually an almighty slog). MAP testing, end-of-year trips, 8th grade graduation for me, Spring Break, all of that in the next few weeks. Oh, and I have to finish two more units in that time. May or may not happen...I'm not so sure there's enough days in the rest of the year for that to work. At least the last unit is Evolution and Common Ancestry, which is totally my wheelhouse as an amateur paleontologist. 

I will admit, the end of the year is shaping up to be strange. Renovations have started in the building (yes, even while students are still in session), and the changes are already drastic. Tiles being taken up, lockers removed, displays gone...all this in the past couple of days. The halls are going to look mighty strange in the next couple of weeks. I get where it's going, and I do think it will look amazing in the end, but it's a bit of a culture shock right now. 

Now to work on Moonstone Wish. I broke 50k words last night! I'm a little over halfway done!

Hilary

3-2-2025

Migraines suck, for a variety of reasons.

Unlike the main character of Amber's Lure, my migraines are painful. As in, I'd best be locking myself in a dark room for a couple hours and God help you if you disturb me/turn on a light/make noise of any kind. Yeah, that kind of migraine. At least I know what they are now. Previously, my doctor diagnosed them as tension headaches, and gave me muscle relaxers. I had one come on during the school day, and took a pill (having never experiences muscle relaxers before), and hoo boy, I'm pretty sure my last classes of the day thought I was drunk/high/both. And no, I should not have driven home.

I'm on a proper migraine medication now, Imitrex. Pretty safe, been on the market for decades, but it comes with some less than awesome side effects (like a lot of meds do). It kicks the pain, but leaves a tightness in my jaw and neck (not exactly painful, just weird), a funky disconnected feeling, and it cranks up my blood pressure a bit. I guess it's worth it. I'm functional on the medication, and I won't say the side effects are worse than the migraines, but they aren't the most pleasant.

Here's the problem. Every time I take one of those stupid pills, another book pops into my head. If you look at my website, it's a better than average chance that any given book you see was spawned by that medication. I have no idea why this is. 'Makes your brain more creative' is not on the documented list of side effects. This is why I have a backlog of sixteen books in my head. This is why I pray I don't get migraines, because if I get any more ideas come through, I will be writing until the day I die. I did not intend to take the Sarah Winchester approach to writing, but my cerebrum has apparently decided that's where we are going. 

Hilary

2-22-2025

So, I get asked this question a lot, particularly at the beginning of any school year by students who don't know me yet (or don't have siblings who had me as a teacher). Why do I always wear dresses, or the occasional skirt/blouse combo, and never pants? I haven't worn pants, jeans, anything like that to work in years. The only concession I will make is the occasional leggings under a dress, and that is only when my knee is bothering me and I need to wear my brace.

Partially, it's a comfort thing. I prefer the feel of dresses and skirts to pants. I wasn't always this way, but I started to make that shift in college. Partly, it's a laziness thing. It's easier to grab one item and throw it on than attempt to coodinate clothes when it's 6 am and I don't have my contacts in yet. Fun fact...I'm the next best thing to legally blind without corrective devices. Without them, I can discern color and rough shape. Patterns, not so much. One thing I do to freak my students out is let them try on an older pair of my glasses from 3 prescriptions ago. They are horrified (especially the ones who say 'my eyes are so bad'). No, sweetie, yours aren't horrible yet, and mine are worse now than what those glasses show. Mercifully, I stopped deteriorating two years ago, but I'm still considering Lasik at some point. 

But, I digress.

Lately, I've also taken to wearing only bespoke dresses. Expensive? Yes, much more so than off the rack. Worth it? For me, yes. Here's my rationale.

I'm a weird size. The clothing size that fits my bust is usually at least one size too big for everything else. So, I either have to live with that, or get the stuff tailored. Neither option is awesome. 

The stuff in stores now is garbage quality. As in, wash it a couple of times and it starts to fall apart. Now, is that partially the idea behind fast fashion? Yes. These companies would rather you constantly replace stuff (as in, buy even more) than repair. That, and half the time the fabrics are so thin and shoddy that they don't take well to repairs anyway. I had one dress from Kohls that, I kid you not, had the whole side seam open up after two washes. I pitched it. It was a 5 dollar clearance dress, but if I had paid full price, I would have been peeved. My husband had a similar incident with a brand new pair of jeans from the same store. A huge hole opened up in the leg, and not even at a seam. It was right in the middle of the leg. I don't know if there was some massive flaw in the weave, but good lord. Even the clerk who accepted the return was dumbfounded.

Now, I'm not saying fast fashion doesn't have its place. For kids' clothes, it is perfect. They grow so fast that they might get a season or two out of a given garment, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to spend a lot on something you can't wear for long. Now, stuff like formalwear, that's obviously a different story, but for everyday stuff for a middle school kid, fast fashion is the better option. Heck, I look at how quick my two kids grow out of clothes. With my older one, I'm lucky if something fits him for a couple months. And don't get me started on shoes...

WIth the bespoke clothes, I can build a relationship with my seamstresses. There's two I go to almost exclusively, which I will link at the bottom. I pick the dress, send my measurements, and they let me pick the colors and other customizations (hello, pockets!). I am fueling an individual, a small business, rather than some multinational conglomerate that uses sweat shops. One of the designers, Angelina of La Feminite Dress, is also exactly my height, which is a bonus, since I can see exactly where a dress would fall on me. I prefer natural fabrics, and pretty heavily favor linen nowadays. I think I've become more sensitive to synthetics ever since I had Beren, and I don't see that going away. So far, so good with the linen, and I'm branching out into wool and silk blends....we will see how that goes.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RoseAndLinen

Emily is absolutely wonderful to work with! She's based in Minnesota. She will even sketch out ideas that you have. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaFeminiteDress

Angelina is based in Ukraine, and she is a rockstar! Anything you can think of to customize, any color, she can do it. At this point, I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm insane with the amount I order from her, but over half of my wardrobe comes from her shop. I am especially in love with the Ophelia dress.

Hilary

2-16-2025

I want summer. Now. I have had it with winter, and we are barely halfway through February. Supposedly we are getting belted with ANOTHER winter storm early this week. Blech. Enough is enough. On the plus side, maybe I will get to the halfway mark for Moonstone Wish in the next few days. I won't finish it before the Chicago conference in March, but I might be two-thirds done by then. Anyhow, here's a bit about my main female character in Melusine's Endgame, Natalie Forrester. 

She's a paralegal working for the Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan. She's twenty-five at the beginning of Amber's Lure, and while not truly antisocial, will not go out of her way to hang out with people she is not close friends with. Going out and drinking with colleagues is not something she normally finds enjoyable, though the one time she does, it is to her benefit. Natalie does not make friends easily. One has to prove that they are trustworthy before she will open up to them. She does have two people she considers close friends, and they are the closest thing she has to family. 

Romantic life? Nonexistent. Natalie is a more than attractive young woman, though she will not take kindly to remarks about her appearance. She's five foot six and small framed, with reddish-blonde hair that she normally keeps tied back in a braid-bun. She goes out of her way to make herself look severe and unapproachable, and for the most part, it works. She has her reasons for not wanting people close to her, though again, she will not open up as to those reasons unless she truly trusts someone. 

Natalie has been on her own for years. She lost her parents to a drunk driver when she was eleven years old, and was placed in the care of her aunt and uncle. While her parents insisted on this placement with the best of intentions, it was to Natalie's detriment. Those relatives did not welcome a child, and provided for Natalie's physical needs, and not much else. They threw her out when she dropped out of high school, though that was only their excuse...they had been looking for reasons to not have to deal with a child anymore. It's not that Natalie was a bad kid (quite the opposite). She simply put too much of a crimp in her aunt and uncle's lifestyle. 

Natalie is fiercely independent, and very little scares her. Fear is one of the few ways to get her to lash out physically, though this is a last resort for her...she knows she does not have the physical strength to win a fair fight. 

Place a stun gun in her hand, however, and she's more than a match for even a five-century old vampire. 

Hilary

2-12-2025

Another. Freaking. Snow Day.  

Mother Nature, can you just chill out? I don't want to still be in school in June.

Wait...scratch that. Mother Nature, do what ever the opposite of chill out is. We do not need more chill. We need temperatures above fifty Fahrenheit thank-you-very-much.

Among my research readings are the letters and diaries of Nicholas II's daughters. Yes, there's a reason I'm reading these. Yes, it will come into play in Melusine's Endgame. Bear with me.

Anastasia is the one that is nearly always remembered (I mean, how many movies have there been at this point?), but her sisters are just as fascinating. In photos, one sees a quartet of modern-day fairy tale princesses, aloof and untouchable. Their writings present a different picture. Each young woman had a unique personality, which gets lost when one only truly hears about one of them. I'll post a more in-depth analysis once I do a deeper read of each book, but here's my first impressions of the four Grand Princesses.

Olga: 

Smart, sensitive, and your typical oldest child. Perhaps not a natural leader, but not one to be shoved around, either. Musically gifted. A bit of a quick temper, though she seemed to recognize this was a trait she had to work on. Also stubborn, and could be a touch lazy about her studies. A keen desire to help others, and it didn't really matter who they were. I get the feeling Olga was one of those people who you could tell exactly what she was thinking just by looking at her.  Were she allowed her own path, I could see Olga being a professional musician, though only if the pieces interested her.

Tatiana:

Closest in appearance and temperament to her mother, Alexandra. Considered the most classically beautiful of the sisters, and she did enjoy the attention that engendered, though she doesn't come across as vain in her writing. Like her mother, comes across as distant and aloof, but very different among people she knew well. Along with Anastasia, the most natural leader of the group. Had a talent for hairdressing, and could wear ANYTHING and look amazing in it. Seems pretty unflappable. I could see Tatiana being a hair stylist today, and being the one people run to when 'oh-my-god-I-forgot-about-prom/hot date/fancy event-and-I-need-my-hair-done-NOW!' I can see Tatiana parking said person in a chair and working her magic.

Maria:

This poor kiddo got a bit lost in the shuffle. She was the middle child (if you count Alexei, her brother), and her writings do indicate she sometimes felt short-changed for attention. Given Alexei's medical condition and the attention her mother devoted to him, an understandable perspective. A natural with watercolors, and she does seem proud of them (justifiably so...she was pretty dang good!). A more than pretty young woman, and may have given Tatiana some competition for beauty of the family had she gotten a bit older. Quick tempered, like Olga, and easily dominated by her younger sister, Anastasia. Loved kids. I could see her as a preschool teacher or childcare provider today, and loving every second of it.

Anastasia:

Oh my word, this young lady. She's the type that would give a teacher like me fits. Very smart, academically capable like Olga, but lazy and less willing to apply herself. God help you if you got into a verbal argument with her. Clever and creative, and took selfies before we even knew they were a thing. To a degree, overshadowed by her older sisters, especially in terms of appearance (though like Maria, that improved with age). She made up for that perceived lack with her force of personality. Definitely the wild child of the sisters, and the one who got in trouble the most. Deep creative streak. I could see her writing for a living, with a strong bent toward the unhinged (I think something like Ren and Stimpy would appeal to her, if nothing else than to cork her parents off).

I'll post more in-depth once I get through each book.

Hilary

2-8-2025

Rough week for all concerned. My older son got himself a nice case of norovirus. That delightful bug appears to be making the rounds at his school. I'm keeping a loose eye on him as I type this. I think he's on the mend, and luckily the baby doesn't seem to have caught it. I'm getting over one of the respiratory things going around my school, and if you want the truth, I'm not sure I entirely kicked the pneumonia from back in November. Gotta love being around the walking petri dishes.

Since I can't sleep, here's a bit about my main male character in Amber's Lure, Mikhail Romanov.

He's Russian, in case the name didn't tip one off, and pushing five hundred years old. He spent the majority of his life in and around his homeland, though did wander the European continent off and on. He came to the United States shortly after World War Two, and hasn't left since then. His English is fluent, though if one pays attention, his accent still shows through, particularly if he gets agitated.

He allowed himself to be turned into a vampire in his early thirties. He had his reasons, and good ones, by his way of thinking. Prior to that, served in Ivan the Terrible's court as one of his oprichniki, or secret police. Name the atrocity, that group committed it. Repeatedly. These were not nice people by any stretch. Mikhail doesn't regret any of what he has done. He had (and still has) no reservations about taking someone apart slowly. His one red line is children. Want to get on his bad side in a nanosecond? Harm a child in front of him, or ask him to hurt a kid. That's a surefire way to find out which afterlife is real. 

Mikhail is an artist, and his favorite activities are carving amber, and creating jewelry. He has well over a hundred amber carvings sitting over his fireplace. It's how he relaxes after a long day of drinking wine, running a nightclub, and other less pleasant endeavors. 

His fashion sense trends toward later Victorian or Edwardian. His preferred outfit is a shirt, pants, and waistcoat. He does own other items (and still has a lot of his clothing from when he was still human), though the occasion rarely arises for him to wear such items. Mikhail will usually stick to darker colors, and my main female character has seen no indication that he owns anything pastel. 

While he has no regrets, Mikhail does recognize that the past has a tendency to come back and bite a person, especially if one is pushing the five century mark and has done things that would make the most hardened serial killers pale. 

But other than that, he's a great guy! Right?

Hilary 

2-2-2025

Describing objects with no known images is hard.

Case in point: The Burning of Troy Opal.

This stone makes an appearance in Opal Serpent, and is integral to the plot. Here is the problem. No images of this stone exist. No photos, paintings, sketches, nothing. Here's what makes that more than a bit odd.

The opal was a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife, Josephine. It was...impressive. Comtemporary sources describe it as being a black opal with loads of red and orange fire, and ranging in size anywhere from 700 to 3,000 carats. Yes, you read that correctly. 3,000. Even if the opal was 'only' 700 carats, it was still a massive specimen. There's confusion as to where it came from. It may have been from Hungary, where most European opals are found. However, the coloration and size is more consistent with the opals that come from Central America. Either way, it was a spectacular gem, and reportedly one of Josephine's favorite gifts. 

So why the heck are there no images of this glorious gem? Good question, though I *may* have found one. It does not help that the opal disappears off the face of the earth right around World War Two. The last known location was Vienna, Austria. So, yes, a stone that could be used as a sparkly bludgeon just up and vanished into thin air. I'm sure it's around somewhere...if the person reading this has the Burning of Troy, help an author out and send a picture? Pretty please? I promise not to share it! I just want to know that I'm on the right track with my descriptions.

As to the image I may have found? I can't be certain, but the stones in the portrait look an awful lot like I would expect something like the Burning of Troy to look. What if we aren't looking for a single stone anymore, but one that was cut down into jewelry? If the image I found is indeed the Burning of Troy, that's what happened. If they did...wow. The stones in the diadem are cameo carved, a bold move for a gem as fragile as opal. Those things will crack if you so much as look at them crossways. There aren't a whole lot of orange gemstones out there, and the stones in the diadem, earrings, and necklace aren't a great match for any of them. The stones appear to be either translucent or opaque, which rules out sapphires, garnets, zircons, topaz, and tourmaline. The closest visual match would be carnelian or coral, and, sorry, I don't see Josephine wearing something as common as carnelian or coral. Say what you want about her...the lady had fine taste. If this painting does show the Burning of Troy, I would be inclined to believe that the original stone was closer to the 3,000 carat mark. 

The painting in question is below. Draw your own conclusions!

Hilary

1-26-2025

Here's a study in contrasts...Ivan the Terrible's first two wives, Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna. 

Age compared to Ivan:

Anastasia and Ivan were the same age. With Ivan and Maria, there was a 15 or so year age gap. Contrary to what movies and pop culture would have you believe, this age difference wasn't exactly smiled upon, though it wasn't uncommon. For example, when Henry VIII (yes, that guy) married Catherine Howard, he was 49 and she was between 17 and 20, though most historians place her on the younger end fo that spectrum. Even then, that age difference gave contemporaries the heebie-jeebies. I guess the idea with Ivan and Maria was that she was young enough to have lots of kids? Spoiler alert...that didn't happen. 

Appearance:

Anastasia's hard to pin down. I've found references that say she was middle of the road in terms of beauty, and others that say she was stunning. Most seem to agree that she was auburn-haired, and had a sweet face. No contemporary portraits of her exist, though maybe at some point a reconstruction could be made from her remains. Maria was invariably described as exceedingly beautiful, but again, no contemporary images exist.  Based on where she was from, I would guess that she was dark haired and dark eyed, but that's a guess on my part.

Lineage:

Anastasia's family was not super high in the hierarchy of things, but respected. Maria was the daughter of a chieftain, so much higher up.

Religion:

Both were  Russian Orthodox, though Maria was initially Muslim.

Personality:

Anastasia had a calming, moderating influence on Ivan. Every historical source I've read agrees to that. She helped rein in the worst of his impulses, and the fact that Ivan started his reign somewhat well can probably be attributed to her. Is that possibly why Ivan chose her as a wife? It wouldn't be surprising, or would it shock me if the people around Ivan pushed Anastasia. Would Ivan have some kind of psychiatric diagnosis today? Given his behavior, most likely, with bipolar and manic depression coming to mind first. Saying he had a volatile nature and temper would be the most generous way to put it, and the man did not get better with age. 

Maria is harder to pin down. I recognize that contemporary sources might be biased against her, since she was foreign. However, I have found nothing to indicate that she was a nice person. She has been variously described as witchy, vindictive, illiterate, and manipulative. She was also not nice to Ivan's children by Anastasia. Again, could some of that be bias? Sure, but she seems to have been as close to the opposite of Anastasia as it gets. She may have been the one who instigated the formation of the oprichniki, Ivan's secret police/torturers/executioners/band of psychos. So, yeah, not finding a whole lot positive about her.

Death:

Well, they've got some common ground here. Both were poisoned. In Maria's case, it does appear that the poisoning was deliberate, though who was behind that assassination is still a mystery. It might have been Ivan himself, though sources of the time say that he went out of his way to find out who killed Maria, using the oprichniki. I don't know...it would certainly be within Ivan's character to poison someone he didn't like, but Maria also had more than her share of enemies in the court.

Anastasia also died by poison, specifically, mercury. Her death well and truly sent Ivan off the rails. Lots of people who he even suspected of involvment were killed in nasty ways, and he only got worse from there. For centuries, it was debated if Anastasia's death by poisoning was accidental or intentional. Mercury was used at the time for medicinal purposes (yes, I know, and this chemistry teacher is internally screaming at that notion), though it was also used as a weapon. A modern forensic examination of her remains showed an abnormally high amount of mercury, which would be more consistent with a deliberate poisoning (though, if she had been taking smaller amounts for a long time, that could explain the level as well...mercury is not easily excreted). If it was deliberate, I would love to know what the culprit was smoking to think that was a good idea to remove the one real restraint on Ivan's behavior. If they thought he was bad before, and he was certainly no picnic, he got infinitely worse afterward. 

Hilary