Tanya Lisle

Creative on a health break

Author: Tanya

  • NaNoWriMo Poll 2019

    Guess what time it is! You guessed it, it’s time for the annual novel poll! By now you all know the drill. You get up to three votes, so pick the ones you like the most and I’ll be sure to write at least one of them this November!

    Cloned Evil: More Present than the Living
    Something weird is happening to Gigi. Her adopted mom doesn’t have the answers, but her estranged family might. Though her villain sisters have never quite seen eye to eye with their hero sibling, Gigi doesn’t know who else to turn to and is surprised when they agree to help her find her biological father.

    Dreamscape: Drifting ((Anyone who’s been following me a while, yep I’m reviving this and turning it into a series))
    Ciara hasn’t woken up. She is trapped in this dream, uncertain of whether all these other people around her are part of her dream or not. Strangely, this one girl seems much too happy to have company in her dream and seems to know exactly what’s going on. 

    Atlantis Project
    When the kids escaped into the portal to another world all those years ago, they ruined diplomatic relations with an entire universe. Years later, the one child they managed to get back is charged with finding the rest of his friends and stopping their shenanigans so that they can mend their relationship with the alien race. 

    Reckless Abandon
    It started when Liz stopped speaking English one day. And then Caelin’s father went missing, and his wasn’t the only one. They’ve all been seeing a strange boy asking for their help, and Caelin decides to gather all those who are affected to go into a strange land, only to find that their parents were taken for a reason.

    The End
    After years of knowing that the end is coming, it’s finally arrived. Every fortune teller has fallen into a deep coma. It’s time for the world to be reborn, but no one is quite sure how it will happen or what it will look like. No one’s even sure what will cause it, leaving no way to prepare or make sure they survive.

    You can vote for up to three and cheating is encouraged! If you’re not quite sure which, be sure to come back and I’ll be talking about each of them a little more over the next couple weeks. Happy voting!

    NaNoWriMo 2019 Poll!

    • Cloned Evil (28%, 58 Votes)
    • Dreamscape (24%, 49 Votes)
    • Reckless Abandon (19%, 39 Votes)
    • The End (16%, 33 Votes)
    • Atlantis Project (14%, 29 Votes)

    Total Voters: 128

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  • I’ll be at Canzine 2019

    Heads up for those who live in the area! I’m going to be at Canzine in a few weeks! I’m getting better at making sure I make it out to events like this and it’s a lot of fun to get a chance to actually meet some of you in person. I’ll have books, the shorts, and maybe a couple other fun things if you ask nice. 

    There’s also just a lot of other cool stuff there? When I went last year, it was really cool and I met a lot of really great people. Plus, it’s at the library this year, so if you’re in town why not?

    Here’s the information if you need to know more:

  • Dreadful Company Review

    After how much fun I had with Strange Practice, it seemed only natural that I’d checkout the sequel! Because apparently there’s more than one!

    This book starts with Greta and Ruthvan in France attending a conference about supernatural medical practices. ((Which is actually a pretty fascinating world detail!)) In pretty short order things go wrong in that Greta gets kidnapped and it takes a while to notice she’s missing thanks to people being conveniently called away and not thinking much about the woman at a conference not paying attention to her phone for a bit. Gradually, you learn that she’s been taken by a coven of vampires, the head of which has a grudge against Ruthvan, and that this is a pretty terrible coven in most respects. Partially because one is turning people without consent, and partially because another is summoning so many cute things that she’s causing the fabric of reality to grow thin. 

    I mean, worth it though. 

    This book was as much fun as the last one, I’m happy to say. It doesn’t suffer from second book syndrome in that it’s still a contained adventure that references previous events and builds on the characters. There are a few perspectives I didn’t care for initially, but it was good to have them in the narrative to help flesh out the universe and give the last few keys to the puzzle of what was going on. The story has so many disparate parts that you really don’t know until the end how they all fit together, but they do fit together pretty marvelously. 

    I also really like how the diversity is done in this universe. They exist and that’s it. It feels like the universe is diverse as opposed to a story where they are trying to hit a quota. They are there, you notice them, their actions are informed by their experiences, and then we focus on the vampires destroying reality that we need to call in the forces of hell to deal with. 

    It does, however, still have that other issue where it doesn’t sound like it’s taking place in the modern day. Every reference to cell phones and smartphones feels out of place because they all talk like they are from a very different era. It feels jarring, but I wonder if some of that is because it takes place in Europe. 

    Overall, I really enjoyed it! The series is a lot of fun so far and I’ll probably check out the third when it comes out. 

    Get it on Amazon!

  • The Hazel Wood Review

    Did I pick up this book because I thought it might be another comp title? Yes. Was it? Kind of. Did I enjoy it? Mostly!

    The Hazel Wood follows Alice as she is just trying to live her nomadic life with her mother. They are constantly moving around due to bad luck and she ends up marrying a rich man who is an asshole, as rich men always seem to be in these stories. Her estranged and now dead grandmother, Althea, was an author of a very rare book with a fanbase of obsessives. Or rather, everyone who gets their hands on the books becomes obsessed with them? One of those directions. When Ella’s mother gets kidnapped, Alice teams up with a fan to find her mother, given that the kidnappers have left the name Hinterland behind, which is the title of her grandmother’s book.

    The whole thing is wrapped in fairy tales and the first half is steeped deep in the mystery of it, They aren’t the fairy tales that we grew up with, but they feel like they could have come from Grimm given how they are treated and interacted with. It’s interesting to have the feeling that you know what these stories are when only two are ever actually told in the book, and one of them I don’t think is actually told to completion.

    I do have to make mention of Alice, because this will be a thing of contention, but I enjoyed watching her story and disliked her as a person. Alice is angry and self-centred, and that doesn’t stop by the end of the book. She has a reason behind it, but the reason is not really enough to excuse any of her actions in the story and I did actually like it. She’s kind of terrible and I have a thing for terrible characters that I feel I’m not supposed to relate to.

    My issues come largely in the second half of the book. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but the second half felt rushed even though it wasn’t. I think it was supposed to read more like a traditional fairy tale, but it came across instead like the front half of the story was being shown and the back half was being told. There were too many elements that were brought in, too many new characters that didn’t have enough impact on the story to warrant being named, too many things about Alice herself that hadn’t been foreshadowed before. There was a lot that needed to be cut back or cut down in order to make the pacing of the latter half match the former, and to tighten up the narrative on the other side. The detour to show that the brother ((Who never gets a name despite him being plot relevant for some reason)) was helpful was largely unnecessary and could have been better woven in.

    And now I’m going to talk about Ellery Finch.

    Spoiler

    So Finch. The only black character, who is black for exactly one scene in the story when they are talking to the cops and could be anything else throughout the rest of the book, He feels very much like a token character in that regard, and I don’t know if that was intentional, but it felt out of place. She kills him off at one point, but the landing doesn’t stick and he comes back, which feels strange given the context of the rest of the story. In a dark fairy tale world, the dead should really stay dead or it loses that atmosphere.The relationship between him and Alice was nice, but it never feels like it actually resolves at the end, and the redemption at the end feels hollow.

    [collapse]

    Still, I did enjoy the majority of the book. As I’m learning, I’m weirdly picky with narrative pacing and structure, and that’s much more on me than it is on the books. ((I’m also learning that I’m a horror writer!)) I did enjoy the read, even with the pacing problems at the end, and it was a lot of fun, especially with the new fairy tale concepts.

    Read it now on Amazon!

  • Writing Resources

    There’s a lot of resources that I’ve been relying on to make all these books and aesthetic stuff over the years. I might as well share a could of them with everyone, eh? 

    Programs

    Some cheaper alternatives to some of the more expensive options ((And Adobe in specific, which I really want to get off of)) that are out there. I’ve used all of these and found them to be almost as good as the standard products, though some have a bit of a steeper learning curve than others. 

    Courses

    Because continuous learning is good. Especially continuous learning about marketing because, well, marketing is hard. 

    • Lynda (I get this one from the library)
    • Skillshare (This link gives 2 free months and helps me out)

    Covers and Aesthetic Resources

    Graphics! We love cover making and, if you’re as bad at drawing as I am, these are some pretty good graphic resources to get you started. 

    Let me know if there’s any that I missed! 

  • Ms Miller Backstory

    I’m going to be doing a short series about the backstories of characters that appear in The Looking Glass Saga that don’t get nearly enough attention and probably never will. To start with, Ms. Miller!

    Ms Rose Miller is an educational tutor that is currently working while going for her PhD in Child Psychology. Her specialization is with children with autism, though working with Alice has been a it of a special case. She took the job of caring and educating a child who was advertised to have a very tenuous grasp on reality because it presented a unique challenge and because it was very good money at a time when she desperately needed it. 

    She is not fond of the situation that she ended up with in terms of Alice. The issue was largely with the parents believing strange things about their child and giving her a very different complex. When mentioning it to colleagues, they warned her quickly that the Liddells had a reputation of making things difficult for anyone who tried to call CPS. Careers had been left ruined by what were deemed false accusations of those who pressed too hard. She doesn’t think that the children in the house are safe there, but ultimately doesn’t want to ruin her career before it gets started. 

    Given this, Rose’s focus remained entirely on the well being of the girls in the house. While Alice was a docile girl looking to stay out of trouble, her sister was much less willing to remain under her father’s rule. Eventually, she ran away and Rose helped her escape once she was sure of the situation that she was escaping into, promising to keep an eye on her sister. 

    Aside from Alice, Rose watches over three other students that are much less intensive, which gives her just enough time for her thesis and a relationship, especially now that she is only seeing Alice during the summers. She has been seeing Theodore Williams, a social worker she met through her program, for two years and they have been talking about marriage after Rose finishes her degree. 

  • Beauty Sleep Quotes Roundup

    Beauty Sleep is coming out in a couple days! Let’s do a roundup of some quotes!

  • Sawkill Girls Review

    I thought I’d take a break from what I usually read and went with something that felt much different. I knew vaguely that there was an ace character in here, but other than that I was intrigued by the idea of a series of murders happening on an island and it being up to a few girls to find out what happened to their friends, This was not quite what I was expecting, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

    The story mostly follows Marion, a young woman who is new to the island. Her, her sister Charlotte, and her mother are relocating to the island for her mother’s work and to try and move on from their father’s death. She doesn’t put much weight on the disappearances of the young girls on the island until her sister goes missing after falling in with the beautiful and popular Val. The outcast, Zoey, who is still mourning the disappearance of her friend from months before, joins her and a whole lot of paranormal stuff starts happening.

    So, as it turns out, this story is about a demon feeding on the girls of the island in an attempt to become strong enough to break free of his human hosts—Val’s family—and the island to go and murder whoever he wants. And Sawkill rock, ((An actual, sentient rock. It makes more sense and is less silly in context.)) finding young girls to give the abilities necessary to fight and eliminate the demon.

    The movement from creepy mystery to girls with powers fighting a demon is done pretty well and not as jarring as it could have been. The atmosphere is consistently dark throughout and there’s new elements to the world constantly being brought in and introduced, from the demon to the powers to the cult of monster hunters made up entirely of men, and any with lines are incredibly sexist. Who you knew were going to be evil and useless because this book goes a little heavy on the feminism themes.

    There was only one bit that really bothered me, and that was less the scene itself than its purpose in the narrative. Coming into the climax ((It’s a sex scene, there are so many puns, I’m about 20% sorry)) two of the characters hook up and the sole purpose of it appears to be so that they can make characters more angry at one another. The results of that conflict are resolved so easily during the main conflict in favour of focusing on longer and more established ones that it felt a little pointless and like it would have been better done earlier if they wanted the conflict to have a bit more punch.

    As for the representation, the queer ladies are done fairly well. I thought the relationship between he girls moved a little fast, but this book is structured very much like a horror movie, so that’s to be expected. Teenagers and their teenage hormones and the murders happening everywhere making them run amok. The asexuality is mostly displayed as an indifference-to-aversion to sex which is… fine? It’s not my experience, but it’s probably good for those who do experience it. The conversations around it sound about right, so it works.

    Overall, I really enjoyed the book! It’s spooky, it has some interesting concepts, and the characters are a lot of fun to follow as they try to figure out themselves and what to do with the demon.

    Get Sawkill Girls on Amazon!

  • Beauty Sleep is out now!

    After all this time, the end was finally in sight.

    Alice long ago learned that life wasn’t fair. She had tried everything to defeat the Bandersnatch, but he remained deep in the forest of Lucena Academy. With only one semester left, she thought she could just enjoy herself as much as possible and wait until he finally took her away forever.

    But when Adrianna suddenly falls into a coma, Alice knows there’s something strange happening. At the direction of the monster about to claim her, she must go back into Wonderland and through the depths of Neverland to find a way to wake her up. Alice knows time is running out for her, but she will stop at nothing to make sure Adrianna is okay.

    Get your copy of Beauty Sleep

  • Beauty Sleep Chapter 1

    This is a preview if Chapter 1 of Beauty Sleep!

    Divorce had become a forbidden word. It hadn’t even appeared in the emails telling Alice that she was going directly to the Case’s for Christmas break and that she would be remaining there until the school year started. Now that she was here, it was a topic that would not be brought up, though it seemed that there were more than a few close calls in the first couple days.

    Alice wondered if that was for her benefit or if she was going to have to tell them that not talking about it wasn’t going to stop it from happening.

    It was a little sad, but she could understand why they didn’t want her there right now. She hoped that she could see her parents one last time before she was taken away forever. They wouldn’t miss her, though. She wasn’t sure they would miss her even if they did remember that they had a daughter. She had caused them a lot of problems, had likely been the cause of their divorce despite what Lori tried to tell her. Maybe with her gone they could work out their problems and be happy. Just one more semester.

    She could send them an email or call them before the Bandersnatch took her away. Evan’s disappearance had taught her that the Bandersnatch didn’t seem to be as good at cleaning up electronic evidence. Not that either of them would know what her email was about after June.

    Again, she found herself wondering if there was really a point to trying to say goodbye to anyone before she was taken away. The point was to give them some closure about her disappearance and to let them know she was thinking of them and sorry, but it meant nothing once she wasn’t there anymore. When he took her, it would be like she never existed.

    Statistically, there was a chance she might be able to figure out a way to get around the Bandersnatch. There was likely some way to convince him to leave and to win the bet, but all of her looking through the books and trying to work out a method of trapping him or throwing him back into Wonderland had so far proven fruitless. She didn’t have any more ideas.

    There was nothing to do but try to finish as much as she could before she was gone once and for all. Hopefully Adam would come back without too much of a fight, and she could find Matt before it was all over. She should do something about the Queen of Hearts, but Wonderland could probably figure that out without her. She would need to teach someone else to return hearts, but that was it. If she could just finish that, maybe she could find some time to have a bit of fun before she faded away.

    For right now, though, she tried not to think about it, even though it continued to creep into her thoughts at every waking moment now that she was enjoying her very last Christmas. Adrianna was off with one of her brothers doing something else, leaving Alice and Lori to hang out with Ryan and Travis as they prepared cookies for tomorrow. Again.

    Cookies had become a thing Alice was making more or less constantly while she was here, seeing as they were eaten with fair regularity. While the people in the Case household were mostly their usual selves, kind and friendly, there were still flashes of hostility that came out of nowhere. Peter had shown her which flower would dispel that and so she had made it a point to be in the kitchen at least a little each day to sprinkle a some of the cure in the food so that she would not have to deal with that any longer. She wasn’t sure how much longer the flowers would last, but she had far too much on her mind to be worried about that as well.

    “My baby sister’s almost in high school!” Lori said, pleased as they put the cut cookies in the oven and set the timer. Alice was careful to be the one to make the dough, remembering all too well how Lori tended to forget ingredients like sugar when she was baking. “New classes, new dorms, new everything.”

    “Except Addie,” Travis told her. “You don’t get to lose her just yet.”

    Alice smiled, though she felt a pang of guilt at the reminder. She was going to be abandoning Adrianna to high school all on her own. She would be all right, going in with plenty of friends who could give her a hand and without Alice to distract her from her classes any longer, but perhaps she was someone she should say farewell to before she left. Or maybe not. If she was gone the next day, it would be easier for everyone and they wouldn’t have to be sad at all.

    “I have to get there, first,” Alice reminded her, a smile on her face. It was out of her hands now, and there was no reason to make anyone else worry about it. She would be gone no matter what happened. And it was Christmas in a house that really liked celebrating the holiday with family. Who had basically been adopting her the last few years. And with a sister that she thought she might never see again. She could let herself relax at least a little.

    “You’ll get there,” Lori said, ruffling her hair a little. “Ms. Miller taught you all this stuff years ago. You could probably have jumped right into high school with her help if you really wanted to.”

    “Does that mean she can tutor you in Chemistry?” Ryan asked, looking over at the pair of them. “Because I saw that last test.” He smiled gently, though Lori looked embarrassed about her grades and stumbled through an explanation.

    “Not my fault that teacher hates me,” she said. “I missed one question on the test and the whole multiple choice was off after that.” She looked and sounded irritated from the whole thing, but Alice still smiled and tried to gently calm her back down. She didn’t want Lori to be upset during their last Christmas together.

    “Can you retake it?” Alice offered.

    “Yeah, I’m doing a makeup exam with a different teacher in January,” Lori told her. “No scantron, so I shouldn’t screw it up this time around.” That seemed to calm her down, or at least she pushed the feelings back down before they could boil over. Alice could tell she had already been stressed about this enough, so she didn’t press any further. Ryan looked like he wasn’t sure if he’d said something wrong, but neither of the girls would say anything.

    “Is your girlfriend coming tomorrow?” Alice asked, trying to divert the subject to something a little happier. She did like seeing her sister happy, and knowing that she was in a relationship and watching her light up talking about it was one of the things Alice had come to enjoy. It was great spending so much time with Lori this year, but she did hope that she wasn’t taking her away from other people in her life. Well, maybe she was okay with it since it would only be one last time. “Her name is Jennifer, right?”

    “She’s coming by for lunch on Boxing Day,” Lori said, already looking excited. “But I’m going to be heading there for dinner tonight. You’re okay with putting up with all these guys without me for a night, right?” She smiled, looking up directly at Travis, who looked offended.

    “Hey!” he snapped back at her, but he was smiling as he said it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    “I think you know exactly what it means,” she told him.

    “I think you need to elaborate.”

    “I think you need to learn how to peel a carrot again.”

    Travis jumped and realized that he wasn’t so much peeling the carrot anymore as he was whittling it into a very sharp point. Ryan laughed as Travis put it casually to the side, patting it like it could keep his secret, and moved onto the next one. “You know, if someone tried to attack us right now, I could protect us all with Frosty’s nose. You should be thanking me.”

    “Thank you for turning a nose into a murder weapon,” Ryan told him, giving him a light whack on the back. “Now, if you could continue cooking like there were still two extra ravenous mouths to feed, that would be great.” Even as he said it, confusion flickered across Ryan’s face like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to make of it. He shook the thoughts away. Alice looked back at the timer for the cookies.

    Beauty Sleep is out on June 19th! Order it now on Amazon!