Tag: creative writing

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Sword & Shield

The crowbar whistles by my temple. I jerk my head back and it misses me by an inch. The desperate relief doesn’t even register through the exhaustion fogging my mind. The strike I make in return, cutting up at an angle across the raider’s torso, doesn’t miss. The woman falls. As her body hits the ground, I’m suddenly furious at the waste of it. All the vibrant lives cut short today because of one provincial baron’s petty greed and spite. But he’s not the one killing farmers and blacksmiths’ sons right now, is he? I think bitterly as I spin and raise my guard again, muscles burning with the effort. So, who’s fault is it really?

Is this really justice? Are we even protecting anyone anymore?

I’m just so fucking tired.

The ground around is littered with bodies. Only a few assailants remain. I’ve lost my shield. I can’t see Kallias, but I can just make out his ragged breaths – half shouting – as he fights. We’re both flagging. He’s trying to bait them forward, but his words have lost their usual mocking bite. 

…

“I don’t want to be bond-partnered with some ugly, dirt covered bog urchin!”

I blinked. The other novices stifled nervous laughs at the boy’s outburst, watching as he glared disdainfully at Master Jacobs, chin raised with the kind of defiance only a twelve-year-old can manage.

“Nevertheless, Kallias, I’m assigning you with Alexi,” the man replied calmly. “And I expect that from this point forward you will work together, train together, and trust and rely on each other as you would no one else.”

He turned to the rest of the room and raised his voice.

“All of you here have been given a duty that from now on, you are expected to uphold with honour, care, and conscientiousness. That duty is not owed to me. It is not owed to the lord-prefect or to the king. It is a duty owed to the world and to your fellow knights. None more so than your bond-partners.” All the novices held their breath, rapt by Master Jacobs’ words, myself included, so that the derisive snort from Kallias was perfectly audible as he rolled his eyes. Master Jacobs turned his head to look at him.

“If you choose to neglect that duty,” he continued evenly, “that is within your right. I cannot control your hearts and minds and will not pretend otherwise. But you will live far longer and happier lives by embracing the responsibilities you’ve been given rather than running away from them.”

With that, he turned away. Kallias walked over to stand next to me, though not so close that anyone could mistake his apparent loathing, arms crossed sullenly. I tossed him a small sparring blade.

“You know, if anyone has a right to be pissy, it’s me,” I proffered, too low for anyone else to hear. “I didn’t ask to be bond-partnered with a lazy, lice-ridden wastrel either.”

He hit me with the practice sword.

…

I hold my longsword in a cross guard, using its reach to keep the trio in front of me from closing the distance, spinning to keep them from my unprotected back. Where Kallias would be if they hadn’t swarmed and separated us.

All three lunge at once, pressing their advantage. The tallest inexpertly wields a short sword, slashing at my neck while the second crouches low to catch me in the ribs with a dagger that’s seen better days. He’s young. Barely more than a boy. His eyes are a stormy gray.

…

“Is that really all you’ve got, Alexi?”

Kallias danced to the edge of the ring and slouched back against the ropes, grinning and flipping the dull practice blade in his hand like he had all the time in the world. His eyes were alight with mischief, gray brightened to silver. The dusk light suited him, and it wasn’t just the exertion of sparring that made my breath hitch in my chest. He was so beautiful. 

I stepped forward, sword held high at the ready and grinned back. “Come find out.”

…

I parry the blade and allow the momentum of my swing to draw me into a turn, hips and shoulders pivoting to drive my sword through the young man’s arm at the shoulder, severing it. I don’t have the wherewithal to identify the emotion that sings through me at seeing him fall to the ground screaming. The third, a stocky man, cuts down to slam an axe into my back and finds his blow skimming my armour with an awful metallic screech before my elbow cracks into his nose. The axe drops from his hand as he reels back.

But I’ve overextended. I’m too off balance. Despite the broken nose, half blind, he grabs my sword arm and pulls open my guard just enough, just in time, for his last remaining companion to take his opening.

…

“Come on!”  Kallias pulled me by the arm through the crowd, shouting in my ear to be heard over the din. “I’m tired of being packed in like a sardine!”

We escaped the crush of people and sat on the cliffs alone, watching the fireworks from afar. I leaned against his shoulder, both of us laughing and drunk off the energy of the summer solstice festival. Drunk off the stolen bottle already half empty in Kallias’s hands too. The multicoloured bursts of light outlined the planes of his face and played in the curls of his hair, and I marveled again at how beautiful he was in the low light. I think I said it aloud. Maybe that’s why something suddenly pulled taught between us and he turned to look at me.

But when he leaned in, I pulled away and his lips brushed my cheek instead.

“Kallias…”

He raised an eyebrow, questioning and confused. 

“This isn’t a good idea,” I said.

Had I not been looking away, perhaps I would have seen the hurt that flashed across his face. But when I looked up he just shrugged, easy and light, and smiled like nothing was wrong at all.

“No harm done,” he said wryly, as we turned back to the fireworks. “We’re partners until a violent death do us part. And I can’t trust anyone else to keep me in the extravagant lifestyle to which I’m accustomed.”

…

I see the blow coming but can’t raise my guard in time. I’m too slow. Too tired. And there’s no trick up my sleeve this time. I finally find Kallias in my periphery from the glint of his armour and turn my head.

Duty. Responsibility. From the moment I was dedicated, I took those things to heart in a way he never did, and was content. I molded myself into a shield, protecting the helpless and the hopeless of the world from those that would seek to harm them. And a shield doesn’t get to want anything. A shield puts themselves between those they serve and danger, without counting the cost to itself.

In that final moment, perhaps for the first time, I count the cost.

His eyes find mine. They widen in fear.

We don’t even need to speak to understand each other most days. Not anymore. More than a decade together and our shared language has become one of gestures and silent expressions. Necessary in our line of work, as often there’s no time for words.

I hope that he recognizes what I wish I could say aloud. What I should have said a long time ago.

It was always you. He would have been enough for me, and I’ll die here regretting that I never said it. Regretting that I was a coward. Regretting that we… no, that I… chose thankless, faithless duty over him. The world didn’t need all of me.

I love you. I wish we had more time.

The blade falls.

These two have my whole entire heart, and I simply cannot stop myself from imagining tragic ends for them. How much can I hurt myself in just 30-seconds of action?

Alexi has been my character in my favourite long-running ttrpg game for three years now, and I cannot express adequately how much I love my genderfluid dhampyr knight. While this isn’t a complete one to one representation from that particular campaign (it’s way more high fantasy than what’s here), but the emotions and the intensity are exactly correct. Alexi ain’t dead yet (in spite of their risk taking behaviour – it’s necessary I swear!), but if they do have to die, it better be as dramatic and heart-wrenching as this.

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Writing Prompt #6: Bitter Nostalgia

“A feeling of love and nostalgia gripped her heart every time she looked at that photograph of …. “

A feeling of love and nostalgia gripped his heart every time he looked at that photograph of the two of them, crinkled at the edges in spite of his care over the years. It was a sharp feeling, bittersweet at best, and it always eventually left him breathless with pain.

He didn’t think it would ever go away. 

Sofia and James. She stared out at him, as serene and lovely as the night they met. The still image couldn’t capture the playful vivacity she’d had in life, carefully cultivated and carefully wielded. She’d caught his eye. He’d asked her to dance. Her husband had been so busy that he hadn’t noticed her waltzing with the young merchant he’d snubbed only hours before.

In her arms, waving gleefully at the camera, was James. Jem. He would have been… four years old. As bright and clever and playful as his mama in spite of the suffocating rigours of life as a dignitary’s son.  

He felt the guilt crawl up his throat, choking him. They’d never been his in the first place… and it was his fault they were gone now. 

They’d been together for less than a year, but it had been the happiest year of his life. She’d filled his life with passion and laughter and intrigue while James had instilled a parental fondness that he hadn’t known he possessed. Everything had finally fallen into place; he’d had everything he needed… and still he’d wanted more. He’d been hungry for so long, he hadn’t known what it was to be satisfied.

That mistake had killed them both in the end. 

So this is absolutely the same character from Writing Prompt #2, and he’s one of my favourite characters from the ttrpg I’m currently running. This is all backstory of his that my players haven’t found yet and maybe they won’t ever get there… but I adore him and all the complicated decisions he’s made.

That’s all for me this today! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Art Book #1 + Bonus 5-Minute Poem

If I were a star and you were a star
I would shine for you and pine for you
spinning forever apart, waiting 
for your light to reach me
while they call our love "science"

So it’s been a crazy week and that’s means we get something a little different today! A five minute poem and a favourite painting that I’ve done recently.

I don’t often find the time to paint, but when I do I have a deep fondness for night skies and mountains landscapes. My trash book is going to be filled with them when all’s said and done.

That’s all for me! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Writing Prompt #5: Back at Arcadia

“She was usually an optimistic person but the challenge that faced her on that first day back in a classroom after so many years threatened to overwhelm her.”

She was used to facing challenges! They’d been her bread and butter for the past decade! 

But those challenges had usually been something straightforward like decrypting arcane ciphers while a razor cage closed in on you (not her fault!) or dodging angry spirit guardians who did not appreciate someone stepping into their domain (okay… that one was her fault). You know – real challenges. Things with life or death stakes that made you feel truly alive under all the dirt, sweat, and blood. 

Until the day you got too slow and ended up suddenly very dead. 

Gods, she’d loved it. Students trickled into what was now – regrettably – her lecture hall, and she restrained a dejected sigh. Filtering through the open door was the staccato murmur of twenty somethings (basically children!) passing by on their way to whatever class they’d justified was worth the extortionate amount of money they’d paid. The sound grated on her already paper-thin patience. 

She’d actually forgotten how much she hated academia (the institution, not the concept), and the violent death she’d always been expecting looked more and more tempting by the minute. But no, that luxury had passed her by thanks to that last job… and the payout hadn’t lasted nearly as long as she’d hoped. She’d only gone to Smythe because she was desperate for something to keep her afloat, and she suspected (justifiably!) that he had capitalized on that. 

Regardless, she was back. University of Arcadia. Now on the other side of the desk.

As the door swung shut and the last students took their seats, she looked over the lecture hall wearily and thought, “Gods help us all.”

I’m sensing a theme with some of my writing class prompts.

I actually really like the character that I’ve sketched out with this one! There’s something about her voice and exasperation here that I find really compelling and funny. I’m going to keep this one in my back pocket to work on later and make into a longer narrative when the inspiration strikes.

That’s all for me this today! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Writing Prompt #4: Wonder

The feeling nestled under her breastbone like a small bird, alive and restless, as her feet sank into soft loam, leaving footprints behind.

Her senses were sharper; insects and small creatures fled at her approach, their skittering clear as the sound of her own steps. She felt more real than she ever had, just a slip of a girl moving silently through the trees. Just another shadow at dusk. Her mother had always dissuaded her (half-heartedly) from exploring past the periphery of the great forest their cottage nestled against, but at the end of the day they were too much alike. Her mother knew that her daughters were proud and stubborn and dreadfully curious, so she let them run free.

Rosie had run to the sea, but Ada was drawn to the forest.

The forest really belonged to her mother anyway, so why would there be anything to fear? The sharp scent of fir and early frost dominated over the sweet scent of decay. Autumn was giving way to winter. The soft things were dying, leaving space for the hardy, sharp things to emerge. Things like her, she thought, as that small bird in her ribcage ruffled its feathers and sang.

She had once asked her mother who had named the Witchwood and why; her mother had replied that that had always been its name as far back as anyone could remember, though no witch or hag had ever lived there. No, there wouldn’t have been, Ada thought, as night fell and still she continued on. Because it had been waiting.

Waiting for her. 

Am I taking inspiration for these from established characters I already use for my own ttrpg games? Yes. But when you’re working full-time, freelancing, and also taking another writing class because you didn’t expect that you’d get really busy… you take inspiration where you can get it.

Plus, can I really help loving my favourite character’s daughters? In the campaign I’m running right now they’re only twelve, but I like thinking about them and what their stories are going to be someday. Rosie will grow up to be a swashbuckling pirate just like her father, and Ada will end up a proper storybook witch-hag in a cottage of her own. Not quite like her mama, but still such a satisfying direction.

They’re absolute sweeties and also terrors to behold hahaha.

That’s all for me this today! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Mountain of Madness

I went on a two day writer’s retreat with a couple close friends of mine this past weekend and cannot recommend the experience enough! We ended up staying at a small family-run retreat ground with some well furnished yurts, wood burning stoves, and private hot tubs which honestly created the perfect winter atmosphere to shake off some of the post-holiday blues. Plus, there’s something about writing and bouncing ideas off of friends that makes for such a fun, relaxing time.

I decided to revisit an old short story I whipped up for a creative writing class last fall, since I wanted to seriously tackle smoothing out the rough edges. I’m a big fan of horror stories (though I’m very picky about them too), and ended up chasing an idea that was very Lovecraftian. Lovecraft was the first horror writer I ever read when I was younger and tackling a lot of the “classics,” so I have a fondness for his work (hence the title, though At the Mountains of Madness was a slog to get through).

She still needs some tweaks, but I’m very happy with the current state of affairs. I hope you love the twist at the end as much as I loved writing it!

I must tell them, I think feverishly, huddling in a small cavern in the dark. 

Hiding from the lights. 

Hiding from what I know the lights herald. 

I wrap my arms around myself and shudder, my skin flushing hot and cold as I struggle to maintain what little composure I have left. They must believe me! I’m one of them. I’m just as worthy a scholar! They’re just… I’m not… 

My thoughts thrash, caught in a net of panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! 

I’ve spent so many seasons on the periphery, ignored and dismissed by the consortium. I tried so hard to find my way into the inner circles only for my path to be barred, not because I lacked intelligence or diligence or experience. No. The way remained closed because I lacked pedigree. Because I’m not from one of the founding bloodlines. I was never going to be allowed into the hallowed halls of learning unless I did something bold! Something none of them had ever even attempted before!

I can see them in my mind’s eye; self-satisfied, lazy scholars and philosophers gorging on oysters and roe while at the edges of the world those things press in…

Memories rise in my mind, unbidden, filling me with waves of terror that threaten to pull me deeper and… No! I hold back a cry. If I let myself fall apart now, then I won’t be able to make the journey back. There will be no one to warn the world of what is coming.

…

The journey from the consortium’s territories had been long and arduous. I hadn’t told anyone of my plans, unable to bear the looks of pity and derision I was sure I’d attract; few in our history had ever returned from the eastern mountain ranges. Those that had had passed down stories of great grass plains and barren wastelands. Mountains of craggy rock that climbed higher and higher until they actually pierced the veil of the world, their peaks disappearing into that shimmering unknown. No one had ever ventured to see what lay beyond. 

No one until me. 

I had slithered through the grassy plains and darted across the wastelands, ignoring the hunger that grew by the day as neither held much in the way of food. Until finally I reached the base of the mountains. 

Jagged rock sharp enough to tear flesh ascended in fits and starts, so I carefully picked my way up the slope, pulling myself over sudden rises and angled cliff faces for gods knows how long. Until, finally reaching the horizon, I gaped in awe at the infinite space beyond. 

It was flush with colours I could never have imagined, filling my vision with a shimmering splendor such as I’d never seen before. It was worth it. My hearts leapt with elation, and the pleasure of victory drowned the doubts that had whispered in the back of my mind for weeks, much as I had tried to silence them. It was all worth it, just to see this.

Without consciously deciding, I reached up towards the barrier between known and unknown, until I realized what I was about to do and hesitated. My outstretched arm curled with uncertainty. But the voices of the consortium rose in my mind as they often did in such moments. Utter nonsense! How is this any different than the fanciful tales we get from every self-proclaimed explorer who crosses our shores? This isn’t a scholarly account, it’s a bedtime story! Their imagined disdain hardened my resolve, so I reached out again into that wide, strange space.

I cannot truly describe the feeling of what lies beyond. 

As I reached out, a thin layer of water rolled back over my arm as if it couldn’t bear to exist in this other place. The thing that had cradled me all my life quickly dried up and was gone. I felt nothingness. There was only the lingering taste of salt that seemed to sink into my skin and linger, before even that was gone. I reached out with another arm, and another, and another, but still embraced only absence. 

There wasn’t even a current in this place! Only stillness. 

But as I reached, I gradually noticed that this was not quite right. There was no current, but there was something faintly like a current. It was nothing I could understand, but there was still a taste of… something. Acrid. Acidic. Alien. My limbs grew oddly heavy as adrenaline waned, and an irrational fear that they would soon begin to wither seeped into my hearts. I pulled myself back, mind racing with possibilities.

Consumed as I was by my own thoughts, I did not feel the vibrations in the current. I did not notice the taste of something else approaching me.

Not until it was far too late. 

Suddenly, a light brighter than any I had ever seen blinded me. Something that was not sharp but held the promise of sharpness gripped my body, and I felt the sickening press of what must have been living flesh stretched over a rigid lattice, spurs extending at violent angles to form a crude cage around my torso. I couldn’t escape.

Water cascaded away as if in fear as the thing dragged me out of the world. A foreign heaviness pressed on me from all sides. I tried to wrench myself free, arms grasping wildly for purchase. They wrapped around whatever held me, and my mind revolted at the wrongness of it. Its skin tasted bitter and toxic. It was covered in thousands of tiny filaments. I almost retched thinking that they were hyphae; I had seen what happened to those taken by fungi. I thrashed harder still at the thought as I was pulled further into the expanse. With my frantic movements, I was then able to roll an eye upward and see the leviathan that held me.

I wish that I hadn’t. It would have been better to have died on my journey and been forgotten.

Its form was so alien, so unnatural and unlike anything I could have imagined, that to look at it strained the mind to breaking. It was angular, with grotesque proportions. Its movements were jointed and abrupt, though with a speed and dexterity that belied its size. I knew at that moment that I could struggle for hours, withering to a husk in this nothingness, and it would never tire. I was going to die in this place.

I still fought, keening wordlessly in fright, pushed past the point of coherency. A seam opened within the creature’s flesh, surrounded by long, dense hyphae that quivered at the movement… a mouth. A mouth filled with blunt teeth. How does it hunt? How does it eat?? Those baffled thoughts vanished at the sound that the creature made.

My panic spiked at the reverberations, so deeply pitched that I couldn’t truly hear them. But what sent me careening over the edge into hysteria… were the echoing calls that responded in the distance. 

It was not alone. 

I wrenched my gaze from its maw to look past its bulk, and with blurred vision saw them. Other creatures like the one that held me, each with their own strange light. 

All waiting just beyond the shallows of the world. All now coming closer.

When I saw what lay beyond even them, any rational thought that I may have had left abandoned me. I must have lashed out at the creature. I must have hit it in some vital part. It cried out again; impossible to believe that that cry held anything but fury, but its grip loosened. I crashed violently into the waters of my own world. 

I didn’t think. I simply fled.

…

I shiver in my cave alone, trying to gather the shreds of myself into some semblance of a person. No, they can’t ignore me this time. I can’t stop myself from breaking out into hysterical laughter and racking sobs. 

Come nightfall, I emerge twitching out of my hiding place and gaze out into the darkness. 

It should feel soothing. What octopus ever feared the dark? It should feel safe. 

But I know that it is not, and I will never feel safe again.

I dart out into the waters, heedless of the dangers that lurk among the coral. They don’t matter now. All that matters is returning and telling everyone what I’ve seen, of the dangers that lurk beyond the waters. As I swim, I can see them still, burned into the backs of my eyes; harbingers of the horror that is sure to come. 

Thousands upon thousands of lights, glittering in the darkness.

What do you think?

That’s all for me this week! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoyed what you’ve read.

As always, be kind to one another.

Love, Charlotte.

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Writing Prompt #3: Meadowlark

It’s another writing prompt this week!

This time, our assignment was based on the following snippet, which I used as the first line of a larger passage: “The playful intimacy she experienced with him was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.”

She vaguely recollected something akin to it in her foggy past, but she no longer truly recognized herself in those remembered moments. That had been a different time. She had been a different person – a gentler, kinder person – before everything had gone wrong.

She’d had lovers since then of course, but never for longer than a single night and it was a rare thing to find someone willing to overlook the strangeness and death that lingered on her skin like perfume. Rarer still to make friends even if she had wanted to and she hadn’t.

She could admit to herself that she was lonely, and had been for a very long time.

Now, even more twisted than before, here was someone who… didn’t care. Even better – or worse – , someone who embraced the sharpness and off-putting wrongness of her without flinching. Someone who wasn’t afraid to challenge her.

He was charming, he was intelligent, and he was ruthless, but above all else he was playful, and it was that quality that had her cautiously prowling around the idea of loving again. Perhaps not the same way she could have before, softly and warmly, but it would be a kind of love all the same. 

I wrote all these prompts for a creative writing course I took in the fall, and it didn’t escape my notice that the majority of the other students wrote literary fiction and romance novels. Both great genres with stories that I’ve loved, but not generally my cup of tea. For better or worse, I’m a sci-fi, fantasy, and horror enthusiast to my core (though I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to branch out as a writer and read from MANY genres).

I’m starting another short story focused writing course this week with the same teacher, so I’m sure I’ll plenty more to share in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

And don’t forget to be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Book Review: The Fox Wife

The Fox Wife, written by Yangsze Choo and published by Henry Holt & Co in early 2024, follows our protagonist, a fox spirit named Snow, through Manchuria in the 1900s as her quest for vengeance on the man that killed her child intersects with and influences the lives of some few others, fox and human alike. 

Bao, our second point of view character, is an older, widowed man who uses an unusual gift to pursue a line of work mostly unheard of; he is a detective who can truly discern lies from truth. He begins an investigation into the death of a young woman found frozen to death in an alley amidst whispers of fox spirits who transform themselves into beautiful men and women to lure unsuspecting humans to death and disgrace. Bao himself has had a fascination with foxes since his childhood. It’s this fascination, mixed with the desire to uncover the truth and do right by his victim, his clients, and himself, that pushes Bao to continue investigating as even stranger events are uncovered and point him towards a singular woman on a journey of her own. 

Meanwhile, Snow has taken the guise of a solitary woman to pursue her daughter’s murderer, her having been unceremoniously dug out of their burrow one winter on the request of a photographer in search of fox pelts. Ruthlessly searching for this photographer, Snow makes her way across Northern China, all the while providing us with biting commentary on cultural customs imposed on women and the ridiculous foolishness of humans in general. 

Reaching the coast, Snow takes up as a servant for a well-off merchant family matriarch at a medicine shop, this family themselves afflicted with a strange curse: each eldest son dies before the age of twenty-four. By strange coincidence (there are no coincidences), the current eldest son has fallen in with (or perhaps “taken in by” is the more correct phrase) a man named Shiro, an infuriatingly flippant fox and former friend of Snow’s. 

Eventually, Snow and Shiro accompany this doomed eldest son and family matriarch to Japan, Shiro in service to his own schemes and Snow to pursue her grim quest to find (and kill) the photographer that commissioned her daughter’s death. Once there, we meet another former friend (or more?) of Snow’s in the form of the grave, honourable, and silent Kuro. The three navigate their own schemes (it’s mostly Shiro’s schemes, if we’re being honest) and complicated histories as things become more and more tangled and dangerous for creatures used to sticking to the margins. 

The Fox Wife is a fairytale. 

In my experience, fairytales tend to have particular traits that you find here in abundance: characters that feel like a suggestion or silhouette (like those paintings that use only a few brushstrokes to depict a face), slow pacing that takes you steadily from beginning to end without many (or any) real surprises, and a series of events that are connected by coincidence and the faint suggestion of fate rather than the characters themselves. 

As a fairytale, I think The Fox Wife does very well for itself, particularly in emulating how its own narrative depicts encounters with foxes. Once a fox leaves your orbit, unless they’ve overstayed and driven their quarry to obsession, then the memory of them becomes vague and eventually fades away into a distant recollection of a feeling. Perhaps you may see another fox (if you’re lucky) and be jolted back into familiarity, but all you’re left with is the faintest impression of a pleasant encounter with someone wonderful. But while this forgettableness is a key part of the folklore surrounding foxes, it’s a much less fitting trait for a book. 

I was pleasantly ambivalent about the story. The closest thing I can liken it to is floating along a calm, burbling stream that simply carried you along and eventually deposited you on the bank without any whirls or dramatic bends at all. Where I look back and feel the most lack is in the characters themselves. They don’t leave much of an impression, though a character as driven and kind and passionate and vengeful and conscientious and complex as Snow should leave a strong impression behind her. Yet, she doesn’t. Neither Shiro nor Kuro make too much of themselves, although they aren’t wooden and lifeless either. They simply exist within a story that moves forward gracefully with or without them. 

I think that’s perhaps the root of my qualms; the main characters really don’t seem to be driving the story forward so much as caught up in its eddies as it happens around them. It’s not that events feel random or contrived but they still somehow feel… listless. Snow comes into the story so strong; driving towards vengeance and yet conflicted over how taking that vengeance will affect her journey towards enlightenment and her desire to be good and moral. Yet just over midway through the story, the photographer is killed offscreen by someone who isn’t even connected to her at all. What little tension that was building towards this crunch point quickly bleeds away and we move on. Bao himself, who is one of two point of view characters, doesn’t have any particular goals beyond doing right by his clients. He simply follows the breadcrumbs and eventually becomes entangled with our foxes in the last quarter of the book.

Something I did want to highlight as very well-done was the use of the two perspectives between Snow and Bao. We got an insider and an outsider’s perspective on foxes that really highlighted the mystical nature and the uncanny strangeness of foxes. The use of past-tense for Snow (who is retelling the story in a journal) alongside present tense for Bao (he’s experiencing events first hand) was also a subtle way of enhancing that impression. Bao won’t remember these events in only a short time, so the only way he can recount the story is in the immediate moment. I thought it was a remarkably novel way of keeping in line with the story’s own mythology. I also enjoyed just getting to know more about Chinese and Japanese folklore and customs of the early 1900s in a very artful, accessible way. I’ve not previously had much exposure to either, and it’s a refreshing thing to see more and more of in mainstream fantasy.

Ultimately, I am giving The Fox Wife a rating of 6/10, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a pleasant fairytale-esq read. Is this the kind of book that’s going to consume your imagination? No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story. 

While I know that I’ll never come back to reread it, I had what I can only describe as a pleasantly neutral experience. No big surprises, no tension, no catharsis – just the calm stream carrying you along from one place to another without any undue disturbance to jolt you out of your thoughts. While that may be the perfect book for others, it’s just not my cup of tea. 

That’s all for me today! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte

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Book Review: An Education in Malice

With the longest nights of the year prowling around and some time off for the holidays, it was the perfect time to read An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson, published in early 2024 by Orbit.

The cover of S.T. Gibson's novel An Education in Malice with a quote by Sydney J. Shields, author of The Honey Witch. The quote reads: Gibson's fang-sharp prose and unflinching honesty create a delicate and fearless exploration of loneliness, love, and longing.
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Placing us in the late sixties, Gibson makes great (if somewhat clumsy at times) use out of the freewheeling fashion, music, and ideas on women’s liberation and sexuality to set the stage for her sapphic romance. The result is a uniquely modern, yet retro style that suits the gothic genre’s frequent themes of interplay between past and present very well. 

We follow modern southern sweetheart Laura Sheridan as she arrives at St Perpetua’s Women’s College in Massachusetts (the ubiquitous setting for dark academia and gothic tales) to pursue writing. Laura is introduced as a polite, subdued, socially inexperienced young woman looking forward to the simple structures of the parish priesthood newly made available to her. But there’s a dark, obsessive streak to Laura which is drawn out by our second point of view character, Carmilla Karnstein, as well as the formidable and entrancing poetry professor Evelyn De Lafontaine. 

Who is, of course, a vampire. 

Carmilla Karnstein is completing her own studies as the mercurial professor’s star pupil and trusted companion, unchallenged until Laura joins the scene and De Lafontaine begins to pit the two against each other, both in and outside the classroom. A vicious rivalry springs up between the two, fueled by the competition for De Lafontaine’s attention and certainly not anything more (there’s so much more). 

As the weeks pass by, that rivalry becomes a tumultuous friendship before transmuting into an intense flirtation, at which point the supernatural elements of the plot rear their head. 

De Lafontaine has not become a professor at St Perpetua’s for no reason – her own former lover and sire, Isis, rests in a self-imposed, perpetual sleep in the hidden tunnels beneath the university. Upon attempting to wake her with her own companion’s fresh blood, Isis lashes out and kills Carmilla before fleeing, leaving De Lafontaine to turn her into a vampire out of desperation as Laura watches on in horror. 

As Carmilla grapples with her new reality, her relationship with Laura becomes more devoted and charged while De Lafontaine’s jealousy blooms as the two young women explore the freedoms of vampire society under her watchful eye (which devastatingly only includes one very debaucherous party at the townhouse of highly respected vampire socialite Magdalena, which so happens to be name ascribed to one of Dracula’s brides in Bram Stoker’s novel). Meanwhile, other students at St Perpetua’s are beginning to show up dead and drained of blood.

Things come to a climax when Laura and Carmilla discover that De Lafontaine has been meeting secretly with Isis, pleading to stop the violence and run away together, to which Isis agrees if only De Lafontaine hands over her former companion. The three enact a plan to confront Isis. For a brief moment, it seems De Lafontaine has betrayed Laura and Carmilla for her former lover, unable to let her go, before that is swiftly revealed to be a ruse and Isis is summarily decapitated via a silver garden sickle. 

The novel ends with Laura and Carmilla invited to summer in Spain with the lovely Magdalena to be better introduced into vampire society, and De Lafontaine leaving to free her two pupils from her own crushing orbit. In Spain, Laura is offered the choice to either remain human or join vampire society as more than a companion. Laura deliberates on the choice and comes to a decision, not for Carmilla or De Lafontaine but for herself. What that decision is, remains a mystery. 

An Education in Malice is a fairly easy read, with lush prose that makes what may seem like simple, cliché character dynamics into something more complex and compelling. Though that complexity isn’t explored as deeply as I would like, we can easily imagine what else may be lurking by Gibson’s artful use of suggestion and implication. 

As a gothic tale, the book hits all the salient themes of obsession, power imbalance, transgression, and eroticism, but those themes are sanded down into something a little softer than what may be intended in spite of itself (keeping in mind my own preference for books that don’t pull their punches). Gibson has done her readers the courtesy of adding a content warning, and in spite of being somewhat de-fanged, I think the story can still keep a firm grip around gothic horror fans’ throats.  

Above all, this book is very much a character study. The relationships between Laura, Carmilla, and De Lafontaine are front and center, while the plot about a deranged vampire ex running amok across campus killing students takes a distant backseat. I personally would have loved to see more attention paid to the intricacies of vampire society, the intrigue surrounding Isis’ murderous campaign, and the meatier plot elements; however, that isn’t really what this story is about. The academic setting itself becomes unimportant once it’s carried us to the point where the vampiric elements can take over. Though even in acknowledging that, I still think that the final confrontation between Isis and our main trio is rather abrupt and underwhelming, which ends up leaving the tension and stakes for the characters themselves ringing hollow. 

Overall, I rate this book as 8/10 and recommend it gladly to anyone looking for an approachable modern gothic romance. I personally prefer Gibson’s previous gothic novel Dowry of Blood, which focuses on the untold stories of the brides of Dracula. I’m not completely taken with the dark academia trend, and I think Dowry of Blood shows off Gibson’s strengths as a writer (lush prose, magnetic characters, and complex relationships) without An Education of Malice’s weaknesses. 

That being said, the quality of Gibson’s writing is only getting stronger with every book that comes out, so I’m looking forward to her next standalone novel Savage Blooms scheduled to be published in October 2025. 

That’s all for me this week! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

Above all, be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte