Is Elona Really That Shameless?
Posted by Peat
Elona fan art by French Jess
So in an attempt to get my life in order after a busy year of touring, two moves, getting Cassie into kindergarten and establishing new routines, and, of course, constant work on Skull Throne, I have been trying to catch up on my backlog of unanswered reader mail. This week, my personal facebook mail (as opposed to the Facebook Author Page mail, which Meg helps with). I still have a few thousand readers all over the world who friended me personally before I got my author page together, in addition to people I actually know IRL.
A few days ago, the backlog was 67 messages, dating all the way back to mid-2012. By this morning I had whittled it to 26 unreplied, dating back to about the time the new book launched and I started touring. I answered messages on the fly as best I could while touring, but there is still a bottleneck there.
After that, I still have… oh, sweet Everam. About a gazillion unanswered messages on email, goodreads, google+, and probably my Reddit AMA’s.
But the only way out is through. Will try to give it an hour each morning until I catch up. I am now down to 15 unreplied on fb. One of the messages I replied to today was kind of fun, so I am posting the exchange here.
***MINOR DAYLIGHT WAR SPOILER ALERT***
Loved Daylight War. Quite the cliffhanger, literally and figuratively and I’m sure you’ll hear that comment a zillion times. One small thing that pulled me out of the story a little bit, about which I’d love to hear your feedback. Elona suggests that Leesha roll in the hay with Gared, admittedly after discussing a few other options and yet shortly thereafter, Leesha finds the two of them going at it. Is Elona really that shameless? I found it surprising that she wouldn’t at least wait a while as Leesha is probably considering him.
Anyway, in no way is this a criticism, love your books, can’t wait for the next one. Bought the kindle version for immediate reading and the hardcover, beautiful artwork, for my bookcase. Also wish that you’d get the electronic version when buying the hardcover. Save me some money but oh well, so worth it.
Michael S., Ontario
March 7, 2013
To which I belatedly replied:
Hi Michael,
Thanks for writing, and for all the kind words! So sorry for the slow reply. There was a flood of email around the time of the book launch/tour, and it’s taken me a while to catch up. Some things got buried.
So is Elona really that shameless? Absolutely. She is utterly self-centered in all things, and got an extra thrill from the idea of privately shaming her daughter for all the times Leesha has publicly talked down to her.
This doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her daughter and want her to succeed, though.
People are complicated.
Regards, Peter
October 22, 2013
P.S. I agree with you about bundling e-books with paper ones, and it looks like many booksellers are beginning to agree. Hopefully it will be the standard soon.