Teaser Tuesday: The Best of Friends

Hello, dear blog readers! How have you all been? Staying warm, I hope. (Haha, very funny, Caitlin. *glowers at -18 degree windchills*)

I have been feeling a bit glum about writing lately, but my lovely roommate gave me a bit of a pep talk last night, so I thought I'd share a little more of my current project with you (and by proxy, with her). This book is about the relationship between two best friends, so I thought it fitting. :)

Risa - who spends her nights as Venice's most feared thief - is giving her friend Gianna a ride to the opera house in her boat. Because Venice. :)

Enjoy!

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“So,” she said, skirting away from the Grand Canal and into the smaller rio that would lead them to the opera house. “Will the theatre be glittering with magic for the taking tonight?” 

            “Oh, in all likelihood,” Gianna answered with a mischievous smile. 

            “And do you think that the most fearsome thief in all of Venice will make an appearance?” 

            “Il Ragno never makes appearances – objects make disappearances. Especially when this tricky spider has its accomplice close by.”

            “And hopefully not too surrounded by besotted admirers,” Risa added with knowing smirk. 

            “I have spoken of how dreadful my costume for this ballet is, haven’t I?” 

            Risa rolled her eyes and snickered, sharply, just one short breath through her nose. The dreadful costume would make no difference.

            They arrived at the canal entrance to La Fenice in a few more minutes. Risa pushed the boat alongside the opera house’s mooring and grabbed hold of it to steady the boat enough for her friend to clamber out. At least, Risa would have clambered; Gianna always looked halfway to flying. The moment she stepped out onto the dock and bent to straighten her skirt, a few other members of the ballet corps lingering about the doorway turned their heads towards her, raising their long, delicate hands to wave. Risa could hear their previous conversations falter, transitional chords to open their chatter to Gianna’s presence, to add her voice to their melody. 

            “Thank you, Risa! See you tonight!” Gianna called over her shoulder, disappearing into her spotlit world with a flash of a smile and bright blonde hair.

            For a minute, Risa considered climbing up onto the dock herself, stepping into that spotlight, or taking some of it for herself. For a moment she wondered what it might be like to have everyone feel her presence in that soft, subtle way they felt Gianna’s. But she held on to her place in the shadows just a little too long, as always, and instead pushed her little boat away from the opera house. 

            What need did she have of a spotlight, in any case? She had business to attend to, and her business invariably needed the safety of the shadows to succeed.

         

Teaser Tuesday (on Thursday): Honor Among Thieves

Merry Christmas, dear readers!

I know I have been remiss in blogging (yet again), so I thought I'd share with you the opening of the project I've just started working on. It's called HONOR AMONG THIEVES and it is about two girls - Risa Nassar and Gianna Agnello - living in Venice in the 19th century, and stealing magical objects from elite Venetians and careless tourists, until one day they steal something very powerful from exactly the wrong person.

It starts out like this, and I hope you're intrigued!

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Venice, Italy

April, 1873

            They’d named her Il Ragno because they’d all assumed such feats of daring could only be accomplished by a grown man, not a wiry girl of seventeen years. But she did not object to the title; that very assumption that Venice’s greatest thief was a man only allowed her all the more freedom. No one would suspect the small, dark-skinned girl in her cloak of shadows, not when they were looking for someone else entirely. 

            No one suspected her that night either, when the mist from the sea muted the moonlight shining on the canals, when the city slept soundly in its crumbling glory. As quietly and quickly as the spider she’d been named for, the girl skittered over the roofs of the palazzi until she’d settled on the one she’d chosen. 

            Il Ragno climbed down the elaborate façade of the palazzo, her hands sure against the small niches and curled ornamentations. A smile pressed the corner of her mouth against the black mask fitted over her face when she saw the window swinging open, the curtain billowing in the salty sea breeze. This was going to be simpler even than she had anticipated. 

            She crept inside, her well-worn leather boots silent against the marble floors. The object she sought was meant to be displayed within easy reach, and there it was, settled on a table without even a bell jar to keep it safe. Don Fransisco must truly be a proud, foolish man indeed to display such a valuable scrying mirror for all the world to see. 

            For the fingers of Il Ragno to take. 

            She closed her fingers around her prize, when a sudden loud footfall caught her attention. A servant boy stood in the doorway, struggling to light a candle and still hold a knife pointed in her direction. 

            “Don’t move,” he stammered. “Stay where you are.”

            But the girl smiled beneath her mask, and she bowed low to the boy, tucking the mirror safely inside her tunic as she did. And then she grasped the edge of her shadow-cloak, pulling it sharply up over her head. 

            And Il Ragno vanished into the night as silently as she’d come, leaving the boy to stare at the space where she’d been and the empty table that had once held his master’s mirror.

New Project Time!

So, fair blog readers - I have begun a new novel project.

I am working on it pretty slowly, to be honest, largely because I am usually pretty exhausted. I mean, I sleep. I sometimes conk out at 11pm. Sometimes 10:30. And yet I yawn my way through work and when I get home I would much rather just relax and hang out with my awesome roommate/best friend (whose work schedule actually aligns with mine now so I get to SEE her and it is awesome) and watch my cats play pounce-on-each-other.

And, let's be real here, when one is already tired, there's nothing like a snoozing, purring pile of kittens to make you think "all right, bedtime now."

Nevertheless, I am a couple thousand words into a project currently titled HONOR AMONG THIEVES (because I am so very clever at titles).

It is a story about Venice, magical thievery, curses, ballet, and, most importantly, best friends. It is (le gasp!) NOT a kissing book. (Sorry everybody.)

It is very strange writing this project, though. I don't quite know what it is about it - maybe I haven't done enough research, maybe it's just that I haven't started a new project from scratch in... um... a looooooooooooong time, but I feel like I've forgotten how to open a novel. I keep remembering that the audience doesn't actually know how these characters and this world work yet, and that *I* don't fully know that either.

It is strange writing characters who are so very unlike Maire. For about a year, I lived in Maire's headspace. Her view of the world was dark and angry and "I just want to punch it and make it go away." Risa and Gianna are very different. They're confident. They think, at least right now, that their world runs entirely according to their plans. They're about to find out that's not so, of course, but still. It's an interesting change. Nice, though.

Anyways. I'm going to go do some writing. Or maybe just watch my cats play pounce-on-each-other. We'll see.