Note from VBC: We’re delighted to host the charming Faith Hunter on today’s blog. We love her Jane Yellowrock and Soulwood novels and are incredibly excited for the release of Circle of the Moon earlier this week. Enough of us. Let’s turn it over to Faith:
There has been a lot of press about diversity lately, and there needs to be. It’s a small planet and a MUCH smaller nation and way, way too many of us, so we need to learn to live together or we’ll end up in civil war or race war or … whatever horrible thing we can envision.
I write diverse characters in the Jane Yellowrock universe. Jane is Cherokee. Rick LaFLeur is Creole, Caucasian, and a little Cherokee. Eli and Alex Younger are mixed race: African, Thai, and Choctaw. JoJo Jones is African. Tandy is very, very white with red Lichtenberg lines all over, from being struck by lightning. Deon is gay. One of the new werewolves in the last Jane Yellowrock novel was a Drag Queen, who I fell in love with, because who doesn’t LOVE a gutsy drag Queen? And getting non-human diverse, there are were-creatures and vampires and genetic lines of witches.
Nell Nicholson Ingram (from the spinoff Soulwood series) is Caucasian and part tree.
You read it right. Part tree.
She has a problem with leaves growing out of her fingers and hairline. Her fingernails are mostly wood. Her eye color is changing from sort of hazel-gray to green, her hair is going red, and her skin tone is changing to a nut brown. In Circle of The Moon, she is dating a were-leopard. Let’s see. That makes Nell an escapee from a polygamist cult, part-tree person, dating a moon-called nonhuman catman. Soooo. Diverse much? And do you know what she wants? A chance to be happy. A chance to find love that doesn’t shackle her to the ownership and whims of another person. A chance to keep a roof over her head and food on her table. A chance to be safe and keep her family safe. Just like the rest of us.
We all—every diverse person among us—we all want the same things. To have a chance to be happy. To find someone to care for and trust. To read a good book or watch a good movie, and maybe see ourselves in the characters a little bit. To know we are not alone in this world of seven billion crazy, divided, polarized people. To come together a little and make love, not war.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: To all my readers, thank you for the chance to write characters different from you. Different from me. Thank you for reading my books and sharing the love of my books with the world. You are the best fans ever! I hope you like Circle of The Moon. Coming at the end of 2019? Shattered Bonds, the 14th Jane Yellowrock novel!
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM CIRCLE OF THE MOON
Inside Rick’s house, the kitchen was scrupulously clean, not a dirty dish anywhere. The main living space was dusty, but not terribly so. The house was modern and sleek, with a wood dining table and chairs in the dinette, an oak kitchen with stone cabinet tops, and comfortable, squishy furniture and a big-screen TV in the living area. The house was cold, the air-conditioning set at sixty-five. It was empty and had the feeling of having been empty for hours.
I couldn’t help being snoopy. There was nothing in the small pantry except a half-empty box of rice, a bag of flour in a plastic ziplock bag, four extra-large cereal boxes, three cans of crushed tomatoes, and a bread bag with moldy bread heels in it. What Rick’s house lost in the bachelor pad department, the refrigerator made up for in guy supplies. There was a carton of milk, take-out containers, and a pizza box with half a pie in it, the pizza dried out, wrinkled, and growing a spot of green fur. And beer. Four twelve-packs of local microbrewery beer. Beer had no effect on werecats unless they drank a gosh-awful lot of it. Rick had a gosh-awful lot of it.
I looked in the garbage and the recycling. There were a gosh-awful lot of empties too, and not much of anything else. Rick used to like to cook, but there was no indication that he had ever used the pots and pans. The dishes in the cupboard had a layer of pollen and dust on them.
The laundry nook had a basket that contained boxers and socks, another holding a set of sheets, and still another with outerwear clothes in it, some from the previous night. Everything stank of man and sweat except the outer clothes, which also stank of horse. I lifted the pair of jeans on top and studied the creases. Jeans creased according to the way they were worn, and dirty denim, especially very dirty denim, could tell a trained investigator how they were most commonly used. These had been worn sitting, straddling, the creases stretching from crotch to knees, and were worn on the bottom from sitting on a saddle. I dropped the jeans and spotted a pair of low-heeled Frye western boots. They smelled of horse and hay and manure. I put the boots back, frowning. I hadn’t known Rick rode, but clearly he did. I closed the laundry door, ignored Tandy’s censoring stare as I snooped.
I found a neat half bath hidden under the stairs and then Rick’s room in the rear of the house. This room was a disaster. The bed linens were rank and piled on the foot of the bed. There were piles of clothes everywhere, some folded in stacks, others clean but rumpled in baskets, and still others on the floor, obviously dirty. His en-suite bath was filthy, mold growing on the shower tile, soap scum coating the sink. I backed out quickly, fearing I might actually catch something in there.
There was a sound system on the middle shelf; it was dust free and probably hooked up to a house Wi-Fi system. I pressed the on button and a jazzy blues song came on. I hit off.
In the corner was a silver metal stand holding a brass saxophone. The sax wasn’t dusty either, showing that, whatever was going on with Rick in terms of filth and cleanliness, and whatever that meant about his mental state, music and horses were a big part of his life. He seemed to be clinging to things that had kept him sane, things that had kept him human. The values and ideals that had made him the man he once was.
I wanted to hear him play, but I had a strange feeling that listening to him would make me sad. And I also knew that I was searching for something of the man Occam might be, in the things that made up Rick’s life.
ABOUT FAITH HUNTER
Faith Hunter is the New York Times and USAToday bestselling author of the Jane Yellowrock series, the Soulwood series, and the Rogue Mage series, as well as the author of 16 thrillers under pen the names Gary Hunter and Gwen Hunter. She has 40+ books in print.
Faith collects orchids and animal skulls, loves thunder storms, and writes. She likes to cook soup, bake homemade bread, garden, and run Class III whitewater rivers. She edits the occasional anthology and drinks a lot of tea. Some days she’s a lady. Some days she ain’t.
For more, see www.faithhunter.net
To keep up with her, like her fan page at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter
GIVEAWAY
Five winners will snag the first two Soulwood novels and a $50 gift card is up for grabs, too! Contest ends March 7, and is administered by Let’s Talk Promotions.
