#Stolen Book two

[author-a-holmes]

@duckingwriting

#im not screaming and making ungodly noises that confuse my cat#thank you!

I speak only the truth! :D The sweeetness between the two characters really enhanced the gutpunch of Harper's story <3

You've temped me to go and find a scene of my own to share now though lol, So...

Content/Trigger Warnings: Memories of Abuse, Traumatic Past, Emotional Abuse

Extract from Takeover, book 2 of the Stolen Stories…

"Well?" she asked, "If you're going to interrupt and be nosey the least you can do is tell me what you think," she tried joking, but the nerves were clear in her voice as he slid his eyes from the plans up to meet her impatient gaze. "You literally never fail to impress, Stella, these are really good," he said, garnering a slight frown of confusion as she shook her head, puzzled. "What?" "You asked me what I thought…" Reilly explained slowly, but Stella simply blinked at him and shook her head. "I meant what's wrong with it, where I can improve, not…" "I don't see anything to improve, Stella," Reilly said, voice soft as though he was worried about startling her further. "You've spotted every point of entry or exit that I can see, listed tools and equipment needed for each route, highlighted potential points of interest, suggested guard locations…" he pointed to the bottom corner where and huffed a soft laugh, "You've even listed best weather conditions for remaining unseen… I'd let anyone in the guild trust their lives to this, what could you possibly improve on?" "But… there's always something," Stella muttered frowning, watching Reilly's features soften in the face of her confusion. "Not this time, darling." She bit on her lip hard as she heard her Da's voice in her head, scoffing. She had to have missed something, she always did, and her frown deepened at Reilly's reassurance, causing her to step closer to the table and glance down at it herself. Maybe it was a test, maybe she would spot the flaw in her designs, but as her fingers stretched out towards the parchment to brush lightly over the inked lines it vanished from beneath her hand. "Hey—!" "Come on, I'll prove it to you," Reilly said simply, already rolling up the parchment when she spun to face him, "I told you I'd trust the lives of anyone in the guild to these plans… so let's go run a heist."

Poor Stella :D For context, at this point in Takeover she's still not quite aware that the manner in which she was raised was anything other than normal. Reilly, however, is painfully aware and making a concerted effort to gently get her to realise her own worth.

Hey btw, to new writers who want to write angst: Nothing illustrates darkness as well as sparse and brilliant highlights.

If you want to write a character with an unspeakably awful past, there’s no need to go into deep and gory details about how horrible it was. Readers who can’t relate to it won’t relate to that, and the readers who have been there generally don’t want to see that. Instead, highlight some of their happiest moments but make them unsettlingly small.

Sprinkles in some realism, too. Having a character go “my parents were abusive monsters and I’ve literally never had a happy moment in my life” isn’t realistic, and both the people who haven’t witnessed that kind of thing outside of fiction, and the people who have personally lived it will just go “yeah, yeah, tragic childhood, misery, darkness, we’ve all seen it”, and being nothing but negative makes the character both uninteresting and unlikeable.

Now, having someone casually think or say shit like “I think my happiest childhood memory was that christmas when dad was in prison. Nobody was yelling or throwing anything and mom was sober the whole time”, and be genuinely surprised by other peoples’ concerned reactions - now jesus christ that’s bleak.

[13eyond13]

Please tell me about art and media you know of that accurately captures the weirdness of dream logic and atmosphere and emotions... books and movies and video games and art and comics and YouTube stuff, whatever you want... you know, where it only makes sense on an intuitive level and falls apart when you try to explain it...

[hoeelliexx]

I started doing end of the year TBR last year and it went horribly… So here I am trying again!

24 books I want to read before 2024 is over. My hopes are abysmal but we will see! Big thanks to NetGalley for doubling my TBR with a few ARCs!

QOTD: Do keep to a strict list when working through your TBR or are you a mood reader?

[sepulcher666]

Shamelessly stolen from reddit

The Video that started it all

[readinthedarkpod]

Come one, come all! Today we bring you the best of the best, from all across the land, to compete in the ultimate competition. Who will be crowned as the biggest, most pathetic, simp of all time? Listen to find out.

Our Challengers: Thomas Cresswell from Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco Vektal from Ice Planet Barbarian by Ruby Dixon Damianos of Akielos from The Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat Rhysand from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas Lorcan Salvaterre from the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas Edward Cullen from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Oliver Marks from If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio Benjamin Evans from The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black Cardan Greenbriar from The Folk of the Air by Holly Black Kaz Brekker from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Oak Greenbriar from The Stolen Heir by Holly Black Prince Corrick from the Defy the Night series by Brigid Kemmerer Matthias Helvar from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Hal Cavendish from Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft Nathaniel Thorn from A Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson Jamie Westenberg from Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese Follow the hosts at @figonas @adxmparriish @hazelsheartsworn @laequiem

Join our book club, WORNPAGELIBRARY!

Sign up for our newsletter to get teasers for the next episode, get the inside scoop, and much more!

[finallymyescape]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, god i wanna cry at work. Just finished Two Twisted Crowns T_T what a great series, what a great ending!! Absolutely will reread it again in the future! I love all of these characters so much. What a great sequel!

AND NOW, for a little break, with Four Seasons in Japan.

THEN

We're starting the Crescent City series.

[hell0mega]

how many people are gonna only buy the stolen century volume of the taz balance graphic novels you think

[etdraconis]

( me: I’m gonna finished The Familiar first, and then I’m going to read the Calling since DA has consumed me once more

Also me: *stares at the Calling for several days before giving in, with the Familiar only half-read* whoops… )

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Midnight Market

fantasy adventure

A sea elf gets her magic & voice stolen by a thief, and goes on a journey on land to get it back before it's sold at a magical night market, with the help of a city guard

no romance

[girlpetrarca]

apparently my destiny is to work on manuscripts where there's fuck all clues on their provenance

[danielnelsen]

i wouldnt go so far as to call the calling a good book necessarily, but it's so much better than the stolen throne and it's actually got an interesting plot & lore, it's very refreshing when im reading them in order

[author-a-holmes]

Happy STS! I'm turning your question back on you cause I really wanna know. What's a line or scene from your works that you're proud of?

Hello hun! Thank you for the ask <3 I hope your weekend's going well!

I'm not gonna lie, I thought this would be an easy one to answer but I've been staring at my screen for ages trying to pick just one line/scene.

Do I share my most recent one? Or the first time I remember reaading back a line and falling in love with my own words? Or something in the middle of all that?

I've finally settled on a scene in book two of my 'Stolen Stories' series, where Stella runs across a creature I've designed called the Krilla-Setika. I really love this scene in part because it was quite fun to write Stella just falling back in base insticts, her fear overiding thought when she's usually very held together, but I also just really loved describing the creature I'd created.

It was great fun adding details for the reader, the longer Stella stared at it, and just upping the creep-factor as it advanced on her...

They retraced their steps back towards the window they'd used to enter the building, moving quickly but not quite falling into a run as Reilly pulled them both to a stop at every corner so he could carefully check the next hallway. It was the soft clicking sound of claws against stone made them both pause, but Stella could already tell it wasn't coming from the hallway Reilly was in the middle of checking, her free hand landing against his shoulder as she glanced behind them and froze. It looked like a weasel, with large bat shaped wings, but it was huge. Almost twice as large as the mountain lions that roamed the peaks to the north and as Stella stared at the creature that seemed to be dripping shadows of smoke, its clawed feet clung to the wall and it skittered up to hang from the ceiling, it's wings spreading wide as the finger-like hooks at the wing tips embedded into the walls, bracing the creature and keeping it in place as Stella backed away. "Don't run," Reilly hissed in her ear and she shivered, eyes transfixed by the creature before her, but the longer she stared the more she saw. Scales covered its body, but it was somehow still translucent. She could see the hall behind through it's smokey form, and she shook her head, her skin crawling with the desire to get as far away as fast as possible. "Stella, don't run," Reilly warned again, his hand still curled around hers, but the creature tipped it's head at Reilly's voice, and she took another step back at the movements of a hunter, a predator, and she wanted nothing more than to flee. "Walk, don't run..." Stella could hear Reilly, knew the man well enough to know that he had to have a reason for the recommendation, but as the mass of dripping shadows began advancing slowly, her control snapped and she turned on her heel, dashing for their exit with Reilly's hand still grasped in hers.

[madamescarlette]

artfully drapes m'self over the nearest comfy armchair in an ailing pose: my dears, The Stolen Heir has ever so slightly devastated me.

[saessenach]

My dudes, Mimi Matthews' The Siren of Sussex and The Belle of Belgrave Square single-handedly kicked me out of the reading slump I was in after Camus, and there is just something to be said about fun Victorian romances which are lush and the precisely perfect amount of ridiculous

[fingertipsmp3]

Not to be one of those people who complains but why are the two library books I reserved 3 weeks ago (as the first person in the queue mind you. And both of them are popular books with multiple copies available) still not ready

[beware-thecrow]

IT'S AI HENCE NOT ART.

Wounds of the Earth

— by xis.lanyx