Checking my files, I actually do have some artwork to show, even if it’s just sketches. So here we go!
A super ugly dragon
I’m currently in that stage with the baby where he’s allllllllmost crawling. He scoots around on his belly and finds toys on his own, so I have entire minutes to myself again. Our usual routine is that our morning is spent doing school or chores, and the afternoons are nap or screen time. That’s when I get to draw or whatever. But the baby doesn’t have that routine yet, so I feel like I have zero time to do anything extra.
My life is intensely boring. 😀
On the plus side, a boring life means that I want to write and draw adventurous things, so there’s that.
Certain day jobs become useful when monsters attack. Like … fighting monsters for a living.30-minute speedpaint
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Living in my head a lot, not doing much else except keeping children alive being a mom.
Wouldn’t it be fun if I did fanart for every book I review? 😀
Anyway, last week, I read two books by Shari Branning: Quench the Day and Unmask the Night, books 1 and 2 of the Red Wolf trilogy.
Basically, this is what they’re about:
This is a fairytale with an evil king, a prince, and a princess. When the evil king sets his sights on the princess, the prince marries her to protect her. The evil king has the prince killed (he thinks), and has the princess cursed and changed into a wolf. She only turns human again in the moonlight.
Except this is also a western. The prince owns a cattle ranch, the evil king is more like the governor of the Western Province, and the princess is a noblewoman who rides horses and wears trousers when she can get away with it. The curse is performed by the fantasy-version of Native Americans. And the prince, once he recovers from almost being dead, becomes an outlaw.
I didn’t know I needed this particular genre mashup in my life. But MAN did it scratch some itches I didn’t know I had! You know I loved a story when I do art for it. The writing is very good, and I pretty much fell into the books and got lost for a while. Highly recommended if this genre mashup appeals to you at all.
Here’s the official book summary and link:
One day to fall in love, and a king’s jealous curse to rip them apart… Fiercely independent Rowan Keir has met her match in the king’s cousin, Aaro D’Araines. Fleeing social pressure from her family, Rowan travels to the western district in hopes of gaining her freedom. Instead, she ends up in the middle of an ongoing feud between Aaro and the cunningly murderous King Ormand. Both men are dangerous, and to her chagrin, both of them set their sights on her. Worse, an abrupt marriage to Aaro might be the only way to escape Ormand. But when their plans go wrong, both their lives are shattered. Rowan, cursed to spend the rest of her life as a wolf, seeks refuge in the wilderness, while Aaro swears revenge and turns himself into a killer. Their only salvation could be in each other, but with both of them thinking each other dead, by the time they learn the truth, will it be too late to change the monsters they’ve become?
K. M. Carroll, Author 