Re: Warriors of Love
 

I found, today, that this book now has Amazon's "Search Inside" facility. One can read the first half dozen pages on Amazon.


The cover is my last TLO avatar, of course.

Re: Warriors of Love
 

An excerpt from the draft of Tuerqui Again Chapter 8:

We arrived in the late afternoon, as the sun’s rays caught the splendid scene almost horizontally. Hundreds of tents had been pitched, all but the largest of them brightly coloured, no two alike. Over each floated a banner picked out with metallic threads, gleaming like sunbeams upon ruffled water. Dwarfing all others was Berenice’s great black canvas palace, but even that shone as the light caught its satin panels and sombre embroideries.

“Mummy,” Tuerquelle said, emerging from the carriage, “it’s like the camp of the faerie queen at Faraway Haven.”

“It is,” I replied, “only that’s a story and this is real.”

“Don’t you sometimes think we might be in a story, mummy?”

“We are,” Lady Isobel said, “your mummy’s writing it.”

“Mistress,” Tuerquelle asked, “are we living in the really and truly, and in a story, all at the same time?”

“It seems that way, my precious.”

“And what about the people who will read my story?” I asked. “Are they real? Or are they in stories themselves?”

“Maybe some of them aren’t yet born, Tuerqui. They certainly don’t live in what Tuerquelle calls the really and truly.”

“But, mistress and mummy,” Tuerquelle continued, “what if faerie magic brought the book back to the Old Time?”

“Well,” Lady Isobel replied, “perhaps the people who would read it there are now in the World to Come, meeting the fate of wicked blasphemers.”

“Otherwise,” I added, “the Devourer has taken them.”

“Or,” Tuerquelle shuddered, “they’re ghosts… or those dead things that suck blood from people, while they’re asleep.”

“Vampires,” I frowned in response, “and if I find out who’s been telling you about that scary stuff…”

“Whichever,” my mistress said, “they’re not in the here and now reality.”

“Not,” I added, “in the really and truly… so, they’re not as real as we are… and, considering their wickedness and blasphemy, a good job too.”

Re: Warriors of Love
 

Here's a thing. This book (the paperback of Odalisque Volume 2 & Tuerqui Again Early Work):

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=2072

and this book (the hard covered edition of Odalisque Volume 2 & Tuerqui Again Early Work):

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=2110

are significantly different. The paperback includes Tuerqui Again as of 13th June, and at that time my work in progress ran to 130 pages. The hard covered edition includes Tuerqui Again as of today (24th June), and now my work in progress runs to 220 pages. So, I conclude, in the space of eleven days, the novel has expanded by 90 pages.

Re: Warriors of Love
 

The Odalisque covers seem extraordinarily apt... a statue of an odalisque looking backwards over her shoulder.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=2109
http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=2110

Re: Warriors of Love
 

I sent this (as a PM) to five people amongst my TLO friends who live in the USA (or I think they all do). I also emailed it to the four (only four, crumbs!) people in my email address book who live in the USA. But this may as well be available to any Americans who look at this thread. For non-Americans, I'm afraid, the free shipping is not available... but I get ahead of myself...

I wanted to point out that the hard covered books available via my Lulu storefront:

P F Jeffery's Storefront - Lulu.com

are not only very lovely, but very cheap (the minimum price for which Lulu will allow me to sell them... I don't make a penny on these, and to make them available on Amazon, I'd have to charge a lot more). And (this is where the USA comes in) you have the option of this offer:

Lulu FREE Shipping
FREE shipping in the US on Orders of $19.95 and over (some restrictions apply)
How do I take advantage of Lulu FREE Shipping
Place at least $19.95 of eligible Lulu.com products in your Shopping Cart. (Eligible items will say “Lulu FREE Summer Shipping” beneath their price)
Proceed to checkout
Enter shipping address (must be in the US to qualify)
Select mail rate shipping
Coupon FREESHIP will automatically appear in your cart if you qualify. You may enter another coupon code but this will cancel your free shipping until you re-enter FREESHIP
Place your order, and enjoy Lulu FREE shipping!
The Fine Print
To qualify for Lulu FREE Summer Shipping, your cart has to total at least $19.95 in printed book merchandise, but that total excludes taxes. So basically, make sure your books, photo books and calendars add up to $19.95 or more. What is eligible for FREE Summer Shipping? Pretty much anything that’s printed. The exceptions are CDs & DVDs. Obviously downloads and eBooks are excluded too. Since the US Postal Service will deliver your order, we can only offer FREE Summer Shipping to valid US delivery addresses. We can also ship to APO/FPO addresses, but just make sure you use a valid US zip code with your order. Unfortunately, FREE Summer Shipping can’t be combined with any other promotional codes at this time. Just a heads up—canceling items, changing your shipping address, or shipping method might affect your order’s eligibility for Lulu FREE Summer Shipping. If you cancel an item, and your new order total falls below $19.95, the order won’t be eligible for Lulu FREE Summer Shipping. While we don’t have any plans, desires, intentions or wishes to do so, we can change or discontinue Lulu FREE Summer Shipping at anytime. Maximum discount of $19.95.
****************************************

Without checking the UK/US exchange rate, I'm pretty sure that while the "at least $19.95" would not apply to any single book, it would cover any combination of two.

My first hard covered copy of one of my books reached me yesterday, and I'm really pleased with it.

Re: Warriors of Love
 

Today, I've been working on "Tuerqui Again" Chapter 9, which is an expansion of less than 8 pages from "Odalisque" Chapter 50. This morning, I was thinking "there's not enough here to make a full chapter"... Then, this afternoon, it all fell into place. The less than 8 pages blossomed to 24 (more than three times the original length)... and the extra material proved important, stuff that it's now difficult to believe I ever omitted. There's something rather wonderful about a chapter falling into place.

Re: Warriors of Love
 

I have started a real-time review of MARGARET:
http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2010...f-jeffery.html

" 'Ghosts have very sharp ears. They can hear a child breathing a mile away.' "

Re: Warriors of Love
 

Here's a photo with the title page of Margaret... in the hard covered edition.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=2147

Re: Warriors of Love
 

As a little birthday present to this site, the words of the carol Solstice Night:

Solstice night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round the goddess –- mother and child
Holy sun, rise waxing in might
Spring is coming, my darling
Spring is coming, don’t fret

(From Margaret Again.)

Not very seasonally appropriate today, I'm afraid, though.

Re: Warriors of Love
 

Here is something from Margaret that is entirely seasonally appropriate. Today, Glarehaze the 8th, is Margaret/Tuerqui's birthday...


A little more than two weeks after Midsummer it was my birthday –- my eighth. The sun shone, and we took afternoon tea on one of the lawns. There were strawberries, with plenty of cream and powdered honeycake. Best of all, perhaps, was a large cake sugared in pink and white.

A slave served us iced rosehip tea sweetened with honey. The drink had been cooled with some of the contents of my grandfather’s icehouse. This was a subterranean chamber filled with ice when the ponds froze in the winter. During the summer it slowly emptied.

“Well, my dear,” grandfather announced rather gruffly, “we have a present for you.”

“Thank you, grandfather,” I replied dutifully, not expecting a gift I’d care to possess.

“It’s from your mother, and me, and well… the whole family.”

My spirits rose. Perhaps, if so many people had clubbed together to buy it, the present would be worth having, after all. A slave fetched a large box decorated with coloured paper and ribbon. Could it be toy warriors’ armour like the splendid set that had been presented to my brother five months before?

After ripping away the wrappings, to my strong disappointment, I found myself looking at a doll. It wasn’t even a pretty doll, in fact it was downright ugly. Nor was it the kind of doll with which a little girl could play. The thing represented a lady of fashion clothed in white lacy garments a child’s touch would ruin in seconds.

“Ooh, isn’t she lovely?” my mother gushed.

“Yes, mother,” I replied insincerely. “Thank you very much.”