When I first wrote Magic Most Deadly, I had intended Julia to be Maia’s friend-and-sidekick throughout the series, but when that book ended with (mild spoiler) Maia trotting off to London while Julia stayed in Hertfordshire, I realized that was not going to work. So when I started Glamours and Gunshots, I knew I needed a new friend for Maia … but I also knew I wanted her to be a well-rounded character in her own right, not simply a foil for Maia, but a person with her own interests and pursuits, who could easily have been the protagonist of her own story had circumstances been different. I also wanted her to be quite different from Maia so that their personalities could balance and complement each other.
And thus was born Helen Radcliffe, a magician born of one of England’s oldest and most respected magical families, someone who (unlike Maia) had grown up steeped in the world of magic from the time it had blossomed in her, and whose struggle at the time of this story was in trying to reconcile her passion (blending magic with fashion and clothing design) with her mother’s expectations for her career–for in England, it is rare for any magician not to have a career, whether they be female or male. There may be differing opinions on what careers are most appropriate for the different genders, but mostly one’s career is determined on one’s magical bent and abilities … and sometimes one’s family’s expectations.
Helen has a keen eye for fashion design and a knack for using common magics in unique ways. Glamours, a image laid over reality that only other magicians can see, tend to be used mostly for disguise or children’s entertainment. Helen weaves glamours into clothing to … well, I don’t want to give too much away, but here’s the passage where she and Maia first discuss the possibilities of fashion magic:
“Oh, I’ve even thought of having clothing that tells a story only to other magicians, with a glamour–an overlay in the color of one’s own magical aura, showing significant events in one’s life or symbols of one’s magical specialty.”
image courtesy of the MFA, Boston. Imagine the overlay to be woven through with magical light rather than being plain lace, and you’ll have a fairly decent idea of what Helen is describing.
Helen also says:
“Imagine, Maia, a gown which changes color based on how one wants to appear–if you were cheerful, for example, you could make it yellow, and if you wanted to be more somber you could change it to navy blue with a spoken word. Or one that enhances your natural charms. Or, well, anything! A dress with embroidered birds on it who really sing, or trees and vines,” motioning to the design on the hem of Maia’s skirt, “that show fruit in autumn, flowers in spring, and leaves in autumn. The possibilities are endless.”
I can’t find the proper attribution for this image; my hunch is that it’s from the Met but I can’t confirm that. In any case, this is a good example of the type of embroidery that Helen would bring to life with her magic.
(both passages from Glamours and Gunshots, page 56)
Maia, though far from interested in fashion herself, is quick to see the brilliance in this, and encourages Helen to follow her passion and prove to the world–and, more importantly, her mother–just how impressive fashion magic can be.
Later in Death by Disguise we learn that Helen has started using magic in more practical ways as well as spectacular when it comes to clothing magic–Maia has every traveler’s dream, clothing that folds to the size of a pocket handkerchief and when unfolded has no wrinkles. When discussing the practical aspects of this with some fans online, we all started brainstorming other ideas that haven’t (yet) made it to the page: self-darning stockings and other knits, spells to keep dirt away from one’s clothes, self-folding clothes (something everyone who has ever done laundry longs for, I think–imagine taking perfectly folded clothes out of the dryer!), and so on.
The trick with all of this, of course, is that magic, as part of the natural world, only works on natural fibers–nothing synthetic. As this is the 1920s, many of the fabrics generally used in clothing are beginning to the move away from all-natural (linen, cotton, silk, etc), to part-natural or wholly synthetic (rayon, for example–derived of natural materials but treated with a chemical process such as renders it nearly wholly artificial so far as magic is concerned). It isn’t a problem for Helen right now, as this movement from natural to synthetic is in its earliest stages, but the astute reader can guess that in the next several decades this could become a much more serious issue. Which might even lead to some pondering on what happens to magic in a world that is increasingly removed from nature and focused on synthetics …
But for now, Helen’s business is thriving as her imagination and talents allow her to explore ever-more fascinating aspects of blending magic, fashion, and practicality. Where will it take her next? That, my friends, is a story for another time!
This is a vintage pattern from the 1920s–see the fabric draping from the shoulders on the green dress? Imagine that fabric instead being living light, and imagine the entire thing being able to be folded to the size of a pocket handkerchief, and you’ll see what sort of dinner dress Maia had packed for her trip to Cambridge.
I thought it might be fun to do a blog post series that gives a deeper dive into some of the magical aspects of the Whitney & Davies world. Just as writing Julia’s story (currently available only to newsletter subscribers–if you subscribe to the newsletter and have not gotten the links to all three parts of Julia’s story, get in touch and I’ll send them to you directly) gave me a chance to explore the lives of other characters outside our main protagonists, I thought this series might give me a chance to explore the world beyond the spells and magical abilities Maia and Len use and develop in the course of their stories. And who knows? We may yet see a story or two that picks up on some of the aspects that get covered in this series, or at least is inspired by these posts! No promises, but we can all hope …
Some of these topics have been ones I’ve discussed with friends-of-the-series on various social media sites. I had a glorious discussion about different aspects of clothing magic around the time I published Death by Disguise on the site that used to evoke bird noises and is now a letter of the alphabet, and on Tumblr not too long ago on all the different types of magical craftsmanship there could be.
Some have come about as a result of working through implications of other world-building details in the novels, or through some of the short stories that go along with them. Patricia C Wrede has written of two different kinds of world-building camps that writers tend to fall into: soap bubble world building (where your world starts out with a few shiny ideas and gradually keeps expanding as you write) and iceberg world building (where you have developed your world fully before you ever start writing and your stories only ever show the smallest amount of the world you’ve developed). I am more of the soap builder type, because I tend to be an exploratory writer in general–if I focus on too many details before I start writing the story I lose the impetus to write at all. Finding out what happens next, keeping up with the story as it grows, letting it take me into unexpected places … that’s what keeps me writing. And so much of my world-building is also exploratory–let’s find out what is behind that bend in the road, shall we? Only now I’ve explored enough of the world of Whitney & Davies to start sharing some of those fun details with you. Things like Helen’s fashion magic, what the Circle really does, how does healing magic work, what about those different types of magical craftsmanship, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to come closer to figuring out what makes Maia and Len able to see each other’s magical auras when that’s supposed to be impossible.
The first post will be on clothing magic–specifically what Helen is doing for her career, but other practical uses of magic on and with clothing. I’m mostly taking the winter off from social media and the internet, so that post will likely not be up until early February. And then we’ll go from there!
If you have been waiting to subscribe to the StarDance Press newsletter, now is a good time! Coming Thursday is the EXCLUSIVE release of Part 2 of Julia’s story (and no worries if you were not able to download the first part–there’s a link to that in the email as well). Part 1 left off with Julia determined to uncover a secret, and Part 2 shows us how that’s going. Part 3, hopefully coming this fall, will wrap up the story!
These story snippets have been so much fun to write. They have a very different feel from either the novels or the short stories I’ve written in this world previously, being much more character focused, with the plot mostly existing to move along the character development. They are also giving me a chance to go a bit more in depth with some of the world-building that is only ever alluded to in my other works.
Plus, they are a fun perk for newsletter subscribers! It’s always lovely to be able to offer people a “thank-you” for subscribing to my thoughts on writing, reading, and life each month.
So again, if you haven’t already done so, now is the time to subscribe! Aside from occasional sale and new release information (and gifts, like this one), I send the newsletter out once a month, and my goal is to always make it a pleasant oasis in the midst of your busy life. And if you subscribe now and decide after a month or so that it’s not for you, you can always unsubscribe with no hard feelings.
So if Julia’s story sounds like something you’d enjoy reading, and the newsletter itself sounds like fun, subscribe today in order to get the new story on Thursday!
I took the month of January off from social media (and fiction reading, which was much, much harder), in part because I was hoping it would give me the time and space I needed to start figuring out some better ways to connect with readers and potential readers, whether it be through this blog, my newsletter, social media, or something else. Maia and Len have never had a particularly large following, and I’ve always struggled with finding ways to get their stories into the hands of more readers.
One idea that I had was that of writing little “story snippets,” or “Whitney & Davies Extras”–that is, brief scenes from the point of view of characters other than our main duo, set either during or after the books–and offering those to newsletter subscribers. The first such character I thought of, naturally, having just recently finished re-writing Magic Most Deadly, was Maia’s friend and the hostess of the house party that is the setting for the story, Julia Foy.
In the original edition of Magic Most Deadly, Julia played a much larger role than I was able to give her in the new edition, and proved to have a sneaking suspicion of magic’s existence, despite her inability to use it. I always had an idea of where I wanted to go with that idea, but was never able to fit it into any of the other books, and then some of the world-building details that developed as I wrote those books seemed to contradict the idea that a non-magic user could be aware of magic’s existence.
But Julia still had a story of her own that she wanted told, and as I started writing the story snippet for her, set at the end of Magic Most Deadly, I started to get an inkling of what that story was supposed to be. It is too much to be told in one snippet, however–especially since it develops right alongside the series. I foresee at least three parts, possibly more: the first taking place at the end of MMD, the second at the end of Glamours & Gunshots, and the third most likely happening around the time of Death by Disguise.
I’m excited to share more about Julia’s character and her story with readers! If you are interested in reading more about her, subscribe to my newsletter before the end of the month, as the first of her story snippets will be released exclusively to newsletter subscribers in the newsletter that will go out on March 1st.
I had originally planned to released a Becket snippet next, sometime this spring, but I think I’ll have to get all of Julia’s story out first, and then start exploring Becket’s character after that, later in the year.
This is a fun way for me to explore more of the world of Whitney & Davies without having to focus so exclusively on Maia and Len and the magical mysteries they are called upon to solve, and I hope it will be a fun way for readers to immerse themselves further into that world, and make it a place new readers want to come and visit and hopefully stay a while, as well.
(If you have suggestions for things you’d like to see more of in the Whitney & Davies world, or something you think would be a good draw to help attract new readers to the series, feel free to leave a comment letting me know–I’m still exploring ideas and options, and I welcome input!)
It’s been a subtle running joke in the Whitney & Davies books ever since Glamours & Gunshots that Len is a keen driver but has the most unreliable vehicle known to man. I recently started working on a holiday short story (hoping to have it ready to publish by next Christmas season, for newsletter subscribers at least if not the wider public) that opens with his car quitting on him in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. What happens as a result of that will, of course, have to be saved for the story itself, but the opening did prompt me to at last settle on the details of just what exactly Len is driving.
I knew he’d want something sporty and fast, but also practical. A 4-seater touring car–or “tourer” as they were called in Great Britain–was indicated. I knew enough about older vehicles from researching them for the second Pauline Gray novella to decide on that much. A little bit of research then led to me the Vauxhall 30-98, also known as the Vauxhall Velox tourer. It was considered a sports car for its day (perhaps not as impressive as a Bentley, I discovered as I read further, but wholly British, generally reliable (unless you’re Len), and an iconic car of England in the 1920s.
Then I found the photo above, and I knew at once that was Len’s car. Look at it! It simply screams, “Len!” to me. The only difficulty is that that particular car is a 1924 model, and int he new edition of Magic Most Deadly I establish that Len’s had an unreliable car since at least 1921. Do I allow the discrepancy to slide, or will it annoy me forevermore if I give him a car that’s three years newer than it should be? (Answer: even if I say I will let it slide, it will annoy me forever)
Then the answer came to me: clearly the above car is Len’s second vehicle, his first finally breaking down irrevocably, forcing him to buy a new one … only this one has all the same problems as the first, leading to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not with the automobiles … it’s with Len.
That settles the discrepancy, and is also far more funny than if I had just let it slide. Poor Len!
(Adding insult to injury, I’ve decided just now, Maia has little interest in cars but is able to drive when she must, and never has the smallest amount of difficulty even with the crankiest of cars. Len finds this incredibly unfair, and Maia cannot understand why he can’t simply make them work. Alas that his magic won’t do a thing for cars!)
I think this was his first car … also a Vauxhall Velox tourer, but a 1920 model, and while very elegant, not as striking as the shiny red and silver of the 1924 model.
My editor is right–details like this may seem irrelevant at first (she is always having to remind me to include more detail in my stories), but boy do they add a lot of depth! In figuring out his car, I’ve also learned something new about Len himself, and about Maia to a certain extent. And I had a good bit of fun while doing it, too!
Next I’ll be needing to teach myself exactly how cars were manufactured in the ’20s so that I can determine whether any magic at all would work on them, or if they are immune. The rabbit-trail world-building has only just begun!
Magic Most Deadly–the new edition–will be released on November 1st, but you can pre-order your e-book edition right now!
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and many more! Click here to order your copy today so it can be delivered to your e-reader instantly on November 1st!
Oh, and that’s not all–from now through the end of November, it’s on sale for $0.99! So if you had the old edition and you’re curious to read the new, you can purchase it for less than a dollar. And if you’ve never read any of the Whitney & Davies books before, this is a great way to get introduced to the series!
When a rogue magician is murdered and secret government papers disappear, Maia and Len must race against time to find the murderer and the papers to decide the fate of all of England’s magicians.
Lennox Davies is no stranger to plots, lies, and even murder. As an agent for England’s Magical Intelligence Agency, that is all in a day’s work for him. But this time, the stakes are personal, the last loose ends from a job that ended in tragedy for him during the War—and keeping his mind on task is even trickier with the enigmatic and lovely Maia Whitney working by his side.
Maia has spent years sacrificing her own interests to those of her family. The revelation that she is a magician opens up a world of possibilities for her. Freedom—ambition—friendship. But first, she has to help Len find this murderer and recover the stolen papers. So long as her newly-discovered magic doesn’t overpower her before she even gets started.
Together, nothing can stop Maia and Len—except perhaps their own stumbling blocks. Will they be able to overcome what holds them back in time to solve the puzzle that has all of England—and beyond—hanging in the balance?
Here again is the first story of Whitney & Davies, the tale of how Maia and Len meet and work their first case together, in a brand-new revised edition. Read it and fall in love with our favorite detective team all over again!
We’ll start with the biggest news–the second edition of Magic Most Deadly will be released on November 1st, 2023. Hurray!
This means that the first edition will be archived and no longer available on October 15th.
In an attempt to streamline my social media marketing, the cover reveal for the new edition has been revealed exclusively to newsletter subscribers. If you want to see the new cover before November 1st and you aren’t already subscribed to the newsletter, sign up below (or in the box in the sidebar) and I’ll be sure to send you the newsletter with the reveal in addition to the free fantasy short story that already comes with signing up.
There might be a delay in the paperback release, but the ebook should almost certainly be out on the projected release day of November 1st, and the paperback as soon after that as is possible.
So make a note–we will say goodbye to the old edition on October 15th, and hello to the new on November 1st!
Once again, Glamours & Gunshots is part of the Epic Sale of Beloved SFF–over 50 books personally recommended by someone who read and loved them. This is my favorite sale of the year, so I’m excited it has come around again!
G&G has plenty of company in the “historical fantasy” category this year, some of which are new to me, so I’ll be picking those up for my e-reader library!
As mentioned in my previous post, in honor of this sale you can also pick up Magic Most Deadly and Death by Disguise for $0.99 from now until August 23 as well (the Beloved SFF sale only goes until the 22, but I always keep my books on sale a day longer in case of stragglers). That’s all of the current novels in the series for less than $3.00!
Running from August 18-23, all three novels currently published in the Whitney & Davies series will be on sale for $0.99 each!
This sale is part of the “Beloved SFF Sale,” which is near and dear to my heart, as the only way an author is invited to place one’s book in the sale is if someone else has recommended it as a book they love. Glamours & Gunshots was first nominated for the sale three years ago, and I have loved participating in it ever since.
This year is particularly special, as it won’t be long before the original edition of Magic Most Deadly is archived for good. I am so excited about the new 10th anniversary edition that I’ve been working away on this summer, but there’s a part of me that can’t help but feel a little nostalgic for this debut novel of mine. I’m glad to give it one last chance to shine before it is replaced by its newer and better version.
Then there’s Death by Disguise, my award-winning novel! I’m happy to think readers will get a chance to check out the book the Maine Literary Award jurors dubbed, “simply good fun from start to finish.”
The supplementary books–the Christmas novella of While Shepherds Watch and the short story collection Magic and Mayhem–are not included in this sale, but at $1.99 and $2.99 respectively, you can still pick up the entire series for less than $8.00 total!
So starting August 18, make sure to check out the Whitney & Davies page here on the website to find links to purchase any or all of these books while they’re still on sale!
Here is a fun challenge for fans of the Whitney & Davies series!
If you’ve read any of the books in this series, what other reasonably current books/series would you say have a similar feel? So that one could say, “If you enjoyed ___ book [or author, or series], you’ll enjoy Whitney & Davies!
One of my biggest marketing struggles has been trying to figure out current authors whose writing has a similar feel to mine (or at least, current authors with enough name recognition to make a difference) to whom I can point in that way. “Agatha Christie with magic” is a cool tagline, but unfortunately, the major audience for Agatha Christie books is going to be confused by suddenly having a fantasy book promoted to them–likewise fans of Diana Wynne Jones (who some have been kind enough to say my writing reminds them of) would have legitimate cause to be grumpy if they feel they’ve been tricked into buying a murder mystery set in a fantasy world rather than a delightfully twisty, tricky middle grade or YA fantasy.
So, for readers of my books–what current, at least mildly popular authors, books, and/or series would you say share a similar feel and flavor to Whitney & Davies? As I continue to work on rewriting MMD to make it the best possible start to this series, I would love to start getting these books out there to a wider audience. Finding books with a similar vibe to these is a good step in that direction. I would be so grateful for my readers’ insight into this!
