I’ve made it to the end of another A-Z challenge–despite crazy MBA classes and four weekends’ worth of overtime at work. It’s shocking me a little, to be honest… so I thought I’d share the shock Anne experienced the first time she saw her new ghilen friend Shr-Zen hover on the verge of shifting back to her natural form.

Something about an all-black eye has freaked me out since I first saw the effect in an X-Files episode some 20 years ago.

This version captures the broader impact of having a mythical beast with millennia of experience stare you down–you feel smaller and more defenseless than just the regular version of eyes could ever make you feel.

The funny thing to me is that when I created the name for this particular character, I knew she would be based on Chinese mythology, so wanted something both meaningful and vaguely accessible. I knew from my couple of semesters of Mandarin that “shr” (with the proper intonation) means “to be”. I thought it would be interesting to make her name be something on the order of “I am Zen” since she’s trying to teach the young dragons how to reach that appropriate mindset. What surprised me in the character’s evolution was that she ended up being anything but.

That brings us to the end of this year’s installment of A-Z posts about the Red Slaves series and Blood to Fire more particularly. I hope you’ve enjoyed this exploration of characters, places, and concepts (with a few language lessons thrown in), and look forward to hearing whether any of you have been enticed into reading based on these teases.

Since book two of Red Slaves brings in the Chinese angle on dragons, I thought it would be appropriate to comment on a Chinese word: Yi Ding means “certain” in the sense of “fixed, given, particular, or necessarily.” It’s the trap Anne falls into: She considers herself well-educated and firmly grounded in reality. So when she’s forced to face the fact that there IS another perspective on the world her first response is to retreat into herself. And become rather a bother to the people around her.

She becomes annoying for exactly the reason Stephen Hawking’s quote is genius: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

It’s one of those cautionary tales about how certain we can be about being right–while we are, in fact, wrong. One of my favorite TED talks is by “wrongologist” Kathryn Schulz, who asks a question about what it feels like to be wrong. Her audience falls into her trap, describing the embarrassment and pain we’ve all felt at one point or another. Schulz points out… really… that’s the feeling of realizing we’ve been wrong. We were wrong before we discovered we were wrong, and it felt an awful lot like… being right.

So while Anne faces her wrongness with little grace, my invitation to my readers is follow Schulz’s invitation to look out at the universe’s vastness with the eyes of wonder that allow us to say, from time to time, “I don’t know.”

This was another tough letter, until I realized one of the things Anne resents the most in Blood to Fire is her forced expat status. The book opens, in fact, with the revelation that she’s all but sequestered herself in a passive-aggressive rebellion against what she views as her entrapment in the Russian Federation. She almost comes across as a xenophobe–despite her love of research and learning.

This is the way she is most different from me. I still count as close friends people I met when I (or we) were not in our home countries. Something about exploring new things together is an uncommon bond, and makes friendships established in those circumstances last beyond what many Americans expect.

In fact, I recently read an insightful blog post about what it means to be an expat, and, even though my experiences as one were primarily from a child’s perspective, I still found myself nodding at the strange dislocation returning “home” can bring. I am a third-culture kid, with the perpetual outsider’s view on the communities I inhabit, which is in many ways a freeing perspective, and also, I suspect is part of why I have the romantic sense of “home” being where those I love are, rather than any geographic location.

It’s a lesson Anne will continue to learn as the Red Slaves trilogy comes to a close.

Carla and I have counted, coordinated, and confirmed, and we have an official list of winners from the Rafflecopter that went along with my recent virtual book tour.

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Beth Gallinger

5 Sets Autographed Paperbacks

Amber Hall

Beth Haney

Mary Preston

Tes Halim

Tina Connor Myers

10 Sets eBooks

Arely ZPerez

Bonnie (Book Lady)

Christy Harrelson

Elizabeth L

Katrina Whittaker

Kristen Heyl

Natalie Cleary

Sandy Lion

Shadow Kohler

Shannon G*

*Not yet confirmed

Congratulations to everyone who won and thanks to everyone who participated–I felt well-loved with the huge participation the give-away garnered.

As we’re getting to the end of the alphabet, I find it interesting that chapter 1 of Blood to Fire is titled “Visit”… So you get an excerpt today–the first few paragraphs of book two of the Red Slaves trilogy:

There’s an annoying twinge intruding on my consciousness; I’m happy, tucked away in my stone niche, reading. Someone is looking for me again. I know who it is, but I don’t want him to find me. At least not yet. I didn’t want to be mated, yet I am—to Ivan, the prototypical leader of the pack. Not only that, but I have an entourage. Ivan, Vasily, and Fyodor are nice men. Good men. Good-looking men. But I’m used to being on my own, and the past couple of months have shown me more action than I ever expected to face based on my preference for sedentary pursuits. Life would be perfect in this library-like nook if I just had something to nibble.

Maybe if I sit still and focus harder on the words, the voice will go away.

The words blur together and my vision is overlaid with images of food on our dining room table. I reconsider. I am hungry after all.

Even as I uncurl myself from the velvet-covered bolster that had made the chaise such a comfortable retreat, I mutter about room-mates. “I haven’t had room-mates since I lived at home and had to share with my sister. Why doesn’t anyone understand I need alone time?”

“You’re talking to yourself again.”

I whirl around and find Olga smiling at me. “You! You’re back?” I run toward her, but stop myself from a full-on bear-hug attack. She hugs me instead. “Will you stay longer this time? Save me from an overdose of men?”

She laughs. She really is beautiful, and marriage seems to suit her. I’m thankful my research-partner-in-crime has returned to me. I know she’s been busy setting up a branch office to satisfy my erstwhile boss, Sam Stone, so the latest ancillary to his empire will run efficiently. Not that the stress is apparent in her face. The complexion that had glowed previously is now truly radiant, and the twinkle in her eye is ever-present. “We’re here for two weeks this time, in honor of what our boss likes to call Holiday Shut-down. Andrei is settling our bags into the guest suite. Ivan said you had hidden again but maybe you would come if I asked nicely?”

Intrigued? It’s available in both eBook and paperback formats from Amazon.