I have so much to show you today!
I’m showcasing Mind Games: The Cassie Scot Series, Book 3.
I’ve also got the first and second books in this exciting series and there’s all kinds of links for fun content.
There’s a huge giveaway too.
And Christine Amsden is here to tell us all about writing her amazing series.
So check it out, click on some links, read my reviews of the first two books, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
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The Bumpy Road to Cassie Scot
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective was the easiest, most natural book I ever wrote. It almost seemed to write itself! The entire series felt natural because of the way I identified with and practically channelled the main character, but the challenges grew with each book. The final volume, Stolen Dreams, presented the greatest difficulties. But also, and in my very biased opinion, I rose to the challenges, making each book better than the one before.
Cassie first came to me in a burst of inspiration, and I pushed out the first draft of a book in record time. I did rewrite and heavily revise the book several times based on some astute feedback from beta readers, but even the rewrites were easier than usual. There was a certain energy to each revision, a vitality and a definite sense of purpose. I never tried to rewrite the book without specific feedback and a plan, and I always felt a sense of rightness about the changes I made. The final revision came after I had finished rough drafts of the rest of the series, which gave me the power to make sure I did not contradict myself and that I had set everything up, even if the readers would not yet know the significance of every decision I made.
I usually find beginnings easier than endings, which may be another reason why the first book was the easiest of the four for me to write. It did come to a conclusion (the mystery was solved), but I set up many problems in book one that I didn’t have to deal with at the time – I left that for a future version of me to handle.
It wasn’t until I first drafted Secrets and Lies that I came up with a plan for the rest of the series. Before then I had some vague notions and themes, but the cliffhanger ending to Secrets and Lies was as much a surprise to me as it was to my readers! Yet that cliffhanger ending sets the tone for the final two books. Secrets and Lies was a book of discovery for me. I refined my characters, learned new things about the bigger magical world, and decided what the rest of the series would look like. The biggest challenge in Secrets and Lies was balancing the mystery with all the personal and magical discoveries being made. Some of the lessons I learned while writing this book led to a major revision of book one. But the growing pains took place while writing book two.
Mind Games was the most difficult of the four books to draft for two reasons. First, I was writing from the first person point of view of a character who was being subtly manipulated by mind magic. I wanted this to be absolutely obvious to the reader from page one, but at the same time I needed to convince the reader of Cassie’s struggle with this truth. Second, I strayed from the series’ primary love interest, Evan, and I found it very difficult to write romantic scenes between Cassie and another man. Even knowing it would be temporary, even knowing Cassie was partly being manipulated, and even knowing that Cassie needed this test of character, I still felt like I was cheating on Evan when I wrote certain scenes. Strangely enough, though, the final version of Mind Games is closer to its first draft form than any other book in the series. I made few revisions, none of them major, which leads me to the most challenging volume …
Stolen Dreams is not the book I first wrote. It wasn’t even originally called Stolen Dreams, it was called Dreamer. But regardless of what I ended up calling it, there exists (somewhere on my hard drive) a rough draft of a book that I originally intended to conclude the series which has almost nothing whatsoever in common with the book I’ll be releasing this summer. I think I reused one scene, then revised it heavily.
Ground-up rewrites are rare, and there is only one reason to do it: A fundamental flaw in the spirit of the story. That first draft was not about what it should have been about: it challenged Cassie in all the wrong ways, it broke an important theme I had been building all along, and it reverted to genre cliches that the series had, up until then, avoided.
Whew!
I went to a book signing/Q&A with Jim Butcher in the summer of 2011. He had just put out Cold Days (which turned out to be my least favorite of the Dresden Files books – I have bad luck with books I get signed by authors). But during that Q&A, I had an epiphany. Someone asked him when and how The Dresden Files would end. Jim gave his usual not-entirely-joking answer about the length of the series depending upon whether his kids decided to go to grad school, but then he said something else about endings. He said (and I’m obviously paraphrasing) that by the time a series is over, the main character should be uniquely qualified to overcome the final hurtle.
I had a lightbulb moment. It wasn’t a warm, glowy sort of lightbulb moment because I knew instantly that I had to toss an entire draft in the trash (metaphorically speaking – I never throw anything away).
Cassie has no magical powers. In my first draft, I had her facing a challenge that any of the people around her with magical powers would have been far better able to handle. She wasn’t just not uniquely qualified to handle it, she was probably the least qualified person to handle it! But I had fallen into the same trap Cassie fell into – thinking she needed to be able to compete with powerful sorcerers in a magical world in order to be worthwhile. And actually, I think the series as a whole is stronger because I started to fall into that trap with her. In the final book, she and I both had an important lesson to learn. Specifically, that being a hero isn’t about overpowering or outwitting the biggest, baddest bad guy (the fantasy cliché), it’s about using your strengths to solve the problems you are uniquely qualified to handle.
I don’t want to spoil Stolen Dreams for you, but I am so excited by the conclusion to this series. Stolen Dreams is more than a mystery – it’s personal. The feud between the Scots and the Blackwoods takes center stage and when it erupts, people Cassie and Evan love get hurt and even die. Cassie is uniquely qualified to put an end to this feud and to solve an interwoven mystery, and she still does not need magic to do it!
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Thanks so much for this amazing guest post Christine. While I’m excited to get my hands on Stolen Dreams, I’m also sad because this exciting series will be ending. Can’t wait to see what your cooking up next.
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Mind Games (Cassie Scot Book 3)
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Beware your heart and soul…
Evan broke Cassie’s heart two months ago, and she still doesn’t know why. She throws herself into family, friends and her new job at the sheriff’s department, but nothing helps. The only thing that finally allows her heal and move on is the love of a new man, mind mage Matthew Blair. Cassie finds him…irresistible.
Matthew may also be the only one who can help keep the non-magical residents of Eagle Rock from going crazy over the murder of a beloved pastor’s wife. It looks like a sorcerer is to blame, but while Cassie tries to figure out who, others take matters into their own hands. With tensions running so hot, a single spark might set Eagle Rock ablaze.
Keep your eye out for my review coming in June!
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First Chapter (Warning! Contains series spoilers. New readers to the series would be better off reading the preview of book one here.)
Buy Links : Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble
Coming to print June 15, 2014. Audiobook release TBA.
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Other Books in the Cassie Scot Series
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Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective
Go HERE for my review
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Cassie Scot is the ungifted daughter of powerful sorcerers, born between worlds but belonging to neither. At 21, all she wants is to find a place for herself, but earning a living as a private investigator in the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t easy. When she is pulled into a paranormal investigation, and tempted by a powerful and handsome sorcerer, she will have to decide where she truly belongs.
Buy Links for Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detecitve
Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Audible (audiobook)
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Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot Book 2)
Go HERE for my review
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Cassie Scot, still stinging from her parents’ betrayal, wants out of the magical world. But it isn’t letting her go. Her family is falling apart and despite everything, it looks like she may be the only one who can save them.
To complicate matters, Cassie owes Evan her life, making it difficult for her to deny him anything he really wants. And he wants her. Sparks fly when they team up to find two girls missing from summer camp, but long-buried secrets may ruin their hopes for happiness.
Buy Links for Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot Book 2)
Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Audible (Audiobook)
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Author Christine Amsden
Christine Amsden has been writing fantasy and science fiction for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and relationships, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.
At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that effects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.
In addition to writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing at Savvy Authors. She also does some freelance editing work.
Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children.
Social Media Links:
Web site ~ Newsletter ~ Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~Goodreads
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Praise for the Cassie Scot Series
“Amsden continues the story of the only mundane member of a supernaturally-gifted family in this middling sequel to Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective. Cassie, stubborn and proud, is bravely trying to live on her own after her family disowns her. Struggling to make ends meet, she accepts a case involving a pair of magical girls who disappeared from summer camp. With the aid of the handsome Evan Blackwood, to whom Cassie is attracted despite her family’s disapproval and her own better judgment, she follows the trail of the missing girls. What she finds is a dark side of the magical world, and the hidden depths of her family’s past force her to reconsider long-held assumptions. The growing complexity of Cassie’s world makes this an entertaining installment, focusing as much on the will-they, won’t-they romantic chemistry between Cassie and Evan as on the primary mystery. An inconclusive ending is clearly intended to feed into the next volume.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“When sorcerers call the shots, what’s a girl without powers to do? Get ready for a ripper of a murder mystery full of romance and intrigue, where magic potions bubble, passions spark and vampires are definitely not your friend. Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective grabs you by the heart and won’t let go until the very last page. Well written, immersive and unputdownable. This is urban fantasy at its best. More please!” – Kim Falconer, bestselling author of The Spell of Rosette, Quantum Enchantment Series
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$100 Amazon Gift Card
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