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Book Review (SERIES): The Wolf and the Nun

Erin Penn

The Wolf and the Nun series by Emily Leverett

Book 1: The Wolf in the Cloister
Book 2: The Enchanted Rose
Book 3: The Song of the Black Wolf
Book 4: An Honorable Love

Full disclosure: I was on the editing team for An Honorable Love (book 4) as a copyeditor. I was not part of the team for any of the prior books. Can I tell you how cool it is to help make a book in a series you love??? VERY COOL!!!

I mean this was a series where I read the first book twice because I enjoyed it so much!

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE WOLF IN THE CLOISTER

A witch turned reluctant nun. A veteran turned werewolf. A vengeful demon out to destroy them both.

Marie de France was born to be a princess and brought up to be a witch, but when her heart is broken, she she has no choice but to take refuge as a nun at Shaftesbury Abbey and leave the world behind. Spending her days working in the scriptorium, she pines for adventure. After a run-in with a demon, she is thrown back in to the world of politics and desire with the world’s biggest libertine.

Bleiz Clavret, lord of Sarum Castle, returned from the Crusades a changed man: bitter, broken, and cursed with a magical “gift” he never asked for and barely understands. Now infamous for debauchery, he hosts notorious parties. an open secret attended by the most powerful men and women in England; his name is known by all. But his darkest secret, his curse, he hides: three days a week, he shifts into a wolf.

A stolen relic and the rising of a demon bring Marie to Sarum Castle to search Bleiz’s impressive library for clues to the source of both. Intrigued by her sharp mind as much as her seemingly innocent beauty, Bleiz begins by trying to seduce his guest. But he soon discovers this “little nun” might well be more than his match. Equals in mind as well as courage, they discover a mutual attraction that might prove too powerful to resist.

As dark forces gather around them and their secrets are exposed, can they work together before enemines know and unknown destroy them?

The Wolf in the Cloister is the first in a shifter paranormal romance series from Falstaff Crush.

MY REVIEW for THE WOLF IN THE CLOISTER

Original Read May 9th, 2020

Interesting twist by the writer, taking a medieval romance writer and Abbess Marie de France, and using her as the main character in The Wolf in the Cloister – a novella which is a love letter to all things medieval romance by Dr. Leverett as well as being a steamy modern romance. In particular, seeking inspiration from one of the Abbess’ own fictional romances to base this fictional romance.

There are a couple rough transitions, the transition to the steam scene being the harshest of the lot, but this tends to be a common issue with the novella format. Lack of space to smooth out all the rough edges. On the other hand, being able to chunk through a book in three hours is worth a few rough edges when wanting a full story and to also wake up in time for work.

Demons and Bishops, Shapeshifters and Witches, Crusades and Calligraphy. Action, romance, deception, and combat. A fun read.

(read through Kindle Unlimited)

Second Read December 4, 2024
I took a longer time to reread this wonderful novella. Still all the magic, romance, and historic goodness as before. Now to dive into the rest of this series!
(Read from book bought from the author)

 

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE ENCHANTED ROSE

Fairies and demons and wolves, oh my!

Sister Marie is back at Shaftbury Abbey, none the worse for her adventures and very much the better. With the magic she inherited from her Irish witch mother, she has banished the demonic Bishop Josceline back to hell where he belongs. Doing so means she’s had to return to the abbey instead of staying with her new love, the Viscount Bleiz Clavret. But since he’s a rogue as well as a scholar and changes into a wolf three days out of every seven, a cooling off period doesn’t feel like such a bad idea. For the first time since she gave up her life as a royal, she is excited to see what her future might hold.

But the Bishop refuses to stay banished. And when she writes Clavret to warn him, his only reply is to thank her for her concern and tell her he’s off to France to reconcile with his ex-wife. Furious and heartbroken, she flees the demon on her own, following the trail left for her in her mother’s journal. Near the monastery at Kells, she finds a gateway to the kingdom of Tryamour, a fairy queen, and a whole new world of magic and possibility. But in her nightmares, she’s not the queen’s beloved but a wolf in a deadly trap.

The Enchanted Rose is the second chapter of The Wolf and the Nun, a fairy tale for grown-ups based on the work of the medieval poet Marie de France.

MY REVIEW for THE ENCHANTED ROSE

A nun who is the daughter of a witch and a king. A solider-lord stolen away by his first love to France. A fairy queen tempting and teaching. The Kells monastery, yes, the one where the Book of Kells was made, missing a holy object. A bishop possessed by evil beyond reckoning.

The second in this well-researched historical romance isn’t as engrossing as the first one from a romantic end, but the political maneuverings of the chess board between a nun, knight, queen, rook (monastery), and bishop make up the difference. The ending isn’t a cliffhanger, but the reader closes this part of the series knowing the next book has all the pieces on the board.

Book bought at a convention from author’s table.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE SONG OF THE BLACK WOLF

“You two are connected—love him or hate him—and what you dreamed is not a dream.”

Witch, nun, and loyal half-sister to England’s king, Marie de France has left the mortal world behind. Heartbroken by her betrayal by the roguish shapeshifter Lord Bleiz Clavret, she chooses an endless life of tranquility and more quiet passion with Tryamour, the immortal fairy queen. Her fiery connection with Bleiz feels like a wistful dream.

But a terrible vision shatters her peace—Bleiz trapped in his wolf form, pursued by hunters led by Marie’s own brother, King Henry II. She knows the vision is real, that without her help, Bleiz will die. Confused and fearful but determined as always to be brave, Marie leaves the safety of Tryamour’s palace to find her Black Wolf.

But Henry is only one of many enemies looking to destroy this “little nun” and her big, bad wolf. And they’re all controlled by an ancient evil Marie knows only too well.

MY REVIEW for THE SONG OF THE BLACK WOLF

Beginning when book 2 leaves off, and ending when book 4 will start, The Song of the Black Wolf is very much NOT a stand-alone in The Wolf & the Nun series. It serves a purpose: gather together the loose ends of books 1 and 2 into bundles, weaving the plot points together so everything is on the edge and ready to go in … I am guessing here … the final book of the series.

The ongoing series is still rich with historical roots and magical loam. The perfect blend for a medieval historical fantasy romance. Start at book one, The Wolf in the Cloister, and work your way through the series.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for AN HONORABLE LOVE

With a mysterious coin and a dearth of allies, Marie must stop Henry and the demon Hardoiun who possesses him from getting the Apostles’ relics. When Henry gets his hands on the crozier, the most powerful of relics, Marie knows she must act. She makes a bargain with Bette, Bleiz’s ex-wife, to try to steal back the relics.

When Bleiz, still trapped in wolf form, discovers that Henry has Marie, he wants to go save her, but Oberon, the King of the Fairies, refuses to allow him to break his knightly vow of loyalty. With the Fairy King, the knight Orfeo, Thomas Becket, and the monks of Ireland, Bleiz will fight Henry and his demonic army. However, when the option comes to save Marie, he takes it.

Bleiz and Marie must face Henry and Hardouin for the fate of Europe, and possible the world.

MY REVIEW for AN HONORABLE LOVE

The final book in this Historical Romance Fantasy, An Honorable Love starts with Marie captive by her brother (and that which possesses him). Her werewolf friend Bleiz and the fairy queen Tryamour are beyond castle walls and cannot be reached by song or letter. But nothing is ever lost so long as Marie has her wits about her.

I love the strength of the main character as she battles politically, emotionally, magically, and physically. The historical world is strong, the characters each have their own motivations and history, and the plot weaves between different points-of-views and locations like a fairy weaving with spider silk. Each reveal is a burst of color woven deep into the tapestry, the final battle a fringe of gold perfecting the cloth.

Sometimes, when I get invested in a book, I get worried about the ending. I was verry pleased at how well Dr. Leverett sticks the landing. … The Epilogue intrigues me. Are we going to get a spin-off series?

Full disclosure: I was part of the editing team on this book (only). (and no, I don’t know the answer to my last question … dang it!)

Editing Rant: Build on the Reveals

Erin Penn

Photo by Gabriel Silvério on Unsplash – Cropped, duplicated, and assembled by Erin Penn

Don’t keep repeating information. Your reader likely caught it the first time. EXPAND on it each time, either adding additional information or showing how the character perspective is changing.

So many edits I do keep on having the SAME info drop. Yes, it takes three times to make something real, so you need to keep reminding people of an important piece of information. But it shouldn’t.be.the.same.thing.each.time.

OMG.

For a recent edit, one of the romantic interests had been abused by their ex, physical, emotional, magical…the most important part of the abuse for the plot was gaslighting and holding back information, because the other romantic interest, the NEW and “GOOD” love interest (I will call them MC) is holding back some serious information on the magical side. And the magical THREE times to make it real, when the MC trips across the problem, EACH time they go “I really need to tell them or they will be angry.” Same level of emotion, same level of processing, same level of balance in the relationship. The fourth time, the trip-wire problem is tripped, and guess what? The person who wasn’t told by the MC was angry.

Because no building happened, no transformation of the character happened, the reader response is “dumb-ass, you knew better and had half the book to address it.”

INSTEAD OF a simple three-to-be-real:

One) This secret that would make her angry based on how her last spouse treated her.

Two) Dang, I can’t believe the secret is still my secret. I need to keep it from her or she will be angry based on how her ex used to manipulate her.

Three) She hates stuff like that, I need to keep my secret or she will react badly based on her last relationship.

Result) Secret’s out and she reacted in anger as expected based on her last husband.

THE BUILD COULD HAVE BEEN:

I have a secret that would make her angry based on how her last spouse treated her. (focus on her past)

Dang, I can’t believe the secret is still my secret. I know she will be angry, rightly so, for me keeping it this long. Can I let it out? I don’t want to lose her friendship. (focus on self)

She hates stuff like that. I am shit for not telling her about my secret and I dare not tell her now because she will break up with me for the betrayal. (focus on the interaction between them)

Secret’s out, and she reacted in anger expected based on her last husband AND my betrayal of not telling her things. (focus on both their actions, but his taking responsibility for his choices)

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BUILDING

Another recent edit kept having the same description of how attractive the male found his love interest. The description was the same each time, something along the lines of “her eyes mesmerized me”, then a couple chapters later “I was mesmerized by her eyes”, a couple chapter later “I fell into her mesmerizing eyes.”

Don’t just describe. Build the description, show how the relationship is changing. In the next four examples, each time the description of “blue eyes” changes, becoming more emotionally connected.

She had blue eyes.

Her blue eyes looked like home, like where I wished home had been, like the lake we visited every year growing up.

Her eyes flashed in anger, sparkling like sapphires. Her lips pressed white in rage, but still reminded me of rubies. She is my treasure. … And I really needed to stop being in awe that she loves me, before she kills me.

Tears rimmed the lakes of her eyes, and I fell in downing with her, drawing her into my arms as we wept.

Don’t worry about these fixes during the first draft. “BUILDING ON THE REVEAL” ARE FIXES – which means they need to FIX something. The first draft has to be written in order to fix something. But once you are done writing, and you made sure the plot is plotting (Second draft), then create the characters, seed the builds, show – don’t tell – us the emotional development of the relationships (Third draft). Have fun.

Building on the Reveal is all about the first rule of writing fiction: Don’t be boring.

And repeating information is boring. If you have to talk about it three times because it is important, then don’t REPEAT what you are talking about.

Chekhov’s gun is on the wall in the first act. The characters’ comment on the history, who owned it, in the second act. Third act at the start, they notice the maid had dusted it. End of the third act, it goes off. If it just sat on the wall, mentioned three different times in the book when characters walked in the room as being on the dang wall, well, that is snooze-worthy boring. (And thus finishes the third example of building on the reveal.)

Don’t be boring.

Build on the reveal.

Writing Exercise: Narrative Voice

Erin Penn

Acquired from the Internet

A recent edit, I told an author that while it is okay to use “Alright” in dialogue, “all right” is needed for narrative.

Their response: “I continue to not understand this rule. There are all kinds of slang that is now accepted in the dictionary. Why is this a line in the sand?”

And my response to their response: “This is the difference between narrative voice and character voices. Narrative is more formal and “general” structure; while character voice gives you insight to their upbringing, education, personality, and occupation through word and grammar choices. One of the aspects of narrative is to be more understandable across the board; by using slightly stiffer word choices, it reaches more people. I hope this makes sense.”

Narrative is (slightly) more trustworthy. Dialog is through several filters: what the character KNOWS, what they have processed (UNDERSTAND/BELIEVE), what they are willing to SHARE with others, and what they are willing to SAY to others. In addition, dialog is more steeped in culture, education, and socialization. Narrative shares more and is more precise in the sharing.

“I had a great time,” she told her friend who paid for the trip, thinking to herself she would burn in hell before going on another cruise. The seasick patch was not effective enough.

“Y’all ain’t from around here,” the waiter asked, picking up the sweetened teas. No one had warned us ice tea came pre-sweetened in the South.

Information shared through narrative rather than dialog can have a completely different impact on the reader, as well as accessibility.

“Over here,” the real estate agent lead us yet another room. It was our fourth house that day. “Is the main bedroom, what used to be called the master bedroom. There is a bathroom with two sinks, the tub and toilet as you can see are separate.”

Like Jim or I want to brush teeth side-by-side. Whoever came up with that bizarre couple idea needed their head fixed. Oh, great, two more doors to open and close when I need to rush from the bed to piss when we try from our second kid. I looked at Jim, his brown eyes were glazed over. “Thank you, Sherry, I think we need to think things over for a bit.”

“I haven’t even shown you the best features, yet.”

Because dialog and narrative have different rules and different presentation, a tool you might want to try when writing is flipping narrative and dialog. Dialog running dry – maybe the information being share in dialog is better in narrative. Need to slow down the action (and dialog fall under action), switch the information being share through characters speaking to a more passive narrative – it will strangely both move faster, because dialog had a lot of structure supporting it, and slower, because it isn’t as immersive.

WRITING EXERCISE: Explore sharing different information between narrative and dialog. While working on this think about how is narrative voice different from the rest of the story structure. Should the character hide something in dialog but not in narrative? Are different emotions shown between the two? For the exercise itself, write a scene with dialog and narrative then flip the scene changing the information shared in dialog to that shared in narrative and vice versa. Show your results below in the comments.

My attempts:

“Alright, I can’t lie. The seasick patches were shit,” I explained. “I won’t ever step on a ship again in my life.” My friend’s face fell. I wanted to tell her I had a great time with her, and I wanted to thank her for the chance to see the Caribbean, but we were always brutely truthful with each other.

I gasped, after taking a sip of my ice tea. “What on earth? Did you dump a pound of sugar in here? Take this away and bring us iced tea; we can sweeten it ourselves to our taste with these little bags here.” I waved at the packets on the table. The waited looked at us in horror.

The real estate agent showed us the main bedroom. “Sherry, this is our fourth house today. Put a fork in us, we are done. And who in god’s name wants to brush their teeth beside each other? Nope, I’m outta here.” Jim, my long-suffering husband followed me out the door. Behind us, the real estate was shouting something about the best features of the house and how they could help us as we expanded our family.

 

Book Review: The Hands We’re Given (Aces High, Jokers Wild #1)

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

The Hands We’re Given (Aces High, Jokers Wild Book 1) by O.E. Tearmann

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Aidan Headly never wanted to be the man giving orders.

That’s fine with the Democratic State Force base he’s been assigned to command: they don’t like to take orders. Nicknamed the Wildcards, they used to be the most effective base against the seven Corporations owning the former United States in a war that has lasted over half a century. Now the Wildcards are known for creative insubordination, chaos, and commanders begging to be reassigned.

Aidan is their last chance. If he can pull off his assignment as Commander and yank his ragtag crew of dreamers and fighters together, maybe they can get back to doing what they came to do: fighting for a country worth living in.

Life’s a bitch. She deals off the bottom of the deck. But you play the hands you’re given.

 

MY REVIEW

An excellent first book for a dystopian series. Lots of characters introduced, and they are easy to keep track of. Everyone is broken and hurting (Dystopian leaves its mark).

This book explores secrets, why people hold their hands close to the vest, the danger of showing the cards if you want to survive the game, but part of the game of life is knowing when to show your hand to others. It is the only way to win – friends, family.

For the first novel of a series by the new (team) author of O.E. Tearmann, Hands We’re Given is well crafted. Dialog and characters are real.

If you like themes of diversity and found family (the military elements are more about building a family than a unit), you will enjoy this book.

Special note: I bought this book directly from the author team at Ret-Con 2023.