Why I Love Wednesdays...The Earnshaw/Linton/Heathcliff Family

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I'm back with Why I Love Wednesdays, hosted by Reflections of a Bookaholic. Today's topic is Book Family!

If you've ever read this blog, you know I love a lot of books. After much deliberation, I settled on the Earnshaw/Linton/Heathcliff family from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Now, even if you haven't read Wuthering Heights (which you should--it's awesome), you probably know a little bit about the story of Cathy and Heathcliff. They grow up together, fall in love...but Cathy says something that makes Heathcliff take off and when he comes back years later, she's married. The whole story is really sad (and that's a serious understatement).

The whole Earnshaw/Linton/Heathcliff family is pretty messed up. Maybe that's why they seem so real--or disturbing. (WARNING: major spoiler alert if you haven't read this.) Heathcliff (he only has the one name) and Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw are in love with each other. Edgar Linton is also in love with Cathy and when Heathcliff disappears, Cathy marries Edgar. When Heathcliff returns and finds Cathy married to a man he hates, he takes up with Edgar's sister Isabella, whom he later marries. Cathy falls ill and dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter, who is also named Cathy. Isabella takes off on Heathcliff and he finds out years later that he has a son. He sends for the boy when Isabella dies, and later tries to marry his son off to Cathy's daughter so he can have all of Edgar's wealth. (He already has everything Cathy's family had owned--her brother gambled it off to Heathcliff before he died.) Cathy (the daughter) and Linton, Heathcliff's son (named for his mother's maiden name), do marry and Cathy's father Edgar dies shortly after. Cathy is forced to move in with Heathcliff, Linton, and Hareton, her cousin through her uncle Hindley Earnshaw. Her husband Linton soon dies and she's left with just her father-in-law and her cousin, understandably miserable. Heathcliff eventually wanders off, thinking he sees Cathy's (the mother) ghost, and he dies. Cathy (daughter) and Hareton decide to marry.

Crazy, messed up family, right? This is the ultimate love web, and really takes the phrase "keep in it the family" to a whole new level. Reading this story reminds me that no matter how crazy some of my family may get sometimes, they're no where near as crazy as the Earnshaw/Linton/Heathcliff family. Their drama is extreme--and that's why I love them.

Why I Love Wednesdays...Favorite Villain

I'm finally back with Why I Love Wednesdays... hosted by Reflections of a Bookaholic. This week's topic is "Favorite Villain".

Since I recently read Destined, book nine of the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast, I thought I would talk about Neferet.

First of all, Neferet is seriously twisted. I wouldn't want to meet that woman/vampyre in a dark alley, that's for sure. She is manipulative and dangerous. If you haven't read the series, I don't want to ruin anything, but the woman is straight up EVIL. I really don't understand why everyone doesn't see all the crazy stuff she gets away with, or why most of the other vampyres/fledglings still follow her. Only Zoey, the protagonist, and her friends see what's really going on. Of course, if everyone saw what the woman was really doing, there wouldn't be much of a story, would there? It's rare for me to want even a villain to die as much as I want Neferet to die. That's how awful she is. The Cast duo would have to do some extremely fancy footwork to make Neferet redeemable.

Now, I know this is supposed to be all about a villain, but I have one more thing to say about the House of Night series. Stark=major yum. Even if you have no interest in vampire books, or crazy evil Neferet, read the series for him. I love me some Stark. He doesn't show up until book four, Untamed, so stick with it. I guarantee he's worth it (especially when he starts talking in a Scottish accent).

Why I love Wednesdays . . . Why I Love Phoenix "Nix" Birmingham

When I first saw today's "Book Crush" topic, my mind immediately went to Kellin from The Chronicles of the Cheysuli. Since I already discussed him in a previous, non-WILW post (HERE) I thought I would tell you all about my most recent book crush: Phoenix “Nix” Birmingham from Pandora’s Box by Gracen Miller.

This is Gracen's rendition of Nix (Chris Evans with different hair and tattoos added).

Nix can only be described as a badass--he’s a demon hunter, along with the rest of his family. They call themselves Sherlocks (yes, as in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock). He arrives on the scene to help the damsel in distress, only to discover that she doesn’t really want his help and that what he needs to help her with is above and beyond anything he and his family have ever dealt with before. He’s cocky (you know how I always go for the self-assured ones), stubborn and way hot.

Without giving too much away, I’ll say that he tries to help said damsel (named Madison) whether she wants it or not. He would--and does--do anything for her.

So there you go: a guy that kicks butt (demon butt) and would literally brave the hoards of Hell. I'll leave you with the lovely cover of Pandora's Box, which houses the beginning of Nix's story: 

Oh, and Nix IS on Facebook, if you want to friend request him: Phoenix "Nix" Birmingham  He does answer back!

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . A Children's Book

            

            Today’s “Why I Love Wednesdays . . .” post is all about children’s books. Now, if you read my previous WILW post on a Childhood Book Friend, found HERE, you might recall that I can’t remember what my favorite book was as a child. Maybe I didn’t have one. The world may never know . . .

            So, I’ll be talking about a book—or rather, book series—that I remember loving as a child: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. This series is probably what began my obsession with the whole Fantasy genre. If you haven’t read the books, you’re missing out. The same goes for the movies. They’re excellently done. (Ben Barnes playing Caspian in the second and third movies is just an added bonus.)

            There are two ways you can read the series: either in order written/published, or in the world’s chronological order. I’ve read it both ways, and I kind of like it in chronological order. Since I originally read it in order published when I was a child, I’ll discuss it that way.

            The series begins with four siblings in the real world—World War I Era England. They find a magical land called Narnia in an old wardrobe. (If you don’t know what a wardrobe is, it’s sort of like a freestanding closet.) There they meet a fawn, some talking beavers, and other creatures. They are told that the land is under an enchantment cast by an evil witch and that the children must help break it.

            The children also meet a talking lion named Aslan. He was there at the creation of the world, and he is the only character who is consistently present throughout all seven books. one great thing about the books is that even though most of the characters aren’t in all the books, the author did a fabulous job of connecting the characters together.

            I won’t spoil the end of the series. I will, however, say that I was extremely surprised. I think it’s a great series for both children and adults. My eleven-year-old cousin is currently reading the series—I can’t wait to ask him what he thought of them.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . A Book Assigned from School

Today’s “Why I Love Wednesdays . . .” is a Book Assigned in School. Now, I don’t know about you, but we did a ton of assigned reading over the three years I was in high school (I skipped my junior year and graduated early). Even though I love to read, I hated a lot of the books we were assigned. I wanted to read what I wanted to read. I had a Fantasy obsession and the books my school assigned just weren’t cutting it. While the books were well-written (for the most part), they just weren’t for me. In fact, I have very clear memories of an essay I wrote on a short story we assigned to read my sophomore year of high school. In my essay, I stated that I could have written a much better story. I also said that even a three year old could have come up with a much better story. Needless to say, my teacher didn’t like that very much and I got a bad grade on the essay.

But I digress. I’m going to tell you about the book that stood out to me the most in my high school assigned reading: Animal Farm by George Orwell. It seems like an odd choice, I know. For those of you who have never read Animal Farm, it’s about a group of animals who drive the humans out and take over the running of the farm they live on. Why did I like this book? Well, I thought the idea of animals running a farm was pretty funny. But more important is that it’s a satire of the Stalin era in Russia prior to World War II, which we happened to be studying at the same time in my World History class. This book helped me to understand history better and was entertaining at the same time. If you have any interest in history whatsoever (or even if you don’t), I highly recommend this book. It’s a novella, so it’s pretty short. But isn’t the idea of a pig, horse and dog revolt funny?

On a side note: I also really loved reading Hamlet in school. Maybe I’ll talk about that in another post some day.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Why I Love Garion & Ce'Nedra

Today’s “Why I Love Wednesdays . . .” is all about a favorite book couple. At the risk of repeating myself and posting massive spoilers, I’m going to tell you about Garion and Ce’Nedra from The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings.

If you’ve been following my “Why I Love Wednesdays . . .” posts, you’ll know how much I love David Eddings’ works, particularly The Belgariad and The Mallorean (in case I haven’t mentioned this before, they’re technically companion series, set in the same world and with many of the same characters, but several years apart). I’ve already expressed my love for Ce’Nedra (if you missed that post, you can find it here). Now it’s time to share about Ce’Nedra’s relationship with Garion.

Garion is the main character of The Belgariad and one of the main characters of The Mallorean. He and Ce’Nedra first meet when they are fifteen. They hate each other at first. Garion thinks Ce’Nedra is a spoiled brat (which she kind of is) and Ce’Nedra thinks Garion is an uneducated peasant (which he basically is). They have screaming fights and she treats him as her servant. They eventually begin to become friends when Ce’Nedra takes it upon herself to teach Garion how to read. Garion’s aunt, Polgara, cautions Ce’Nedra against playing with Garion’s emotions, although Ce’Nedra insists that she feels nothing for him.

Ce’Nedra finally realizes her feelings for Garion when he goes away for a time to retrieve a magical object that’s been stolen. She’s been left behind and she finds herself missing him. When he returns, she goes into a fit of jealousy when she sees him with another girl (who is in fact his cousin).
When they reach the end of their quest, Garion and Ce’Nedra are both surprised when Garion is revealed to be the long-lost Rivan king. Ce’Nedra catches the implication of this, although Garion doesn’t. There has been a long-standing treaty that one day an Imperial Princess of Tolnedra will marry the Rivan king. This means that they have to get married.

It isn’t until Garion has to leave on a dangerous quest to kill an evil god that Ce’Nedra finally decides that she wants to marry him. She leads an army to distract the disciples of the evil god to help insure Garion’s safety.

The two are eventually married at the end of The Belgariad series. The Mallorean series begins with the abduction of their child. Garion, Ce’Nedra and many others must go on another quest to retrieve the child. Throughout it all, Garion basically has to keep Ce’Nedra sane. After all, what mother wouldn’t go crazy if someone kidnapped their son?

Through all ten books of the two series, I enjoyed the development of Garion and Ce’Nedra’s relationship. They may fight, they may drive each other crazy, but they always manage to work it out. It’s funny what lessons we can take from books sometimes.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Why I love Chloe Saunders

Today’s Why I Love Wednesdays “instructions” were to pick any previous topic. So, here’s Favorite Character: Take Two. (You can find my first Favorite Character post here.)

I know I did a favorite character post recently. However, as those were my favorite characters from epic fantasy, today I’ll introduce you to my favorite YA character: Chloe Saunders from The Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelley Armstrong.

Chloe’s a fifteen-year-old necromancer, but people think she’s crazy when she starts screaming about ghosts. Her family puts her in a “group home” for troubled teens, which turns out to be a home for supernaturals.

I won’t go into too many details because I don’t want to spoil the story, but I appreciate how Chloe stays strong through everything and does everything she can to discover who (and what) she really is and the truth behind the “home” she’s been left in. She doesn’t give up, even though some scary things happen to her, and she doesn’t cower behind the boys and let them handle things for her. She’s a very believable character and I hope to see a continuation of her story someday. 

Blog Schedule Announcement!

As of today, I will only be blogging three days a week on this blog. I will continue with Why I Love Wednesdays, Short Story Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday. My Escape posts will still go up on my Team Promethiad blog. You can find the link under the "My Team on Escape" tab at the top of this page.

Although I do love blogging, I need to spend more time focusing on my novels. I am, however, going to be opening up this blog for occasional guest posts by other authors. If you're interested in guest posting, please contact me via email by using the email icon on the top right side of the page.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Why I Love Adrian Ivashkov

Today’s Why I Love Wednesdays post is about a misunderstood character. Now, I know I’ve been posting a lot about various epic fantasy books/characters lately, so I thought I’d deviate from that and talk about a YA character that I love.

My first thought was to post about Logan or Andrei from my Shadow Imperium series, but seeing as that series isn’t out yet, I thought I’d go with a character a little more familiar to some people: Adrian Ivashkov from the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Dimitri, but I’m totally Team Adrian. If you’ve read my blog much, you know exactly how I feel about those boys who are full of themselves, but really have hearts of gold.

If you haven’t read the Vampire Academy series yet and plan to, or if you haven’t finished the series, you might not want to read the rest of this post. I might get a little spoiler-y.

Adrian first appeared in the second book of the series, Frostbite. While his clove-smoking, alcoholic ways aren’t exactly endearing, his confidence certainly is. I don’t know what it is with me and these “bad boy” characters—my husband is definitely not like that. Never has been.

I love the way Adrian pursues Rose, even though it’s frowned upon in their society—a Moroi (living vampire) dating a Dhampir (half vampire, half human) is just not done. He doesn’t care what society thinks, especially his parents or his aunt (who is the queen). He also doesn’t care that Rose is in love with someone else. He wants her anyway.

The series ended with me feeling extremely sorry for Adrian. He fought so hard for Rose and lost. I can’t wait to read the spin-off series, Bloodlines. I’ve heard rumors that Adrian’s in it and I hope he finds someone even better. After all, who wouldn’t love a sarcastic guy who can sneak into your dreams and loves so much that he’s willing to go against everything he knows?

© Brea Essex 2011 ~ No part of this site (written or artwork) may be reproduced in anyway whatsoever without express written consent by Brea Essex.

*Disclaimer: I do not own the photo used in this post.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Childhood Book Friend

This week’s “Why I Love Wednesdays . . .” topic is “Childhood Book Friend”. Now, I couldn’t exactly remember what my favorite book was as a child, so I asked my mom. Her response? “I don’t remember. We read a lot of Dr. Seuss.”

Since I barely remember any of Dr. Seuss’ books, I decided to write about Nancy Drew. I know that’s technically more than one book, but series count, right? She was certainly one of my favorite book characters. I’ve always liked strong female characters, ever since I first saw She-Ra (I think I was about 3 when that was on).

I liked Nancy Drew so much that, in fifth grade, I decided to kill her off. I know you’re probably laughing, wondering why on Earth I would kill off my favorite character. Who knows what my 11-year-old brain was thinking? It was my one and only foray into writing mysteries. If I remember correctly, I killed her off by having someone knock a marble pillar on her. I think someone died like that in one of my mom’s novels that I read. My cover was horrid. I took a lot of art classes as a child but alas, I never lived up to the caliber of my dad or grandmother’s artwork. My characters on the cover were probably glorified stick figures. For some reason, though, despite the terrible drawing and somewhat violent nature of my little book, my teacher put it in our class “library”. The class library was full of books that we had made. We would “publish” them by folding plain white paper in half, writing our story on it and then stapling it together with a construction paper cover. I swear the book wasn’t gruesome or anything like that. I’m actually surprised that my teacher didn’t write home to my dad and tell him that I was disturbed and needed counseling. I don’t know why I wrote it. Anyway, I never wrote another mystery (although “The Killing of Nancy Drew” was surprisingly popular among my fifth grade classmates).

But back to Nancy. Even when she worked with the Hardy Boys, she still kicked butt. I didn’t really understand how she solved her mysteries, but she always did. I wasn’t even sure how she kept getting into all these crazy situations. She always managed to get out of them, though.

I eventually stopped reading the Nancy Drew books when my dad decided I was “too old for kids’ books” and literally locked away all my books. It ended up working out though, because that’s when I discovered epic fantasy. It also probably led to my writing YA books today. If I couldn’t read them when I was a teenager, then why not read/write them as an adult?

© Brea Essex 2011 ~ No part of this site (written or artwork) may be reproduced in anyway whatsoever without express written consent by Brea Essex.

*Disclaimer: I do not own the photo used in this post.

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Favorite Genre

This week’s Why I Love Wednesdays topic is “Favorite Genre”. Now, I know I mostly write YA, but my favorite genre will forever be epic fantasy. My dad handed me my first epic fantasy book when I was in sixth grade. It was called “Shapechangers”, by author Jennifer Roberson. It’s the first book in an eight-book series called The Chronicles of the Cheysuli. If you like books about shapechangers/shifters, I highly recommend you check it out. They’re only available in omnibus editions now, unless you can hunt the originals down on Amazon.

There’s just something about epic fantasies that’s always called to me. There’s just something about the magic, the prophecies, the questing . . . I’ve always loved getting lost in a world not my own. While I love books set in the real world, it takes a whole other level of detail to create your own world. I love how you can create alternate realities in epic fantasy where anything goes—and then set your own rules. You can create your own history, cultures, costuming, modes of transportation, politics, religions, languages . . . the possibilities are absolutely endless. That’s why epic fantasy will always be my first love, literature-wise.

I should also add that my first big “literary crush” was Kellin from “A Tapestry of Lions”, the last book of The Chronicles of the Cheysuli. I mentioned him briefly in last week’s post, which can be found here. I promise I will post all about him later. Maybe he’ll make an appearance on this week’s Fun Fact Friday.

By the way, in case anyone’s wondering . . . yes, I am working on my own epic fantasy series. That will be a long time in the making but it’s really exciting to work on!

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Why I Love Ce'Nedra and Keely

This Why I Love Wednesday is all about favorite characters. Now, I really couldn’t choose just one. Both of these ladies have been my heroines since seventh grade when I first discovered their stories.

I’ll start with Ce’Nedra from The Belgariad and The Mallorean series. I loved her from the first time she was introduced. She’s a fiery redhead (with a temper to match!) who can wrap her daddy around her little finger. She’s an Imperial Princess, the only child of the Emperor. She’s also part dryad. Her father tries to force her to go to another country to honor an ancient treaty—so she runs away. Unfortunately for her, she ends up with people who make her go honor the treaty anyway (which she is definitely not happy about). Now, I know this is making her sound horrible, but she’s really not. When the man she’s supposed to marry has to sneak off for a dangerous mission, she takes over the war council (after she throws a huge temper tantrum) and convinces the kings on the council to let her lead an army against the enemy countries. Ce’Nedra shows absolute genius as they gather people from various ally countries. She even bribes her own father’s troops to follow her. In the second part of the series (The Mallorean), her only child is kidnapped and she and her husband (along with several relatives and friends) tear the world apart looking for him. I honestly don’t know how she held up during all of this. If I were her, I would have done the same thing, but I don’t know if I would have handled it as well as she did.

Now onto Keely from The Chronicles of the Cheysuli. She’s the youngest of four children and she’s the only girl. Her mother’s a complete nutcase who tried to hand her children over to an evil sorcerer when they were babies—but only the boys. To say Keely has mommy issues doesn’t even begin to describe it. She’s also the only princess in her land, unless you count her half-sister (most people don’t). She’s been engaged to a man she’s never met since before she was born and she has no desire to ever meet him, let alone marry him. She’s definitely not a typical girly-girl princess. She wears hunting leathers, she can fight with a sword or a knife and she could probably drink any man under the table. She also has special abilities. She can communicate with animals and take on their shapes—something only the men of her people could do. When she’s kidnapped by the same evil sorcerer that her mother had previously tried to give her brothers to, she doesn’t cower and wait for someone to rescue her—she gets herself the heck out of there (granted, with a little help from another prisoner). I won’t share my favorite scene of the book because it gives too much away, but let’s just say she has a very interesting way of dealing with choosing between two men. I have to admit, her eventual grandson is probably my favorite male fictional character. I might talk about him more on a different day.

So there you go: two awesome, non-traditional princesses. I like them for their attitudes, their ability to deal with some of the worst things that could happen to a person (or character) and come out of it sane. It’s not just that they’re princesses, but deep down, doesn’t every little girl want to be a princess?

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Why I Love Summer Reading

I’m back with Why I Love Wednesdays . . . This week’s topic is “Why I Love Summer Reading”. Now, I admit, I don’t usually get that much reading during the summer. I’m in school full-time (don’t ask me why I decided to go back to school—I must be out of my mind or something), so summer is usually the best time for me to get a lot of writing done. So, I’m going to share with you some summer releases that I’m looking forward to reading in the fall when I’m back in school:

Ø    Dragon’s Oath by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast (House of Night novella)

Ø    Forever by Maggie Stiefvater (Wolves of Mercy Falls #3)

Ø    Everlasting by Alyson Noël (Immortals #6)

Ø    Passion by Lauren Kate (Fallen #3)

Ø    The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore (Lorien Legacies #2)

Ø    Sirensong by Jenna Black (Faeriewalker #3)

Ø    Fins Are Forever by Tera Lynn Childs

Ø    Supernaturally by Kiersten White (Paranormalcy #2)

Ø    Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer (Nightshade #2)

Ø    Hades by Alexandra Adornetto (Halo #2)

Ø    Bloodlines by Richelle Mead (Bloodlines #1)

Some of these series I’m actually behind on (or haven’t started yet), so I’m definitely going to be busy reading! I have to admit, out of everything, I think I’m the most excited for Bloodlines. Richelle Mead is extremely talented and I’m dying to find out what happens with Adrian! 

Which summer reads are you the most excited for?

Why I Love Wednesdays . . . Favorite Sidekick

Today begins a new feature . . . Why I Love Wednesdays! Each Wednesday, I’ll be posting about various things I love, following the prompts from       

This week is Favorite Sidekick week. Mine is Silk from The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings.

Silk is really what you’d call a “scoundrel and a rogue”. He knows every shady place in every town, can pretty much lie himself out of any situation . . . and is a spy for his country. In fact, in his country spying is the national occupation. By an “accident of birth”, as he calls it, he is also royalty. His real name is Prince Kheldar and his uncle is the king of his country.

My heart really broke for Silk when it’s revealed that he’s in love with the queen, his uncle’s wife. He spends a lot of time secretly pining for her, although he claims he has an aversion to marriage.  Silk is eventually “brought down” by his boss’ niece Liselle, who is pretty much the female version of him (doesn’t that always seem to happen?).

I really can’t attempt to convey the hilarity that is Silk. He has a sarcastic response for everything. There are just too many layers to Silk to convey in a blog post.

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes from Silk:

“I don’t know that I’d use the word ‘murdered’ exactly, my Lord.” Silk winced. “Oh, I’ll admit that there was a bit of unpleasantness, but that’s such an awkward way to sum up.”

“Believe me, Durnik, Liselle can take care of herself. The two of us are playing a game.”

“Do Drasnians always play games?”

“Of course. It helps to pass the time. Winters are very long and tedious in Drasnia. The games we play sharpen our wit and make us better at what we do when we aren’t playing.”

*Both passages are from King of the Murgos by David Eddings.

New Blogging Schedule!

Hi all! Beginning tomorrow, I'm going to be blogging every day. Here's my new schedule:

Sundays:  Six Sentence Sunday:  I'll be posting six sentence long teasers of my writing. Brought to you by http://www.sixsunday.com/

Mondays:  Character Archive:  I'll be posting character interviews, "castings", and also songs from my play lists.

Tuesdays:  Writing Prompts:  I'll be using writing prompts from Writer's Digest to write some shorts.

Wednesdays:  Why I Love Wednesdays:  Posting on various things I love, brought to you by http://www.reflectionsofabookaholic.com/ 
I'll also be posting my challenge from Escape! at http://promethiad.blogspot.com/

Thursdays:  Moira's Blog:  My character Moira from Team Promethiad will be taking over the blog to write about her experiences on Escape!, as well as her illicit relationship with Toby from J.F. Jenkins' Team Introv3rsion

Fridays:  Fun Fact Fridays:  I'll be sharing facts about me, my writing, my research, etc.

Saturdays:  Short Story Saturdays:  I'll be sharing an exclusive serialized story featuring my Muse Lorelei. We'll be following her as she goes through her training to become a Muse. (Ever since I gave her a name, she's been clamoring for her own story. Since she's been cooperating with me so well lately, I thought I should give in!)

Be sure to check back tomorrow for Six Sentence Sunday for another sneak peek of Foreshadow!