It used to hang on a window in my office overlooking the snowy backyard. I completed my first novel, a Middle Grade titled Blurb about a librarian who loves books but who never reads because he is afraid he won't be able to finish the books in one sitting. His friend teaches him about chapters in books, and that he can stop there without feeling overwhelmed. "They are tiny books within the stories," she explains. It is, to our adult eyes, obvious but, possessing an MLS myself, I have seen how intimidating chapter books can be to newer readers.

But, I digress...

Stained glass making never happened, but writing did; and I still own the few pieces I collected during that time. Now, I piece together colorful words to paint pictures of worlds made of glass and fire. They come alive for me on paper in much the same way I imagine Tiffany's imagination breathed life magic into glass.

If I devoted enough time to drawing, stained glass, knitting, or even gardening, I'm sure I could become at least proficient in them. I would never be a Michelangelo or a Tiffany, but that's not what matters. What matters is what medium calls to me in a way that sparks the magic of life. For most of my life, for reasons unidentified and mysterious even to me--it can't be a familial love of reading, because I'm the only writer in a family full of crafters--I have created with words on paper. Ink is in my blood.

Before I leave off, I want to share a doodle-like poem I scribbled while in grad school. 

Sheets of color,
gather

shape
​
in breath and flame.

Shards of pane,
shattered

join

with lead and iron.

Heavens illuminate.

Reverence
fixates

upon a world of glass and fire.

Perhaps that's why I found the twists and turns of world building at the beginning difficult to follow. The genealogical information piled on top of new names and unfamiliar places and language are more than I'm used to. That said, I'm glad I made the effort to step outside my comfort zone.

​The lush world building and luminescent writing are lovingly draped around the shoulders of a massively fast-paced and energetic plot. The barely of-age heroine, Yeine Darr, is courageous and true to herself in the the face of conniving and cunning rivals. At a time when her mother has just died, Yeine is called away from home to relatives whose power politics and sadistic thirst for bloodshed could rival machinations in GoT. Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit there. Nothing could rival that family dynamic. Let's just say it's a close second in an abundance of characters ripe with potential for perpetrating treachery and betrayal.

I dislike describing plots. You can get the blurb from the back of the book, and anything else I'm likely to tell you isn't going to do anything but spoiler the book for you. I like, therefore, to keep my public posts on books to my more general impressions and tastes. I may not, for instance, have yet acquired a taste for swaths of complex world building, but I can see where I could. Jemisin has me intrigued enough to pick up more.

This is a short post because I'm only about 100 pages in, but I wanted to preserve my initial thoughts and impressions anyway.Feel free to drop your thoughts about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms below. I'd love to see them!

Until then, happy reading and stay gr8!

~K8