If you buy it on the release date, it will be only $.99. After that, it will return to its regular price of $4.95. (However, if you would like a free review copy, you can still email to receive one.) Meanwhile, The Unfinished Song: Initiate is still on sale for only $.99.

UPDATE: Good news, Nookers! Both books will be available for the Nook very soon.

A big thanks to my tech team for helping me with this even though it was three am in your time zone.  😀

Those of you who would like a print version of Taboo will have to wait a little longer, I fear. There will be a trade paperback edition, but not immediately. In the near term, we are going to concentrate on getting the ebook to all the available platforms, and for all ereaders.

There was an Author’s Note that was going to be included at the end of Taboo, but at the last minute, I feared I had brought up too many spoilers, so I decided to bump it to the Author’s Note at the end of Sacrifice (Book 3) instead.

I am preparing review copies for those who are interested, and also compiling a list of all those who asked me previously if Initiate was available for the Nook.

Can I just say that it’s amazing how exhausting a book launch can be, even when it’s a low key launch like this one? I can only imagine the stress and drama some of my more famous author friends must have gone through. At least I do not have to give a talk at a live book signing today!

There’s a slender but reflective book on writing called The Golden Theme by Brian McDonald, who argues: 

“Stories may have individual themes, such as ‘there is no honor among thieves’ or ‘slow and steady wins the race.’ But underneath all stories, no matter what their intentional theme may be, there lies another message–a universal message. 
…A cemetery tells us just one thing. And it does not whisper this truth, but shouts it. The dead tell us this: we are all the same.  

This simple sentence, we are all the same, is the Golden Theme that all stories express.

I think Brian McDonald illuminates theme exquisitely in his book. I remember reading on his blog a post he wrote, also about theme, in which he said that not all stories have themes, but all great stories have a theme. If there is a story that seems to have all the other elements of a good story–character, mood, plot, worldbuilding, style, yet still falls flat, chances are, it is lacking a theme. (I believe he used some M. Night Shyamalan movies as an example, and I completely agreed with his analysis; it explained to me exactly why I felt something was “missing” from a story I should have loved, but couldn’t.)

I do think about theme a great deal as I write a story, and Initiate and Taboo, the first two books of The Unfinished Song, have themes which I think of as being complementary. The theme running through Initiate was self-sabatoge. There are a number of characters who seem to be suffering problems imposed on them from other people; but if you look more closely, you will see that they are actually causing themselves more grief than any outside force ever could. In Taboo, however, the theme is reversed. (I like reversals.) Several characters have problems they seem to be causing themselves, by violating taboos, but which actually call into question the validity of the law itself.

Nonetheless, I don’t think we always find our themes. Sometimes our themes find us. As I was going over my edits, I noticed the above sentence, in a rather functional (“infodump”) scene where the Tavaedi Initiates are leaning the rules of magic. I realized it is an underlying theme of the entire series, not one I planned, exactly, but one that flows naturally out of the structure of the world I created.

1. Choice

The outcome of Dindi’s Test has left with a bitter choice to make. Kavio, too, has a choice to make–whether or not to stay and pledge his loyalty to Yellow Bear or continue the life of an exile.

2. Pledge

Just when Kavio has made up his mind to settle in Yellow Bear, an assortment of unexpected visitors make him question his judgment. One is Gremo, the wild warrior he met on his journey, a man still pulling a giant rock behind him. The other is Kavio’s rival and cousin, Zumo.

3. Secret

Kavio discovers something about Dindi. Rthan makes a bargain with Kavio, and another, secret bargain, with Gremo. Brena has an encounter with a bear.

4. River

In search of peace, Kavio will take a journey down a river. 

5. Shunned

6. Vast

7. Stakes

There’s a lot at stake in this chapter. Specifically, bound to the stake, waiting to be eat by giant blue crabs.