FEVER SERIES: Where it began and where it’s going


macdanifinalI remember how I felt at the beginning of the first story arc in the Fever Series...wondering if readers would trust me to watch the story unfold over multiple books, taking grief for writing in installments with years in between, and ending in cliffhangers. Promising myself I'd never do it again, that I'd go back to the simple, easy life of writing stand-alone novels once the first story arc of the Fever Series ended.

 

But in life little of worth is ever simple or easy, and there was that damn second story arc that I couldn't walk away from. It stalked me as relentlessly as the first story arc had. However, it didn't come quite so easily. Perhaps because my marriage ended while I was fishing my subconscious for it and my vision was temporarily clouded, perhaps it just wasn't ready to come yet.

 

When the first story arc came to me fully fleshed in a dream, and I wrote the titles on the wall of my study (then firmly refused to write the series for many months) I also wrote a quote next to the titles that puzzled me for the next 8 years. I trusted the dream implicitly, and over the subsequent years every detail I'd recorded ended up being worked in somewhere.

 

Except for that single quote that I not only never found the place for in the first five books--but was never even able to grasp the theme and motif of. I ran it across my tongue for years, evaluating, trying to define just what/who the hell it pertained to.

 

I know now. I get it. While writing BURNED it became crystal clear. Although much has changed in how I originally thought I would write the second story arc of the Fever Series, it went exactly where it was supposed to, albeit by a more circuitous route than I'd have preferred. I finally understand that fucking quote that's tortured me.

 

So, here I am again....ICED was my DARKFEVER, setting the stage and engaging emotion where I wanted it, BURNED is my BLOODFEVER, building the scenery and developing the nuances necessary, FEVERBORN is FAEFEVER & DREAMFEVER where the stakes become increasingly clear and everything goes code red. FEVERSONG is my SHADOWFEVER, where the shit I've been stirring into a mystery and a puzzle and a pattern hits the fan and flies off the blades to take its true form.

 

I love this series and every character in it. And although I'm committed to innate emotional justice in my fiction, that doesn't mean good things will happen to everyone. Still, like life, there is structure and form and beauty and joy in it, and your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you (and I do love to carve:) and hopefully one helluva a good story and I thank you all from the very bottom of my heart for coming along for the ride again.

9 Responses

  1. Thank you for writing the Fever Series, and creating characters to come to life for all your readers. It is amazing how I am able to easily delve into your books. Even the Highlanders Series was so amazing, transporting my imagination to another time and country. Keep writing.......I'm becoming an avid reader...........thank-goodness for spell check app.
  2. i love your new site its awesome!!!
  3. I echo the first comment above by Val, thanks for writing these complex and beautiful characters. This is my favorite series of all times. I love their depth and mystery.
  4. I tumbled headlong in love with Adam Black and my love blossomed when I met the rest of the Highlanders. I don't have a preference for one over another...they're all sinful so I'll take one of each please! (I know, being Alpha and all, they would insist on changing my mind...what a chore that would be said No.One.Ever.) I'm inquisitive so I had quite a few questions after reading the Highlander series. The Fae concept was intriguing, what would you do with it? I was so NOT expecting Mac's story, talk about being blindsided. And then Barron's? I have no idea what hit me, high voltage maybe? Whatever it was, I was different. The Fever series is incredible. The journey through the pages is like running a marathon only you're in a maze and every so often someone or some thing comes along from the side and takes you out. There are so many layers to each character, I can't decide which one I want to peel first. The length of time in between books leaves me feeling bereft. I haven't found anything quite like it, believe me, I've looked. I have no doubt whatsoever Feverborn is going to blow us all away. My only regret is that I won't be able to open up and start reading until Friday. I don't dare touch it, Fever is to me as Sinsar Dubh is to Mac, all consuming until I conquer.
  5. GOD! I love your talent. Thanks for nurturing, for being you, for making me feel inspire, and get lost for a while in a world far beyond my personal struggles. Thank you for this characters, this complexity and blinsided love for what you do. Not once you have fail me. And my faith has nevel falter. You have been my favorite author since the moment I grab "Beyond the highland mist" at 13 years old. Im 23 now. A decade of admiring a woman i would never know, but I will always love. Always, Nia.
  6. Thank you for giving us these books, you are an amazing author and I love the characters you create, from the highlanders to the nine and the girls, everything is just amazing. I just finished feverborn and I'm telling you... Wow!! I don't know what to do with myself after this!! You rock!!!!
  7. Thank you for your novels! My life growing up has felt like a soap opera sometimes and reading became an integral part of myself in the sense that I could be transported and I could place myself in the protagonist's soul for a little while. I became enamored with Mac's story first and even though I had trouble relating to her in the beginning, she was someone who's mindset I had continually hoped to achieve and she had a tenacity I could admire. As she evolved and survived, I related to her more in the sense that you have to embrace the ugliness in yourself to find true balance. For a long while I denied my ugliness, fearing that acknowledging it would change the hopes and dreams I had for who I evolved into in the future. Life and especially your Fever series have helped me discover how tangled up I had gotten my beliefs. I'm not saying that you've created something that affirmed my self worth or that I wouldn't have understood eventually. I am saying thank you for the blood, sweat and I'm sure gut wrenching tears you channeled into this world because they made the lessons I've learned much easier to accept. On a side note: I just finished Feverborn. You made me cry and left me with a horrible cliffhanger. I love and dislike you all at once....and now I have to wait for Feversong. At least I know it'll be worth it. :) Thank you again!
  8. […] to the first story arc, FEVERSONG concludes the second story arc. I talked about this in my August 2015 blog post where I said: “ICED was my DARKFEVER, setting the stage and engaging emotion where I wanted it, […]
  9. Thank you so much for this series.! I'm reading Feverborn now and have to wait a whole year for Feversong? Nooo!! I'm tempted to stop and wait so I can read them both together. I can't put it down now so I'll just have to read the arc again (as I have as each book comes out). :)
  10. A question? Where did the dark cloaked figures that follow Mac come from?