hardest
writing experience
ever.
It took me much longer to write each of my blurbs than to write a similar amount of the actual story, and none of them were even close to the 300-word goal. (Do you guys know of any good blurb-writing guides or tips? Post them below. Seriously. I would be VERY grateful.)
Ultimately, the Magic Mirrors crew and I picked the best of the blurbs for my paperback, and I ended up using yet another in the book descriptions on Amazon and Smashwords. But that left several blurbs now relegated to blurb limbo. I agree that they're not as blurb-like as the others, since they're constructed of story quotes. Still, I thought y'all might enjoy them... and through them, enjoy meeting my villain and my heroine.
Enter the Avenger
The
Avenger of Blood reached Refuge as the sun began to sink. He strode at a steady
pace, walking neither slower nor faster as he crested the long slope. The
gatekeeper watched him come; yet though the keeper looked intently at his face,
he could not tell whether the man was old or young.
“I come seeking.” The voice of the man told the gatekeeper nothing at all. Almost he felt that he knew less about the man, having heard him speak, than he had known before.
“Whom do you seek, and for what crime?”
The Avenger of Blood met the gatekeeper’s gaze with eyes that glittered. “I seek a murderess. She might have reached here three days ago.”
“None such have begged sanctuary at the gate, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t here.” Come in were the words the doorkeeper should say next. He eyed the turbaned man. Many angry men came to this gate; he was used to their threatened violence. Yet there was trouble in the city of the Dawn, strange murmurs, hushed muttering in the streets. The doorkeeper did not relish the thought of bringing yet another man bent on bloodshed into his city.
The Avenger’s face was calm. He seemed well-rested, not like the fugitives who came, half-starved and desperate, or like the men who pursued them, sleepless and broken-hearted. This man did not seem especially angry, yet there was something dark in his gaze.
“Come in,” the doorkeeper said at last. The Avenger inclined his head and passed through the gate, leaving the bloody sunset behind him.
Hence the Heroine
Taliyah
fled through the dark, stumbling over the rocks at the bottom of the wadi. As
she went she wiped her hands on her skirt, but she did not look down to see if
they were clean. She was sure that they were not.
Somewhere
nearby the curlew cried, mourning for the lost sun. Its call sounded like words
to the shivering girl. Too late
for you! Too late for you!
It was too late. With a broken potsherd she had
killed her cousin, and she had killed Taliyah bat Shammai in the same moment—a
death not as swift, but just as sure.
Having
chosen to run, she must keep going. The Avenger would be coming.
She
shuddered. After her uncle had died, of course her father had to provide for
his widow; but why had her uncle ever married into such a family? If he had not
done so, her cousin would never have been born. Far better if he had never seen the light of
the sun!
She
recognized the thought almost before she had finished it, and cried Overpowerer, forgive— before she knew what
she was doing. But then she cut off that thought as well, turning her back to
the sun that she need not see it blazing at her like an angry eye.
Surely
the Overpowerer would scorn her prayers now.
She was
a blood criminal, a murderer.
What refuge was there for her?
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