#alanna daskaz

[copperbadge]

I love how much more of Buck we get in the finished version, and it's always fun to see what minor edits get made between AO3 and ebook, but "the book’s cover, which said Brotherhood and had a picture of two men holding lightsabers, who looked like they were possibly sharing a single brain cell between them." had me laughing so hard one of my coworkers thought I'd choked on my lunch!

Hahah, man I wish I could take credit for that but that description comes from my Eurovision alpha reader, Cat, who is also a Star Wars fan. She pointed out to me that Brotherhood was canonically released very close to Eurovision, and I knew that as a stealth Star Wars nerd Alanna would undoubtedly be interested. But then she pointed me at the cover during later edits and was like "These two idiots sharing a single brain cell" and I LOLed and stole it. Al already canonically had a thing for Prequel Obi-Wan.

Alanna's passion for Star Wars is one of my favorite mostly-unexplored character attributes of anyone in any of the books. I don't think there's even anywhere for that particular quirk of hers to go, I just love that she's an extremely competent, polished, responsible, accomplished woman with an MBA and a whole closet of conservative sheath dresses and also she has a well-curated collection of Star Wars fanfic on her hard drive. It's like when I found out my boss loves pro wrestling. It's not even humanizing, it's endearing, to find someone you think of as a "real" grownup loves something nerdy.

#shivadhverse #alanna daskaz #thearubigin

[shivadh]

This is the research/storage tumblr for material related to Sam Starbuck/@copperbadge’s writing; most specifically the Shivadhverse, a series of romance novels, although other “ideas” posts are sprinkled throughout. 

Tags Index

Character Tags

eddie rambler

Gregory iii

gerald ben eitan

alanna daskaz

noah deimos

jes deimos

michaelis ben jason

Monday rambler

simon lefevre

jason michaelis

caleb canto

Royal librarian

noah's dad

georgie altaras

monday rambler

Princeps ioanna

Writing Tags

random ideas -- Stuff I don’t know what to do with yet

research -- Specific to ideas I have

fishing lodge history -- History related to the fishing lodge/wwii

future novels -- Ideas for future stories (not stuff within future stories, like whole-ass future novels)

not shivadh -- ideas for non-shivadh stories (good place to stash em)

reference -- information to preserve about the books

Shivadh Tags

shivadh judaism -- specific Jewish customs in Askazer-Shivadlakia

shivadh culture -- Cultural norms and traditions outside of Judaism

Specific Novel Tags

the chicken salad war

Roman ruin

Where the oleander grows

shivadh rfc

the nantucketer

shivadh alan turing

Other Stuff

marketing

[copperbadge]

The Shivadh Romances: Volume I is now available for sale! 

This book collects the first three novels in the “Shivadh” romance novel series, and is available in epub, paperback, and special-edition hardback. 

Askazer-Shivadlakia is “the little country by the sea” — a coastal micronation perched between France and Italy, with Europe’s only Jewish royal family and a distinctly queer-friendly culture. The irreverent but earnest Shivadh people have recently elected a new king, and there are a lot of changes afoot for the country and its rulers.

Fete For A King introduces Crown Prince Gregory, who needs both a husband (sooner rather than later) and a caterer for his coronation. He wasn’t expecting American celebrity chef Eddie Rambler to want either job, but it looks like Eddie’s applying for both. The sequel Infinite Jes follows Gregory’s father Michaelis into retirement; he was just looking for a new hobby, and instead encounters broadcast journalist and nonbinary icon Jes Deimos. They might be more than Michaelis bargained for, and vice versa, but each might also be what the other needs. And The Lady And The Tiger finds Lady Alanna Daskaz visiting Galia, a nearby micronation that claims she’s the heir to their throne. She and her best friend Jerry, Duke of Shivadlakia, are going to have to figure out how to get her out of this -- and maybe figure each other out along the way. 

Read all three in a single volume! 

Buy in ePub | Buy in Paperback | Buy in Hardback

Or if you’re interested in reading each novel individually, you can learn more about them and find purchase links here. 

Due to some pricing foorarah, I can’t price the paperback or hardback editions of The Shivadh Romances: Volume I any lower than they are, despite the fact it pays me honestly more revenue than I’d prefer. To compensate, $5 from each paperback purchase and $10 from each hardback purchase will be donated to 826 National, supporting young writers, and the American Civil Liberties Union, supporting civil rights such as abortion access, safe voting, and a range of rights and protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals. 

#shivadhverse #books #romance novels

[copperbadge]

The third book in the Shivadh Romances, The Lady And The Tiger, is now available for purchase in print and epub! 

Already familiar and just want to buy it?

The Lady And The Tiger: Hardcopy | Epub

As with the first two books in the series, The Lady And The Tiger is $3.99USD for epub, $12.99USD for print; prices vary a bit by currency for the hardcopy but are generally between 12 and 17 of your local smackers.

Want to learn more? Read on!

Welcome to Askazer-Shivadlakia, a coastal micronation with one of the few democratic monarchies in the world, Europe’s only Jewish royal family, and a distinctly queer-friendly culture. The irreverent but earnest Shivadh people have recently elected a new king, and there are changes afoot for the country.

The Lady And The Tiger, the third book in the Shivadh Romances series, finds King Gregory III’s cousin and assistant, Lady Alanna Daskaz, transported across the border to Galia, a nearby micronation that claims she’s the heir to their throne. Bringing her best friend Gerald, Duke of Shivadlakia, along with her, Alanna sets to work figuring out how to escape becoming Duchess of Galia without destroying Galia in the process. Jerry, who has a complicated life at the best of times, is trying to solve a few problems of his own along with helping Alanna solve hers. None of this is made easier by the fact that Alanna’s had a secret crush on Jerry since they were at school together, and Jerry’s just starting to believe he might be someone worthy of the Lady Alanna.

Purchase The Lady And The Tiger: Hardcopy | Epub

Download The Lady And The Tiger: Free PDF

If you’re new to the Shivadh Romances, the previous two books are available here: 

Fete For A King introduces Crown Prince Gregory, who needs a caterer for his coronation and also could use a husband; it turns out he’s stuck with the American TV celebrity and kitsch connoisseur Eddie Rambler, who might want both jobs. Purchase Fete For A King: Hardcopy | Epub

Infinite Jes follows Gregory’s father Michaelis into retirement, and straight into the recording studio of nonbinary broadcast journalist Jes Deimos and Jes’s son Noah. Michaelis was just looking for a hobby; instead he might get a romance with Jes, as long as they can keep Noah out of trouble. Purchase Infinite Jes: Hardcopy | Epub

Download Fete For A King: Free PDF

Download Infinite Jes: Free PDF

#shivadhverse #book release #new book #romance novel #het romance

[copperbadge]

you know that one line in Lady and the Tiger where Alanna thinks about how she has some star wars fanfic on her hard drive? and how Jes is an gen x nerd icon? what if they bonded over star wars

There's also the bit in A Pizza For Purim:

"I suppose I should be grateful you didn't make me dress like Han Solo."

"Only one person in this relationship gets to dress like Han Solo, and it is me," Jes told him.

It is amusing if they bond over Star Wars, but I put it to you that it is even funnier if they bond over fighting about Star Wars. Because Jes, being in their forties, grew up on the original trilogy, and was old enough when the prequels came out to be disdainful about them. But the sequels came out right when Alanna, fifteen years younger than Jes, was at An Age To Appreciate.

The very first two paragraphs of Royals/Ramblers are:

The first planning meeting for the royal wedding of His Majesty Gregory III and Theophile "Eddie" Rambler, celebrity chef and newly coined Duke of the Orange, involved Gregory's assistant, the Lady Alanna Daskaz, sitting between His Majesty and His Grace on the sofa in their suite in the palace, while the Star Wars prequels played in the background.

"If I'm going to plan this wedding, I need Ewan MacGregor," Alanna had said, and Gregory had no strong objections, having grown up watching the prequels with her and thus been inoculated via exposure. Eddie liked anything with space laser swords. Gregory's cousin and vizier (and Alanna's fiance) Gerald, Duke of Shivadlakia, was in attendance as well, but graciously declined to view Ewan as a rival so long as the volume was turned down.

Alanna is a generalist fan, she likes all the Star Wars properties -- in Twelve Points there's a brief moment where Caleb catches her reading a licensed novel -- but she will defend the prequels ferociously when necessary, and I bet she and Jes have an ongoing friendly argument about it that just goes on for years. Mention of Jar Jar Binks has been officially banned at the dinner table.

I do like the idea of Alanna and Jes getting up to mischief together. There's a scene I'd like to write in Royals/Ramblers where the kings recruit Alanna to help their newly adopted daughter buy a new wardrobe suitable to a royal protege. Alanna, in turn, takes in Joan's tomboy aesthetic and her choice of gender-neutral title and realizes a High Femme is not really what's called for either, so she calls Jes, who is both very fashionable and more comfortable than Alanna finding a tailor who will fit a three-piece suit for a preteen girl. Jes, Alanna, and Joan's adventures on the high street could be good fun. Might have to be a short story though, I'm about 1/3 of the way into the novel and already at 50K words.

#shivadhverse

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam - Apologies if you've answered this elsewhere and I missed it, but I realised when rereading TLATT that Michaelis and Eitan were born nearly 25 years apart - were they were half-brothers? If not do you have head canon on the long gap? Just got curious when Jerry mentioned his dad was over 50 when he was born. (And many thanks for the whole series - they're a delight!)

Aw, you’re welcome, glad you like the books! 

Yes, Eitan and Michaelis are half-brothers, although Michaelis doesn't really consider it germane -- there’s no reason to bring it up outside of say, medical history. He’s not going to call him “My half-brother Eitan” because why bother? Family is family. And because it isn't ever mentioned, Gregory has no internal sense of it either. To him, Jerry’s place in the family isn’t even that of cousin but of “cool older brother”. For the family, the fact that Eitan and Michaelis had different mothers is...factual but unimportant. (There is a half-written scene in Royals/Ramblers where Michaelis mentions “My father’s first wife, Gerald’s grandmother Serafina” but it’s for a specific purpose.)

Jason was...not someone who wanted an equal in a wife, so after Eitan's mother passed, Jason married a much younger woman (as Eitan would later do when he finally married) and that was Michaelis's mother. Jerry’s remark about Eitan being older when he was born is linked to Alanna’s about how Shivadh men often marry and have children later in life, but that's more Alanna's experience, being from the nobility, than a truth about Shivadh culture. It's not that there's a tradition of older men marrying younger women -- it's just that most of the men she's been around since childhood did that because they were weird about relationships and power. Her mother’s father, Jason and Eitan, most of the Daskaz cousins one generation back, etc. Alanna’s father (an immigrant) and Michaelis (an outlier who got married super young) are the notable exceptions.  

There are a lot of reasons I like writing Michaelis but one of them, I realized recently, is that there's a lot of me in the way he relates to his family. Jason was a relatively decent person but he had some specific dysfunctions and toxicity to him, and Eitan was very like their father. Michaelis looked at his family, went "I love them, but this is unhealthy," and made a conscious effort not to fall into the same mold. He followed his father's wishes in terms of career, mainly because they coincided with his own desires, but he made some very different choices in the rest of his life. 

I love my family but I'm not very much like them in some pretty deep-down ways, and it's cathartic to write a character that similarly took this alienation, this "I'm going to have to be different from them" sensibility, and found a way to have a strong relationship with them in spite of it.

#shivadhverse

[copperbadge]

The Lady And The Tiger

“Three novels in three months, Sam. Really.”

“I’m going through some things.”

The third book in the Shivadhverse is now being posted! If you like extremely simplistic international intrigue with incredibly low stakes, this might be the book for you. 

Alanna Daskaz, daughter of the house of Askaz, is perfectly happy to ignore her noble heritage. She prefers to serve as administrator to Gregory III, current king of Askazer-Shivadlakia and a brother in everything but name. But then news arrives from Galia, a small nation over the mountains: the ruling duke has died, and the throne is empty. The same day, an envoy from Galia arrives to inform Alanna that she is now a duchess, the daughter of the duke's only cousin and closest heir to his title, and his throne. 

If Alanna is going to straighten this out, she's going to have to go to Galia herself. Dragging her best friend Jerry, the slightly-shiftless Duke of Shivadlakia, along with her, Alanna arrives to discover that the Palazzo is full of intrigue, and they're in desperate need of strong governance. Surrounded by people she isn't sure she can trust, Alanna finds Jerry's ability to ferret out information useful -- until she discovers Jerry has a few secrets of his own. 

There's a lot to fix in Galia, but politics was always Gregory's job. Alanna doesn't want to become ruler, especially not with a small, precious new romance blossoming in the shadow of Galia's impending power struggle. Her best option might be the persistent rumor that the duke had a secret child -- if she can figure out who it is, and how to get them on the throne instead.

This is, as with the other two, a “closed door” (no graphic sex, PG-13ish rating) romance, set after the events of the current novels -- a little over a year after Gregory’s coronation, and several months after the end of Infinite Jes. I can’t really recommend reading it without having read the first two but I’ve tried to make it as accessible as possible. 

I’m making the novel available so that people can offer commentary, suggestions, editing &etc before publication. I’m looking mainly for spelling, grammar, clarity, and similar issues; major issues can be brought up but may not be addressed. I am especially interested in sensitivity reading from Jewish and neurodiverse readers (for the latter, it’ll be mainly in chapter five and after). 

I’m posting the story in two separate places: 

The entire novel is available all at once on Googledocs; you can find the folder containing all chapters (plus two bonus short stories) here, or go to Chapter One here, which will link to the other chapters. 

The entire novel is also being posted, but one-chapter-per-day, to AO3 for the next nine days, with the two short stories being posted on day ten. By somewhat popular request, this story will be posted standalone from the first two, and can also be accessed through the new “Shivadhverse” series on AO3. Chapter One is available today here. 

TLDR NEW NOVEL

A folder on googledrive containing the full book

The first chapter of the book on googledrive

The first chapter of the serialized book on Ao3, with later chapters to be posted on subsequent days

A series on Ao3 with the previous novels, in case you’re interested 

#shivadhverse