Beth Alvarez - Author of Epic Fantasy
  • Paragon of Water Wins Richard Wright Literary Award

    Paragon of Water Wins Richard Wright Literary Award

    Now that I’ve finally laid a very busy March to rest, I bring good news:

    Paragon of Water, book 3 of Spectrum Legacy, was named Best YA Fantasy of 2023 in the MPL Richard Wright Literary Awards.

    This is so exciting, and it means good things for readers in the Mid-South! Before long, you’ll be able to check out Spectrum Legacy from the public library.

    That means this is also a good time to share a quick status update for progress on this series.

    I’m still working on smoothing out a few hitches in the outline for Paragon of Shadow, but it’s close to being finished, and it’s done enough that I’ve already started drafting the beginning of the book.

    Information for the cover has been sent to the cover artist, so that will be getting underway soon.

    As of right now, book 5 is expected to be ready for publication at the end of this year, but no dates yet.

    It’s a short update, but I hope it gives you something to look forward to.

    Speaking of looking forward to things, you’ll be able to find me signing books (Yes, including Paragon of Water!) at the Memphis Bookstock Festival on April 6, so be sure to come out! I may have some goodies to give readers, too…

  • Coming soon: The Witch and the Wyrm

    So it’s finally time to talk about this one–the next book heading out for edits, while I sort out all my notes for book 5 of Spectrum Legacy.

    Coming this summer: The Witch and the Wyrm!

    The Witch and the Wyrm is a stand-alone fantasy romance story, and I’ll be sharing more about it across the coming weeks, including a cover teaser that will be popping up on social media in the next few days!

    It’s different from other things I’ve written and is one of my shorter books, as well as being my first fairy tale retelling. The Witch and the Wyrm is a retelling of the not-so-popular German fairy tale Jorinda and Joringel, although you’ll find my rendition of it isn’t all that faithful. For one, there’s a dragon, as you might have guessed from the title… and not all the birds are helpless.

    This book is slated for release later this summer and will most likely be released in June or July.

    If you’re interested in signing up to be an ARC reader, there are still openings! You’re free to contact me via email or social media, or if you sign up for my email newsletter, I’ll be sending out a call for ARC readers after edits are complete.

    I can’t wait to share more about this story with you!

    In other news, I’ll be making a special appearance at an author event in Memphis, Tennessee on April 6.

    I’ll be at Bookstock Memphis from 11-3 that day, so if you happen to be in the area, be sure to stop by! Admission is free, and I’ll have a table for signing books. Bring your own, or buy a new one from me while I’m there. I’ll have all the Artisan Magic, Snakesblood Saga, Spectrum Legacy, and Westkings Heist books with me so you can fill in your collection with whatever you don’t have yet!

  • In pursuit of lost stories

    When I was a girl, my great grandmother often read to me. It was common for her to give us books, too, and one of her most frequent gifts to me was fairy tales. One of my favorite collections of fairy tales came from her, and while they were her books at first, I was honored by the gift when she finally let me take it home. Those books are still on my shelves upstairs, but over the year, the other fairy tales she gave me have gotten lost.

    You see, when I was small, our local newspaper published a column where they shared unusual fairy tales and folk tales from around the world. Some were stories I could find in the books she gave me, but quite a few were unique–so unique that even the ones I remember a lot about don’t turn up in searches online.

    In the interest of sharing these fairy tales with my daughter, I’ve spent weeks combing online newspaper archives from the time period I clearly recall my grandmother cutting these out, but so far, the search has turned up nothing. Newspaper archives online aren’t always easy to navigate, and while it would be easier to scour the archives if I had access to the microfiche copies kept at libraries, my local library informed me they can no longer get microfiche on loan… and I now live a good 400 miles away from libraries that would have that paper in their archives.

    As a last attempt to find these stories that have been so heavy on my mind lately, I wrote an email to one of the libraries I frequented in my childhood, as their website confirms they have microform archives of the newspaper I believe might have published these. If they can at least confirm I remember correctly and let me know which day of the week these stories were published, I should be able to find them… but unless I know exactly what I’m looking for, the stories are all but lost to me.

    It’s funny, in a way–we say the internet puts all of mankind’s knowledge at our fingertips, but there are still so many pieces that seem to slip through the cracks. If it’s this easy for stories published only 30 years ago to vanish into the ether, can you imagine how many lost stories have slipped through the cracks and fallen out of memory? The most popular fairy tales can be several hundred years old, folk stories passed down through generations until they were finally bound and preserved and kept from fading away. But even those can fall out of common knowledge if they aren’t republished or spoken about, as it doesn’t take long for books to go out of print. How permanent are our stories, anyway?

    What’s your favorite all-but-forgotten story? I’ve been delighted to see a few of mine coming back into popular knowledge, but quite a few fairy tales I’ve mentioned to friends are ones people don’t seem to have heard of very often.

    More about that soon, though, since my current WIP is based on one of them.

  • Paragon of Light is available now!

    Paragon of Light is available now!

    Saturday brought a treat: The fourth book in Spectrum Legacy, my ongoing epic fantasy series!

    It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Paragon of Water was released, but the wait is over and I’m so excited to share this next chapter with you.

    In book four, the crew embarks on a new journey that forces them to learn a lot about themselves… and face some of their darkest fears. I spent all of 2023 working to make sure this one contained all the secrets (and foreshadowing) it needed to hold, so I hope it shines. I know that was a long wait for this book and that waiting for a story can be harrowing–especially with the track record a lot of epic fantasy series have. There’s good news, though: the wait for book 5 will be shorter.  So stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled for updates. They’ll be coming before long!

    Signed paperbacks will be available soon, while the unsigned kind are already available through your favorite bookstores. For those of you who can’t wait to dive into the latest adventure, you can find the ebook edition on Amazon now–or read free with Kindle Unlimited.

    Click here to get your copy now.

    Thank you all, dear readers, for your support and enthusiasm throughout the trying year it took to get this one done. I hope that Paragon of Light will satisfy your story craving and leave you eagerly awaiting the next installment, So grab a cup of tea and snuggle up in your favorite reading nook, and prepare to lose yourself in the new twists and turns.

    Happy reading!

  • Story prompt from Story Cubes

    This month at my local writer’s group meeting, our writing exercise involved story cubes! It was my first time getting to attend in a few months due to health, and I was super excited to be able to attend. We always do some sort of writing exercise, and this time, the group leader used Story Cubes.

    3 cubes were rolled: One to represent the hero, one to represent the hero’s goal, and one to represent the obstacle. How you interpreted these and used them in your writing was up to you.  The dice rolled were:

    Your hero: A monkey
    The goal: Cloud with rain
    The problem/obstacle: Pagoda

    And because I used Story Cubes a lot to keep me going when I was writing Westkings Heist, I immediately thought of Tahl. I had 5 minutes to write something down, and here’s where I ended up.

    You can scroll down to read this little vignette, and feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think!

    Maybe Tahl deserves more stories?

    Bright laughter rose from the people below and Tahl paused mid-step. The poles for the circus tents were little challenge; he’d mastered climbing the tall pines that framed the Empire’s capital city years ago. He held fast to the pole with one hand and leaned back, letting his other arm dangle free as he glanced down. “What are they laughing about?”

    He hadn’t been to the circus since his childhood, before his father had disowned him for his failures in the Academy. Seeing the tall poles—and the acrobats that had inspired him to learn to climb—had brought back a rare good memory, however fleeting. The laughter had been fast to dash it.

    “They say you climb like a monkey,” one of the circus workers called back.

    Tahl squinted. He wasn’t sure what a monkey was, but he was no stranger to the comparison. As a self-taught acrobat and a master thief, he’d grown used to being called a squirrel.

    One of the foreign workers pantomimed the animal for his benefit. It was less than flattering, and Tahl decided he liked the squirrels better.

    “They want to know how good you are at climbing,” the worker provided, and the men below nodded in agreement with the translation.

    Tahl glanced skyward, to the gray clouds that gathered above the strange peaked tents and promised rain to hamper their work and slick everything with mud. “Wait until the storm starts, and I’ll show you.”

  • Cover Reveal: Paragon of Light

    Cover Reveal: Paragon of Light

    After long months of working to get this one just right, Paragon of Light, the fourth book of Spectrum Legacy, is now available for preorder–and the book release is right around the corner, on February 17!

    You can click here to preorder your copy on Amazon now, or if you’re a paperback reader, print copies will be available by the end of February.

    And here’s book four’s gorgeous cover…

    I can’t wait to share this one with you in just a few weeks. I’m giving the book one last inspection before I upload the final version ahead of the book release.

    Want to know what this one is about?

    You can keep scrolling to learn, but be careful–we’re four books deep now, so this has some spoilers if you haven’t read the first three!

  • Finding an aesthetic voice

    It’s different from finding an authorial voice, and in a way, it’s been a lot more challenging. Where an authorial voice is something that sort of blossoms naturally, based on the way you think and speak, finding an aesthetic voice comes from finding visuals you like, and developing new skills around them, and… then what?

    If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I mean taking bookish pictures to share on social media. This has been an interesting experience for me, full of strange growing pains and a realization that I like a lot of different aesthetics and have trouble settling on just one.

    Lately, my photos have been a little more dark and moody, incorporating colors from my site and that I feel suit my overall “vibe” – but I’m always torn. What if that’s not really the best aesthetic for my work?

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Beth (@authorbethalvarez)

    Because I also like bright and airy. My writing space in the front room is very bright, with white and gold French Provincial furniture and cherry blossoms on the ceiling. A gold and glass chandelier and a big window with a window seat that’s a perfect bright place to read. It’s fresh, encouraging, and inspiring.

    But I can’t seem to bring the two aesthetics together.

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Beth (@authorbethalvarez)

    Maybe I should invert my efforts, and instead of light stuff on top of the dreamy dark, I should have deep blue flowers and other things against an airy white background?

    Don’t know. I’m lost, and that’s weird, since I have a lot of practice doing photography stuff with my dolls.

    Building scenes for Bookstagram photos certainly is its own experience and a unique adventure, and I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but I really wish something would go ahead and click for me aesthetically… even though exploration is fun.

    What do you think? Which would you choose? Light, or dark?

  • Table plans

    So it’s a new year, and things move on whether I’m ready or not, so it’s time to start thinking about this spring’s events. I’ll be setting up a table for my first-ever in-person signing, so I’ve got to prepare! I have a lot to figure out, and I’ve only just started stewing over it.

    I have some of the basics – the big ones are obviously the table and the books – but there are a lot more fine intricacies to figure out beyond that.

    I still need a tablecloth.
    I need to figure out how many copies of each book I should take.
    I’ll need bookmarks and stickers and treats for the table.
    I’d like to have an information sheet that explains the content of each book, so parents can easily see which ones are suitable for teen (or preteen!) readers and which ones are best left to the adults.

    But the hardest part is figuring out how to present so many books in a way that makes them easy to see.

    I need verticality. I’ve got a standing banner. I’ve got a table banner, too, but not yet any way to connect it to my nonexistent tablecloth.

    I need a way to put books on display, to group books by series, and make it easy to see which ones can be read alone and which ones have to be read in order.

    And of course, I need some good pens for signing with, and I need to figure out what to wear.

    I guess the first thing I’ll start with is taking inventory of the books I have here for signing already, since I keep my site shop stocked, and after that comes a tablecloth. I’ll probably share my practice runs on social media as I experiment with setup and layout, so be sure to check my Facebook page or author Instagram to see how things go together. We’re less than 3 months out, so I’ve got to get it done soon!

    More details about the event will be forthcoming if you’re interested in attending, too, so stay tuned…

  • Losing count

    A weird thing happened after I finished writing Paragon of Light. My daughter looked at me and asked, “So how many is that?”
    And I officially had no idea.

    Novels, novellas, long epics – they all feel sort of the same when they end, which is odd, in a way. I’ve always been a little bemused by the lack of excitement that comes with finishing a book. It feels like it should be a big win, a great triumph, something that leaves me over the moon excited. Instead, it’s always felt more like just checking off a task. There’s always something left to be done afterward, and being done with a book doesn’t feel like much.

    It feels like even less when you can’t even remember which book it is.

    Twenty-four? Twenty-five? I couldn’t figure it out, and that was a whole new sense of weird. It was just another thing finished, another thing done, and now it’s on to the next.

    December’s break is here, and Paragon of Light ended up being just under 108,000 words, which was a bit shorter than I originally anticipated. I’m actually glad it didn’t run too much longer, because it was a book with a lot of moving story threads, heavy foreshadowing, and deep character growth. It’s the bridge, the pivot point that changes everything for the characters and their destinies, and while I’m excited to dive in and work on Paragon of Shadow soon, I’m going to get all the edits done first so I don’t muddy the timeline in my head… like I’ve muddied my count of how many stories I’ve written.

    So, help me count.

    Which novellas should count as “books” when I’m doing my tally? All of them? Some of them? Only particular ones?

    Once I figure that out, I’ll have a better idea of how many books I’ve written now.

    Just in time to start another one.

  • Story Outlook for 2024

    Paragon of Light ran longer than I expected and some issues that cropped up at the end of November meant I needed some extra time to finish, but the book is moving on to editing now and everything is on track for it to be released early in the new year. So that means it’s a good time to look at and revise my publishing plans for the coming year.

    It’s normal for me to change plans a bit as the year progresses, but this year had more bumps in the road than most. I’d planned to write and release 4 books in 2023. Ultimately, I ended up writing 3 but only publishing 2 of them–The Spymaster’s Prize and The Artificer’s Wife. Late summer saw some books getting freshened up, but new covers and formatting doesn’t make a new book, so they don’t count.

    For 2024, based on my productivity levels in the past year, I have a relatively simple goal: Write 4 books, and publish 3.

    Obviously, the year will kick off with Paragon of Light, since it’s already written and just needs polish. With luck, this one will be ready by the time my birthday rolls around. So that’s published title #1 in the bag.

    After that is when things get a little murky, because the order I write things in won’t be the order they’re released in. I’ll be diving right into writing the next Spectrum Legacy book, but as I mentioned previously, publishing those books needs to slow down for various reasons.

    That means after Paragon of Light, my next book release might not be until summer, but when it does land, it will be an all-new fantasy romance story, and my first-ever fairy tale retelling.

    So what about book release #3? Well, depending on how things go with the fairy tale and Paragon of Light, it might be Spectrum Legacy #5 (Paragon of Shadow) or it might be the start of a potential new series, one with books decidedly shorter than Spectrum’s installments have been. Paragon of Light took a lot out of me and ended up being much longer than I anticipated, and while that’s fine, it’s nice to write shorter things, too.

    Regardless of which book ends up going out, release #3 will probably happen in late fall next year. Ideally, I’d like to space out my releases so they land every 4 months or so, but who knows if that will happen? This year’s releases were much farther apart than I wanted, so I can’t make predictions for how next year will go. With fortune, there will be fewer unhappy surprises, fewer health challenges,  and more time for writing and resting, but I can’t bank on that.

    That’s why building up to where I’ve got an extra book waiting in the wings, finished and ready to go out, is one of the big goals for the year. It will give me leeway for if problems like year’s arise again. I don’t think I’ll be getting back to my 2020 levels of productivity any time soon, where I published 9 books in the span of a year,  but hey.

    It should be a step in the right direction.