Hannah Steenbock

Book of the Month is a new feature of my blog. Once a month, I want to talk (gush, rave, ramble) about one of my books, basically fangirling about my own tales. Because a lot of passion goes into my books, a lot of heartblood, effort, and last but not least, time.

And at the end, I’ll give you a coupon for my own little online bookstore (powered by PayHip), offering you a special deal on the book I feature (often 50% off). Feel free to scroll all the way down, too, if my rambling is not your thing.

Steps of Courage, Mages of the Twin Worlds Book 1

For this month, I’m picking the Twin worlds, mostly because it really is one of my heart books. And it’s also the last one I released, so it’s the “youngest” of my babies.

So what’s it all about?

Imagine that there are many other worlds out there, populated by human-like people, and that there are magical portals connecting these worlds. Imagine further that there is one system where two planets orbit each other, and you have the Twin Worlds, where magick exists.

And very secretly, there are portals between the Twin Worlds and Earth.

Imagine further that visits to Earth are prohibited, because the inhabitants here have proven to be unreasonably violent and in possession of very dangerous tech that is absolutely unwanted in the other worlds. (Yes, guns. Also other things.)

Unfortunately, one of the Queens of Langallen (one of the worlds) has fallen ill. And her son, Prince Kreshanaris, has been tasked by his teacher of magick to find the cure on Earth. So of course, he sneaks through a portal.

But the prince is betrayed, and guards follow him through the portal almost instantly. Instead of a clean catch, however, the guards stumble across a young human woman, Judy Ramirez, and – following their rules – take her back to Langallen, in effect kidnapping her from Earth.

Meanwhile, the prince is found by Judy’s best friend Sara Miller. Through bad luck, those two also end up back on Langallen, as captives of the Royal Guard.

From then on, this is one adventure after the other, even after the friends are reunited. There is also bitter rivalry between the prince and the guard assigned to “babysit” Judy.

I won’t spoil any more of the plot here, and start my fangirling instead.

Why I love the Characters of the Twin Worlds

Let me name them all once again, just to get them straight:

Prince Kreshanaris, Son of Queen Demerys.
Krighen, grumpy portal guard
Judy Ramirez, young Earth woman
Sara Miller, best friend of Judy.

Now, you need to know that Crash (which is Sara’s nickname for Kreshanaris) is not the heir. In fact, the queen’s heir is a cousin or niece (I forget) of her because in the Twin Worlds, men cannot inherit the throne. There’s more about him that I can’t spoil in detail, but he is a mage of some kind that is deemed dangerous in the Twin Worlds, for historical reasons.

Krighen hates Kreshanaris both for his magical ability and for the friendship that he has developed with Sara. Generally, Krighen just wants to get back to his job as a guard and spending nights on Earth. This won’t happen, unfortunately, because Krighen harbors a very dangerous secret even he is unaware of for most of the story.

Judy is the kind of girl who did everything in high school. She’s a cheerleader, dancer, athlete and usually the center of a class. Being torn away from everything she knows and into a completely different culture almost breaks her. She clings to Krighen for that reason, something the guard hates. There is attraction, yes, but it only increases the tension between them. (Well, Krighen is a pompous fool at times.) Judy is a very passionate women, expressive and intense, and she often flies into deep emotions.

Sara, on the other hand, is the most unlikely friend for Judy – and that’s the reason they get along so well. Sara is the bookworm, the nerd girl who watches from the sidelines and knows everything (there might be a trace of myself in her). She’s honest, earnest and smart. And so very quiet and observant. (In German, we say that “quiet waters are deep”.)

It was so much fun writing their relationships (which don’t venture far from friendship in this book). And no, they do not date, although there are some cuddles for comfort. Not a single kiss, either. Sara very carefully sees Crash as the brother she never had, while there is much drama between Judy and Krighen. He does not welcome her crush at all.

Crash actually is a good match for Sara, although he struggles a lot with his failure to find a cure. He’s almost as much a nerd as she is, studying his magick (as much as he’s allowed) and preparing for a life on the sidelines. In turn, he is impressed with Sara’s resourcefulness and stoic disposition.

Writing Krighen was hilarious, actually. I can be a grumpy git at times, so channeling that into Krighen was easy and simple. Unlike him, I actually enjoy helping people, but at least the grumpiness was fun to share. And imagine my surprise when Writer Brain finally let me in on Krighen’s secret. Suddenly, everything made sense.

About the others, let’s just say that contact to Earth wasn’t always forbidden and the magick from the Twin Worlds has left traces on Earth. The subtitle of the book exists for a reason.

The Worldbuilding was Intense

I’ve never done this much worldbuilding for any of my series. The Twin Worlds even got their own calendar and words to go with it. Very little of that makes it into the book, but you will see mention of “desis”, which is actually their term for something similar to a week.

Here, I can finally explain. Skip this, if worldbuilding bores you, because I can be a nerd like Sara.

So, a year in the Twin Worlds has 433 days. Those break up into four quarters that correspond to the usual seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter). Each quarter lasts exactly 100 days.

But wait, you say, what about the other 33 days?

Those are divided up into Festivals that happen between the quarters, each of them eight days long (except the summer festival that’s 9 days long). Those are public holidays, with much revelry, music, dancing, feasts and lots of booths where things are sold.

Each quarter is divided into 10 desimorns (hence “desi”), with – you guessed it – ten days per desimorn. The days are numbered simply Oneday, Twoday, Threeday and so on, with Tenday being the final day in a Desimorn, the equivalent of our Sunday. (Sorry. In Germany, a week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. Yes, there is a law about it.)

The Desimorns are also simply numbered, with their quarter as identification. Thus you’ll get Spring Onedesi, Twodesi etc. A written date might look like this:

Twoday in Threedesi in Spring, – 2.3.Sp.

You can add the year after that, or a time of the day you want to meet. I have not developed time-keeping just yet, sorry, but I kind of think ten “hours” per day, with the hours clearly longer than here on Earth. Yes, they are very much into decimal.

Year: 433 days
Quarters: 100 days.
(No months.)
Desimons: 10 Desis per quarter.
Four Festivals of 8 (9) days each that fall outside the Desimorn list. Each festival happens at the end of the season.

It was immense fun to work that out, but I really didn’t want to burden the readers with all of that in the story. Book 2, I can say that much, will begin with a Festival.

There is even a Creation Myth

Yes, I do have a creation myth that Crash does explain inside the story, after Sara asks him about it. You see, according to lore, the Twin Worlds were actually made by twin goddesses, Langan and Tengan. Which is why the planets are named Langallen and Tengallen, respectively. The kingdom of Crash’s mother is on Langallen, but there are many portals between the worlds.

Here’s the myth, directly from my notes:

Once there was a being called Atha. She drifted all alone in nothingness and eventually decided that this was not good.

She split herself into two beings, Tengan and Langan, and they began to talk. Eventually, they started to argue and fight. Finally, they decided that there must be something better than fighting.

So they took energy and made it solid, and it turned into a sphere. For a while, they liked looking at it, and then became bored again. They made things to live on the sphere and liked watching that, but eventually they fought again about what they wanted to grow on the sphere.

So they decided to split the sphere and each took one half, turning them into spheres of their own. Thus Tengallen and Langallen were born.

Soon, they argued about whose sphere was prettier.

Tengallen was mostly blue and Langallen mostly green, and both grew more and more beautiful as more and more species evolved.

Eventually, they agreed to watch those spheres grow without interfering anymore, but getting bored again, they went about making many more new ones, scattering them across an ever growing universe.

It is not clear which of the Twins had the idea first, but they wanted to be entertained even more, and so they connected the spheres through portals – giving magick to the intelligent beings that had evolved on the Twin’s Worlds.

I really enjoyed that myth about the squabbling Twins. But then, I learned a lot about the squabbling Greek gods when I was a kid.

So what’s so Special about Steps of Courage?

For starters, I tossed in several genre-defining tropes, right away.

We have the woman lands in strange world one, which happens at the start. Both Sara and Judy find themselves stranded on a new world, bewildered, scared and overwhelmed. They don’t get a lot of time to adjust, either, especially Sara.

We also have the fantasy portal thing, because you need something to travel between worlds, and this tale is fantasy. I love portals anyway, comes from playing Diablo II and Valheim. For most of my life I have wished for Star Trek transporters, as well. So hey, I can put them into my stories, right?

Crash and Krighen are aliens to Judy and Sara, although you wouldn’t know at first glance. But their eyes are more like cat eyes, the pupils turn to slits.

Plus the people of Langallen and Tengallen are shape shifters, they have what they call “wild shape”. In my imagination, that’s very much like the classic movie werewolf shape, very furry, bipedal, massive claws and teeth, and while they can speak in that shape, they are more likely to just grunt because articulation is hard with that fang face.

And then there’s the magick. There are all kinds of mages, elemental ones, but also mind mages, healers and much more. I love fantasy, and so most of my stories have magic of some kind. In fact, there’s an academy for the mages in Demery’s Queendom, called Artes Magicae, or Artes for short.

The characters also represent tropes, of course. The lost prince, the grumpy guard, the cheerful outgoing whirlwind, and the quiet nerdy gal.

As for plot tropes, we have the kidnapped women, the injured prince, the guards turned against the hero, escaping from prison, a shopping expedition, a tavern scene and many, many more (that I do not want to spoil).

I’m sure I missed several tropes, so feel free to add what you find in the story in a comment below. I’m just not great in recognizing them, but now you see why I use the hashtag #YAPortalFantasy for the Twin Worlds on Mastodon.

Finally, the Deal!

Have I made you curious enough?

This is a big book, which is why it’s 5.99 as an ebook in all stores. But I promised you a coupon, and you’re getting one that cuts 50% off the price, which means you’ll get it for €3.00 in my PayHip store.

Deal: Steps of Courage, €3.00 in my PayHip store, with the coupon code Crash

Click here to get it. Enter the coupon code Crash on checkout. Delivery is through BookFunnel, and yes, you can read it on your Kindle. (Here’s how.)

If you would prefer to buy Steps of Courage elsewhere (but for the full price), I have a universal link that lets you pick your store. And yes, there are plenty of options for print aside from Amazon.

Go to your preferred store.

Now, if you never want to miss another deal or even the next release (yes, there will be a book 2 and 3 for the Twin Worlds, I just can’t promise when), sign up to my newsletter below. It comes out once a month, on the 13th, and it has writing news, book deals and a cute little tale about the sweet dragon familiar you saw in the title image.