Excerpt & About | The Necessity of Rain – my upcoming release

I’ve been really waffling on how much I want to talk about this book, dear reader. The truth of the matter is that out of everything I’ve written, this is probably the one that scares me the most. That makes it hard for me to figure out what to say. There’s a certain vulnerability in art, and sometimes it overwhelms me.

This book, though. It’s extremely different than what I expected it to be, or where I thought I was going with it when I first started gestating this idea about two years ago. I had to give myself permission to break a lot of storytelling rules to get any part of this to work. All of my writing is strange, but I think this one might veer a bit wider from “tried-and-true” than any of my others and that’s kind of got me all sorts of nervous.

Since I’ve started poking at this book’s idea, I’ve had a lot of false starts and epic fails. A lot of moments where I’ve freaked out on my beta readers (whom I am going to dedicate this book to because it’s been an event and they’ve been amazing through it all). I’ve rewritten it stem-to-stern twice now (what will publish is actually the third version of the book). It’s taken me a very, very long time to find the marrow of this story and even longer to figure out how I address these themes, which are both extremely beefy and intensely personal.

The Necessity of Rain has been… it’s been a battle.

That being said, I’m finally nearing the point where I can write The End and send it on to my editor. And my publication date is looming. I’m very proud of what this has turned into, even though it’s fought me every step of the way. I’ve been pretty set on the “I’m not going to promote this book” train (I have no time. I don’t want to bother people. I’m really afraid of this book… it’s due to a whole messy mix of things), but a few of my author friends have been poking me about how that’s a terrible idea, so I suppose I should at least say something.

So, The Necessity of Rain.

It’s set to release on June 27, 2023 and it will be on Amazon. Yes, there will be a paperback as well as ebooks, and it will be on Kindle Unlimited. As an added bonus, I’m also using the money I got from Zack and Hillary Argyle’s grant to make an audiobook (My first one!), and I’ll start shopping narrators for that soon (This process, for some reason, overwhelms me. I’ve been putting it off forever.) I’ll let you know more details about the audiobook when I have them… which shouldn’t be terribly long. I’m hoping to have some news about something audiobook related in about a month.

There’s a lot I could say about The Necessity of Rain, but I don’t really know how to say any of it, so instead, let me leave you with the cover art and a sample chapter.

It begins with a butterfly in chains.

Since the dawn of time, life has been comfortable and predictable. The divine have wrested pockets of Creation from Chaos, formed civilizations, and built entire realities. Now, the nature of Creation is changing and the divine are losing their divinity.

Rosemary, daughter of the god of Creation, can no longer deny this when refugees from war-torn Dawnland brave the paths through Chaos and survive. Come to beg the Divine of Meadowsweet for protection, it is the butterfly woman who so captivates Rosemary. The weight of her sorrow, the heaviness of her secrets, and the change she brings with her.

For the soul is a battleground. Clouds are massing along the horizon, and Rosemary…

She must survive the storm.

Pre-order the book here.

In the right light, my father’s hair shines silver.

Fear, deep and abiding, wraps cold hands around my throat. Squeezes. For a moment, I cannot breathe.

“How is she tonight?” I ask. 

Anything. Anything to not think about that. To not think about what those strands of gray mean. I am not strong enough. Not yet. 

So I force my thoughts away. From one pain to another.

Mother is perched on the window seat staring at the rose garden beyond. Tears hover on her lashes. Outside, the world is cast in shades of soft light. 

“She drifts,” my father says. Simple are those words, and yet I can hear the pain etched in each of them. 

I take a moment to park my wheelchair next to where I keep my spare cane and stand. My hips grind and are unsteady, but I make my way to her, each step an effort of will. The weather is changing, a new chill is in the air and I feel it in my bones, in the way my muscles knot and coil. 

Mother does not look at me when I reach her. She’s whispering something so low I cannot hear the words. “Mother?”

I ease onto the padded cushion, groan as my leg slips and I land in an ungainly heap. She reaches out to touch me but stops herself, her fingers hovering a breath from my cheek. “Sometimes I look at you and think you are real but I know you are not. Why do my dreams haunt me so?” 

Father chokes on a sob. Sorrow fills the room, thicker than water, and I fear I will drown. 

You must understand your tragedy, Mother once told me during one of her more lucid moments. You must recognize the knife to know how it wounded you.

So I hold my tragedy’s hands the way I’d hold a bird in spring freshly fallen from its nest. “I am real,” I tell her. “I am flesh and blood. I am your daughter, and I am here.” 

“Stop taunting me,” Mother whispers. Her eyes go wide and wild. She tugs on her hands, tries to pull them from my grasp. “Away! Away from me, thief of dreams! Away!” 

She thrashes about, moaning long and low. Father, with starlight tears, moves to the vase on the table and grabs sprigs of clary sage from within. Bright purple blossoms fill the air with their subtle perfume. 

My father refills this vase each day from Father Terra’s Sacred Garden, back bent under the early morning light. He takes this task upon himself like it is his sacrament and will spend days paying penance with guilt each time we must use them, as rare as that may be. 

Without a word, he sets the flowers on my lap and bends to soothe Mother while I pull off my gloves. All it will take is a touch, and yet I hate doing this, using my Divinity for this purpose.

Mother begins rocking and moaning. Her head hits the wall with a low thunk. 

Father presses his cheek against her breast and closes his eyes. 

Who, I wonder, do the divine pray to when they are in pain?

Oh, this moment. So much layered, dark agony. So many wounds. 

My vines grow long, wreathing my face in shadow. 

I lift the flowers. “I’m sorry,” I whisper before finding a spot on Mother’s flailing arm and pressing them against her skin. It takes but a breath for the effect to take hold. Clary sage induces sleep when used with my touch, and Mother’s eyes focus on me, then slide closed. Her body goes limp and her breath slow and steady. When I am sure she is fully under and resting well, I pull the flowers away. They have grown into small bushes heavy with blossoms. The moment I release them, they shrivel, spent. 

I do not like withered blooms. They remind me too much of my life. 

Father lifts her in his arms and carries her to the bed they share. He will lay beside her tonight and watch over her while she sleeps, dying a little between each breath. 

What must it be like to live only in gasps? 

Once, many years ago, I said, “Even now, you love her.” I had thrust those words at him with the intent to wound, yet I felt no pleasure when they struck their target true. For the beat of a heart, he let me see the depth of his pain and the wellspring of love that fed it. 

“I do not love her even now or despite, Rosemary. I love her. It is as simple as that.” 

“But this hurts you so,” I whispered. I knew well the agony of helplessness.

Father met my gaze and his eyes grew soft. “This pain is only the smallest part of it.” 

A moment later, he breaks through my memories with a hand on my shoulder. “There will be better days than this,” he whispers.

I feel the words more than hear them. Tears sting my eyes. 

How soft hope can be, and still… it slices. 

The vines of my hair grow long and fragile petunias bloom, turning their faces to drink the sun’s dying light. 

I listen as Father picks up his phone and calls Divine Dream. I know she will be here within moments with her notepad and pencil, drawing better things for my mother to see while she slumbers.

“I have not seen Mother so bad in a while,” I finally say, for it is better to face the matter head-on than hide from it. 

“It has been some time.”  

“If you’d told me—“ 

He smiles and the galaxies in his eyes dance. “I would not take you from your duties unless it is urgent. Today has been a bad day, that is all. Tomorrow, the sun will rise again. You know how these things go.” 

I do, but despite that, each time this happens my heart breaks anew. 

Father pulls me into his arms and I melt against him. Strange how so long ago he terrified me. Now, my vines curl around his shoulders and the petunias open wider still, swaying in the breeze that always flows around him. 

I pull myself together, step clear of his embrace, and dab at my eyes. The room we stand in is large and familiar, with pale yellow walls and white trim. Three high, arched windows look out at the garden beyond. 

Father gives me time to gather the shattered pieces of myself. He is silent with his love, showing rather than saying the words, and yet when he does speak, he always does so with such care and mercy. 

The god of creation is more lamb than lion.

“She loves you, Rosemary. Even when she doesn’t know you, she loves you.” He goes to the gramophone in the corner and turns on the piano music he so adores, then sinks into his wingback seat and I take the one opposite, feeling the leather fold around me like a hug. “But that is not why you are here.” 

I can hide nothing from him.

In the right light, my father’s hair shines silver. 

I lick my lips and suddenly find myself at a loss. 

Words are such simple things, and yet when I need them most, they sink, drowning within the ocean of my soul like a stone.

“Ah,” my father says. “Are you ready to talk about it yet?” 

Gentle. He is always so gentle. Somehow, it is the softness of his words that slice me all the more. I break, then. A shatter so profound I am surprised he cannot hear it. Tears spill down my cheeks in rivers. My body trembles and a low wail flees past my lips like an escaped prisoner. Outside, the world seems somehow darker and more frightening.

I am a girl again, small and tender, and so very alone. 

Hands rest on my shoulders. I would know him by touch alone. 

“Not yet,” I finally manage. 

He lets me have my sorrow and does not begrudge my tears. When I look up and meet his eyes, I see they are full of solemn understanding. 

How can he be so easy with this while it savages me thus? 

My father’s hair shines silver. 

“Tomorrow, perhaps.” But the way he says it tells me he knows that tomorrow I will not be ready either. I do not know if I will ever be ready for that conversation. 

“Does it hurt?” I birth the words on a wave of agony. 

Please, do not be in any pain. 

My father considers me for a moment, head tilted to the side, almost birdlike. Moonlit clouds marshal along his twilight cheekbones. The stars in his eyes spin slowly. “Sometimes, when the world is silent and still, I can feel each of my heartbeats.” 

My breath hitches. “Is it terrible?” I hardly dare breathe the words. 

“It is the music of existence. Why would that be terrible?” 

Because it is so fleeting, I want to say.

Because it means you are only temporary. 

Because there is an end. 

“I will love you, Rosemary, whether I am here to say the words or not.” 

My breath hitches. Sorrow stabs me. I picture this room, empty. My life, bereft. The world so large and frightening and I alone to face it. No safe harbor. No port in the storm. 

My father has always been eternal and now… 

I can feel each of my heartbeats. 

“I’m not ready to talk about this yet,” I whisper, voice trembling, as brittle as I feel. 

Silence, and then my father nods once and turns to the window where Luna sits high in his onyx court. “The moon,” he finally says, “is beautiful, is it not?” 

I do not reply, but I study that sliver of light. My blood rises like high tide. 

“It does not stop shining, Rosemary. Even when it waxes.” He hesitates. I feel his eyes on me. “Even when it wanes.”

“Father—“ 

“We will not talk about this tonight, my heart. For now, sit with me and savor the night.” 

As if knowing I cannot bear another touch right now, he moves away and gives me space, settling back in his chair. Soft piano music surrounds us. The night is quiet and warm. Moonflowers bloom along the vines of my hair, petals catching the faint light. My father taps a rhythm along with the song, stars spinning from his fingers each time they beat against the leather armrest. 

It is all so normal and yet… 

I do not think I have ever felt so cold. 

In the right light, my father’s hair shines silver. 

For a moment, I cannot breathe. 

“Look at the moon, Rosemary,” he whispers. “Just look at the moon.”