Thank you for getting to this page to learn more about the books and take care of yourself as a reader. It’s not possible to put full conversation about potentially difficult plot themes in an online book description, but I’ve tried to put everything you may need to consider here. Each book has a short version and a long, more explanatory version. I’m also happy to provide details (i.e., this happens to such and such character in chapter XX), including spoilers, on request. Just use the contact form on this website to ask, or if there is an issue that you think needs to be included here and isn’t in the lists.
The Seaglass Blade
Short version:
- Violence
- Blood
- Injury
- Serious illness
- Self-harm for magical purposes (cutting)
- Serious injury
- Character death
- Child death
- Amputation
- Torture
- Death of relative or parental figure (on and off-page)
- Adoptive family structure
- Boarding school similarities
- Past child abuse (remembered)
- Addiction (magical)
- Earthquake
- Aftermath of tsunami
Long version
As an epic fantasy involving swords, magic, and fight scenes, there is death very early on in the book, including blood, gore, and descriptions of violent death.
The characters in Seaglass are not human for the most part, some have regenerative powers, and have very long lives, but they can die and suffer injury. Not all characters survive.
One main character is tortured by another character, through stabbing and amputation. One main character is unconscious due to injury for part of the book.
Two characters have a history of child abuse; one of them remembers a particular episode through a dream.
One character has lost parents in traumatic circumstances in the past and describes this; another character loses other parental figures on-page, in a magical situation.
The family at Crane Moon includes a form of adoption for two main characters. Both children came to become part of the family voluntarily and grew up with the adult figures as parents and relatives. The children are adults themselves at the time of the story. In addition, Crane Moon is a “sect” where children of spiritual creatures – shape-shifting animals – come to learn spiritual cultivation methods; they are sent willingly by their parents and will return home to them, but while at Crane Moon, they live in a dormitory situation. There are no very young children at Crane Moon, since holding a human form is a learned skill and usually the spiritual creatures are at least fourteen in human form. They are a couple of centuries old, at least, in their natural animal forms.
The magic system of the book involves the healing powers of phoenix blood. The phoenixes cut themselves to get blood for this purpose, and there is one scene where this is described in detail. Blood in general can be used for magical purposes, so other characters sometimes also cut themselves.
Another aspect of the magic system is a duality of spiritual power, pure and corrupted. Corrupted power is easy to cultivate (gather) and this ease and power is addictive and destructive, for one character in particular.
There is a scene of an earthquake and aftermath, and one character sees a ghostly memory of the aftermath of a tsunami.
The Crane Moon Cycle (Both Books) Short version:
- Fight-related violence, war
- Blood and injury
- Self-harm for magic-related purposes
- Character serious injury and death
- Implied past child abuse (not described)
- Implied past domestic violence
- Prostitution/brothel/sex work
- Suffering of displaced people
- Racism
- Death of a child (reported, not on page)
Long version:
The Crane Moon Cycle is set in a world similar to ours in the sense that violence happens to innocent people through no fault of their own, and one of the underlying questions for me as an author was about how people, even people with magical powers and good intentions, live in that world. Violence is part of the world. The characters suffer violence and some of them inflict it, and their main goals are to survive and protect those they care for. Some characters do not survive.
Blood plays an important part in the story as phoenix blood carries healing and can be used for spells. Thus there are many scenes where the phoenixes injure themselves to get blood for healing, or where they are injured by those who want to use their blood for other magic. Blood also appears in scenes of violence.
A main character has a childhood that involved domestic violence and abuse. This is not described in detail but has a strong effect on her personality.
The second book is set largely inside a country that is at war. Refugees and displaced people and their suffering are part of the story. Again, this is part of the reality of living in a world where violence is real and innocent people suffer and die from it, and where none of the characters have the power to change this reality or stop the violence.
Some scenes in the Common Federation setting, which is inspired by the 1940s United States, include racist microaggressions. As an American historian in my professional life, I know that racism existed at all times and in all places in the United States. Racism didn’t and doesn’t exist separately from everyday life, but structured everything from international politics to personal relationships to the design of cities and of course immigration policy. Because of this, the Anglish characters in the Common Federation setting sometimes perceive the Daxian characters as “exotic” even when they are childhood friends.
Finally, there is one scene set in a brothel in both books. In this setting the existence of the brothel is the result of human trafficking and the participants in sex work are not freely consenting. To me, these scenes are less about sex and more about ways in which people are caught up in a world of violence and coercion and find ways to survive.