Felicia Fredlund

Writer. Editor. Reader.

Felicia

Commissioned Magic Published!

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I’m so excited. This long novella is finally out. I’ve been wanting to share it ever since I finished it.

Publishing can take a bit of time. But it is done now, and I’ll let the book talk for itself.

Commissioned Magic's cover and tag line

Here is the description:

Mydala, a painting magician with a tarnished reputation and little income, once lived a life of prestige in Riala City. But a failed spell changed all that.

So, when a rich nobleman seeks out Mydala to commission a spell painting, but refuses to tell Mydala what magic the spell will cast, she reluctantly agrees.

But when more signs of danger build around her, Mydala must question not only the nobleman’s motives, but also her own past—or she might lose more than just her reputation.

A powerful epic fantasy about magic’s power to shape destinies.

You can buy it here as an ebook. Currently this is the only edition, but I hope a paperback edition will be out sometime next year. I’ll let you know when I know.

A lot have changed in my life recently, and rest assured that I have started working on the rest of the Japan edition of Picture of the Month, and I will finish off that blog series.

Although perhaps not until 2021, because I have some other exciting developments, well, mostly behind the scenes stuff that will be really good when they are done.

Lastly let me mention a bundle that came out this summer with my story Angel’s Demise in it. It is appropriately called Angels and Demons and was edited by A. L. Butcher. It is a mix of novels and shorter works (like mine). Read more about it here.

I hope you are all well and taking care of yourself and your loved ones. The holidays are coming up, so don’t expect to hear from me again until next year.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #5

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Flower arrangement with plant penguins at Odori park in Sapporo, 2019
Cute flower arrangement at Odori park in Sapporo, Hokkaido

In these Picture of the Month posts about my year in Japan, I have mentioned how terribly hot and wet summer is in Japan. The truth of the matter though is that Japan isn’t small enough that it is the same absolutely everywhere, even if you don’t count Okinawa (tropical).

I live in Kyoto, on the main island of Japan (Honshu). My first time in Japan was in Fukuoka on Kyushu, the (bigger) southern island.

There is also a big island to the north, called Hokkaido. Its climate is fairly similar to Sweden, although they have more humidity in summer and, you know, typhoons passing by.

This is where I escaped for a glorious long weekend. Leaving 38 degrees Celsius behind for 20-25C. Basically getting to perfect summer temperatures, if you are me.

Suddenly I loved going out for long walks again. Sitting outside to read or write poetry. Walking until my feet hurt.

Visiting a shrine, and some other places.

A small church/chapel with a squirrel statue on top
The Squirrel Church/Church of Squirrels in a garden outside Obihiro, Hokkaido, somewhere. (I don’t know where.)

And for one day I hoped a train and visited the hometown (Obihiro) of a Japanese person I’ve gotten to know. She lives in Kyoto, same as me, but was visiting home for a little while in summer.

She and her mother took me around to a beautiful garden and forest outside Obihiro. But first they took me to a restaurant where I had the best tempura I’ve ever had. So delicious.

The garden we visited had both a Japanese garden area, but it was bigger with other sections that I don’t know how I’d define. I don’t know if they belonged to a specific garden tradition. If they do, I don’t know those traditions.

Squirrel carrying three small fruits of some kind
A squirrel in another area of the garden that has a Squirrel Church.

It was gorgeous though and we had a rain free day. Quite a surprise since I’d actually had to go a day later than planned because the trains had been cancelled the day before due to heavy rain outside Sapporo (where I stayed).

After that garden we went to a cafe, and then walked through a smaller forest with some sculptures and small houses with art.

A very enjoyable day and a lot of Japanese practice, which is great. I hope by the time I finish the year here, I can hold casual conversations fairly easily in Japanese, right now they are certainly not easy and don’t feel very casual since I have to work so hard, haha.

Beautiful lotus in full bloom at park in front of Akarenga in Sapporo
Beautiful blooming lotus outside Akarenga, an old government building (not in use) in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

A Flying Santa has been Released on the World

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In other words, another story in the Shadow Courier series is out, along with a companion story set in the same world.

Santa Delivery Plus Book CoverHere is the description:

When Christmas comes to the City of Shadows, fun and love won’t be at the top of the agenda for everyone. Two stories show two different but similar faces of this city.

In Santa Delivery, Courier Kora Leon wakes up in the middle of the night because she gets a message from “Santa” to deliver some “presents” for him. Except the recipients don’t know Santa’s coming. Kora needs to break and enter Santa-style and she doesn’t know how dangerous the owners will be.

Discovery is not an option.

In Christmas and Family and Favors, Maura put together a great family Christmas dinner, but her only brother hasn’t arrived yet. When she hears from him, she learns he left home at the time he should have arrived.

With Christmas traffic to navigate he’ll be late, but how late?

You can buy it here as an ebook. But you might have read the stories a few years ago when they were available in an Advent calendar. I’m very happy to have them available again.

No Reader Report for November I’m afraid. I didn’t read much since I was so busy enjoying the fall season in Japan. I’ll pick it up again in January most likely, but before then comes rethinking and planing time, which the New Year always makes me in the mood for.

Happy Holidays!

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #4

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Gion festival float in Kyoto
The Gion festival floats are very prettily illuminated.

In the middle of July, during the hottest time in Kyoto, there is a big festival, Gion Festival, across multiple days with two parades.

PARADES!

When the temperature is guaranteed to be 35C or more. I don’t get it.

Thankfully, the festival have some things happening in the evening when it is still way too hot (it doesn’t cool off except for a couple of degrees), but at least no sun beats down on my head.

So off I went with a friend.

The evening activity is something that happens the three nights leading up to each parade. The parade floats are set up and illuminated. Around this are food stall, souvenir stalls, and some shrine stalls.

I went during the days before the second parade, a much smaller event, with almost no food stalls and very few people. A huge point in its favor because leading up to the first/bigger parade, the evening events are usually packed.

And since it is summer, I cap this post with a picture of some really pretty ice cream that can be bought in the Kawaramachi area in Kyoto. I don’t know if the waffle cone is hand made, but the decorations are, and the soft ice cream (lemon flavored for me) was delicious.

It was so yummy.

Pretty and delicious ice cream in Kyoto
Prettiest ice cream I ever ate.

Reader Report: October, 2019

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Here comes what I read and watched in October this year. I also wanted to mention that I am very much still playing with this format. I’m not sure exactly what it will look like going forward, but I have a feeling it might change.

Just wanted to let you all know, but it’ll stay this way at least until the end of the year.

Bring on the Dusk cover imageFirst up is Bring on the Dusk by M.L. Buchman. A military romance that is oh so good. Matt is an extremely talented writer and his romances are excellent. I’ve read a lot of his romances and most of his thrillers.

This one is a part of a series called Night Stalkers, but considering they are romances you can read them out of order. Although if you enjoy this one, I’d go ahead and get them all.

In fact, as I double-checked some info when writing this I realized I still had one novel left in the main part of the series and I went ahead and bought it.

I look forward to reading it soon!

Next up a bit of non-fiction, Deep Work by Cal Newport. This books talks about concentration as a skill, about being able to do work that needs a lot of focus, and also talks about different practices that are needed or can be used to achieve this focus.

Deep Work cover imageA concept that some would know by the name of flow, rather than deep work.

As someone who grew up with technology close at hand, although I actually had a couple of cellphones that weren’t smartphones because smartphones didn’t exist yet. So I didn’t grow up with tablets, and a computer in my pocket.

I grew up with Nintendo consoles, GameBoys and then migrated to stationary computers, until my late teens when I got my first laptop.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get across is the fact that I’ve spent a large part of my life online. In fact, I have at times felt locked to my devices as if without them I wouldn’t know how to live.

And if I suddenly had to live without a lot of them, I would be at a loss. So many hours of my day is taken up by a computer. I’d also be devastated at the loss of my ebook library which contains all my favorite books and a long to-be-read pile.

The book Deep Work isn’t about giving up technology or anything like that, but is about reducing the impact of certain things online (social media, for example) to create space and focus enough to do complicated work. And complicated work tends to be a lot more reward in the long run than reading another blog post.

I quite enjoyed the book and it helped me renew my commitment to spending more of my off time away from the computer. There are so many things I enjoy that doesn’t need an internet connection and a screen, and I’d really like to spend more time doing them.

This book helped. I also think it will help me craft good work habits so that I can get what I need done in less time, thereby having more free time to do those fun non-screen activities.

Good Omens TV Show promo imageSince that recommendation was a tad bit long, let’s move on to the last one: Good Omens the TV-show. Last month I mentioned Good Omens the book (buy link). A book that I usually call my favorite if pressed to just pick one book.

I didn’t know if the TV-show would be any good, but a friend of mine watched it and said it was.

I can only agree. It was excellent!

It followed the book closely, which didn’t surprise me since Neil Gaiman (one of the authors of the book) was very involved in its development. The script for one thing was written by him. And the TV-show even elaborated on some points from the book.

Crowley and Aziraphale were so much fun to watch. Very well acted, and I also loved the additional scenes for them that aren’t in the book.

I can highly recommend the TV-show even if you haven’t read the book. I think it is only available with Amazon Prime right now (part of their Prime video collection), but it is well worth a watch.

Those are my top recommendations from October. I hope there was something you enjoyed in the bunch.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #3

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Japanese Garden at Nijo Castle in Kyoto
Inside Nijo castle grounds: A beautiful Japanese garden right by a tea house with excellent matcha and sweets.

The time to visit Japan is not in summer. Trust me on this.

Kyoto during this year in Japan for me have been 30+ degrees Celsius from early June, and July and August stayed at a steady 35-38 degrees throughout. Plus humidity on top of that.

I haven’t minded the rain. I do like rain. The typhoons are a bit extreme though.

So as spring melted into summer, my sightseeing went from some (because settling takes time) to none in fairly short order. But I did get out for one thing in June.

Nijo castle in central Kyoto.

I could go look up all kinds of facts about this castle, but I didn’t learn them at the time, and didn’t need them to enjoy visiting it.

After getting inside and passing through a couple of walls, there is a big old building. Gorgeous really and inside are even more gorgeous things: wall paintings.

While Europe went more of paintings, Japan painted on their walls and on screens (and door screens). More gold meant richer, but they also went for white with ink, more in the style of Chinese ink drawing, although Japan developed some of their own techniques too in that area.

Although the inside was absolutely gorgeous and most everything was reproductions, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Sorry, but you can probably find pictures online of what they would be like.

Some with flowers, made to different seasons. One had tigers. Those are just a couple I could remember of the top of my head.

Outside this main building were beautiful gardens and some ruins of older structures. There was also a big building under renovation that I have no idea what it looked like.

Since I’m more of a garden/park person when it comes to sightseeing, I truly enjoyed this part and had many pretty pictures, making it hard to only pick a couple.

To cap of my visit, about thirty minutes before closing and when I was just about to leave. It started pouring, like seriously pouring rain. Thankfully I happened to be inside the gift shop at the time.

Luckily for me, it slackened off about twenty minutes later so I didn’t have to bike for 20 minutes in pouring rain.

Moat at Nijo Castle in Kyoto
I really love moats. The mix of water and greenery, and often walls and bridges. This is also from Nijo castle.

The Blood is on the Wall Finally Out as Stand Alone

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With halloween in only a couple of days, I’m happy to tell you that The Blood is on the Wall is now out as a stand alone ebook. A short military horror read for a scary holiday.

Here is the description:

The Blood is on the Wall coverThe vampires needs humans for only one thing: blood. Any human they capture either becomes their cattle or vampires themselves. Food or killer. The vampires, stronger and faster than humans, decided to stop hiding and take over the world.

UN soldiers try to stop them. One UN soldier, Rox, fights to protect her two sisters. She needs them, and for them she fights to protect the whole world.

But the vampires captures Rox.

Is everything lost or can Rox somehow get out on top?

You can buy it here as an ebook. Of course, it is also still available in two different anthologies, Fiction River: Editor’s Choice and Nightly Bites Volume 2.

Next month there is a couple of more season stories being released. Christmas ones. And then the releases will be quiet until 2020, when some very exciting stories will come out. I’ll talk more about that when they’re out.

Have a great halloween! Scary, happy, fun? Whichever you want most!

Reader Report: September, 2019

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This my reader report for September. Things I read, saw, played, and ate that I really enjoyed and would recommend to other people.

Good Omens cover image

I have been rereading the whole In Death series by J.D. Robb and finally finished rereading it. 48 books takes a while to read. I began the reread back in April. This is a mystery series, with romantic and science fiction elements that I really enjoy, but I’ve talked about it many times, so let’s move on to something else.

A friend told me about the TV series adaption of the book Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. One of my favorite books. I haven’t had a chance to see the series yet, but I went ahead and reread the book.

It is a fun romp about the biblical armageddon going completely sideways. Some really great laughs. It really doesn’t take itself serious at all, and is very well written. With hilarious footnotes.

Pitch Perfect dvd imageI am a fan of musicals and finally watched the movie Perfect Pitch. I’d actually not heard anything about it nor had it recommended, but it was on Netflix, sounded like fun, and I really need a bit of feel good that day. If you like musicals, this will probably be an enjoyable watch.

Since I’m currently living in Japan, it feels almost criminal to not put in anything from that. So let me recommend a meal I recently had at a restaurant: chabu-chabu.

On the table is a pot with soup-stock that is puttering away. You get meat and veggies to put in the pot and then pick them out when they are done and eat them. At this particular restaurant, they made the leftover soup stock into a kind of stewed rice when we’d had enough meat and veggies (we had all you can eat chabu-chabu).

A delicious meal and I’m sure to hit that restaurant again.

Lastly, lets add a game recommendation. I played a few hours of War Grove on Switch (also available on PC and other consoles) and enjoyed this strategy game. I’m sure it gets a lot more complex, but it introduces each mechanic slowly so you have a chance to learn everything well. For me that is a must with strategy games because while I enjoy them, I can find them a bit impenetrable.

That is all for this month. I actually spent most of the month reading In Death, so that is why it felt like I didn’t consume much media, but thankfully I had enough to put together this!

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #2

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Kamogawa river in Kyoto at night
The Kamogawa river in Kyoto at night.

For the first time in my life, I would officially reside in another country, Japan. I have stayed up to three months in another country before (Ireland and Japan) so I was a temporary resident there, but more like a long stay tourist.

I’ve also stayed about two months in several more places.

This time, as noted in the first PotM: A Year in Japan edition, I had/have a one year (and three months) visa, provided I study Japanese during that time.

For the first two months or so, I had two goals in mind: see as many cherry blossom trees I could stand and settle into my new life in Kyoto (my new apartment and as a student).

And that is basically what I did through April and towards the end of May.

I live close to the Kamogawa river, and when the temperatures aren’t consistently above 25 degrees Celsius, I often go for a walk along it. It has beautiful cherry blossom trees, and I look forward to seeing it in autumn glory too.

I also took the opportunity to see some geisha/maiko dances that are mostly held in spring (with a couple at other times of the year), and I can highly recommend it. Beautiful shows.

It was also in May that I turned 30 years old. No more twenties for me.

Kamogawa river in Kyoto during the day
Same river as above, not the same place and not the same type of day. A lovely place to walk at.