Hiro is a deeply empathetic man and also driven by a fear of abandonment which leads him to cling to things that he should maybe let go. His partner Hideyoshi, on the other hand, while driven by a certain personal code of honor, cares about nothing as much as he cares about Hiro. He wouldn’t get into half the shenanigans these two find themselves in if he weren’t there protecting Hiro. That is pretty much the heart of their dynamic: Hiro wants to protect everyone and Hideyoshi wants to protect Hiro.
Q2: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
Since this is the third book in the series, the main goal is, of course, to keep these familiar characters interesting and show how they have grown over the course of the series as a whole. Given their experiences, they shouldn’t be exactly the same people we met in the beginning, but they should be recognizable as the people we’ve grown to care about. This particular book explores the different bonds between people–familial, love, obligation–and how they interact and the tug-of-war between them. I think I portrayed that well. I hope I did.
Q3: Who did your cover, and what was the design process like?
The cover art was done by Miblart. They always do a fantastic job and make the process very easy. It usually starts with a conversation with my editors and looking at the covers of similar books in the genre. We pick out key elements, maybe sort through some stock photos, and then the artist comes up with a concept. The team at Miblart are always right on the money. We might make a few picky tweaks, some color adjustments, and then before you know it, we’re done. It’s like magic to me, honestly. I don’t know how they do it, but they knock it out of the park every time.
Q4: What character gave you fits and fought against you? Did that character cause trouble because you weren’t listening and missed something important about them?
Kyo, the series big bad, always gives me fits. I think he’s the cool, slick, charismatic bad guy. He thinks he’s a James Bond villain. My first drafts are full of the most cheese-ball dialogue that I spend half of my editing time dialing back. I love him, but he’s a mess.
Q5: What secondary character would you like to explore more? Tell me about him or her.
Takanori’s sister, Maia. I adore her. She’s such a spitfire. I don’t want to give up too many spoilers, but let’s just say she forms a relationship with Hideyoshi and gives him a run for his money. I’m really excited to write more of her and watch Hideyoshi’s controlled demeanor devolve into a sputtering mess.
Q6: Who has been your favorite character to write and why?
In this book in particular, Takanori has probably been my favorite. He’s just a joy every time he shows up on the page. He has so much heart and I think he appeared in Hiro’s life exactly when he was needed. I smiled and squealed and blushed my way through all of their scenes together. He’s a delight.
Q7: What are you working on now?
I’m working on something quite different, actually. It’s a dystopian scifi. Think Hunger Games (but adult) meets Ursula LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness. It’s a weird little thing and I often feel in over my head, but I love it. I’m also, of course, working on another Youkai Bloodlines book which, if I do my job, will hopefully make it out this year.
Two hundred years can strain even the seemingly eternal love of the youkai.
When Hideyoshi’s coldness drives them apart, Hiro finds comfort in his friendship with Takanori, a vociferous human man he met at a ramen shop and can’t seem to keep away from.. Everything Hiro had to fight for from Hideyoshi, Takanori gives freely, making it all too easy to turn away from his responsibilities–and Hideyoshi–in favor of something sweeter.
But while Hiro is off playing human, danger is brewing among the Youkai. Hideyoshi, still reeling from his breakup with Hiro, struggles to uphold the promise they made to the Hunter leader, Kyo, but the Youkai’s loyalty has been challenged by Hiro’s abrupt disappearance. With Hunters literally banging at the door, Hide must find a way to bring Hiro home or risk igniting the war they’ve spent the last two hundred years trying to prevent.
Warning: graphic violence, terminal illness, depictions of grief and depression/mental illness, suicidal actions
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Courtney is giving away a $10 Amazon Gift Card with this tour:
Sitting on a hard cobblestone path in my two-day-old funeral suit, I stared at a pillar of granite with his name on it, a fifth of Jack in my gut and my soul shattered into a million pieces. Aikawa Takanori—the name of the train that hit me.
A broad shadow fell over me and I closed my eyes against it. I knew who it was, knew the sound of his steps, the way the air trembled in his presence. Sakurai Hideyoshi. He sat down beside me on the stone path without a word, so close our shoulders touched. Over two hundred years had passed since the day we met, and his nearness still made my skin prickle. His fingers brushed against mine as he slipped the nearly empty bottle of whiskey out of my hands and raised it to his own lips.
“You knew it would end this way,” he said, his voice low and cold. Not a judgement or an accusation, just a statement of fact.
“If you’re here to lecture me, you can save it,” I said, snatching the bottle back out of his hand.
There was something shocking about seeing him again, sitting there like an inkblot on my vision. The same solid frame, the same dark features, sharp as cut granite and just as immovable. How much time had I spent pounding myself against that hardness, like the ocean against a rocky cliff, trying to break it away? Now I observed him as if from a distance. Something bitter pushed up against my grief, but there was no room for it, so it settled back into my gut. He had been my home before Takanori, but now he was almost unrecognizable. He hadn’t changed, of course. I was the one who was different.
“How long since you’ve drank something besides whiskey?”
“Not since—” I broke off, my eyes darting to the gravestone. My hands trembled as I took a long pull off the whiskey bottle. It could have been hours or years, every second since that day stretched into an eternity.
“Come with me,” he said, pulling himself gracefully to his feet. I didn’t move. “Hiro.”
“I can’t,” I choked. I struggled to breathe around the ball of grief wedged in my throat. He was here for a reason. He wanted something and I couldn’t give it to him. “I’m not…ready…”
“He’s dead. It doesn’t matter if you’re ready,” he barked. The words were sharp, the edge of a blade iced over, and they cut deep.
He grabbed the collar of my jacket and yanked me to my feet. Without even waiting for me to catch my balance, he turned and stomped off down the path. It had been this way since the day we met, Hideyoshi plodding ahead without looking back, so confident I would follow. I found it comforting somehow, like nothing had ever broken between us. We would always be Hideyoshi and Hiro. The shape of his back would never change. He would never get sick and die.
I ran my hand over Taka’s name on the granite and felt my heart tugged in two different directions. Another train had come, this one promising to take me back to somewhere familiar, but part of me was afraid. What if I got there and found it wasn’t my home at all anymore, but just another strange place that would leave me even more broken?
But, Hideyoshi was right. Taka was dead, the home I could have had here reduced to ashes. I had nowhere else to go.
My chest constricted and I cursed under my breath as I ran to catch up to Hideyoshi, falling in step just a few paces behind. The sun was setting as we exited the cemetery and darkness fell quickly over the narrow streets of Tokyo. Neon signs lit up one by one with an electric pop as we passed, the early evening crowds already taking their places in the izakayas that lined the street and disappearing into basement bars. Hideyoshi led me all the way to Ikebukuro and the busy streets surrounding Sunshine City. Wires hung like spider webs overhead, feeding power to the garish artificial light. Loud music and cigarette smoke filled the streets and the smell of sweaty bodies started a scratching under my skin that had me gritting my teeth.
He stopped in the most crowded part of the busy street and looked over his shoulder at me for the first time. My gut clenched. I knew what he wanted. I scowled and shook my head, but he simply pinned me with those needle-sharp eyes that didn’t take no for an answer until I relented.
His silent command: Sing.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The scratching under my skin intensified and the sounds of the city died away as something else rose to the surface, something dark and dangerous. When my eyes opened again, the electric lights paled behind the glare of human life, every movement leaving a streaky after image in blue and white. My pulse sped and my mouth watered. I pulled in a deep breath and my voice rose from the depths with an old song, something traditional that took me back to a different Tokyo, and despite its terrible purpose, it warmed me. My heart swam in it, cleansed its wounds in it.
Courtney Maguire is a University of Texas graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas. Drawn to Austin by a voracious appetite for music, she spent most of her young adult life in dark, divey venues nursing a love for the sublimely weird. A self-proclaimed fangirl with a press pass, she combined her love of music and writing as the primary contributor for Japanese music and culture blog, Project: Lixx, interviewing Japanese rock and roll icons and providing live event coverage for appearances across the country.
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