Not extraordinarily so. The unreliable narrator is used to hide information from the reader, and it’s not one of my favorite narrative tools.
However, that doesn’t mean that Jill is always correct. I suppose it’s neither here nor there at this point, but (for example) in Sentinel she told Reid to not kill Matthew because “they’d figure out it was [him.]”
Actually, the elders wouldn’t have figured it out. They’d suspect, but as you saw soon after, Reid is quite an efficient killer. He would’ve done the job quickly and cleanly. Afterwards, all Jill and Reid would’ve had to do when questioned was:
On one hand, that would’ve spared Jillian a lot of angst. On the other, who knows what the trajectory of the story would’ve been?
Benjamin was a surprise, but welcomed, baby, and Janice insisted on naming him after her favorite grandfather. She was rather open about her preference for Benjamin over Beau, and she coddled him a lot.
Benjamin’s unique involvement in the family business (as described in the end of Sentinel) caused him a great amount of anguish, confusion, and general distress as a young child. Janice threw all of her energy into distracting him, and he received almost every material item he ever wanted, within reason, and it’s why she lobbied so hard for him to be allowed to joint JROTC. She saw Benjamin’s self-confidence and happiness soar, and knew that he needed a place to shine outside of Chez Trent.
Had Benjamin never met Jillian, he would’ve eventually worked up the nerve to tell his parents about nursing school–and Janice would’ve made sure that he got in. She pinned him for a dreamer and tender heart early on; she always felt that Benjamin would probably move on from the nitty-gritty of their activities and probably develop more businesses to enrich the family.
Janice’s downfall is that she can’t see her son for who he truly is. Even at the end of Sentinel, she believes that superheroes are somehow controlling him. If not controlling him, then he’s been utterly seduced by either Jillian or her promises. She can’t admit that for all her hard work and love, Benjamin has rejected her.
Well, the results of the polls are in, and Ben’s POV of the night in the warehouse was the winner by a wide margin. I’ll post this one first, followed by Benjamin Dances. The excerpt of Artemis will follow.
A word of caution: this short has a lot of swearing in it, since it wasn’t intended for publication. You’re about to see how Benjamin actually talks, especially when he’s angry. Also, this chapter contains major spoilers for Sentinel–if you have not read it, I strongly advise you to wait until you have. (And it contains Beau acting like Beau.)
I played around with various endearments when I was writing, and “sweetheart” (and “sweetie”) always felt the most natural for these characters. I will employ other terms of endearment in future books.
I’ve been planning to share Benjamin’s first meeting sometime after Sentinel’s release, and today’s as good a day as any! I’ll have that up shortly.
@emeralddodge i was honestly so sure one of them would end up dead at the end of Sentinel
One of the main team actually was slated to die, but I’m not telling you which one.
And I’m also not going to tell you what I did instead in Mercury.
Yeah I could have sworn you said one of the main five was going to die and I spent the whole time I was reading Sentinel wondering who it was and then none of them died. I need Mercury… October, right?
For a long time, up until I was about halfway through Sentinel, I’d planned a specific death, but changed my mind. That’s all I’m going to say. It doesn’t mean there won’t be deaths, but that particular character was saved.
PART 2 and i really appreciated how jill called marco out because what he kept saying to her was SO NOT COOL. and ember is my new fave now (along jill ofc). looking forward to mercury!!
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Oh my goodness, I’m so flattered! I can count on one hand the authors that make me feel something along with the characters, so thank you so much!
I’m 90% sure there will be a huge Battlecry series omnibus for sale before too long–the only question is what I’ll put in it! I have a TON of options:
Artemis
Several short stories (including Benjamin’s POV of when he met Jill, the park scene, and the warehouse scene!)
A few more short stories that take place between Battlecry and Sentinel
A short biographical story of a side character introduced in Sentinel
The real question is what I’ll do with Excalibur. By legal contract, Excalibur is part of the Enclave Authors box set Of Beasts and Beauties, which is doing pretty darn well. I’m not sure if I want to remove Excalibur to put into my own box set. I will discuss this with my colleagues in the next few months, and ask them their own plans for their stories.
If I do remove Excalibur, I’ll also commission a new cover (I really dislike the current one) from my usual artist and also release it as a .99 solo book on Amazon.
Sentinel was almost entirely done by the time Battlecry hit Amazon. I had some minor revisions to do (just cleaning things up and tweaking a word here and there), but basically all of Sentinel was written in 2016-2017. Mercury is about 3-5 chapters from being “done,” but of course I’ll need to revise in places, and then submit it to the proofreader. It is currently slated for a 10/1/18 release, and I plan to stick to that.
I hope Sentinel meets your expectations! I’m so excited! 😀
Wide Spread Interests 