Bell Bridge Books

Keeping it Real

Good news! Dakota Frost, Book 3, LIQUID FIRE, is on sale right now on Kindle—but if that’s not enough to tempt you, I wanted to let you know that there’s more to Dakota Frost than magic tattoos, teenage weretigers, political vampires, battling wizards, and the hatching of dragons!

The Dakota Frost series isn’t just an urban fantasy: it’s also a slice of real life. From the very beginning, I wanted to create the feeling of a real world, not the experience of reading a stage play in prose. That’s why I created the series as a “period piece” set in Atlanta in 2006—the last time I lived in Atlanta for any extended period.

When I create each new book, I dig into the history and locations, trying to set the story in real places I’ve been and to flesh out the story around real events. In FROST MOON, I used Atlanta’s counterculture mecca, Little Five Points, as a backdrop for the action, and the upcoming midterm elections as texture for my political heroine.

In the sequel, BLOOD ROCK, I had to create a wholly unreal place—the backwoods Georgia town of Blood Rock, based on that giant granite boulder, Stone Mountain. I drove out to Stone Mountain, Georgia, hiked through the park, navigated through nearby neighborhoods, and filled it with my experiences of small town life.

But for the third book, LIQUID FIRE, I wanted to do more. I had since moved to the Bay Area, and discovered “restaurants for vampires” like the dark red curtained Asia de Cuba in San Francisco and the quirky Nola restaurant in Palo Alto and all its nearby alleyways. I walked the streets and took extensive pictures for the Battle of Union Square, incorporating real features like the giant heart statue at its corner.

One of my favorite sequences is a diversion with magical alchemist Professor Narayan Devenger and the ensuing battle outside the Stanford Bookstore. A very real and creepy building with a medieval looking tower helped set the direction for the book; a fountain outside the bookstore became a setting for great action.

For the climax, however, I wanted something more, and I already had something special in mind: Maui. I had visited Maui for work and had spent an afternoon climbing through its mountains and forests, which impressed me far more than its beaches, which I hardly visited. And a volcano sparks the imagination. So for the climax of LIQUID FIRE … well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

So if you want to catch up with magical tattooist Dakota Frost, her weretiger daughter Cinnamon Frost, or just want to experience the nooks and crannies of Atlanta, the Bay Area and Maui as seen through the eyes of an urban fantasist, check out LIQUID FIRE!

-Anthony

Pick up the rest of Anthony Francis’s titles from Bell Bridge Books!

The Skindancer Series: Books One and Two

Jeremiah Willstone: Book One

That July, Josh went to Oklahoma on family vacation and called me, as young people did back then before texting was a thing, on a Sunday night. We talked for a little while then, out of nowhere, Josh broke things off. I just sat on the phone and cried for what seemed like a really long time. For me, it was a total shock. After a while of sitting on the phone while I cried, he told me he couldn’t just sit there and listen to me cry on the other end so he said he should go and hung up. I was a mess that whole week. That Friday night, five days after the breakup, my best friend and I went to the movies to see a movie Josh and I had been planning on going to see for a while. When the movie ended and the lights came back on, everyone started getting up and we stood up to exit and looked around the theater and who did we see several rows behind us? Josh. With a girl. A girl that I knew for a fact was a pretty good friend of his who he talked to fairly often. I was hysterical. He had moved on that fast. Of course when I got home I had to get on MySpace to see what I could find out. They were dating. We had only been broken up a few days! Of course I assumed since he had a girlfriend so soon after we broke up that he had been cheating on me with her. Even if they were just talking behind my back and not even spending any one-on-one time together yet.

First day of junior year, I went to English class and there was Josh. I was so mad. I didn’t want to see him every other day for the rest of the school year. Luckily our teacher seated us in alphabetical order so I got to sit far away from him. I pretty much avoided Josh our entire junior year. However, during my junior year I started dating someone else and I started slowly getting over Josh. Eventually I got over the whole thing but we really didn’t communicate much because he was still dating that girl.

Fast forward to senior year, Josh and I have economics class together. By that point I had long forgiven him for what happened between us and had put it all in the past. I still made it a point, though, to joke with him about it here and there mentioning how he broke my heart. We enjoyed having that class together and we talked all the time. I looked forward to going to that class because of him. I remember a few specific conversations we had in that class that I will never forget. He always knew how to make me feel better about myself. We became pretty good friends again by the end of senior year, and eventually graduated in the class of 2010.

I don’t know if it was because we ran in different crowds or because I had a boyfriend, but we didn’t keep in touch after graduation. But we did seem to run into each other fairly often it seemed. It didn’t matter if either of us was dating someone or not, every time we ran into each other, we always stopped to talk to one another. I remember a few times when we ran into each other he would have his girlfriend with him or I would have my boyfriend with me, and we saw each other and had to stop and catch up. And we always hugged before we went our separate ways. I remember one time a few years after we broke up he called me on my birthday just to wish me a happy birthday. It made me feel special that he still had my number and that he remembered my birthday. Of course I always remembered his too. There was just something between us I can’t explain that was always there.

Read more tomorrow in SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE: THE REKINDLING!

Josh and I first met in eighth grade, in algebra class. Our desks were right next to each other. Josh was nice but quiet. I wouldn’t say we were close friends but we were friends who talked occasionally in class. Fast forward to high school, I don’t really remember ever seeing Josh during freshman year but, during sophomore year, Josh and I were in Algebra 2 together. Again, we sat right next to each other. That class was horrible, but we made the best of it. In February of that same year, I had to have back surgery and I was out of school for a month. My last day of school before I was out for surgery, My best friend at the time and I were waiting in the car pick-up line for her sister to pick us up. Josh was there waiting too. I don’t remember whose ride got there first but, before we parted, he came up to me, wished me luck on everything, and gave me a hug. Having never really been hugged by a boy before, I felt rather special.

Even though I was not able to go to school during my recovery time, I felt well enough to attend church as I always had. Well, somewhere around the same time that I was having surgery, a mutual friend of ours had invited Josh to come to our church. So on my first night back to church, Josh was there. At the time it was still a little difficult for me to get up and down out of chairs and such, so Josh would offer his hand to help me. I thought he was so sweet. From then on, we became even better friends and he continued to come to church. In April, Josh asked me to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Apparently we were walking side-by-side when he asked me and he tripped over a bush, but I have no recollection of that part at all. I said yes. We “dated” for the next few months. You know how it is when you’re fifteen and can’t drive on your own yet, so I would hardly call it dating, but we had fun together. I loved being around Josh’s family and my parents liked Josh as well. I thought everything was going great with us….

Tune in tomorrow to find where the ellipses lead!