As is customary for me in April, I’ve begun crafting the next novel in the Vasily Korsokovach series. Tentatively titled Bliss, it picks up literally a day after the final events in Aftermath, and as you might infer from the title, it just happens to be the story where — at long last — Vas and Alex finally get their wedding moment. I can’t honestly believe how many books I’ve teased this culmination of their relationship, one that I never actually foresaw when Alejandro appeared on the swim deck at UEM all the way back in Ditched. I’ve said it in other venues, but in case you missed it, Alex was intended to be the prime suspect/murderer in that book, and for the first third of his appearance, he really does feel like he could have swung completely in that direction. Fortunately for Vas, it went in a completely different direction, one that Alex saw immediately (but the author required a few hundred pages to recognize).
I love writing both Sean and Vasily, but have to admit that Alex (and his relationship with Vas) has a truly special place in my heart. Those two are the craziest, most unlikely pair to have crossed paths and ultimately found true love; that, in turn, has in my opinion made their gradual move from friends to lovers to partners feel incredibly real and true. It’s also made my heart ache for Sean, for in the grand scheme of things, his heart was the one to be repaired first; my best laid plans went right out the window when Suzanne (like most of my characters) kind of went in her own direction. It happens regularly to me (as longtime readers now know), far more regularly than it probably should, but that also lends a bit of organic authenticity to the affair, too.
Writing an actual wedding scene is a new one for me. Writing one that properly honors my characters is a challenge of an entirely different order, but one I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. Knowing that both Vas and Alex have essentially exited the religion they grew up under opened the door to having more creativity with the process, allowing me to mix and match aspects of various ceremonies I’ve been to over the years that have especially appealed to me. I also knew going in that I was going to lift parts of my own wedding to use as a template; for those of you wondering, that’s the primary reason the duo are going to be in Orlando (and, specifically, at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge). My wife and I went through the very same process they did in selecting all of the aspects of our (literal) Fairy Tale Wedding, though some three decades ago, the options were far more limited than they are today. We wound up at the Wilderness Lodge because it was not only an amazingly beautiful venue, it had the added attraction of being even cheaper than the then-newly constructed wedding pavilion just outside the main gate of Magic Kingdom. (Yes, renting the castle was well outside of our price range.)
I’m sure memory makes the space seem far cozier and romantic than it probably was, but then again, I was there with my soulmate, whose wit and grace and gentle humor never fails to warm the moment and make anyone feel at home. Capturing that in prose has been particularly fun; I’m just finishing the first chapters of the new book and though I still need to show it to my beta reader to be sure, I think I’ve found the general flavor of the moment, spiced up with the dynamic personalities that are Alex and Vas. The moments in there feel fun, genuine, and I hope, worth having made you wait several books to get there.
Want to get to the edge of the wedding? Then be sure to order your copy of Silenced so you can see how the final days of planning the affair went.
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