Stage One - B. K. Bilicki

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Résumé :
Kana Morel has established herself among the Sanctum's elite operatives. There is no danger she cannot face, no problem she cannot solve, no enemy she cannot defeat. Enter acolyte Jamyn Siska. He has studied Kana's impressive record and jumps at the chance to be teamed with her on a mission. The job swiftly goes sideways when the spirit they're pursuing accidentally feeds Jamyn's most guarded secret directly into Kana's mind - his overwhelming desire for her. Kana barely has time to react to this when she's blindsided by a sudden promotion. Jamyn is now her acolyte. Jamyn can perceive the structure of magic, a strange phenomenon known as the Voice. Kana has the same ability, leading to their unexpected pairing. The hidden passion of her new student, his potentially catastrophic knowledge of the Voice, and the storm of emotions brewing within Kana threaten to topple the Sanctum's greatest caster....

Biographie:
Writer? Who, me? There must be some mistake... In real life, I'm an electronics technician residing in the frozen tundra of the American Midwest. I spend a truly obscene amount of my time peering through a microscope at tiny whiz-bangy components and then performing arcane rituals upon them with a soldering iron. I was deemed a miracle worker early on in my career, and co-workers throughout the ages have been rather intent on making me live up to their ridiculous expectations. It pays the bills, I suppose. Meanwhile, back at the writing thing... My entire academic life was centered around a very simple premise - the kid can't write. Nope. Forget it. Give me a subject to write about and my brain goes into instant and irrevocable shutdown mode. Werds? Whassat? That core tenet was shaken by an odd series of events involving an ungodly hideous short story (written by someone else), the foolish belief that even I could scribble something better, and an out-of-control tractor trailer that attempted to flatten me during a sleet storm. Stir all that up, give it a few days, and a weird little snippet came into being that I thought was interesting enough but not something I'd ever get in the habit of producing in mass quantities. Entirely possible that truck wiped out whatever good sense I may have had at the time (though it did end up making an appearance in my first book). I posted the bit online, and it got what I considered to be an astonishing number of responses. It was the start of what became a disturbing pattern - post a little one-off short story, people start yelling and screaming but what happens next?, and it somehow snowballs into a book. Somewhere between bouts of electronic microsurgery and banging my head against the keyboard, I also cocreated a researcher, a wild man with occasional auto mechanic tendencies, and...an English teacher. Yes, it seems the cosmos is not without a very twisted sense of humor. I've also got a pair of granddaughters out of the deal that both think I'm pretty cool. I'm in no rush to disillusion 'em. Their mom has also issued an edict to them stating that Thou Shalt Not read my scribbles until the sprogs turn thirty (though I think I might have talked the second one down to twenty-five...)....

Sommaire:
Writer? Who, me? There must be some mistake... In real life, I'm an electronics technician residing in the frozen tundra of the American Midwest. I spend a truly obscene amount of my time peering through a microscope at tiny whiz-bangy components and then performing arcane rituals upon them with a soldering iron. I was deemed a miracle worker early on in my career, and co-workers throughout the ages have been rather intent on making me live up to their ridiculous expectations. It pays the bills, I suppose. Meanwhile, back at the writing thing... My entire academic life was centered around a very simple premise - the kid can't write. Nope. Forget it. Give me a subject to write about and my brain goes into instant and irrevocable shutdown mode. Werds? Whassat? That core tenet was shaken by an odd series of events involving an ungodly hideous short story (written by someone else), the foolish belief that even I could scribble something better, and an out-of-control tractor trailer that attempted to flatten me during a sleet storm. Stir all that up, give it a few days, and a weird little snippet came into being that I thought was interesting enough but not something I'd ever get in the habit of producing in mass quantities. Entirely possible that truck wiped out whatever good sense I may have had at the time (though it did end up making an appearance in my first book). I posted the bit online, and it got what I considered to be an astonishing number of responses. It was the start of what became a disturbing pattern - post a little one-off short story, people start yelling and screaming but what happens next?, and it somehow snowballs into a book. Somewhere between bouts of electronic microsurgery and banging my head against the keyboard, I also cocreated a researcher, a wild man with occasional auto mechanic tendencies, and...an English teacher. Yes, it seems the cosmos is not without a very twisted sense of humor. I've also got a pair of granddaughters out of the deal that both think I'm pretty cool. I'm in no rush to disillusion 'em. Their mom has also issued an edict to them stating that Thou Shalt Not read my scribbles until the sprogs turn thirty (though I think I might have talked the second one down to twenty-five...)....