The characters in Blood Stew discover and rediscover this universal truth from one chapter to the next in Book 3 of The Windshine Chronicles. Often there is little choice, for if you don’t work for what you need, you probably won’t get what you want, as few will give it to you for free. For many, the price is high and the rewards are small. In every country around the world, we must pay a price to get what we want. From America to Korea to Australia to Africa, we are all faced with similar dynamics: working long days and commuting long hours to make ends meet doing spiritually numbing jobs, or physically strenuous jobs, or stressful and frustrating jobs, or dead-end jobs, so that you can maintain a roof over your head and food on your table. This, too, is a universal theme taken from real life.

In order to obtain what they want, the characters are forced to decide what they will pay. This builds up to the second theme of the novel: sacrifice. The characters in this novel are all in desperate need of something, and they are all trying to figure out the best way to get it. The universal lack is money, though for some of the individuals who populate the novel, there are other things essential to their life that they do not have enough of: lack of power in a dangerous world lack of support when trying to accomplish their goals lack of food to keep their family from starving. In Blood Stew, which takes place in a fantasy setting of the Middle Ages in South Korea, the characters are all without something. When you promote, having something that makes people sit up, and is also memorable, is crucial. Though I do like that title, I feel it’s not as impactful as Blood Stew. The first title that I played around with for this novel was Dearth, which means to lack something, or to be lacking. When I started writing Blood Stew, I wanted to bring the concern of money, or lack thereof, to a fantasy setting. I also have two credit card bills that have grown in size over the last six years. I, like many Americans, have fairly significant student loans I’m supposed to pay back at some point before I die. Many themes tend to be the inspiration for my fiction, but for this book, the first novel of the series (Books 1 & 2 being novellas), my inspiration was simple and universal: money. I’m currently working on Blood Stew, the third book in The Windshine Chronicles.

Butchers by Todd Sullivan