This is a true story. In the ‘20’s I ran rum for some unsavory characters. I rode a bit too high on what Abigail Adams dubbed the ‘petrol pony.’ Fast cars. Fast girls. Fast times. Turns out, I’d borrowed money from the wrong cat. Al Capone! Uh-oh. One day, he shows up at Ma’s still, eyes all aflame. I tell him I ain’t got his money. He takes out his piece and he shoots me. He makes off on his bicycle before Ma can get at him. Luckily, I’d been carrying a copy of Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic in my breast pocket. It stopped the bullet and saved my life. I gave up ‘haulin’ hooch’ (as Shelley called it) that very day.

…

Guess what? Nothing in that previous story was actually true. It was an example of something humans call ‘alternate history.’ Alternate histories are stories about the Nazis winning the war. They can also be about any other thing in history being different than it was.

And Cold Magic itself, our book for the eleventh episode of Genre Stop!, just so happens to be one of these stories. Stick around, as Bri and Scott discuss ways not to let readers know about your character’s big breasts, various skimming strategies, and Scott’s suspect secondary world sexual ethics.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+11_+%27Cold+Magic%27+by+Kate+Elliott.mp3]