Raven’s Shadow

I mentioned last week that I have four novels in progress. Most of them have been set aside — for now — while I work on the one that’s currently most vivid in my mind.

That novel is called Raven’s Shadow. It’s about a vigilante struggling with loneliness while she fights for her city. She takes in a roommate and gets more than she expected. At the same time, she comes up against a foe whose goals are the same as hers — to protect the city from criminals and corruption — but whose methods are far more ruthless.

Raven’s Shadow is a superhero love story. Allison is the Raven, a mask- and armor-wearing vigilante. A superhero without powers — she’s far more on the Batman side of things, though less brooding. She took up the mask after her school was destroyed by a villain her senior year of high school. The cops couldn’t do anything to stop it, and they stalled out on finding the guy who’d done it. Allison took matters into her own hands. She took the name Raven to honor her fallen classmates, and hunted out the man who committed their mass murder. When that was done, she kept the name and continued to fight for her city.

The novel begins several years after Raven starts protecting Cedarville. At this point, Allison is largely alone. She has a day job at the martial arts academy where she trains. She has a couple of friends, both in and out of costume — but no one who knows her as both Allison and the Raven. There’s no one at home with her now, either, in the house where she grew up. She’s lonely. At the recommendation of a coworker, she puts out an ad for a roommate-slash-housekeeper — someone who’d be another voice in the house, who preferably would also do the chores that Allison generally neglected.

Enter Lia, a work-from-home graphic designer. She’s looking for a new place to live, since her current roommate is about to get married. Allison’s roommate ad is a dream come true — she wouldn’t have to pay rent, just clean and cook and do the grocery shopping. Easy. The “discretion required” clause could be a red flag, but she’s willing to give it a try anyway. She’s not the type to go digging into someone else’s secrets; she has her own baggage, after all.

As the case Raven is investigating heats up, Lia begins to support her in ways she never expected. She didn’t put out the roommate ad looking for love, but she just might find it with Lia — if they can survive the trickery and mayhem coming their way.

I’m a little more than 16K words into the novel, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I don’t have a solid outline, just a general idea of what’s coming and when. The relationship arc is far more defined in my head than the mystery/action plot — I’m discovering a lot of that as I go! I’m excited to see what turns up.

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