The Game Called Revolution, - [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

>Fortunately, she still had the (admittedly dubious) freedom to choose, so she was able to call upon the God’s Body to escape.

After Jeanne gets done with the surreal flashback sequence, she must brave the dangers of Mt. Erfunden. Like many things in this story, that is also fictional (in fact, erfunden is a German word that actually translates to “fictional.” So, don’t go looking for it on your next European vacation.

Part III ends with the “dark turn” as I call it, sending Jeanne’s world to hell and fulfilling Jacques du Chard’s vague prophecy told to her at the end of the dream sequence. The king and queen are coldly executed and Robespierre seizes power, setting the stage for Jeanne’s struggle for salvation and ultimate redemption of her family.

 

 

Part IV

At the end of Part III, Jeanne’s life was destroyed—she just didn’t know it yet. How would she find out? How would she react? Those were the questions I had to answer.

As you know, I ultimately settled on getting those answers from someone with a fresh perspective: Robert Westerfield, the English journalist. I thought it would be interesting if the narrative suddenly shifted to an unknown character six months later. It was my hope you would be intrigued by this and read on to find out just what’s happened to Jeanne and the others.

This section also marks the return of Farahilde Johanna, Jeanne’s nemesis from Part II. She has come to take out her anger on Jeanne for the death of her sister, but ultimately realizes Jeanne is not to blame. Knowing that they are both victims of Maximilien Robespierre, the two women decide to join forces to bring him to justice.

Farahilde has ultimately become my favorite character. I like her so much that I can see her going on more adventures in the future. It was fun writing her dialogue; she’s just so headstrong and doesn’t mind going against the Ordre members to achieve her ends. The only person she seems to listen to is Jeanne, even though they’re such polar opposites.

The relationship between Jeanne and Farahilde ended up being more complicated than I had planned. They were originally just supposed to be akin to the leads in a buddy comedy, but in Part IV I posed the question to Farahilde: What do you really think about Jeanne? Since she always refers to Jeanne (sometimes insultingly) as “fräulein,” it occurred to me that maybe Farahilde has problems dealing with other women, particularly ones that are older than her. This is further complicated by the fact that Jeanne defeated her in their first battle, causing the young Austrian to have a combination of jealousy and grudging respect for her rival.

Since the story would have been much too short if I simply had them head off to the final battle, I came up with the “reuniting the Ordre” subplot. What had the rest of them been up to in the six months between the end of Part III and the beginning of Part IV? In addition, by bringing them back in one-by-one, I saw the chance to isolate them and flesh out their characters. Thus, you read about Pierre’s upbringing in the village of Pierret, Victor’s struggle with his lifestyle, and Celeste’s tragic past.

 

 

The Message

This book was a lot of fun to write, but it actually does have a message I want to get across. You see, in some ways Jeanne de Fleur is a reflection of myself. She goes through an unimaginable hell which causes her to seriously contemplate suicide. However, she doesn’t give in to despair, and instead perseveres to achieve her goals and attain some measure of peace. As one who has come frighteningly close to ending it all, I want everyone who reads this book to walk away with the message that no matter how bad things seem, they will always get better. Like Jeanne says: “The true power of the human spirit is in living when all you want is death.” If I can just give hope to one person, this will all have been worth it.

 

Thanks for reading.

--November 2011

 

Addendum

 

 

 

 

I first published this novel seven years ago and, having gone back to revise it, I forgot just how good it was. That may sound egotistical, but you have to believe in your work. If you don’t, then why bother pushing it on unsuspecting readers?

 

For years, I’ve considered the Infini Calendar series to be secondary to my Divine Protector series because the latter has been far more successful. Well, now it’s time for the former to get its due. This is part of a major revision project for all my books (except for Mirai; there’s no salvaging that). Now that I’ve gotten pretty good at proofreading, I need to correct the many mistakes I made when writing these books. I hope you’ll find I did a good job.

 

It was a lot of fun revisiting Jeanne and company, even more than I expected. And I want many more people to have fun with us as well. Some of my characters ended up being stupid, but others continue to shine. Farahilde remains my favorite after all these years.

 

As always, thank you for your patronage, and please continue on this journey with us.

 

--May 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Also by Scott Kinkade

 

God School (Divine Protector #1)

 

18-year-old Ev Bannen was just hoping to get admitted to college. He never expected to be recruited to a school for gods, where he’ll be spending his days building up his strength, learning to answer prayers and getting an education in religion alongside aspiring god of money Jaysin Marx, the lovely but troubled Maya Brünhart and anger-prone ginger Daryn Anders. But when the world is threatened, Ev must step up to save the day.

 

Published December 9, 2014.

 

Amazon US: https://tinyurl.com/y9vy5xsy

 

Amazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/yaxu6mdq

 

Amazon CA: https://tinyurl.com/y7htn9ly