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Revolution: Piercing the Veil by Samantha Minerva
What is it about:Have you ever wondered what lurks beneath the surface of your conscious mind? Have you ever felt like your life has a purpose that you have yet to discover? Have you considered what happened to the five-year-old version of yourself? And where his or her zest for life went? Would you like to reclaim that part of you and create a life full of meaning, color, and joy?
Join one woman on her quest through the deep and dark underworld of human consciousness, as she confronts every fear, wound, and shadow keeping her from the ultimate truths about life, love, and reality. Her rawness and realness will reach into places deep inside of you, shining a light on the parts of you that are screaming to be seen, held, and acknowledged.
This is not a journey for the faint of heart, but a journey into the heart of pain, to reveal the gold buried beneath it all.
What are my early musings:Only on page 30 of over 300 of this book of poetry, but this is a book to savor and take in just a few poems at the time. I really recommend giving this a try if you have kindle unlimited. Beautiful and sometimes dark, these poems are a delight to read.

Amazon

 Buy Level: Unknown

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: David Dalglish currently lives in Myrtle Beach with his wife, Samantha, and daughters, Morgan, Katherine, and Alyssa. He graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in mathematics and currently spends his free time tanking dungeons for his wife and daughter in Final Fantasy XIV.

FORMAT/INFO: Level: Unknown was published by Orbit on January 14th, 2024. It is 464 pages long and told in third person from multiple POVs. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Nick is just a simple lab tech, he shouldn’t have to worry about swords swinging at his head. But that becomes a daily concern when an alien artifact forms a connection with him, plunging him into a simulated fantasy world every time he falls asleep. Nick quickly learns that while the world might be fake and death just means waking up, the pain is still very real. Even worse the pain is taking a strain on his real life body, and it might not be too long before his body gives out entirely. To top it all off, Nick's fellow researchers have discovered that a devastating event is heading to their planet, and the clues to how to stop it lie somewhere in the game. It's up to Nick to delve into this fantasy world and find the answers...but he's only got so many more lives before he'll never wake up again.

Level: Unknown is a fun romp of a LitRPG adventure, accessible to both game enthusiasts and those who have never picked up a controller. For those unfamiliar, LitRPG is a genre inspired by tabletop role playing games and video games, where characters for one reason or another are aware of stats, health meters, and other mechanics. In Level: Unknown, Nick essentially finds himself in a virtual video game world, with an AI assistant, experience points, hovering UIs that display health bars, etc. While those who play games regularly will easily recognize the mechanics, Nick is written as a novice to such things so that the reader can learn the ropes alongside him. (Although I did beg the question: is the future so dark that an 18-year-old has never played a video game before?)

After the initial set up, the story takes a familiar fantasy bent: Nick starts out on a quest and goes on a journey, picking up companions, encountering dangerous monsters, and discovering the history of this virtual land he’s in. The story is mostly told from Nick’s POV, but I appreciated the inclusion of POV chapters from a virtual character that lives in this fantasy world. While Nick sees the digital inhabitants of this world as things that can be killed without remorse, Sir Gareth views Nick as a ruthless monster roaming about killing hapless villagers. His POV grounded the world, showing that to these simulated individuals, death is a very real, sobering experience.

As in his previous works, the author writes one heck of a climax; I found myself tearing through the pages towards the end. The one disappointment is that when the dust clears there are no real answers, just lots and lots of questions. What is the artifact? Where did it come from? How and why is it possibly destroying planets? These questions and more are all asked; while you’ll get a genuinely satisfying climactic boss fight, you'll get no answers to any of these questions by the end of this first book. This is the first of a trilogy (with all three books releasing in 2025), so the answers are coming, but I would have liked at least one answer to a major question by the end of this outing.

CONCLUSION: Level: Unknown is a good popcorn adventure that's a lot of fun to escape into. As a relative novice to the genre itself, I cannot tell you how it compares to other Lit RPGs. What I can say is that I enjoyed my time in this world, and I'm looking forward to seeing how these mysteries pan out in the sequel.

I have finished reading Sense of Wonder

Having just finished reading arguably the longest anthology of science fiction, I’ve written down some notes and thoughts.

TL;DR It’s an insanely long book, worth buying but not necessarily reading cover-to-cover.

About the Book

Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction, edited by Leigh Grossman, is a massive single-volume anthology of science-fiction. Don’t be fooled by the 992 print pages because that is with a tiny font. I read the Kindle version for which Amazon gives an average reading time of 140 hours. That is about 5 times as long as Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (itself a 1,200 page door-stopper). All in all, a huge dose of SF.

The book is classified and marketed as a textbook for teaching SF courses and rightly so. Besides over 150 stories (from short stories to novellas), it contains biographical entries about each author and additional essays about related topics. The appendices give advice to aspiring authors on writing and submitting SF stories.

Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (Wildside Press, June 1, 2011). Cover art uncredited

In terms of content, Sense of Wonder includes whole “books” like A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, both from The Classics of Science Fiction – Novels v5 list. It also has at least 34 entries from The Classics of Science Fiction – Short Stories v2 list. Apart from poems, each author appears with only one entry (story).

My Opinion

This book is a bargain! I bought it for $30 and definitely got my money’s worth in terms of content.

I wish it were more of a “best of” anthology. It comes close to that (as evidenced by the number of entries from the Classics list), but in some cases stories were unavailable or the authors had other suggestions. Here’s an example from the editor’s text:

Although he’s best known for his alternate history, when I contacted him about a contribution for this book, Turtledove correctly pointed out that I already had plenty of alternate history in the book, but sorely needed a baseball story.

The essays, each by a different contributor, were generally good, often discussing themes appearing in preceding stories. Some were quite academic (those went over my head) and one was so badly written I’m surprised it got included.

I also wish that the book was less American-centered. Not only in the way information is presented, but also in the selections. There are some by British, Canadian and Australian authors, but other than that only two stories are translated from foreign languages.

Notes

I started reading this book in 2001, but at first, I jumped from story to story as I was finishing reading the Classics of Science Fiction – Short Stories v2 list.

Then, halfway through 2024, in an ongoing effort to clean out unread books on my Kindle, I started going through it from the start. I omitted what I had already read, so that helped. To further improve my progress I looked for audio versions of the stories (with a success rate of about 20%).

This lead me to some great finds, such as the production of Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” by the This American Life podcast. I made a spreadsheet for each story (whether I’d read it before and whether it’s available in audio anywhere) and included a brief review. Filling out the spreadsheets was part of the appeal of this reading challenge.

Favorite Stories

Apart from those that appear on the Classics list (and which we know to be good), I gave 5 stars to these stories.

• “Dogwalker” by Orson Scott Card — Great theme (cyberpunk, cracking passwords), fun style, and great audio narration all made this story kick!
• “Soldier, Ask Not” by Gordon R. Dickson — Awesome story of military conflict, loss and revenge. Noticeably well written!
• “Rat Race” by Frank Herbert — Great, like a precursor to X Files.
• “Good with Rice” by John Brunner — Wonderfully written story about modified food set in China.
• “For I Have Touched the Sky” by Mike Resnick — Great Kiringaya story about freedom and choosing the lesser evil.

Of course, there were also stories which I didn’t enjoy, but that’s inevitable with such a large collection.

If you’re interested in short form SF, I would recommend buying Sense of Wonder and starting out by reading the 34 stories already identified as among the best in the field.

As we do every January, Dean and I are participating in Kickstarter’s Make 100 Project. This year, we put together five big thick books with stories from our various series. Each of us has 10 stories in each book, and all of the stories are great introductions to the series that we write.

I have a slight quibble with our tag line. Yes, Dean & I are two authors, but some of my other pen names make guest appearances. You’ll find some Kristine Grayson short stories in these books as well as Kris Nelscott stories. So that’s at least four authors…

You’ll also find Retrieval Artist stories here, Spade and Paladin, Winston & Ruby, some stories from Seavy Village, Diving, the Fey…and that’s just me. Dean’s stories will introduce you to some great characters, from Poker Boy to Pakhet Jones.

The Kickstarter has just gone live. You can visit it and see all the fun rewards if you click here.

Here’s the video I did for the Kickstarter. Enjoy!

Hi, everyone

This probably requires some explanation.

If you have been following my work for some time, you will know that I created Schooled In Magic – a cross between Harry Potter and Lest Darkness Falls in which the heroine is transported to another world, goes to a magic school, and start introducing semi-modern ideas, innovations, technologies that eventually create a steampunk world in which magic and technology not only coexist but enhance each other in a number of surprising ways. It is a world where airships and guns face witches on broomsticks and wizards with magic wands. At this point in the saga, the pace of change is picking up and nothing is certain any longer, from the limits of magic to politics and just about everything else.

Naturally, you can download the first book in the series from Kindle Unlimited here (it will be free between 8/1/2025-12/1/2025):

And you can see the other books in the series here:

https://chrishanger.net/Published/SIMseries/SIMindex.html

The Princess Exile is a stand-alone book set in that universe. You do not have to know much more about the universe than what I said above to understand it, as pretty much all the characters in this book are new. Some locations are not, but I will try to fill in as much detail as possible as I go along.

And now I’ve got your attention …

Please join my mailing list (https://chrishanger.simplelists.com/chrishanger/subscribe/) as in this day and age it is the only way to keep up with every new release. I promise I won’t spam you with anything other than my releases: I do have a blog, which is a little more than just new releases, and you can see it at https://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

or you can just follow me through any of the other ways listed here: https://chrishanger.net/How%20To%20Follow.html

Links to the general theme, Fantastic Schools are currently (and constantly) looking for new authors. If you are interested in writing for us, please check out the link below:

.https://chrishanger.net/Fantasticschools/FSindex.html

Thank you for your time

Chris

Prologue

The most frustrating thing about Princess Anastasia, Circe had discovered over the last two years, was that she didn’t have any idea how lucky she was.

She was the only child of King Arthur and Queen Marion, the acknowledged heir to the Kingdom of Rockfall. Her kingdom was not inherently opposed to a woman taking the throne and ruling in her own right, and there were no suggestions she should marry a good man and let him rule the kingdom in her name. She was young and beautiful, with long dark hair, a pale face and a well-developed body that had the poets writing sonnets to her beauty, sonnets that were not in any way exaggerated by crawlers hoping for Royal patronage. Her beauty owed nothing to the magic flowing through her veins, nor a small collection of cosmetics the castle staff kept on hand for older and far less secure aristocratic woman. The Princess truly was a lucky girl.

She was also lazy.

She had the very best of tutors, from a father who ruled his kingdom with a combination of a firm hand and practical politicking to experts in everything from magic to reading, writing, and numbers. She was very far from stupid, and she could learn a great deal about anything that interested her with remarkable speed, but she had little interest in making use of the resources around her to broaden her mind. Her father found it hard to convince her to attend court, her tutors found it harder still to make her pay mind to her lessons. She had mastered the basics – she could read and write and few would deny her calligraphy was the equal of her father’s – but showed no interest in learning more. She spent more time riding her horse than she did behind a desk, learning the skills she would need when her father passed on and left her the kingdom.

Circe found it outrageous. She had climbed out of the gutter through a combination of magic, ruthlessness, and sheer dumb luck. If she hadn’t found someone willing to school her in magic, and so many other skills denied to a lowborn guttersnipe, she knew it was unlikely she would have survived to reach adulthood. She had made a devil’s bargain, trading her body and her mind for lessons the Princess was offered for free, and it was hard not to feel anger and resentment at how the Princess disdained the learning that would likely save her life. She had so many opportunities and she declined them all, to her own detriment. The Princess was too intolerant to pay attention to politics, but Circe was not. Her father was holding the kingdom together through sheer force of will and bloody mindedness. It was unclear if his daughter could master the arts of government in time to take the helm when he died. Circe would not have cared to put money on it. Rockfall was in for some rough times.

The worst thing of all, she reflected in the privacy of her own mind, was that it was hard to hate Princess Anastasia.

The Princess was lazy, and intolerant, but she wasn’t a bad person. Circe had seen aristocratic girls and women treat their maids like slaves, lashing out at them physically or verbally every time they were even slightly displeased. She had heard tales of far worse, from young women who took service the households of the great and the good to maidens who found themselves seduced and then abandoned by their aristocratic paramours, and compared to many others life in the Princess’s tiny household was surprisingly pleasant. If Circe had been a genuine Lady’s Maid, she would have lit incense in thanks for such a caring mistress.

And if Circe had been less driven to attain power, by any means necessary, she might have had second thoughts about what she intended to do.

It would have been easier, in some ways, if her mistress had been truly unpleasant. Circe would have had no qualms about displacing a horrible person, and anyone who noticed the swap would likely keep their mouth shut for fear of the original returning. She knew better than to allow sympathy, or even guilt, to distract her – she had already gone too far to stop now – but it was still a little harder than it should have been to take the final step. She told herself that she was doing the Princess a favour, giving Anastasia the sort of lesson her parents should have given her a long time ago, but Circe doubted Anastasia would feel the same way. The hell of it was that Circe herself would have been delighted, if someone had made her the same offer.

But the Princess did not know how lucky she truly was.

The bell rang. Circe stood, brushing down her dress. It was time.

Hardly anyone noticed her as she made her way to the Princess’s chambers. She had always taken care to dress as drably as possible, to make no attempt to exploit her position as the Princess’s maid, to do as little as possible to draw attention to herself. A handful of castle servants, more observant than their masters, had wondered at her willingness to remain in the shadows, but none had realised the truth. Being unseen gave one a kind of freedom, a freedom she had ruthlessly exploited. It had taken months of effort to subvert the castle wards, to allow herself a degree of access and control that would have shocked the court wizard if he ever realised what she had done, but it was about to pay off.

She stopped outside the door and centred herself. Once she stepped inside, she was committed. She could still stop herself …

No. That wasn’t possible. She had committed herself long ago.

And now it was time to make the final move and reap her reward.

Chapter One

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Princess Anastasia said, firmly.”I’ve had quite enough.”

The Royal Tutor blinked owlishly at her. He was younger than most tutors, with an air of grim determination that was oddly subverted by the way his tutoring robes hung oddly around his body. The appearance of an elderly man of letters, a person of great knowledge and practical wisdom, was difficult for a young man to project, no matter how well he knew his material. He’d yet to master the skill of making his lessons interesting, no matter how boring the subject matter, and it cost him. There were few other ways to keep a young woman of noble blood, let alone a princess, focusing on her work.

“But Your Highness …”

“You are dismissed,” Anastasia said. She picked up the textbook, the latest – and probably already outdated – tome on political developments since the end of the Necromantic Wars and passed it to him. “I’ll send for you when I am ready to resume the lessons.”

The tutor bowed, moving far more spryly than most of his peers could hope, and backed out of the chamber. Anastasia watched him go, somehow resisting the urge to point out that his wig was crooked, on the verge of falling off. Whoever had designed the poor man’s robes had a great deal to answer for, particularly the insistence that their wearers should either dye their hair grey or wear a grey wig. It might give an elderly man a sense of dignity, but it made a young man seem a fool, a child wearing his father’s clothes. They just didn’t suit him.

She sank back into her chair, feeling a twinge of envy. The tutor – it dawned on her, not for the first time, that she honestly didn’t recall the young man’s name – had chosen his life, devoting himself to studying politics, the New Learning, magitech and a dozen other subjects that interested him, even though he had little hope of ever practicing them personally. Her future was fixed, as sure as the sun rose in the east and sank in the west. She was the Crown Princess of Rockfall and she would be Queen, when her father passed into the realm of the dead. There was no competition, no sibling or cousin who might make a bid for the throne themselves. She would be Queen. There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise.

And I can’t even pass it on to someone else, she thought, numbly. It is my fate.

She rang the bell and leaned back in her chair, waiting. Patsy materialised a moment later, entering the room so silently it was hard to notice her until she announced herself. Anastasia almost envied her maid’s talent for remaining unnoticed, her dress and demeanour so subtle that she was often invisible in a crowd, without even a hint of magic. She had no interest in building a power base of her own, exploiting her position as the Princess’s personal maid to enrich herself or even find a good husband from the lower ranking aristocrats or merchants. It was hard, sometimes, to describe her. She was so bland and boring, carrying out her duties without drawing attention to herself, that Anastasia had to think to recall the colour of her maid’s eyes. Her outfit was just … bland.

“Your Highness,” Patsy said, dropping a neat little curtsy. She hadn’t adopted the modern custom of showing too much flesh, or even wearing something that drew attention to her curves without showing anything below the neckline. “What can I do for you?”

Anastasia stood, brushing down her dress. “I feel like going for a ride,” she said, shortly. If she left now, she’d be well away from the castle by the time her next tutor arrived. “Send someone to alert the stablemaster, then help me get into my riding clothes.”

Patsy raised an eyebrow. “You have an appointment with the Court Wizard at eleven bells, then lunch with your mother at one …”

“I’m sure they’ll get on just fine without me,” Anastasia said, waspishly. The Court Wizard expected her to memorise volumes of magical theory before he taught her more than the basics, her mother veered between lecturing Anastasia on her duties and moaning about events in Alluvia. It might be Patsy’s duty to remind her, but Anastasia had no intention of going. “My mother hasn’t had a single new thing to say for years.”

“As you command, Your Highness.” Patsy turned to the door, opened it to summon a messenger boy, and sent him on his way with a few short words. “Do you intend to ride far?”

“Far enough not to be found,” Anastasia said. She strode into her bedroom, cursing the fashion that made it hard to get out of a dress without help. “It’s going to be one of those days.”

Her maid made no comment as she helped Anastasia to undress, then presented her with a set of riding clothes. They were so much more convenient – breeches, a jacket, boots – that she had determined she’d wear them all the time, when she was Queen. The dresses might show off her family’s wealth and power, just in case one of the courtiers had forgotten where he was, but they were uncomfortable and irritating. It wasn’t as if anyone was likely to forget she was the princess. Her face adorned the wall of everyone who was anyone, who wanted to be. She’d certainly sat for enough portraits over the years.

She stood, studying herself in the mirror. Long dark ringlets of hair framed a tinted olive face, dark eyes and lips that drew the eyes of everyone in the room. Everyone said she was beautiful and she knew for a fact they were telling the truth, although it would be a rare courtier indeed who suggested their princess was anything less than stunningly beautiful. Rockfall had fewer courtiers trying to outdo their peers by singing the praises of the Royal Family, if Queen Marion was to be believed, but … Anastasia shook her head. Her father had cautioned her to be wary of taking such crawlers seriously. They would change their tune in a heartbeat if they felt it wise.

“You need a cloak, Your Highness,” Patsy said. She’d changed too, into a riding outfit that was as drab as her regular dress. “And you should take your amulet.”

Anastasia snorted, but reached for the amulet and placed it around her neck. Patsy was right. The golden design was surprisingly simple, compared to the jewellery showered on her by everyone who wanted to buy her favour, but the charms woven into the metal were designed to protect her against almost any threat, at least long enough to buy her time to escape. Her father wouldn’t be pleased if she left the castle without it, and she didn’t want to upset him. She loved her father. And yet, he never had enough time for her.

“We’ll go down the back stairs,” Anastasia said. “We wouldn’t want to be stopped along the way.”

“No, Your Highness,” Patsy agreed. “That would be most inconvenient.”

There was a faint hint of sarcasm in her voice. Anastasia ignored it. Patsy’s job was to do as she was told, while serving as a maid, chaperone and woman-of-all-work. Anastasia knew little about Patsy and that was how it should be. She did her job well and that was all that mattered. She certainly didn’t have the kind of relatives or connections that would press her to take advantage of her position, or try to influence their princess. Anastasia wasn’t looking forward to assuming the throne. She would have to take the young ladies of the kingdom as her handmaidens then, enduring their presence in her most private moments. Her mother had often complained about the custom and Anastasia didn’t blame her. She had little privacy of her own too.

The back stairs were supposed to be secret, although Anastasia was fairly sure everyone knew they existed even if they didn’t have access. Her skin prickled as they stepped through a handful of wards, designed to keep out intruders, and walked down the thin stairs to the bottom. The stables, located at the rear of the castle, teemed with activity, young boys mucking out the stalls while the stablemaster strode from steed to steed, checking their work with a gimlet eye. He showed no hint of surprise as he saw her, merely bowing low and motioning for two of the newer stableboys to bow too. Anastasia pretended not to notice their hesitation, then uncertainty over how deeply they should bow. She hadn’t enjoyed her etiquette lessons either.

“Champion and Lady are ready, My Lady,” the stablemaster said. “I’ve taken the liberty of adding a picnic to your saddlebags.”

“Thank you,” Anastasia said. “I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.”

She allowed the man to lead her to the final stall, Patsy trailing behind her like a shadow. Her horse looked pleased to see her, whinnying as Anastasia put her arms around his neck and gave him a hug. A sudden pang of guilt shot through her – she’d been too busy to come down and see him – and she made a promise to herself that she’d make sure to rub him down and muck out his stall personally, when they returned. It was good for bonding with her steed, her father had said, and besides, it would provide a good excuse for being late for dinner. Or taking her meal alone, in her chambers. Eating in front of the entire court, every eye on her, was never pleasant. And right now, she didn’t have the power to make up for the inconvenience.

“Come on,” she said, to Patsy. She didn’t wait for assistance, merely scrambled into the saddle and took the reins. “We have to be on the move.”

Patsy’s face didn’t change, but Anastasia had the impression the normally imperturbable maid was irked as she clambered onto Lady. Patsy could ride reasonably well, yet she was no horsewoman and clearly wasn’t particularly comfortable on horseback. Lady was as tame as any horse could be, the kind of beast small children would be seated on to learn the basics before they graduated to more frisky steeds, but Patsy had never quite reached the point where she could try a better horse. Anastasia wouldn’t have begrudged her the lessons, if she’d wanted to improve her horsemanship, yet … she shook her head, dismissing the thought. Patsy was her maid. She could easily remain behind …

But I have to be chaperoned, Anastasia thought, with a flicker of irritation. Her mother’s prudish insistence on maintaining her reputation at all times, on ensuring her virtue could not be questioned let alone drawn into disrepute, was just … irritating. No one questioned her father’s conduct, no one raised their eyebrows if he had private meetings … she told herself, not for the first time, that things would be different when she took the throne. I’ll do whatever I want and to hell with anyone who says me nay.

She put the thought out of her mind as Champion trotted out of the stable and through the rear gate, the guards bowing or doffing their hats as she passed. The cold air slapped her across the face, shaking away the lethargy of a morning spent being bored to death by tutors who never used one word when a dozen could do. Lady followed, Patsy so quiet it was easy to forget she was there. Anastasia felt a flicker of dark amusement as they cantered through the streets of Caithness and out into the Royal Forest. The sense of sudden freedom was overwhelming. It would be easy, she told herself, to dig in her spurs and make a run for Rumbling Bridge, the nearest pass through the mountains that surrounded Rockfall, protecting the kingdom from her larger and more powerful neighbours. Or even to just lose herself in the forest. It would feel good to make a choice for herself, even if it were a poor one.

Champion neighed as she pulled on the reins, commanding him to slow and turn. The castle rose up above the city, the largest structure in the kingdom. Caithness was small by the standards of many other kingdoms, but it was still large enough for her. She felt a twinge of bitter regret as she spied a handful of caravans making their way down the Northern Road, carrying trade goods through the passes and in and out of the city. The kingdom was far more progressive than most when it came to women’s rights, and there were plenty of female traders travelling from kingdom to kingdom, but she was trapped. She would spend the rest of her life in Rockfall, both ruler and prisoner of her kingdom. Lady trotted up, Patsy seated uncomfortably on her back, and Anastasia gritted her teeth. Her maid didn’t know how lucky she was. She could leave her post at any moment and find somewhere better, somewhere more suited to her talents.

“Your father is expecting you to read the latest trade agreements this evening,” Patsy reminded her. “We have to be back for dinner.”

Anastasia shook her head, curtly. The king was supposed to be the ruler of the kingdom, but Parliament did much of the work while he sat on his throne and looked regal. Anastasia didn’t pretend to understand how her father could spend so much time in committees, chairing meetings and letting everyone have their say; she wondered, sometimes, why he wasn’t the absolute monarch she knew him to be. Her mother didn’t help, grumbling about her father’s willingness to compromise rather than lay down the law. She had come from a kingdom where the king had lost his grip and faced an outright rebellion, one that had cost him his head. It didn’t help that far too many people wondered what sort of political ideas she’d brought with her …

“You also have to receive a messenger from a foreign suitor, asking for your hand in marriage,” Patsy continued. “He’s supposed to arrive, spontaneously, this evening.”

“This must be an entirely new definition of the word spontaneous,” Anastasia muttered, sourly. The bards had hundreds of songs about princes who left their kingdoms to play at being suitors to a princess, winning their hearts by coming hundreds of miles to press their suits in person, but the real world was rarely so obliging. Any spontaneous visit was planned in advance and no one thought otherwise, save perhaps children too young to realise the truth. A prince turning up in disguise, without warning, would be a major scandal. “Do you think his portrait will look like the reality?”

“I couldn’t possibly say,” Patsy said.

“Parliament will have its say,” Anastasia said. It was true. She couldn’t be allowed to make such a choice for herself, not when the kingdom was at stake. “And so will my father.”

She turned her horse and galloped onwards, cantering to her favourite part of the woods. A small lake, so well hidden within the trees that she could pretend she was truly alone. She knew better than to believe it, but … anyone within the Royal Forest without permission would be careful to remain unnoticed, not when a poacher could have his hand cut off for trespassing. Or worse. She pulled Champion to a halt and scrambled off his back, leaving him to nibble the grass as she stepped towards the lake. The horse was too well trained to run off, not unless something happened to her. Lady arrived a moment later, Patsy dropping herself to the ground with a thud. Anastasia didn’t turn. Her maid might not be a good horsewoman, but it was difficult to imagine anything putting her down for long.

The thought faded as she stared over the lake. It was oddly quiet, the normal sound of birds flying through the trees and small rodents darting through the undergrowth almost inaudible. A twinge of unease ran down Anastasia’s spine, banished almost at once. It was a cold day and most of the forest’s wildlife would be nesting, trying to stay warm. She lifted her eyes to the distant mountains, noting the snow on the peaks. It had been a long time since she’d been so far from Caithness, and she’d never be allowed to travel beyond the mountains.

Patsy came up behind her. “A Crown for your thoughts, My Lady?”

Anastasia surprised herself by answering the question. “I’m trapped in a gilded cage.”

There was a hint of … something … in Patsy’s voice. “There are many who would wish to be in your place, My Lady.”

Anastasia blinked. It was rare for anyone to reprove her, let alone scold her. She was the Princess. No one could ever forget that, not even her mother. Certainly not a Lady’s Maid who could be dismissed at any moment, without so much as bothering with an excuse. Anastasia had dismissed maids before. She could certainly do it again.

“You can have it, if you like,” she said, snarkily. It wasn’t going to happen and they both knew it. Anastasia could no more surrender her birthright than she could cut her own throat. “It’s not a blessing.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Patsy said, her voice tinged with dark amusement. “I believe I shall.”

Anastasia turned, quickly. Patsy looked different, in a manner Anastasia couldn’t quite place. She looked … as if she wasn’t trying to be unnoticed, unnoticeable, any longer. Her stance was firmer, drawing attention to her in a manner she normally shunned … she looked, suddenly, very dangerous. Anastasia’s father had a regal presence, one that made it very hard for anyone to disobey his commands; Patsy, now, had a presence of her own. The shock was so great it was hard for Anastasia to think clearly, let alone speak. Her thoughts were spinning helplessly. Everything was just … wrong.

“I …”

Patsy jabbed a finger at Anastasia. Her entire body froze.

It’s a cold morning. I’ve already ran the dishwasher, I have Hot Cinnamon tea in my cup, and my “Christmas” Amaryllis finally bloomed.

Unfortunately, I also have compression gloves on my hands, as the 7th edit of Maggie did kill my hands a little bit. I don’t usually get carpal tunnel. I end up with cubital instead, where my pinkie and ring finger hurt. There is no weakness this time – I heaved a cast iron pan around to check – but the hands do hurt a bit.

Not sure how this is going to work long term, as Gordon’s shoulder is also hurt and I don’t know how much typing he is going to be doing. (None, at least until the MRI on the 15th, ideally.) The worst part is, he doesn’t remember how he hurt himself. There was no “Ow!” moment. Our doc is pretty sure that it’s a partial tear, but when and where it happened is a mystery.

I’m considering an ergonomic keyboard. I loved my split Kinesis, but unfortunately once you get used to typing on it, you can no longer type on the regular keyboard and that drives me nuts, because I do still like computer games. If only there was a keyboard that would be easy on my hands and still let me game, heh.

I have no idea what to make for dinner, but given the cold temperatures currently in Texas, it might end up being a pot roast. Maybe I will make some bread, too. I had pulled out all of the stop for the holidays and did one of those ridiculous plaited breads. Turns out that Hokkaido Milk Bread holds its shape when braided. I might just take the easy way and make your basic French bread in the bread machine, though.

This morning, I have the first scene of Iron and Magic #2 to work on and the bonus content for Maggie. I might work from home today, as the office is kind of chilly. ::looks at the comment count on the prologue:: Hehehehe.

It’s so nice to have encouragement. Thank you, guys.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the new year. It promises a ton of work, but that’s a good problem to have as a writer. It’s when nothing comes out that things go horribly wrong. Someone asked me what my New Year resolution was. I stopped making them awhile ago. It’s like a curse – whatever I resolve to do doesn’t come to pass. But if you want to share yours, I am all ears.

The post Red Flowers and Cold Days first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

What is “Threshold,” you ask? It’s the entrance to a house or building, but that’s not important right now. It’s also the collection of short stories set before, during, and after (but mostly after) the events of the Cradle series!

You may have already read it, if you bought it during our Kickstarter promo last year or if you’re from the future, but if you don’t fall into either of those categories…now’s your chance!

This collection is available in ebook, audio, and paperback (but if you’re buying the paperback, read the SPECIAL PAPERBACK NOTE at the bottom of this post first).*

So go, be free! Read about all the extracurricular adventures the cast is getting up to outside of the plot!

Also, for those of you who read the first version, I’ve fixed a few of the errors you were kind enough to point out. So thanks for doing that! Now small children will stop throwing stones at me in the streets to punish me for my failures.

Links for you and your most special friends:

​Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Threshold-Audiobook/B0DN34J845

Ebook and 6x9 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNKD1JGN 

​And thanks for reading!
-Will

*SPECIAL PAPERBACK NOTE FOR SPECIAL PAPERBACK PEOPLE: the paperback edition we have right now measures 6 inches by 9 inches, which is relatively big.

If you bought your books before March 2023 (just before Waybound), you probably have the smaller size, which is 5 inches by 8 inches. Later this month, we’ll release a 5”x8” version so you can have a copy that matches your set and doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Sorry for the inconvenience! We didn’t want to swap sizes mid-series either.

No, this isn’t a post about birds (though I imagine one or three will be forthcoming before the year is out). As I have already mentioned in this blog, Nancy and I are living in a new place: a house in New York’s Hudson River Valley. We’re on six acres of lovely land, with fruit trees, a pond, open grass, and wooded sections. Nancy has plans for a wildflower meadow, a vegetable garden, and lots of flower beds.

Right now, though, it’s too cold for all of that, and our attention is elsewhere.

We are nesting.

This, at least is the word my parents used to describe that phase after a move when one primps and polishes and purchases things for one’s new home. And, as a birder, I like the term.

We have been painting the house, room by room, for a few weeks now. I will not go so far as to say that the people who inhabited the house before us had terrible taste in wall color. But, bless their hearts (I may have left the South, but it hasn’t entirely left me . . .), they did chose some odd hues for a few of the rooms. We saw the potential of the house right away, but we also knew that we needed to lighten it considerably. This meant having the floors refinished before we moved in. They are wide plank Yellow Pine, and they’re beautiful, but they had been stained dark. And it also meant painting those dark walls a neutral, off-white, and painting the dark red trim (yes, that’s right: Dark. Red. Trim.) a soft beige, about the color of creamed coffee.

Our new living room. The window trim has yet to be painted, but the walls have!

The new floors and walls have transformed the house, which actually has lots of windows and SHOULD be nice and bright. It’s now getting there.

We are also buying stuff. Yes, before moving, we threw away a bunch of our belongings and it felt great. We were lightening our load, downsizing to fit our new, smaller home. And we don’t want to undo all of that hard work. But the fact is, we need some things. We don’t have built-in bookshelves here, so we need bookcases. We have a wonderful outside patio that will require a fire pit at some point. We left our TV and our old stereo for the new owners of the old house. We gave away three beds when we moved and need to replace two of them with sleeper sofas. And we had two incredible vacations last year, and I am eager to turn some of my prized photos into framed art — even though, as Nancy points out again and again, we already have too much stuff to cover our newly painted walls . . . .

Mostly, we are moving stuff around, figuring out where things go, where furniture and art and lighting will look best and do the most good. It’s fun. It is something we are enjoying doing together. And we are slowly turning our new house into a new home, a place in which we will be happy and comfortable for years to come.

Nesting. Feathering the nest. Like some overgrown bower birds looking for shiny, colorful new objects with which to adorn our new domain. That’s us right now. As I say, it’s a lot of fun. Which doesn’t mean we’re not looking forward to being done and fully moved in.

Have a wonderful week!!

No, this isn’t a post about birds (though I imagine one or three will be forthcoming before the year is out). As I have already mentioned in this blog, Nancy and I are living in a new place: a house in New York’s Hudson River Valley. We’re on six acres of lovely land, with fruit trees, a pond, open grass, and wooded sections. Nancy has plans for a wildflower meadow, a vegetable garden, and lots of flower beds.

Right now, though, it’s too cold for all of that, and our attention is elsewhere.

We are nesting.

This, at least is the word my parents used to describe that phase after a move when one primps and polishes and purchases things for one’s new home. And, as a birder, I like the term.

We have been painting the house, room by room, for a few weeks now. I will not go so far as to say that the people who inhabited the house before us had terrible taste in wall color. But, bless their hearts (I may have left the South, but it hasn’t entirely left me . . .), they did chose some odd hues for a few of the rooms. We saw the potential of the house right away, but we also knew that we needed to lighten it considerably. This meant having the floors refinished before we moved in. They are wide plank Yellow Pine, and they’re beautiful, but they had been stained dark. And it also meant painting those dark walls a neutral, off-white, and painting the dark red trim (yes, that’s right: Dark. Red. Trim.) a soft beige, about the color of creamed coffee.

Our new living room. The window trim has yet to be painted, but the walls have!

The new floors and walls have transformed the house, which actually has lots of windows and SHOULD be nice and bright. It’s now getting there.

We are also buying stuff. Yes, before moving, we threw away a bunch of our belongings and it felt great. We were lightening our load, downsizing to fit our new, smaller home. And we don’t want to undo all of that hard work. But the fact is, we need some things. We don’t have built-in bookshelves here, so we need bookcases. We have a wonderful outside patio that will require a fire pit at some point. We left our TV and our old stereo for the new owners of the old house. We gave away three beds when we moved and need to replace two of them with sleeper sofas. And we had two incredible vacations last year, and I am eager to turn some of my prized photos into framed art — even though, as Nancy points out again and again, we already have too much stuff to cover our newly painted walls . . . .

Mostly, we are moving stuff around, figuring out where things go, where furniture and art and lighting will look best and do the most good. It’s fun. It is something we are enjoying doing together. And we are slowly turning our new house into a new home, a place in which we will be happy and comfortable for years to come.

Nesting. Feathering the nest. Like some overgrown bower birds looking for shiny, colorful new objects with which to adorn our new domain. That’s us right now. As I say, it’s a lot of fun. Which doesn’t mean we’re not looking forward to being done and fully moved in.

Have a wonderful week!!

 

On the day the Teller of Small Fortunes came to Necker, the village was in an uproar because the candlemaker's would-be apprentice had lost all the goats.

Laohu plodded to a stop in the town square and Tao patted his rump.

(page 1, The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong)
---------
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, previously hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: - Grab your current read - Open to a random page - Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) - Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their  TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

THE STORM BENEATH THE WORLD

COVER RE-REVEAL!

 

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads, FBC's REVIEW
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael R. Fletcher lives in the endless suburban sprawl north of Toronto. He dreams of trees and seeing the stars at night and being a ninja. He is an unrepentant whiskey-swilling reprobate of the tallest order and thinks grilled cheese sandwiches are a food group.

Publisher: Michael R. Fletcher (April 4, 2024) Length: 366 Formats: ebook, hardcover, paperback

Hi Mike, it’s a pleasure to have you back! We absolutely love The Storm Beneath the World and are thrilled to see it reaching an even broader audience. Hopefully, the new cover helps! Speaking of which—what inspired this redesign (the third one)? Was it driven by fan feedback, a shift in the target audience, or something else?

Thanks for having me back!

The Storm Beneath the World has been an odd experience. My agent loved the book and shopped it to publishers. We got amazingly positive feedback but “We’re not sure how to sell this” was a recurring comment. In the end, everyone passed on the novel, and I decided to self-publish it. Right away it landed amazing reviews. Even back in August, many were saying it was going to be on their Best of the Year list. And yet the sales just weren’t there.

I saw two possible reasons for this: Either people weren’t interested in reading a book without any human characters in it (and fair enough), or the cover art (which I love) wasn’t selling the book. Short of rewriting the entire novel, there isn’t much I can do about the insect cast. So, I decided to try another cover. The book was maybe six months old at this point and hadn’t earned back the cost of art and editing and I was loathe to pour more money into it. I gathered together my colossal lack of artistic talent and created a cover myself

Unsurprisingly, the new cover had zero impact on sales.

Then came the Best of 2024 lists and The Storm Beneath the World appeared on several, including some larger sites like Polygon. Suddenly, the book was selling! It finally broke even and there was enough left over to hire a new artist. I’d previously hired Rachel St. Clair to do a pile of design work for the Black Stone Heart Insanity Edition Kickstarter. As she has been nothing but awesome, I hired her to create a new cover.

Did you have a specific vision for the cover, or did you leave it entirely to the designers? And if so, who are the talented folks behind it?

I had a very specific vision for the original cover (done by Andrew Maleski) and he absolutely nailed it. Since then, however, I’ve heard folks say it’s too dark, too metal, and not representative of the story.

This time, I had a few vague requests and otherwise left it up to Rachel.

How does it compare to the previous versions? Would you say it’s an evolution of the book’s identity or a completely fresh take?

This new cover really is a completely different take. Instead of showing a scene from the book, this is all about the feel.

Covers often shape a reader’s first impression—what kind of reaction are you hoping this one evokes?

I’m not an artist and I’ve always found covers incredibly difficult. Typically, I send an artist several scenes to choose from and then include such helpful suggestions as “Make it gratuitously cool!” I’m always looking for cover art I can put up on my wall and that kinda means it often looks like the cover art for a heavy metal album.  I think that for a lot of my books, that’s perfectly fitting. This book, however, is different. It’s not grimdark. It’s a story about youths discovering themselves and pushing against the bounds of their society. It’s about characters who are trying their best to do the right thing.

And since we have you here, I have to ask—do you have any updates on the sequel’s release date? And will the story remain a duology as you initially planned?

The River of Days is one-third written. Unfortunately, I had to set it aside for more pushing (and likely profitable) projects. During 2024 I finished The Driftland Dragons, a middle-grade fantasy novel, wrote Dust of the Dead (heroic fantasy), which is currently with my agent, and wrote Long Island Memorial (a real-world horror novel) with Clayton Snyder. There’s also going to be one last Obsidian Path novel, and I’ve got to finish that first. There’s a solid chance I’ll have The River of Days out by the end of 2025.

I’m going to wrap this story up in two books. Though the second might be a bit longer than the first.

 

 

 

Krasia is reeling. The demons, long thought vanquished, have of course returned. But the two men who helped to end their threat are thought to be dead and their wives, who also fought the demons, are trapped by the demon horde. It is even more clear now that the new generation, Olive Paper and Darin…

A Tide of Black Steel – Book One of The Age of Wrath trilogy- is published today in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Thanks to everyone at Orbit for making it happen. 

The winners of the signed books and bookplates giveaway have now been chosen and notified – check you spam folders to make sure you haven’t missed out on a prize. Many thanks to everyone who entered and for all the kind comments – sorry I couldn’t reply to everyone individually. 

Reviews:

‘These wonderful characters and story arc complexity matched with Ryan’s ability to build you up to–and deliver–epic moments (including an ending twist that is just chef’s kiss), wonderfully showcases the author’s skills as a fantasy storyteller.’ – Grimdark Magazine.

‘Rich world building, well-developed characters, and shocking betrayals are precisely what readers expect from Anthony Ryan as he kicks off the Age of Wrath trilogy.’ – Booklist.

‘A gripping epic… Ryan distinguishes himself with deep dives into his characters’ psyches and motivations. This is an exciting start.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘A grim, gritty, glorious Norse epic that begs to be devoured by fans of John Gwynne and Michael Hirst’s ‘Vikings’. You will come away with a taste of the salt sea and the smell of blood in the air, and characters you can’t wait to read more about. Grimdark at its finest.’ – FanFiAddict

Book description:

A NEW AGE HAS DAWNED. AN AGE OF BLOOD AND STEEL.
AN AGE OF WRATH.

The land of Ascarlia, a fabled realm of bloodied steel and epic sagas, has been ruled by the Sister Queens for centuries. No one has dared question their rule.

Until now.

Whispers speak of longships of mysterious tattooed warriors, sailing under the banners of a murderous cult of oath-breakers long thought extinct. A tide of black steel that threatens to vanquish all in its path.

Thera of the Blackspear, favoured servant of the Sister Queens, is ordered to uncover the truth. As Thera sails north, her reviled brother, Felnir, sets out on his own adventure. He hopes to find the Vault of the Altvar – the treasure room of the gods – and win the Sister Queens’ favour at his sister’s expense.

Both siblings – along with a brilliant young scribe and a prisoner with a terrifying, primal power – will play a part in the coming storm.

The Age of Wrath has begun.

A Tide of Black Steel begins a new blockbuster epic fantasy series from international bestseller Anthony Ryan, whose books have sold more than a million copies worldwide.

Buy here:

Ebook:  Amazon.com –  Amazon.co.uk –  Nook –  Kobo –  Google Play

UK Hardcover:  Amazon.co.uk –  Waterstones –  Blackwells

Special Edition Signed Hardcover: Goldsboro Books. – The Broken Binding

US Paperback:  Amazon.com –  Barnes and Noble

Audiobook:  Audible.com –  Audible.co.uk –  Barnes and Noble – Google Play

Did a little bit of signing yesterday at The Broken Binding. If you’ve ordered from them, I’m told the books should ship this week. I’m off to Goldsboro Books next week to sign their stock. 

Some people have been asking when or if this book will be published in their language / country. So far, the series has been sold to publishers in France, Germany, Czechia, and Poland. I don’t yet know the publication date for each country but will update as and when I’m told. 

The audiobook edition of The Road of Storms, Volume Six in my Seven Swords novella series, is now available from Audible. 

Buy here:  Audible.com  –  Audible.co.uk

For those who have pre-ordered the signed special hardcover edition, I have been advised by Subterranean Press that a delay at their printers means the books won’t ship until mid-October. In the meantime, you can still pre-order the hardcover from Subterranean Press.

Fortunately, the ebook edition will still be released on September 30th and can be pre-ordered here*: Amazon.com – Amazon.co.uk – Barnes & Noble – Kobo – Apple Books

*Affiliate links used for Amazon stores. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Anyone new to this series should check out Volume One: A Pilgrimage of Swords – details on the book page.

There’s also a prequel Seven Swords short story – The Scarlet Ziggurat – available as a free download on the Subterranean Press website.

In other news, as many of you will be aware, A Tide of Black Steel – Book One of the Age of Wrath trilogy – will be published on September 24th. I’ll be running a signed hardcover / paperback / bookplate giveaway for my mailing list subscribers this Wednesday the 18th. If you’re already a subscriber please watch out for the email and check your spam folders. If you want to enter but aren’t yet a subscriber, sign up here: https://anthonyryan.net/mailing-list/

Those who prefer to ear-read can listen to a 4 minute sample of the first chapter, as read by the inestimable Steven Brand, here: https://soundcloud.com/hachetteaudio/a-tide-of-black-steel-by-anthony-ryan-read-by-steven-brand

 

HELL OF A WITCH
coming out Oct 1, 2024!The hotly anticipated sequel to HELL FOR HIRE...

One month ago, Bex, the demon queen, and Adrian, witch of the Blackwood, pulled off the upset victory of the century. Now, they find themselves facing the question all unexpected champions must answer: what next? They declared war on Heaven, but how do you actually bring down a divinely powerful tyrant when your army’s still in the single digits and your magical fortress is an illegally modified Winnebago?

It seems like a hopeless situation. As always, though, Adrian Blackwood has a plan, and this time, he’s going big. He’s got an idea to take down the Seattle Anchor, the giant magical fortress that houses the Anchor Market and every other bit of critical infrastructure that connects Heaven to Earth.

How the Anchors work is a closely guarded secret, and getting to the good stuff will require going deep into the heart of Gilgamesh’s power. There’s a reason even the Queen of Wrath has never attacked one directly, but now that Adrian’s on her team, Bex thinks they can do it. She’s finally got the power she needs to actually move the needle on this war, and she’s going to hit that Anchor with all the fire she’s got.

But the enemies of Heaven aren’t the only ones making plans. After the fiery return of his most persistent annoyance, Gilgamesh has ordered his princes to take care of the demon queen problem personally. It’s time to roll out the big guns and show these rebels what divine wrath really means, starting with the Hell of a Witch who made it all possible.

Coming out October 1 in ebook, Kindle Unlimited, paperback, hardback, and an absolutely incredible audio edition!Preorder Now!Boston, what are you doing? Get out from in front of the title!

*Attempts to push familiar away with broom. Broom and cat team up. The author is forced to retreat.*

Ahem... It's sequel time! Y'all made HELL FOR HIRE one of my best new launches ever, and now the second book is almost here. HELL OF A WITCH has more of everything you love, and it's coming out all formats on October 1! Hooray!

Thank you all so much for making this series such a success. I'm so grateful you're enjoying the story, because I love these misfits to death. So much that I've already written book 3, which will be coming out in early 2025! So many books! It's the best of times.

I really hope you'll give HELL OF A WITCH a try, and if you haven't cracked into my Tear Down Heaven series yet, what are you waiting for? It's awesome! The audio book in particular is *chef's kiss*. One of the best things we've ever done. Highly recommended. 

Again, thank you all so so much for being my readers and listeners. I hope you love this book as much as I do. It's just so much fun and I can't wait for you to get into it. This series is going to be a truly epic ride.

Thanks again for making my dreams come true! Yours always and forever,

Rachel AaronWitch Career Counselor Assistant to the Familiars
HELL OF A WITCH is the second book in the Tear Down Heaven series. If you're new, start from the beginning with HELL FOR HIRE. I promise you won't be sorry!

 

From the BLURB: 
Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met.
They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. 
What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. 
Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women. 
Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, and gives these women back their stories. 
⦾
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold, read on audiobook by Louise Brealey. 
“Poor women were expendable …”
I listened to the audiobook of this, via my library's BorrowBox app - even though I've also owned the B-format paperback since about 2020, I could just never bring myself (or my heart) to pick it  up and read it of my own volition, but on audiobook I tore through it. And under the talent of Brealey's narration, who could bring out various regional accents to really help things along - it was superb. 
This was such a tough listen but I’m really really glad that I finished this book and I found it to be an extraordinary non-fiction work and by far one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read in a long time. 
I was completely upended, however to discover that this book has pissed off so many people and specifically “Ripperologists” to the point that Hallie Rubenhold has been horribly abused and harassed because she did to research into the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper - and put fourth credible evidence that not all of them were prostitutes as the sick lore of this madman murdering spree dictated for so long. 
Her book is a gracious and human examination of what it meant to be a woman in the 1880s and the impossible position that they were put in to either be Madonna or whore. She digs into the Victorian mindset of the time that insisted that their murders had to somehow be prescriptive to the wider public and so they were painted as Scarlet women. Their stories absolutely broke my heart and patterns did emerge in all of them — domestic violence, alcoholism (if only to have some alleviation from the drudgery of being a woman at the time) …  the way people were kept impoverished and women in particular who had to bear the burden of childbirth and child rearing. Lack of education being the lightning rod overarching issue for so many people of this time. Just an incredible historical examination of everything never said about these women that I found to be so touching and crucial.
As I was reading, I was repeatedly struck by the realisation of how true it is now - just as it was in 1888 - that all it takes is a bad bout of luck, illness or injury for any one of us to experience houselessness and our fate to be completely undone. I thought that about each of these women at so many points in their life as Hallie unpicked them for us ... and my god, did my heart go out to them - across space and time. 
The very final chapter in the book is the Author listing all of the items found on four of the victims upon their death; in one of their pockets was one red mitten — and that visual is just touching and heartbreaking, as was the entire book.
5/5

I’m happy to announce that The Book Burner’s Fall – A Raven’s Shadow Novella – is now available in ebook and print. This is the standalone version of the story that originally appeared in The King Must Fall anthology from Grimdark Magazine. Thanks to Kevin Goeke (https://movco-art.com) for the amazing cover illustration and Shawn King (http://www.stkkreations.com) for the book design.

Here’s the blurb:

The Unified Realm in the reign of King Lakril, known to history as the book burner – an impoverished realm brought to the brink of destruction by Lakril’s paranoid tyranny. 

Kestra Saero, once the most deadly assassin to serve the Seventh Order of the Faith, is tempted back to the fold by an irresistible mission: kill the book burner. Driven by a deep desire for retribution but distrustful of her new comrades, Kestra must infiltrate a royal palace transformed into a carnival of horrors and slay the monster that lurks at its heart. But killing a king could never be an easy matter…

Set a century before the events in the Raven’s Shadow trilogy, The Book Burner’s Fall is a thrilling tale of dark magic and bloody vengeance.

Buy the ebook:  Amazon.com  –  Amazon.co.uk  –  Nook   –  Kobo – Apple Books – Google Play

Buy the paperback:  Amazon.com  –  Amazon.co.uk

In other news, those fine purveyors of special edition books at The Broken Binding are now taking pre-orders for signed hardcovers of A Tide of Black Steel – Book One of The Age of Wrath. 

This signed royal hardcover edition will feature digital edges, foil on boards, designed endpapers, and head and tail bands. Head over to the Broken Binding website to place your orders.

A Tide Of Black Steel

Full details on A Tide of Black Steel and pre-order links for other formats can be found on the book page.

In a few short days, Prince of Thorns becomes a teenager and will be the same age as Jorg himself for the first few pages of the novel!

I never expected to be an author. I certainly never expected this guy to pay off my mortgage. And I absolutely didn't expect to still be signing copies of the book in my local Waterstones 13 years after it was published.

The shelf life of an author is typically one book. Fantasy authors more often get a trilogy, because that's how fantasy rolls. But yup, not many of us hang around for long, and the past 13 years are littered with the bright flashes of many fine writers who came along about the same time as me.
I've said - so often that I'm bored of hearing myself say it - that all forms of writing success require large doses of luck. Skill at writing and at story telling are what buys you the lottery ticket. After that you need the stars to align.
It's easy to focus on the hyper-rare examples where the celestial alignment has been of atonishing proportions, and to feel a measure of discontent. But I'm constantly aware that so many fine writers have failed to flourish where I've been fortunate enough to make a living for over a decade now.
So, in part this post is a big thankyou to all you readers who've made that possible.

It's scary to look back at my bibliography and think that (with the exception of the Impossible Times books) each of those novels represents a year of my life. I have grown significantly older doing this...
People often talk to me about pride and about legacy, as if these stories are somehow more of an achievement than the myriad things everyone else has spent the last 13+ years on. I don't subscribe to that point of view, at all. Almost every book is a line drawn in wet sand and if the wave that will wash them away hasn't arrived in 13 years, then it's certainly going to hit the beach at some point, and sooner than most folk think.
I'm pleased and grateful that I've been able to share these stories, but 'proud' isn't a word I'd use. It's ... complicated.
Anyway, enough navel gazing. Just as I had no idea what the 13 years after Prince of Thorns hitting the shelves would look like, I have no idea where we'll be when the book reaches 18 or 21. Will anyone remember Jorg on the 25th anniversary in 2036 ... who knows. 
For now though, the ideas keep coming and the itch to write continues to require scratching. I've finished three books this year, and hopefully will have a 4th done by Christmas.
Thanks for reading!


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From the BLURB: 

A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL. 

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. 

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. 

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

'The Ministry of Time' is the debut novel from British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London, Kaliane Bradley. 

So, this may well be my favourite book of 2024. WOW-ee. What an enjoyable read, especially for a low-science fiction girly whose particular proclivity is time-travel tales (those are always my fave 'Doctor Who' episodes, the back-in-time ones). So, some random observations; 

⦿ I am very fond of 2005 YA novel 'The White Darkness' by Geraldine McCaughrean, which is about a teenage girl who is genuinely in love with (the long-dead) Captain Lawrence 'Titus' Oates from the doomed Terra Nova Expedition. So when I read the blurb for 'The Ministry of Time' about Britain having harnessed time-travel and successfully bought six travellers from various eras to the modern-day, including Commander Graham Gore from the doomed Franklin expedition - I was all in. *Especially* when the blurb hinted that Gore's present-day "bridge" - the protagonist of the novel who is tasked with helping him acclimatise and who maybe starts to develop feelings - I was *ALL IN*. 

⦿ Time-travel has always been my bag. Modern-day women falling for out-of-time men is my particular favourite sub-genre ... I know exactly when this started; 'Playing Beatie Bow' by Ruth Park, and the time-travelling Abigail falling for Judah in the 1800's. This was particularly cemented when I read 'Outlander' by Diana Gabaldon as an 18-year-old; WWII army-nurse Claire passing through the stones to Jamie Fraser in the 18th century. No doubt there's some Marty McFly 'Back to the Future' Michael J. Fox appreciation thrown in there too. But this sub-genre of sci-fi and time-travel is my jamboree. And 'The Ministry of Time' gave it to me in HEAPINGS of timey-wimey goodness. The romance is slow-burn but makes up for it because our protagonist (whose name we don't know, but we get an intimate first-person account from) crushes HARD on Gore and that amps up the burn. But I was also very sucked into the mechanics and politics of the time-travel itself, so it wasn't like I was ever cooling my heels and checking my watch for the low sci-fi to get good ... it was ALL good. 

⦿ The politics of time-travel in this book reminded me of the Norwegian sci-fi series 'Beforeigners', about people from different time-periods suddenly randomly appearing in Oslo, becoming refugees of time that the Norwegian government has to deal with. It's also a little bit like the (brilliant) Aussie TV series 'Glitch' set in a small outback town where; 'Seven people from different time-periods return from the dead with no memory and attempt to unveil what brought them to the grave in the first place.' I like this connection in particular because there's a shady organisation linked to the raising of the dead, a big-pharma laboratory called "Noregard" (best in-universe name for a corporation, ever.) It's also a wee bit like the 2001 rom-com starring Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan, 'Kate & Leopold' about an English Duke from 1876 falling for a modern-day New Yorker when he's unceremoniously dragged into the future. If any/all of those recs are your picnic; this book is for you. 

⦿ He filled the room like a horizon ... the writing was sumptuous, and gorgeous at times. Sometimes Bradley had a turn-of-phrase of description that made me go "ohhhhh." When something changes you constitutionally, you say: ‘the earth moved,’ but the earth stays the same. It’s your relationship with the ground that shifts. 

⦿ I actually first heard about this book, in a Guardian round-up of British debuts to look out for, and the description of Kaliane Bradley's idea made my spine sizzle and then I Googled her even more and found that she partly wrote the idea for 'The Ministry of Time' during Covid and lockdowns and because she kinda fell in love with the only photograph of Graham Gore. No, really. 'Kaliane Bradley Fell in Love With a Dead Man. The Result Is The Ministry of Time' ... if that's not an *amazing* sales-pitch I don't know what is. 

⦿ I just loved this. It's extremely cinematic and I wouldn't be surprised to find it is being developed into a movie or limited-TV series. It both feels appropriately head-nodding to plenty of other fabulous low-sci-fi time-travel that will make aficionados happy, but also sparkly-unique enough to keep adding to the conversation about the space-time continuum. Even if I guessed the small twist that comes, I did so because I know this sub-genre so well and expected certain markers along the way and Bradley did not disappoint. I loved this so much, I was only one-chapter in when I knew it'd give me the best bookish hangover and be hard book to follow-up, probably throwing me into a reading-rut.

5/5

Grim Oak Press are following up on their spectacular leatherbound, signed and numbered, illustrated 10th anniversary limited editions for the individual books of The Broken Empire by doing the same thing for The Red Queen's War trilogy, starting with Prince of Fools!

The new covers and internal art are all by the original cover artist, Jason Chan.
Pre-order your copy here: https://grimoakpress.com/products/prince-of-fools

Here's a piece of the artwork - check the link for more!

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