A Name for the Space Adventure

I can't believe it's nearly time for this release, but I'm so excited to finally be sharing this adventure with you. Kira's story has been in my head in one form or another since I was twelve. When we were younger, my sister used to beg me to finish this story. She'd read the first few chapters  (admittedly not well written since I was twelve) and something about the characters had captured her imagination. A good thing too, since they'd done the same to me.

Despite that, the story never felt ready to be written. Then came Wayfarer's Keep and suddenly the characters in Kira's universe could no longer be silenced. I'd originally planned this to be my passion project -- something I tinkered with on the weekends while my weeks remained devoted to my main projects. Of course, my books have a tendency of taking over and after Dawn's Envoy, I knew I couldn't keep this one on the back burner any longer. 

I'm so glad at  least a piece of this story will soon be out there and no longer running amok in my dreams.

 Before you ask, this is planned to be at least a three book series. Knowing me that will probably spiral into five or six. I can't help it. Once I get into a world I have to explore all the hidden crevasses and side characters. 

I sincerely hope you enjoy this new world. It's near and dear to my heart. 

Happy Reading.

Rules of Redemption

The war everyone thought was over is just beginning.

Kira Forrest is a survivor. She’s risen above the pain of her beginnings to become a war hero only to leave it all behind in the pursuit of a simple life. Now a salvager, she makes a living sifting through the wreckage of dead alien ships from a war that nearly brought humanity to its knees.

After her ship takes damage, she’s forced to re-route to a space station where her past and present collide with dangerous consequences.

Kira’s existence holds the key to a faltering peace treaty with the Tuann—a technologically advanced alien race who dislikes and distrusts all humans. Winning her freedom should be easy, but a powerful and relentless Tuann warrior stands in her way. Deceiving him seems impossible, especially when he strays dangerously close to secrets she struggles to hide.

Can Kira reconcile the pain of her past with the possibilities of her future? The fate of two races depends on her success.

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Excerpt

It's Finally Here

I'm excited to announce Of Bone and Ruin - Book Two in the Dragon Ridden Chronicles is now up on Amazon. This book has been a long time coming so I'm excited that it's finally here. It was never my intention to wait so long between publishing Dragon Ridden and its sequel. Somehow time got away from me and before I knew it several years had passed. I promise not to wait so long to release the next book in the series. I hope you have as much fun with Tate and the crew as I did.

An ancient discovery has been made close to the city of Aurelia—one that promises wealth and power equal only to the dangerous secrets lying at its heart.

With three powerful groups vying for control of the discovery’s unlimited potential, it will take a delicate touch not to tip the scales toward war. Something Tate Fisher, a newly accepted dragon-ridden with a bit of a memory problem, has never been known for possessing.

Tate must learn to navigate the undercurrents of this society if she wants her friends and empire to come out the other side in one piece. Because these secrets involve Tate, and they don’t intend to let her go so easily.

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The Nature of Sequels

Writing a sequel, I've come to discover, is different than writing the first book in a world. I felt that way when I wrote the sequel to Shadow's Messenger, and I'm feeling it even more with the sequel to Dragon-Ridden.

With a first book, everything is new. Every detail you make up, every character you name, every cool idea you insert into the story. With a sequel, you have an established history. Names and character descriptions have to stay the same from book to book. No changing a blonde to a brunette. No giving a character a back story that completely contradicts what happened in the last book. It can be maddening trying to remember everything.

To get around this problem, I've made extensive note cards filled with character descriptions, place descriptions and major themes or plot points from the first book. It helps, but there's always something missing from my notes. Often I find myself forgetting a character's name and having to insert xxx as a place holder so I don't slow the rate of writing. This works, but occasionally I have so many xxx in a chapter that the characters run together and I have to untangle the threads during edits. 

The more difficult problem, aside from keeping characters and places consistent across books, is giving the world context in the sequel. How do you get across all of the major details of the world without providing your reader with an info dump or a complete rehash of what happened in the last book? Additionally, the writer needs to layer on those details to create an even more complex and rich world with every book they write in the series.

Dragon-Ridden's sequel feels infinitely more difficult to do this with than Shadow's Messenger's sequel. Maybe because I had to create everything in that world whereas Aileen's world takes place in modern day Columbus. Or maybe it's because it's been so long since I worked in Tate's world that its taking me a moment to get back into the rhythm of it. Either way, I've managed to get several pages of words down this weekend. I'm happy to say I officially have a beginning. Though I have no idea how much of that beginning will make it to final edits.