Tracy Falbe's Blog, page 24

Sequel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Famous The Hound of the Baskervilles Continues Sherlick Holmes' Legacy

Apparently with the blessing of the Doyle Estate, a sequel to the Hound of the Baskervilles called The Widow of Dartmoor and written by Wick Downing continues the tradition of Sherlock Holmes novels. Keeping to the classic Victorian style the book features the nephew of Sherlock Holmes as the hero. This press release even states that Sherlock Holmes holds a Guiness World Record for being the most displayed character on stage and screen.


[image error] SBWire Over 100 Years on and a Sequel to the Hound of the Baskervilles Is Released (via SBWire)
London, UK -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/08/2014 -- The most famous Sherlock Holmes story of all time, The Hound of The Baskervilles, has been thrilling readers for well over 100 years and now there is a sequel – ’The Widow of Dartmoor’. Wick Downing, a former…

Thank You TC Southwell for Supporting the Book Blast

My little blog tours wouldn't happen without the generosity of bloggers. TC Southwell whose many novels have earned her devoted fans started off my Union of Renegades Book Blast yesterday. I'm also an admirer of her fantasy books. See my review of Demon Lord to find out how addictive her fiction can be. (Who can resist a book called Demon Lord?)

Union of Renegades Tours 7 Blogs With Fantasy Ebook Giveaways

For five days from May 5th to May 9th, my fantasy novel Union of Renegades will tour 7 blogs with a book blast meant to promote The Rys Chronicles series.

Every host blog for the promotional book blast will connect readers with the free ebook Union of Renegades at the retailer of their choice.

And all readers are invited to sign up to receive a 100% off coupon for the next book in the series The Goddess Queen: The Rys Chronicles Book II. Coupons will be delivered through Smashwords on May 10th so everyone can download a free copy. I'm using Smashwords to distribute prizes because of its international accessibility and multiple ebook formats.

Every blog will also present my guest post Meet the Players – Insights into the Main Characters in Union of Renegades where I reveal what I was thinking when I created the four major characters in the novel.

Visit and follow the blog hosts to discover an endless supply of great indie books.
Vanessa Finaughty Fantasy BooksMathewReuther.comFind Stuff 2 ReadTo Write My Story Would Be An Awfully Big AdventureWorlds of Magic and AdventureDisciple of the FountTC Southwell

Union of Renegades is free at Brave Luck Books and major ebook retailers Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords.
Join my email list through May 9th and I'll send you coupon on May 10th to get The Goddess Queen: The Rys Chronicles Book II ($4.99 value) for free at Smashwords.   (This allows people access to the prize around the world in whatever format they like.)
Many thanks to my kind blog hosts. 

Blades of the Old Empire Fantasy Book Review

Review of Blades of the Old Empire by Anna Kashina published by Angry Robot Books.




In Blades of the Old Empire by Anna Kashina a fantasy world is on the cusp of great change. For centuries the official religion has restricted magic by testing children and killing those with magic powers.

But now the Kaddim Brotherhood has unleashed an ancient evil that will give them the power to dominate all peoples and only Prince Kythar, whose magic was hidden during childhood, can stop them.

Many relationships in this sprawling epic produce a book with interesting contrasts. Kythar or Kyth for short and his friend Ellah are in love and falling in love respectively with diamond warriors of the Majat guild. This guild sells security services to powerful people and diamond Majats are the most lethal.

Kyth is in love with a Kara, a prodigy even among diamond Majats. As a young man, his love toward her is simple, unquestioning, and intense, but these are age appropriate characteristics for his emotions. Kara, although young, almost seems too mature and worldly for Kyth, but she returns his affection.

Through the course of the story the young woman Ellah also falls for a diamond Majat named Mai. He is an enigma, acting both aloof yet charming. He is also a consummate warrior whose masculinity entices Ellah. She represents the plain girl who wants a man seemingly out of her league.

I really enjoyed Ellah's story line because she did not have fantastic fighting skills. She was just a girl off the farm who was now acting on the stage of world events. She offered a pleasing foil to Kara, who is fast, graceful, beautiful, respected, and brilliant.

Beyond the carefully woven tapestry of characters, Kashina presents a fantasy world of rich detail. It possesses a reverence for Nature illustrated in Ayalla, a supernatural female like a forest or Earth goddess. Trees follow her and form her shelter wherever she stops, and a garment of living spiders hangs upon her body.

Blades of the Old Empire is written at a good pace. Shocking action and turbulent emotions abound. I recommend the book to people who like Medieval style fantasy with quests and lots of characters.

4 Writing Tips from Australian Writer Ray Gates

Today I found a useful writing advice article. I think it has good value and will help people who desire the writing life but are finding it difficult to walk the walk. As someone who has written almost every day for many years, I can recommend these writing tips from Australian writer Ray Gates.


[image error] You Really Can Write Every Day: My 4 Tips (via http://raygates.me)
If you’ve ever tried to be a writer, at some point you will no doubt have come across the sagely advice that to become a good writer, you must write every single day. There is certainly truth to this: writing is a skill, and like any skill, the more…

Available for Pre Order on Barnes & Noble Nook My First Children's Book Bear Dog Dog Bear

The $2.99 Ebook for Bear Dog Dog Bear is now available for Pre-Order on Nook. It is releasing May 8th. The listing is so new that the description has not been loaded at Barnes & Noble yet so I'll provide it here.

Children's Chapter Book of approximately 12,000 words.

It’s easy to see what you’re told to see.

Daniel Wood and his family are getting a puppy. A black German Shepherd puppy to be precise. His dad already picked her out on the internet, and they are on the road to the breeder’s house at the end of a long creepy country road into the woods. It looks like a woods where bears might live, but no one is thinking about that when disaster strikes the puppy barn.

This cheerful chapter book brings the wild into suburban Cherry Park and sets a puppy loose in the countryside.Daniel has no idea what is happening until the truth is broadcast on the evening news and a video of his dad wrestling a bear cub hits YouTube.

Only $2.99 on Nook

Union of Renegades featured fantasy ebook at Indie Book Bargains

Ebook readers in the United Kingdom have been alerted to the free Kindle book Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I by Indie Book Bargains. Thanks for featuring my free title. Many fantasy fans have falled in love with this series.

Join the Union of Renegades Book Blast with Unlimited Ebook Prizes for Everyone

Union of Renegades Book BlastIndie Fantasy for People Who Don’t Do What They’re Told
Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I is the first novel I published and the gateway to the epic world of the rys revealed through 7 more novels.
A Little History

Union of Renegades was published way before there were any kindles or nooks or ipads. There weren’t even many book blogs back in 2006 when I started producing my fiction. Because I’m a person who thinks it’s never too late for anything, I’m organizing a book blast to let readers know about it.
Union of Renegades will now get the honeymoon it deserves after many years of marriage!
By joining the book blast bloggers get to let their readers know about a free fantasy ebook deal. Union of Renegades is free at Brave Luck Books and major ebook retailers Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords.
Is there a giveaway prize with the book blast?
Everyone who wants a prize can get one. In addition to getting the free Union of Renegades ebook, blog visitors who join my email list will be sent a coupon code from Smashwords to download the sequel The Goddess Queen: The Rys Chronicles Book II. This allows people access to the prize around the world in whatever format they like.
When is the book blast?
The Union of Renegades book blast will run from May 5th to May 9th. Bloggers can select any of those days to participate.
What is the content of the book blast?
Every blogger will receive the following materials to publish:
Book blast graphic and cover imagesShort blurbMeet the main players article - This will introduce readers to the main characters including what they represent in my mind and how I developed them. 3-chapter excerpt presented in an embeddable SlideShare presentation that's easy for everyone to use.Links to free Union of Renegades ebookInvitation to join my email list and receive the coupon for the free copy of The Goddess Queen. This will be a link to the Mailchimp form. How to join the book blast
Fill out the form below and I will follow up with all the materials. Loading...

New 5 star Review of Rys Rising on Kindle Praises Character Development

As an author it's always a special moment when a reader contacts me to say how much she enjoyed my novel. In a personal email Julia P. told me that she had just finished reading Rys Rising: Book I and was looking forward to the rest of the series.

She also left this nice 5-star review in the Kindle store for Rys Rising: Book I on April 18th.

 
I'm glad that she praised Rys Rising: Book I for being a "true novel not a 200 page attempt to get me to buy the next in the series."

The first book of the Rys Rising series is over 175,000 words of hard-hitting epic fantasy that sprawls across two civilizations and includes two magical races the rys and the tabre. Although it of course sets up the story for the next 3 books in the series, it contains a complete story arc. My novels always have a complete story within them but are of course intended to leave you wanting more. The wanting more comes from caring about the characters or at least being fascinated by them. I strive to bring characters alive in readers' heads so that they will wonder about their futures.

Rys Rising: Book I is a $2.99 ebook at numerous retailers.

Get it at:Kindle USKindle UKKindle CanadaKindle GermanyKindle FranceKindle Australia iTunes
Barnes & Noble 
Kobo 
Smashwords  Also available in paperback and hardcover.
 

My Writing Process Blog Hop

I was tagged by Will Hahn to answer questions about my writing process. When Hahn wrote about his writing process I learned that he's a chronicler not a writer. I like this distinction, and to be precise he chronicles the Tales from the Land of Hope.

Honored that he thought of me when it was time to pass on the baton of this blog hop, I now present my writing process.

1. What am I working on?

I have almost completed the manuscript for my tenth novel Journey of the Hunted. It is a historical fantasy set in 1561 Bohemia that blends the supernatural folklore of the time about werewolves, fairies, and witches into the real historical setting of the Holy Roman Empire. Journey of the Hunted picks up the story in Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale published last November. That novel ended with Thal learning that his sorcerer father Sarputeen was alive. Journey of the Hunted tells the story of Thal crossing Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia on his way to his father’s castle in the Tatras Mountains. His journey is complicated by the fact that he has multiple warrants for his arrest for shapeshifting, Devil worship, and a killing spree. It’s all true, except for the Devil worship, and the roads are swarming with bounty hunters eager to slay the fearsome werewolf called the “Butcher of Prague” and collect the reward of 200 gold florins.
 
Thal is not overly worried about the bounty hunters because he is a werelord with an enchanted wolf fur that lets him change into a werewolf at will. Regardless of the phase of the moon he can transform into his mighty wolf self and generally slay whoever threatens him. He does not necessarily bother with that because his sword, pair of pistols, and supernatural strength suffice to handle most problems. The regular folk he meets along the road are wooed by his charm and notoriety along with the fact that he travels with a talented troupe of musicians.    

Everything is going well until he encounters a bounty hunter that’s a werewolf. Then his guide Mileko informs him that this werewolf is the agent of Tekax, a powerful sorcerer and nemesis of Thal’s father. Instead of anticipating a happy reunion with his father, Thal is now at the center of a conflict of rival sorcerers.
 
Journey of the Hunted is tentatively planned for a late summer or fall release.
     
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My historical fantasy Werelord Thal is different because there are not many novels set in that time period. I know it seems hard to believe but there is no “Renaissance” category of historical fiction. There’s “Medieval” which is similar, but Werelord Thal has very Renaissance themes. The Renaissance is also very accurately labeled the Early Modern period because western civilization was shifting out of the Medieval era and the institutions and global empires of our modern world were taking shape. So my historical fantasy set in the Renaissance presents a supernatural adventure against the backdrop of a crucial technological innovation (printing books) and the social and religious upheaval of the 16th century, illustrated gruesomely by the horrors of state-sanctioned torture and witch hunting.

As for my epic fantasies, I shy away from the tried-and-true motif of the orphan young man or woman who discovers his or her magical powers are needed to save the world. In my novels the magical races of the rys and tabre have powers and people are just people. They have enchanted items like crystals and swords given to them that offer protection from spells, but people don’t have any magic. I find it much more interesting to develop characters who have to cope within a world run by magical superior beings.

Also unlike the typical good prevailing against evil that fantasy is so well known for, I delve into rather dark and cynical themes, but my stories are given heart by intense family loyalties, romance, and great friendships.   

3. Why do I write what I do?

Fantasy has and will always be my favorite genre. I read all types of books, fiction and nonfiction, but fantasy is my creative space. I just don’t know if I could go through the trouble of writing a novel and not put magic and sword fights in it.

4. How does my writing process work?

It begins with me tapping into the ocean of characters and adventures that fills my mind. I focus on my feelings and from these will come characters. And sometimes characters just show up on their own like stray cats that demand that I write epics about them instead of a bowl of milk.

As I populate a story I think about the plot and what I want to communicate. I always have an ending in mind before I start composing the manuscript. I think it is important to know where I’m going before I start. There’s room for my imagination to throw things in along the way, but I want to work toward a goal.

Once I’ve settled on roughly what the story is I’ll start writing. I call this the composition stage. I try to write every day. While I’m composing a novel, I go back and read what I’ve written. After the manuscript is complete, I’ll do a complete read through. Then I’ll start editing. I’ll go through it two more times. The second phase is a strong edit and the third read through is a close proofreading and copyedit. Then it’s ready for the public.