Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 2
September 24, 2025
SHIELD OF POWER now in audiobook!
September 23, 2025
BLADE OF FLAMES now available!
I am pleased to report that BLADE OF FLAMES, the first book in my new BLADES OF RUIN epic fantasy series, is now available!
You can get it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, and Smashwords.
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Return to the realm of Owyllain in the latest epic fantasy adventure from Jonathan Moeller, author of the bestselling SEVENFOLD SWORD & THE SHIELD WAR series.
In an hour of darkness, a new hero awakens.
Talembur awakens alone in a forgotten catacomb, his memory lost.
Sinister enemies wielding dark magic pursue him, seeking to claim the sword he bears.
Yet while Talembur might have forgotten his past, his skills have not left him.
He will make his enemies beware, for he knows how to wield the deadly sword that he carries…
-JM
September 22, 2025
Coupon of the Week, 9/22/25
Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!
This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book #1 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store:
FALLMAGIC50
The coupon code is valid through September 29, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we’ve got you covered!
-JM
September 18, 2025
Headaches
Today I did something I haven’t done for about a year, which is to write a scene that’s going to cause long-term headaches for Nadia MacCormac.
Yes, at long last, CLOAK OF WORLDS is finally underway. More details about that to come next week!
-JM
The Thousand Hours
Recently I totaled up the length of my various audiobooks, and as of SHIELD OF BATTLE and GHOST IN THE CORRUPTION, I now have over a thousand hours of finished audio.
That’s a lot of audio! Like, there’s 168 hours in a week, so if you listened to my audiobooks beginning to end seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day, it would take you almost six weeks to get through it all.
To celebrate, let’s have a free audio short story!
The audiobook version of GHOST RELICS will be free until September 30th, 2025.
-JM
September 17, 2025
sign up for my newsletter and get a free short story!
Editing proceeds well on BLADE OF FLAMES, so if you sign up for my new release newsletter, you’ll get a free ebook copy of the short story THUNDER HAMMER when the book comes out!
Signing up for my newsletter is a good idea anyway, since I give away short stories on a regular basis.
-JM
September 16, 2025
The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 268: Does Permafree Still Work For Indie Authors?
In this week’s episode, we take a look at permafree as a marketing strategy for indie authors, and examine if it still works. I also take a look at advertising results for August 2025.
You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.
-JM
September 15, 2025
BLADE OF FLAMES Chapter 1
Editing is proceeding well on BLADE OF FLAMES. Since it’s a brand-new series, I thought I would share the first chapter below!
The book should be out before the end of September if all goes well.
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“Wake up.”
Talembur felt his eyelids flutter.
“Talembur, you need to wake up.”
The woman’s voice was a faint whisper, one that he heard with his thoughts rather than his ears.
His mind stirred, slowly pulling itself up from the depths of sleep.
“Wake up.”
The voice faded away.
Talembur opened his eyes and drew in a long breath.
He was lying on stone, warm and smooth against the skin of his back and legs. Silence surrounded him, and a dim blue light shone from somewhere. Talembur turned his head and saw that he was lying within a lidless sarcophagus of dark stone.
Was he dead?
No, he was breathing, and he felt his heart beating. Talembur pushed against the stone and sat up, his muscles stiff and slow. He was naked, but the old scars on his legs and forearms drew his eye.
Slowly he realized that he didn’t know where he was, how he had gotten here, or how he had acquired those scars.
For that matter, he didn’t remember who he was.
Talembur, that was his name. He knew that much.
As for where he was, perhaps he could figure that out.
He should start by standing up.
Slowly Talembur eased to his feet, climbed from the sarcophagus, and looked around.
He was in a rectangular stone chamber with a vaulted roof, thick pillars supporting the ceiling. The sarcophagus was set into the floor, and a dim blue light came from nowhere, casting odd shadows over the chamber. Talembur turned in a slow circle, but nothing moved, and he heard nothing but the steady hiss of his breathing.
He had heard a woman speaking, telling him to wake up. Talembur searched for her, moving from pillar to pillar, his feet making no sound against the cold floor. Yet there was no sign of the woman or of anyone else here.
He was certain that he had heard her voice.
Her name…
Talembur couldn’t remember her name. Yet he was certain that he knew it, that her voice had been familiar, yet he could not draw it from the fog of his memory.
It occurred to Talembur that he could remember nothing of this place, though it seemed somehow familiar. Indeed, he could remember very little at all
Perhaps that realization should have filled him with dread.
Instead, he felt only curiosity, as if he had just been handed an interesting puzzle to solve.
Maybe that was proof there was indeed something wrong with his mind.
But as the sluggishness of sleep passed, his thoughts arranged themselves in an orderly fashion to consider the problems before him. Talembur needed to discern where he was, who had brought him here, and whether that person was a friend or an enemy. More urgently, he needed to locate food, weapons, and other supplies. And clothing, of course. The stone chamber was uncomfortably chill yet endurable, but Talembur would need proper clothing to traverse the wilderness.
He paused, wondering why he had assumed there was wilderness outside this place. For all he knew, there was a bustling city outside. Nevertheless, Talembur was certain that when he left this chamber, he would find only ruins and wilderness.
Assuming he could find his way outside, of course.
Talembur searched the chamber. The thick pillars and vaulted ceiling gave it the look of a crypt beneath a church, and he had the vague sense that he had been here before. Obviously, he had been here before, given that he had just woken up, but he could summon only dim, flickering hints of a recollection.
There were no other tombs or sarcophagi in the chamber. The sarcophagus that had held him was made of different stone that the rock of the pillars and floor. Yet there was another slab of the same cloudy dark stone set into the far wall, and Talembur gazed at it.
He could just make out his reflection in the stone.
Yes, that was his face. A good sign – apparently his mind was not so damaged that it would fail to recognize things when he saw them. His face was a bit gaunt, with a thick blond beard and ragged blond hair that hung to the base of his neck. His eyes were a bright shade of green that gleamed like ice in the sun.
His body…
His body had many scars.
Talembur must have been a warrior, because he had both the musculature and the scars for it. Old slashes marked the thick muscles of his arms and legs, and more marked his chest. Both his arms and legs bore strange lines of thin parallel scars, as if someone had traced a sharp blade over his skin. A method of torture, perhaps?
They all paled in comparison to a single massive scar just below his sternum. Talembur turned and tried to look at his back in the mirror, and he saw a parallel scar a bit left of his spine. It looked as if he had been stabbed either with sufficient force that the weapon had burst from his back.
That should have been a fatal wound.
Once again, Talembur wondered if he was dead, but the balance of evidence seemed against it. The floor felt cold against his feet, and he was starting to feel a little hungry. All those sensations seemed incongruous with death.
Had he been resurrected? While the Dominus Christus would raise the dead on the day of the Last Judgment, Talembur was reasonably certain today was not the last day.
Another idea occurred to him, one that seemed more likely.
Magic could have ensured his survival.
That didn’t bring a memory to his mind, but…perhaps an echo, or maybe a ghost of old pain. Like a man who had once been burned remembering the agony of fire. Talembur opened and closed the fingers of his right hand, as if seeking a weapon, and gazed at his palm. Judging from the pattern and distribution of calluses, he was well-accustomed to wielding weapons, most probably a sword.
Apparently, he was also the kind of man who could recognize such things.
He turned the mirror-like stone. A wooden door rested in an archway on the far wall, and as far as he could tell, there were no other entrances or exits. The wood was rotten and brittle – he could have pressed his thumb into it like soft cheese.
This door had not been opened in a very, very long time.
Just how long had he been lying in that sarcophagus?
It was a riddle to ponder once he had attended to the immediate needs of survival.
Talembur grasped the handle and eased the door open. He felt the need to do it in silence, though he was not certain why.
Did enemies wait in this place?
Beyond the door was a spiral staircase that climbed upward. The blue glow that illuminated the chamber behind him also cast a dim glow over the stairs, so he would not need to find another source of light. Talembur eased up the stairs, taking care to make no sound. The walls were of rough-hewn stone, which indicated that he was underground.
A faint echo came to his ears.
Talembur froze, considering the sound. It sounded like something metallic striking stone. Like a workman carrying a hammer or a shovel and accidentally striking it against the wall as he turned.
Or, more ominously, perhaps the pommel of a sword or the metal tip of a scabbard.
Talembur waited, but the sound was not repeated, and he continued to climb.
The spiral stairs ended in a stone archway that opened into a larger chamber. Rows of pillars supported the vaulted ceiling, stretching away into the blue-lit gloom in either direction. Unlike the room below, there were numerous sarcophagi. Unlike the one that had contained Talembur, all these sarcophagi had been carved from granite. Reliefs on the sides showed scenes from the scriptures – the Dominus Christus walking on the water, Moses parting the Red Sea, Joshua marching around the walls of Jericho. Each lid had a carved effigy of a robed man. Niches lined the walls, holding stone urns carved with names.
Those sarcophagi were the tombs of abbots, while the urns held the ashes of monks. Talembur must have been here before to have known that. Had he been a monk? That seemed unlikely. The life of a monk did not lend itself to acquiring the sorts of scars that marked his skin.
As he gazed at the sarcophagi, again he heard the tap of metal against stone, but this time a grumbling voice accompanied it.
Talembur moved in silent haste to duck behind one of the thick pillars. The noise of heavy boots striding against the stone floor came to his ears, and he heard a deep voice speaking harsh words.
Orcish, the language was orcish. He knew the language because he understood the words.
“This is a bloody waste of time,” said the voice. “There’s nothing here. This place has been abandoned for centuries. Not even any good loot.”
“Well, the client’s paying enough for the search,” said a second voice. “You heard what the captain said. We come to this nice quiet country and rebuild, then return and pay back everyone who ever wronged us. If the warlock and his friend want to pay us to look in old ruins, then we’ll take his gold, aye?”
“Feh,” said the first voice with disdain. “Warlocks and their games. Can’t stand them. That’s the reason we’re so close to the Rift.”
“That’s why we’ll become strong enough,” said the second voice, “to repay the dogs in the south. But mind your tongue. The warlocks don’t like disrespect.”
“This warlock wouldn’t mind,” said the first voice. “He’s a strange one, mark my words.”
“But his friend,” said the second voice. “You don’t want to mouth off around his friend.”
There was silence for a moment. Talembur crept behind one of the sarcophagi, peered around the corner, and then moved to one of the thick pillars. The dim blue light filling the crypt did not lend itself to making out details, but he saw two shapes moving towards him.
“I still don’t like it,” said the first voice. “This place is too close to the Rift. If it expands unexpectedly, we’re all dead.”
“Then let’s find this bloody sword and be done with it,” said the second voice.
Talembur ducked behind another pillar and finally got a good look at the two figures.
They were orcs.
Both stood at around Talembur’s own height, close to six and a half feet tall. They had green skin and black eyes, white tusks rising from their jaws. Both orcs had spiraling crimson tattoos on the left sides of their faces. Talembur didn’t recall the design, but he suspected that he had seen it somewhere before. The orcs wore leather armor reinforced with bronze studs and carried bronze longswords in their right hands. The orcs also had a red band tied around their upper right arms. The cloth must have been the color of human blood, because it looked black in the eerie blue light.
Talembur was fairly sure that these orcs were his enemies and meant him harm. Prudence dictated that he attack first and kill them before they could strike. Yet he was not completely certain, and he would not kill those who did not deserve it.
That felt important to him, even if he could not remember why.
Despite that, a fight did seem likely, so he took a hard look at the two orcs, noting details. One orc favored his left leg due to a faint limp in his right knee. The other had a faint squint in his right eye caused by an old scar across his temple.
Talembur crept around a pillar, moved along the wall, and picked up a stone urn. It was inscribed with the name of a long-dead monk and quite heavy. He circled around a pillar, straightened up, and stepped into the path of the two orcs.
“Greetings,” he said in the orcish tongue. “I seem to be lost. Might I ask you for some directions?”
The two orcs gaped at him. Whatever items they had expected to find in this crypt, a naked human holding a burial urn was not one of them.
Their astonishment turned to rage in a second.
“It’s him!” barked the orc with the bad knee. “Kill him, and the reward is ours!”
The orcs surged forward, bronze swords drawn back to strike.
Talembur had anticipated their reaction, and he was already moving. He stepped closer, raising the urn, and blocked the slash of a descending blade. The bronze sword shattered against the urn, and though the impact jolted Talembur, the encounter was worse for the orc. The warrior stumbled, his balance lost, and Talembur slammed the heavy urn against the back of the orc’s head.
The orc fell, and the warrior with the bad knee lunged. Talembur got the urn back up in time to intercept the thrust. The sword rang like a bell, but the blade didn’t shatter. The orc retracted the weapon for another blow, and Talembur threw the urn. The orc dodged, and the urn struck the floor and shattered, the echoes booming through the crypt.
Before the orc could draw back his sword for another attack, Talembur drove his foot into the orc’s bad knee with a savage kick. There was a crunching sound, and the orc let out a cry of pain and fell to one knee, face twisting with pain. Talembur hammered a fist into the orc’s wrist, and the orc lost his grip on the hilt of his sword.
He seized the weapon and raked it across the orc’s throat. The green blood that sprayed from the wound gleamed in the dim light. The orc fell to the floor, thrashing, and Talembur stepped back, the bronze sword raised in guard. But the bleeding orc stopped moving. The orc Talembur had struck with the urn lay twitching, his skull most probably cracked from the impact.
Talembur ended the orc’s suffering with a quick thrust of the sword.
He lifted the blade. It was of poor quality and not balanced right, but it was better than fighting with his bare hands. Talembur looked at the dead orcs and contemplated searching their corpses. The orc he had hit with the urn was about Talembur’s size, and not much blood had gotten on his clothing.
Yet it seemed unwise to remain in the same place for too long. Talembur didn’t know how large this complex was, and there was no telling how far the sound of the fight had carried. He was certain that the two orcs had not come here alone. They had spoken of a captain and a warlock.
Which suggested an important question.
Had the two orcs and their companions come to this place seeking Talembur personally, or for something else? They had mentioned looking for a sword, but they had seemed to recognize Talembur.
Had these orcs and their masters been enemies of his?
Talembur looked again at the corpses. That spiraling red tattoo on the left side of their faces…he was certain he had seen it somewhere, though he could not pull the recollection out of the blank spots in his memories. Yet he was certain that orcs marked with that tattoo had been his enemies in the past.
Perhaps that enmity had been profound enough for the orcs to follow him here.
Had the orcs placed him in that strange sarcophagus?
No, that seemed implausible. If his enemies wanted to kill him, certainly there were simpler and more reliable methods.
He could not contemplate the mystery further. Almost certainly the dead orcs had allies who were searching for them or coming to investigate the noise. Talembur continued onward, taking care to make as little noise as possible, the sword ready in his hand.
It occurred to Talembur that his memory loss was both strange and remarkably selective. He could remember his name, though he could recall nothing about his past, but he had understood and spoken the orcs’ language. Talembur had killed the orcs with relative ease, which indicated a great deal of experience with violence, an impression further reinforced by his many scars. It seemed that he could remember his skills, just not how he had acquired them.
Once again it occurred to Talembur that he should have been afraid. He had just awakened alone in a strange place with no memory of how he had gotten there. Two orcish warriors had attacked him on sight, and Talembur had been forced to kill them both. Fear ought to have been a reasonable response to the situation.
Yet while he felt alert and aware of his surroundings, there was no fear. Talembur suspected he had been in situations like this many times before. Perhaps not always victoriously, given the number of scars upon his limbs, but he was still alive.
Regardless of his emotions or lack thereof, his path was clear. First, he needed to escape from this place and the enemies searching for him. Once Talembur did that, he could turn his attention to his past and figuring out how he had come here.
Wherever this place was.
He headed across the crypt chamber, the bronze sword held low and ready at his side.
Coupon of the Week, 9/15/25
Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!
This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my Cloak Mage series at my Payhip store:
FALLMAGE25
The coupon code is valid through September 22, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we’ve got you covered!
-JM
September 12, 2025
BLADE OF FLAMES Table of Contents!
I am now far enough along with the editing to share the table of contents for BLADE OF FLAMES, which you can see below.
I will post the first chapter of the book here next week.
-JM
