Jennifer A. Nielsen's Blog, page 4
December 8, 2021
THE DECEIVER’S HEART
Book 2 of the TRAITOR’S GAME series was inspired by a song I love, one so full of story that I had to use it for this book: RUN by Snow Patrol.
Here is the summary, from Goodreads:
Kestra Dallisor has finally gained possession of the Olden Blade. With the dagger in her control, she attempts to destroy the tyrannical Lord Endrick. But when Kestra fails, the king strips her of her memory, and leaves her weak and uncertain, bound to obey him. Heartbroken, Simon is desperate to return Kestra to the rebel she was, but refuses to use magic to heal her. With untrusting Coracks and Halderians threatening to capture and kill her, and war looming on the horizon, Kestra and Simon will have to learn to trust each other again if they have any hope of surviving. But can a heart once broken ever be healed?
Giveaways for the books of this series will come from comments in yesterday’s post about THE TRAITOR’S GAME. Click back one day to enter!
December 7, 2021
THE TRAITOR’S GAME
The winner of the ARC for LINES OF COURAGE is Abby B. Congratulations!
Today’s post features THE TRAITOR’S GAME. This is the story of Kestra Dallisor, the daughter of the King’s chief enforcer, who is captured by the rebellion and will be forced to betray her family. She wants none of that, so she decides instead to bring down the rebellion.
The story was inspired by a theme in history that has always fascinated me, which is the question of who in history was a hero, and who was a traitor, and how we decide who belongs in each category.
Consider the story of Robert Ford. In his early years, he became a great admirer of the outlaw Jesse James. In 1880, at age 18, he met Jesse James and joined his gang. Yet over the next two years, the Jesse James gang was weakening, with many members killed or in jail. Jesse James was considering giving up crime, but he also knew the law was still searching for him. So there were only a small group of people he truly trusted. Robert Ford and his brother, Charles, were two of them.
James wanted to do one last bank robbery before retiring, but Robert and Charles Ford had already decided not to participate. Instead, they wanted to collect the $10,000 bounty placed on Jesse James’ head by the Governor of Missouri, and the full pardon the Governor offered to anyone who would kill Jesse James.
The Ford brothers were living with Jesse James and his family, and waiting for their opportunity. That came on April 3, 1882. The men had finished eating breakfast and were supposed to leave from there to conduct the robbery. James noticed a picture hanging crookedly over the door and stood on a chair to straighten it.
That was when Robert Ford took his chance and shot Jesse James in the back. He did so, believing that his fellow citizens would judge him to be a hero. However, the people largely turned on him, branding him a coward and a traitor. Eventually, Robert Ford was reduced to earning money where he could by performing re-creations of that day, which only served to deepen his cowardly reputation.
By 1892, Robert Ford was running a saloon in Colorado. A man walked in and waited until Ford’s back was turned, then said, “Hello, Bob.” As soon as Ford turned, the man fired both barrels of his guns. Robert Ford was killed instantly.
Robert Ford rid the world of a dangerous bank robber and criminal, and acted at the request of the state governor, and yet history has not treated him well.
This is when I realized that it is not about what someone does in history, it’s about who ends up telling the story, and Robert Ford’s story was told by the people who judged him to be a traitor.
THE TRAITOR’S GAME was built on that premise, that whether Kestra Dallisor is a hero or a traitor will entirely depend on who wins in the end to tell her story.
This contest will run for the next three days. To enter this contest, please ask someone who has never been on this blog to leave a comment below with your first name (only your first name please!). If they are chosen, you will both win a book! For this contest, you can enter as many times as you wish.
December 6, 2021
LINES OF COURAGE
Thanks for the Saturday entries for THE SCOURGE! The winner is: LANYA!
Also, I know I missed Sunday’s post. That’s how life goes sometimes. Now, for LINES OF COURAGE!
I’ll be talking a lot about this book over the next few months.
LINES OF COURAGE will be released on March 1, 2022. It tells the story of World War One from the perspectives of five kids from five countries over the five years of the war.
I think World War One is fascinating, but it is a far lesser-known war than the Second World War.
A couple of facts I think are really interesting include this:
This is called a camouflage ship. Normally if you think of a camouflage ship, you’d think of one that fades into the background so it’s hard to see. This is the very opposite. All it needs are blinking lights to say ARE YOU NOTICING ME?
But the strange patterns and shapes confused the enemy torpedo operators, who weren’t entirely sure where to aim. These camouflage ships may have saved the lives of thousands of soldiers in the British Navy.
Also, World War 1 produced the single largest battle in world history, in Verdun, France. The battle lasted almost a full year and was so destructive that after the war, the area was declared a Red Zone, a place not safe for humans. We have been cleaning it up over the last hundred years but the area still is a Red Zone. At our current rate of clean-up, the estimation is that the Red Zone will not be entirely safe for another 300 years!
Now, to enter to win an ARC of this book, down in comments, can you leave me a favorite fact you know about World War One?
To preorder a copy (and I would love it if you did preorder!), links are here:
December 4, 2021
THE SCOURGE
Congratulations to the winners of the Mark of the Thief series of books: Kami, Kory, and Jaylen.
Now for today’s book. This contest will run until Monday morning.
Throughout all of human history, by far the most feared human disease is Leprosy. People were so afraid of it that in most parts of the world, if you got the disease, it was legal to forcibly remove you from your home and send you to a leper colony where you would expect to live out the rest of your life.
One such place was Molokai Island in Hawaii. It opened in 1866 and for the next century, more than 8000 people with Leprosy lived and died there. Those who came had been transported to the island by boat, often in a cattle pen to keep them isolated from others. There was no escape from the colony unless someone wished to try building a boat or scaling the 1700’ cliffs. Supplies would be delivered to the island only once a year.
By the early 1940’s, we knew what the Leprosy, now called Hansen’s Disease, was, and it wasn’t hard to cure, just antibiotics. Yet it was still legal to take people from their homes – for a disease we could cure!
That’s when I realized that the colonies were never about the disease itself, it was about the fear of the disease. That was where the idea began for THE SCOURGE, about how fear is used to control people.
This is a girl from around that era who was being forced into a colony. You see the odd way she is holding her hands – that is a protest, refusing to hold the sign for her picture. That’s why someone else is holding it. I loved this picture, because this was her only way to fight back against the system.
This book does seem to have some common elements with Covid; however, THE SCOURGE is not about our current pandemic situation, or a commentary on it. If you are not vaccinated yet, please get vaccinated.
P.S. The Kalaupapa settlement ended in 1969; however, those who lived there were allowed to remain, since by then they had no other place to go.
More than anything, THE SCOURGE is a story of friendship, or learning to understand people who may be different than yourself.
Want to win a copy? Tell me the greatest thing about one of your best friends!
December 3, 2021
Wrath of the Storm
Of all books that I’ve written, WRATH OF THE STORM has my favorite ending. I rarely go back to reread any of my old works, but I will reread the ending from this book and enjoy it just as much as when I first wrote it.
There aren’t many times when I can throw everything I can imagine at a single character, just to see how they’ll respond, but that did happen with Nic. And he responded beautifully.
However, I do need to mention something that I hear from a lot of fans, about the “cliffhanger” ending. At the time of writing it, I thought I was dropping a cool hint about the future of these characters, but nothing more. Then you began asking for more story, based on that hint. Eventually, I saw the story from your perspective and realized that yes, it does feel like I was suggesting an even bigger adventure was ahead, then not delivering that adventure.
Honestly, I’d still write the same ending, but I do see now that it feels like there should be more. Just know that Nic sends his holiday greetings from Ancient Rome, along with Aurelia, Crispus, Livia, and all others!
The King’s English (Autographed copies available upon request)
December 2, 2021
RISE OF THE WOLF
If you have read MARK OF THE THIEF, then you know there is a big revelation at the end of the book that will forever change Nic’s life. He is now caught between what he must do and what his magic allows him to do. More important still, Nic is now caught up in the chariot races.
I hope if you started the series, that you will continue with RISE OF THE WOLF.
The drawing for a winner of this book will come from answers on yesterday’s post about MARK OF THE THIEF.
November 30, 2021
MARK OF THE THIEF
MARK OF THE THIEF began with two stupid facts I happened to know about Ancient Rome. First is that the Emperor Julius Caesar used to tell people he had come from the Gods, specifically from the Goddess Venus. He’d do that to make himself seem more powerful, as if he just had to be the emperor, because after all, he was a Demi-God.
Demi-God, or just another leafy-headed politician?Second is that if you were a young citizen of Ancient Rome, you’d have worn a bulla, an amulet your parents would have filled with gems to protect you against harm.
All I did was to combine these two facts to ask, What if Caesar was telling the truth? If so, then perhaps he would have held the magic of the Gods, keeping it safe within his bulla. And what if that bulla became lost after his death and remained lost for nearly three hundred years until it was discovered deep within the mines of Rome by a mining slave named Nicolas Calva?
Fun fact #1: After the cover was designed, my super amazing husband created a digital model of the bulla then had it 3D printed in metal. The replication was so exact that one of the book’s cover artists became confused about which came first, the metal bulla that I owned, or the cover that he had created!
Fun fact #2: When I travel with the bulla, it sometimes gets flagged by security officers at the airport, so they have to do a visual inspection of it. I used to try to explain what it was, but that got too complicated so now I simply say, “It’s an ancient Roman artifact.” That usually gets a big response, and it’s much more fun than the longer explanation.
If you’ve never seen the book trailer for MARK OF THE THIEF, check it out on YouTube HERE.
And if you’ve never read it, look for it at your school or city library, or you can ask for the book as a gift this holiday season.
If you want signed copies of any of my books, the best way to get them is to order from The King’s English Bookshop. If you want your copy personalized (Me to sign it with your name in the book), be sure to state that in the comments box right before checking out. Otherwise, I will only put my signature in the book. Once I sign the books, they will mail them to you so if it’s for Christmas, be sure to order early!
And for the next three days, I will be giving away a copy of either MARK OF THE THIEF, or the second or third books of the series, RISE OF THE WOLF or WRATH OF THE STORM.
[image error]To enter, simply leave a comment below telling me if you had one magic power, what would you want it to be? All entries will be collected for the next three days, with three winners chosen on Friday.
November 28, 2021
Holiday Giveaway Month!
Hello Friends!
Apologies for my months and weeks of being absent from the blog. It’s all for good reasons, namely that I’ve been on one deadline followed by another for the past several months. But as we are launching into the holiday season, of course, I want to celebrate too!
Beginning on Dec 3, I will be posting every day (or trying to post every day) with something (and by “something,” I mean, “I have no idea, just something.) Each day’s post will feature a different book. There will be a book giveaway nearly every day as well, so stay tuned!
International entries will be allowed and each day’s contest will end as soon as the next one is posted.
Stay tuned! See you here on Dec 1!
October 18, 2021
It’s Launch Week!!!
It all starts tonight, my friends! Tickets for the Zoom at 6 pm MST are taken, and there are only a few remaining tickets for the 7 pm MST Zoom, but if you do have a ticket, I’ll see you tonight!
TUESDAY OCT 19I will be at Three Goats Gruff, 7 pm MST.
14 South Main Street, Brigham City, UT
THURSDAY OCT 21:I will be at the Viridian Center, 7 pm MST
8030 South 1825 W, West Jordan, UT
At each event, there will be giveaways and some exciting announcements, so I hope you are able to attend at least one!
If you can’t, but you still want to order a signed book (of any of my titles), please click on either link from Option 3 or 4, and they’ll get you taken care of.
OTHER LINKS…AND A QUOTE!
October 10, 2021
One Week to Launch!
The book release is SO CLOSE now! Free tickets for the first online launch are taken but there are still some left for the second launch.
Option 1:
Online Zoom, Oct 18, 7 pm Mountain Time.
Click HERE to register! (First 100 participants allowed – there is more room left in this slot)
Option 2:In person launch, Oct 19, 7 pm Mountain Time.
14 South Main Street, Brigham City, UT
Option 3:In person launch, Oct 21, 7 pm Mountain Time
8030 South 1825 W, West Jordan, UT
At each event, there will be giveaways and some exciting announcements, so I hope you are able to attend at least one!
If you can’t, but you still want to order a signed book (of any of my titles), please click on either link from Option 3 or 4, and they’ll get you taken care of.
And finally, another quote from book 5. This isn’t the best day for the king.
