Category: Teenreads
Cover Reveal!!
The Tackle’s Crush releases August 15th! Get it on Amazon, or contact me for a signed copy 🏈💜
Book Garden Publishing
Ryan and I are going to publish my future books together, under this new name. He is doing my cover art and interior images.
It’s Happening 🎉
Vella on the Kindle App!
It’s finally happened. Kindle Vella stories are now available on the Kindle app for both iOS and Android, meaning you have easy access to not just my Vella books, but a whole slew of other great books. My Vella books available are as follows: Riven City series – Got A Bad Case I Need a Hero Get Your Game On Riven City Holiday Specials series- Drop Them Bones Take Me Home See Me Through Traitors War series – Deceit Big Sky Country series – Fast Horses Also available are my Flying Ponies trilogy and the first book in the Traitors War series, Destiny. 💖📚💫💖📚💫💖📚💫💖📚💫💖📚💫💖💫💫💖📚💫 #kindleapp #KindleVella #vellabooks #indieauthor #indiebooks #amazonbooks #authorlife #lmransombooks #traitorswarseries #rivencityholidayspecials #rivencityseries #bookstagram #newfiction #yafiction #YAfantasy #romance #romanticsuspense #newbooks #thewritingcommunity #writing #vellawriter #vellaauthor #michiganauthor https://www.instagram.com/p/CYrli1XL3qh/?utm_medium=share_sheet
Now Entering Riven City
On April 13th, the day Destiny released, Amazon announced the arrival of Kindle Vella, a new platform for both writers and readers. Authors will be able to upload stories to Vella chapter-by-chapter. These are called “episodes.” The first three episodes of a story can be read for free, and after that, a reader will need to purchase “tokens” from Amazon (the amount of money for said tokens will vary, and they will be sold in bundles as well). Amazon will split the money made on stories 50/50 with their respective authors.
Why is this such an exciting opportunity? It opens up a whole new way for authors to share stories with readers. I am currently writing a story that will run concurrent with the first few books in The Traitors War series. This story involves characters from the kingdom of Battleclash as well as buccaneers. It will likely be shorter than my published novels, and offer readers a chance to see more of Imperium. It will also, hopefully, keep readers excited about The Traitors War series and engaged with it until the next book releases.
After that side story is published to Vella, I will introduce a new series that will only be published on Vella. Right now it’s titled Riven City, and is set in the city of the same name. Each story will revolve around different sets of characters: police, firefighters, boxers, librarians, harbor patrol, street racers, and of course – criminals. Characters from one story could and will pop into others, thus tying all the stories together. I’m excited to introduce Riven City and its inhabitants to all of you.
Kindle Vella will likely launch before the end of July this year. I will be sharing more about it and the stories I’m posting there in the future. Thank you to everyone who has bought Destiny or any of my Flying Ponies books – I greatly appreciate it and you! If you feel so inclined, leaving reviews of any of my books on Goodreads and/or Amazon would be most appreciated, as well.
Have a wonderful weekend!
What Comes Next
Destiny has been out in the world now since Tuesday, and has three wonderful reviews (by the way, one of the best things you can do for an author is leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both, if you’re feeling really inspired). So what do I do next? Take time off? Rest? Relax? Celebrate?
Relax and celebrate, for sure. But rest? Take time off from writing? Not so much. My brain and my muse (Glucinda is her name – if you know where I got the name, cookies for you!) don’t really work that way. Book two of The Traitors War is already finished and has gone through the first round of editing. I’m not ready to start book three yet, so I’m switching gears and working on another story idea, about young ladies in a secretive society who kill things during the Victorian age in England. Interested?
There are a few other ideas nestled away in notebooks in my office that I plan to tinker with on and off in-between books in The Traitors War. Most of those ideas involve fantasy elements in some way; fantasy is a substantial part of my writing wheelhouse, and I don’t have any plans to stray from it for the next ten or so years.
The Traitors War will probably (I say probably because I’m not exactly sure yet) be a run of six books in the main series, accompanied by one standalone and a duology; all three books will be continuations of the main series, and will feature some of the characters (the ones who survive, that is….muwhahahaha….) These will take, if I publish one book a year, the next nine or so years. After that, this idea I’m working on could be published, or one of my other ones. At this point, I can’t say. A lot depends on my muse and what other ideas we come up with during that time.
At the moment, though, I’m working up a first draft of the Victorian killer girls, and I’m liking what I’m seeing. The characters are telling me who they are and what their goals and dreams are, and that’s an excellent start to our relationship. It will take at least one or two more drafts before it will be what it needs to be, and before it ever goes to my editor, but we’re getting there. It’s a process. Destiny took sixteen years to get ready. We’ll see if these ladies can beat that.
Have a wonderful weekend! If you’re traversing Pentallia, make sure to take a weapon, or maybe find a Shadowliege for an escort. They’ll be fairly harmless, as long as they don’t have a kill order for you, and they know where all the best taverns are.
DESTINY HAS ARRIVED
Good afternoon, everyone! How are you today? Is it spring yet where you live? I live in west Michigan, on the Lake Michigan side, and it’s definitely spring, if a little chilly yet.
I thought I would share some background about my new YA fantasy novel, Destiny. It’s book one in my new series, The Traitors War, and its about a group of young people trying to navigate the changing landscapes of their home kingdoms and their continent of Pentallia as war approaches, from both within Pentallia itself and from across the Argentum Brine sea to the west.
I got the inkling for this story back around 2005, and had some of the main characters, such as Lisette, Conrad and Bannan right from the get-go. Others got added in as I started a big three-ring binder and added notes and pictures of characters taken out of magazines (this was before Pinterest). As time went on, I added more notebooks and ideas, and gave up the binder, instead splitting the growing number of notebooks into ones for places and characters.
I sent a very early version of Destiny to a small agency back around 2016. The agent was very nice, but declined that story (titled Peril at Stormsurge). I set it aside when I got the idea for Lift and the Flying Ponies. It was always in the background, though, and even as I worked my way through the Flying Ponies books, I fussed with what I called “Pentallia.” I wrote two more versions, neither being what I was looking for. They centered more around Princess Anora Cardiff of Castle Frayfight (whom you will meet in book two), and I knew that wasn’t where the story needed to start. Anora was never meant to be the main character, either.
Once Spin, the third and final Flying Pony book was published (spring 2020), I went back to “Pentallia” in earnest and started rewriting it yet again. This version made its way to my husband Ryan, but it still wasn’t the story my characters and I wanted to tell. Thus, in late August of 2020, I again sat down to rewrite it (this was probably the seventh incarnation of “Pentallia” at this point). Finally, the story clicked with both my muse (whose name is Glucinda, by the way. If you happen to know where that name came from, you get two cookies!) and my characters. I finished it during late September and immediately started editing and polishing.
The book was now titled Clandestine, and it was sent to my editor at One Wicked Wordsmith in late December. From there, it went through some more editing to add in details about Pentallia. Once we were happy with that, it was sent to Kate Conway, who owns Wicked Whale Publishing, and who puts my books together for me. We decided the series should have crowns on the cover, and I actually have a water colorist who will be doing my future covers for The Traitors War. It was decided the title was too long; no matter how Kate placed it, it looked too awkward, and it was renamed Destiny.
From there the book was added into Amazon and ARCS (Advanced Reading Copies, or proofs) were ordered and a few were passed on to people for early reviews. Once corrections were done based on the ARC (and there are always corrections), the book was made ready for publication, and as of today, is now ready to meet the world.
I hope you enjoy Destiny. I hope you find yourself immersed in the story, and that you click with at least one of the characters. Book two is now done and through the first round of editing, and I’m hoping for a spring 2021 release.
Have a wonderful week!
The Unboxing of Destiny
The title says it all 🎉🌟 This post is late, but here is the video 📽️
Destiny, first in The Traitors War series, releases Tuesday, April 13th.
Capture the Ponies!
Some visitors to this website may not know about my first trilogy, The Flying Ponies, so I thought I would do a quick post. This is the back cover copy for Lift, the first book in the trilogy:
For sixteen-year-old Charlotte Flynn, moving into the heart of the Michigan woods with her family is the biggest adventure she’s ever had. A self-proclaimed geek girl with a penchant for Sherlock Holmes, she wonders if she’ll ever have an exciting quest of her own.
But when she discovers an antique carousel tucked into the woods near her new home, her life soon spins out of control. For the ponies are so much more than their faded paint portrays. Filled with primal magic, the ponies are alive, and they have been waiting for her for a long time.
With the help of a young carousel caretaker named Black, Charlotte soon discovers that the Flying Ponies are in danger from others who want to possess them and their magic. Drawn into a battle for the carousel and ultimately the entire world while navigating her first true romance, Charlotte may have more adventure than she ever bargained for . . .
The Flying Ponies are available on Amazon, as both trade paperbacks and e-books.
A Scribe's Life 