Bio:
I decided years ago that my dream of being a novelist had to be a priority. To develop my writing skills, I earned a journalism degree at California State University, Chico in 2000. After graduation I held boring jobs to pay the bills and worked on writing my fantasy series The Rys Chronicles. In 2005 I began publishing my novels and selling them online. Now that I've popped out a couple kids, I work from home and dedicate as much time as I can manage to writing more novels. When I'm not writing fantasy, I enjoy bicycling, growing food, reading, swimming, boating, and baking. Although I seem like a boring housewife, I'm always drawing swords in my daydreams and plotting the destruction of my enemies, so you can see why I need fantasy writing as an outlet. Some people play video games. I write novels.
What will readers like about your book?
Readers will enjoy being drawn into the feelings and motivations of the main characters, both rys and human. The magical rys offer readers a fresh fantasy race. In the world of the rys, humans are not the most powerful, and they must cultivate their relationships with rys in order to gain or maintain power. The interweaving of the rys and human relationships engages readers, and the epic scale of clashing civilizations and rebellion delivers exciting reading.
Why did you choose self publishing?
I spent four years from 2000 to 2004 querying agents and publishers, but it's next to impossible for a new writer to break into a competitive genre market. Eventually I decided to stop wasting my time with people who had no interest in me. I knew that I wrote well enough to connect with some readers, and I had always been interested in starting my own business. Therefore I became a publisher and started producing my fiction. That was six years ago. Since then I've had readers from all over the world enjoy my fantasy series, and I'm selling more copies every year.
Excerpt:
Onja approached the sarcophagus and set her hands on it. The massive crystal block was cool but it began to warm to her touch. Within the translucent quartz, she could see her lover, the King, who had been at her side in rich glorious days that only she remembered. She looked down on the King, whose blue body in silver armor refracted crookedly through the crystal.
The sarcophagus became warmer and blue light radiated from her hands and pushed deeper into the rock. The same blue light emanated from Onja’s eyes that ceased to blink or to see her immediate surroundings.
“Dacian, help me see. Help me see as far as we can,” she said out loud.
Inside his body there remained power. His great power had once enticed her with its magnificence. His strength had been irresistible, something she had to possess, always.
In her mind, she spoke to him again. “Dacian, more. I want to see them,” she commanded.
Onja meditated. Her mind could see far beyond herself and deploy her magic throughout her realm. With her mind’s eye she searched eastward, out of her mountain kingdom and onto a rolling prairie where animals roamed and lived without the knowledge of humankind. Then she entered an area shunned by life, where no animals burrowed or grazed or hunted. Sad standing stones dotted the forsaken stretch of prairie. From the stones, the cold breath of thousands of souls called to her. The lifeforce of their mistress had not touched them for over a century, and the dead voices of the damned wailed to her for freedom.
Onja moved over them, ignoring their calls and giving them no commands. As she pushed farther, the land blossomed again beneath her awareness. Crossing such distances in her mind wearied her and she drew deeply upon her inner strength and demanded more of Dacian, who gave.
“You were always so giving,” she told him sweetly.
A virgin forest began to encroach upon the prairie as she traveled farther south and east. Old trees grew in a place that knew no axes. This was her gift to the land. She protected it. The filthy refugees who had scrambled from her wrath so long ago like so many rats had never been allowed to scurry back close to her domain.
But they were sniffing their way back again. Eventually humans always came back. She pushed her mind as far as it would go, and to feel her limit sickened her, but she could see whose feet had been treading at the edge of her mind. Struggling to maintain the clarity of her vision, she looked upon fresh green shrubs and grasses flourishing in a place of charred trees. Here, she spied two horses bearing riders – a man with a woman and children.
Children, she thought and focused on their small lifeforces. They were so vibrant, glowing still from the fires of their creation. As she strained against the distance, the children made her feel her age. They beckoned her with their sweet innocent vitality, and she was glad that she had looked.
Greed urged her to grant the intruders mercy, and she chose not to set loose her minions to cleanse her land as she had always done before. The price for entering her land this time would be different from death.
Available from
Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I is a free ebook at http://www.braveluck.com and Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/939
Barnes & Noble Nook
Apple iBooks
Amazon
eBook Paperback
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