Category Archives: Rider’s Revenge

A Small Promo and an Update

09 Tuesday Oct 2018

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First, for those who haven’t started or finished the Rider’s Revenge Trilogy, it’s on sale this week. Book 1, Rider’s Revenge, is 99 cents or equivalent on all retailers and in all countries. Also, the box set of the trilogy is on sale for $4.99 or equivalent on all retailers and in all countries. So a good deal for those who have yet to try the series or finish it.

Second, for those of you who have read the series and want more…

Unfortunately, I’m not sure when that will happen at this point and don’t want to make a promise about it that I can’t keep. (Like I have previously.)

The Rider’s Revenge trilogy is complete, so no one should be left wondering how things end, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad not writing more fantasy novels. I know as a reader how hard it can be to find fantasy you truly enjoy, so when you find an author you like you want them to write more, more, more.

But I’ve found as a writer that sometimes that isn’t as easy as it seems.

Ideas are not the issue–I have a notebook with ten different fantasy series ideas I could write next. (Although maybe letting those ideas steep enough is part of it. For example, how do you write a novel about a grandmother who saves the world by growing roses without it being boring?)

No, my issue right now is time. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do and other things have had to take priority for now. But I will write another fantasy novel. Fantasy is my first love and most of what I read so I can’t imagine never writing it again.

It just won’t be before the end of the year and I’m sorry about that. Fortunately, there are plenty of great books out there to read in the meantime. A few I recently read and enjoyed include:

Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce – I liked the first in the series better than the second but both were easy, enjoyable reads. My mom is reading them now and agrees.

Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell – I could’ve done without the weird animal but I read it in a day and enjoyed it and will probably buy the next book in the series at some point.

Also, a good friend of mine recently released a fun YA vampire series that’s been doing really well. I don’t do vampires so haven’t read it myself, but if you do, then check it out: Bite Me by Louise Cypress.

(Those links are affiliate links to Amazon, just FYI, but all of the books should be easy to find with a simple search, too, although I believe Bite Me is exclusive to Amazon.)

I hope you’re all doing well. I’m here in my office with rain and yellow-leaved trees visible outside while my pup is curled up on her bed snoring softly. Not a bad place to be, if I do say so myself.

Rider’s Revenge Box Set Now Available

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

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Just wanted to drop by real quick and let you know that the Rider’s Revenge Trilogy is now available as an ebook box set. So if you haven’t finished the whole series yet, it might be a good option for you.

Five books with blank cover box set standing isolated on whiteRidersRevolveTrilogyFlat with black

The 3D version of the cover is available on Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and Google. The 2D version is available on Apple.

And since I don’t have a new book to offer you just yet, I thought I’d mention a couple books I just finished reading and enjoyed.

First was The Hills Have Spies by Mercedes Lackey. I’ve been a fan of hers for years but the last few books had left me a little meh. This one, though, I really enjoyed. So if you’ve drifted away from reading her in recent years, this one’s probably worth trying.

Second was the Fallen Blade series by Kelly McCullough which starts with Broken Blade. There was a little too much cussing in them for my mom and a little too many references she didn’t understand, so probably not for the more casual fantasy reader, but I really enjoyed the series. I’m on book six now and have yet to be disappointed.

Ah the Joys of Creation

25 Thursday Jan 2018

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First, before I get distracted, Rider’s Revenge is included in a promotion this weekend that I definitely think you should check out if you’re in need of a new book. It features strong women in epic fantasy novels. (Or at least non-urban or paranormal fantasy novels.)

http://www.rinellegrey.com/deadlydamsels/

If you click through you’ll see that Rider’s Revenge is also on sale right now for 99 cents. So if you somehow haven’t bought it yet, now’s a good chance to get it on sale. It probably won’t go on sale again until I release the next book in the new trilogy.

(It’s available on all retailers right now. Rider’s Rescue and Rider’s Resolve are as well for $4.99.)

And that would be where we get to the joys of creation. Originally this next trilogy was going to be an Arthurian-inspired fantasy focusing on Guinevere. But then I realized that I wasn’t sticking close enough to the Arthurian legend to really use those names. And once I let go of Guinevere and Lancelot and Arthur the characters sort of insisted on becoming their own people.

I now have their names. That took a few days. Believe it or not, I can’t write a story if I don’t have a name for a character because names are so central to who we are. (As someone with an incredibly unique real name I can tell you this with absolute certainty. I would be a very different person if my real name were Sarah or Christine like so many other women my age.)

That was the first step. Now is the stage where the story shakes itself out. Our former Guinevere is currently transforming herself from meek princess into future Queen with her own ideas about who she wants to love. Once that’s done I can scrap the 15,000 words I already wrote and start over from scratch. (The joys…)

My goal is to get this novel done and published in the next few months, but we’ll have to see. In addition to the writing, the cover design is also going to require some effort and expense. (It’s amazing how hard it is to find someone who can do a dragon on a cover…)

Anyway. A new book is coming. Stay posted for exactly when.

And hope you’re all well in the meantime. Check out the promo. There are some pretty books in there.

And if nothing on that list interests you, I just finished reading A Turn of Light by Julie E. Czerneda and really enjoyed it. There were a few odd turns of phrase here or there that I had to reread to understand and I did skip some of the early descriptions of the place and people, but I was quite pleased to find a really enjoyable read after a long string of, “eh, okay” books. (Book 2 was decent, but not as good as book 1. I did read it in just a few days, though, so it was still worth reading.)

Some Quotes and Some Books To Check Out

07 Saturday Oct 2017

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I’ve been having a little fun with GIMP lately, trying to take images from the Rider’s covers and pair them with some of my favorite quotes from the books. There are a handful more quotes that I like, but this is what I came up with so far:

First to Stand 2

Riders Quote6

RR2 quote stand alone 1

You can tell what events were happening in the real world when I was writing those novels, can’t you? Or maybe just I can.

Anyway. Those were fun to do. Feel free to share if you like them.

More importantly, if you’ve been looking for a new author or new book to read, there is a big promo this weekend: http://pattyjansen.com/promo/ that has 100 different SFFH books available for 99 cents. It’s worldwide and there should be titles available on every platform. (Rider’s Revenge is included, but I’m assuming you’ve already read it at this point which leaves potentially 99 other titles to choose from.)

(And if you haven’t finished the entire Rider’s series, this is the weekend to pick up books 2 and 3 for $3.99.)

Borrow Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

04 Monday Sep 2017

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The Rider’s series is rolling out of KU at the end of the week. So if you’ve been reading the books through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program and think you’ll want to finish it, borrow the books before September 8th. You don’t have to read them before then, you just need to borrow them before then.

(As long as you have your KU account you can read a book you borrow months and months after it’s out of the program. But you can’t borrow it once it’s out. And if you close your KU account you’ll lose access to any of the books you borrowed.)

That means that for those of you who wanted to read the Rider’s books in ebook format and on a platform other than Amazon that you’ll be able to do so in less than a week! As promised, Rider’s Resolve will be priced at $2.99 for the first couple weeks so you can get the same discount people on Amazon got when the book launched.

Also, there will be a sale on the entire series likely in early October. I will give dates as I know them, but at this point the plan is 99 cents for Rider’s Revenge and $3.99 for Rider’s Rescue and Rider’s Resolve. So that $2.99 release price is going to be the best you can get on Rider’s Resolve but if you still need to buy Rider’s Rescue you’ll be better off waiting until early October.

Hope you are all doing well, and for those in the U.S., enjoying a nice holiday weekend with friends and family.

That Was Fun

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

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A fellow author has started a new YouTube channel called The Bookshelf and she read an excerpt of Rider’s Revenge as part of the first video she did.  I really enjoyed the reading.  Makes me think I should do an audio version of the book sooner rather than later.  (But they’re not cheap to do, so no holding your breath on that.)

Anyway, check it out. There’s a brief intro to YA fiction at the start and then the Rider’s Revenge part starts around the 3:00 mark and if you stay to the end there’s a cool giveaway and some bloopers.  Overall just a fun, light-hearted video to watch.

Also, since I’m on here…

Probably not relevant to all of y’all, but I’ve started a new website for one of my other pen names, M.L. Humphrey.  You can find it at www.mlhumphrey.com.

Basically, I’m doing a presentation at my local writer’s group this year that pretty much tied the Alessandra Clarke name, M.L. Humphrey, and one other together because of the bio I provided and I decided that the pen names aren’t really a big secret to anyone who knows me anyway, so why not consolidate a bit?

If you’re interested in Alessandra Clarke books and announcements, stick with this page.  If you want to see what else I get up to, maybe check that one out.

I will be posting pictures of Miss Priss (my dog) each Monday, so for those of you who liked the photo of her I posted on FB for the release of Rider’s Resolve you can get more of her there if you want.  The rest of what I post there will be focused on self-publishing with the occasional random thoughts about non-writing issues thrown in. (Here’s the photo for those who didn’t see it already.)

IMG_4190 - Copy

Rider’s Resolve is Live!

11 Sunday Jun 2017

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Today is the day. My first fantasy trilogy is not only completed but live and available for you to read.  So if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber who couldn’t pre-order, it’s there to borrow now.  Paperback is live, too, for those who are old-fashioned like myself and still prefer to read that way.

It’s a nice feeling to have finished such a massive undertaking.  I still don’t know why I write–I’m not one of those people who lived and breathed writing from the day I could walk–but there seems to be something about it that gives me a great deal of satisfaction.

What’s next? One week to rest.  Two weeks to attend a writing workshop where I’ll learn how to make the next series even better.  And then it’s on to the next one.  Hope to see you there when it’s ready.

RidersResolve_3D

Rider’s Resolve Is Here!

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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The final book in the Rider’s Revenge Trilogy, Rider’s Resolve, is here!  Well, almost. It’s up for pre-order on Amazon, so you can reserve an e-copy now and get it when it’s available for sale on June 11th.

The paperback should be live by the weekend, too. I just need to receive a physical copy of the proof tomorrow and make sure the cover looks as good in print as it does on my computer, but I trust that Kirk knows what he’s doing and it will be gorgeous just like the other two have been.

Because it is, isn’t it?

RidersResolve_3D.jpg

The reason I’m posting this today instead of waiting until June 11th is because I’m also running a sale this weekend to celebrate.  A BIG one.  So if you aren’t caught up on the series yet, now is the time to do so.

Rider’s Revenge will be FREE from June 8th through 11th. (A good chance to get a copy if you borrowed through KU but didn’t buy it yet.)

And Rider’s Rescue will be only $2.99 during that time.

That’s a savings of over $10 between the two, plus if you get Rider’s Resolve at its special introductory price of $2.99.

(And, as I’d mentioned previously, for the first three months the ebooks will be exclusive to Amazon.  If you’re one of the small number of people that impacts, reach out to me and we’ll find a way to make it right for you.)

Book 3 Release Date Set and Thoughts on Romance

24 Monday Apr 2017

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Alright, I’m procrastinating a bit, so figured it was a good time for a blog post.

First, I think we’re far enough along with book 3 that I can announce a release date of June 11th.

Also, I’m planning on a short pre-order period and introductory sale price for book 3 as a thank you for those who’ve stuck with me, so keep an eye out.  I’ll announce it on FB, Twitter, here, and through the newsletter when book 3 is live so pick your poison in terms of where to look.

And, finally, because I’m also starting to think about “what do I write next”, I thought I’d talk just a bit about the Rider’s series and romance.  Possible spoilers follow so if you haven’t read the series, might want to stop reading now.

Okay.  So…

There is a romance in the Rider’s series.  K’lrsa does meet Badru and they do fall for one another and they do have some challenges to their relationship that keep them apart, both big and small, and they do overcome those and get together.  (At least once…)

But, at the same time, when I was writing this series, I wasn’t writing it as a romance.  I was writing a coming of age action-adventure fantasy novel.  My focus was on K’lrsa and her growth as she learns about how different the world is from what she thought it was and how her mastery in the world she knows is challenged when she’s put in a new setting.

I wanted her to be strong, to solve her own problems, and to be the heroine, but I also wanted to explore how what made her successful in the tribes could be harmful when she was put in the setting of the Daliphana.

And I was also exploring, hopefully on a second level of the story that doesn’t get in the way of the main adventure story line, issues of women’s roles in society and how they’re treated based on where the men around them place them or how the men around them perceive them.

And, of course, I touched on other issues like grief and parental relationships and friendship and being young but trying to be a leader and (in book 3) trying to integrate people from two very different cultures and how people aren’t necessarily bad, they just have different perspectives, and on and on.

So the romance in these novels was not my focus.  I wasn’t spending most of the time on the page trying to show why these two should be together.

I do write romance novels under a different name (contemporary, not fantasy) and in those novels I take a very different approach.  Even though the characters are dealing with something else (grief in this latest one, cancer in the one before that), how the main character finds her happily ever after with the hero is the focus of those novels.  Everything else that happens in the books is just part of those two people finding one another.

That’s not the case in the Rider’s novels.  In the Rider’s novels, the focus is on K’lrsa and her journey. Badru is a very important part of that journey, but he’s not all of it.  Large portions of her journey don’t include him.  (Which doesn’t mean they won’t end up together, so if you were reading for the romance, don’t hate me…I’ve got it.  Trust me.)

Anyway.  This is my long-winded way of saying, I’m not sure which direction I’m headed yet for the next series.  I can write another one like this where there is some romance, but it’s secondary to the story, and the focus is on the main character’s journey.  Or I can write a more traditional romance structure, likely in the spirit of Nora Roberts’ fantasy novels, where one couple gets together in each book of the trilogy and you follow all three couples.

I have about ten different ideas, a few that are stronger candidates than the others.  All of that may change after this writing workshop I’m headed to which I hope will up my writing game to the next level.

But…If you have strong opinions about what you liked or didn’t like in the Rider’s series or what you like or don’t like about fantasy novels in general, let me know.  Drop a note in the comments, send an email, leave a review, whatever way works best for you.

I can’t promise it’ll happen, but knowing what my existing readers like or don’t like, helps. A lot.

While You’re Waiting

20 Monday Mar 2017

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Good news is that the third book in the Rider’s trilogy is coming along nicely and should be out relatively soon.  Definitely before mid June when I head off to a two-week writing workshop, but likely earlier than that.

Right now it’s resting between drafts so I can go back to it and see all its flaws and fix them and make it a better book.  (Okay, not all of its flaws, but some of them.)  Then it’ll go off to a couple of folks to make sure I “nailed the landing” so-to-speak.  And then it’ll be ready for the world.

Now, in the meantime, while you’re excitedly waiting for the third book (I hope), there are many many other wonderful, great books out there.  And because I’m waiting for this current draft to age, I even get to read some of them.

This week I devoured the latest Juliet Marillier book, Den of Wolves.  I have to say it’s so nice to read a master at work.  She’s a brilliant storyteller and great at writing real, vivid characters.  Fortunately for me, my mother now loves this series, too, so she bought the hardcover and gave it to me to read when she was done with it.  (She never got into the Sevenwaters series, but these she likes a lot.)

Another set of books that are blowing up my also-boughts right now are the Black Mage books by Rachel E. Carter.  I haven’t had a chance to read them but the covers are gorgeous and what’s not to love about a magic school premise?  Plus, people who buy my books seem to have also bought these books, so maybe check them out if you haven’t already.

As an author (and nerd), I also like to read some non-fiction here or there.

On the writing front I recently enjoyed The Fantasy Fiction Formula which was recommended by Jim Butcher at a conference I went to earlier this year.  (Although if you haven’t read Techniques of the Selling Writer, I’d start there.  I think they deal with some of the same concepts but Swain wrote about them first and reading his book was a real aha moment for me.)

And as a fan of psychology, I really enjoyed reading You Are Not So Smart.  I don’t remember much from my undergrad degree in psychology, but I do remember the concept of heuristics and this book talks about them so it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to see that because a while back I tried to google for the concept and nothing came up and I wondered if I was losing my mind.

Anyway.  A few ideas for those of you who don’t already have enough to read.  (I have two full bookcases of to-be-read books…Some have been there for over a decade now.  Oops.  Never enough hours in the day it seems.)