Categories
Announcements

Uriale’s Redemption is LIVE!!!

I’m super excited to announce that Uriale’s Redemption is now available in ebook on Amazon! (Paperback version coming soon)

This book is also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so if you have that, you can read it for FREE.

This book has been a long time in the making and I really hope fans of the series love this book as much as I do.

Please note that this story is set in a dark and dangerous world in which all characters are in peril. There are some intense combat scenes that might be disturbing to some readers. It’s an emotional roller coaster of a read and far from light and fluffy, but the tone is in line with that of the rest of the series, and you all know I love Happily Ever Afters! šŸ˜€ Just sayin.

Forsaken and exiled

Abandoned by the Father of Light and hunted by his Flock, Uriale craves vengeance against the Diakonos—humans who once worshipped him as a god, and then betrayed him by stealing his power over light.

The chance for that vengeance stumbles into his talons with former Diakonos, Ellana Reese. Sparing her from death in the unforgiving jungle is no mercy on his part. He plans to torture the location of the other Diakonos out of her, but finds his own protective instinct standing in his way.

To make matters worse, Ellana isn’t just any beautiful and fragile human female. She once captivated him as his devoted servant, her words of praise brightening his moments of darkness. Now that she’s in his grasp, he feels enchanted all over again.

A dangerous secret

Ellana once loved Uriale as her god and also harbored a more forbidden desire for him, until he abandoned those he was meant to protect, destroying her faith in him. Now, she must lure him away from her son—their son—the genetically engineered child the Diakonos created to usurp Uriale’s power to give it to mankind. Ellana knows the fallen prince will kill Micah if he discovers the boy’s location.

But Uriale’s unexpected mercy touches her heart as she realizes that he isn’t a perfect god of a light, but a flawed and scarred mortal of flesh and blood. Her fantasy is finally in her grasp, and his touch heats her blood, but the secret she must keep from him could destroy the love that grows between them.

And the secrets Uriale keeps could destroy their world.

Categories
Updates

Back to Blogging

I have plenty of eyes watching me work, lol.

It’s been ages since I’ve written an actual blog post that wasn’t a release announcement. I do enjoy writing these posts, but I’ve been so focused on creating my books that I kept procrastinating on writing another blog.

So much has gone on in my life since my last blog post, and to be honest, after reviewing and redoing my website, I realized that those old posts just didn’t fit into what I was planning for the future, so I deleted them to make way for a more consistent series of blog posts. From now on, I intend to structure my blog posts into specific categories that will (hopefully) be easily accessible via my website menu. Of course, there will still be new release announcements, but I also want to have an ā€œUpdatesā€ category so I can create posts letting my fans know what I’m working on, or what I’m planning to start, and another category for supplemental content to my books that will expand upon the universes I’ve created for each of my series. I’m really excited about that second category, which I’m thinking of titling ā€œLore and More.ā€

Now, the reason I started thinking about adding lore blogs was because I have made the commitment (finally) to typing up my series bibles into a format that will make researching for new books in each series much, much easier! Currently, my world-building and character and timeline notes are scattered all over the place. I have about a dozen journals, a pile of looseleaf notebook paper, and a bunch of napkins and receipts and envelopes, all of which contain notes that are pertinent to my published novels and the worlds and characters I created for them.

And the name of that obscure character I referenced briefly in book one is…ah…chaos!

I love to bring in details in new books from previous books in the series, especially the small details that may have only been mentioned in passing before that many readers may not actually notice, but I love to drop little Easter eggs in the hopes that my fans will pick up on them. Friak was in my ITS universe from the very first book, The Scorpion’s Mate, even though he hadn’t even been born yet, lol. In fact, sometimes those small details end up becoming a pivotal part of a plot in a new book I’m working on, (Friak’s story is a prime example of a callback to a previous book, and a crossover at that), and when that happens, I’m totally stoked. I don’t always plan these things in advance, but sometimes I do plan it, then I forget my original plan because months or even years pass between the book I wrote that introduced that detail and the new book I’m writing that will make the most use of that detail.

In case you didn’t know it was out. šŸ˜‰

To combat missing out on these things, I will often reread the entire series before writing the next book, but as you can imagine, when the series gets longer and longer, that option becomes less viable if I want to get books finished in a timely manner. Plus, rereading six or seven books in a series to then write the eighth can give me a bit of series fatigue that makes me want to hop around to new projects. I love my stories, and I love to reread them, but not when I feel like I’m under the gun with (self-imposed, usually) deadlines.

So, I created a template for my series bibles. Well, several templates actually, including a timeline template and character details template. As I’m going back through each of my series, rereading not only the books themselves but also digging through the extensive notes filled with details and events I never published, I am discovering some stuff that I’m finding entertaining to rewrite or expand upon. A lot of this is lore, like the origin mythologies that I had to condense while writing them out by hand because my brain was working too fast for my pen. Then there’s the detailed information on the cities, the worlds, the complexities of the political landscape for each species, the mating rituals, the theologies….

Dear Pen, Why’d you fail me? I’m so disappointed. Sincerely, Brain

Okay, perhaps not all of these things will be as interesting to my fans as they are to me, but I’m thinking my readers might enjoy some of the mythologies and legends associated with my worlds and characters. Like perhaps they might want to read the tale of Doshakeren’s epic battle against the Northern Mountain as told by the storytellers of his old nest. Or maybe even how the Fayi tell the tale of their origin, and how they describe Cold Mother and her Dark Nest.

Right now, those particular tales are still in note form, but I have fully completed the origin myths for Tak of Clan Et, from my Into the Dead Fall book of the series with the same name, and Iyaren, who is the other hero in that same book. I drew inspiration from Ancient Egyptian mythology for Tak and Iyaren’s character designs, as well as the god and goddess they once served, and I stuck with that inspiration for their origin myths. I focused on the Osiris myth, but I veered far from that inspiration, creating relationships and connections that didn’t exist in the inspiration myth. Still, the influence is there, and loving Ancient Egyptian mythology like I do, I don’t shy away from it, while at the same time I did my own thing.

Ever since I was a kid, Ancient Egypt has fascinated me!

What I love most about Tak and Iyaren’s origin myths is that they are two separate versions of the same story that, when compared side-by-side, show the biases of each species and how their different perspectives (from opposite sides of a battlefield) influenced the tales they tell about their origins.

I love to present a story from multiple points of view that conflict with each other in order to examine how perspective alone can change the shades of a story, so something that appears clear-cut when viewed from one angle is quite a bit fuzzier when viewed from the opposing angle. But I digress….

Allow me to get back on topic. I would like to share these bits of lore, from myth to legend, to short stories recounting heroic deeds of actual book characters, because they will be the kinds details that I intend to record as I continue typing up my series bibles.

These are the kinds of details that I love to see from those series that I am interested in that are created by other authors. They’re the details that don’t make it into the books. They’re tales that might be referenced but are never actually told to the readers, because they don’t pertain to the specific story. It’s important to remain laser-focused when working on a manuscript so I avoid bloating it with extraneous details. (My idea of extraneous differs from some other readers, as I like lots of world building, but not at the cost of story pacing.)

I feel like both my blog posts and my newsletter exclusives can be a place where I share these bits of lore and further expand upon my worlds and characters, because I imagine that if someone is subscribing to these, then they are invested in the worlds and characters I’ve created, and like me, they want to know more than what I can cover in the stories I’ve published. (Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss exclusive content! :D)

So, in addition to hopefully blogging with regular updates, along with sending out a monthly newsletter with exclusive content, I plan to start sharing lore as I complete it or come across it in my scattered mess of notes while working on my series bibles.

I will categorize this first blog in ages as ā€œUpdatesā€, and so I will add a quick update. I am currently working on Uriale’s Redemption, which is book 5 in my Shadows in Sanctuary series. I know I’ve been promising this book for literal years, and for not delivering in a timely manner, I apologize! It’s because I’ve failed to deliver this book for so long that I stopped making promises for upcoming releases until the first draft of a manuscript was complete to my satisfaction.

I’m 65k words into this book, and the story is concrete in my mind now (fully developed and fully visualized), which means this is the one! The final version! The one I was meant to write, though I still have a ways to go before it’s complete.  

The outline for Uriale’s Redemption has gone through multiple rewrites throughout the years, and in fact, I ended up realizing I couldn’t even tell his story until I told another story first, which ended up becoming Executioner’s Grace, because Uriale’s destiny involved something that hadn’t happened yet. I won’t go into further details that would be spoilery, but suffice it to say, all the pieces are finally in place on the board, and now it’s time to play the game.

In addition to Uriale’s book, I’m working on a little side project set in the same world, because as I develop certain aspects of a story, I’m inspired to expand on…well…lore. Including the origin stories of certain factions in my books. I’ve always had extensive notes for that lore, but now, I am fleshing out a complete story with a bit of a horror flavor to it, though it is still intended to be a romance with an HEA (of sorts). I have been wanting to write a horror-romance forever, and though most of my books flirt with horror elements, I have always wanted to make the story a little darker (by ā€œa littleā€ I mean a lot XD). So far, I’m just playing around with this side project while using it to flesh out the main world building, but if I finish the story I envision, it may end up being a novella length that I would consider publishing. If you’re interested in such a story, comment below and let me know!

Other projects are in the works too. Kevos’s book (Sentinel’s Journey, book 2 of my Children of the Ajda series) and Ava’s book (The Director’s Mate, book 9 of my Iriduan Test Subjects series) are still on target for this year, fingers crossed. I will also be working on those series bibles and whew! Those notes are insanely extensive! It’s a lot. My readers have seen only a small fraction of how much detail there is in the Iriduan Test Subjects series universe especially.

What kind of tales and lore would you like to see? What books would you like to see from me? Which characters are you really eager to see more of?

Let me know in the comments, because I take all of the feedback from my fans into consideration when planning future projects. My Shadows in Sanctuary series is one that I resurrected specifically because so many fans of the series contacted me hoping for the next book, when I had thought no one was interested in the series anymore, so I’d backburnered my manuscripts for that series.

Thank you so much for reading my blog, and if you’re subscribed to this blog or my newsletter (or both!), know that I really appreciate your support. I am honored and thrilled that you want to continue on this journey with me.

Categories
Announcements

Friak’s Spark is now LIVE!

My latest ebook is now available exclusively on Amazon!

(Print copies coming soon)

Social media post featuring Friak's Spark novel.

I’m so excited to have the final book in Valerie’s story go live, and I hope you all love it as much as I do. Though Friak’s Spark focuses on Friak and Valerie’s relationship, Alex and Sherak still have important roles in this book, as it is a story of all four of them finally forming a family, though many obstacles stand in the way of their happily ever after.

Also, I’ll be sending out a newsletter announcing this new release, and I included a 1200 word ā€œinterviewā€ of Friak by the New Omni Review that didn’t quite go as the interviewer planned. šŸ˜€

If you sign up for my newsletter after I send it out, you can still get that newsletter delivered to you as a thank you email in response to your signing up.

I’m going to try to send out one newsletter a month that will contain some bit of exclusive content like this, as well as occasional announcements about new releases, special offers, or any other important announcements or updates, but I won’t be flooding email boxes with spam, which reminds me, if you’re already signed up for my newsletter, but haven’t been getting them, be sure to check your spam folder for emails from Susan Trombley SFR Author!

Now on to the blurby blurb!


Friak

I spent years in a parallel dimension, jumping to serve the whims of a female I’d believed to be my one true mate. Then I learned the truth about her the hard way after failing to complete a mission she’d given me. I discovered that she had only been using me—and turning me into a monster in the process.

After my actions led to my Uncle Gray having to destroy the Nexus dimensional portal, it ended up stranding a human woman named Valerie in our world. When I sought her out to apologize for her circumstances and my unwitting part in them, I was stunned to feel my flame stirring in the ashes left behind by my former spark.

It seemed that I had somehow been given a second chance at love with a new spark. Such a thing was unprecedented for my father’s people, the Histri’i, and could only be a gift of fate. The only problem was that I could not accept that gift. I was unworthy of my new spark after all that I had done for the previous one. Valerie deserved better than me, and the only way I could convince her of that was to make her hate me enough to keep me at a distance.

When fate proved determined and thrust us back together again in a situation we couldn’t escape, I realized that all my efforts to deny my spark were futile. I needed her, more than I needed my next breath, and I couldn’t resist her any longer. I had to claim her as mine—and once I did, I would never let her go.

Even if it meant reconciling with my cousin—who had threatened my life the last time we spoke.

Author’s Note: This book is part of a three-book story with the same heroine. Each book will focus on a different hero who will become one of her mates, while advancing the story and the growth of her ā€œnest.ā€ She will have all three mates by the end of the three books. These books are best read in order, starting with ā€œSherakeren’s First Date,ā€ then ā€œAlexander’s Nest,ā€ and finally, this book.


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Categories
Announcements

Heading Back to the Dead Fall!

It’s here! Vincent’s Resolution is now LIVE on Amazon!

Ready for a blind date with an alien and a return to the Dead Fall with a brand new spin-off series of my ā€œInto the Dead Fallā€ series, following the next generation of Dead Fall citizens?

This time around, the story takes place in a new series spin-off called Children of the Dead Fall, and book 1 features Vincent, one of Evie’s lovable grub worm squirmies, all grown up and sexy as sin. With a six pack of belly claws and a thirst for blood, he’s setting out to find his forever mate, and a paranormal critter-loving human named Gabby seems like just the kind of woman who will appreciate Vincent’s “special” attributes.


Blurb:

Gabby

My bestie, Valerie, offered to hook me up with a quirky oddball of a man she met at the gas station where she works. She insisted that he would be perfect for me, because he’s into the paranormal so much that he has modified his appearance to look like a vampire, complete with fangs, pointed ears, and inhuman eyes. She knows I love anything paranormal or supernatural—or just plain weird—and honestly, her description of Vincent certainly had me intrigued.

Though she managed to talk me into taking Vincent to her New Year’s Eve bash as my blind date, I had my reservations, but one of my New Year’s resolutions was to take risks and try new things in an effort to live my life to its fullest, instead of just existing. Starting that resolution early seemed to pay off when I met my date. Vincent turned out to be as gorgeous as she’d described, and his body modifications were certainly as unusual as she’d promised.

Then he took me back to his place, and I discovered that his body wasn’t modified at all. He’s not pretending to be a vampire.

He is one—and an alien one at that!

****

Vincent

When it came time to seek my mate, I knew I would end up traveling to another dimension through the Nexus to find her. Wanting the kind of forever-love that my parents enjoyed, I focused on my half-human side and decided to search for a human mate on a world much like the one my own mother, Evie, was abducted from so many years ago.

To my surprise, I was able to hide in plain sight amongst the humans, who believed my Fayi features were a result of artificial body alterations. As long as they never saw me with my shirt off, they wouldn’t guess that I had six deadly, venomous claws the Fayi call ā€œclaudasā€ that extended from my chitinous spine. Unfortunately, being unable to take my shirt off until I knew I could trust a woman not to freak out when she saw my claudas made dating more complicated.

Then the manager of the gas station where I stopped in every day to satisfy my sweet tooth told me all about her best friend—a woman named Gabby who loved the unusual and paranormal. Gabby sounded exactly like the kind of woman who would embrace my inhuman nature—and allow me to embrace her with my claudas. I just hoped she would be prepared to leave her world behind forever and return with me to the Dead Fall to become the most important part of mine.


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