Hamlette's Soliloquy: "A Noble Companion"

Showing posts with label "A Noble Companion". Show all posts

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Don't Miss the Black Friday Book Sale!

Are you ready for the most wonderful time of the year? It's nearly time for the Black Friday Book Sale! The time when a couple hundred indie authors (including me) put some or all of their Kindle books on sale for $.99 or FREE! From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, you can stuff your Kindle full of amazing indie books at ridiculously low prices.

I'm marking all six of my Once Upon a Western books down to 99 cents. Same goes for A Noble Companion. And all the authors of Follow the Lonesome Trail agreed to lower its price to 99 cents for the weekend as well!

This price drop is part of the massive indie book sale showcased at blackfridaybooksale.com, a site run by the wonderfully organized Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. My books are mainly in the Historical Fiction section, except for A Noble Companion, which is in the fantasy section. A lot of other books in the Cornerstone Series (which ANC is part of) are part of this sale too.

All of the books included on that sale site are clean, which means they do not contain smut, the violence is non-gory, and any cussing is kept to a below-PG-13 level. There are a couple hundred authors involved in this, which means hundreds and hundreds of ebooks available at their lowest price possible!

It looks like the price for my books has already dropped even though it isn't Black Friday, so if you want to go shopping a little early, go right ahead ;-)

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

A Realm Awards Finalist? Me?!?

I can barely believe I get to say this: my book A Noble Companion is a finalist for this year's Realm Awards!!!

::cue all the squees::

This little Ugly Duckling retelling was such a challenge to write. First of all, it's the first time I have been part of a multi-author project. Second, I really had never written fantasy before, and I struggled with that aspect of the book a lot. Third, every book in this series focuses on a side character of the fairy tale being retold, not the usual main character, and... there aren't really any other named characters in The Ugly Duckling.

I'm not a fantasy writer, I'm a historical fiction writer, so I did a lot of praying that God would help my imagination and writing skills grow and change to suit this new project. And I did find ways to make it truly a fantasy book, but one resting solidly on a foundation of historical research for the setting. But I never really expected that it could compete against more obvious fantasy books for the Realm Awards, which are for Christian fantasy and sci-fi. The fact that it made the long list last month felt like a really amazing honor, and I really didn't even hope that it would go farther. But it did! It's a finalist now! Wow.

If you want to see who all the finalists are, you can find the official list here. If you want to know more about A Noble Companion, check out my page about it.

Saturday, November 23, 2024

I Published a Third Book This Year!

It's true! My third new release for 2024 is here at last! A Noble Companion retells Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling," but by focusing on side characters from the original fairy tale, not the ugly duckling himself.

A Noble Companion is part of a multi-author project called The Cornerstone Series, sixteen fairy tale retellings from an unusual angle by sixteen different authors. All of the books in the series are non-magical fantasy novellas, which means that, yes, I have written something other than historical fiction!

Well, sort of ;-) I set A Noble Companion in a fantasy world based on Spanish California of the very early 1800s, in a place I call Costa Nueva. This book has talking animals and dragons, but it is definitely low fantasy, or historical-esque fantasy. I am a historical fiction author at heart, so this has a lot of similarities to my Once Upon a Western series, in that I did lots of research into the time and place I was basing my fantasy world on. But it has little fantasy elements, too.

If you buy a copy of A Noble Companion before the end of November, you can receive some book swag related to it! All you have to do to claim your swag is fill out this form and wait for me to email you to request proof of purchase and an address to send the swag to. The swag includes:

1 double-sided bookmark
1 piece of dragon treasure
3 vinyl stickers

Here's what they look like:

This swag bundle is available worldwide! And you can buy either the paperback or the e-book. Or, if you are a Kindle Unlimited reader, you can also get this swag if you read the entire book on KU before the end of the month.

If you want to know more, here's the official synopsis:

Raid a dragon's hoard for her dowry? It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Madelena isn't in love with her friend Armando, but his marriage proposal offers the security she needs. She sympathizes with him—his father insists Armando must either find a bride or join the army. Armando would rather become a husband than a soldier, but his ugly face has scared away all other eligible ladies despite his family's wealth. Although she harbors only friendship for Armando, Madelena agrees to marry him on one condition: she insists on acquiring a dowry worthy of his family's noble standing in the land of Costa Nueva. But as a humble stablemaid, Madelena has no idea how to find such wealth. That's when the talking burro Terco mentions he's heard how to find a dragon’s treasure.

Javier, Armando’s younger brother, has loved Madelena in silence for years. When he learns of their impending marriage, he offers to help her find the treasure, even though succeeding may cost him the chance to spend his future with her. Together, they face a dangerous wilderness, a charming bandit, and a dragon’s lair, forcing Javier to confront his feelings and Madelena to re-evaluate her heart.

I promise that's the last book I'm releasing this year ;-) I'm tired and need a little break!

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Invitation to be an Advance Reader for the Cornerstone Series

Want to read one or more of the Cornerstone Series books in advance? Including, but not limited to, my Ugly Duckling retelling A Noble Companion ;-) Well, here's your chance! Simply fill out this form, indicating which books you'd be interested in reading an ARC for, and then sit back and wait for confirmation and info on which books you'll be getting advance copies of!

You can ask for as many or as few as you'd like. There are sixteen books by sixteen different authors, so you've got plenty to choose from!

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Cover Reveal for My Book "A Noble Companion"

Earlier this year, I announced that I will be releasing an Ugly Duckling retelling called A Noble Companion as part of the Cornerstone Series from Beyond the Bookery. I can finally reveal its gorgeous cover!

A Noble Companion releases on November 12, and you can already pre-order the Kindle version on Amazon.

As you can see from the tagline here, this book involves a dragon! The books in this series are all non-magical fantasy, which means the authors get to include fantasy elements such as creatures (like dragons, centaurs, unicorns, mermaids) or settings, but there will be no magic-users, such as witches or wizards or sorcerers.

Is this a major step out into the unknown for me personally? In some ways, yes. I tried writing a fantasy novel in my teens and gave it up because the worldbuilding was driving me crazy. I've never tried to write anything fantasy-ish again... until now.

But, being me, my book also has an American West flavor -- I've created a world based on Spanish California in the early 1800s (think of Zorro), but with talking animals and dragons.

I have an inspiration board for this book on Pinterest -- you can check that out here!

Anyway! I love my cover, and I'm having a great time writing this book. If you'd like to see covers for more of the series, we are releasing four at a time every Monday for the whole month of June -- you can find the first eight here in my Instagram feed!

Oh, and if you think A Noble Companion sounds like a fun read, you can mark it as "want to read" here on Goodreads.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Upcoming Book Releases

Yes, that title is plural for a reason! I have several new releases and rereleases in the works for 2024, and it is long past time for me to be talking about them here. Life has been kinda... extra... the last couple of months, and things like blogging have gotten shoved to the back burner a bit. Part of that mayhem has been that I have a LOT of book projects I'm working on all at once, so let me give you a quick run-down on what is on the horizon for my books!

First off, I'm releasing my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse as an illustrated paperback on April 30! It will also be available (with the illustrations!) for ebook -- you can pre-order the Kindle edition here already. The illustrations are all by Skye Hoffert, whom I commissioned to do character art for My Rock and My Refuge. It was such a joy to work with her again!

This is the novella that won the Rooglewood Press retelling contest and was included in their 2016 anthology Five Magic Spindles. The publication rights have reverted back to me, and I am excited to be able to finally make this book an official part of my Once Upon a Western series!

Info about book launch goodies and so on will be coming after Easter, so be on the lookout for that.

Okay, that's announcement number one. Here's the next one:

I will be releasing a collection of ten short stories this summer! There will be two stories related to each book in my Once Upon a Western series, all either prequels or sequels to those books. You've been able to read some of those stories before, but three will be brand-new, and several others have only been available to my author newsletter subscribers previously.

Speaking of which, if you haven't signed up for my author newsletter yet, you can do that right here. It's a much faster way to find out about my book news than waiting for me to have time to post things on my blog ;-)

Okay, piece of news number three:

I have signed a deal with ONE Audiobooks to produce audiobook versions of my entire Once Upon a Western series, including the short stories that I'll be releasing this summer! This is a dream come true, and I am really excited about this additional way for people to access my books.

(This is the same company that I wrote A Christian Reader's Guide to Jane Eyre for last year, which should be released sometime this spring.)

And now, my fourth and final announcement:

Last fall, I was invited to be part of a multi-author series called the Cornerstone Series which will be a set of sixteen novellas, each retelling a fairy tale, but focusing on a side character from the fairy tale. So, imagine a Cinderella retelling that's about the fairy godmother, or a Snow White retelling that focuses on the huntsman, that kind of thing. (Those are examples ONLY -- I don't know if any of the authors are writing anything like that.) The series will be all non-magical fantasy novellas, which means there may be fairy tale creatures like unicorns or mermaids, or other fantasy elements, but there will be no magicians, witches, wizards, or sorcerers.

My book, A Noble Companion, is an Ugly Duckling Retelling that focuses not on the ugly duckling himself, but on a childhood friend. It is set in a fantasy version of Spanish California in the early 1800s where there are talking animals and a dragon.

I'll be revealing more about A Noble Companion in the coming months, and it will be released November 12. You can already pre-order the ebook on Amazon if you want to.

Okay! That's all my news! Are you breathless? I kind of am. That's a LOT to be working on in one year!!! Drop a comment below and tell me which of these projects you're the most excited about :-D

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