A Twist of Rapunzel - Cover Reveal!

So this post is late in the day. I probably should have scheduled it last night but ... I had a mess of a weekend and I don't have many brain cells left.

Anywho ... I HAVE A BOOK RELEASING NEXT MONTH!!!! (I know, shocker, me releasing a book...)

Misfortune, the fourth Twist of Adventure, this one a Rapunzel inspired by the Book of Daniel. It's a super sweet and heartbreaking story that hurt so much to write, and I'm so excited to share it with all of you.

Mwahaha.

Not only that, but I'm not releasing it on its own, but I found a fellow Rapunzel reteller who wanted to join the party - Kirsten Fichter with #3 of her Once Upon a Twist Tales - Diamond. I haven't read Diamond yet, but I'm looking forward to it as it's directly connected to the previous tale Spindle Dreams and Eep, was that a story.

Anywho. Awesomeness is awesome, and we have a cover reveal today!!!

Amazon || Goodreads

Diamond leads a quiet life with the woman she calls Mother. There isn’t much to pass the time save for excursions in the forest and one-sided conversations with her pet rabbit, Hobie. Men are cruel beings who care only for themselves and must be avoided at any cost. After all, Diamond’s own father gambled her away once. What other terrible fates might await her if people knew she existed?  

Seth Stendahl is an alchemist with a middling proficiency in the Rohesian tongue. After growing up with and surviving six sisters, there shouldn’t be anything too difficult for him to master – except maybe breaking his leg and being locked in the top of a ruined watchtower.   

Amazon || Goodreads

The day she was born, her kingdom fell, and so she was branded the daughter of blood and misfortune and locked away. Now a dragon plagues the land and her curse may be the only thing that stops it. 

But is she really cursed? 

Both books will be releasing on May 13th, and I can't wait. Blog tour signup will be opening soon, and I will come back later and editing in a link to it. In the meantime, feel free to add both books to your Goodreads TBR and even preorder them!

Kendra E. Ardnek is the self-proclaimed Arista of Fairy Tales. She lives in the Piney Woods of East Texas with her dragon babies and massive herd of mini-giraffes, and she is still waiting for one of of her fifty nutcrackers to come to life and marry her. When not writing, you can usually find her sitting in a random box, and she’s frequently known to act before she thinks.  Find her online at: Website || Blog || Goodreads || Facebook || Twitter || YouTube || Newsletter || Instagram || Amazon  

Kirsten Fichter is a twenty-something Christian writer who loves being the wife to her favorite person ever, mommy to two precious blessings, a piano enthusiast, a dragon buff, a serious bookworm, and an INFP synesthete. Fairytales have always fascinated her, and she has made it her goal to rewrite as many as possible and become known as the “Grimm Dickens” (i.e. mixing Grimm fairytales with a Dickens style). Diamond: A Rapunzel Story is her third published fairytale retelling. You can find out more about her on her blog, A Synesthete Writer.  

Find her online at:  Blog || Goodreads || Facebook || Instagram || Amazon  

Lookit this Shiny!!!!

So, I'm not sure yet when book 6 of Bookania will be ready for publication - I'm still in the very early stages of writing it (it has a table of contents though!). However, I do have a cover for it, and it's a very gorgeous cover ... and I just don't like sitting on my covers. 

So ... I'm going to share it with you now, and let you ooh and ahh, and add it to your Goodreads shelf. 

Once upon a time, in a land called Bookania, there lived a girl who was a servant in her own household.

This, for the record, is my favorite Bookania cover thus far. It's exactly how I envisioned it before building it, and that shadow!! Shadows are fun to make. 

What's the book about? Well, as you can gather, The Merchant of Venice will be playing a large role. I'll also be paying off a lot of hints and mentions that I've been littering through the previous books (as well as planting more plots, because that's just how I am). There will be Cinderella. There will be the Oddessey. And there will also be pirates. This is a book that I've been wanting to write for a long time, and I really can't wait to share it with all of you. 

It's also probably the most low-key on the magic scale for Bookania. There's the existing magic, of course - everyone's gifts will have a part to play, and there may be the granting of new ones - but as far as I'm aware thus far, there will be no flashy curses or other displays of magic as there has been in previous or will be in upcoming books. 

No promises on the release date - though I'm going to try to have it written within the year. I've also put Love and Memory at the top of my priority list, and that's an intense book there. (I just started the second notebook, and haven't even finished part 1. Fully expecting 150K-200K out of this baby).

That said, if anyone wants to alpha Merchant for me, I'm looking for 2-3 readers who are willing to read photographed pages in Hangouts and cheer me on. If you're willing (and you've read all previous books of the series), message me at kendraeardnek(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know.

So, go add it to your TBR, and if you haven't yet, download book 1 for FREE (also available on most major ebook platforms, as it's the one book I have wide). I'm trying to get Sew to 50 reviews on Amazon. Not sure what sort of party I'll throw when that happens, but there will be a party.

***Edit***
Now Available! 

(Click cover for purchase link)
Add on Goodreads! 

I just want to let you guys know that I'm going to be running the exact same giveaway with Love and Memory as I am with the Merchant of Menace. One free paperback for every ten kindle preorders (U.S. Only), just email me your receipt to enter!

A Random Update Post

I feel like I never blog anymore. In fact, I missed my tenth blogoversary last month - and I'd had some pretty fun plans for it.

Life's just had me stretched thin, lately. Hair We Go Again marked my sixth official release within the space of a year, and I'd not had a nice July. My aunt (who'd lived in the upstairs trailer from me, helped with bills, and provided my rides to town), moved out at the end of June, and while I'd known this move was coming, I'd been expecting more fall-timing, so to suddenly have her GONE has added a lot to my plate that I wasn't prepared for. Especially as her air conditioner went out while they were unloading her house into the moving van. Air conditioner has not been fixed, and our houses are connected by a not-airtight door. In fact, I'd call it rather the opposite of airtight.

I also don't have running water in my own house, so I have to go up there to use the bathroom, take showers, and wash my dishes. I live in Texas. So, yeah, heat's been melting me. (Fortunately, the nights have been ... decent, so I leave the screen door open at night - though locked - so the house can breathe.)

In July, I had two back-to-back "vacations." Realm Maker's the third weekend, and then I was a Sponsor at a Church camp (Basically, I was the Responsible Adult who was brought to be in charge of my younger cousins and sister.) the following week. This required two weeks off from work, so I'd requested some extra days in the weeks previous to my vacations. What I'd not asked for was extra days in the weeks following, but that's what I've gotten. Including eating THREE out of the five days of the Golden Braid's blog tour, and I'd only planned to work the last day.

(Note on my work schedule - I work part-time at McDonald's, and it's supposed to be three nine-hour shifts a week. This is because I live thirty minutes from town and don't drive, and so, while working, have to crash at my parent's house, who live within walking distance from my work. They don't really have room for me at their apartment, so I like to minimize the time that I'm there. And, with my Aunt moved out, I've had to rely on my other aunt for rides, and her schedule's a lot more rigid, resulting in extra time at my parents' house.)

So, yeah, Hair We Go Again didn't get the launch I'd planned for it, and I'm utterly behind in everything and have no idea how to catch up.

You guys may remember some posts concerning my sister earlier this year. Yeah, that's still a continuing saga. I don't really want to say anything more on the subject, but it's been something on my plate that's been making life frustrating.

I don't want my writing to be about the numbers, I really don't. But, the frustrating thing about growing up and being an adult is that life costs money. And it'd be much nicer if that money didn't require me squatting at my parents' house. I want to give you guys great stories, but life is squeezing all of the time and energy I have for that. I mean, I have managed six releases in the space of a year (I'm insane), and my royalties for the first half of the year have been somewhere over $400 - nothing to sneeze at, as it's about what I made in the WHOLE of last year, and that'd been my best year yet. But it's still not enough to replace my minimum wage part-time paycheck.

I'm honestly not sure how I'm moving forward. I'm working my hardest to get Love and Memory out next year. Not sure how it's going to happen, but it's been three years already since LDTD released, and that's enough of a gap between books. Cost and Song are both too much of a mess to make progress on, but I do have a number of Bookania projects that are high-priority, including book 6, a couple short stories, and A-Parent Loss, the first book of a new series called the Bookania Misadventures. Also Misfortune and The Dancing Princess are both still on my plate, and I'm going to try to have the former out before the end of the year, and The Dancing Princess ready in advance of the Tattered Slippers release, rather than fifteen minutes before it's due to Amazon, as has been the case the last several releases. (Maaaaybe I should spread them out a bit more, but life's too short and I have too many books.)

But what's going to happen next, how I'm going to pay my bills AND keep up with writing, I don't know.

And to those of you waiting on your preorder bundles ... they are coming, but my schedule hasn't allowed me to really focus on any of them. Update on the audiobook - my Microphone has decided that it doesn't like me and won't talk to my computer. I'm hoping that it's an issue with the cord (it wasn't a cheap mic, but that was a cheap cord), but I haven't had a chance to chase down another cord that will fit it (it's picky).

So ... with all that said ... Kendra out, and maybe consider buying a book?

Do You Like Free Books?

Don't lie to me. It's far more fun to NOT pay for something than it is to pay for it.

So, that's why I have not one, but THREE books free for you to download. Wait, no, make that four - Sew, it's a Quest is permanently free, after all. These other three, however, are free today and tomorrow only.

The Worth of a King

Water Princess, Fire Prince

Honor: A Quest In

(And Sew, It's a Quest if you're interested in that)

(Oh, and you can always pick up the Tales of Ever After Anthology)

You may be wondering WHY I'm offering these books for free.

Well, first off, they were all three getting close to their turnovers, and it's been a while since I last offered free books, so I thought - why not? I just released a book, after all, and this could generate some buzz and push some sales.

But the big thing - I'm trying to gather a few more reviews on each of these books. 

I have goals, actually, and rewards that I'm going to shower on the internet once they're met.

Honor's the easiest. I just need five reviews (on either Amazon or Goodreads), and I'm going to reveal the cover for book 6 of the series once I hit that. And it's a gorgeous cover, so you guys will want to see it.

WPFP, for its part, I'm trying to bump up to the all-important 50 reviews on Amazon. It's been hovering 39 for the last couple weeks, but I want to push it over the edge. To celebrate when that happens, I'll be posting the first chapter of Love and Memory, the third book of the series, which returns to Clara and Andrew's story, here to this blog.

Worth is probably the most difficult. My goal is 25 Amazon reviews on this one, but it's only at 9 at the moment (was at ten yesterday, though. Don't know what happened.) When it gets there, I'll will post a very special bonus story to the AA blog about a certain couple that was hinted at the end of the book.

And, while we're at it, I would LOVE to see Sew reach 50 Amazon reviews as well. Bit of a long shot on this one, as it's been sitting at 18 reviews for the longest time, and it needs a bit more love. Still trying to decide what I'm going to do with this one, but we'll see!

Another thing I'd like to see? At least one of these books hit a #1 free in some category. I'm not picky which one, just please download the books and share to your friends when your done. Who knows? We might actually succeed.

And, yes, you can totally steal these images for sharing purposes. Just as long as you're sharing and downloading, and reviewing. I really want to share the surprise bonus features with all of you!

Five Reasons to Read The Dragon's Flower

I can't believe it, but here we are on the last day of the Golden Braids release!

Add to Goodreads

In the wilds of the mountainous country of Akiyama, there stands a pagoda. When Shichiro, an exiled, honorless samurai stumbles across it one rainy morning, he expects to find it empty and abandoned. He was not expecting to find a lonely princess with near-mythical blue eyes dwelling in the top floors. 

Hanako has dwelt alone for all her life, with only her two silent handmaidens and the countless dragon effigies on her walls to keep her company; her only knowledge of the outside world gained from the books and scrolls she reads. When the wandering ronin stumbles onto her haven, she gains her first friend, never knowing how deeply this chance meeting would affect her. 

The threads of fate have tied these two together, and all the while turmoil boils in the midst of the Seven Countries of Azuma-no-Kuni. Rumors of alliances and armies sprout up, and whispers of the long-lost Imperial Line returning at last. Old prophecies ripen at last, and old myths prepare to show themselves once again in the hour of need. Amongst it all stand two new allies—an isolated princess and a near-friendless ronin, as the wheels of fate and destiny circle them and draw ever closer. Will peace at last return to the fractured realms, or will remnants of the once great Empire splinter beyond all redemption?

I'm honestly feeling like a proud Grandma here, with all of these book babies loose on internet that I helped see the light of day, and this one most of all. I'm so proud of Wyn with this story, and I want all of you to read and love it as well.

1. It's my faaaavorite romance trope. I can't spoil it, but I was grinning like an idiot when it happened. Seriously, authors, you can pull this plot twist on me and I will continue to love it every single time.

2. I cannot belive Wyn's talent in translating a fairy tale from one culture to another, and still retaining everything that makes the fairy tale awesome. I saw it before in But One Life, but here, OH MY FREAKIN' WORD, it was awesome. The Dragon's Flower is 100% Japan-esuqe, and it's also 100% Rapunzel and I just can't even with it.

3. BROTHERS!!!! I love how sibling stories were such a focus with these Golden Braids, and this one might be my favorite. Shichiro's relationship with his older brother and younger sister was gold, and can I also shout out that adorable overprotective toddler big brothers are adorable? Eeeeep.

4. The Worldbuilding!!! I mentioned that it's medieval Japan-esque, but I just love how it combined Japanese mythos into a Christian Worldview. And the Fox was so much fuuuuuun.

5. It's just plain epic and awesome, kay? Go read it. Now. NOOOOOOW.

Author Bio:

Wyn Estelle Owens is the penname of a young woman who’s still figuring out what this whole ‘adult’ thing is all about. She lives in a big, old house in Maryland by a Hundred Acre Wood (dubbed Neldoreth) with her parents, three occasionally obnoxious brothers, her dog Jackie, and her rabbit Joker. She is fond of reading, writing, drawing, speaking in dead or imaginary languages, playing videogames, quoting classic or obscure literature, being randomly dramatic, and generally making things out of yarn. Her dream is to write stories that inspire people to chase after the wonderful world of storytelling. Her favorite all-time authors are Anne Elisabeth Stengl, Christa Kinde, and above all, J.R.R. Tolkien, who first inspired her to pursuing novel writing when she read the Hobbit at the age of seven.
Find her online at:  Goodreads || Facebook 

Also, one last reminder to go check out the rest of the tour and sign up for the giveaway!   (I Mean, we can't have Kiri winning by DEFAULT, now can we? Also congratulations to Kiri for the release of her second book today. I need to read it.)