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I am sorry I did not write this before when I had pre orders up. I had a sudden bereavement and everything went a bit pear-shaped.
My PhD novel is here.
I have blogged about this before so scroll back. However, I will say that I am currently working on the audio book, which I think it will make it more accessible. Reading a single non-gendered pronoun is hard enough (try writing it) but listening should be better. I shall let you know.
Also, a special introductory price of $2.99 au is in effect until 14 July, 2026 and $1.99 US
Here is the blurb
The Founders created them free and equal.
In the domed habitat of Frequil, sixteen-year-old Tal 455 is now an adult. Like every sihem—a genderless human engineered by the Founders—Tal has been raised to value harmony and the collective good, where every citizen has a place.
When Tal proposes an experiential history machine to explore Frequil’s origins, the ruling council reluctantly approves it under strict supervision. Paired with Gen 456, a certified genius, Tal begins uncovering fragments of the Founders’ world that were never meant to be seen.
Hidden among the archives are stories of men and women living in a society with different rules. Fascinated, Tal and Gen use their machine to experience a forbidden past—and begin questioning everything they have been taught about themselves.
Gentleman Magician is at 40,000 words. This is going to be a novella and I think I can finish it soon. I just have to write the ending scenes. I’m so excited. It’s taken me a bit longer to write than I planned but I have enjoyed not rushing. The Cry Havoc series continues. Steampunk and magic, with a side order of sandwiches. I’m really excited to be exploring the relationship between Edward Huntington, Ambrose Fulton and Jasper Heaton.
After I’ve done a bit of research, I’ll be starting Book Five, The Amethyst Way, featuring Jemima of course, and an adventure for Milly. Not sure I’ll write the prequel novella about Jemima’s father and mother but we shall see.
I’ve given up shopping my PhD novel, The Founders’ Legacy, to agents and publishers. The small Australian presses I had in mind are closed to subs. I have a feeling it’s a bit woke for the current climate in the USA and bad economics and global uncertainty don’t help either. Anyway, I did try. So the other day, I found a cover. Let me know what you think. It is SF YA/Adult cross over. I’ve got to work on the blurb. This is what I have so far:
Sixteen-year-old Tal is graduating from pod life and dreams of developing an experiential history machine to explore the past. When Tal’s research project is initially refused, that future seems impossible. After negotiation, approval is granted on two conditions: Tal must stay clear of the Founders’ lives and work alongside a young genius named Gen.
While mining data in the city’s systems, Tal uncovers the Founders’ arbitrary decisions that shaped Frequil’s genderless society. Fictional texts from the past introduce the idea of binary gender. Drawn by forbidden knowledge, Tal and Gen use their invention to experience what it was like to live as a pre-Frequil man and woman. As their bond deepens, the biological template that made Tal genderless begins to break down…
The Founders’ Legacy explores gender, love, and autonomy in a society that believes these concepts are no longer relevant.
In other news, I have eye surgery on Thursday for the fast growing cataract that is the result of my previous eye surgery, the vitrectomy ilast September. I’m half blind and typing this is fraught!
I have one upcoming appearance June 12, Newcastle Book Boyfriend. I’m heading to a Regency Weekend on the 14th and I’m madly sewing for it. Between writing and craft and bad posture I hurt.
Amber Rose is currently having a second round of edits but we are getting closer.
Launch date is set for April 10 2025.
We have a blurb
Amber Rose
A book of manners, magic and mayhem…and, perhaps, a tad too many scones
All Ambrose Fulton wants is to enjoy his idyllic life at Hatfield, helping his wife Milly raise their little son, tolerating Aunt Prudence and entertaining their friends.
What he gets is a ferocious assault from a violet-eyed automaton that devastates the estate and makes off with his enchanted clockwork arm, brutally ripped from his shoulder. To the rescue, barely in time to save his life, come friends Edward Huntington, gentleman magician, and his wife, the monster-slayer Jemima.
Whoever sent the machine can only have wanted one thing: to glean the secrets of Huntington’s magical mechanical designs for purposes clearly nefarious. Now as well as wrangling an anxious innkeeper, a fake heir, interfering magistrates, odd magicians and some thoroughly unexpected visitors, they must uncover their mysterious enemy’s identity and stop them or who knows what evil ends Huntington’s inventions will be put to?
Next is to register ISBNs, put up pre order links etc.
I’m off to Brisbane and Sydney over the weekend just when I’m expecting my edit back. However, we shall solider on. Don’t forget tickets are now at the door. I believe panels are in the morning and the signing/book selling is from lunch time.
While I was waiting for the edits of Amber Rose, I managed to polish up a Regency Romance I drafted way back in 2016. I’ve lobbed it at a trad publisher. The reason I mention this is that I am very proud of my productivity and have been thoroughly enjoying writing in February and March.
I delivered my printed and bound thesis to the university to complete my Phd. It is a week shy of a year from when I submitted it. Honestly, the longest 12 months ever due to the administration at the university. Anyway, I hope to graduate in April in person but I’m likely to have my degree conferred before then. This now means I can start work on developing my Phd novel, Sihem, for publication, actually to submit to agents first up. I have structural edits to take up. You might ask why do I need to do that. Didn’t I just do a PhD in creative writing? Yes, I did but I was limited to word length and also I explored themes related to my PhD topic and that restricted how much time I devoted to other aspects of world building. That’s my January sorted.
The second big bit of news is Awakening has been published to most e retailers. I’m about to hit print on the print version too. I haven’t updated my links yet. There’s a lot going on as we finish off renovations and painting and pay attention to family visiting in the lead up to Christmas.
I wanted to share with you a bit about the genesis of Awakenings. It started with a kind of a poem as I sat by my mother in the early morning in the later stages of her life. She didn’t die that time but it was close. So I sat there at 2 am watching her on April 19 2014, looking at her pale white skin, her shallow breaths and then wrote down the ideas that came to me. Here is what I wrote:
Bring out the soldiers who lie within their frozen crypts
Do not wake them or disturb them
Their time is done
They gave us this peace, t his life and we are thankful.
Let not their sleeping, tranquil faces beguile you
They are bringers of death, purveyors of harm
It is time to let them go
Let them burn
Their flesh to no more rise
Let us grasp a future where they no longer exist
Where we are free
I don’t claim to be a poet, but these words were the genesis behind Awakening. I used some of these words and the ideas behind them for the novel. Here is the blurb.
Bring out the cold soldiers who lie in frozen sleep.
Do not wake them nor let their tranquil faces beguile.
They are purveyors of death.
They must burn!
What soldiers? Colony Five has been proudly peaceful since before living memory.
The cryptic new orders make no sense to Deleen Milo… until she sees the burning bodies in the stasis sarcophagi. She tries to uncover the truth behind the mysterious soldiers, only to become adrift in a colony suddenly full of secrets and threats. Who wants the soldiers destroyed and the colony defenceless?
Pursued into hiding, Deleen manages to revive Rik Chesson, a Cold Soldier trying to understand the new world waiting for him after 134 years of cryosleep. Deleen has never trusted easily, and Rik’s nanotech-infused posthuman form sets her nerves on edge. But they are the only ones who can rescue the surviving Cold Soldiers and defend the colony against a deadly new threat. They have to work together, and as they begin to truly know one another Deleen realises that however Rik’s body may have changed, the man inside might just be one she can love…
It has taken a while to get this book published. I started out thinking it would one thing but Nicole Murphy who was my first reader suggested I take a different tack. Every time I was part way through a revision something else would crop up and some of those revisions were big. This year, I had another beta reader, Lily, who did an amazing job and her comments helped me focus on getting it done and out there. I hope you like it.
I really should blog more. That way I don’t cram up important posts with all the things I’ve been up to.
I’m currently marking for Uni so that’s something I have to do. It’s going okay and I’ll finish in time. Yesterday was a fasting day so not a good time to be reading lots of stories that I have to grade without the aid of chocolate and chips. However, I have survived so far.
My partner and I just finished a film making workshop with Dan Sanguineti from Sanguineti Media. We had three nights 6-9pm, to plan a two to three minute movie, including brainstorming ideas, come up with a script, actors (Dan supplied those), storyboard and plan the shots and lighting and so on. Then we filmed the movie on Saturday night 6- to 11.30pm with cold temperatures etc. Then on Sunday, we edited the film and did the sound. High five to Shauna O’Meara and Craig Cooper and to Josh and Dan. Just under two minutes! The Key now exists. Later on in the year I’ll share it. Right now it will be doing festival rounds etc.
Doing the workshop was amazing. It is a really hard thing to come up with a story that has a beginning, middle and end in two and a half pages of script. Writing a script was on my bucket list– so tick. I want to thank my partner, Matthew, who basically found the workshop, paid the fees and encouraged others to come along. I did not think I’d have a short film to my credit until now. I didn’t have much idea of how the workshop would pan out but it was great. I learned so much. I have heaps more to learn obviously and more scripts to write.
That brings me to now. Last year I drafted a novella in the Silverlands Series while I was in Perth. Recently, I polished it up and had it proofread and found an amazing cover. Vorn and the First Comers is available now in most large eretailers and it’s free. Yes, that’s right…free!
The novella is a few things. It’s part of a larger collections of stories from Argenterra. One of the characters in Argenterra is Kushlan Silvertongue and he’s a storyteller. If you are familiar with Argenterra, the first book, you know that tales from the past are very important to the narrative and important to the people of Argenterra. I had the idea that Kushlan would be tasked with writing these down. Vorn and the First Comers is the first of these. There will be others…such as Goslien of the Valley, Faruni’s Triplets, Shabra’s Curse and so on.
I’ll be releasing each of these tales before combining them into a collection.
This then is part of a gift to my readers. You get Vorn and the First Comers for free.
The other function of the novella is for readers to get a taste of Argenterra and then get the rest of the series if it interests them.
My next task is to get this novella in My Books section.
Blurb and cover (from Patty Jansen)
A choice between life or death…
Kushlan Silvertongue has been commissioned to write the Tales of the First Comers, Tales of Argenterra.
This novella is the story of Vorn and the First Comers and their journey from violence and death to the beautiful magical land of Argenterra, the Silverland.
Mighty warrior, Vorn, leads the survivors to a new land and sets in motion a civilisation that lasts for over one thousand years.
Discover the origins of the given magic and how the first comers made the oaths that secured that magic forever.
I have put Ruby Heart, Cry Havoc Book 1 up for preorder on Amazon. It is in Kindle Unlimited so it will be free to those who subscribe to that service. I will publish this book to other retailers in 2019. It will also be available in print.
This has been a long time coming. Ruby Heart had an agent. We thought this would sell but alas it did not. After five years waiting, I’m publishing myself. I love it and I’m so excited to share Jemima Hardcastle’s story with you.
Here is the blurb. It is currently being edited so it’s not perfect, but you will get the gist.
Blurb
Paranormal Victorian steampunk fantasy, with Gothic horror and romance.
A book of manners, magic and mayhem.
Jemima Hardcastle has a sad history. After her father was murdered by a secret society of magicians, her guardian and new heir to Willow Park, Edward Huntington, packed her off to boarding school. In the four years she was there, she never saw him again until she escaped from school to a house party and there he was. He did not recognise her and he even flirted with her.
A disastrous kiss, a murder and a stolen jewel herald dire happenings. Jemima is shipped off to Willow Park in the care of Fulton, Edward’s man, to be under the chaperonage of the odious Aunt Prudence and the meek cousin, Milly. While avoiding stitching in the evenings, she discovers Edward’s scientific genius and the artificial leg he made for Fulton. Her esteem for Edward rises and she is actually looking forward to seeing him again when he does not arrive as planned.
When they realise Edward is abducted, Jemima schemes to go in rescue. She has cunning and she has money and with these she plunges herself and her companions into the world of dark sorcery and London shopping.
In London, Jemima and Fulton lead a double life as they search for Edward in the slums, manufactureys and even a bawdy house. When she final discovers Edward, her life is on the line.
While a vicious and bloody fight for survival is going on around him, Edward has to choose between saving her life or unleashing the unholy, vampiric beast Geneck on an unsuspecting London.
Ruby Heart is currently on preorder for $1.99 with a release date of December 22nd. It will be $1.99 until Boxing Day.
Here is the cover of the sequel, due to be published end January 2019. It’s currently with the editor. I can’t tell you how much fun I had with this story. I’ve even got another idea and maybe another, but it depends on how well it goes. If it doesn’t take off I’ll have to work on something else. Anyway I appreciate your support.
While I have you here, Argenterra is currently $0.99 cents until the 20th of December. A must for epic fantasy lovers.
Check out the new cover from Frauke at Croco Designs.
The final installment in the Dragon Wine series is fast approaching. Due date 31 August 2018.
The proof corrections have arrived and I’ve started on them.
Also, the map, which I’m going to share here.
But first! I’d share the blurb but I may have to change it.
Buy Links
Now for the map. I had drawn this out but in discussion with Dr Russell Kirkpatrick about the map, he came up with this very cool idea. He is a geographer as well as a writer, Legoman and golf/sport/music nerd. He had been looking at some historical maps of New Zealand from when not much had been explored. The map we looked at (and he did tell me who it was by) showed rumoured coastline and unknown coastlines (or not-just unknown blank space). Anyway, we thought this would work well for the map of Margra because it’s a post-apocalyptic world and the coastlines of the continents had changed, and civilisation had been devastated and once thriving cities ruined. So we came up with this, mostly Russell came up with this. I’d love to hear what you think.
This is meant to be the map that Nils puts together from his research in the Hiem archives and from hearing accounts from Danton and Brill. The map will appear in Moonfall, print and ebooks.
I have put together a collection of short stories called, Through These Eyes. It is a collection of magic realism and fantasy stories that span my whole publishing career. From my very first story, ‘Absence of Mind’, published way back in 2001, I think, to two stories that are appearing first in the collection, ‘Compost Juice’ and ‘In My Father’s Footsteps’.
It seems that I have a preference for magic realism, particularly in my earlier stories. Unlike, Beneath the Floating City, which was all SF, this collection is squarely in the realms of magic realism and fantasy. Some are creepy, but then again that depends on your point of view. One story, ‘Veg Out’ was written as horror, but a reader told me they thought it was funny so I guess it could be read as a comedy too.
Each story has a note about how I came up with the idea or ideas that formed the story.
The stunning cover is by Patty Jansen.
Have you ever wondered what is real? Are everyday things just as they seem or is there a secret world just beyond our perception? One that bends and shifts as it hides from our sight?
Eleven tales of speculative fiction from Australian author, Donna Maree Hanson
Skyfire: Dragon Wine Part Five is published. It is currently available on Amazon and Kobo and will filter through to other stores like Google, Barnes and Noble and iBooks over the next few days.
I’ve also made Moonfall: Dragon Wine Part Six available for pre-order on Amazon, with a release date of 31 August. That just reminds me to chase up the map!
Here is the blurb.
Deliciously dark fantasy…
“Shatterwing has all the fantasy ingredients I love: tormented heroes, a truly twisted villain – and a brand new take on dragons!” Glenda Larke, (award winning author of The Stormlord Trilogy)
“Dark and compelling, with strong characters and a sense of grim inevitability that pulls you along with the story.” Craig Cormick, (award-winning author of the Shadow Master Series.)
The story continues…
On the devastated world of Margra, where man-eating dragons are tamer than humans, a small band of heroes fight for a brighter future.
After a battle with the malevolent baron and the evil dragon creature, Gercomo, to prevent the life giving dragon wine being sequestered in the doomsday city, Eternity, for use by the rich elite, Salinda turns her attention to the looming disaster that threatens their very existence.
With the aid of the powerful cadre, an ancient source of power and knowledge, Salinda fights to save her planet, Margra, from the final moonfall—an event that will destroy the already ravaged planet.
Currently safe within the underground city of Barraheim, a heavily pregnant Salinda knows that the end is looming and that a solution must be found. Plagued with doubt, she ponders whether her child be born before moonfall or born at all.
With Nils’s, her alien mate incapacitated and others in her band recovering from injuries, Salinda struggles to decipher an ancient text that speaks of a machine that might help them.
And in the dark spaces beneath Barrahiem lurks something else, something mysterious and dangerous…
In other news, I have combined Deathwings and Bloodstorm into one book, Dragon Wine Volume Two. The first two books are combined in Dragon Wine Volume One. Volume one will be on price reduction for a Bookbub promotion around the 23 July for 99 cents in Australia, Canada, UK and India. I am hoping for a price reduction in the USA later. So if you haven’t read the first books in the series and want to, then stay tuned for the first two books at 99cents.
I am so pleased to have nearly got this series out there. Not long now.
Ungiven Land is coming. Book three in the Silverlands Series is coming. Happy dancing in sexy (not) trackie dacks!
It’s a long book at 145,000 words. It’s a bloody trilogy and it’s almost there. Almost to the bookstore!
There is a small matter of proof changes but phew! Wipes brow. It is done and I honestly never want to write a long book again or a trilogy. Alas, there is the Dragon Wine Series to complete so desire might have to wait.
I’m not going to put up a blurb because that would contain all kinds of spoilers. Argenterra and Oathbound lead to Ungiven Land and I consider them one story in three parts.
All I can say is Ungiven Land the exciting conclusion to the Silverlands Series. Guaranteed no cliffhangers in Ungiven Land!
Also, I’m reposting the map. I think the Smashwords version ate my map or it’s hard to see in ebooks. I will have to get to work on the print versions too.
Get your copy of Argenterra,Oathbound and Ungiven Land. Unfortunately Ungiven Land is only in Amazon atm, but will be with other retailers shortly.
The Silverlands’ Series is an epic fantasy series, featuring magic and the occasional sword fight. It’s a portal fantasy featuring two young women from our world who are transported to Argenterra.
About the Silverlands
In a land where oaths can’t be broken be careful what promises you make.
To break the binding oath is to risk the very magic of Argenterra.
Vorn and the First Comers fleeing death and destruction came to Argenterra through the Crystal Gate. On arrival, they made a binding oath to not kill — and in return the land gave them the given, a native magic. For over a thousand years they have prospered but now the Ancient Evil seeks Vorn’s descendants and reaches a hand into the land.
Oaths are bound with the given and every promise must be kept or the land’s magic will compel completion of the oath or prevent its breaking. Only a murder can sunder the binding oath, which would make the given fade. In his later years, Vorn prophesied that a time would come when the land would be ungiven. That time is near.
Argenterra, The Silverlands Book One
Sophy is not looking for a talisman: she is the talisman!
Sophy is snatched from our world during a ghost tour. Landing in the lush world of Argenterra, she’s the odd one out. She can’t use the land’s native magic, the GIVEN, even though her friend Aria, and everyone else, can.
Worse still, she’s a faded version of herself and doesn’t fit it at all.
Abandoned by Aria who marries a handsome prince, Sophy travels the land with Oakheart, the high king’s ambassador, to explore the mystery of why there is a crystal leaf growing inside her.
Then the accidents start to happen and she realises a dark force wants her: alive or maybe just dead…
And you can pre-order Ungiven Land from Amazon here.
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And to make your day, a pic of me in my trackie dacks!
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 