quest

Important tomes in any adventurer’s library.

A few months ago, I had an idea. I wanted to create a freebie I could give away as a gift for subscribing to my newsletter group. But I also wanted it to include things that would appeal to both new and regular readers of my work, AND I wanted something that would provide an introduction to each of the series I write, across both the fantasy and crime fiction genres, to encourage people to dip their toes into each to see what they like.

This ended up morphing into the Back Story Sampler Collection.

The introductions to my World of Lasniniar epic fantasy series and Kira Brightwell crime fiction series were easy–I had introductory short stories that were already a perfect fit. And to provide something for existing readers, I added a bonus epilogue for each (that isn’t available anywhere else), as well as reading guides, and threw in some cool coupon codes for good measure.

But my Fatal Empire Quartet was a bit of a tricky one to figure out. I’ve only published the first volume in the fantasy series so far (Keeper of Secrets), but the others are coming out later this year, so I wanted to include some kind of representation of that world in the sampler (which will continue to grow as I sprawl out into new series).

Keeper of Secrets begins during Raziel’s childhood (the main character), so there really isn’t any room to fit in some kind of introductory short story for him. I could write one about his mother or foster-father (and I still might), but it would be difficult to pull off at this point without creating any spoilers for the forthcoming books in the series. Continue reading →