Cover Reveal: A Dance with Magic: A Twelve Dancing Princesses Novella

This October, The Twin Kingdoms continue!

A chance for freedom…

Rebecca has lived a life of restrictions. Once a scared princess, ruthlessly controlled by her older brother, she now finds herself inheriting a kingdom that never expected to have a queen. Facing the possibility of engagement to a man she cannot stand, Rebecca takes her first chance of freedom: an enchanted masquerade located beneath a trap door.

A loyal soldier…

Zahir has lived a life of loss. A peerless swordsman and trained fighter, he once fought for his country. Now he only raises his blade in defense of one: his queen and dearest friend, Rebecca. But secretly, his feelings expand beyond friendship. It will take all of Zahir’s skill to protect Rebecca from the true purpose of the masquerade, a force more sinister and older than either of them expect.

Or may be able to survive.

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For those of you who have already finished The Rose and the Claw, you may have seen a preorder link for book two in the back. A Dance with Magic continues the Twin Kingdoms Saga by telling the story of a different royal, Kris’s sister Rebecca, and Zahir, her fierce protector. The fairy tale this time around is The Twelve Dancing Princesses, a personal favorite of mine. Clearly, just like with The Rose and the Claw, I took some liberties this time around. For example, instead of many dancing princesses, we have one dancing queen! Still, I hope that fans of the original tale will find much to enjoy here.

You can preorder the ebook of the next novella today! The book will be published on October 6th, 2021, with Midnight Tide Publishing.

Past and Future Cover Reveal! Get ready for Red and Black 4!

His name is Forecaster.

With the ability to see the future, Forecaster has carefully guided many. But his news for Dawn is not what she expects. In five years, she will die, and Bailey City will be destroyed in the battle. To prevent this, Forecaster shows her a vision of the resulting wreckage.

But something goes wrong.

Now, trapped in a dark timeline, Dawn will have to rely on new versions of old friends, a handful of underground resisters, and the powers that exist inside of her. All this and more will be required to survive this dystopian future where SynergyCorp hunts empowered people, and every remaining citizen of Bailey City fears one man above all else:

Faultline.

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ERMERGERD! THE COVER IS HERE!

It’s always exciting to see one of your characters brought to life. The one pictured here is brand new to the series and exactly how I pictured her. Once more, well done to my cover artist Hampton Lamoureux of TS95 studios.

As you can see from the description above, book four brings our characters to new and exciting places, including THE FUTURE! Time travel is a new avenue for me and one that I’ve always enjoyed reading and watching.

Preorder links are coming up soon, as well as an opportunity to read the book early by joining my ARC team. Keep an eye on this blog or join my newsletter for regular updates!

The Lady of the Watchtower: Cover Reveal and Preorder

Remember earlier in the year how I talked about how I was working on something called Secret Project Tower? Well, with Silver and Gold available for purchase, I’m finally ready to talk about my next book!

And it’s coming out in just two months.

A sorceress haunted by the magic of her past…

A pair of sister witches embrace their birthright in vastly different ways…

A beautiful princess changed into a hideous beast…

Magic is a powerful force, able to transform everyone it touches. In this short collection, The Lady of the Watchtower, the lives of six different women and girls are altered forever thanks to their encounters with powerful spells, and deadly creatures.

Explore this book for original tales, such as “The Fox,” where the notoriously shifty avatar of the fox god takes on a job of revenge that that brings her face to face with the ultimate predator. Also included are fairy tales revisited, such as a modern-day twist on “Hansel and Gretel,” and a “Beauty and the Beast” inspired story where the heroine is both beauty and beast.

Dive into The Lady of the Watchtower for your own meeting with magic. Just be careful about the spells you encounter along the way. 

The Lady of the Watchtower will be released on August 31st, 2020, and is available for preorder today.

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You might be thinking, but Nancy you write superhero novels. Why short fiction, and why fantasy? Well, there’s actually a story behind that.

In late 2019, I was listening to an author talk on a podcast (it may have been Joe Lallo on Six Figure Authors) about how he had a bunch of short stories that he had written in the past that he was now gathering into a collection. At the time, I remember being quite grumpy. Gee, it must be nice to have a bunch of short stories just standing around waiting to be published!

And then I remembered, I also had a bunch of short stories just standing around. I had even published a few of them in these online magazines! I found myself reading through them, picked my six favorites (it seemed like a nice round number), polished them up, and created this mini-collection.

As for, why fantasy? While I plan on continuing to write about superheroes for years, I don’t intend on being a single genre author, and it seemed like this short story collection was a fun way to dip my toe into the water.

But I know that jumping genres (as well as jumping to short fiction) will result in my losing some of my readers. So for those of you who are on the fence, I thought I’d provide a couple incentives.

First off, anyone who preorders the ebook, or buys it in the first week of publication gets a special discount price (99 cents, or the closest equivalent in your country). Secondly, anyone who orders the book between now and September 7th (a week after the book is released) will receive a bonus short story. Just send a screenshot of your receipt to nancyotoolemeservier@gmail.com, and I’ll send you over “The Dragon Slayer’s Apprentice,” a 5000-word short story, for free!

I’m very excited to give these tales another chance at life. Some of the magazines I once published in are sadly no more, making this the only place you can read these stories. And if you’re a kindle unlimited reader, yes I do plan on publishing the collection in ku. The only thing that’s exclusive to actual purchases is the extra short story.

I hope you’ll consider preordering!

Silver and Gold Cover Reveal and Preorder

Presenting, the cover art for Silver and Gold

Dawn doesn’t remember how she received her superpowers. She just knows enough to be scared. But with her brother in danger, Dawn will have to face her fears, reliving every single one of her forgotten memories.

As Dawn focuses on the past, Alex remains in the present. Accompanied by surprising allies, he pours through the facility where Dawn was held against her will. The results are disturbing, as are the changes taking place within him. Because Alex’s powers are evolving in ways that he cannot understand. Or control.

Dawn is done running away from her past, but will she and Alex be prepared for what the future holds?

If you enjoyed Red and Black and Black and Blue, I hope you’ll decide to continue Dawn and Alex’s journey with Silver and Gold! In this book, Dawn finally recovers her lost memories and discovers the truth behind how she received her powers. I absolutely loved the work that Hampton Lamoureux of TS95 studios did on the cover. It’s always so exciting to see one of your characters brought to life.

The ebook is up for preorder on amazon, a print book will also be for sale, and SIlver and Gold will also be available on kindle unlimited, just like the rest of the series. In addition, you can add the book to your to-read shelf on Goodreads!

 

Black and Blue Cover Reveal and Preorder Link

I am so proud to present the cover to Black and Blue.

The masks are off.

Dawn Takahashi has achieved her dreams by becoming Bailey City’s first superhero, but is it worth the cost?

After the fall of Calypso, Bailey City has been shaken. An anti-superhero movement is starting to rise. Most people are on Dawn’s side, viewing her superhero persona, Hikari, as an asset to the city, but will local politician Edison Kent manage to turn the city against her?

Former supervillain Faultline is seen as a threat. The man behind the helmet, Alex Gage, spends his days keeping his head down, until his efforts to keep his identity a secret lead him straight to Dawn, and their unresolved feelings for each other.

On top of that, new players have arrived at Bailey City in the form of a secret organization that gathers information on empowered beings. Plus a mysterious figure that dresses in black and blue.

If you enjoyed Red and Black, see how Alex and Dawn’s story continues in it’s sequel, Black and Blue. The book is set to be published on July 29th, but you can preorder the ebook version today. Unfortunately, amazon doesn’t let indie authors do preorders for print books, but that will be available to purchase on the 29th as well.

This book has been a long time coming. I can’t believe that I’ll get to finally release it to the world by the end of the month!

Red and Black Gets Covered

Presenting, the cover of my first novel, Red and Black!

Now things really feel official!

While Speculative Chic was kind enough to host my official reveal, I also wanted to share the cover on my blog and talk a little more about the process. Because it ended up being a little more stressful than I expected.

I am not a visual person. It was one of the things that held me back from fully enjoying comic books for a while. I would just read the text and never take time to appreciate the artwork. So, when it came time to think about the cover for Red and Black, this lack of visual skill totally stressed me out. I found myself plagued with questions. Red and Black is a superhero story, so shouldn’t it show Dawn in her superhero costume? Should I go for a more comic book style of artwork? Or would looking too much like an actual comic book just confuse readers? Red and Black can read like urban fantasy, so maybe I should try targeting that audience instead? There are certainly more urban fantasy readers than superhero readers out there, after all. But would targeting them too heavily with a more traditional urban fantasy cover misrepresent the book? And how much was this going to cost me?

I found myself dragging my feet when it came to researching cover artists. Which, in retrospect, is bananas. Seeing your character come to life in a piece of artwork for the first time is one of the best parts of the publishing process. And as an indie author, I would actually have a say in my cover. And given that I wanted to feature a person of color, having a say was even more important than normal. I didn’t want to find myself in a situation with a whitewashed cover, Nor did I want a blurry raceless shadow of a figure to represent Dawn.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and started researching cover artists. In the end, I ended up going through Reedsy (affiliate link), since I had such a good experience with the editors I found there. Once I had picked out my favorite artist, I nervously filled out the application, and waited for the response.

Fortunately, I had nothing to worry about. My artist, Hampton Lamoureux, was able to efficiently put together a concept that worked really well for Red and Black. The artwork manages to embrace both the superhero and urban fantasy aspects of the book, and accurately reflects the race of the book’s central character. The process was mostly painless (except for when I provided the wrong spine width for the paperback, d’oh!), and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Now that all the pieces have been assembled. I can happily announce that the ebook for Red and Black is up for preorderer on amazon with a release date of August 13th. The print book will also go up around that time. If you think you may be interested in checking out the book, you can add it to your to-read pile on goodreads. If you’re interested in reviewing an ARC, feel free to send me an email at nancyotoolemeservier@gmail.com. I’ll have a more detailed post about ARCs going up in a few days.

I am so happy with how the cover art came out. Now, the real challenge arrives: actually selling some of these books!