The Blood of a King
The Rahmirion Chronicles, #1
Authors Wells and Bruzzi
Date of Publication: April 25th 2023
Publisher: New Upper Books
Cover Artist: Mert Genccinar
Genre: Epic Fantasy
ISBN: Hardcover- 9798986771212
ISBN: Paperback- 9798986771205
Number of pages: 474
Word Count: 179,000
BLURB
Victory was only the beginning.
Prince Mayson Karrok of Astymere grew up hearing countless stories from the night of his birth. Whispers of murder and betrayal; of war and destruction, all at the hands of an emperor who wanted him dead before he could take his first breath. A night meant to being a peaceful conclusion to the Endless War would become known across the world as the Night of Knives. The scar he bears on his chest is a reminder of just how lucky he is to be alive.
But over a decade after his father, King Henry, killed that emperor and destroyed his empire, Mayson finds himself fighting to find his own way, fueled by the desire to both follow in his father’s footsteps, and to break free from his shadow to forge his own path.
Unbeknownst to Mayson, his father set in motion a chain of events that would come to rule his destiny. When he is forced to choose between love and duty, will Mayson have the will to do what is right? For he’ll need all the strength and support he can muster as enemies begin to surround him, both from outside Astymere, and from within.
Excerpt
Henry reached out to touch the doors, and the more he fought it, the more the voice of the Raelian emperor mocked him. Tell me, Henry. Does the boy look like you? Does the proud blood of the Avaari flow within him, or has your whore given him too much of her mark?
“Silence,” Henry said, turning from the doors to break the illusion. He nearly stumbled upon a line of burnt skeletons strewn across the floor. “One more word and your death will be slow, I swear it. You will curse the day you first drew breath.”
The illusion had been broken, but the voice remained. I wish to know the face of my enemy, Karrok. When we come together at last, I wish to know it well.
“You will never touch him! Do you hear? You will never lay your hands on him!” Henry swung about, striking at the source of the voice, but it came from within, as slippery and foul as pond scum. The Beast will have his day, Karrok. You know it. One by one, those you hold dear will fall under his might. Your wife, your mongrel—even your precious Rahm shall be consumed by the Second Flame. But first, they shall all weep for you. You shall mark the beginning of the end.
The voice dragged Henry back into his false vision, forcing him to once again see the devastation he could not prevent. The windows blew apart around him as fire rained from the sky, drenching the White City in blazing destruction that consumed flesh, stone, and steel. It seemed like minutes before Henry finally took control of himself and stood before the emperor on his balcony, overlooking the growing inferno, listening to the sounds of screams. Tiberian’s hands were outstretched, his arms spread wide. His smile was filled with what Henry could only describe as pure, unhinged madness as he gazed upon the burning city and laughed. Even after Rahmirion took Tiberian’s head from his shoulders, that smile remained—and the emperor’s laugh could not be silenced.
“Nooooo!” Henry bellowed into the empty corridor. The vision was gone, and so was the voice. Those words stayed with him for nearly twenty years, but he had never heard them so clearly. He had tried to forget the look of glee on Tiberian’s face as fire bled from an otherwise clear sky.
Authors Info
JONATHAN WELLS, lifelong fantasy and sci-fi lover, has been making up stories for as long as he can remember. Some have been scribbled on scraps of printer paper, others were left to just rattle around in his head. And that is exactly how this novel came to be.
The seeds for this epic fantasy were first planted in his 12-year-old brain, a day-dream world where he could wander off when school became too boring. After ten years, the daydream had taken on such a clear shape, with a linear plot and fully fleshed out characters, that he decided it was time to give it a proper “birth.”
After showing rough sketch of one of his characters to college roommate, DENNIS BRUZZI, his friend “wanted in,” and the rest is history. Dennis, a proven storyteller through his work in journalism and video production, is taking pen to paper for the first time in the fantasy realm. An avid reader and a fantasy enthusiast, he is ecstatic to have worked with his longtime friend to bring this unique and expansive story to life.
“And The Blood of a King is only the tip of the iceberg,” promise Jonathan and Dennis. There are eight more books planned in this epic fantasy series.
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview . . .
- Writing is definitely an engrained process for us. Hardly anything ever “flows naturally”, and we believe that is true for most writers. Pulling words out of your head in order to paint a picture clear enough for someone else to see what you are seeing oftentimes feels like you are actually pulling teeth instead of words. Ernest Hemingway once said: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter- and bleed.” We couldn’t agree more. That is why you have to be disciplined, and not let yourself be discouraged. One word at a time becomes one sentence at a time, and your progress begets more progress. Once you get going, it is so hard to stop. The opposite is also true. When you’ve gone a long while since you’ve worked on your project, as often is the case, since life can easily get in the way, getting your momentum going again can feel like trying to push a stalled car the last mile to the gas station.
- Dennis actually showed Jon the method he uses in order to help him get in the right headspace to write. We are both easily distracted, and keeping ourselves on course in the early days when we were first putting The Blood of a King together was an uphill battle. But Dennis learned that listening to wordless music, say classical music or the score of a film, can really help one focus. Jon uses it to this day, and it makes a marked difference on how much he is able to produce in one sitting. He also finds he focuses best when he is sitting at his desk, rather than some other, more comfortable spot, like the couch.
- We have a character that has been sitting on the bench, waiting for her chance to get on the field since the beginning. She will be our story’s Gandalf, our Dumbledore, our Moiraine type figure. We would have loved to get her into The Blood of a King, but there was simply nowhere in the narrative to squeeze her into, so we knew she would have to make her debut in book two. What really excites us about Teressa, as she will be named, is she provides the magical foil to our series’ main antagonist, while the rest of our main cast deal with more political/military problems. We are only now just beginning to play with her potential, and setting her down in book 2 will certainly be a cathartic moment.
- We are currently hard at work on a sequel to The Blood of a King, titled, The Dark Crown. Jon currently has a small list of first drafts that he has been working on, including a monster hunter story inspired by a trip he took to Ireland, a sci fi horror that is sort of a Predator meets The Village kind of story, while plotting out a classical ‘slay the dragon’ sort of fairytale, and a planned trilogy about a once-great wizard battling to escape the dark pits of alcoholism in order to save the world once more. Dennis is working on an original fantasy that involves secondary worlds crossing over with our own, and a historical fiction drama focusing on a survivor of 9/11.
- Our primary goal for this year is to spread awareness for The Blood of a King as much as possible while we work to get The Dark Crown ready. We have been meaning to try to release our sequel no later than this fall. We are in pretty good shape in that regard. If we can have a really strong summer and get a complete manuscript to our editor by September, we think we can do it. If we can release two books in the same year, we will take a much more relaxed pace going forward.
Hosted by
Presented by
No comments:
Post a Comment