Tag archives for Skyss
Fierce Released TODAY!
Fierce, my heroic fantasy novel with a relatable female lead, is finally out and you should be able to buy it in paperback or digital versions by following this link Fierce is on a special introductory price of £ on kindle until 5th June. After that it will go to £ The paperback is £ You can read the first chapter of Fierce elsewhere on this blog. Copies of Fierce by James Kemp in a cardboard box (Photo: James Kemp) Reviews So far Fierce doesn't have any published reviews, but I've had some feedback from ARC readers that they thought Fierce had a relatable female main character, and that they wanted more of it. NB if you're a reviewer it's not to late to get an ARC, the booksprout link will work for another month or…
Fierce Advance Reading Copies (ARC) Available
My fantasy novel Fierce is now available for pre-order and that means that I can make Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) available for those that are willing to read and review it ahead of formal publication in May. Ideally I'd like people who can read and review it before the end of May 2024 so that there are reviews available shortly after it is released. About Fierce book cover for Fierce (image: James Kemp) You can read the first chapter of Fierce elsewhere on this blog, I've updated it to reflect the current edit. Fierce was written very deliberately to the template of the Hero's Journey. So the first chapter is the pre-adventure normal. The enticing incident is in the second chapter and crossing the threshold follows that. Although I wrote twelve chapters, one for each of the stages of the…
The King’s Peace [Write Club] [Fantasy]
Broughty Castle from the landward side. 15th century tower with late 19th century outer works. (Photo: James Kemp) The King's Peace is a standalone short story set in the same universe as the Yngvild stories, but from a different cultural perspective, that of the Dael Riatans, inspired by some local history. There's a load of world-building for this on my wiki site, as well as in my notebooks. I wrote this for Write Club, but also because it expands a bit of my universe that I'm using for a game I'm planning to run. Key character bios are King Alasdair V The Murchadh brothers Iain Alpin (commander of the King's Guard, referred to as his steward in this story) Pronounciations Many of these names are taken from Gaelic, or old Scots. So they don't necessarily sound the way you would…
The Mother’s Dream [Write Club] [Fantasy]
The Mother's Dream is my story for the January 2021 meeting of Write Club Surrey, which had dreams as its theme. I chose to write a creation myth for Skyss, the world that I've my fantasy novel is set in. One inspiration for The Mother's Dream is my love as a child of a book of Australian aborigine myths called Dreamtime Heritage. The stories are how the world was formed and shaped in the dreams of the early people. The idea has stuck with me, even if I can no longer find the book on my shelves. Troll head and fist in the woods atop Mount Floyen, Bergen, Norway. An inspiration for The Mother's Dream. (Photo: James Kemp) Another source of inspiration for The Mother's Dream was me thinking about how to describe the trolls in Fierce. I read quite…
Going to Sea [Write Club]
Going to Sea is a fairy tale set as background for my fantasy novel. It is written for the Write Club Surrey challenge for the July meeting on Saturday. It was quite hard writing a decent fairy tale, and I'm not claiming that Going to Sea is a decent fairy tale. My first two attempts ended up more like Icelandic sagas than fairy tales. I ended up reading a book about what the Icelanders call the hidden people for inspiration. That was really interesting, but turned out not to be that useful. In the end I abandoned my earlier attempts and just wrote this instead. I'll probably finish the other ones though, I think having this sort of detail helps add depth to a fantasy world. Going to Sea, or how people started worshipping Kari Replica Viking Longship (Photo: archiwum…