C.R. Fladmark's Blog

It took a little longer than I expected (doesn't it always?), but The Fallen Gatekeepers, book two in The Gatkeeper's Son series, will be released on Amazon on February 15th, 2017.

Finally!

Here's a little teaser:

Smoke pours from the shrine compound. More screams and gunshots. Where is Shoko? She’ll be fighting, but I need to get her away. I hear a scream, feel sudden heat, and spin around. Shoko’s house is ablaze. Its dry straw and wood burn as fast as our training dojo had.

In the doorway, two lizards are crouched over a figure lying still in a pool of blood.

“Shoko?”

The Fallen Gatekeepers will be released on February 15, 2017!

As part of those teasers I spoke of, The Fallen Gatekeepers delves a bit
more into ancient gateways where shaman cross over to worship the deities in Shoko's world. It didn't take much research to find real sites where gateways 'could' exist. One of them is the  Island of stone labyrinths. It's located in the White Sea
on Bolshoy Zayatski Island. It is an ancient site––about four to five thousand

I've been taking heat from readers about the delay in getting book 2 out. Well, the good news is, it's on the way. The less good news is you'll have to wait until early summer. Maybe I should start doing teasers...

The Gatekeeper's Son was a finalist in the Fantasy category at the National Indie Excellence Awards! That makes 3 awards so far! I'm pretty excited about the continued recognition!

     

I just found out that The Gatekeeper's Son is a finalist in the Ben Franklin Book Awards, cover design: small format: fiction (Guaranteed silver, maybe gold.) AND also a finalist in Foreword Reviews' 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award: Fantasy! It makes all the hard work worth it. 

I'm told my scenes are very visual, the description full yet
subtle and I believe that's because I really see what's
around me, all the time, and that translates back onto the page. 



The clinking of cutlery, trying to wave down a busy waiters, the laughter from a booth not far away--all these things tell you're in a busy, perhaps loud restaurant. That's what show, don't tell means. I think

I was thinking the other day about how I got here; a published author, I mean. It was a long solitary haul, hundreds of hours cooped up in my office alone, thinking, planning and typing.

But was I really alone?

No. There were hundreds of people with me every day. The jerks I've met over the years became inspiration for the jerks in the book. Strangers I saw on the street become background

What a crazy and amazing year 2014 was. It was one year ago, December 31, 2013,  that my editor finally declared that The Gatekeeper's Son was ready to move onto line editing. The book was actually finished! Okay, not really. After the line edit came the copy edit, and proofreading, and interior and exterior design, and more proofreading, formatting, marketing campaign startup. We finally

I was too stuffed yesterday to write a word so merry Christmas everyone! I truly hope you all got exactly what you wanted. All the best!