Welcome to the Launch Day Celebration
for Aflame!

**Annoyingly-Needed Announcement*
There was a glitch when I uploaded a corrected eBook file to Amazon,
and it did not save properly. Their system therefore saw “no file”
and cancelled all pre-orders. SO SORRY!!!!
If you had pre-ordered from Amazon,
I had to create a whole new listing for it,
and you will have to order again (you weren’t charged for the first one).
😭😭😭

New link for the Kindle version is here.

NOW FOR THE FUN STUFF

Squeeee! It’s release day for this beautiful book, the second full-length novel in my Awakened romantasy series!

First, THANK YOU to everyone who has fallen in love with the series too. Thank you to the romantasy readers who seized upon it, glad to have a firmly-romantasy offering within the Christian space. Thank you to my historical readers who said, “I don’t know about this genre, Roseanna, but I’ll give it a try…since it’s you.” I know some of you decided it isn’t for you. And that’s totally cool.

But I am also so, so grateful for the many of you I’ve heard from who found themselves hooked and unable to put the story down and are now demanding MORE ROMANTASY! 😉 That makes my day in SO MANY WAYS!

So, here we are. Book two. Aflame.

In a lot of ways, this book is very different from Awakened. Rather than a world of mer and my ever-so-powerful Sea King, Seidon, we instead have a frozen world of Ice Wielders. Fjordlandi is loosely based on the Scandinavian/Nordic countries. You’ll see their influence in their names, in the setting, and in the faith, which in this book is inspired by Lutheran/Anglican traditions.

Fjordlandi is a land of extremes–ice and volcanos. It’s so far north that the land would be uninhabitable if not for the snowstorms that the Awakened, called the Blessed, hold protectively around the island to insulate. Agriculture can only happen thanks to greenhouse domes (much like the domes of the mer, just…you know. On land, to trap the heat.).

And in Fjordlandi, as elsewhere in this world, magic only comes with the meeting of worlds…but in this case, the elites and the commoners who are treated mostly like slaves, the thanes. Most thanes live in the “warm lands” beneath the domes. The elites, called Fjorders, live in the cities that are open to the elements, and they have evolved to be immune to the cold. And then, there are the Blessed.

The ones who can wield ice. Who can bring the snows. Who compete to prove themselves strongest among the Blessed and hence earn a place on the king’s High Council…and who can even issue a Challenge to claim the throne, if they’re strong enough. That’s how the current king’s father began his dynasty.

Our heroine is Kyrja, third child of King Isidor and his thane consort, Andresa. You see, in Fjordlandi, they’re not willing to leave magic up to chance–their bio-science has allowed them to create a Machine capable of testing the blood of chosen Fjorders against others in the kingdom to see whose blood, combined with theirs, will produce magical offspring. It is an honor to be chosen for a Blessed Union…for the Fjorders. For the thanes who are selected as a match, it means abandoning everything they know to help create children they cannot claim as their own, then being sent away again at the end of their contract term–twenty years or two children.

Andresa quietly rebelled. She petitioned the king for a third child, one she would be permitted to love as she saw fit. He agreed. And Valkyrja was born. An unheard of third Blessed sibling. Her mother’s pet. “Pretty and useless,” as her older sister loves to say. Beloved by the thanes for her warmth and smiles…despised by the Fjorders for the same.

Kyrja knows she has no real purpose and hates the posturing and brute-force training she’s been given. She’s resigned herself to being a constant disappointment to her father.

And then tragedy strikes and upends her whole world.

Our hero is Nikanor, a thane from the largest greenhouse dome. But unlike most thanes, he’s landless, which means his choices are few. What he wants is to become a dominie or even to study the law, but there are no positions open among the clerical caste, and thanes are forbidden from becoming lawyers. He studies anyway, in secret. And he can’t shake the feeling that the Giver of All has a purpose for him in the capital. So when his father asks him to come while he makes yet another petition to the king for more resources for thanes, Nik and his best friend, Rafnar, make the long trek across the Ice Plains.

Nik and Raf no sooner reach Reykstoll, however, than that same tragedy rewrites their lives too–and throws them into the path of the princess.

Meanwhile, the Blessed aren’t the only ones with magic in Fjordlandi, though no one but the king and High Council know of the others. The ones they call the Cursed.

The creatures who must be demons, because they are untouched by lava or fire and can in fact control it. The ones who are rebels, hating the king. The ones like Daemon, the first of their kind, and Elianne, the youngest of the clan.

The ones who, if ever they can break free of the volcano in which the king has trapped them, will see all Fjordlandi’s injustices burn to the ground. And behind every action of these rebels and the band of thanes under the domes determined to fight for their rights is a new mantra.

Strike the flint.
Fan the flames of freedom.
Make them bleed.

~*~

So in addition to the whole-new setting, this story also has a bit of a different feel. The romance, while still central, isn’t quite as BIG as the one in Awakened, simply because of the story and all it demanded. So for those of you who thought book one was a bit too much, be easy. This one is different. 😉 For those of you who LOVED that big romance in book one, don’t worry–my early romance-loving readers still found it swoon-worthy!

There’s more about politics and the fight for freedom in this one, and the pace is faster. It’s a bit shorter and also starts with a BANG. No slow build-up here! You’re tossed right into the world, and by the end of chapter two that big tragedy strikes.

I will admit I was a bit nervous about how this one turned out. It hadn’t simmered nearly as long in my mind as Awakened, and since I’d originally thought this would be book three and then changed my mind, it kinda took me by surprise in a lot of ways. I wrote it fast, without an outline (unusual for me these days), so I worried it was all over the place.

But my early readers shocked me by saying they liked this one even more than Awakened! Yay! I hope you love it as much as they do!

And guys, those printed edges on the paperbacks you can purchase from me…LOVE!!! The lava seriously looks like it GLOWS!

Aflame

In a land of fire and ice, love is considered a weakness.

Princess Valkyrja has always been deemed “pretty and useless” by her family, who rule the kingdom of Fjordlandi. Though she has the same magical Blessing over ice and snow as her brother, sister, and father, she can never seem to use it for the brute-force ruling they require, choosing instead to make art that makes her people smile. But when a horrific attack shakes their whole world, she has to step up…and find a strength she didn’t know she had.

Nikanor has lived his life under the greenhouse domes, a commoner with no opportunities to do things he most desires—to study the Words or the law, to be something other than a farmer. When he and his best friend follow his father to the capital, he hopes only for a nice holiday. Instead, the attack throws him into the path of a princess, and his world is never the same.

But the Blessed aren’t the only ones with magic in Fjordlandi. There are others already Awakened in the volcano, those called the Cursed, with lava in their veins and rebellion in their hearts. And once the fires of revolution ignite, they won’t stop until all of Fjordlandi is Aflame.

Coming Next in the Awakened World!

Yes, I’m having WAY too much fun with this fantasy world. Which means you get lots of bonus stories as I steal a weekend or holiday here and there to write them. 😉

Over my Christmas holiday, I randomly decided to write another novella, Consecrated. If you read Celebrated, then you met two of the characters–Koa, king of the Calm Water Mer, and his little brother, Aro…who caused quite a bit of trouble. Hopefully you, like me, were intrigued by these mer from the other side of the continent, because Koa takes center stage in Consecrated, and Aro is–as Aro always is–there to bring some delightful mischief too…though he’s now a priest of the One.

We’ll also get our first glimpse of the remaining kingdom I’ve mentioned, Soltierra. Soltierra is on the equivalent of the west coast of North America, but after the Great Cataclysm it was reduced fully to desert. The desert is called the Solvarra, and it’s beautiful, with shimmering golden sands that sparkle like jewels in the sun thanks to fine metallic particulate…and also deadly. The Awakened in Soltierra are crucial to life there–it’s only their ability to call water up from deep beneath the sands that allows life to continue to flourish in the harsh climate. In Consecrated, we meet the Crown Princess, Luciana, her little sister Solara, Solara’s best friend Iraja, and of course the reigning queen, Marisol. Soltierra is the only purely-matriarchal society in this world, where nearly ALL Awakened in the land are female and hence the ones in power…because of the longstanding agreement Soltierra has with the Calm Water Mer. As always in this world, magic only comes in the meeting of worlds–in this case, Soltierrans and Calm Water Mer. So once a year, both nations send volunteers to an island for what they call the Meeting. Women from Soltierra, men from the mer. Their volunteers marry for the sake of creating children who can be Awakened.

All the female children are returned to Soltierra after two years. All the males to the Calm Waters. Families are broken. And their magic grows weak. The perfect setup, of course, for a story! 😉 Both kingdoms know they need to do something to bring stronger magic into their lines…and Queen Marisol hopes that the answer for Soltierra might be Prince Bleu, who is coming for a visit, to meet Solara, whose magic is so much stronger than her sister’s. But that means sending Luciana away, so they don’t risk her catching his eye–and so, she goes to the island to oversee the Meeting. And lots of fun ensues both on land and in the sea. Of course, by fun I mean betrayal, danger, plotting, and so on, LOL.

Chronologically, Consecrated takes place between Awakened and Aflame, much like Celebrated did. This one is set twenty-five years after Celebrated, thirty-couple before Aflame. You obviously won’t have to have read it before Aflame, given that it’s not out yet and I wrote it well after. 😉 You’ll have the opportunity to read it before book 3, which could be fun for you…because it’s got the backstory of Prince Bleu (Seidon and Arden’s son) and his love story in it. There’s an ever-so-brief mention of him and his wife in Aflame, and then we meet them in book 3.

Now that I have three novellas, that also means that, when combined, they’re long enough for a print edition! So as Consecrated is released in eBook, I will also be releasing Fathomed: The Awakened Mer Novellas, which will be a compilation of Captivated, Celebrated, and Consecrated, complete with printed edges. My daughter will be doing the character art both for Consecrated and Fathomed over spring break!

Are you an audio book listener? My audio partner is considering producing Fathomed and will make the decision based on Aflame sales! So, you know. The more of you enjoy the series on audio, the more of the series will be available on audio for you to enjoy. 😉

And of course, after Consecrated and Fathomed, we’ll have book three, Amazed. As of this moment, I’m halfway done writing Amazed and am sooooooo in love with this story!

So, a bit of random history on this. Years ago, well before I started Awakened, I had a “random fantasy idea.” In this random idea, I had a society loosely based on Ancient Greece, with a ruler class modeled on Athens and a warrior class modeled on Sparta. I had a wily, smarter-than-anyone king and a kick-butt heroine selected to be his match by some kind of machine that said their blood would create the ideal offspring.

Well, as I developed the Awakened world, I realized this fit perfectly with it and that they were Ellas, the land of the warrior tribes, who have no magic…but will do anything to get it. I made plenty of tweaks, of course, but kept the kernel of that story and its characters. And I am having so much fun writing it (between other projects at this point).

That’s all I can really say until you read Aflame, where we learn quite a bit more about Ellas and its king, Stefanos. And there’s a sneak peek of chapter one of Amazed at the end, so you get to meet my heroine, Aziza, and get a feel for Ellesian society!

And Caroline, my artist friend who does the character art for the novels, has the artwork for this one nearly finished, and guys, Aziza looks AMAZING!!!! Stay tuned for the cover reveal SOON!

Giveaway

US entrants, enter to win a print version of Awakened with printed edges
(or another book of your choice) + a $25 gift card to my shop!

International entrants, enter to win an ebook!

(If the giveaway is not displaying properly, you can find it here)