A favor and some exciting news...

First the favor: the more reviews I get on Amazon, the more Amazon sees traffic going to my page, and the more they work their Amazon magic for my book. Getting past the 100 review mark would be huge.  So PLEASE go to the link below and WRITE A QUICK REVIEW.  It doesn’t have to be much, just a sentence or two saying what you thought of KILL CREEK (hopefully good things).   Just click the link below, go down to Customer Reviews and click "write a customer review."  It only takes a few minutes.  I’ll wait while you did it:

https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Creek-Scott-Thomas/dp/1942645821/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518405122&sr=1-1&keywords=kill+creek

Sweet!  Thanks for the review!  Now on to the exciting news.  KILL CREEK has been officially nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel!  The Stoker Awards are one of the most prestigious and well known awards in horror literature, honoring fiction, nonfiction, short stories, poetry and screenplays.  This year’s ballot includes huge names like Stephen King, Owen King, Joe Hill, M. Night Shyamalan, Guillermo Del Toro, David Lynch, and Jordan Peele, among many, many others.  Past recipients include Stephen King, Thomas Harris, Dan Simmons, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub--you get the point.  This is HUGE, and I know it’s a cliche, but it truly is an honor to be nominated.  The awards will be announced at a banquet in Providence, RI, (home of H.P. Lovecraft) on March 3, so I’d appreciate it if you’d cross any available fingers for me.

The book continues to gain momentum with over 5,000 copies sold and a steady stream of very cool responses on Instagram and Twitter, including an amazing tweet from Joyce Carol Oates, who called KILL CREEK an "intensely realized & beautifully orchestrated psychological Gothic/horror first novel set in once-Bloody Kansas."  I’m thrilled and humbled to hear people from all over the world saying how much they enjoyed my book.  I couldn’t have done it without the support of all of you.  Thank you for believing in this novel and for helping me make this lifelong dream a reality.

Hope 2018 is treating you all well.  I’ll be back soon with more updates.

Oh, and if you didn’t stop to write that review while I waited earlier, why not do it now?  It’ll give you a few more minutes of "staring at your phone" time, and who doesn’t want that?

Best,

Scott Thomas

Meet Sarovek. Knight. Monitor. A hunter. A killer. A noble daughter of a powerful house of Corvidia, the kingdom of sky-dwellers. If you’ve read chapter one of “The Animal in Man” then you know Sarovek leads the attack against the hyena the story’s hero Maxan had been shadowing through the streets and alleyways of Crosswall. 

“A Corvidian knight in plates of polished armor plunged from the skies. Her legs and lower talons led her way, the tips of her hawk wings trailing high behind her, a long spear gripped tight, angled at the clustered hyenas. She fell like a meteor, inches from where the fox crouched on the walkway, then flapped her wings outward at the last possible instant to break her fall. The blast of air sent immense clouds of dirt rolling away. The knight’s spear sank through a hyena’s back and deep into the ground, an explosion of blood changed the dirt to mud.”

Sarovek is quite the badass. I believe she perfectly embodies the type of book I wanted to write. Her character, her choices, her choices all provide the type of experience I wanted to craft for my readers. I grew up reading action-packed stories of warriors gritting their teeth and swinging swords and narrowly escaping grave dangers with their lives. Sarovek may not be a barbarian, but she’s just as ferocious a fighter as Conan. She may not be a drow ranger, but she’s just as stoic as Drizzt.

If you haven’t heard of “The Animal in Man”... If you haven’t had the chance to really dive in and see what makes it so special, then go check it out. Spend a little time in my world.

I have some very, very exciting news to share with everyone coming up in the next update. Stay tuned, My Dear Animals! And as always, thank you for your support and patience!

(Immense thanks to artist Ellinsworth for his amazing sketch of Sarovek! Visit his portfolio for more awesome artwork!)

Months Status Report, Faoii! Look at these numbers:

If you couldn’t already guess, I am so pleased, my warriors. We have done so much in so short of time. I know that it’s been a battle every step of the way-- Hell, even I thought some of those hills were insurmountable. But we’ve done it. And we’re just going to keep forging ahead!

As more of you finish reading the story, I’m still requesting your help in getting our reviews up on the Amazon page. It doesn’t have to be a 4 or 5-star review. In fact, more than anything, I just want it to be honest. I’m already seeing some of my flaws as an author as I make reference to the original story during my work on the sequel, and your input will only help me to be even better moving forward. And if you think it’s worthy of a high rating, please help me by telling me why. Some of the things that I had no particular feelings towards turned out to be fan favorites, so I’m still learning things on both sides of the spectrum.

If you didn’t get a chance to be part of my live #AMA feed, you can look through all of the questions and answers by clicking here. It’s not "live" anymore, but you can still add your own questions and I’ll still answer them. Or you can still share the story with others you think might be interested in it. There were a lot of deep, worthy questions, and I made sure to keep my answers honest and heartfelt. Give it a look.  

I think that’s it for this month, Faoii. I’ll send out another status report in March, but if anything important or exciting happens between then and now you’ll get a missive about it. You can also follow my Facebook page if you want more regular updates. 

As always, I thank you again for standing so strong and getting us this far. The war isn’t over and I still need your help in spreading word of our army, but I have no doubt that we can do it. We are Faoii, after all.

Shields up.

Faoii-Tahani

Today’s the day!! 

Yes, today is PUBLICATION DAY!!

That’s right. Now you can go into most major book stores and ask for Beyond the Code. You can go to Amazon and order it right now. It’s AVAILABLE!!!! The long wait it finally over! 

I am officially a published author and it feels amazing, but I’m not done yet. Now I have the task of making Beyond the Code a success and you can help. If you haven’t pre-ordered Beyond the Code, you can go to any major book like Indigo, Chapters, or Coles, and ask for Beyond the Code. If enough people show interest, they might think that Beyond the Code deserves a place on their shelves. Not only would that make it more accessible to people out of the loop, it would make a dream of mine a reality. 

If you already have a copy and you still want to help out in building the books success. You can go to Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, or Goodreads and leave a review or rating to let me know what you thought. The more reviews Beyond the Code gets, especially through Amazon, the more exposure it will receive. Reviews are an authors best friend. 

Thank you all for following me clear to the finish line and I hope you love this little slice of my imagination. 

Kelsey Rae Barthel

Progress on The Seclusion is happening on all ends!

At some point in the next week or so, my editor will submit the first three beautifully-polished chapters of the book to Ingram - a book distribution company that major retailers, and most indie bookstores, use to stock their shelves.

In other exciting news, the book is starting to pop up on major online retail sites for preorder!

The goal, as of now, is to shift from developmental-edit to copy-edit by April 1st. I’ll be hard at work every day until then to make sure we stay on schedule for a fall release, so that we can get this book in your hands!

I’ve been spending any and all free time over the last couple of weeks combing through the manuscript with two primary goals in mind - 1) Add to the inner voice of the protagonist, Patch 2) Flesh out additional world-building details. I regularly have at least one reference book open next to me as I work to sneak up on each scene from a new angle. My favorite as of late is The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface, by Donald Maass.

Last week, in an effort to soak up new world building inspiration, I used random photos found online and my favorite quick-marketing toy (Canva) to throw together a few concept images. Lately, I have these open as I hammer out my descriptive imagery for any given scene. Below are a few if you would like to take a look:

CHILDREN’S CLASSROOM

CITY CENTER

COMPLIANCE OFFICERS (COMPOS) AND PACIFIER (DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPON)

I am guessing that over the next month I will hear from the Inkshares marketing team, and that cover design will kick off soon.

Back to edits! Until next time.

-Jacqui