The sequel to The Matriarch has been published! The Matriarch: Guardians now available in Amazon Kindle and paperback!
“… BETTER than the original! The reader can tell that Kevin Ranson really grew as an artist between books…Vampire lovers have found their next favorite vamp series!”
http://cedarcrestsanctum.com/the-matriarch-guardians/
If you like it or enjoyed The Matriarch, please tell a fellow reader or give a copy as a gift.
Enjoy!
There’s no reason for this way of thinking anymore. A writer is a writer; it’s hard work and takes dedication to the craft. Why can’t we all support one another and stop clinging to the labels that no longer apply?
Imagine selling two million books, having half a dozen of your novels hit the New York Times bestseller list, being inundated with thousands of fan emails every month, and then having someone call you an “aspiring writer.”
That’s what happened in New Orleans this weekend, when the planners of the RT Booklovers Convention decided to place self-published authors in a dinky room off to the side while the traditionally published authors sat at tables in the grand ballroom.
Authors like Liliana Hart, who is at the top of the game not just in the romance genre but in all of publishing, was labeled an “Aspiring Author.”
RT is a major bookselling convention, a place that publishers expect to sell boatloads of titles. The bookselling, I believe, is handled by Barnes & Noble, a company with a history of segregating self-published authors on their online bestseller lists and who has no incentive to promote authors they don’t stock. So the fault here is not with the authors in the other room; it’s with the organizers and the undoubted pressure they feel from monied interests.
According to TheGuardian.com, there are 10 specific points regarding whether or not a novel ought to be deemed “gothic,” citing Horace Walpole’s 1764 publication The Castle of Otranto as the first such work. While I had no such specific intention to do so, it appears that The Matriarch is, indeed, mostly a gothic novel! I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, so here we go!
1. The villain is a murderous tyrant with scary eyes. Check and check. +10%.
2. The heroine is a pious, virginal orphan, prone to fainting. Well, not so much. Janiss is neither an orphan nor prone to fainting, but she certainly fits the bill of “good girl” although she isn’t actually a virgin. To quoth ye olde The Cabin in the Woods, “We work with what we have.” +5%.
3. It’s set in a spooky castle or stately home. You caught me; I did this on purpose. It wasn’t done to make it gothic, but I was thinking about the equivalent of a modern-day Dracula’s castle when I created Cedarcrest Sanctum as a vampire stronghold. +10%.
4. There is (probably) a ghost or monster. Yep: vampires AND ghosts, but with the requisite twist and fresh take. +10%.
5. It’s set in the olden days. While the setup for The Matriarch does refer to century-old events, it isn’t set in the distant past; no points for this question. 5 more to go!
Continue reading “Is The Matriarch a Gothic Novel?”
“I’m going to find as many of them as I can – the makers and their progeny.”
Haven’t read The Matriarch? Don’t miss these excerpts:
“Clean and Professional” † “Everything Old Made New Again” † “Middle of the Road” † “He Said He Was the Devil” † “An Awakening In the Cellar”
 |
 |
|---|
Janiss’s eyes snapped open, immediately wincing at the bright red and blue patrol lights flashing in her rearview mirror. Outside of her car door, a policeman shined a light into her face.
How long had she been daydreaming?
After turning the key on her ignition to roll the automatic window down, the clock on the center console told her it was 5:30 AM. It had only been about twenty minutes and sunrise was still over an hour away. Whew! For a moment, she wondered why Travis and Cole wouldn’t have noticed her if they had passed by; she assumed they came back through Weston since she knew Cole lived in that direction.
“Are you having car trouble?” the man asked. She recognized him: Officer Strickland.
Read the rest of this excerpt at Cedarcrest Sanctum.
How much is enough? Is there ever enough?
A thirst for blood is arguably THE defining trait of a vampire. They drink it to exist and helpful humans are readily available; what varies from story to story is the actual need.
The first consideration is what the blood is for. In a modern twist, vampires may be portrayed as biological, needing blood due to an inability to manufacturer their own or requiring some essential element that only living blood contains. In such cases, the vampire may be susceptible to blood diseases or the effects of substances such as drugs or alcohol. For the more traditional “mystical” type, “the blood is the life,” allowing the vampire to literally take the life force of the living into themselves to empower an animated corpse.
In either case, how much is enough? How long does it last? How often must the vampire feed?
Continue reading “Bloodletting: Vampires Shouldn’t Go Thirsty”
She is NOT the last…
The Matriarch novel officially has a sequel in final editing.
Supernatural horror thriller, mature content.
Coming soon – in final editing now.
She is NOT the last.
“I’m going to find as many of them as I can, the makers and their progeny.” When a woman in white is encountered along a lonely highway in Jackson County, West Virginia, an unusual number of vampires are discovered.
Once their mysterious maker is found out, Janiss Connelly will have until sunrise to stop the killer – but only if the remnants of her previous life fail to destroy her first.
Get the details and sign up for updates at CedarcrestSanctum.com.
Where we write can influence what and how well we write. Do you have a special place set up or just go anywhere and begin?
I admit I can write wherever, but I’m most comfortable at my custom-created dual-monitor workstation with twin goose-neck lamps and dual cupholders (yes, cupholders). Decor includes scythes over the windows, reaper statuettes down the wall in the corner, and an evil-!#$%ing closet (obviously). My trusty actual-wood chair keeps me attentive and on task.
Show us your writing space or desk!
The Spooky Chronicles: Forget Me Nots
Read it for FREE – right here, right now on your browser!
Andres M. (Rating: 4 of 5 Stars) – I had my reservations… (an) undead kid who goes to school and stuff? I must confess that I was a little skeptical of how that could work. I was terribly mistaken. Yes, this story is about a young kid with an unique condition, his heart doesn’t beat, his blood doesn’t flow, and his lungs don’t breath; yep, he is an undead, but with a soul, conscience, and a spirit of adventure and investigation. We are taken to a Lovecraftian story, and we experience it from the view point of a very special kid, who is eager to “see” what’s beyond, the monsters, the horrors. All and all it was a very cool story.
 The prequel to The Spooky Chronicles! There’s something sinister about Chesterfield Mansion, and “Spooky” Spencer Lawson can’t wait to find out why. Locked inside on a stormy night, Spooky and his fellow fifth graders are tasked to find thirteen skeleton keys before the stroke of midnight, but their host and his trusted minions are secretly watching for one of those children… the one who won’t be missed. eBook ISBN: 978-1-4762-6296-3 |
Purchase eBook for Download: |
The more you edit yourself, the better you’ll become. Knowing the grammar rules and how to apply them is part of the process; the rest is actually finding the errors in your own work. The more mistakes that you find and correct yourself, the easier of a time your actual editors will have finding the things you’ll STILL miss.
Continue reading “Self-Editing Techniques (Before Submitting to an Editor)”
Kevin A. Ranson 