Finishing The Reaper's Daughter9/16/2014  This announcement is long overdue, but I finished the first draft of The Reaper's Daughter at the start of September. I absolutely can't wait to release it, and without totally having confirmed this yet with my
publisher, I'm hoping for a mid-January release. My cover is already complete as well, so that reveal will hopefully be coming soon. I absolutely love this book, and yet, after spending eight years on writing Fractured Dream and only one on the rough draft of The Reaper's Daughter, is it strange it felt almost anti-climatic? I almost feel as if I cheated. It's more average sized as far as books go, while Fractured Dream is a bit longer. So perhaps that's it. I poured just as much love into this one, but it felt easier to write somehow. The common saying among authors is that the first book is always the hardest and I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps it's the motivation I possessed writing the second one, it was so much more intense after finally finishing one book. I'm an actual author now, my inner self screams in delight, and the urge to continue weaving all the stories crowding my head make my fingers go crazy on the keyboard as the "beast-creature ideas," as Ray Bradbury put it, demand to be let out. I also have an urge to return to the world I built in The Dreamer Saga, to continue Story's story (ha ha). It's definitely a different experience soaring through a book in such a short period of time after toiling away for years with people questioning whether you'd ever actually finish the book. Then wondering if anyone would publish it, should I go indie? Traditional? Self-publish? But here I am a year later with a published book and a publisher behind me and a second book almost ready to go, but the beast-creatures in my head haven't had their stories completed yet and so to the keyboard I return, a mad woman with a mission: to tell stories. So here's to getting a book blurb for The Reaper's Daughter soon so that I can share with anyone who likes my writing or is intrigued by the title of this book and what it's about. Stay Tuned for more details.
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 A reader and friend has put together more songs for a playlist for Fractured Dream. I haven't gotten a look at all the songs yet, but one song is Transylvania Concubine by Rasputina. I'm totally stoked that she chose this song because I love it. It takes me back to the good ol' days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when most of my music mixes had songs from the show (my favorite show ever). But she chose it because it reminded her of two characters from my book, fairytales retold with a twist: Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. And I totally love it. . . "They know what they do is wrong. Stay here with us, it's just time." I'll post here when the rest of the playlist goes up on http://shelterofmagnolias.wordpress.com. Check out some of her other playlists while you're there.  I can't believe the day is almost here when I'll finally get to see my book on sale and in print. In three days, on Saturday, Fractured Dream (The Dreamer Saga) will go live. But I think it will be most real for me when I hold it in my hands.
Thank you to everyone that helped me get here, and to all those reviewers out there giving my book a presence. Saturday is a day to celebrate, not only it is my son's third birthday, but it's the birth of my book on the market. Nine years ago the seed of an idea was planted in my head. It took me eight years to finish it, and now almost nine to see the idea come to fruition into a published book. And now it's here. But my desire to be a published author has always existed, from the first scribblings of poetry when I was six, in my hunger for reading, and for the many books begun but never finished. It's been a long journey, and it's not done yet. I've got two more books in this series and another book I'm working on right now, with many more stories knocking around in my head. This time it won't take me eight years. And I can't wait to give them all life. Thanks again to everyone and also to my current and future readers. Those who would criticize reading as a way to escape must never have experienced the beauty of finding comfort, enjoyment and solace in being taken away by an incredible story. Who doesn't need to escape once in a while? Reading is by far one of the most healthy forms of escapism. I I hope I can do for my readers what so many writers have done for me, which is to allow me to escape to new worlds and ideas.  Artist Credits: Julie Bell & Boris Vallejo Here's an excerpt from my writing with a fantasy art pic to go with it. I just love fantasy art, and what better way to appreciate it than illustrate scenes from Fractured Dream. The below excerpt is from the beginning of Chapter 10: The-Inbetween, and gives us our first glimpse of one of the fairytale characters that gets a retelling. Although the girl in the picture is lacking in clothes, I imagine Jess looking fierce like this, but with silvery eyes of course.
Excerpt Chapter 10 - The In-Between Fractured Dream (The Dreamer Saga) pub date: June 21 Story’s dreams that night starred the same red-haired woman from her paintings. She was tall, fierce, and terrible. Her eyes gleamed like chrome lit with a vengeful mercurial fire as animals ran from her, their eyes white with terror. It was her painting come to life. Story watched from an unseen place, wondering why this deceptively beautiful night stalker made her feel so afraid—not for herself, but for the woman. The red-haired predator came upon her quarry, a hulking black-pelted wolf. She leapt with feline grace and landed on the animal, sharp steel glinting in the moonlight before she plunged it into its neck, the wolf’s fur soaking up the red that leaked from his wound. She started to gut the animal and seemed intent on the task for a few seconds. Story thought she might start puking in the bushes any moment, watching the girl slice into the wolf. She was swallowing bile back down when she realized the redhead was staring directly at her. The girl’s steel eyes widened as if she were seeing a ghost, the cold glint of her gaze losing its edge. A smile slowly curved the woman’s full, sensual mouth. “Story?” she asked, rising to her feet.  The Book Rat book review blog was awesome enough to host a guest post from me on my book, Fractured Dream. Check out, Happily ever after and the fairytale retelling.
I first got the idea for Fractured Dream in 2005, and in my mind I envisioned a red-headed huntress—a warrior who hunted Big Bad Wolves—to be my main character’s BFF. As you can guess, she was my version of Little Red Riding Hood... See more here. My book cover revealed4/5/2014  I'm so excited to finally reveal my book cover designed by Greg Simanson from Booktrope Publishing. I'm in love with it. My book also went up for pre-sales yesterday. If you're a print lover like I am, the pre-orders are for e-format. Print sales will go up when the book launches in June. Anyway, without further ado, here's the link to Amazon: Fractured Dream Pre-sale orders
Fractured Dream (The Dreamer Saga) is slated to launch June 21.  If you love epic fantasy, fairytale retellings and romance…You won’t want to miss out on this opportunity! Fractured Dream (The Dreamer Saga,Book 1) is the first installment in an epic fantasy series full of magic, mythical and mystical creatures, a breathtakingly beautiful otherworld and the right mixture of romance, mystery and suspense to keep the pages turning. It will debut June 21st, 2014, and I am looking for people who are interested in joining an exclusive Facebook team dedicated to providing feedback and helping spread the word about this series. Your feedback is invaluable and I am hoping you are interested in joining my team. As a member of the launch team, you’ll not only receive an electronic edition of the book before it’s available to the public but also gain special access to the author and all of Team K.M. Randall via a private Facebook group. In return, all I ask is that you leave a short, honest review of Fractured Dream on Amazon and share news about the release with friends and family you think may also enjoy it. Interested? Send an email to book manager Wendy Logsdon at wendy.logsdon@booktrope.com with your name, email address, and a brief explanation as to why you want to join Team K.M. Randall. Those selected will be notified via email and will be added to the Facebook group. We understand that not all people have Facebook accounts, in that case, we will make every effort to keep you updated via email. Thank you in advance for your help in launching my newest novel. Your support is greatly appreciated! Ooooh, pretty: book cover eye candy3/4/2014 Today, I read an article featuring some of the most disturbing, horrific and hilarious book covers (and titles) to ever have troubled the reading people, which you can read at Bored Panda. So while the old adage says, "you can't judge a book by its cover," I would suggest not turning your readership off all together. On the flip side, I am really into covers recently, and fiction often lends itself to really awesome imagery, especially fantasy and young adult. My obsession comes from the fact that we've recently been working on the cover for my book, Fractured Dream, slated for publication by Booktrope in June. I'm absolutely in love with it and can't wait until I can share it here. But all in good time. The bottom line, however, is covers. So I decided to showcase a few that for me, are visual orgasms of delight. Stay awhile and take a looksy.    The first book pictured above is book one in the Eve series bye A.L. Waddington. For transparency sake, I am editing this series, although I did not have a part in the editing of this first book. But my involvement in the series has nothing to do with my love of this cover. Mystical, magic visual love! I am editing the second book pictured above, which is also in the Eve series. And you're in luck, because the cover for Enlightened was just revealed on Monday. Both covers were done by the wonderful Greg Simanson, a cover designer with Booktrope Publishing. If I was tweeting I'd call it #coverlove. The third book pictured is Schasm by Shari Ryan. The author did her own art work and a fantabulous job she did. I didn't edit the above book, which is the first in this series, but I am editing her second book, Frissure Free. I'll post the cover here at some point because it is also beautiful, if not more so than the first. All three have been, or will be, published by Booktrope.    I trolled around for some other visual wonders and found these three, much loved for the contrast of colors, as well as concept. Firebug, the first one pictured, was a a cover reveal featured on Tor.com today. I don't even really know what these books are about, but I'm definitely in the mood to find out. But wait, I'm not done. More eye candy to come.    The first one, done by Ida Jansson, is just cool. The designer also works for Booktrope, but I nabbed this off her website, where she also does cover design independently. Book two was a random cover found on Goodreads.com. I so rarely see fantasy covers that feature beautifully drawn creatures of magic that I was drawn to it. It appeals to my old school/new school sense of cover art. The third one is also off of Goodreads, and is a contender in their covergasms contest. You can see why.
Although a book can have a great cover and be a dud, it doesn't hurt to stun possible readers by translating your words into vivid works of art. Fantasy or not, covers have power and I'm feeling the magic in these. I just had to post this cool book trailer for Running Secrets by Arleen Williams, which is on sale now. I edited the book so I might be biased, but it's a great read for those who like contemporary women's fiction. It's the first in a series called the Alki Trilogy for all of you familiar with Seattle. Anyway, check out the trailer if interested. First reader1/5/2014 And then the day came when someone actually read the book...
Any writer will understand the excitement and anxiety that goes along with finally letting someone read your work. I recently handed over my entire manuscript to my sister to be my first reader ever. She has listened to me talk about it for years now, so I figured I owed her the first read. Besides, she reads the fantasy-fiction genre, and can be pretty brutal when need-be. From the point where I printed out the MS for the first time last month, topping off at more than 200k words, to the much slimmer version I emailed to her last week, it's been a journey. In my previous post I babbled ignorantly on about how easy I found "killing my darlings," or editing, had been. And it was at first. But when I was still at 190-something thousand words after cutting 20- to 30 pages, I had to take a step back. I'm pretty realistic, and as much as I loved the 40 or so pages still lingering that were keeping me away from my goal of 160k words, I realize that I'm a newbie, a no-name writer, and a book of that length would be daunting coming from an untested author. Despite knowing this, I tried going through the MS first and cutting down sentences, paragraphs and a page here or there in hopes that it would drop my word count down and bring me to a more reasonable length. I mean I want people to read it. But I moaned, I procrastinated, I debated and shook my head. It was too painful. I couldn't do it. But then I did. I clicked command-x and deposited the first 50 or so into another document, saved it, and said adieu—for now. A prequel could always rise from those ashes. Instantly, I felt a sense of freedom, a weight lifted from my spirit and I turned to my book with new eyes and a better sense of length, pace and readability. And I've been happier ever since. But it certainly wasn't easy, I say to my previous naive self. I even got the word count under 150k. I mean it's fantasy, after all, so it's got a little heft. This all brings me to handing it over for the first time to be read. I'm certain my sister wants to ring my neck, because I keep finding reasons to talk to her to find out what she thinks. But it's an amazing feeling to have written a book and have even just one reader, who so far, likes it. AuthorK.M. Randall writes fantasy and paranormal for both a general and young adult audience. Her debut novel, an epic fantasy called Fractured Dream, launched in June 2014, and her second book, The Reaper's Daughter, launched May 2015. Randall also published Fairytale Lost, a prequel to Fractured Dream, as an exclusive on Wattpad. She blogs about dreams, female heroines, and activism and its relevancy to the literary and fictional world. And when in the season, sometimes she just likes to talk about Halloween. She is currently hard at work on the second book in the Dreamer Saga series, Shattered World.  
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