Saturday, March 30, 2019

A New Beginning...

It's ready and waiting!

A NEW BEGINNING (ebook only) will be available on Thursday, April 4th. This first book of a new series in the Starfire Angels universe is priced at the special rate of only 99c (USD).

On a remote mining station, Nyalin hides a secret that would make her a hunted woman—she is a Crystal Keeper, a protector of a shard of the powerful Starfire crystal. However, when a strange shuttle falls through a portal near the mining station, she can no longer avoid her responsibilities. The human pilot, Vellin, is part of a research team that has developed gateways for instant travel anywhere in the universe without requiring a Starfire crystal, and he has been followed by an enemy through the portal.

To stop dangerous forces from possessing the gateways to spread destruction, Nya must team up with Vel and risk exposing her secret. In their race to destroy the gateways, they will find allies and enemies... and a new reason to worry.

Preorder now (wait, if you prefer, but it's cheaper than a soda and a fraction of a movie ticket price for a few hours entertainment):

Amazonhttps://www.amazon.com/New-Beginning-Starfire-Angels-Forgotten-ebook/dp/B07MJYB4NF/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=melanie+nilles&qid=1549851642&s=gateway&sr=8-6&linkCode=sl1&tag=offsitofmelni-20&linkId=487321f3f541238b28e23dc3ea0b90fe&language=en_US

Applehttps://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-new-beginning/id1449769604?mt=11

Barnes and Noblehttps://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-new-beginning-m-a-nilles/1130302146?ean=2940156335589

Kobohttps://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-new-beginning-100

Thank you to the SFWA New Release Newsletter for including this in the April 1 edition.

And a special THANK YOU!! to all the readers and fans who have given me reasons to continue to write in this universe.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Luriel Cycle wrap-around covers

If anyone is interested, here are the full wrap-around covers of The Luriel Cycle trilogy paperback books:




These are just the cropped images, not reflective of the actual spine width of each book, so that you can see the full images now available for the paperback versions. I'm very happy with how these turned out and wanted to show them off as they are now official.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Vault of the Celestials is written

The first draft of Book 3 is typed out, but I'm not happy with aspects of this. It grew too complicated and needs to be rewritten and simplified.

But I have a first draft. I can work from that. You can't work with nothing.

Oddly enough, I also figured out how to start Book 4 and did that also.

Now, I need to get to work editing Book 2, The Rule of Yonder. I'm going to let Vault of the Celestials sit aside for a while so that I can focus on TROY edits. That should help me see VOTC with a different perspective. The problems usually become more apparent and the solution clearer when the mind is not actively working on it yet is somehow keeping it in tune. The unconscious mind works on problems when we give it the freedom it needs, unrestricted by conscious thought.

Each book has presented its own challenges, but each has also been an interesting piece of the puzzle. This one, Vault of the Celestials, is a cornerstone piece of this series, as it delves deeply into the establishing the foundation for the overarching plot.

That's all I can say for now, except Yay! Another one done. I can't wait to reveal the cover for this. It turned out beautiful, but I can't yet. In a few months.

For now, you'll have to be satisfied with A New Beginning and The Rule of Yonder, which are both available for pre-orders. Click on the series page on this blog to learn more.

Thanks for reading!

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Kindle Paperwhite giveaway

Free Kindle Books and Tips is giving away a Kindle Paperwhite. Click http://fkbt.com/2019/03/13/enter-to-win-a-new-paperwhite-2/ to enter.

And, while you're there, check out the site and be sure to sign up for their newsletter to learn about free Kindle books.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Cover Reveal - The Rule of Yonder

You've waited and been patient. And I finally decided on a release date for Book 2 of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds.

The Rule of Yonder will be released on June 20, 2019.

And now, the cover and description:

Despite their narrow escape from the Issan, Zerr's starship, the Da'Nelgur, was severely damaged. Vel and Shen have tried to fix the hyperdrive, and Nya is sound asleep. Their only chance to repair the ship to continue their journey to Ethal is a crime-syndicate-run remote city in interstellar space.

Yonder Station is not a place where anyone with sense wants to stay long, but it has its advantages. A home to salvagers, dealers, hustlers, and assassins, it is also a valuable trading post for the fringe of the galaxy, especially for information. The latest news is the Da'Nelgur's involvement with the Issan and the mysterious portals.

When Zerr is taken by one of the crimelords seeking what she knows about the portals, it is up to Nik and Nya to rescue her. But that same crimelord wants them too. To rescue Zerr, they will need to avoid being captured while tracking where she might have been taken. What they discover could get them killed, or it could gain them powerful new allies. What could go wrong?


Pre-orders available soon! Check the page listing here for Forgotten Worlds or at melanienilles.com for more on this series as it becomes available.

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A New Beginning is coming on April 4, 2019. Pre-order today!

Vault of the Celestials is coming in fall 2019.

Captain Marvel Review

Despite the bad roads and hubby having to be on call over the weekend, we made it out of our house to see the latest installment of the MCU.

I had read some reviews prior to going and had read about the issues arising from the lead actress's comments about white male reviewers. So, here I am, a female reviewing the movie. More importantly, a white female who had not read the comics.

The movie started out with a dream/flashback that becomes clearer over the course of the movie until it all finally expands to the truth at the end. That worked well enough. And I didn't feel like this was a female-empowerment movie so much as a man-in-a-woman's-body movie as too many "strong female" stories have become. Unrealistic. But even the men in the movie showed more emotion than the main character.

The movie felt thin to me, like something was missing in the first half. It wasn't until the last half of the movie that I felt more engaged. I thought about it when I couldn't sleep (because life sucks that way for me) and before I took something for that. Here's what I realized about the movie:

In the effort to have a "strong female", the writer missed an important factor early in the story--MAKE THE AUDIENCE CARE. I didn't care about anything, except maybe Fury and Coulson, and that's because I had previously been introduced to them as fully-fleshed out characters with a reason to care for them. But Carol Danvers--nope. Two-dimensional. Female in body only. She felt cold in personality. (And that's another thing--strong female does not mean man-with-boobs. It means a woman who gets past her struggles to do what needs to be done and who isn't afraid to show emotion or even to let others take care of her. We all need to let someone care about us at some point so we can take care of ourselves. That's not weakness. That's inner strength--the confidence to let others see the vulnerabilities inside.)

And the lead character wasn't the only one with that problem. The Skrulls developed into sympathetic characters but that was totally a switch from the introduction of them. What the writer should have done was introduced some question at the beginning that would have made the audience wonder. Maybe the writer saw it as a plot twist, but I think planting the seed of doubt about the Kree and Skrulls in the audience's mind in the beginning would have given the story a lot more emotional impact and a reason to care about the story throughout the movie.

That reason to care has to come from the very beginning and I just didn't. Besides the character's (or actress's) lack of personality, that was the major problem with this movie. It redeemed itself towards the end, but for most of it, it was just action without any real purpose except... because that's what she was told to do.

The "cat" was an interesting tool too.

Poor writing throughout most of the movie, good production (as expected for Marvel), and decent acting. I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars only because 2 is just a little too cruel. MCU set the bar high with previous movies, so my judgment is weighed against that as a guideline.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

New covers for the Luriel Cycle

I've known for some time that I wanted a different look for the Luriel Cycle trilogy. After spending a while trying to figure out what that new look would be, I finally decided. So, after hunting down the right stock images, I was able to put together the three new ebook covers that are going live at retailers.





The concept for a whole series is usually the most difficult. How to make the general design elements fit each story and stay consistent throughout the series is quite a challenge, along with figuring out if my Photoshop skills are up to the task. In this case, they were. I'm very happy with how these turned out.

I like the more general, non-character design of these. 

What do you think?

Monday, March 4, 2019

the homestretch

I'm almost there.

Not only am I nearly finished writing the first draft of Vault of the Celestials, but I am also now wrapping up line edits on A New Beginning. I'm in the homestretch on both in their respective stages of writing.

Available April 4, 2019!

I needed a break from writing Vault of the Celestials, which has been a hot mess for writing because it's so deep into setting the stage for the overarching plot, so I switched gears to the final editing stage of the first of the series. VotC wrote itself out of order as I knew some things and tried to make them work but was lacking one key aspect--suitable conflict. There wasn't enough to make it interesting.

Characters need a conflict to resolve and an emotional attachment that draws a reader in. Those are the basics of a story.

Now that I found the source of conflict for the characters story, the rest finally snapped together like a puzzle. I just need to add in the final scenes that have been outlined to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. Then I can hit the rewrites, because it will need some heavy rewriting!

And once I'm past that degree of writing to graduate to a second draft, I'll feel comfortable deciding when to publish Book 2: The Rule of Yonder. I expect that I'll be ready for that in June. Given the delay in finishing VotC, it will likely be the end of June, because I'll need time to properly edit that also and this first draft of Book 3 is taking longer than expected.

I don't know if any of that made sense. What you can take from that is that Book 1 is in final edits and almost ready for release. Book 2 will be available some time in mid to late June because Book 3 is taking a little longer to sort out than expected.

I can't wait to share the cover of the next book, but not until it's listed for pre-order.