Umbral Blade 2: Mournstead - Get it today!

The wait is FINALLY over.

An ancient history of magic—rediscovered.

Alster and Elsey have found the tomb of Alistair the Fourth. Four hundred years ago, the mighty general was sealed away in what was supposed to be his eternal prison. Hidden in the mountains, protected by magic, and forgotten for ages…


Not anymore.

The feared magic of shadows has returned to Vecnos, and no one is safe. With the Umbral Blade restored to its rightful owner, Alster and Elsey must seek another artifact—and their journey will send them into Mournstead, the dreaded capital of the east, where a single misstep means death. If they don’t succeed, all of Vecnos will perish under a brutal regime of shadows.

Mournstead is the wild conclusion to the Umbral Blade epic fantasy duology by Stuart Thaman. Brace yourself for the thrilling journey of a lifetime as two friends leave their home in search of long-forgotten adventure.

A look at Bruce Jamison's new LitRPG series: Dead Again

Just over a year ago I found myself working abroad in Türkiye. Away from family and a bit of time on my hands, I had room for a few extra hobbies.

It was toward the end of COVID and traveling still hadn’t completely opened. My job, working out, and studying the Turkish language only kept me busy for so long. I wanted something better to do with my time than streaming and playing video games, so one Saturday morning I grabbed a cup of coffee, fired up my laptop, and started typing.

Before that day I’d never thought about creative writing, but the words just started to flow. Hours turned into days—then into months—as taking the stories from my head and putting them into words became my new favorite activity.

I always feel strange when I tell people that I just decided to start writing one day out of the blue, but that’s what happened, and that’s the first thing I learned about writing:

It doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you’re writing something.

Take the thoughts in your head and make them tangible. Whether it’s a notebook and pen, a typewriter, a voice recorder, or, in my case, a laptop, only you can get the story out of your head and make it real.

It doesn’t have to be coherent, and it definitely doesn’t have to be perfect, but the more you write, the easier it is to keep up the process. If found that one of my favorite things to do was wake up early and read whatever whiskey-induced things I had come up with the night before. Some of them were genius or hilarious, but most were garbage. However, as the days ran on, the sporadic concepts started to meld together into something resembling a story.

I let a few of my friends read it, and they gave me the encouragement to see it through to the end.

Finally, as I got on the plane to come home to my friends and family, I typed the final scene. I had done it. I had written a book. It wasn’t pretty, but in 80K words, I had created a fantasy world like the ones from J.R.R. Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander that I had worn the pages off as a child.

That was the easy part. When I started writing, I had no intention of ever publishing, but since it was done, I wondered if anyone else would enjoy reading it. There was a problem, though. If I wanted to get my book out there, I would have to get it published, but that concept was as foreign to me as Türkiye was when I first arrived.

With a lack of knowledge, I did what any good millennial would do… I turned to Google. For weeks, I read through every blog, website, and anything else that offered advice on getting my work out there. The more I learned, the more I realized I was unprepared to take on the task myself. Thousands of dollars on several different types of editing, working through social media to develop a following, and competing with thousands of other authors just in the fantasy genre were just a few of the daunting tasks before me.

I needed help, and that’s where I learned my second lesson:

Put yourself out there as much and as often as you can.

I don’t remember how many agents and publishers I reached out to, but I know it was a lot. It took a bit of digging, but the internet had no shortage of agencies accepting submissions.

Most didn’t respond back. A hand-full gave a simple thanks-but-no-thanks. Even a few foreign publishers seemed interested, but I wasn’t ready to navigate those waters.

When I had just about given up hope and started looking into self-publishing, my current publisher, Nef House, asked for the full manuscript. I was beyond excited and within a week, they read my story and came back with a suggestion: We like the book, but have you thought about making it a LitRPG? For those who don’t know, LitRPG stands for Literary Role-Playing Game.

I had read a few LitRPGs and as an avid D&D player, I was familiar with the concept, though completely re-writing my novel was not something I was prepared for. However, the more I thought about it, the more what I had created seemed like it was begging for the RPG elements to be added in.

I realized that if I was writing a story that I wanted other people to read, I needed my book to realize its full potential.

Don’t be afraid of major changes—take the opportunity to make your story better.

I resolved myself to make the book as enjoyable for the reader as possible, so I hunkered down and spent two months changing my novel into a LitRPG. I proudly submitted my updates and started working on books two and three, but the process was far from complete.

Remember when I said I was an amateur author that had never considered creative writing? That was painfully obvious when I got back my line edits. I thought I was at least a somewhat decent writer, but it seemed like every single line had something wrong with it. My spelling, grammar, and punctuation were terrible, but those were the easy pieces to fix. Some of the feedback pointed out major loopholes. Other parts of my book that I thought were crucial actually took more away from the story than they added.

Based on that feedback, here’s the fourth thing I learned:

It’s an incremental process. Embrace the criticism and grow.

I had never had someone take so much time to help me hone a skill—and believe me, writing is a skill. As an engineer, technical writing came easy to me; it’s complicated, but linear and direct. Creative writing is a different monster all together. Character development, engaging dialog, and simply putting the fantasy world in your head into writing are all complicated aspects on their own. Keeping them consistent through an entire novel was a huge weak point for me. However, I learned more in a month fixing those line edits than I had through grade school and multiple college degrees.

My publisher worked with me to turn my book into something that I can be proud to share with the world. I’m now two months out from my release and couldn’t be more excited to have my story out there.

As of this writing, I’m powering through the first drafts of books two and three, and I’ve started writing two separate books in the Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy genres. I still wake up every day excited to put the thoughts in my head into my laptop and inch my way toward another release.

Bruce Jamison is a debut author with Nef House Publishing with his first release: No Sun Under the Mountain, Dead Again: Book 1. You can reach him at brucejamisonbooks@gmail.com

Dead Again 1: No Sun Under the Mountain

Henry already died once. Does he really need to do it again?

Now he's a skeleton with a stat sheet, skills, and an insatiable desire to kill humans. Lurking in the very depths of his bleached skull, some remnant of his old self still remains—and it wants to break free just as badly as Henry wants to figure out how he's a skeleton in the first place.

And Henry isn't the only one. Other skeletons are gaining sentience all over Jallfoss. Is there any way back? Any way to break the curse that holds all of Jallfoss in its icy grip?

More humans are coming, and if Henry doesn't learn how to keep himself alive, none of it will matter.

Umbral Blade 1: Shadowlith - Relaunch Complete!

An ancient history of magic. An epic journey to find it.

Alistair the Fourth was a mighty general from a long-forgotten war. Four hundred years later, Alster Lightbridge is barely a shadow of his legendary namesake. Crippled and confined to his family’s estate, he spends his days dreaming of something larger than himself—something worthy of his name.

Encouraged by his tutor to explore the Lightbridge archive, Alster discovers a magical dagger with the power to cleave shadows from their bodies. Blade in hand, Alster finally understands his purpose, though he needs to find a four-centuries-old grave in order to fulfill it.

Shadowlith is the critically acclaimed first installment to the Umbral Blade duology by Stuart Thaman. This new 3rd edition version from Nef House Publishing features a highly polished manuscript with minor adjustments to the original text while preserving all of the grand adventure that fans around the globe loved at original release.

Umbral Blade 2: Mournstead

I’m getting close!

I know there’s been a long wait since Shadowlith came out. Quite a few years, actually. Originally, I just didn’t know where I wanted to go with book 2. I wrote myself into a bit of a complex corner. Oops.

But that’s behind me now! I’ve moved past the blocks, and the book is coming along nicely.

So when will it be done???

I DON’T KNOW! Soon, I hope. I’m sitting just shy of 50k words right now. I’m planning on this book being just a tad bit longer than book 1, so maybe 75k - 90k. We’ll see when I get there. In all honesty, I really hope to have it at least in edits by the summer. That’s rapidly approaching. I think I can do it.

Anyway, that’s the update. Sorry for the delay!

Oh, and I’m planning on releasing a really cool combined duology edition as well. Maybe a hardback? I don’t know yet.

Interview with Author W. C. Little - Awesome Historical Fiction!

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Congrats on releasing your first book! Tell us a little bit about it and what inspired you to write historical fiction.

I wanted my first attempt at writing to cover a monumental period, but one that is rarely covered by writers. The story of Charlemagne – the extent of his great power – and the rapid decline in the authority of his successors, specifically caught my interest. At its zenith, Charlemagne’s empire was very impressive. Equally impressive were the forces around the empire that posed a risk: Vikings, Saracens and pagan tribes of the east meant that the empire was under constant threat.

Also, because of the lack of contemporary histories and accounts of the people and events of the period, there was a lot of blank canvas for me to work with. I felt a freedom in developing several fictional characters to balance those that are documented.

What would be the biggest challenges for someone living in the Carolingian Empire?

Survival. Just the daily struggle for the necessities of life and trying to overcome disadvantages that come with a person’s class. Where am I getting clean water and food? I try to capture the minute details from time to time because the basic elements of survival are ever-present. The common man/woman has to deal with these keys to survival more than those of higher classes. I like to acknowledge as much to my readers.

What are a few of your favorite examples in the genre? Which time period do you enjoy reading about the most?

I enjoy reading Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell the most. They have different writing styles, but the pages seem to turn quickly for me. I particularly liked Conn’s take on the War of the Roses. Cornwell is known for his gritty, battle-focused narratives. I love Cornwall’s series The Last Kingdom and look forward to reading the final book of the series.

What do you have planned for the future? When can we expect to see your next book coming out?

I see The Crown Holder series taking up most of my writing time for a while. I envision the series taking up 5 to 6 books in total. I think that a book a year is a pretty safe average.

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