The Lies of Vampires and Slayers: Spoiler Post

Greetings, Champions! The Lies of Vampires and Slayers is officially released! Did you read it yet? I'm bringing back the tradition of a Spoiler Post because I want to give you blog-reading Champions a place to voice your reading thoughts during this initial book launch so please talk away! Warning: If you are waiting to read this series until all the books are out, or if you haven't gotten a chance to read The Lies of Vampires and Slayers yet, then I'd suggest waiting before you check out the rest of the post or read the comments, or you'll spoil the story for yourself!

As usual, I've will be writing short story as my "thank you" for the launch of this new book and for it reaching 100 reviews--that's 100 honest reviews pooling from Goodreads and all the Amazon stores!  Reviews and ratings are a big deal for authors. Honest reviews can help readers decide if a book is their thing or not, and I'm so thankful that you're willing to spend your time leaving a review--which is why I'm happy to write the shorts! And based on how quickly the reviews showed up for book 1, you can expect to see the short story....very soon. (Hahaha, thank you Champions, you are the best!) But until then, let's talk spoilers!

So, Champions, what was your favorite part? Was there anything unexpected? What are your theories for the rest of the series? This is the first time you have seen Vampire Slayers in depth - what did you think? Now that you've finally met Considine what is your impression of him? Anything you're looking forward to seeing in the next books?

Sheacon 2023 Goodie Bag

Sheacon 2023 is starting TODAY! Early access is available right now, in fact! (Reminder! To attend Sheacon, you’ll need to join the KM Shea Discord server! Once inside our community server, there is a special channel called “Sheacon-Announcements.” That channel contains a link to the Sheacon server–the place where the actual conference is held. If you have any problems navigating the discord server, feel free to ask questions! Vin, the Mod Squad, and the Sheacon Planners will be watching, so they can swoop in and save you!)

Once you’ve joined Sheacon sever, you’ll have access to the full schedule of events for the weekend–you can find it in the “schedule” channel! It’s also advised that you check out the server rules and info channel, and since the Opening Ceremony won’t take place until 6 PM central time, you’ve got time to explore all the activities–like puzzles–and check out the goodie bag! What is the goodie bag? I’m so glad you asked!

Every year I have a goodie bag of treats–for both Con attendees and Champions who couldn’t make it! This year, we have so much to share–important, the other attending authors/panelists have goodies to share, too, so if you’re attending Sheacon, check out the “Goodie Bag” channel on the server!

First of all the third boxset from the Timeless Fairy Tales series is free today (7/28) through Monday (7/31). This book was voted on by the newsletter Champions in my July newsletter, so thank you to everyone who voted – this boxset won by a landslide!

This boxset includes books 7-9 (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Frog Prince) in the Timeless Fairy Tales series BUT if you haven’t read the earlier books you can still enjoy these stories because each book in this series is a stand-alone retelling of a popular fairy tale. This also means you can send this deal to your friends to get them to try the series and they won’t feel completely lost starting with #7 in the series.

Get the free boxset: ​Amazon.com​  |  All Other Amazon Stores​

Want to know a little more about each book?

Swan Lake – A Robin Hood-esque adventure where the cunning leader of a troop of cursed smugglers/outlaws and a clever but often overlooked prince fall in love. (Quick warning that the villain in this series is the most popular(?!) I’ve ever written and triggers a lot of feels for some people.)

Sleeping Beauty – A childhood friend to – lovers/bodyguard romance between a feisty princess who was raised to believe she was a peasant and the loyal knight sworn to protect her. (This series doesn’t have three good fairies like the Disney version but I think you will enjoy the pair of mages I included instead.)

Frog Prince – A fantasy boss/employee romance where the main male character has hidden depths and our plucky heroine, a maid who really loves cleaning, is brave enough to take on assassins with a broom. (If you read the first book in the series, Beauty and the Beast, you will love all the character crossovers that happen in this book!)

I also have a brand new coloring book page featuring everyone’s favorite fairy tale donkey:

Here’s a link to the PDF if you’d like to print this page off to color by hand, otherwise you can use the above JPEG file to color digitally! Get the PDF here

Magiford Champions might be feeling a little left out, but the best is yet to come! I have a brand new, never before seen Magiford short story for you! It’s called “Fireworks for Wizards,” and it focuses on Hazel Medeis and Killian Drake!

Click Here to read the PDF of this new short story!

Finally, we have a project for you audio lovers!

This summer the team converted my short story, “A Twisted Tale” into an audio format using AI narration, and we’ve uploaded it to Youtube for you to listen to–for free!

IMPORTANT NOTE! In the future I will only use AI narration for short stories–like A Twisted Tale–that will only be available for free on Youtube. Books, series, etc, will continue to have human narrators that will be available for purchase on Audible. (Basically, if we make any free audio stuff that I upload to Youtube, we’ll use AI narration programs since I’ll never be selling them/making a profit on them. Anything that gets packaged to sell will have human narrators!)

Listen to A Twisted Tale here!

And finally, if you’re looking for more free books check out these additional fantasy romances which are all FREE for this weekend! Click here for the full list!

You’ll recognize a several of the authors as guest authors from the current SheaCon (Charlotte Vane, Hanna Sandvig, and Celeste Baxendell all have free books for you) or previous years. Our Discord Manager, Vin, spent a lot of time vetting each author to make sure they meet the Sweet/Clean heat level but she didn’t have time to read every book they’ve ever written. Vin did her best to make sure their content matches my books however, it’s still wise to check reviews before you plunge into a new author’s books, particularly if it’s a series the author didn’t promote as part of this special.

I am so excited for this weekend, and I can’t wait to hang out with everyone! However, if you can’t come, we will have audio records of the panels available to listen to in a few weeks, so don’t stress!

That’s everything. I’ll see you at 6 pm (central time) for the opening ceremonies!

What Projects Are Next?

So I recently told you guys what was coming for Magiford, but what about the rest of the year?

Audio Books

You might have missed it in all of the release fun, but Pack of Dawn and Destiny–aka, Pip’s trilogy–is now available in audio format!

Later this year, The MBRC will also be making its audio début. (No release dates yet, sorry!) It will be a complete boxset release (just like Snow Queen) so it will be a great deal for your Audible credit if you are part of that membership program! Gate of Myth and Power will also be turned into an audiobook, but we haven’t even started auditions yet so I’m not yet certain if it will be out this year or next year.

To make it easier for everyone to track which books are available in audio I create a new Audiobooks page as part of the Books menu. Go there if you ever want to double check what has been released!

Sheacon 2023

SheaCon is a weekend of K.M. Shea themed fun held on a Discord server, and is free to attend! There will be panels with myself and guest authors, plus games and activities all weekend. SheaCon 2023 will be on July 28th-30th in the US Central timezone.

What Books are Next?

As mentioned in a previous post, Jade’s unnamed Magiford trilogy will be launching in December 2023. And I’ll also be devoting a lot of time this year to Second Age of Retha book #4!

Sadly, I’m not going to be able to publish Retha this year. Chloe’s series took me way longer than expected to write so I’m already off to a two/three month late start than I was planning for this year–which is a lot when you’re doing with big projects like books. I’m also still dealing with some leftover health problems so my writing speed is down, but the other big thing is…. Retha books are SO LONG. Seriously, the only other books that are longer are Angelique’s and that is saying something!

Another slow down is that Retha books also need more editing than usual because I have to double check all the skill names, levels–of characters and skills–and make sure I was consistent with things like character classes. But the extra editing is worth it to make the story good for you Champions!

And there is still some good news attached tot his! While there is no possible way I’ll be able to publish Retha #4 this year, I’m optimistic that I will be able to finish writing it this year, so that’s still a plus! (I’ve been working on it all May, and I’ve got a good 30,000 words done. Which…isn’t much if it decides to be another 100,000+ word book, but at least it’s a great start!)

Important for other upcoming projects:

One of the best parts about being a reader is the anticipation for the next book, so the team and I have decided to switch our focus to the book/series that are coming next! We’re changing from a lot of future planning, to focusing on one project one at a time. This means right now for new/upcoming books we’re focusing on Jade’s series in Magiford and the fourth Retha book since I’m writing them at the same time. For audio books we’re focused on the MBRC trilogy!

We won’t have updates for any projects besides these, but if you keep an eye on the coming soon page we’ll be updating the page with new info about these projects–like when the MBRC moves from the recording to editing phase of audiobook production.

I’m so excited, because this switch means we’ll be able to organize more fun for you Champions linked to these projects! I already have plans for you to help me name a few new Retha characters, and the team is talking about new ways to get our community ready for Jade’s series! (And that’s not even touching on everything that’ll go down at Sheacon!)

So that is the update for what projects you’ll see in 2023! This year is a lot of catch up for me, but I’m glad I’m still here to be doing the catch up after the mess that was 2022 and the end of 2021! Thanks for reading, Champions, and have a lovely day!