THE CHILDREN OF ISADOR - free on Amazon for just five days!

THE CHILDREN OF ISADOR is available for free on Amazon Kindle, for the next 5 days!

This was my first novel, first published by Equilibrium Books in 2007. It was then shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards in 2008.

It's the book I wrote to truly please myself - a traditional, dark epic fantasy adventure on a huge scale. THE CHILDREN OF ISADOR was the first manuscript I finished that I felt ready to share with the rest of the world!

Download your copy for free.

Want to know more about the story?

Beware where malice sleeps...

An epic fantasy tale of high adventure, wizards, warriors and sorcery. The Children of Isador begins under the shadow of a land threatened by invaders from far across the southern oceans.

A year later, the continent is almost overrun.

Isador is a vast continent, lush and warm in the south, with great forests to the east and desolate tundra in the north. Four races inhabit the continent: The Ennadil, Orinians, Tarzark and Gremul - but after years of civil war they refuse to band together against the invaders.

The Morg and their war machine appear unstoppable. Led by a powerful warlock bent of vengeance, they have gained control of over half the continent and stand on the brink of taking the last bastion of men: the City States of Orin.

Morgarth Evictar has returned to Isador after a long exile. History has forgotten him but the warlock is determined to claim the continent for his own.

Isador is about to fall into darkness - and only a handful of unlikely heroes remain to save it. Among them are:

A wizard with no interest in his craft...
A witch whose powers have yet to be tested...
A warrior who is about to learn the true meaning of courage...
A guardian with undiscovered talents...

Together, they must begin a perilous quest into occupied territory - to find Morgarth Evictar and slay him. It appears an impossible task, but the fate of Isador depends on them all.

Can they rescue Isador, or is it too late?

Download your copy for free.

KINDLE BOOK PROMOTION: JOURNEY OF SHADOWS

Ready for an adventure? Fast-paced, character-driven traditional epic fantasy

Grab JOURNEY OF SHADOWS (Book one of the Palâdnith Chronicles) for 99 cents for five days only on Amazon! 

Offer runs from 27-31 October - so don't miss out!

Do you love traditional epic fantasy, but are looking for a truly epic adventure with characters you can truly relate to?

JOURNEY OF SHADOWS (shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, 2014) is the first novel in the Palâdnith Chronicles, a traditional epic fantasy series that's fast-paced and full of classic epic fantasy elements: coming of age, good versus evil, and a quest. However, my characters are people just like you and me, thrown into an epic adventure and forced to deal with the consequences. 

Have you ever dreamed of a different life - one of adventure, excitement and purpose?

Seth, Eni and Val have. Yet, dreaming is all they have done. Until, the day fate intervenes.

Three brothers. One legacy that binds them.

JOURNEY OF SHADOWS introduces you to the world of Palâdnith. I let my readers discover Palâdnith, and the scheming realmlords who rule it, through the eyes of my characters. You won't find pages of back-story and lengthy descriptions. You're launched into the story from the first pages!

Sounds like the kind of epic fantasy you are looking for?

Get a copy of JOURNEY OF SHADOWS for 99 cents from Amazon while this offer lasts.

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Would you like to read the prequel novella to the Palâdnith Chronicles for free?

Sign up to Sam's monthly newsletter and receive a FREE copy of DEEP-SPIRE (PDF format). Newsletter subscribers will also get sneak previews of upcoming novels, behind the scenes 'extras', epic fantasy book reviews & recommendations, and podcasts from Sam!

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The Citadel of Lies BOOK LAUNCH - Part #3

To finish off the launch of my new epic fantasy novel, The Citadel of Lies, with a bang - I'm running a special promotion, from 9-18 November.

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Journey of Shadows (Book One of the Palâdnith Chronicles) will be for sale for just US$0.99 cents for nine days only.

Grab a copy from Amazon Kindle for just US$0.99 cents while the promotion lasts!

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Looking for an exciting new epic fantasy series to get lost in? 

Here's what the Palâdnith Chronicles is about:

Magic once ruled the fate of all, but that time has long passed.

Palâdnith is a land ruled by scheming realmlords; a land that is slowly slipping into a chaos of its own making. The coming of an eclipse marks the beginning of a new era, and three brothers - Seth, Eni and Val Falkyn - are all that stand between hope and despair. 

Want to find out more about the story? Take a look at the BOOK TRAILER for Journey of Shadows, the first book of the series, below:

Archetype or Stereotype - Character Development in Epic Fantasy

One of the criticisms that epic fantasy receives, is that the characters are often stereotypical and two-dimensional. Fans of the genre will know the tropes well: the stern dwarf, the distant elf, the cryptic wizard, the naive farm boy, and so on. Part of the reason why lovers of epic fantasy read these books is because they enjoy these characters - but there are times when the portrayal and development of fantasy characters gets so hackneyed, that even hardcore fans get bored!

The trick with epic fantasy is to create characters that fantasy-lovers can recognize, while giving them a twist that makes them unique and fresh. If I think about recent epic fantasy with excellent well-drawn characters, Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire series comes to mind. The central character in this series (Prince of Thorns and King of Thorns), is an anti-hero. The main character is a violent, immoral young man with a massive chip on his shoulder. Jorg is certainly not the bright-eyed hero you often see in epic fantasies. But, love him or hate him - you'll never forget him!

From a writer's point of view, epic fantasy has great scope for character development. You have life and death issues here, and events that can change, or destroy, the world. Surely, a writer can show some serious character development in such a story? In his book, Story (a must-read for any aspiring writer), Robert McKee writes about the difference between an archetype and a stereotype - an important distinction to keep in mind with a genre like epic fantasy. To quote the great man himself:

"The archetypal story unearths a universal human experience, then wraps itself inside a unique, culture-specific expression. A stereotypical story reverses this pattern: It suffers a poverty of both content and form. It confines itself to a narrow, culture-specific experience and dresses it in stale, nonspecific generalities."

There's no reason why characters in epic fantasy shouldn't have the same hopes, fears, dreams and neuroses, as the rest of us. The trick is to make sure they are unique to the time and place they are set in, and not merely modern-day people in fancy dress!

I love creating and developing characters. It's what I look for in the novels I read, and its what I focus on in the books I write. In my new epic fantasy novel, Journey of Shadows, I centre the story around three brothers. Unbeknown to them, their mother was a witch - who sacrificed her own life to save theirs. They grow up, unaware of their legacy. This idea isn't a new one, but my telling of it is. The first difference to a lot of epic fantasy is that my three protagonists are men - not boys. Reading stories about yet another callow youth who learns about his true destiny, makes me want to spork out my own eyeballs! My protagonists are in their early to mid-thirties; they are well-entrenched in safe, uneventful lives that are going nowhere. They also all have serious 'issues' when it comes to forming emotional attachments. The youngest brother is a dreamer who took the first job offered and never embarked on the adventures he'd dreamed of; the second brother is a workaholic who has sacrificed everything for his craft; and the third brother is a reclusive librarian who has chosen the company of books to people. I enjoyed kicking these three out of their comfort-zones and into a grand adventure!

To celebrate the launch of Journey of Shadows, I am running a contest. It runs until Thursday 28 February 2013- and the winner will receive a US$30 Amazon gift card (that should buy you a few more Kindle books!) and a copy of Journey of Shadows (Kindle Edition). To enter, you don't need to buy a copy of the book - you just need to share your thoughts on your favourite fantasy character!

Here's how to enter:

1. Comment below about your favourite epic fantasy character, the book he or she appears in, and why you loved him/her. A paragraph is sufficient! I've already told you about mine - Jorg from the Broken Empire series.
2. The best comment will be announced on 1 March 2013 and the winner receives a US$30 Amazon gift card and a Kindle Edition of Journey of Shadows!

 Available now on Amazon for US$2.99 (Kindle Edition).

Is the KDP Select Free promotion worth it?

In my previous blog I announced that The Children of Isador was about to have three days free promotion via KDP Select - and it did! The Children of Isador reached #10 in the best-selling epic fantasy downloads and has gained over five-hundred potential new readers because of this promotion. :-)

Before joining KDP Select and taking part in the promotion I was a bit cautious - and like many other writers I wasn't pleased with Amazon's rule that you cannot have your book published on any other e-publishing platform when enrolled in KDP Select. Nevertheless, I'd heard great things about the free promotion service and was keen to give The Children of Isador a boost. I published it in on Amazon Kindle in June this year and although the sales had been ticking over nicely, wanted to give the novel a bit more visibility.

So was the free promotion worth it, and would I recommend it to other self-published authors? The short answer is yes. I write primarily to get read. Yes, I want to make a living from it, and a monthly check from Amazon is most welcome, but what matters most is that epic fantasy fans read my book.

 So, here are the Free download stats for The Children of Isador over three days (23-25 October 2012):

.com = 401
.uk = 100
.de = 20
.fr = 0
.es = 2
.it = 0
.jp = 0

Total free downloads: 523 copies.

I know there will be writers out there that get thousands of downloads for the free promotion, but since The Children of Isador is my first book I'm pretty pleased with these numbers!

If you were one of the five-hundred and twenty-three people who downloaded my book, I thank you - and invite you to post an honest review on either Amazon or Goodreads. If you have any feedback or thoughts about the novel, you can email me at: samanthajcharlton@gmail.com  I'd love to hear from you.

If you enjoyed The Children of Isador then you'll be pleased to hear that I've been busy writing more epic fantasy! Journey of Shadows (Book One of the Palâdnith Chronicles) is due out in December this year. This first book in the series begins the story of Seth, Eni and Val; three brothers who parted ways ten years' earlier and have not spoken since. Unaware of their unusual heritage, or of the sorceress pursuing them, the brothers are catapulted from their old lives and begin journeys that will test more than their courage. Keep an eye on my website: www.samjcharlton.com for updates on this book!

The Children of Isador, a dark, traditional fantasy about the triumph of good over evil is now available on Amazon Kindle at its usual price of $2.99 USD.