Death Before Dragons: Behind the Scenes

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Lindsay

Secrets of the Sword II (Death Before Dragons, Book 8) will be coming out on Amazon in a little more than a week, and I’ve just sent the 9th book off to my beta readers. You can expect that in February, so more is on the way with Val, Zav, and the gang!

In the meantime, I recorded a 20-minute “Behind the Scenes” video on the series on YouTube. If you’re curious about how Zav, Val, Sindari, and Willard came to be, why I jumped into urban fantasy, and all about the cover art, please check that out:

 

I’ll post another update when Book 8 is out.

Just a reminder that you can get that and all of my books 1-2 weeks before they’re out in the stores if you’re a Patreon subscriber (you only get charged when I release a new book, and you don’t need to buy them in the store if you get them there — I get to keep 90%+ of the price that way, instead of the 65-70%-ish I get from the bookstores). Here’s the link if you’re interested:

https://www.patreon.com/lindsayburoker

 

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Now Answering Questions and Sharing Audiobooks on YouTube

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Lindsay

I’ve become a fan of YouTube these last few months (ever since I ponied up for the Premium version and can watch without ads or interruptions), and that’s inspired me to start my own YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX50ChqY7ScEieFL9J2YEGQ

If you would like to be notified when I add more videos, please subscribe to the channel!

As of now, I’ve posted a couple of Q&A videos with questions solicited from my Facebook author page. If you’d like to hear me talk about my journey to becoming a full-time author, how I come up with character names, how I stay motivated to write, and what’s coming from me in 2021 (after I complete the Death Before Dragons series), you can find that and more in these two videos:

I’m also modeling a super sexy dragon hat in the second one!

 

As an experiment, I’ve put a couple of my audiobooks on the YouTube channel. I figure people might stumble across them, try them out, and want to go on to pick up the rest from Audible, Apple, Chirp, or wherever. Hey, you never know!

If you’d like something to listen to in the background, here’s what I have up so far:

Robots & Roommates, the prequel story of how Kim and Casmir from my Star Kingdom series first met:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8HhGstxL14

After an epic battle over several days with my rural satellite internet, I managed to get the nine and a half hour Sinister Magic (Death Before Dragons, Book 1) up on YouTube. I thought about doing it in parts, but when I looked at other audiobooks on YouTube, they were all up as one video. Finally, I prevailed!

And here’s the first audiobook I uploaded there, The Forbidden Ground. This is a stand-alone novelette, also from my Death Before Dragons series:

Thanks for taking a look! I’m planning to do more Author Life videos over the coming weeks. In between writing, editing, and publishing more books of course! Please subscribe and give the videos a like if you check them out. Thanks so much!

 

 

 

 

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Sixth Death Before Dragons Audiobook (Storm Forged) Is Now Live!

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Lindsay

For my audiobook fans, I’ve got an update! Book 6 in my Death Before Dragons series is now available on Audible, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, and several other platforms. I also sent Book 7 (coming in ebook form in a few days) to my narrator to start working on as soon as there’s time. There will be a total of nine books in this series, and we’ll get them all out as audiobooks too.

Here are the buy links for the Storm Forged audiobook:

Also, if you want to listen to the audio version of the newsletter bonus, The Forbidden Ground, I’ve just uploaded it to Findaway Voices (my distributor), and it should start popping up free in a number of the stores.

Unfortunately, Audible doesn’t allow us to make audiobooks free, so they won’t have it, but you can grab it in one of the other spots. Or, if you just want to listen to it while you’re puttering around the house, I’ve also put it up on YouTube:

 

 

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Star Kingdom Complete and New Death Before Dragons Book up for Pre-Order!

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Lindsay

Star Kingdom Update:

A little late with the blog update (what’s new?), but I published the eighth installment in my Star Kingdom series last month. The ebook and paperback are out, and the audiobook is in the works via Podium Publishing. It’s a long one!

Many thanks to all of you who have already read and reviewed Layers of Force. I had fun wrapping up the series and letting the characters finally get some wins. 🙂

If you haven’t picked it up yet, here’s the link for the ebook: https://books2read.com/StarKingdom8

I’m letting the Star Kingdom series stay in Amazon’s exclusivity program until I decide if I’m going to write more installments in that universe (the series is complete, but I may do a couple of related adventures). I will eventually publish it all together in the other stores.

Death Before Dragons Update:

For my fantasy fans, you asked for more Death Before Dragons books, so I’m writing more!

I’m working on a new trilogy set a couple of months after Book 6. Val will finally learn the secrets of her sword, a certain dragon may decide the idea of being mated in the human way (i.e. a wedding) is intriguing, and we’ll have some more going on with the side characters too. There’s so much to be done to make The Sable Dragon the best coffee shop nobody has ever heard of in Seattle!

The first novel, Secrets of the Sword I, is now available for pre-order at Amazon with a late-November release date.

If you haven’t tried the series yet and like contemporary/urban fantasy, Book 1 is Sinister Magic.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Please stay safe during this crazy fall (and crazy year)!

 

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Star Kingdom and Death Before Dragons News!

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Lindsay

Crazy times, guys! As I write this, most of the West Coast is on fire. At least it sure seems like it. Apocalyptic pictures coming out of SW Oregon. I’m over on the other side of the mountains in Bend and crossing my fingers that nothing major starts up over here. We’ve had a few fires this summer and hardly any rain since May. Super dry!

Anyway, on to the book news.

Star Kingdom Updates

I’m finished with Book 8 (Layers of Force), the final novel in the Star Kingdom series, and my trusty typo hunters are combing through it now. The ebook comes out on Amazon on the 24th, with the paperback to follow in October.

I had tons of fun with the adventure and really enjoy the characters, so I may write more stories in this universe, but Book 8 wraps up the big story arc that started with Shockwave.

Book 8 edges out Book 6 for status as the longest installment in the series. You’ll definitely get your money’s worth!

If you’re reading this before the 24th, you can pre-order it from Amazon:

https://amzn.to/2R8iZJB

Star Kingdom Audiobooks (Book 7 now available!)

Podium Publishing with narrator Fred Berman have been working on the audiobooks for this series, and Book 7 (Home Front) is now available on Amazon/Audible.

If you enjoy audiobooks, these are a great deal. Books 1-3 are all together in one big omnibus, and Books 4-5 are also combined. Books 6, 7, and 8 got significantly longer, so they are individual titles, but there are still plenty of hours of listening in each one!

Here’s the series on Audible if you want to check them out:

I’ll be sending the manuscript for the final book over to Podium as soon as my typo hunters are done with it. The audiobooks take a couple of months to produce. I’ll let you know when it’s available!

Death Before Dragons Update

If you read Book 6, you may know that I asked you guys whether you wanted to see more in the series. Lots of people said YES, so I’m working on a new book. I have tentative plans to write three more before retiring Val and Zav and switching to a new project in 2021.

There’s no pre-order or anything yet, so make sure to sign up for my fantasy newsletter if you want an email when it goes up. There are also some free books and bonus stories if you sign up:

Fantasy Newsletter

Death Before Dragons Audiobooks

I’ve just uploaded the files for the fifth audiobook in the Death Before Dragons series (False Security). It should pop up in all the stores in a couple of weeks.

If you love audiobooks and haven’t started the series yet, you can find them at Audible and in other stores:

https://www.audible.com/series/Death-Before-Dragons-Audiobooks/B087LZ5GT8

Thanks for reading and listening! Stay safe in this crazy world!

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Death Before Dragons Bonus Scene: The Box

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Lindsay

Welcome! This is a bonus scene with Val, Dimitri, and Sindari. Someone is getting in a box, but you’ll have to read on to see who it is.

The scene takes place after Storm Forged (Death Before Dragons Book 6) but there are only a couple of mentions of things that happened in Book 6, so you can read this before reading the novel if you like.

The Box

I was in my bedroom, attempting to obey my therapist’s suggestion to learn how to meditate, when the doorbell rang.

“Val, can you get that?” Dimitri hollered up from what sounded like the backyard.

“I’m meditating!” I hollered back from my cross-legged position on the floor, my headphones issuing binaural beats, theta waves, and who knew what other woo-woo noises to induce deep relaxation.

“I’m welding!”

“Is that more important than me reducing my stress and improving my health?”

“The last time I stopped in the middle, I almost caught the lawn on fire.”

“I guess that’s a yes.” I sighed, pulled out the headphones, and rolled to my feet.

So far, all I’d managed to do while meditating was put together a mental to-do list that included getting a Costco membership so I could buy meat for Zav in bulk and picking up new magical ammunition from Nin. I’d used a lot of mine during my adventure on the gnomish home world.

By the time I grabbed my sword—I always had to be ready for potential enemies at the door—and made it to the first floor, I half expected our visitor to be gone. But the living room window was open, so whoever was out there should have heard us hollering.

A delivery guy with a clipboard stood on the porch, wearing a puzzled expression as he peered around the yard. I peered around, too, wondering what had him confused. As far as I knew, Zav hadn’t put in the dragon topiaries he’d talked about yet.

“I have a delivery for Val Thorvald at this address, but, uhm, is that you, ma’am? They’re commercial appliances.”

“Oh, the smoker and the big fridge? Yeah, you can bring them in. We made room.”

His forehead creased. “Are you starting a restaurant? This is a residential area.”

“No. I just have a hungry…” I kept myself from saying mate, reminding myself that normal people didn’t use dragon terminology. “Boyfriend.” Continue reading →

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Storm Forged (Death Before Dragons, Book 6) Is Available!

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Lindsay

The latest Death Before Dragons adventure, Storm Forged, is out on Amazon and ready for your reading pleasure.

Moving into a rundown Victorian house with a vampire living in the basement isn’t as bad as I thought, but things go from weird to weirder when a badly injured gnome collapses in my back yard.

The surprising part? It’s my friend Nin’s long-lost grandfather.

Since he’s unconscious, we can’t figure out who’s chasing him, or where he’s been all these years, but if we can’t help him, he’ll die.

To make matters worse, there’s a new dragon in town. A female dragon. Everyone knows females are more dangerous than the males, and this one takes an instant dislike to me. It seems that she wants to date my mate, Zav, and has his mother’s approval.

If I can’t avoid her wrath and find a way to cure the gnome, Nin’s going to lose her grandfather, and I’m going to end up deader than the vampire in the basement.

This series is exclusive with Amazon for now, but I will take it out of that program at a future date, and it will be available everywhere (the paperbacks and audiobooks are already available in other stores).

As a reminder, if you want to get all of my books and prefer to get them early and straight from me (before they go into Amazon’s exclusivity program), you can subscribe to my Patreon page. You only get charged when I have a new release, and if you get them there, there’s no need to buy them from the store.

What’s next?

I’m switching over to my science fiction after this to release the last installment in the Star Kingdom series in September, but if you want me to return and write more with Val and Zav, let me know. Book 6 wraps up quite a few story points, but there’s also more I could explore in the series.

Thanks for following along with my books!

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Death Before Dragons Bonus: Interview with Col. Willard

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Lindsay

If you’ve read my Death Before Dragons urban fantasy series, you’ve met Val’s boss Colonel Willard (and her cat Maggie).

The new prequel adventure Mist and Magic shows the story of how Val first came to work for the somewhat testy Willard, so I thought it would be interesting to interview her.

I asked on Facebook for some questions, so most of these are from you guys. Thanks for reading along!

Interview with Colonel Willard

Greetings, Colonel Willard. You may have heard that there’s a new adventure coming out that shows how you and Val Thorvald first met. To celebrate the release, I’d like to do an interview of you for your fans. Would you mind answering a few questions?

My what?

Fans. They’ve been reading along with the stories I’ve been printing. Of course, Val, Sindari, and especially Lord Zavryd the dragon have the most fans, but a few people are curious about you.

You’re from the press? Who let you in this office? Do you have clearance? Continue reading →

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