Posted on by B.K. Bass

The Ravencrest Chronicles Timeline

With the new release of The Pirate King Duology, some may be wondering where the best place to start with The Ravencrest Chronicles is? Where does each book fit in with the other, and what order should they be read in?

While most of the books are written to stand on their own, there are some little gems that hint at what’s to come or call back to what’s come before. With that in mind, I would like to make some suggestions.

I propose that one read the “first wave” (as I call it) in the order they were published: Seahaven, The Hunter’s Apprentice, The Giant and the Fishes, and then Tales from the Lusty Mermaid. All four of these can be found in that order in The Ravencrest Chronicles: Omnibus One.

Now, The Pirate King Duology gets into a longer story. When it comes to these two books, definitely read them in order! Curse of the Pirate King and Shadow of the Pirate King may each have their own tones and themes, but they carry a single story across the two volumes.

However, you can read these two books before or after the first wave. They’re prequels, so they serve as a great entry point to the series. At the same time, they feature some secondary characters from the first wave who get more time in the spotlight.

Still curious how they all fit into a timeline? How long before the events of Seahaven does The Pirate King Duology occur? Here’s each book with the date(s) each occurred on the local calendar. All dates are reckoned as part of the Fallen Age, counting in years after the fall of the last great empire, the Dragonspire Concordant.

Curse of the Pirate King — 1607
Shadow of the Pirate King — 1607 – 1608
The Giant and the Fishes — 1610 – 1615
Seahaven — 1625
The Hunter’s Apprentice — 1627
Tales from the Lusty Mermaid — 1628 / Varies*

*Tales from the Lusty Mermaid contains an assortment of locals myths and legends, tall tales, and fish stories. The most recent and reliable story in the book — The Sparrow’s War — occurred in 1628.

I hope both current and future fans of The Ravencrest Chronicles find this information helpful, or at least interesting. I’m looking forward to diving back into the series soon, where I’ll be moving the timeline forward a few years with The Shadow Cult Trilogy!

Don’t forget to stop by the BOOKS page
to find out where to find these and all my other books.

Posted on by B.K. Bass

Setting the Mood – Article

It was a dark and stormy night…

Paul Clifford (1830) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

This line is quite arguably one of the most famous clichés in all of literature. It’s become so cliché, in fact, that I would venture that most people can quote it and that few people know of its origins. Of course, when Bulwer-Lytton first wrote it, it wasn’t a cliché. The opening to Paul Clifford — a tale about a highway robbery set during the French Revolution — has an obvious purpose: to set the mood for the book.

Join me here as I disassemble this phrase and the sentence it’s a part of, and learn more about how to write an effective opener for your own story.

Posted on by B.K. Bass

Night Life Pre-Order Packages

The release date for Night Life has been set for June 12, 2020!

Pre-order packages are now available directly from Kyanite Publishing. There are three tiers all with exciting options!

Kyanite: This premium package includes two customized, signed paperback copies of Night Life, an eBook of both Night Shift (book one of the Night Trilogy) and Night Life, a bookmark, and a 12-month subscription to the Kyanite Content Hub.

Tanzanite: This is the best value and includes a customized, signed paperback copy, an eBook of both Night Shift (book one of the Night Trilogy) and Night Life, and a bookmark!

Quartzite: The most affordable option includes a signed paperback of Night Life and an eBook of Night Shift (book one of the Night Trilogy)!

Click here to explore the packages now!

Posted on by B.K. Bass

The Stranger (1946), a review

Certain forms of literature and cinema have close ties to one another. Films based on books, books inspired by films, and so on. Sometimes, these relations are simply shared genres and themes. Nowhere is this correlation so strikingly similar — and at the same time so vastly disparate — as the relationship between film noir and the hardboiled detective story.

Read the full review here!

Posted on by B.K. Bass

Night Life Pre-Orders

Pre-orders for Night Life are available now from
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo!

Going off the grid in New Angeles can be deadly, but Harold’s out of options and out of patience.

Framed for murder, detective Harold Jacobson must delve into the gritty underbelly of the city if he wants to clear his name. To solve the crime pinned on him, he must first solve the murder of a local woman. From the steel towers of downtown to seedy nightclubs and decrepit slums, Harold delves into the night life of the city to pull the threads of the mystery together and becomes part of the criminal element he once hunted down. Going off the grid in New Angeles can be deadly, but he’s out of options and out of patience.

What are early reviewers saying about night life?

“Night Life carries over the emotional turmoil of the first book, and adds to it exponentially—with the classic noir feel still front and center.”

“The second book of the Night Trilogy is is an intelligent, well-written crime thriller that will keep you turning pages.”

“The trials and tribulations of the main character are fleshed out well and you can’t wait to see what happens.”

Learn more about The Night Trilogy here.

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The Gaia Solution is Coming this Friday!

I’m excited to be sharing this new book from friend of the site Claire Buss! The Gaia Solution is the final book in a trilogy that Claire has been working hard on for some time now. This is the culmination of an incredible journey and is an amazing achievement. You can pre-order the new book now!

The Gaia Solution

by Claire Buss

Kira, Jed and their friends have fled New Corporation and joined the Resistance, but their relief is short-lived as they discover how decimated the human race has become and learn of an environmental crisis that threatens to destroy their existence. Kira and Jed must travel up the mountain to the New Corporation stronghold, City 50, to bargain for sanctuary while Martha and Dina risk everything to return to City 42 and save those who are left. With the last of her reserves Gaia, the fading spirit of the Earth uses her remaining influence to guide Kira and her friends but ultimately, it’s up to humanity to make the right choice.

More about The Gaia Collection

The Gaia Collection is Claire’s hopeful dystopian trilogy set 200 years in the future after much of the planet and the human race have been decimated during The Event, when the world went to war with high-energy radiation weapons.

In The Gaia Effect, Kira and Jed Jenkins – a young couple who were recently allocated a child – together with their closest friends, discover Corporation have been deliberately lying to them and forcing them to remain sterile. With help from Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, the group of friends begin to fight back against Corporation eventually winning and taking over the governance of City 42.

In The Gaia Project, Corporation fight back under a new, more terrifying organization called New Corp and Kira, Jed and their friends end up fleeing for their lives trying to find a safe place to live. They travel to City 36 and City 9 in vain and must go further afield.

In the final book, The Gaia Solution, the main characters have ended up with the Resistance and not only do they have to deal with surviving against New Corp but an extinction environmental event is looming on the horizon and they’re running out of time to save what’s left of the human race.

What readers are saying about The Gaia Collection

Praise for The Gaia Effect, winner of the 2017 Raven Award for best sci-fi/fantasy book

‘A story filled with emotion, angst & hope’
‘Brilliant post-apocalyptic science fantasy’
‘Wonderfully written, with a warm friendship at its heart’
‘A fantastic debut novel’

Praise for The Gaia Project

‘A fantastic read from start to end’
‘Great book, thought-provoking read’
‘Mums are the heroes of the story and it’s the relationships that make it all work’

About the Author

Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. She continues to write passionately and is hopelessly addicted to cake.

Find out more about Claire on her website and blog; and you can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and her Facebook group.

Posted on by B.K. Bass

Surviving the Aftermath

With my very own post-apocalyptic novel about to release tomorrow (What Once Was Home), I was very excited to find that one of my favorite game publishers has a new post-apocalyptic game out now!

I’ve spent a lot of time in the book rebuilding communities through the eyes of my characters, and I feel ready to take a more direct hand in the challenge of rebuilding a society in the wake of an apocalypse. There’s a lot of potential obstacles we may face here. Limited resources, a lack of infrastructure, lawlessness, environmental hazards, etc. I’m sure that Paradox and Iceflake have thought of all these and more, so this game is sure to be quite the challenge!

Paradox Interactive is renowned for such titles as the Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, and Hearts of Iron series. Their forays into city building games include the acclaimed Cities: Skylines (considered by many to be a spiritual successor to the Sim City series) and Surviving Mars.

Now, they’ve partnered with indie developer Iceflake Studios to bring city building games into the post-apocalyptic future with Surviving the Aftermath!

Game Features, from the Paradox Interactive website.

No Place Like Home: Build and manage a colony of survivors after a world-ending event. Construct more than 50 unique buildings to handle everything from resource collection and farming to exploration and security. Don’t forget to construct the Gate to venture into the savage world beyond your colony.
Surviving Earth: Explore a vast procedurally generated world featuring six different biomes filled with exploitable resources, bandits, and more. Each environment has different conditions that will affect your colony’s survival. Stay vigilant: Natural disasters will put your survivors to the test.
Survival is my Specialty: Recruit over 46 unique Specialists, each with their own skills and motivations, to manage your colony’s resources and production. Send them beyond the Gate on scientific missions, scavenger runs, and to fight bandits.
Expect the Unexpected: Life in the aftermath requires you to make moral choices. You may not be able to control everything in your colony, but how you respond to situations and emergent events will shape the character of your new civilization.
Mods: Surviving the Aftermath players can bring their own visions to life using Paradox Mods.

I’m very eager to get my hands on this, and hope to be uploading some screenshots and videos from my own attempts to survive the aftermath soon. The game is now in early access, and you can get your copy from the Epic Games Store now.

All media associated with Surviving the Aftermath is courtesy and © Paradox Interactive. Used for editorial purposes.

Posted on by B.K. Bass

The Journey Home: Part One

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in 5th grade in 1989. I had a “Homeroom” class that was essentially flex time. We could do whatever we wanted if it was one of three things: homework, reading in a textbook, or reading from a set of specific books provided by the teacher. I read the books. I went through several that year, more than I can remember. A few stand out. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is one of them. A collection of Edgar Allen Poe’s work is another. I don’t remember the specific title, edition, or publisher; but the book I ended up really falling in love with was a collection of Greek mythology.

Read the full article here!

Posted on by B.K. Bass

What Once Was Home: Coming Home on October 25th!

When his world is torn apart, one man must learn to survive in What Once Was Home.

Jace Cox’s life is changed when an overwhelming alien force invades the Earth with no warning or provocation.  In the years that follow, he must not only fight to survive; but also learn what it means to be a man and a leader.  As the situation grows more dire, he realizes that his greatest challenge isn’t the alien invaders or even his fellow man; it is holding onto his own humanity despite living in a world gone mad.

Release Date: October 25, 2019

Pre-orders available now from Kyanite Publishing!

Also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Indiebound.

Praise for What Once Was Home

Every step of the way, I was enthralled by Jace’s story. Every word drew me so deep into this world, that it became real to me. It’s what I want when I read a book, a movie in my head. An incredibly engaging and heart-wrenching journey. With an ending that made me sit back and repeat the word “Damn” to myself several times. Because, damn.

What Once Was Home stunningly combined the incredible speculative elements that I love about science fiction with the engaging personal stories and moving internal struggle that continues to draw me back to contemporary fiction.

Compelling characters, fast-moving plot, and a world you can sink into—you really cannot ask for more from any story. Even if science fiction and alien invasions aren’t your things, this is a book you do NOT want to miss out on. Jace’s journey is one that I think will touch many readers and bring them back again and again.

— Crystal Kirkham on Goodreads. 5 stars.

Bass’s story is engaging and delves into human emotions, joy, pain, and loss. The story grabbed me from the beginning to the very heartwarming end. Bass is an excellent story spinner and his descriptive writing drew me into this bleak world. What can I say? It is terrific and I highly recommend this book. I look forward to reading more of B.K.’s books in the future. A five-star treat.

— K.D. on Goodreads. 5 stars.

Related Articles

Making it Personal: Writing Character Driven Narratives in a War-Time Setting.

Posted on by B.K. Bass

The Foggy History of Friday the 13th


In our modern age of relative enlightenment, many treat Friday the 13th the same way as they would International Talk Like a Pirate Day; by posting some amusing memes on social media and injecting it into their small-talk around the water cooler or coffee maker.

The history of the day is shrouded in the past like so many lurking monsters waiting to pounce from the shadows. There have been put forth several theories on the origins, but most fall apart under deeper scrutiny.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE