ALL A-QUIVER: WALKING THE STRAIGHT ’N ARROW

Word of the week: penis \ˈpē-nəs\ - (hear it! - wait, actually, no need for that, never mind) - noun - (as defined in the medical dictionary under Merriam-Webster) : the male copulatory organ of a higher vertebrate animal that in mammals including humans usually functions as the channel by which urine leaves the body and is typically a cylindrical organ that is suspended from the pubic arch, contains a pair of large lateral corpora cavernosa and a smaller ventromedial corpus cavernosum containing the urethra, and has a terminal glans enclosing the ends of the corpora cavernosa, covered by mucous membrane, and sheathed by a foreskin continuous with the skin covering the body of the organ.

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Today’s readers are so lucky.

Yes. Lucky.

Why do I say this?

Look around you. There’s a veritable smörgåsbord of indie authors out there. Anywhere we turn, another one crops up.

And some of them are good—really good!

A long-time friend of mine (a reader, not a writer) told me she’s sick of reading the “same old, same old.” You know, those novels that so strictly adhere to some formulaic concoction or another, one can pretty much predict, scene for scene, what’s going to happen, when, and how.

“Cookie cutter” novels, I call these.

And they can get really BORRRRIIIING.

So, I seek out Indies. Good Indies. Indies whose books often don’t follow these “cookie cutter” patterns but deviate from the norm and weave plots so intricate it’s nearly impossible to disbelieve the story worlds, even when magic and a gazillion other improbable things abound—tenfold! 

The Royal Wizard

And here, today, I’d like to feature one of these excellent indie authors whose fantasy world (like another prominent fantasy indie I featured last year) has captivated my fussy fantasy mind with her novel, The Royal Wizard, and believe me, I’m really looking forward to reading more of her work. 

So please allow me to introduce the wonderful, talented . . . Alianne Donnelly!

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I blame high school for setting me on the path to becoming a writer, and for you reading this oddly composed post years later. Not in any direct way, mind you, but as a byproduct of sucking so bad as to make my soul wail in heart wrenching sobs against the mind-destroying conformity of all-girls catholic school uniforms (which are nowhere near as fashionable as the adult magazine industry would have you believe). Okay, so I mixed a few metaphors there, but you get the point. High school bad. Daydreams good. And boy, did my daydreams bloom.

Interesting factoid: the more you distance yourself from the everyday, the easier it is to look down on the world and imagine shoving it under a running faucet, scrubbing it clean, and then bedazzling it in fantastic hues of awesome. My subliminally transmutative travels took me to places far and wide, from the ancient forests of Northern Europe to distant planets millennia in the future. I dabbled in magics and DNA recombination, military strategies, political intrigue, and above all, love. One should always dabble in love. It’s the funnest thing in the world. Until someone gets hurt. Which they do…

Anyway, long story short, hi. My name is Alianne and I am a dreamaholic. [Pause for the obligatory, “Hi Alianne.”] Now, having taken the first step to introductions, I should probably spell out that I am not crazy. I can’t be. I have a website, look: http://aliannedonnelly.com Although, that’s what they all say, so I don’t know how you’ll be able to tell the difference. I write paranormal and fantasy romance, which you can read about at the above stated site, or purchase at any reputable e-book retailer (hint, hint). At the moment I am battling some very unruly characters in Blood Hunt, the fourth book in my Blood Series. She’s insane, he drove her to it—they’re a match made in heaven! My beta tells me this is my best writing yet so I fully expect it to hit all the Bestseller charts the first week. ;) But by the time you read this, I’ll probably have finished it and moved on to Dragonborn, book two in the Dragonborn Series. This one’s all fantasy, dragons and magic and its official tag line is, “When demons fly, the world will burn.” If all goes well, both of these should be release-ready in 2014. I am crossing all my fingers and toes that it may be so.

As you might have gathered, I’m not very good at talking about myself or my books. The lovely hostess Kimberly left the questions frustratingly free-form with a few guidelines, which I’ll bet she's regretting now. ;) Her one rule was that I had utilize a rarely used word somewhere in my 2-5 paragraphs, so, to adhere to protocol and avoid her wrath, here I go:

Penis.

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You can download Alianne's books at Amazon and Smashwords. But even better, (everything's listed and linked!) from her website: aliannedonnelly.com