Silver Dawn Afire | The Revision & Other Cool Stuff
Introducing my fantasy series, The Seventh Age Saga, and sharing the story of how my love for fantasy, role-playing, art, and writing shaped it.
I’ve written and published books in many genres, including New Adult Contemporary Romance, Crime & Suspense, Dark Contemporary Fantasy, Young Adult Urban Fantasy, Dystopian, and even Historical. (Most of these books I have removed from sale.)
And although I have favorite books I’ve written, the genre I love more than any other has always been High Fantasy. Reading it, writing it, watching it, playing it—nothing beats the crackling of a fire in the hearth of an old tavern, the shiing! of swords colliding in battle, the creaking of carriage wheels moving over rough terrain, or horses’ hooves clopping over cobblestones.
Most of my fantasy writing was done between 1999-2006, when I joined like-minded fantasy lovers in MSN Communities/Groups and chat rooms where we created characters and empires and had loads of fun with turn-based freeform role-playing.
I vividly remember thinking that the cheesy animated gifs. of flickering candles and skulls with glowing eyes on Geocities websites were so awesome. I remember spending hours browsing fantasy artwork by Boris Vallejo, Luis Royo, Brom, Frank Frazetta, Julie Bell, and many others, hoping to find the perfect character image to build my character around or to set a scene in a post I was preparing.
Ah, those were the days! 😊
Oddly enough, as much as I loved high fantasy, it wasn’t until 2020 that I wrote my first high fantasy novel.
It was first published under the pseudonym “Sonja J. Breckon.” The name Sonja came from actress Rhona Mitra’s character in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; the “J” stood for my real name, Jessica; and “Breckon”—well, I just liked the way it sounded. 🤷♀️
I did all of the work for every aspect of this series: the writing and world-building, the book cover design, the fantasy map, the interior design and formatting, and the publishing and promoting. And while it seems like a lot to take on, I loved every minute of it! I even started a dramatic audio version of Silver Dawn Afire, and, in doing so, found another passion for creativity!
You’ll learn all about that endeavor in an upcoming post.🙂
This post is just to introduce you to the World of Aetheria and my series-in-the-making, “The Seventh Age Saga”.
The first book, Silver Dawn Afire, is complete—it was originally published in December 2020. However, I took it off sale along with most of the other books I wrote because of my conviction of faith. Currently, the book is undergoing some minor changes so that the story better reflects my Christian worldview and doesn’t go against my convictions.
No, the series is not “Christian”, but it is “Christian-friendly”, like “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia”. I will do a post soon on that topic as well.
On a dedicated Substack publication, readers of the series will be able to read the first book for free in a serialized form. Here, I’ll be posting about the editing process for book one, the writing process for future books (book two is already in the works!), cover design, formatting, publishing, storyline and character inspiration, opportunities, free stuff, and so much more!
So, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!
My next post will be the updated synopsis for Silver Dawn Afire and possibly a new cover design. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to keep the original or work on something new.
Lastly, I will not be publishing the series under “Sonja J. Breckon” but under my maiden name instead, “Jessica Redmerski”.
I hope to have you along for the journey. 😊
