Tuesday, October 21, 2014

New Book Release: The Valkyries Book 1

Penumbra Publishing is pleased to welcome veteran historical author Ann Chamberlin and present the first book in her latest series, THE VALKYRIES.

THE VALKYRIES BOOK 1
CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN
by Ann Chamberlin
Fiction: Historical Fantasy Mythology



Throughout the recited and recorded history of mankind in all cultures, a few women have gone to great lengths to rise above their inherent positions of obscurity. Often they have reached a position of recognition only through great sacrifice. Common history chooses to discount the efforts and contributions of these amazing women, but this more thorough telling strives to give due credit, even in the fantasy realm of fiction. This series, The Valkyries, is dedicated to the goal of telling the woman’s side of history and life, predicated on the determination that not all myth and lore is reserved to celebrate men alone.
The Valkyries tells the story of one such woman. As a young girl, Brynhild of the Peoples of the North, the tribe of the Angles, is doomed to die in the Spring Thaw ritual. However, she manages to skirt death, only to be marked as warriormaiden destined to ride with Odin. How she comes into her own as she suffers the trials and tribulations of the life thrust upon her is only part of the story. Throughout her life, she wrestles with questions that plague her. As a female, is it possible to claim glory and freedom only at the expense of denying one’s womanhood? And the freedom from womanhood – is it truly freedom or some sham construct, a cruel trick played by the gods?
Perhaps there are no answers, only the life she chooses to live, despite the glower of the god who chose her, One-Eye, Aesir of the Sky. Perhaps her destiny truly is what she has always tried to avoid – embracing the Vanir of the Earth and her role in the Wheel of Life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 

Ann Chamberlin believes that the purpose of storytelling – as of all true art as well as all true religion – is to support positions in exact opposition to the views prevailing in a culture’s powerhouses, whatever those views happen to be. Nowhere is this more crucial than in the retelling of history. As Milan Kundera tells us, people in the powerhouses are not so interested in who will control the future as in who controls the airbrushes in the labs where the past’s photos are retouched.
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Ann Chamberlin also spent big blocks of time as a child in Europe where her father was visiting professor of mathematics. After flitting from school to school and major to major including theater, history, and English, she finally majored in Archaeology of the Middle East at the University of Utah. She spent a summer in Israel excavating the biblical city of Be’er Sheva, traveling throughout the Holy Land and living in the old city of Jerusalem for a month. She reads Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and ancient Akkadian, as well as French and German. She has traveled across all of North Africa, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan. She has two sons and twelve chickens, and lives in an old farm house on nearly two acres near Salt Lake City.
Ann is the author of fourteen historical novels, several of them named best foreign historical of the year by Romantic Times. Ann is pleased to announce a nonfiction history of women in the Middle East, through Haworth Press. She is the author of many plays which have been produced across the country from Seattle to New York. To find out more about Ann and her books, please visit her web site at

Look for THE VALKYRIES BOOK 1: CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN at popular online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, in both ebook and print!


Thursday, October 2, 2014

Sci Fi author interview - Barry K. Nelson

Barry K. Nelson, author of THE MCKENZIE FILES science fiction series, has completed three books in the series, THE MCKENZIE FILES, and ASSASSINATION ANXIETY, BOOK 2 OF THE MCKENZIE FILES. The third book, OBLITERATION, is in publishing production right now.

Barry was recently interviewed by THE INKWELL. Check out the interview and stay tuned for OBLITERATION, BOOK 3 OF THE MCKENZIE FILES!