Author Appleton

Writing. Fantasy. Sci-fi. Mystery

young adult books

Key Of Living Fire special edition now available!

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Book three in my primary fantasy series, The Sword of the Dragon, is finally available both in paperback and on Kindle! Check out the three-book-collection and get ready for next week’s release of book four to match!

You can now purchase the original three books in my series. Next I am going to delve into the writing of book five, In Search Of Dragons.

Amazon has added a series page to help readers navigate the order of my fantasy novels. You can find my series’ pages here:
The Sword of the Dragon series’ page
The Neverqueen Saga’s page

Purchase the new edition of Key Of Living Fire here:
Key Of Living Fire (paperback)
Key Of Living Fire (kindle)

Now writing: In Search of Dragons

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Recently I was commenting to my wife how I feel scatterbrained and have undertaken too many writing and publishing tasks. (That wasn’t the way I worded it, but you get the gist). I told her I was thinking about narrowing my focus to just my publishing company’s website because my efforts are split between Flaming Pen Press and my personal writing projects. She wisely responded something along the lines of, “But you are your brand. People want more from your books and that’s what you should focus on.” Again, I’m paraphrasing, yet the point is that she was right.

I remember back in 2009 when I self-published my first novel Swords of the Six. That thrill of accomplishment and the response from readers gave me energy to power through the first several years of traveling and writing. Now there is a boatload of experience under my publishing belt and yet, with each new writing project I still feel an initial inadequacy. These fantasy novels are like parts of my soul and with each one writing it is difficult, painful, and a joy.

It is time to delve into my next The Sword of the Dragon novel. In Search of Dragons picks up where The Phantom’s Blade left off. One of the most fun aspects to this project is that I get to pull from my old source material, a manuscript for the entire series which I wrote thirteen years ago. It’s hard to believe it has been that long. I am keen on writing these characters and their stories with the same fascination that I wrote them back then. Sometimes the pressure of knowing that many readers are already eagerly waiting for me to finish the book can put a damper on my story focus, but ultimately everything is an exercise in discipline. And I can never have enough discipline in my life!

This will be the seventh novel I have written in The Sword of the Dragon world, and the fifth for the primary series. Wow! It’s hard to believe the journey has come this far. The original manuscript was 130,000-words divided into chapters that are now the building blocks for The Sword of the Dragon world. So far we’re over 500,000-words into the novels and there’s lots more to cover!

Returning characters for In Search of Dragons include Ilfedo, Oganna, Ombre, Honer, Ganning, Vectra, Escentra, and the creature Ulion. Introduced will be (at long last) the dragon Venom-fier, who was first mentioned in Albino’s prophesy at the end of Swords of the Six.

“Dragon great, dragon fool
One wise, the other cruel
Venom-fier, to man a friend
The other may be his end.”

Q: Which character are you most excited to see again when In Search of Dragons is published?

The Sea Lord Francis Drake cover reveal!

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Coming from Flaming Pen Press February 2018, the epic true story of The Sea Lord Francis Drake.

Fall in love with world history! The snazzy new cover says it all. Prepare for a Young Adult novelization of the life of Sir Francis Drake that does not fictionalize the facts. Originally published back in 1932, this is the first of a slew of old books that I’ve found over the years, which have been lost to contemporary readers. Now, Flaming Pen Press will be releasing these titles into your hands!

Some publishers will take old books like this and scan them, page by page, and release those scanned interiors to their readers. But the text loses its clarity and the general layout ends up feeling forced onto the new pages it is printed on.

Every page of this book has been painstakingly typed out so that a fresh, digital file could be created. The original sketches on the book’s interior have been worked into the book’s fresh interior layout, and artist Benjamin Roque created the stunning new cover.

When I was reading history books as I grew up, I sometimes mixed up the chronological order of historical figures and events. Thus the spine of this book also features the dates Sir Francis Drake’s life spanned. Imagine lining your shelf with great young adult biographies that have the time period stamped on the spine. You can keep them organized chronologically to keep the ordering of events clear in your mind. With each new read, you can place the new title in its proper sequence by chronological date. This has huge advantages for students, parents, and teachers.

The Sea Lord Francis Drake full cover layout

News: restoring antique books

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One of my favorite pastimes when I was growing up was driving around with my mother to book sales. Especially sales at the small libraries housed in old New England buildings. Sorting through rows of books to find the types that excited and educated my young mind. It has always been a dream of mine to restore the “lost” treasures I found and read while growing up, and I am pleased to begin with The Sea Lord.

This year I am pleased to begin the expansion of Flaming Pen Press as my family business. Efforts include publishing Neverqueen2, setting up The Sea Lord for publication, and exploring re-opening Flaming Pen Press to original fantasy submissions.

The Sea Lord tells the life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, whose boyhood home was a beached ship. Written in a very entertaining manner (but not an embellishing one) this work will particularly appeal to young men. Homeschool students will love the fluidity of the prose, as well as the lack of modern twisting of the history to satisfy current social trends. Instead of delivering opinions on Drake the author stuck to the story as history showed it.

I picked this old book up at a library sale many years ago and have since discovered that it has fallen out of copyright. It is a real gem that I know you will be glad you added to your personal library. The goal is to offer it in paperback and digital form.

The trickiest part of the process will be preserving the original illustrations, which brings you the mood and authenticity that I value in this work. Besides that it is a lot of time that I am spending to transcribe the text into a Word document. Some companies choose to scan the pages of old books and release them in that manner, but in doing so they risk loss of text and lack of an editorial eye.

The Sea Lord is merely the first in a large collection of antique books that I will be restoring over the years.

Q: Do you know of any old books that you wish were again available in print form?