This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will be awarded a $25 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

What would we find under your bed?

I don’t have space under my bed, so…nothing?

What was the scariest moment of your life?

I was in India and it was raining as we were driving on a narrow mountain road. That was pretty frightening.

Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?

I generally don’t listen to music while writing. Sometimes I put on those YouTube background videos where it shows a café’ in the rain, or something like that.

What is something you’d like to accomplish in your writing career next year?

I’d love to either teach a course on writing, or attend a convention, if I can find one to go to. Those are a blast.

How long did it take you to write this book?

The four books of the series took various time ranges to write. Fallenwood took me about three years to write, while Forgetting Fallenwood took me six months, Betrayer took about a year and a half, and I remember Retribution basically writing itself, so probably six months or so.

The Fallenwood Chronicles is the ongoing story of Ash Kensington, a young woman who finds herself transported into a fantasy world, where she must take up arms in a battle of Good vs. Evil, against the Dark Lord Malegaunt. Tragedy strikes her life in the real world, but she finds friends in Fallenwood, like her mentor Will Everett, a talking cat named Greymalkin, and a court jester named Terces. Working together, they battle against the odds as Ash faces attacks from the world and from within. Eventually Ash finds the strength within herself, to attempt the fight against Malegaunt, against overwhelming odds, come what may.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Her heart raced and she breathed slowly, trying to calm her frazzled nerves. Glancing around, she wondered how far off the road she’d wandered. She knew it had been midday when she’d started running, and now looking up into the star-filled sky, it had to be late into the night. A rush of air greeted her the moment she reached this strange part of the forest, before her eyes had temporarily forsaken her. The wind whipped around her from all sides. She backed away from where she stood, and the wind felt like it was whooshing up from a precipice. Ashley paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the dark. When her sight returned, she realized that she was standing nowhere near a cliff—it was just an unfamiliar area of forest. Suddenly, a ball of fire hurtled overhead in an arc toward her. Her mind screamed at her to run, but she found that her legs wouldn’t move. The flaming orb continued its descent, burrowing itself into the soft ground only inches away from Ashley’s boots. Two men rushed toward her, arguing all the while as Ashley stood immobilized. Her bones were in revolt. Her brain scrambled for an alias to give out to the men if they asked, but she could only come up with Ash, because she was looking at the little pile of soot at her boots. “Deflected,” the man in the lead announced.

About the Author:Leslie D. Soule received her M.A. in English from National University. She is a scholar, artist, citizen journalist, and martial artist. She has been an established writer for a decade, and has novels published by Melange Books, Terror House Press, Gypsy Shadow Publishing, and Nat 1 Publishing. The Fallenwood Chronicles is her 4-book fantasy series and features the novels Fallenwood, Forgetting Fallenwood, Betrayer, and Retribution.

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The hardest part of writing is the rejection, and no one tells you that when you start out, starry-eyed, believing that the hardest part will be getting published. Getting published is a goal that is attainable. But what happens when it doesn’t come right away – when you keep on submitting and submitting, and all you get is a pile of rejection letters? Then the rejection begins to eat away and you give yourself doubts about your writing – is it good enough? Will I ever gain the attention of a publisher?

Then there’s the rejection that comes after you get published – you get bad reviews on something you’ve worked so hard on. And then it creeps again into your psyche and you wonder where you went wrong. It gnaws at every corner of your brain, and keeps you up at night. Not all of us can write like Stephen King or George R. R. Martin. You understand that. Doesn’t everyone else? You wonder why their standards are so high.

But the real lesson here is that of PERSEVERANCE. You write not for the masses, but because you have something to say. And in time, you learn to brush off the rejection and keep on going, because you are not at a dead-end but a bump in a road that leads further on. And those negative reviews won’t matter when you’ve written ten books, years from now. All that matters is that you’re better than you were yesterday – that you can look back on your past writing and have learned from it, and then the reviews just melt into the background – just so much white noise, after the fear of rejection has run out of you. And you keep going. But that’s something that has to be experienced, rather than taught. That’s the hardest part.

With five crystals to destroy, in order to rob the dark lord Malegaunt of his power, Ash Kensington’s path is set. She begins a quest with the talking cat, Greymalkin, and her wyvern, Slick. But when she meets up with the handsome dragon slayer, Draeon, her senses overwhelm her, and she becomes distracted. Will she be able to destroy the crystals in time to challenge Malegaunt?

Enjoy an Excerpt:

Ash wasn’t so sure, and her breath caught in her throat. I feel like this is some dreadful portent. Still, she dusted off her cloak, throwing it over her arm. I’ll have to find a spot for it to dry when we get back to the house. She fixed her chestnut hair up into a ponytail and followed Greymalkin over a carpet of snow, brushing snowflakes away from her pale face as she continued on. Things had been tense lately at the house in the deep woods and, though neither Will nor Terces had said anything directly, Ash recognized the strange signs: the knowing glances they gave each other, Will’s frantic writing sessions, and Terces’s new interest in the fighting arts. Terces had been a jester his whole life, so there was no reason on earth why he’d need to fight anyone. What in the world was going on? Ash knew that they were up to something. Why wouldn’t they tell her what it was? If they were planning something, she wanted to help. The sense of not knowing was killing her. Still, she wasn’t going to bring it up at dinner. Surely Will and Terces would tell her eventually…right?

About the Author: Leslie D. Soule is a fantasy/sci-fi author from Sacramento, CA. She has an M.A. in English from National University, and is currently working on the final book of her fantasy series, The Fallenwood Chronicles.

Buy Fallenwood at Melange Books or Amazon.

Buy Forgetting Fallenwood at Melange Books or Amazon.

Buy Betrayer at Melange Books or Amazon.

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