06/02/2023
I am prone to hyperbole, and tend to downplay it when other people say that one book or another is the best book I've ever written.
However, across the board, everybody who has read The Obsidian Spindle Saga has said that it's not only MY best series, but it's one of their favorite series of all time…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/russellnohelty/obsidian2
I've been developing this series since 2018, and it's just everything I love about portal fantasy.
The Obsidian Spindle Saga started with a simple premise. Knowing everything I knew about writing after finishing over a dozen novels, if I could go back and design my perfect series, the one that would stand the test of time and encapsulate everything I loved in the world, what would it be?
I gathered the pieces very quickly: a dash of fairy tales, a scoop of mythology, a spoonful of portal fantasy, a sprinkle of romance, a bit of social commentary, and a whole heap of worldbuilding, and when I sat back I realized…I wasn't a good enough writer to take on this series yet.
That doesn't mean my other books weren't good, but The Obsidian Spindle was more complicated than anything I had ever done.
I didn't know enough about writing romance, or YA, and I had never had a story written from multiple perspectives, so I set out on a very ambitious project, and wrote non-stop for the next eighteen months, in order to learn everything I thought I needed to know in order to take on this series.
Some of those books you might have seen before. The Marked Ones, Invasion, The Void Calls Us Home all came from that process. Our Wannabe+ exclusive serial Anna and The Dark Place was the final book I wrote during that timespan, the capstone that proved to me I was ready to write The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
And so, in June 2018 I wrote the first book in the series, The Sleeping Beauty, pouring everything I ever wanted to say into it, and spilling everything I loved onto the page.
I absolutely adored the book. I'm not the type of writer where things fall out of me easily. It's always a struggle to get a book on the page, and then I have to manhandle it to cooperate. I love all my book babies, but they are stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery most times.
That's not the case with this series. The Sleeping Beauty slid out quickly and without much struggle, almost exactly has I imagined it in my mind.
Then, over and over the people who read it said it was my best work ever, and even now, several dozen books later, they still mention The Sleeping Beauty, and the whole Obsidian Spindle Saga, as among their favorite series.
Here is the set-up for the whole book, and the whole universe.
Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.
Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.
Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.
She has one chance to wake up.
She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat with the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.
But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.
Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.
Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? That is the genesis of the Obsidian Spindle Saga, and the first book The Sleeping Beauty.
I hope you love it as much as me.
We're also extending week 3 perks through this weekend. So, everyone who backs by Sunday gets digital copies of Lucky Logan by J.R. Frontera, Justicar Jhee and the Cursed Abbey by Trevol Swift, TJ & the Orishas by Antoine Bandele, Regeneration by Cassie Gruetman, and The Vessel by MEEEEEE!!!