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Happy Book Birthday, Sacaran Nights!

You've been a long time coming, but despite how painful it's been at times, I'm glad you made it out into the world.

There were many times along the way when I worried it might never happen. But, like the fungal infestations you inflict on so many of the poor characters found within your pages, your spores buried themselves away in my mind, and I was helpless but to keep going. Like the masochist I am, I came back time and again. Tweaking your world until the plot holes were stitched up. Fixing your characters until they became the poor souls trapped inside you. You're such a force of nature that sometimes I wonder just how much of me was actually necessary in the process of getting you here, but whatever's the case, I'm glad I was the one who got to bring you into the world.

x

p.s. Please don't expect too much attention from me now you're here. Your sister sequel is already proving almost as demanding as you were!

Sacaran Nights

I <3 cover reveals! That's probably why I'm so stoked to share with you all the cover for my next book, Sacaran Nights


Sacara is a city of death and decay, with fungi growing everywhere and making even it hard for the residents to survive.

Check out the back cover blurb to find out more!

Sacaran Nights

Sacaran Nights is on sale for pre-ordering now, so get your copy while it's available for the incredible price of 99p/c!

Four years ago, I lost both of my grandfathers. They died within a month of each other. One suddenly and unexpectedly, the other slowly and because he wanted to go. Even before I lost them, I remember thinking that a day would come when I would regret all the questions I never asked them.

Driven half out of love for hearing their tales and half out of fear for what would one day be gone, I became the one in the family always listening to their stories. Despite my efforts, my memories are poor substitutes for what’s now lost and that I can never get back.

This week, I set the date for releasing my next novel, one that was born out of the loss of my grandfathers. Because I missed them so much, I created a world where the dead walk the streets and never leave us, where the past cannot be lost. My grief drove me to give my characters what I couldn’t give to myself � more time with those we love.

More than any other books I’ve written, this one affected me the most, mainly because of what it symbolises. It’s the embodiment of loss. Of the guilt I felt when they were gone. As proud as I am to have brought it into being, I will never not see it and feel sad about the stories my grandfathers told me that are already half forgotten. There is much I would give for the chance to go back and write down their stories, but at least they will always be a part of mine.

Want to know more about Sacaran Nights?

You can also pre-order your copy for the very reasonable sale price of 99p/c. The book is out on Oct 28th.

Scars of Cereba by Rachel Emma Shaw




With only seven days to go until Scars of Cereba comes out, I thought I might share this insight with you.

Although I cannot speak for other authors, I can say that, for myself, writing is both my salvation and my damnation. Never has this been truer than during 2020. In a year of pandemics and isolation, I found sanctuary in the pages of my books, escaping from our world and into the creation of others.

When I started writing Scars of Cereba, Last Memoria had yet to be released. There wasn't even a hint of the love it would receive from the incredible people who took a chance on an unknown author and her book.

All that changed partway through Scars of Cereba's first draft. The reviews of Last Memoria started coming in, then it made semi-finalist, and later, finalist in SPFBO6. All while I was quietly working on the sequel in a pandemic-induced lockdown, all too aware of the unexpected pressure that kept growing.

Although I'm still largely unknown as an author, there is a huge difference between where I am now and where I was before. While writing Last Memoria, the idea of anyone ever reading it was a pipe dream. I didn't have to worry what people would think because dreams can do many things, but preparing us accurately for reality isn't one.

So, halfway through Scars, I was met with the brick wall of expectation. As an author who reads every review, good or bad, I knew exactly what my readers were asking of me for book two. Just as I knew that wasn't the story I was writing. Sure, it's the same places and people (well, sort of, but more on that later), but I wanted to do more. I wanted to push both my ability as a writer and use memory-magic to attack the very boundaries of fantasy itself. For the first, I know I succeeded. I'm a better author now because of it. For the second, you'll have to read and let me know. Write a review. I'm sure the threat of a thousand lockdowns wouldn't stop me from reading it.

All that to say that I wrote a book knowing it wasn't the safe choice. Perhaps I could have done otherwise and written it differently, probably ending up with a higher rating on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for it, but I doubt I could have done that. I know what the safe choices are. I can plot those stories out, but I can't bring myself to write them. I've tried, but I can't shut off that part of me that needs to make the hard choices. I get too much thrill out of taking my readers into the unexpected. Scars of Cereba is the story of a man with too many memories. A man who is fractured into three and who believes for a good portion of the time that he is a woman because her memories are in his head. It is not a book written for market, nor is it a book that will gain wild success and take the world by storm. Instead, like all my books, it is the story I needed to tell.

Ambitious and imperfect, Scars drove me to the extremities of anxiety when it was time to send it out to reviewers. I fully believed it would be massacred by critique. But it wasn't. I made a mistake I will never make again, which was to underestimate my readers. I believed that since I walked a lonely road while writing it, nobody else would want to walk that path with me. How wrong I was.

In the months that followed, I watched and read as the reviews came in. Not all loved it. Some picked up on the slow pacing in the first third (something I had already long wished I had found a way to fix without breaking the rest of the story, but never managed to do). For so many others though, their response was better than I could have dreamed. They admired the ambition. Loved the places my words took them to. For me, that will be the legacy of this story, since now, whenever I sit down to write, whenever I fear I'm being too ambitious or too different, I no longer have the same terror I did while writing Scars of Cereba. Instead, I look forward to the day my readers get to join me on the strange roads I've dared to tread. I know that my stories aren't for everybody, but I also know that doesn't matter since they will always be right for some.



View all my reviews

Looking for something to tide you over until Scars of Cereba's release in May? Well you are in luck because I have a free short story for you!

When Memories End is told through the eyes of a memoria who has spent all her life in Cereba - her peoples' underground home. Or at least, what was their home before they were so cruelly driven from it and had to rebuild what they lost in Oresa.

Check out the excerpt below and click the link to get your free copy now. <3

This memory will be my last. Already, I can feel it slipping unfinished from me, burning as the light grows hot on my skin. The sun takes no pity on the pale creature chased into its grasp, but I’m so desperate to escape that I will bear its scolding.
Nothing is as I imagined it would be up here. Used to the dark as I am, I have never known the taste of day, nor the yellow sheen of sunlight covering everything it touches. The familiar chatter of birds fills my ears, but it’s too loud. Their cries are piercing and not like the muffled chirps I knew in the tunnels below.
Light ebbs through the leafy canopy above, streaming between leaves so fine that I can see every vein. Green blades stab my feet as I crush them underfoot, releasing a fresh scent that assaults my nose, mingling with the foreign fragrances of the forest about me. It all combines together overwhelmingly, reminding me that I’m not in Cereba anymore.



When Memories End

Check out my to explore the world of Last Memoria for yourself!Last Memoria

Keep reading for a snippet from the opening of Scars of Cereba. Coming on May 10th!

Memories are the balance of a knife edge, where too many can be just as cruel as too few. After having been made to steal them for so long, I know all too well how easily you can lose yourself either way you fall. Sometimes only for a while. Sometimes for longer. I’m still trying to find my way back. Perhaps in writing this down, I will get there at last, but I doubt it.

- Sarilla

Pre-order now through the link below