Welcome new and old readers and all those cruising through from the SFR Brigade Showcase! (Please click through and see everyone participating today!)
Wooo hoooo! I'm excited to announce the title of Book 4 of the Nogiku Series is RECLAIMED. Maybe you saw that coming, maybe you did not. Lol. But it's all set and I am nervous as all get-out to be revealing this today. Want the blurb? You got it.
On the road and gaining ground against Fujiwara, Sanaa and her team find the local population hesitant to accept them. Charm and bribes can only get the colonists so far, and no matter what Sanaa does, she is not welcomed amongst the men and women of Yūsei. When Sanaa is denied help again, she reaches out to a Northern clan, the Odas, and bargains for a secret technology that will give her an incredible advantage but comes at a steep price.
Being on the road means leaving Yamato undefended, though, and when enemies strike, they leave everything in chaos. With Sanaa and Jiro sacrificing all their time and effort to keeping their home secure, they both must give up nearly everything to save the colonization, their future together, and reclaim Yūsei for its people.
Family lines collide, secrets are finally spoken, and the freedom of Yūsei is in the hands of one woman determined to find equality and justice for everyone on the planet.
RECLAIMED, Book FOUR of the Nogiku Series, is the FINAL book in a captivating post-apocalyptic romance series that harnesses the cultures and traditions of Japan and sweeps them into the future between Earth and a faraway land.
Is that exciting or what? Eeeee! Okay. I have this book on Goodreads now if you want to queue it up.
Add it on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25071042-reclaimed
Pre-orders should be available for all platforms within the next few weeks! And guess what? Newsletter subscribers already got the cover in their inbox! If you're not subscribed to my newsletter, you're missing out. Subscribe now and you'll get news before anyone else.
I'll reveal the cover for everyone else when I have pre-orders up, so I'll be sure to let you know when they're available.
In the meantime, I also have this exclusive excerpt for you. Hopefully, it's been edited enough for everyone's tastes :) Here is Sanaa getting a lesson in kyūdō, Japanese archery.
“Watch me,” Arata instructs, taking the bow from my hands and grabbing an arrow from a pile at our feet. “Left hand on the grip. Right hand clutches the arrow in the bowstring. Arrow rests on the right side of the bowstring, on the outside.” He holds the bow and arrow at arm’s length in front of him, the target off in the distance to his left side. “Bring the bow up high, making sure you have torque on the bow and the arrow, pull back and bring down to eye level at the same time.” He aims out along the length of the arrow, holding for just a moment before releasing the arrow. In a blink, the arrow lands on the target.
“Shin-zen-bi. Truth, goodness, beauty. It’s not about how you aim or how strong you are. If you keep the three foci of truth, goodness, and beauty, in your mind and heart, you will always hit the target.”
“Shin-zen-bi,” I repeat, under my breath. Truth, goodness, beauty. Gods, I have none of those. I lied to Jiro and didn’t confide in him when I was too sick to eat. I was selfish and got Hiro’s parents killed — definitely not goodness. And beauty? I would never call myself or my actions beautiful, not in a million years.
“I can feel your skepticism,” Arata says, laughing and handing me a shooting glove. “Here. I’ll help you put it on.” While he wraps my hand in the long straps of the two finger and thumb glove, he repeats, “Shin. Zen. Bi. The strength in drawing the bow comes from starting high and opening your arms. Think of the truth of the arrow finding its target, a straight line. Every shot you make comes closer to the truth. Goodness is not an act of kindness, but more a way of peace. And you will find, with time, beauty in the way the bow bends, the arrow flies, and the greatness and honor of the ritual.”
Sigh. I love Arata and his calm yet happy demeanor. He has turned into a good ally for my heroine.
Thanks for dropping by! I hope I gave you a little something to be excited about.
The “truth, goodness, beauty” line captures something very Japanese. You’ve nailed it.
Thanks Ed! They are actually the three tenants of kyūdō so I am lucky enough to be able to use them in this way :)
Looking forward to reading this!
Yay, Nicole! I’m looking forward to getting it out there :)
A lovely excerpt, could really visualize the scene and I enjoyed the philosophy behind the archery lesson. I appreciated that the heroine was so open to pondering her own flaws.
Lol. She is EXCEPTIONALLY aware of all her own flaws. Soldiering on despite them is the theme in this last book of the series. Thanks for dropping by!
Can’t wait to read this one and see how this series ends, although I am also a bit sad that this is the last book :(.
Don’t worry, Lola! I left a few things open in this book should I want to write more later, and I bet I will. Plus I want to write some prequels and sequels about the time 15 years after the end of RECLAIMED. I’m sure this is not the last of this world you will see! :)
Oh that’s good to hear! And it’s always nice to leave some things open in case you ever want to revisit the world.
I’m so excited for this book!!
Yay! I’m excited for you to read it :)
Lovely scene. Can totally visualize it. And as a practitioner of Okinawan martial arts, I love the philosophy lesson as well! Nicely done!
Sanaa fights with a sword and a jō as well. She likes to learn lots of weapons :) Thanks for dropping by!
Good lesson in more than archery
Yes, especially in being honest with one’s self :)
Okay, I confess I didn’t read much of this post because I’m afraid of spoiling things from the earlier books for myself, but I had to come over and at least give you a quick “Yay!” for your announcement! :-)
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Thank you, Nicole! AVERT YOUR EYES! Lol. At least you’ll know the whole series can be yours whenever you’re ready :)
Ah, makes me miss doing archery. Also, I’m curious – do you have any formatting issues with the Japanese words in your ebooks? I want to use some Mandarin in an upcoming book, but I’m wondering whether to write it as the word sounds when in dialogue – my editor is concerned about all the accents which are essentially to the meaning.
My advice is to write Mandarin in Pinyin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
And all the standard accents, grave, acute, macron, etc will show up fine in the eReaders. The most frustrating part of using another language in your work is just the word processor correcting words that shouldn’t be corrected. Happens to me all the time with Japanese words and names.
Thanks. Um, I think I’m already using Pinyin as I’m not using the Chinese characters.
Sometimes in my books I’ll write out the romanized words and follow them with the characters, like, “sakana 魚” and that works too in kindle. Yeah, I’m sure you’re using Pinyin and the accents shouldn’t be a problems with eReaders! You’re good to go :)
I have most of the autocorrect stuff turned off in my word processor, which is Libre Office. In A’yen’s Legacy a lot of my names are based on Welsh stuff, and in my other SFR series I use a lot of Russian words. Constantly checking all of that would drive me nuts, so I keep things turned off.
How have I not heard of this series before? I love the setting, love the writing style in this snippet–and love that you’re describing Eastern-style archery correctly. Running off to wish list this whole series so I can order them in the near future!
Thank you Teresa! I’m glad you found it :) And yes, Eastern style archery and especially Japanese archery is different than European in a few key ways, like the arrow resting on the right side instead of the left, etc. I’m glad you like the writing style too. This particular snippet is pretty indicative of my overall style. Thanks for dropping by!
Blog Archive: EXCLUSIVE! RECLAIMED, Book 4 of the Nogiku Series, Blurb &… http://t.co/RvZrWBCc6D
#RECLAIMEDNogikuBook4 #SFRBrigade
Comments are closed.