Good job me, remembering to update my own website! The A Rake of His Own campaign is currently live on Kickstarter! It runs until the end of the month.
Kickstarter works a bit like a pre-ordering system, where we can raise the funds upfront. We’ve already met our funding goal and unlocked several stretch goals, which means the special editions are definitely happening!
And if you missed out on the Stariel Quartet editions, you can also snag a copy of those through this campaign!
Big news! I got a trad publishing deal!
Tor UK has acquired the rights for How to Find a Nameless Fae & How to Marry a Winged King (worldwide) & for the Stariel series (UK & Commonwealth excluding Canada)!
I’m now a territorially-complicated hybrid author, part indie, part trad, depending on where you live and which book format!
For Stariel, the ebooks will remain indie in the USA and Canada, but will transition to traditionally published everywhere else.
For How to Find a Nameless Fae & How to Marry a Winged King, we’re going full trad everywhere babyyyy!
No, the books may get a light copyedit/proofread, but the stories will remain the ones you know and love!
The ebooks will switch over to Tor UK’s versions imminently for the relevant countries!
The UK print editions will be re-released in HARDBACK starting with:
With the rest to follow!
The indie paperbacks will over time be replaced by the new trad print editions. If you want to get the indie paperbacks before they go out of print, please do so ASAP. The new editions will be a different size/format, so act now if you’ve got a partially complete set of Stariel paperbacks!
This is going to depend on the territory! The Stariel books will be staying in KU in the USA & Canada. Outside of that, it will be up to the publisher to decide, so the ebooks may be only periodically available in KU.
My existing audiobook editions are with Podium and will remain available.
The plan is to keep the same gorgeous designs by Jenny Zemanek (Stariel) and Holly Dunn (Nameless Fae), with a glow-up for the new trad editions.
Very emotional, in a good way! Thank you so much for supporting me on this journey! As an indie, it’s been wild and humbling to see fans’ love for these stories. Bringing my books into the trad space means they can reach even more readers. Tor has published some of my favourite authors, and I can still hardly believe I’m joining them! I can’t wait to see my books in bookstores.
Before I had a chance to make a post here about the Stariel Kickstarter being live, the campaign fully! funded. Which means, these deluxe special editions are going to happen! And boy are they deluxe. We’re talking foiled faux-leather cases, reversible dustjackets, interior art, and endpaper maps!
The campaign is here if you want to snag your copy or just lurk and check out the art:
I also made a 101 explainer if you’re new to the platform. Go here:
I know not everyone is familiar with Kickstarter, so I’ve put together this 101 explainer for those of you wondering what this is all about! If you’re already a savvy Kickstarter connoisseur, you can go straight to my campaign here:
I’ve wanted to offer Stariel special editions for a long time, but the printing technology required to bring fancy hardbacks to life means I ideally need to order a whole lot of books at once. Which means a big upfront cost to pay for a print run.
Enter Kickstarter! Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform for creative projects that allows fans to ‘pledge’ for different ‘rewards’ – essentially you pre-order your shiny books upfront to help reach my campaign’s funding goal. This means I’ll not only be able to pay for the print run but also I’ll know how many books to order.
‘Rewards’ are what Kickstarter calls the products I’m offering to people who back my campaign. In this case, the main rewards you can choose are Stariel hardbacks (just one book or the whole set). There is also a digital reward option available for those of you with limited shelf space who still want to support my Kickstarter.
You can find the rewards in their own tab if you scroll to the top of the campaign.
They also show as a sidebar if you’re on a desktop. Scroll through the list to find the reward you want and click the pledge $XX button. You’ll be given the choice to add on additional items if, for example, you want extra copies of books or to add a bookmark. Shipping will be automatically calculated once you select the country you’re shipping to – if your country isn’t listed, contact support@merrick-books.com and they will add it for you.
After you choose your pledge level, you will get the option to add ‘add-ons’. This is where you can add extra copies or swag items, but if you’re happy with what’s in the pledge you selected, you don’t need to add anything on.
Shipping is listed for most locations, but because there are thousands of combinations, your country might not be listed! If your location isn’t showing up, please reach out to Merrick Books, who are managing shipping for me, and they will update the list of countries to include yours. You can reach them here: support@merrick-books.com.
The campaign runs for just over three weeks, starting 16 September (17 September in New Zealand) and ending on 9 October (10 October in New Zealand).
Then nothing! If we don’t make the funding goal by the end of the campaign, no one who pledged towards it will be charged, and I will return to the drawing board.
If the campaign goes super well and we fund much higher than expected, I’ll be able to add more bells and whistles to the shiny editions (like more interior illustrations).
No, the Stariel spinoff / book 5 A Rake of His Own is NOT part of this kickstarter. This is for two reasons:
So we WILL be getting a shiny edition of Rake too, but it WON’T be until later.
Any other questions? Let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Forgive me, I couldn’t resist the punny title.
The last couple of weeks have been a bit overwhelming on the award front in the best possible way. First, the audiobook of A Rake of His Own was awarded an earphones award by Audiofile magazine for its excellent narration by Nicholas Boulton. They were, of course, completely correct to do so because Nicholas has a voice like smooth chocolate and I couldn’t imagine a better performance.
Nicholas Boulton’s narration of this audiobook–part fantasy, part mystery, part romance–is all pleasure. “
Audiofile Magazine
Second, A Rake of His Own won the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novel. The SJVs are New Zealand’s national speculative fiction awards. Which means a pointy trophy will be arriving soon!
Two pointy trophies, in fact, because my story How to Marry A Winged King also won the SJV Award for Best Novelette! This story first appeared in the FaRoFeb anthology Once Upon A Forbidden Desire and is currently out of print, but I’m working on a slightly revised and expanded version of the original and hope to release it later this year.
Thank you SO much to everyone who nominated and / or voted for my work this year. I’m a bit stunned (but will also of course be referring to myself as ‘multi-award-winning-author AJ Lancaster’ from here on out, of course).
I cannot fully express what it means to me to have A Rake of His Own in particular receive accolades, but I am about to get emotional and navel-gazing here and try anyway. You’ve been warned.
I often joke about A Rake of His Own being a “great bonus novella!” because that was how it started life (in theory, at least; in hindsight, it was never going to be anything but a novel). I had wrapped up my series finale, but I had this dangling romantic plotline still hanging between two secondary characters, so I thought I’d write a wee novella to tie that loose thread up.
Of course, A Rake of His Own ended up being my second-longest book, coming in at around 120k words (only The King of Faerie, my Stariel series finale, is longer). I was proud of The King of Faerie, but it had been at times an exhausting book to write, with lots of plot threads to tie up and a weight of expectations on my shoulders to finish the series on a high note.
A Rake of His Own felt free of all such expectations. I hadn’t set out to write it as part of the series or as a novel at all. There were no larger series-arc promises left to keep. So I let myself just write in a way I hadn’t for a long time, without consideration for anyone else but me.
The result is somewhat sillier than the main quartet and a bit more raunchy. The lead character is riddled with anxiety and prone to internal monologuing and self-arguments, in contrast to my more decisive heroine of the earlier Stariel books. It was my first attempt at a murder mystery and also my first book with a gay lead.
Reader, it was so much fun to write.
But I was worried no one would like it. Putting a book out into the world is always an incredible act of vulnerability, but this one in particular made me feel even more exposed than usual, perhaps because Marius’s anxious nature is in many ways my own. What if it was too much? What if no one found my banter funny or liked my murder mystery? What if everyone thought Marius was annoying? What if readers freaked out because I used the word ‘cock’?
I was tempted to tone it down, to smooth away some of its weirder corners or make the sex scenes more euphemistic, even though that felt like a betrayal of these characters. In the past I have occasionally given in to this voice of fear, to an imagined critic, not substantially but in small ways (which is something I now regret and a lesson learned for me to be braver in future).
This time, I managed to hold firm against the clamour of voices in my head. However, I remained a pile of nerves at war with myself over it right up until I hit the publish button and couldn’t unmake the decision.
(Here I would like to thank all my writerly friends who patiently suffered with me during this time.)
All of which is to say is that A Rake of His Own sits very close to my heart. I am so incredibly proud of this book and prouder still that I didn’t chicken out of letting it be its full, utterly ridiculous, shamelessly sensual self. I have been humbled and delighted by its reception and the fact that (thankfully for my career) it has been enjoyed by many people other than me. Mostly people didn’t even freak out about the cocks.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
A Rake of His Own has been out a whole week, and I’m humbled and thrilled by its reception. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking, releasing your book-chick into the wild and hoping it’s fledged enough to fly!
(You can order your copy here: https://books2read.com/ARakeOfHisOwn. If you’re still uncertain whether this book is for you, check out my Rake FAQs)
Here’s a round-up of all the Happenings this week.
I signed a bunch of copies for Good Books to send out for those who pre-ordered Rake. I signed a few extra, so get in quick if you want one: https://shop.goodbookshop.nz/p/a-rake-of-his-own-a-stariel-novel?barcode=9780473624798
A Cake Of His Own…
But look at that nice orange tag. Very good for the ego!
This is the list of the week’s best-selling hard copy books sold by NZ bookstores (so ebooks don’t get counted). It was SO COOL to see Rake make this list. Thank you so much to everyone who bought a paperback, and for Good Books for handling all the online orders!
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/readingroom/this-weeks-bestselling-books-4
This was a lot of fun. Thanks so much to everyone who asked questions, even the slightly tricky ones!
You can read my answers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/yk1y5v/im_aj_lancaster_author_of_the_fantasy_romance/
Whew, what a week! I’m going to go lie on my fainting couch to recover from all the excitement.
Because A Rake Of His Own is a little different from my other Stariel books, I thought I’d try to give more information upfront about what to expect, if you’re still undecided about whether it is for you.
Yes and no. The King of Faerie wrapped up the major plot threads of the series, and the plot of A Rake of His Own is a self-contained murder mystery. The main character is different – Marius rather than Hetta and Wyn.
BUT A Rake of His Own picks up chronologically shortly after the events of The King of Faerie, so you do get to see some of ‘what happens next?’
No (although, as the author, I obviously think everybody should read ALL my books!). I have had a lot of readers enjoy A Rake of His Own without any previous knowledge of the series.
However, you will be spoiled on some plot events for previous books.
(You will also miss out on the UST that builds over the first four books)
Several of them have cameos, including Wyn and Hetta.
Yes, there are a handful of steamy scenes in this book, though the focus is on the emotions rather than the anatomical details. I’d rate the steam in the previous Stariel books about 🔥🔥 and Rake probably qualifies as 🔥🔥🔥.
If you would like specifics before diving in, you can get spoilery details about Rake (and indeed, about any of my books) from my website: For readers who want more details before diving in
The good people at Good Books in Wellington are hosting a pre-order for the paperback of A Rake Of His Own, and I’ll be signing these before they’re sent out. Order your copy here: https://shop.goodbookshop.nz/p/pre-order-a-rake-of-his-own-release-date-28-october-2022?barcode=CIR1665023774
Good Books also have paperbacks of the rest of the series if you want to drop by the store!
Good Books do ship internationally, although be forewarned about shipping costs from NZ! There will also be paperbacks available on all the usual online retailers when the book launches, though these won’t be signed.
I’ve had quite a few people ask this question – and the answer is yes! There will be an audiobook edition of A Rake of His Own. However, that’s all I know at present. I’m currently in talks with Podium (who produced the audiobooks of the first four books) and I’ll let you know as soon as I have more information about when this will be available.
What’s that? A cover reveal for A Rake of His Own!
LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS!!! Once again design by the phenomenal Jenny Zemanek.
Jenny and I talked a lot about how to make this cover look related to the quartet but also clearly its own thing. The other covers all have a set of wings at the top, so for this one I thought it would be fun to replace that with a silhouette of my two leads. My fae prince obviously needed wings and horns, so Jenny sent me about 50 different horn vectors to choose from. It was surprisingly hard to pick a favourite!
Large chunks of the book are set in and around the greenhouses of the university, so that was where the Victorian greenhouse and plant motif came from. The dandelions also feature in an important fae spell we get to see in this book.
A Rake of His Own is a wild, tropey ride, and I feel like the vivid colours really reflect that.
Which brings us to… the rake. The pun was too good to resist!
A Rake of His Own will release 28 October 2022 and you can pre-order it now!
Thanks so much to all the bookstagrammers who helped with this reveal. Check out their pics; they’re gorgeous!
To celebrate, I am also giving away a paperback copy of The Lord of Stariel. Head on over to this post on Instagram to enter: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChMwCm9LGAe/