Guest Post: On Writing by S.M. Beiko

Hello all!  I'm back!  Sort of.  I'm just as busy as I was last semester (see my last update) but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to publish this guest post written by S.M. Beiko, author of The Brilliant Dark.  I'll still be active on social media (Twitter especially and a little Instagram) but I'll be keeping a relatively lower profile until December and January.  But anyway, enough about me!  I hope y'all enjoy this guest post; I certainly did.

Most recently, S.M. Beiko is the author of The Realms of Ancient series.

Scion of the Fox (#1)

"As the winter ice begins to thaw, the fury of a demon builds - all because one girl couldn't stay dead . . .

Roan Harken considers herself a typical high school student - dead parents, an infected eyeball, and living in the house of her estranged, currently comatose grandmother (well, maybe not so typical) - but she's uncovering the depth of the secrets her family left behind.  Saved from the grasp of Death itself by a powerful fox spirit names Sil, Roan must harness mysterious ancient power . . . and quickly.  A snake-monster called Zabor lies in wait in the bed of the frozen Assiniboine River, hungry for the sacrifice of spirit-blood in exchange for keeping the flood waters at bay.  Thrust onto an ancient battlefield, Roan soon realizes that to maintain the balance of the world, she will have to sacrifice more than her life in order to take her place as Scion of the Fox."







Children of the Bloodlands (#2)

"The dazzling second book in S.M. Beiko’s Realms of Ancient series

Three months after the battle of Zabor, the five friends that came together to defeat her have been separated. Burdened with the Calamity Stone she acquired in Scion of the Fox, Roan has gone to Scotland to retrace her grandmother’s steps in an attempt to stop further evil from entering the world.

Meanwhile, a wicked monster called Seela has risen from the ashy Bloodlands and is wreaking havoc on the world while children in Edinburgh are afflicted by a strange plague; Eli travels to Seoul to face judgment and is nearly murdered; Natti endures a taxing journey with two polar bears; Phae tries desperately to obtain the key to the Underworld; and Barton joins a Family-wide coalition as the last defense against an enemy that will stop at nothing to undo Ancient’s influence on Earth — before there is no longer an Earth to fight for.

Darkness, death, and the ancient powers that shape the world will collide as our heroes discover that some children collapse under their dark inheritance, and those that don’t are haunted by blood."

The Brilliant Dark (#3)

"The highly anticipated final installment in Beiko's thrilling YA fantasy trilogy.

It's been seven years since the Denziens, an unseen people with elemental powers, were unmasked, and seven years since Roan Harken and Eli Rathgar disappeared into the Brilliant Dark.

Marked by Darklings and Death alike, Saskia is a mechanically minded Mundane, raised by Barton and Phae on daring stories about Roan Harken.  But the world Roan left behind is in turmoil.  The Darklings now hang in the sky as a threatening black moon, and with the order-maintaining Elemental Task Guard looking to get rid of all Denziens before they rebel, Saskia's only option is to go into the Brilliant Dark and bring Roan back.

But nothing is every that simple.

The Brilliant Dark is the final, thrilling chapter in this series about gods, monsters, and the people who must decide if they're willing to pay the ultimate price to protect the family they found . . . in a world that may not be worthy of saving."