NovaSiege, book 2 in the Nova Trilogy has just released in paperback and eBook on Amazon! Book 1, NovaForge is FREE there for a limited time as well! Check out NovaSiege's pitch and a link to its Amazon page below! Have a brilliant day!

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The dark priest, Samuel, is dead, but at what cost?

In a time of darkness the young boy, Bayne, has bonded with Samuel’s essence. The minds of all who connect with the essences are tested as an undefeatable evil reaches its tendrils through their minds. Beasts roam Solaris’ landscape, preying on its starving inhabitants.

Can the remainder of the Julieth’s league overcome the voices within them and the beasts plaguing the land, or will they be devoured in their struggle?

Is the boy Julieth once loved like a son forever lost?

As the temptation of godhood, power and hate tempts all people bonded with essences, who will overcome the control and who will embrace what is whispered to them as destiny?

An enemy hand opens as their final hope. Can it be trusted?

"Without wasting a word, Mr. Toney writes with a sense of timing and intrigue that will hold you prisoner until the last page." - Amazon TOP 500 REVIEWER Dii's NovaForge review

Breakwater Harbor Books' author Claire C Riley and her coauthor, Madeline Sheehan,'s newest release, shut up and kiss ME, is #64 on the USA Today bestsellers list! Congrats Claire and Madeline!

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She ran from her past.
After relocating from a small town in Tennessee, Mila has been living in New York City for a year and a half, more than happy to be lost in the crowd. Living vicariously through her best friend and roommate, Nikki, Mila spends her days waitressing and her evenings at home. Then, one night, after getting exclusive tickets to a nightclub downtown, Nikki is able to convince Mila to let loose for once.

He’s running from his future.
Having lived a privileged life, William is used to getting what he wants, and who he wants. Now, though, in his thirties, he’s bored, and seeking more from his life than mindless sex, and even worse—mindless women. Spotting Mila from across the club, he senses right away that she’s different from what he’s used to, an observation that proves true.

One night together will change everything for both of them. Pasts and futures will collide, secrets will be revealed, and the results will transform both their lives forever.

Every good book needs a dedication. For me as an author it's one of my favorite parts of writing. After all the long hours writing, editing and formatting there's one last thing to do and that's writing the dedication. For the Nova Trilogy I decided a good while back that each book will be dedicated to authors who have greatly supported me in my writing and who have helped me progress in my work. I dedicated book 1, NovaForge, to Ivan Amberlake, who has become so essential in my editing process and who, more important than that, is such a fantastic friend. Book 2, NovaSiege, is dedicated to... drumroll please... author Cara Goldthorpe. We met years ago on the author website Authonomy, quickly realizing that the realms of our fantasy books had similar names and that we both greatly enjoyed each other's works. Cara co-founds Breakwater Harbor Books with me and I cannot think of a better author to dedicate NovaSiege to. I hope she and all my readers enjoy the book! The dedication to her and a link to the book on Amazon is below! Have a vivid and wonderful day!

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This book is dedicated to Cara Goldthorpe, a fellow author who stood behind my work from early on and who has read, helped in editing and highly supported my books as they publish. She helped provide the confidence to delve into the published world and is a co-founder of Breakwater Harbor Books by my side. Goldthorpe is a brilliant author and I greatly look forward to her first published release!

From Meridia and Meridisia to the beyond!
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"NovaSiege is book 2 in the Nova trilogy, and I must say I’ve been really enjoying this trilogy so far and can’t wait to read the next book in the series. It is set in the distant future on a planet where people’s minds are manipulated by the essences. The world-building is just amazing. As I’ve already mentioned in my review of NovaForge (book 1), the author has a gift for inventing new worlds teeming with monsters, which makes his series stand out.

"I loved spending more time with the main characters. With each page we get to know them better, and we can understand what makes them fight. It’s Faith and Hope. They play a crucial role in all of Scott Toney’s novels, including NovaSiege.
NovaSiege is a well thought-out novel which you’ll never want to put down until the final page. I certainly look forward to reading Book 3 of the series."

NovaSiege, book 2 in the NOVA Trilogy by author Scott J. Toney, has just released in paperback! Just off the presses! Get it while it's hot!

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The dark priest, Samuel, is dead, but at what cost?

In a time of darkness the young boy, Bayne, has bonded with Samuel’s essence. The minds of all who connect with the essences are tested as an undefeatable evil reaches its tendrils through their minds. Beasts roam Solaris’ landscape, preying on its starving inhabitants.

Can the remainder of the Julieth’s league overcome the voices within them and the beasts plaguing the land, or will they be devoured in their struggle?

Is the boy Julieth once loved like a son forever lost?

As the temptation of godhood, power and hate tempts all people bonded with essences, who will overcome the control and who will embrace what is whispered to them as destiny?

An enemy hand opens as their final hope. Can it be trusted?

The character Julieth in the NOVA Trilogy is an intense, headstrong female character with vast feathered wings and a leaning towards the bow and arrow. She’s tough, and yet in a world that has been decimated by years of a corrupt humanity, she is the character with the most heart. She understands the need for battle, and yet struggles in her mind against it.

The origin of the name Julieth has a long history for me. Each one of my books has a character in it that in some way came out of my poetry book, Dusk Crescence. In the NOVA Trilogy Julieth is that character. There was a character in Dusk Crescence named Julieth who was a winged woman. She had a different personality than this Julieth, but that is the name’s original usage in my books. When I created the name I was in High School, sitting in class looking at a friend of mine, Judy. I needed a name and I thought… Judith, Judie, Julie, Juliet. But Juliet is Shakespeare’s character’s name. Then I added an H. Julieth. So now you know where and how. Julieth is a key player in the NOVA Trilogy. Check out an excerpt below from NovaSiege involving her character. I take great pride in Julieth.
NovaSiege releases Friday June 18th. NovaForge, book 1 in the trilogy, is currently FREE on Amazon in eBook and NovaSiege is available for eBook pre-order and also paperback. Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading!

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The wind sawed over Solaris’s arid land, howling like a tortured, dying creature being torn apart in the night. Julieth, though warmed by the heat of a crackling fire nearby, was chilled to the spine by the sound.

It had been months since she last saw Ivanus and the others leaving Gest’s gates, venturing into the thankless expanse. Rumors grew by displaced citizens searching out Gest that Samuel killed more and more, amassing his forces.

Bayne, Ivanus, they must all be dead. How do we stand against such evil? She turned a twig with a leaf on it in her hand, watching the moonlight refracting off its veins. A tree with white blooms thrashed in the harsh wind close by. So much life blooms around us and yet we can do nothing to clog the sea of blood coursing across our world. I feel it bludgeoning Gest’s gates, reaching for me.

As she closed her eyes a deep chill crept over her, a sharp cold starting with her palms bracing the ground, and then seeping up her body.

The wind tonight… it has never been so cold.

But it was not the wind. Thick frost marked the earth, spreading and climbing the rust-walls nearby and the trunks of trees, coming from below. It ascended her flesh, its sparking white form glistening in the moonlight. Cracks slowly formed in the ice sheen, and then the ground moaned as a section of earth a distance from Julieth cracked in on itself and then fell into a dark void.

Julieth opened her eyes while hearing shouts of terror, stripping her of near sleep. Shadows thrashed through her sight. An entire shack dropped through the earth, disappearing from her view. “Mother!” a girl shrieked.

Ice flecked from Julieth’s body as she moved. “What is happening? Ineal! Help!” she shouted, running towards the screams. A sudden thrust of wind punched her wings, beating her flat to the earth.

She breathed erratically, her arms punching through frozen soil as if it were a shell. The arms of a beast ripped through the earth below her, clawing at her form as the earth’s shell cracked away and they both fell into a dark void.

“Ragoor!” Julieth screamed, panic surging through her as pain burned in her skull. The beast which had pulled her down climbed her body, clawing at her flesh and weighing her down as she beat her wings, trying to fly out of the darkness. Its talons reached around her back, shredding a wing and sending blood spattering. They dropped quickly and Julieth punched the beast’s rocklike hide, and then kicked it hard, somehow managing to separate it from her. Its bloodshot eyes stared hauntingly at her as its form disappeared in the black. Other shouts of Gest’s people pierced the air around her.

She struggled frantically, her one usable wing beating hard, spinning her madly until her legs punched against the rock below, dislocating joints as the rest of her body smacked the surface.

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What goes into building a character?

Name, yes! Physical description ... not so much.

As I go about my life, I rarely think of my physical description and I warrant neither do most of you. I know I'm so many inches tall and weigh this many pounds, that I have dark hair and blue eyes, but I don't really think about any of that as I live my life. I might think about a coworker as really tall for a woman, as having extraordinarily beautiful eyes or really luxurious hair, but I don't think they are so many inches tall, about this weight, with curly black hair and green eyes. And if I meet them on a regular basis, their extraordinary traits become part of who they are, not a description to give unless someone else asks me to describe them.

Providing a physical description within the first paragraphs of introducing a character is a standard convention in American novels that I have discovered missing in European novels ... and I don't miss it. At some point I create a picture in my head of the character regardless if the writer provides that little paragraph of description or not.

It's made me think a lot about perspective in my writing. Why would Ryanna (my principle female character in The Willow Branch) describe herself physically to herself? Her friends might notice she's tall or beautiful, but she would think of herself as relatively ordinary. After all, she spend all of her time with herself. In one of my works-in-progress, the main character Peter is an exceptionally handsome man, but he's also a broken individual who is trying to overcome a lot of well-deserved self-hate. It would be uncharacteristic for him to look in a mirror and think of himself as handsome. When women give him an admiring glance, he thinks "Do they hate me for my past?" not "I'm all that." Similarly, while a woman might find him exceptionally attractive, his heterosexual male friend probably wouldn't. I know this because I have asked my husband to rate male actors in movies on handsomeness scales and discovered that his definition of masculine attractiveness is very different from mine. He tends to rate other men about how he would rate a car or a horse -- strong-looking is attractive, maybe if they have really bright eyes he'd notice, but a kissable mouth -- shudder.

Because I often write from more than one character perspective, I might introduce a character from their own point of view sans physical description and then "turn the camera around" from the POV of another character, but these are the things to think about when you do that. A lover might admire the cut of a fine pair of slacks on a man, but his mother probably shouldn't ... unless she's a tailor.

I am not saying to never describe your characters' physical attributes. I am saying to avoid the traditional romance novelist info dump because it's overdone and often illogical. Think about what you're doing when you're writing and see if perhaps you can spend more time developing actual characters with personality rather than just physical characteristics.


Lela Markham is a Breakwater Harbor Books author of The Willow Branch and Life As We Knew It. To learn more about her, visit her website aurorawatcherak.wordpress.com.