NEWS

(Click here for my calendar!)

The Renergades have a bone to pick with you! 🦴

Rachel
Oct 9, 2024
2 min read

Happy Hump Day! (Also, do people still say that anymore?)

For those of you who may have missed it, and about 5 years later than I should have launched it, I have an official reader group - Rachel's Renergades! Now, I knew it would be fun, but I didn't know it was going to be THIS fun! We already have over 600 snarky, comedically inappropriate, slightly-mentally-unhinged Renergades, and now my feed is saturated with bananas of all shapes and sizes, dirty jokes, and bookshelf pjörn. What more could a girl ask for? 😍

Also, today marks the very first day of the group's very first read-along! About 120 Renergades are group-reading The Bone Whisperer duology together, which is the perfect spooky-yet-cozy read for the season! If you'd like to join in on the fun, plus have access to exclusive coupons, giveaways, teasers, and signed bananas, you can check out the pinned post here. There are two groups: one for those who are re-reading the books, and one for first-timers to avoid spoilers.

Happy reading!

Adding to my growing team of the most awesome people on the planet, I've teamed up with one of my favorite Bookstagrammers, Xenatine, to help me with some content creation! What do you guys think of her first video? (I'm obsessed!😍) If you happen to see it floating around on social media, I would love it if you would throw it a little love!

By the way, as I'm gearing up to make a big announcement about a new project, in the coming weeks, I thought I'd share this super zoomed in, 100% context-free spoiler:

One of the Renergades guessed Moses parting the Red Sea, which has me thinking about embarking on a new subgenre of romantasy: erot!c biblical fanfic!!! (I do wonder if the long, scraggly prophet beards would make it harder to write certain types of romantic scenes, though🤔)

🎆🎃October Deluxe Fantasy Giveaway🎃🎆

I've been fortunate to join five other incredible authors who are ready to give away SIX SIGNED DELUXE/SPECIAL EDITION hardbacks! (I swear, it's times like this that I wish I could enter myself.)

And when I say deluxe/special edition, I mean you're getting some books with sprayed edges, gilded edges, foiled covers, and/or exclusive interior artwork… oh, and did I mention they're all signed?

Seriously… it's the ULTIMATE deluxe fantasy giveaway. We're talkin' over $350 in value.

Enter the giveaway here and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Cheers!❤️

SAVOR THE PlCKLE! (a.k.a. Britt is running amok and has taken over the NL!)

support385039
Oct 2, 2024
5 min read

A (Long) Word from the Queen Helper Bee👑🐝

Hi everyone! While Rachel is dealing with literal lunatics and working on a top-secret new project I'm not allowed to breath a syllable about on pain of ☠️☠️☠️, I'm taking over her newsletter - which means I can write WHATEVER I WANT and possibly even get away with it too!

First item on the agenda: SALT LAKE CITY FANX! (And lots of behind the scenes tea 🫖)

What a wrap on my first summer of convention season with Rachel! 🥳

Having just arrived home from the amazing Salt Lake City FanX event I can now say with certainty... what a RUSH! Each event we attend really is so special and fun, but there is also SO MUCH work and planning that goes into each one. (I literally don't know how she did it on her own for so long.)

It's been wonderful getting to travel alongside Rachel and witness first-hand the level of care and effort she pours into her work and readers. Watching the way she engages with her readers, both new and familiar, is just something you cannot put into words. They laugh together (and sometimes straight up CACKLE), they cry together, they yell out completely inappropriate things randomly just for funsies ... She gave so many hugs and made multiple people cry, which then made ME cry! 😭

Like my awesome Inked-inspired siren hide leggings??

And through it all, Rachel and I have gotten to know each other a little bit more each time. Really, we keep learning that we're just more and more alike than we thought and you know how each person has their own little quirks and silly things? ... Yeah we have A LOT of those in common. 🤪

Rachel and I "savoring the pickle" at one of our rest stops on the way to SLC. Turns out, pickle juice is super hydrating for roadtrips!

Except... I haven't bitten a stranger in public, then tried to apologize but only spit out incomprehensible gibberish and then sprinted away at an impressive speed when realizing the "stranger" wasn't who I thought it was. THAT was definitely just a Rachel thing. (She's gonna unalive me for sharing that with all of you but still totally worth it!!)

A few more highlights/revelations from SLC while I can still get away with it:

We're both big fat cry babies for epic instrumental music. Rachel's a BIG fan of Samuel Kim and his epic Star Wars compositions. You should check them out!!

"AAH! This is definitely not tofu!" Rachel took me to my first experience with Shabu Shabu, a Japanese style of eating where you cook the food at your own table. Thinking she'd grabbed some firm tofu in her bowl, Rachel plopped an entire cube in her mouth and then turned white as a napkin when she realized it was actually a fishcake. Turns out, Rachel hasn't gotten over her previous experience with Japanese fish 🤣
I've also decided that I need to drive Rachel around for hours on end WAY more often, because remember that TOP SECRET PROJECT I mentioned above that she's gonna kill me for mentioning? She had SO many epiphanies and awesome ideas about it that I am bursting at the seams to tell you!!! Any guesses as to what it might be?😈 (I can neither confirm nor deny but I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

Lastly, she managed to convince author David Andrew Trotter to climb up onto a vent in the middle of SLC....in a kilt. It. Was. GLORIOUS.

Anyway 🤣 - let's move on to some other really exciting stuff. We are so excited to be starting a new reader group on Facebook: RACHEL'S RENERGADES! This is going to be a place where you can come for the tea and stay for the snark. There will be a bigger/more official announcement later, but you guys are the very first to hear it and have the chance to join early! We'll have opportunities to join together and buddy read some of Rachel's books in a book-club style, chat about books and upcoming events, and mayyyybee even get insider access to new release teasers before they go live. (Read: you will DEFINITELY be the first to hear about Rachel's most exciting projects way before anyone else.) Oh, and Rachel has said she's gonna routinely give out the most outlandish signed prizes to the most engaged members. I'm pretty sure she mentioned she's gonna send someone a signed rubber banana at some point?!?!?! 🍌

Our first buddy read is planned to start on Wednesday, October 9th and seeing as it's spooky season we'll be starting with none other than The Bone Whisperer Chronicles*. Whether you've read this amazing duology before or have been eyeing it on your TBR, you are welcome to join us. Want more deets and info? Join the group here!

*Even though Rachel never discounts special edition books (unless they're damaged), she's given me permission to offer 15% off discount codes to all Renergades. All you have to do is join the group and we'll get you all the info you need!

For those of you who have been asking, we've restocked those gorgeous Gilded Blood calendars for 2025, so go nab yours now!!

Lastly, please help me wish Rachel a HUGE congratulations for Inked winning not one but FIVE categories in the Indie Ink Awards:

- Best book cover and cover artist

- Side Character MVP

- Best use of tropes

- Prettiest book interior, and

- Best light read

That brings her up to 3 first place awards for the year!!! 😱

With that, I shall bid you all a wonderful week ahead. Remember, if you ever need me you can reach me at support@rachelrener.com. Can't wait to talk soon and hopefully see you in the new reader group!

XoXoX,

Britt 🫶🏼

If you're reading this on Goodreads or on Rachel's blog, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get the most exciting updates sent directly to your inbox!

EXCITING FREEBIE!!!

From Rachel:

My friend Lisa McBride has an awesome freebie that I wanted to share with you! Boneyard Thief is the prequel to the Riley Cruz series. If you like fun, fast-paced urban fantasy with quirky characters (which I know you do!), this is the book for you.

BLURB:

Sixteen was supposed to be about fast cars and first kisses, not plotting a heist that might get me killed.

As a scrawny goat shifter in a pack of werewolves, my role is to get into places they can’t go. The alpha who took me in after my parents died molded me into a master thief. For four long years, he’s lined his pockets, while I’ve taken all the risks.

Now he’s sending me after the magical artifact he’s chased for years. This is my chance to escape. All I have to do is pull off the biggest heist I’ve ever attempted, escape the seethe of vampires I’m about to rob, and ditch the wolves who watch my every move.

To walk away from this job alive, I better prove I’m as good at getting out of trouble as I am at wading into it.

Read now for FREE!

It's official: Stephen King and I are pretty much besties. (And I've done the math to prove it.)

Rachel
Sep 17, 2024
2 min read

That's right, you heard me. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction just published an unprompted review* of INKED in their column, Books to Look For. Now, this magazine has been around for millions and billions of years, having been founded alllll the way back in 1949. They were also the original publisher of Stephen King's Dark Tower, which helped skyrocket him to his current pillar of greatness.

How does this make the two of you besties? You might be wondering.

Thank you so much for asking; I will tell you.

Be forewarned, this is where the math gets a little tricky, but I'll do my best to lay it out step by step:

If you take 75 - the number of years The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has been around for, multiplied by the 5 Dark Tower stories that were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, then divide by 76 (Stephen King's age as of today), then take the square root of that product and subtract 5.1112781 (for reasons that go without saying), and then raise it to the power of 8 (the number of books in the completed Dark Tower series, you get 8,357,135.

Which, when written digitally, spells out:

Or, "BESTIES".

As you can clearly see, the math is ironclad and incontrovertible and DEFINTELY doesn't need any checking by, you know, actual mathematicians:

___________

((√((2024-1949) x 5) ÷ 76)-5.1112781)^8 = 8,357,135

(And yes, I definitely wrote out that equation perfectly, so don't you dare @ me on #MathTok and embarrass yourself!)

So there you have it; Stephen King and I, having both been mentioned in the same magazine, are officially besties. I'll let you all know when our upcoming collaborative novel will be released!!🤩 (Hopefully it won't be too scary since I'm kind of a baby but I'm sure he'd be okay with taking the back seat on the plot and swapping out psychopathic clowns for hunky incubi.)

*Fantasy and Science Fiction Review:

Apparently it will be published in the Summer 2024 issue, which I shall be laminating and framing and - if the mortuary allows for it - taking to my grave!

Oh and PS, the proof for the Revamped Lightning Conjurer Complete Series Omnibus just arrived and it is sexy AF! 🤩

(Here's the link to the video just in case it doesn't load properly!)

Isn't it gorgeous? I just know my new best friend Stephen King would be so proud of how it turned out🥲

GIVEAWAY ALERT!

Here's how to enter: After perusing the big book sale the participating authors are hosting, you can finalize your entry here. The winner gets a crazy number of prizes, including a $20 Amazon Gift Card plus 16 urban fantasy books and swag:

(Yep, that lovely pink book is mine and the first (and possibly last) time I'm offering it in a giveaway!)

Thanks for being here and have a great Tuesday!!

*If you're reading this on Goodreads or on my blog, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get the most exciting updates sent directly to your inbox!