R.E. Blake's Blog

After a seemingly impossibly long month, the third novel in the trilogy featuring Sage and Derek, Best Of Everything, is now live!

It’s got some heat to it, and resolves most of the open issues the pair have in moving their relationship forward while contending with all the complications introduced by having successful recording careers.

I hope you enjoy it. The series was a lot of fun to write, and was definitely an auspicious way to start my NA and romance career. You can expect more romance novels in 2015 – I’m outlining the first of the co-authored tomes with Melissa Foster as we speak!

Best of Everything, the third book in the Sage and Derek trilogy, will release on November 25! More to follow soon, unless I totally forget, in which case, just read it and tell me whether you like it or not!

Less Than Nothing and More Than Anything are now live!

And check out what the heavyweights in NA and Romance are saying about it!

“A great departure from the usual YA/NA. I kind of needed that this month. Sometimes books just come to you at the right time.” – Colleen Hoover, NY Times and USA Today bestselling author


“If u haven’t heard of Blake, u will, b/c LESS THAN NOTHING is stellar.” – H.M. Ward, NY Times and USA Today bestselling author


“An edgy and romantic story with characters that draw you in and never let you go.” - Melissa Foster, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

To say that it’s exciting to have these kinds of big names chiming in about my debut effort in NA is inadequate for what I’m feeling right now. I’m completely humbled by this praise and support.

As everyone knows, Colleen Hoover is one of the biggest names in the NA genre, for damn good reason – she writes an amazing novel. That she enjoyed the book is beyond awesome.

H.M. Ward has sold like 5 million NA books, and they’re naming an NA country after her or something. Her Arrangement series is legendary – there’s nothing else even close to it. That she liked it is a 10 on the NA book Richter scale!

Contemporary romance author Melissa Foster, who sells more romance novels than Elvis and The Beatles combined, enjoyed it and is totally supportive, which awes me beyond measure – she knows a thing or two about what makes for satisfying romance, to say the least.

I’d hoped to write a fun NA trilogy that might find a few fans.

I never in my wildest dreams expected this. I’m blown away.

Hopefully you will be too when you read ‘em.

I have a favor to ask. On Oct 7th, my debut NA novels, Less Than Nothing and More Than Anything, go live.

I want to get the word out as big time as I possibly can.

To that end, I’m going to totally suck up and beg everyone to use the graphics below and put them on their Facebook pages or Twitter feeds or blogs or email lists or whatever.

I won’t hate you if you don’t. But I might stalk you with a bread knife and a five gallon can of gasoline and an elastic sense of right and wrong.

Appreciate any help. I’d ask that you put them out on Oct. 7th. Thanks to anyone that does.

Here are links for Less Than Nothing, followed by the graphics:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1n3D7dz
Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1rnax8b
Apple: http://bit.ly/1xPBQe0

 

 

We’ll be going live with the first two novels, Less Than Nothing and More Than Anything, in only five more days! Woohoo!!! I’m very excited the time’s finally here. It’s been really interesting writing YA/NA romance, and I suspect you haven’t seen the last of me with this series.

Book 3 in the trilogy, Best Of Everything, will release in November, and I love the way it turned out. I think those who follow Sage and Derek’s saga will find it satisfying in a host of unexpected ways.

I can’t wait to see how readers respond to these books. I’m optimistic, and on pins and needles until the big release day finally arrives.

To those who read and reviewed ARCs, I appreciate it. You rock. I’m glad the story connected, and I’m humbled and grateful for the outpouring of positive feedback.

Five more days.

Tick. Tick tick.

 

 

D. Donovan at the Midwest Book Review just reviewed Less Than Nothing, and I couldn’t be happier. This is a prestigious group that knows good from bad, and, well, the review speaks for itself. I’m reprinting it in its entirety below. Feel free to share or tweet. Tell me this isn’t as good as it gets!

Less Than Nothing

R.E. Blake

Reprobatio Ltd.

978-1-63415-015-6            $2.99

Coming-of-age romance novels are nothing new: stories of evolving love and maturity ever proliferate against different backdrops, with dissimilar protagonists fueling change.

What sets Less Than Nothing apart from the crowd are several added facets not typical in your usual love story. For one thing, the main protagonist, Sage, is homeless; a teenage runaway living in the streets of San Francisco.

Her street savvy, quickly honed from survival instincts, includes just enough skills to evade cops and predators and make money to feed herself; but when she meets a fellow musician (Derek), her carefully polished abilities must expand to meet the unexpected challenge of including a relationship.

Less Than Nothing is about this expansion process and charts the course of two already-independent teens who have more starry eyes than street savvy, and who handle their unexpected relationship with caution.  The only reliable force in her life prior to Derek has been her Yamaha guitar (“…it’s the one thing in my life that’s a constant, and now that I’m homeless, it’s doing double duty supporting me…”): now it’s time for Sage to accept something into her life and heart that’s not inanimate – and trust that it will support her equally well.

How trust develops, how love evolves from that, and how two people living on the streets wind up pursing a dream bigger than each of them makes for a winding series of connections and interconnections that bind the two disparate characters together and capture reader interest.

Mature teens to adults will find the story holds believable dialogue, themes of major changes and transitions between teens just beginning to realize possibilities in their lives, and a progressive discussion that is involving and tense.

A coast-to-coast journey undertaken by ambitious teens who have little but one another, their dreams, and musical connections adds spice and a sense of adventure and discovery. As with many young adult novels, adults rarely factor into the interactions and events presented – until Derek makes a deal-killing mistake that causes Sage to question their goals and more closely refine her own, separate dreams.

Less Than Nothing is a road trip undertaken on the power of dreams and the certainty of youth in meeting the seemingly-impossible head-on. It’s about a spunky girl who has her own well-developed psyche and who wants more than immersion in another’s dreams – and it’s about how two ambitions weave together in this milieu to create something better than either alone could have achieved.

While young adults will be the likely audience for Less Than Nothing, let’s not omit the adult reader who enjoys romances spiced with stories of personal transformation. It doesn’t get much more realistic or optimistic than this story of how two lives collide, move apart, and then consider the pros and cons of coming back together, but in a whole new way.

Less Than Nothing now has 11 reviews on Amazon from my ARC campaign to bloggers, and something like 19 or 20 on Goodreads. How cool is that? And they almost unanimously love the book.

More Than Anything, the second book in the series, has its own preorder button now, as does Less Than Nothing.

And Best Of Everything, which I’m currently working on, just went all preorder on your sh#t too.

I’m wearing my little fingers down to bloody nubs trying to get this trilogy out, but it seems worth it, because I’m enjoying writing it and it seems beta readers are enjoying reading it, which is all I can ask for.

Check out the covers for More Than Anything and Best Of Everything below.

Yes, there are days where two great things happen at the same time.

First, there’s the cinematic trailer for LTN. Don’t know why, but seeing it made me super happy.

Then, a friend alerted me that LTN got a great review from one of the ARCs sent to bloggers and reviewers. This one is on ThirtySecondReviews.

Yay!

Got my first detailed review on Goodreads! Five stars! And two libraries have the book down as to add to their libraries! Woohoo!!!

That is all.

Want to talk about awesome? How can you top this?

Less Than Nothing and More Than Anything are available as preorders on Amazon, and soon to follow on B&N and Apple!

Which makes me very happy, because interest has been exceptional for a new author name’s debut novels.

Check it out! Buy em for your friends! Pets! Loved ones! Hated rivals and enemies! Complete strangers!

You get the drift.

All I’m going to say is that you won’t be sorry.

Here are the two covers.