Greetings, Champions! I have got a bit of a surprise to spring on you all today.
As you might recall, near the start of summer I talked about working on my “passion project,” and I’m finally ready to reveal it. This summer I launched a pen name: A. M. Sohma. I created the pen name to work as a bit of a divider. My Sohma stories will be more adventure focused and less romance driven, and most of them will be in genres that probably won’t interest many of you–specifically sci fi and a particular genre called LitRPG.
At it’s core, LitRPG is basically a story in which the characters are stuck in a video game, or spend a lot of time in a video game. There’s a lot of gamer jargon, specific tropes are expected, and since the stories take place inside a video game things like levels, character stats, and skills are discussed a lot. All of that is really different from my beloved fairy tales, and I didn’t want to launch it as K. M. Shea, have you guys pick it up because you assumed it would be something you would enjoy, and end up disliking the story. So I decided to launch A. M. Sohma. In fact, A. M. Sohma’s first LitRPG book was released a few weeks ago: The Luckless.
Welcome to Retha, the full submersion video game where you can be the hero of your own adventure. Unfortunately for Kit, it only takes one moment to turn the game into a nightmare.
When Chronicles of Retha experiences a software malfunction, Kit—a disenchanted veteran player—is stuck in the game without a way to log off. Even worse, she’s trapped playing as the most defective character possible, an elf dancer that was meant to be a prank.
Thankfully, she receives word that there is a way out. But the only escape route is to defeat the game’s ultimate villain. Kit, in her joke character, must fight her way through some of the worst Retha has to offer. Her only help is a party of low-leveled players just as powerless as she is, and the occasional act of mercy from one of the best players in the game, the taciturn (and aloof) Solus Miles.
Can Kit and her new friends finish the quest, or will Retha be their end?
Here’s the thing. A. M. Sohma’s books are still going to contain all my usual signature things: quirky characters, humor, butt-kicking heroines, clean romance, the works. It’s really just that the subject matter is so different, I wanted to separate the two out to avoid any potential conflicts. I hope you give The Luckless a try, but if video games aren’t your thing, don’t worry about it. I want my books to be entertaining, and if it’s something you don’t like it won’t be able to entertain you!!
If you want to learn more you can check out the A. M. Sohma tab. I’m running a separate mailing list for it that way I can really keep the audiences separate, and just like my K. M. Shea Starter Pack, I give away a free Luckless short story to those who sign up for it.
I’ll talk about A. M. Sohma some more in the next few weeks to make sure that we’re all on the same page, but that’s the basic run down for now. Thanks for reading, Champions! I’ll see you on Friday when I announce the winners of the next round of the Favorite Secondary Characters Poll!