Highlighting the best independent publications in fiction and non-fiction. Your new favorite author is right here.

Kenny Soward

Kenny SowardKenny Soward grew up in Crescent Park, Kentucky, a small suburb just south of Cincinnati, Ohio, listening to AC/DC, Quiet Riot, and Iron Maiden. In those quiet 1970’s streets, he jumped bikes, played Nerf football, and acquired many a childhood scar.

At the age of sixteen, he learned to play drums, and did so with a passion. Kenny bashed skins for many groups over the next twenty years, and his musical tastes grew to include folk, alternative, bluegrass, and new age.

By day, Kenny works as a Unix professional, and at night he writes and sips bourbon.

ROUGH MAGIC is Kenny’s first high fantasy novel, Book I of the GnomeSaga.

Kenny lives in Independence, Kentucky, with three cats and a gal who thinks she’s a cat.

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Galefire (Urban Fantasy)

galefireLonnie is just your average runner for the infamous Eighth Street Gang when he gets an urgent phone call to back up his crew after trouble follows them home from a drug deal gone bad.

During the ensuing firefight, Lonnie sees some things he wishes he hadn’t, including the gang’s leader, Selix, channeling her powers from a place called the Fade by getting high…and dancing. Memories begin unraveling inside Lonnie’s darkened mind. Memories of dragons and fiends and fire-swept otherworlds. Memories Selix controls with a simple touch.

But what is real and what is not?

In the strange and violent world of Galefire, Lonnie comes to realize not everything is as it seems, including his own identity. But will Lonnie and Selix reconcile the past before they are caught by those who seek to drag them home in chains?

Re-Release Coming This January

Rough Magick: Gnomesaga, Book I (Fantasy/Horror)

Rough Magick“5/5 STARS. Well imagined world with a great story, ROUGH MAGICK evokes wonderment, laughter, a sense of foreboding, anger, and involves every possible emotion. Strongly recommended.”
—Frank Michaels Errington, Horrible Book Reviews

NIKSABELLA the gnome has tinkered in the shadows for years, developing an invention that might change the world—even if she doesn’t know it. She has few friends and even fewer allies in Hightower, where social and academic status is crucial.

Her brother, NIKSELPIK, is an obstinate wizard who drinks heavily, sings dirty songs, and makes unmannerly passes at gnomestresses. A dark addiction consumes him, giving him increased power while also pushing him closer to death.

Dark, otherworldy creatures, foreign to the lands of SULLENOR, have suddenly appeared, making chaos wherever they go. In the wake of this, Niksabella must fight to protect her life and her invention, while Nikselpik engages the enemy as an unlikely counselor to Hightower’s military elite.

Will the gnomish siblings find their true powers together, or perish apart? And will they overcome the wounds of their childhood before it’s too late?

Amazon US

Tinkermage: Gnomesaga, Book II (Fantasy/Horror)

TinkermageThe enemy exposed!

Nikselpik Nur has become the city of Hightower’s staunchest—albeit unwilling—ally. He’s hardly learned to cope with his debilitating bugging addiction, much less take on the duties of being the city’s First Wizard. Can he embrace this new path? And will he?

Meanwhile, Stena Wavebreaker is pulled from her seafaring duties by the Precisor General and given command of a raggedy airship to scout the ultraworldly enemy from the perilous skies above the Southern Reaches. Her mission: gain the support of the unpredictable ‘swamp elves,’ the Giyipcias.

Lastly, Niksabella Nur has set off from Hightower at the behest of the grim stonekin leader, Jontuk. The gnomestress must unlock the full potential of her invention, the recursive mirror, and her own powers, to bear what might be the heaviest burden of all. What will she discover along the way? And will Jontuk be able to keep her alive long enough to save them all?

This is book two of Kenny Soward’s epic gnomepunk fantasy, GnomeSaga!

Amazon US

Cogweaver: Gnomesaga, Book III (Fantasy/Horror)

CogweaverThe shadow has been lifted, revealing an insidious enemy. And now Hightower’s gnomish army rides out to meet the threat; yet, before he can join his brethren in the fight, wizard-turned-necromancer, Nikselpik Nur, must purge his archenemy, Raulnock, from the guts of Hightower’s sewers. Will Nik survive a final showdown with the most powerful wizard in Hightower’s history?

Elsewhere, Nik’s sister, Niksabella, must perfect her recursive mirror in order to command a race of stonekin warriors — who may eventually betray her — even as she struggles against an unyielding goddess for control of her own body and mind. Will Nika and her newfound army join the battle in time to save her city and blunt the deadly incursion into Sullenor? Only through a master tinkerer’s determination and skill can she overcome the odds and become the Cogweaver.

COGWEAVER by Kenny Soward is book three in the GnomeSaga trilogy. Get #1, ROUGH MAGICK, and #2, TINKERMAGE, also in print and eBook formats.

Amazon US

Those Poor, Poor Bastards: Dead West #1(Fantasy/Horror)
Authors Tim Marquitz, J.M.Martin, Kenny Soward

New Dead WestIn 1868, Nina Weaver and her pa, Lincoln, came down out of the Sierra Nevada to trade at Coburn Station, and to check out the newfangled “iron road” those bastards of the Central Pacific were stabbing right through the mountains with pickaxe, hammer, and black powder.

Just another damned thing to put the tribes on the warpath again, Nina reckoned. And with her being a half-blood, Pa cautioned her more than a few times to keep her dadgum hat on and her head down.

Being taken for an “Injun” becomes the least of their concerns, however, when the impossible happens. Hordes of walking dead, that’s right—“deaduns”—overrun Coburn Station, forcing Nina, Pa, and a few other hard-bitten survivors to hightail it dead west into the hostile hills to escape this dark Devil’s plague.

Amazon

The Ten Thousand Things: Dead West #2(Fantasy/Horror)
Authors Tim Marquitz, J.M.Martin, Kenny Soward

Dead West 2‘THE WALKING DEAD AND HELL ON WHEELS COLLIDE!’

STALKED ACROSS THE SIERRA NEVADA WILDERNESS by an evil they hardly understand, Nina Weaver and her allies have learned one crucial lesson: the only sure thing in life—and death—is a loaded gun. As they slog their way through scrubland and scree, still reeling from their encounters and feuds in “Dead West” book 1, they come across enemies, strangers, and turmoil within the group, as well. But this journey is more than physical for Nina Weaver, as she is discovering things about her spiritual powers and her connection to her Shoshone roots in the Land, the spirit world, and through the ancestors of her People. ‘Deaduns’ and other horrors abound, and Nina struggles to uphold unlikely alliances as the stale waft of rot threatens to overrun the Nevada Territory. Can Nina and company stand against…The Ten Thousand Things?

Amazon