O.R. Lea's Blog

In case you didn't already see on my socials, I was recently lucky enough to collaborate with an incredible couple of photographers, Daria Shvedova and Maxim Chernikov, to produce a set of photos recreating scenes from Riebeckite. Here are just a few of them, and you can see many more on my Instagram (@orleaauthor). I'm blown away by how great these turned out. Let's be honest, if these were promo images for a new Netflix series, you'd watch it, right?

Want to enjoy a quality horror read AND support an indie author this halloween? These three titles are the perfect witches' brew. (......OK fine, I'll stop that now.)



All of Me by Iseult Murphy is a horror fable for our time, mixing equal parts black humour, body horror and compassion that hits like a sucker punch to the heart. It recently won the Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award. I've read a bunch of Murphy's books, and haven't had a bad one yet.

Fleshed Out by filmmaker-turned-author Rob Ulitski is a collection of gut-churning body horror short stories that takes you on a tour through the gruesome ways our bodies can twist, contort and transform into our worst nightmares. The book features accompanying artwork by a variety of contributors.

Lastly, Do You Get What You Pray For is my own humble offering: a story of a woman whose childhood was plagued by nightmares about a sinister figure known only as 'Scapegoat', whose visitations often portended tragedy. Turning to wiccan magic at university, she thought she'd rid herself of him. But when Alma refuses her troubled brother's call to help him stay out of prison, Scapegoat enters her life once again, and unless she can trace the source of her curse, people around her will keep dying.

What other horror books by indie authors are you recommending to people this spooky season?

#spookyseasonreads #spookyreads #spookyseason #halloweenreads #halloweenreads2022 #horrorbooks #scaryreads #scaryreadsforoctober #bodyhorror

I recently read the new horror short by Iseult Murphy, magnificently titled "Hedgehogs". As a big fan her work, I was as delighted as ever, and left a semi-flippant comment that the cover would look awesome as a glossy A2 poster.

A couple of exchanges later, and look what I received in the post! Thanks so much to Iseult for this gift. It will be getting pride of place on the wall next to the Shaun of the Dead icons.

Following a flurry of interest, I've decided to informally publish another of my older novels. This time it's my whimsical D&D style fantasy adventure "The Silken Key".

This book came about after a friend invited me to join their Dungeons and Dragons group. I'd never played before, but I threw myself into learning the rules and conceiving a selection of characters.

However, it was several months before we got around to playing. My restless imagination filled the time with writing this book, featuring the five characters I'd come up with.

When the time to play finally came, I had a 250 page backstory to present to the astonished Dungeon Master. And now, I present it to all of you!

#fantasybooks #yafantasybooks #dungeonsanddragonscharacter #dndcharacter #dndcharacterart #dndfiction #dndstory #dndbooks #dndnovel

A special bottle to celebrate an awesome book tour for Riebeckite. In four days it's been downloaded on Kindle over 1300 times, had almost 5000 Kindle Unlimited page reads, and recieved some truly glowing reviews. And it's still going.

I never fooled myself into thinking this writing lark would become a full-time job; all I ever wanted was for this book to end up in readers' hands and to be enjoyed. My boundless thanks goes out to everyone who's shared, reviewed, supported or in any way helped make this possible.

Thanks also to Blackthorn Book Tours for organising.



#blackthornbooktours #sciencefictionbooks #hardscifi #riebeckite #bookstagram #booknerd #scifithriller #scifibooks #scifireads #scifiauthor #sciencefictionbook #writingcommunity #indyauthors #indieauthor #indieauthorsofig

...Cleansing Rain by Holly Ash! Just like my book, it's got a great female protagonist squaring up against an environmental crisis and a sinister, obstructive human conspiracy a choices that could impact the future of humanity.

I've officially decided that the Bruised Moon Sequence will be a trilogy.

I recently took part in "Writers for Ukraine" with Activated Authors, and wrote a short story which I'd always planned to be the seminal form of Camp Chelovek (Bruised Moon #3).

And comissioning the cover art is like writing a cheque to my readers, promising that it will definitely be written!

Riebeckite is available right now on Kindle, and an Audiobook is in production narrated by a very talented London-based British-Iranian musician and voice talent, Sahel Manuchery-Wahed.

Torpor's End is set for publication in November of this year, and Camp Chelovek will be published next March. Truthfully, this is ambitious as I haven't even finished a first draft for either book.

But sometimes you just have to stick a deadline up your butt and light the fuse.