Kate Kelly's Blog

 
Eww - there's some Geology in my Fiction. 

Coming soon - an anthology of Earth Science short fiction containing my short story Permafrost, which originally appeared in Issues in Earth Science.

The anthology will be released on May 13th but is available for pre-order now.

Find it HERE.

The Book:

Hannah-9 is a symbiote: a child of Heaven and Hell, bred in the bowels of the Last City. Implanted into an ancient, nuclear-powered war machine—a God-engine—she stalks the wastes with Rachel-3, her sister-in-arms.

Their mandate is absolute: to wage war against the Adversary, to purify the Earth, and to endure—until the radiation consumes them.

This is her story.

My Thoughts:

I came across this novella through the Self Published Indie Novella Competition (SFINCs) which is a sister contest to...

The Book:

Some lies are best left buried…

Science and magic are forbidden in Brandshold, where the Seven Gods' scripture dictates daily life. When spirit-magic erupts, disrupting an alchemical experiment, fear rolls across the realm and awakens the veil dragons buried deep beneath a forest, their existence struck from memory by the Gods.

Laoch, a veteran of the crusades, and Sura, an elf disowned by her tribe, stand as warriors of spirit and bone against the oncoming tide, while a queen shackled by...

The Book: 

Are you so sure you’re the painter, and not the painting?

Micah has a hangover, a looming deadline, and a very opinionated rat following him around the orbital station. No one else can see it—which is definitely not ideal.

Outside, the wealthy are fleeing Earth on seed ships. Inside, Micah’s team has days to perfect their gene-editing tech, or be left behind. On top of that, Micah’s unsure if reality is taking an extended vacation, or if his brain has finally short-circuited.

Equal parts ...

Dragons of Dunmoray has been nominated in the Indie Ink Awards 2025 in three categories. Here are some more details for each of these.

Why not head over to the Indie Ink Awards 2025 and give my dragons some love.

Voting is now open for the Indie Ink Awards and Permafrost has been nominated in four categories. Here are some more details for each:

Please vote over at Indie Ink Awards 2025.

Two of my novels, Dragons of Dunmoray and Permafrost, have picked up nomination in the 2025 Indie Ink Awards. 

Dragons of Dunmoray has been nominated for:

Best Mentor CharacterBest Morally Grey CharacterWriting the Future we need - Mental Health Representation

Whilst Permafrost has been nominated for:

Best SettingBest FriendshipSide Character MVPThis Book Made me Hungry/Thirsty

Voting is now open over at Indie Ink 2025 so do please head over and give them both some love.

Thank you for all your support...

 The Book:

Surfside City, New Jersey. 1966. Cub reporter Harman Bass is cutting his teeth in the fast world of local journalism and getting out-scooped by the competition. Facetious, cocky, and always quoting Nietzsche, Harman isn't making any friends both in and out of the newsroom.

All that changes when the daughter of a prominent family is found dead on the beach, handing Harman the juiciest news story of the year. But she isn't any old beauty pageant queen; she's his high school girlfriend. Ha...

 
The Book:

For a thousand years, The Old Town has stood as humanity's last bastion against the maalkonis, malignant black mists that reduced the rest of the world to ash. They are kept at bay by rusty machines on the town's walls. In order to survive, the dwindling population depends on one another.

Since a young age, Justīne has embraced the harsh responsibilities that accompanied her apprenticeship on the last farm in existence. Her younger sister, Anna, is beginning her own apprenticeship as we...

Earlier this year I looked around at potential platforms to use for a newsletter. Several authors that I’m acquainted with send these out sporadically and it seems like a good way to build and keep in contact with their readership. So after a bit of deliberation and looking at what other people were using I decided on Substack.

It’s been interesting. There’s a vibrant community on Substack but also a cohort of people who are vehemently against it, although I’ve yet to see any evidence to back up ...