Moonlight Harbor Mysteries: The Sailor's Manifest

by Blake Rivers

189 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 11, 2026

About the author

I did not write any of this AI Slop that keeps being attributed to me. I would never use AI. I am sorry Goodreads is so bad at this… I have three books. The Assassin Princess, A Step into Darkscape and The Assassin's Codaci, and a short story collection called Takes of Legacy.

Hi, I'm Blake and as you may have guessed by now, I'm a writer. Yup, that’s right, I write books and I wrote my first novel, The Assassin Princess, in 2011 when I was twenty-eight. Two sequels followed, A Step into Darkscape and The Assassin's Codaci. This magical fantasy series started as a story written about my girlfriend, at the time, an artist who dreamed of being a fierce warrior in another world, who kicked butt and swung a sword to battle the enemy. It grew and became The Assassin Princess, a tale of an artist who is kidnapped and taken to a strange land full of magic, talking unicorns and dragons. It goes dark, exploring jealously, greed and hunger; it goes light and reaches for the best in even the most flawed of characters. But in essence, it still remains about her at its heart.

I started writing when I was seven years old. Back then it was mostly poems about whatever interested me at the time, be it the seasons or the planets, or my love for libraries and books. I also turned my hand to a few short stories, all hand written and lost over time.

I don’t remember why I started writing, but I do remember what inspired me to do it. It was Yuri, writing his poems to Lara in the frozen house in the film Dr Zhivago, and the beautiful music played, Lara’s Theme; it was the sound of the typewriter at the very start of the film Misery, where Paul Sheldon finishes his latest book.

These still inspire me to this day, along with whole host of other influences: the novels by Brandon Sanderson, Sarah J. Maas, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Anne Rice, Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell to name a few. Any movie that shows a typewriter.

Reviews

[Mary Wigley]

Wonderfully written!!>

Enjoyed every chapter!The descriptions of baking,the town,the characters and the theme were so skillful the I could see and feel the scenes!!! Loved the cat and his keen perspective!!!

[M.]

Decent

This was an alright read. There's definitely a way to over-describe things, and this book does that to a fault. The story line was decently cool, but every little detail was just so drawn out. Meh.

[Lynn]

Great story

There was nothing in this book I didn't like, but I wish I'd read the prequels first). The writing is skillful, the through line is taut--and entirely plausible, and the characters true to life.

Looking forward to the sequels (I now wish I'd bought the set).

[Shelia Jamison]

Well worth the read. One chapter put to bed, but the rest of the book entices.

[Jackson]

an interesting way of writing that is soothing to ponder

[Debra Hely]

It’s written by AI and stole a real author’s name.