In case you didn’t know, Deliver released today! Yay! You can find it on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.
I can’t believe the final book in The Blades of Acktar has released. It hasn’t even been two years since Dare released. What a whirlwind two years it has been!
To celebrate, I thought I’d give 7 pieces of trivia that you may or may not know about The Blades of Acktar.
- Acktar is based on South Dakota, especially the western part. Acktar has miles of prairie, but it also borders the Sheered Rock Hills to the north, which are based off the Black Hills, including some of the waterfalls and caves. It was fun basing Acktar off a more unusual setting instead of the forests found in most fantasies.
- The Waste if based off the Badlands. Stands to reason, since Acktar IS based off South Dakota. My research on the Badlands actually played a part in the plot of Defy. I initially planned for Leith to stumble across a water hole. But when I did some research into the Badlands, I learned that there aren’t any water holes there. Plus the ground is so full of harmful minerals that even boiling can’t cleanse rainwater enough to drink. So of course I had to include that in the book.
- The one part of the geography of Acktar NOT based on South Dakota is the Spires Canyon. That was in part inspired by the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The ground around that canyon is very flat, and in a lot of places, you can’t see the canyon until you are almost right up to it.
- Renna’s mother’s favorite verse (Be not afraid; only believe) is from Mark 5:36 and was one of my great-grandma’s favorite verses. My great-grandma lived in the Netherlands during WWII. My great-grandpa was in the Dutch Resistance, often on the run, and hunted by the Nazis. My great-grandma had a plaque with this verse on it hanging in her kitchen to give her courage when she worried about my great-grandpa. It seemed like a verse Renna would use to give herself courage.
- Believe it or not, Lady Lorraine WASN’T in the first draft of Dare. I hadn’t had any plans for her as a character, since, at first, I hadn’t even intended for Jolene or her mother to be in Dare. Shad wasn’t supposed to even meet her until book 2, but he decided to go and get a romance behind my back. I then had to add Jolene’s mother in when I added the meeting at Lydia’s birthday party, and Lady Paula Lorraine took over from there.
- *Spoiler Warning* Lord Alistair died in the original version of Deny and Defy. Walden was overrun within a few hours and everyone killed. Yeah. Lots of death. When re-writing Defy, I had started writing Deliver and knew Lord Alistair had work to do. So I resurrected Lord Alistair and added him back into Defy and Deliver. But, yes, in the original draft of the first about 20,000 words of Deliver, Shad was the new Lord Alistair.
- Before Martyn demanded a fourth book, my original plan was for Defy to have an epilogue that was set 10 years after the ending of the book. Leith’s identity remained a secret in this original outline all the way until then.
Ready for more celebration? This Friday, I’m hosting a Facebook party to celebrate Deliver‘s release. Follow this link to the party!
Tricia Mingerink 
That’s so interesting your great-grandparents were in the Netherlands during WW2! (Did they ever meet Corrie Ten Boom?) 🙂
Whoa, Lady Lorraine wasn’t in the first draft of Dare? I’m so glad you changed that! *Spoiler warning* And Lord Alistair DIED??? I won’t even get started on that.
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I’m pretty sure my great-grandparents didn’t know Corrie Ten Boom…at least, not that they ever told anyone. Even if they did know her, they probably never knew her real name and she wouldn’t have known theirs. A few years after the war, my grandpa met someone from Amsterdam who had known my great-grandpa, which is really surprising since my great-grandpa didn’t live anywhere close to Amsterdam. So we know he at least traveled that far and had contacts there during the war. What else he did, no one knows. He and my great-grandma never told anyone and their secrets died with them.
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Wow! This is so fascinating. 🙂 And I have been to the Snake River Canyon! I know exactly what you are talking about.
I’m glad Lord Alistair didn’t die, but it would have been cool to have Shad be a lord.
I enjoyed this post a lot! Thanks and congrats!
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Personally, I think Shad doesn’t really want to be a lord yet. He is perfectly happy to let Lord Alistair take care of the paperwork and political side of things while Shad gets to keep having adventures with Leith and Martyn.
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Hi Tricia!!! I’m in the middle of reading deliver and had to stop and thank you for these amazing books. I was also wandering were to send fan art or an email.
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Fan art is always appreciated! You can email me through the contact form on my website. I don’t believe you can attach there, but if you have the fan art posted anywhere, please send me the link. You can always send me fanart through Facebook or Twitter. Links to both of those can be found on my social media page on my website.
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I would really like to receive your novella “Deal.” Are you still sending that out with a subscription to your blog?
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Yes, I am still sending that out for newsletter subscribers (not blog subscribers, sorry). If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, here is the link: https://triciamingerink.com/my-newsletter/
Once you sign up, you should receive an automatic welcome email with a link to the short story within 24 hours. If you don’t, check your junk folder in case the email got put there. If you still can’t find it, let me know.
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