RISE OF THE FALLEN
by Donya Lynne
In the streets of Chicago exists an uneasy, centuries-old truce between vampires and their distant cousins, a race of shifters called drecks.  Vampire enforcement agency, All the King’s Men (AKM), is charged with maintaining the truce, but when volatile enforcer Micah Black loses his mate and falls into the biological agony that results from the broken bond, he tests the boundaries of the truce by seeking out Apostle, a leader in the dreck community.  Micah wants Apostle to kill him, a request Apostle is more than happy to fulfill. 

When ex-Army medic Samantha Garrett inadvertently disrupts the plot and saves Micah’s life, a chain reaction sets Micah’s heart on a collision course with Sam’s, but he will have to protect her from Apostle and her obsessive ex-husband, Steve, if they will have a chance at forever.  Can Micah hold his emotions together to keep Sam alive? 

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Hi, I’m Donya Lynne, and that’s the blurb of my debut novel, Rise of the Fallen. I want to thank Demon Lover’s Books and More for allowing me to guest on their blog today to share a bit about the book and series.

The premise for the AKM series was to create a paranormal world of vampires and shifters cut from a different cloth. I love a good vampire story as much as the next person, but I wanted to give readers something different, yet familiar. Consequently, my vampires aren’t your everyday, common vampires. Each is different from the rest. Some are day walking mixed-bloods (human and vampire…or even a mix of non-human and vampire) who can go out in the sun and were born genetically-altered to possess special powers their mixed blood bestowed upon them. Others are pure-bloods with the standard powers of vampires and who dwell only in the shadows of night. However, whether my vampires are pure or mixed-blood, all are damaged and tragic in some way.

My stories are darker and delve more into pain and suffering than what I’ve seen in mainstream books. I’ve noticed a trend where readers seem to be ready for darker, sexier, grittier fantasy, and that fits perfectly with my style of writing. I am a conflict junkie. I love adversity and suffering. The more a character suffers, whether physically or emotionally, the greater their victory when they overcome (if they overcome) it. Case in point, Micah Black from Rise of the Fallen. He is a perfect example of how I like my characters to be tragic in some way.

I do have some books planned for this series that aren’t as hardcore as others, but Rise of the Fallen is a bit more on the harder core side. Micah is one ruthless, self-destructive male on a death mission when the book begins. Pain is his only companion, and that’s just how he wants it…until he meets Samantha Garrett and realizes he wants her instead. But even she has her trials to overcome. And together, they will be in even more danger. So, yes, lots of adversity and conflict rides along with the storyline in this one.

I also wanted to create a different kind of “enemy” in this paranormal world. That’s where the drecks come in. These beings are shifters, but not like werewolves or other animal shifting creatures. In their natural state, drecks appear bluish and gaunt, with long, black hair. In their shifted form, they can take on any human appearance they want. They are like chameleons, altering their appearance to blend in to their surroundings. And some of them, such as Apostle, would like nothing more than to eradicate the “disease” of vampires interfering with their objective to take over the world.

Drecks are distant cousins to the vampires. They have venom. They bite. But drecks have their own quirks and powers. However, they are inferior to vampires, which is the source of their discontent. Well, that and their general and overall lack of moral code. It’s the job of the vampires who work for All the King’s Men, an enforcement agency, to keep the drecks in check, but as the series develops, we’ll see that it won’t be easy. Not all books in the series will feature drecks, because that’s just how it worked out, but many will in one way or another.


It’s been a pleasure to share a bit of the AKM world with you. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about the book, Rise of the Fallen, as well as the series. Book two, Heart of the Warrior, comes out May 25, and it definitely follows the tragic relationship MO that Rise of the Fallen started.

Happy reading!

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