Cover genesis for Kingmaker’s Sword

Thought we’d share the cover genesis for book one of Ann Marston’s Rune Blades of Celi series, Kingmaker’s Sword. There were a few iconic images we wanted to incorporate into the cover, and indeed the series, the primary one being a sword. But not just any sword. According to Ann she was fascinated as a girl by her grandfather’s claymore, “that hung over the fireplace in the living-room when we lived in Manchester,” she says. “It…

Where Five Rivers meet today

Today’s blogging is essentially an update of our progress here at Five Rivers. Oh, we have been busy. One might even say frenetic. Here goes: Mike Fletcher is working on the revision of 88, and should have that to us by the close of April. He says the revision is going well, and that we’ve ruined him for ever again enjoying the act of reading fiction. Apparently phrases like: expository lump, or inconsistent POV, or…

Intern positions open

We’ve grown to the point at Five Rivers that we find ourselves in need of more staff to assist in various departments. Please understand these are intern positions, and as such you’re working for Five Rivers for love and glory, and unfortunately not for remuneration. Having said that, there’s an opportunity here for the right people to join a dynamic, developing publishing house during a pivotal year, and gain what we think is rewarding and…

Five Rivers Signs Two-book Deal with Matthew Hughes

Matt Hughes Late last week an agreement was reached between Five Rivers Publishing and well-known Canadian author, Matthew Hughes, to reprint his 1997 crime mystery, Downshift, and to release the unpublished sequel, Old Growth. “We’re very pleased to give Matt’s work a home here,” says Lorina Stephens, publisher at Five Rivers. Hughes writes fantasy and science fiction under the name Matthew Hughes, and Matt Hughes for crime fiction. He’s won the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur…

Commerce as censor

Once again I find myself stunned by the increasingly moralistic, repressive response we seem to be experiencing in Western society. My astonishment is centred around PayPal’s recent McCarthyistic bullying of Smashwords, among others. The crux of the issue is either Smashwords and other specifically named distributors and aggregators of literary content, revise their censorship policies to comply with PayPal’s views, or face having their accounts shut down. While I personally am not a lover of…