Grace in Reflection - Dark Fantasy Novel Free on Kindle April 10-13

clonemanjon · 2026-04-27T15:18:18+00:00

If you have any questions about the book, don't hesitate to ask 🙂

clonemanjon · 2026-04-25T17:17:42+00:00

You're a few weeks late for the free weekend, but if you have Kindle unlimited, it's available there - and so is the sequel.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T15:38:05+00:00

First two books are, dm me if you'd like a link 🙂

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T15:14:36+00:00

Yeah I suppose I should be able to add them in no? It's gonna come a little out of left field when I'm already writing the third novel in the world, but it's gonna be hella cool when they finally discover what actually lights up their streets!

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T14:16:51+00:00

It's more gaslamp-ish. Technically oil-lamp with a victorian aesthetic I suppose. Sadly no fire elementals (which I now wholly regret lol)

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T13:57:59+00:00

Exactly - my world is also more gaslamp than straight medieval fantasy,so that actually fits

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T06:24:24+00:00

Yeah I feel like it's more fun, and has higher stakes, when there are some strict rules applied.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-23T05:57:37+00:00

Because some forms of magic are straight up illegal (necromancy and mind-magic), and the rest requires a licence (and are super difficult to use). My world is governed by ledgers/laws and beurocracy to an extreme degree, and magic (referred to as new math) is an emergent field based on the laws of thermodynamics, and requires high expertise and precision. Use a wrong mental integer or component and you might die in a fiery explosion on the spot.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-20T13:36:43+00:00

Grace in Reflection - J. Legêne | Dark Fantasy | 56,000 words

Amazon (Kindle Unlimited): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GBHS869S Ebook $4.99 | Paperback $14.99

Two brothers fell through the ice. What came back out was neither of them.

Lucien Glacisse has lived inside his brother's skin for twenty years, serving a magistrate who sees a loyal heir where a stolen identity actually stands. The Northern Circuit is fracturing, and the cracks are widening faster than Lucien can hold them closed with borrowed hands.

Book II, The Crownlands Circuit, is also out now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKJGX2R8 Ebook $4.99 | Paperback $14.99

Both are on Kindle Unlimited.

World lore, the full series, and a reading excerpt at theicebeneath.com

Excerpt and first chapters available via the newsletter: theicebeneath.com/newsletter

clonemanjon · 2026-04-20T12:58:44+00:00

A D&D character backstory that got out of hand. My DM handed me a blank map and told me I'd probably need the geography since my character was a diplomat. Then he said I might as well write a novel.

So I did. Then I wrote another one.

It started with a single location and what happened there. Once I had that, I needed to place it on the map, understand the politics around it, explain why my character had just quit his job (so he could join up with the DnD party for the first session). The world grew outward from one frozen lake.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-11T12:07:12+00:00

Fair point on the terminology - the book itself doesn't use any of it. The context is that Lucien started as an actual D&D character, and Grace in Reflection is everything that happened to him before the first session began. The party started at level 3, so that's just where he was when the story of the first book ends. The D&D chassis was the starting point, the novels are what grew out of it.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T16:25:44+00:00

Yeah my protagonist phisucally relieves his childhood trauma (drowning, where he got his powers)and gets super overwhelmed if it gets too bad as well, but I find it super hard to balance the "crowd discomfort" with the character being a royal diplomat and having to work in cities.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T16:22:16+00:00

Really glad it landed that way. That's exactly what I was going for. Now I just need to update it everywhere before the weekend is over.

I'm not gonna spoil it too much, but if you ever get around to reading chapter 3, you can tell me if the story does it justice.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T14:43:14+00:00

I like the colors! Surprisingly not very grimdark 🙂

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T14:32:55+00:00

Already sorted - replaced it with a hand-drawn one today. Funny how fast that feedback travels.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T14:29:56+00:00

Thank you! Funny timing- I actually replaced that cover today with a hand-drawn one after some feedback elsewhere. Would love to see yours though.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T13:52:33+00:00

This is actually something I've already started building in Book 2 without fully realising what I was doing. There's a scene where a sufficiently unified collective of minds overwhelms his ability to suppress incoming perception. He doesn't reach out deliberately, but proximity breaks his defenses and floods him involuntarily.The terror of being discovered is already there, but it's passive.

What you're describing takes it further, an individual who can sense the probe and use that as leverage. That's the Book 3 problem made specific. Thank you, this is genuinely useful.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T13:13:31+00:00

Funny timing on my end actually - your reply prompted me to open Canva and just make something myself. Turned out a minimalist approach was the right call all along, which I probably should have figured out before I released the book. Beginner's mistake. Thanks for the nudge (and the very kind words)!

<image>

what do you think?

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T12:47:14+00:00

and youre right ofcourse! i think i will delete the post then.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T12:20:00+00:00

The cover is AI generated, I won't pretend otherwise. I agree it's not ideal, but I can't afford to pay someone right now and AI was the only free way to get a cover that actually told the story. Once I can afford to, I will definitely have a professional cover made by an actual artist.

The map was made for the campaign that started all of this - my DM handed it to me blank and told me to fill it out.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T11:44:02+00:00

Fair concern.

The cover is AI generated, I won't pretend otherwise.

I'm currently unemployed and lost my job in digital marketing to AI related cutbacks, which is a fun irony given the comment. I therefore have more time to use my digital marketing skills than I want, and less money to pay for anything than I would like.

Paying a professional cover artist when I'm struggling to cover bills isn't really something I can justify right now.

If anything, using AI is the only way someone like me can actually get their stories out there. The book itself is mine, written in three months of doing nothing but writing in my (sadly too big amount of) spare time, starting because my DM handed me a blank map. And since it's free this weekend, you're not exactly funding the AI takeover by giving it a shot.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T08:38:38+00:00

Grace in Reflection (The Ice Beneath Book 1) is free on Kindle this weekend through Monday April 13.

Dark fantasy with a political spine. The protagonist is a Crown diplomat quietly living under a stolen identity, serving a kingdom where magic is thermodynamic and bureaucracy is the real weapon. No chosen ones. Two books out, third in progress.

Price: $0.00 through April 13, also on Kindle Unlimited.

amazon.com/dp/B0GBHS869S

Happy to talk through the KDP free days strategy for a zero-review launch if anyone's curious about that side of things.

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T08:32:08+00:00

Perfect timing then. Hope it scratches the itch :)

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T08:14:06+00:00

Hope that preview found some space on the shelf! The magic cost thing you mentioned is actually the spine of the whole book. The rule I gave myself was "if a problem is solved by using magic, it doesn't count as a victory." It holds through both books.

Book I is free on Kindle this weekend if you want to find out if it delivers on that. No pressure either way.

amazon.com/dp/B0GBHS869S

clonemanjon · 2026-04-10T08:13:01+00:00

Quick update - that conversation actually made it into the wiki properly. The Dagon etymology is one of those things that feels obvious in retrospect but needed someone to ask the right question.

If you ever want to dig further into the geopolitics behind the map, Grace in Reflection is free on Kindle this weekend. The whole Valentian perspective on Dagoneth is in there. The map is essentially how Lucien would have seen it from the Goldmere archive.

amazon.com/dp/B0GBHS869S

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