Author Spotlight: Uprising, The Rose Warriors by Craig Kimber

Available from Amazon, Leap of Faith Publishing

Blurb:

In a small village over the mountains surrounding Kyoto, the villagers prepare for an annual tradition. All seems to go well until the village is stormed and all the inhabitants are taken prisoner, except one. Simple village girl, Osei, finds herself alone in the misty mountains on her way to the city. A run in with a near death experience brings her to Kilik, an extremely powerful samurai who vows to keep her safe. Their ventures pull them both into a war beyond imagination, and Osei finds herself gradually transforming into something that she grew up to fear...a samurai.

Excerpt:

“This is not going to end well,” Kota whispered to me. He placed his hand by his side and clutched onto the handle of something. “When I say so, I want you to run for the mountains. I will follow later when the situation has been handled.”

          

“You test my patience, Zhuge,” the samurai barked, drawing his sword and pointing it at Zhuge’s throat. “When I count to five, my men will burn this village to ashes.”

         

“You don’t frighten me, Oyodo,” Grand Master Zhuge hissed. “You are a coward hiding behind his pawns.”

          

“So you wish to bring destruction to your home...fine...” the man sighed. “One...two...”

          

“Run now, Osei!” Kota commanded, advancing toward the man, drawing a small blade.

          

“Three...four...!” the man continued. Just before he reached the final number, Kota hurled the knife towards him, impaling his shoulder. The silence was no more as the crowd began to panic and the ninjas began to advance toward Kota. Several villagers grabbed what weapons they could to defend him, but they were no match for the agile ninjas.

About Craig Kimber:

Start of Career: I started writing as a hobby at the beginning of February 2011, and my love for samurai stories led me to begin writing "The Rose Warriors: Uprising." Originally named "The Five Rose Warriors," its main influence was the video game, "Way of the Samurai." When playing the game I found that a single samurai building a faction to take down a vast empire was simply exhilarating, so I decided that I need to make that my aim. The story started as a simple village girl learning to be a samurai, but the idea just wasn't special enough. I asked myself "What will make this book different to every other book I have read?" So I did some research and I found that there were hardly any stories written about the historic fall of the samurai, which the movie "The Last Samurai (Tom Cruise)" is revolved around.

After the first four chapters I let my friend read it, and I was told it was the best story he had ever read. I passed it around to get some further opinions, and I was asked every time "What happens next?" with the upmost enthusiasm. I thought up some ideas for how to make the story different to every other samurai rebellion story, so I called upon another genre passion, fantasy. I took the end of the samurai era, and transformed it into a war filled with magic and supernatural beings.

I spent every single night coming up with ideas of how to make it better and all I could think about while living life was the story, and it was from that moment I discovered my calling was to make a living of my newfound passion. More ideas for stories started to fill my head and began to make plans for future novels, including the sequel to "Uprising," "Revival."