RE Blake

My new pseudonym, R.E. Blake, is now live, in preparation for the first in a string of NA/YA and CR novels. You can view RE’s new blog here, or check out and like the Facebook page, which I would appreciate. Friend it, too, while you’re at it.

I’ve been too busy to do Twitter, but that too shall come.

The first R.E. Blake novels will release in October, and are more in the tradition of Twilight and The Fault In Our Stars than my usual fare, hence my creation of a new brand. I don’t want Russell Blake readers to inadvertently pick up an R.E. Blake novel expecting car chases and gunfights, just as I don’t want R.E. Blake readers to pick up JET or BLACK expecting a poignant NA romance.

This is an example of me walking my talk. I’ve long maintained that the author name is a brand, and that you want to make it painfully easy for readers to understand what they’re getting when they see your brand.

Russell Blake novels are breakneck-paced adrenaline rushes in the action/thriller genre, R.E. Blake…aren’t.

Which isn’t to say that some Russell Blake readers won’t be interested in R.E. Blake’s work. Early beta readers have said that the first R.E. Blake novel, Less Than Nothing, is a blockbuster YA/NA novel that manages to combine the romantic coming-of-age saga of two teen runaways with a classic road novel like Huckleberry Finn, which makes for a unique mashup that’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. I probably should have thrown in a fight for survival in a dystopian future, but hey, hindsight…

But many won’t be interested in that new and completely different genre. Which is as it should be. This way they won’t inadvertently pick up the wrong author’s work and be disappointed.

In other news, I’m delighted to announce that I’m hard at work on a second Fargo novel with Clive Cussler, and this one, like my first co-authored novel with the “Grand Master of Adventure,” is going to be a hell of a yarn. That debut effort, The Eye Of Heaven, releases Sept. 2, so we don’t have much longer to go before we see how his fans like our new offering.

That’s all I have for now. Hope you’re enjoying  your summer. I know I am.