My Bio
Yggdrasil body art by Mark S Holsworth (http://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com)
I’ve had a variety of careers, including fruit picker and Occult librarian and lived in Germany and Denmark for a decade. Now I’m back in my beloved Melbourne and working for the railways.
I’ve published 3 books as me – Mage Heart and the Aurealis award winners Fire Angels and Aramaya, and one book as Rebecca Locksley – The Three Sisters. My short stories
have been widely anthologized, appeared in Meanjin and read on the ABC.My favourite writers are Jane Austen, Angela Carter, Sara Douglass, Janet Evanovich, and Gail Carriger.
My current life ambition is to see an erupting volcano.
Awards
2000 Nominated for a Ditmar Award for “To Avalon”
1999 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel for Aramaya.
1998 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel for Fire Angels
1989 Winner Moonee Valley Library Short Story Competition for “Red Roses”
Books
Mage Heart
Provincial and naive – and a powerful mage – young Dion is an innocent adrift in a world of intriguesand treacheries with hungry demons lurking just beyond its borders. And now she has been called up to protect the Dukes favourite mistress : the extraordinary Kitten Avignon, Our Lady of Roses. The mesmirising courtesan is a woman in dire peril, stalked by a necromancer who will not sleep until his beautiful prey suffers horribly.
Reviews
“One of the genres bright new stars… Routley produces a fantasy that can be read for more than myth or pyrotechnics… While many fantasists simply add magic to political intrigue, Routley’s are noteworthy for the natural and inevitable intertwining of the two. Well drawn backgrounds and characters add to the appeal.” Publishers Weekly
“A highly original romatic fantasy ” – Cherry Wilder, author of Signs of Life
Print edition from Ticonderoga Publications through Indie Books Online http://www.indiebooksonline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=131
Ebook edition : http://clandestinepress.com.au
Fire Angels
An accomplished fantasy of maturity and depth, Routley’s second novel (after Mage Heart) continues the story of Dion Holyhands, raised by a stern foster father to develop her outstanding magical powers. Here, Dion is re-introduced to the extended family she had lost and continues her coming of age, including renewed battle against her lover and foe the demon Bedazzer. Dion is a strong character but often overcome by self-doubt and guilt. Aided by the gypsylike 
Wanderers, she finds that her magic has destined her for a central role in the government of her homeland, Moria. Publishers Weekly
Print edition from Ticonderoga Publications through Indie Books Online http://www.indiebooksonline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=131
Ebook edition : http://clandestinepress.com.au
Aramaya
The third outing (after Fire Angels) of the mage Dion Holyhands…takes her across the ocean to the land of Aramaya, the centre of civilization and she suspects, the current home of her missing niece Syndal… Dion and her friend Kitten survive the shipwreck to reach Akieva… Dions niece turns out to be in thrall to a powerful conspiracy of necromancers. Like its predecessors, the book combines romance, mystery and adventure in a fantasy setting…
Routley deserves credit for superior world-building and above average characterization… covering familiar ground with more aplomb than many of her collegues. Publishers Weekly
Print edition from Ticonderoga Publications through Indie Books Online http://www.indiebooksonline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=131
Ebook edition : http://clandestinepress.com.au
The Three Sisters
Once the Tari – a mysterious race of visionaries and healers whose power has since faded to legend - ruled in Yarmar. Then the armies of the Mir came to destroy and enslave. Now in their relentless drive for domination, the cruel Mirayan Prince Scarvan and his loyal duke Wolf Madraga have both claimed a prize beyond compare. She is called Elena Starchild, the bewitching wife of a newly slain woodlands leader. She is Tari, possessing a “fatal beauty” that confounds and obssess her captors.
Drawn from their island home by a sisters plight, a warrior and a sorceress return to an oppressed land, carrying with them the magic of hope, spirit and glorious rebellion. But there are shadows in their own pasts that first must be conquered before a prisoner is freed… and a mighty destiny can come to pass.
“Rebecca Lockesley writes with a freshness and vigour rare in today’s crowded market. Her characters are a dextrous mixture of the astute, the delightful, and the deceptive, displaying the full range of human weakness and wonder – no wonder the plot glides forward so effortlessly.” Sara Douglass
Short Stories
“The Goddess Wakes” (1995) in She’s Fantastical (ed. Lucy Sussex and Judith Buckrich)
“The Empty Quarter” (1996) in Dream Weavers (ed. Paul Collins)
“Stealing the Seed” (1997) in Eidolon, Issue 24, Autumn 1997 (ed. Jonathan Strahan, Jeremy G.Byrne, Richard Scriven)
“To Avalon” (1998) in Dreaming Down-Under (ed. Jack Dann, Janeen Webb)
“City of Whirlwinds” (1998) in Fantastic Worlds (ed. Paul Collins)
“Liars Brooch” (2001) in Spinouts (ed. Paul Collins)
“A New Creation” (2002) in Meanjin. Volume 61, Number 3 2002 (ed. Michael McGirr)
“Celia” (2007) in Cicada Vol. 10 No 2, Nov/Dec 2007 (ed. Marianne Carus)
“The Seal Wife” in (2010) Roar and Thunder Speculative Fiction Magazine http://roarandthunder.com.au
“Bats” (2011) in Dead Red Heart : Australian Vampire Stories (ed. Russell B.Farr)
Hello, I read The Three Sisters years ago and have been checking every year for the sequel…i didn’t realize that you had also written another of my favorite books (Mage Heart)…I am eager to read more and would love to know when you may be planning on having another book to follow up The Three Sisters…
Thank you for writing. Great to hear from you.
Clandestine Press are interested in bringing out the Three Sisters and the follow up book the Melded Child later this year.
I’m also working on another book too.
I’ll keep you posted
Jane Routley
This is excellent news. I just finished reading The Three Sisters again last night and it makes me so happy to see that a sequel might finally be coming so I can find out what happens next
i just finished reading the three sisters and i was wondering if the next book has come out yet u said early last year it would be out by the end of 2012. Has the sequel come out yet?
Thank you for writing. Its good to hear from you and good encouragement to get cracking on. I shall try and have the books ready for publication in the next couple of months. I apologize for my slow work. Other things mostly money earning got in the way.
I really enjoyed Three Sisters and would love to read the rest of the story.
Thanks for writing Breanna. Glad you liked it. I’m hard at work on preparing the edits but they won’t be out till next year at this rate. Fingers crossed.
Hiya Jane! great site! What date is the launch?
love,
Judy C
Thanks Judy. Its the 22nd. Do come I’d love to see you there.
Jane
Hi, I love your Dion books (a friend got me onto them because we shared the same name) and would love to know will you write anymore on what happens with Dion and Kitten?
Dear Dion,
Thats cool about the name. Thanks so much for writing. Its not out of the question that I write more about Dion and Kitten at some future time (There’s plenty more to happen to them) but I’m hard at work on some books set in another world at the moment. I’m calling the first one Shadow in the Empire of Light. I hope you’ll enjoy them despite the lack of name
Wow!! Your books look really interesting. The stories sound really great. I would love to read it.
Thanks for this giveaway and Happy Australia Day
amel(dot)armeliana(at)gmail(dot)com
Hi!
I have a question regarding “The Three Sisters”: Are the Tari people some sort of Elven or Elf-like creations or some sort of “pseudo-Elfs” in your original take on the “High Fantasy”-genre?
Thank you so much for writing. Sorry for the slow reply. I’m just preparing The Three Sisters and its unpublished sequel the Melded Child for epublication and its taking longer than I thought it would. I’m interested in playing with fantasy genre cliches and so yes the Tari and the Klementari of the Dion Chronicles are indeed drawn from Elves. In the Dion Chronicles, I wanted to make them like gypsys only fair skinned and fair haired and I think that lead me to making them like elves and they grew from there. In traditional folklore they are nature spirits which lead to me creating death angels as opponents for them. Its great how much you can draw from traditional ideas once you start questioning and playing with them.
Thank you for your (not alarmingly late) reply! I do look forward to the sequel to them 3 Sista´s…what I really liked about the novel was the superb rendering of the different peoples & cultures and how the different cultural & psychological mind-sets of the character played out in the narrative…I could go on and on about the awsomness of your authoring/writing skills, but I think you get the picture! Keep it up and please let me/us know about when the sequel is “out and about”!
I did not realize you had written anything under a different name! Now I immediately must find Three Sisters as Mage Hart is one of my all time favorites.
Thanks very much for writing. I’m so delighted you liked Mage Heart. I’ve almost finished re-editing Three Sisters so that it can come out as an ebook with its as yet unpublished sequel The Melded Child. The two books were originally meant as a prequel to the Dion Chronicles.