I have several pieces of news to share today, so I may as well get started. First off, while better than last week, I did not get much writing done this week either. Queen of Diamonds is a little over 80,000 words, and moving along at a steady pace. I’m hoping I can shake off the writing funk that came over me, but for the moment I’m focusing on only a single project, and the release of Hives & Heroism could very well be pushed back.

Next, I have the first piece of artwork of the characters my Patrons voted for back, while the other is in-progress. Stella’s artist goes by Deti, and can be found on Artists & Clients, as well as having an instagram account Here. You can see the art below, and I rather like it!

I’m still waiting on the audiobook of Webs & Wards to be approved, and I’m beginning to suspect it’ll be close to the 6 week mark, if not even longer at this point. I’m sorry it’s taking so long, but there’s only so much I can do. However, I do have one more thing to share… cover art for my second omnibus, as well as a release date.

This has been a long time coming, mostly due me having difficulties finding an artist to illustrate Resvarygrath. Fortunately, Mario Wibisono did a wonderful job depicting the dragon, despite the difficulty of painting gold against a fiery background!

In any case, the omnibus of Through the Fire is now available for pre-order! It’ll be coming out on April 6th. You can find the link to the Amazon.com page here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086HV1G7K

Now, just to perform some basic expectation management.

What this is: This is a collection of The Avatar’s Flames, Queen of Ice, and The Obsidian Palace. I have taken the original Prologue, as well as Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of The Avatar’s Flames and moved them to a short story in the back called Before the Fire, and added the short stories about Anara, Ruethwyn, and Essryl in a short story called After the Fire. Editing of the short stories has been done again, but the books have not materially changed.

What this isn’t: I have not gone through the entire book and rewritten things. I corrected some of the typos that were reported over the time since the books were published, but I corrected those in the original books when I found them as well. Slightly more has been corrected in the short stories, but not much. If you already read the stories on my newsletter or Patreon, all this does is collect them in a single convenient package.

About the Paperback: First, yes, there will be a paperback version of Through the Fire. It is going to be enormous, clocking in at 801 numbered pages, and 808 overall. Amazon has a maximum length of 828 pages for their Print On Demand paperbacks, so I’m pushing the limits a bit. The font will be very small, as I had to reduce the font size and line spacing to fit the books in the size. The font isn’t as small as the Ancient Dreams omnibus, but it’s close to it. I just want to give fair warning.

About the Change: So, you may wonder why I chose to move the first couple of chapters of The Avatar’s Flames, and I think it’s worth telling you why. Quite bluntly, Through the Fire is my worst-selling series overall, though Mantles of Power isn’t far ahead. After discussion with other authors, the reason for that appears to be the story hook. My original intention for those chapters was to release it as a separate, free ‘teaser’ novella, then I changed my mind. I think that hurt the series chances, along with me releasing it in the Young Adult category.

So, to help with the hook, I’m starting the story with Resvarygrath’s attack on Mellesyn, and moving the first chapters to the side story I’d originally intended them as. It’s also not being put in Young Adult and instead into my more usual categories. I’m hoping that helps overall.

I really hope that helps explain some of my thinking where the book is concerned.

Stay safe, everyone!