Books, Free Fiction, Overworld, Serial, Writing

World’s End: Prologue

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!
Or the mountains at the end of the world, which is kind of the same thing, right?

*ahem* Anyway, I’m back and I’m bringing the Overworld with me for the last Wingborn adventure. Have fun, everyone ;)

World's End Banner

So it begins, again, in a dark cave on the far-side of nowhere…


Prologue

Restenfell
14th Sun Month, 788 Cloud Era

THERE WAS SO much blood. Yullik stepped over the shattered remains of the door, feet crunching over charcoal, claws raking through ash. He had no words. He was hollow inside as he stared around the wreckage of what had once been his home.

Black blood covered the walls. Bodies littered the floor. Smoke still hung in the air.

His kaz-naghkt had been slaughtered.

For two hundred years he’d lived in these mountains, hiding, grieving, plotting and planning, brooding on his fate and nursing his hatred. For two hundred years he had been safe. No one had known where he was. No one had dared to look for him. He had been feared and reviled, and he’d liked it. His kaz-naghkt had terrorised the Overworld, made enemies of the mighty Rift Riders and finally brought them low.

Now this.

Yullik walked through the ruins of his mountain fortress, carved straight from the rock, buried beneath tonnes of ice, snow and stone. No one had known it was here. No one except for him. No human had ever found it. No human had even tried.

Bones cracked under his feet as he turned in a slow circle, taking in the death and destruction, the unmistakable signs of fire and magic.

For two hundred years he’d fought against the Overworld. For two hundred years he’d punished them for his existence. And he’d been wrong.

It wasn’t humans who deserved his hatred; it was dragons.

Clenching his fists until his claws dug into his palms and made them bleed, Yullik closed his eyes and breathed in deep, feeling the fire of his power rise within him, filling the hollow spaces, making him burn. The old rage ignited, but this time it was the dragons who would pay.

Claws clicked as his escort landed outside. He opened his eyes to a world washed in gold and stared at the unconscious Rider lying limp in his kaz-naghkt’s arms.

Yullik smiled and lifted the woman into his own. “Come, little Wingborn,” he crooned. “We have work to do.”


Thanks for coming back!

~ Next Chapter ~

Overworld, Patreon, Updates

Aquila’s War Updates

Aquila's War Cover 1The free online version of Aquila’s War is now gone. I hope no one was in the middle of reading it. If you were, it’ll be available on Monday. Or you can sign up to my Patreon and keep reading it online that way.

Pre-orders are up on Smashwords || iBooks || Kobo
(I can’t believe iBooks beat B&N. That’s never happened before.)

No Amazon pre-orders, since I’m still under my ban for messing things up last year. Hopefully I’ll be free of it by my next release – when I might actually manage to get everything ready in time for a proper pre-order (ha!).

If you’re waiting for the Google Play version, I’m sorry but there won’t be one this time. Google are doing everything possible to make it impossible for Indie authors to sell there. I can’t open my own account because they’ve been closed to that for years, and I can’t use D2D anymore because Google have stopped them from new submissions. Which leaves me out of options. I’m so sorry! (Feel free to take it up with Google ;)

World's End Cover 2Beyond that, World’s End (Wingborn 6) will start posting here and on Wattpad next Friday!

It’s already well underway over on Patreon, where we’ve just started Chapter Seven.

If you sign up today, you’ll be right on time to download your own copy of Aquila’s War tomorrow!

If not, I hope I see you back here next Friday for the final Wingborn adventure.

Overworld, Patreon, Serial, Updates

Wingborn: What’s Next?

Aquila's War Cover 1In case you missed it, Aquila’s War is over. At least in serial form. But don’t despair, I’m working on the ebook right now, editing, polishing, typo hunting and hopefully making it as shiny as it can possibly be. If everything goes the way it hopefully should, the book will be out on July 8th. If I manage to pull myself together quickly enough, I might even manage a few pre-order links before then. We will see.

Another important date is July 5th. This is when I will remove the free version from here and Wattpad. Patreon members will still have access to the serial, but that’s all.World's End Cover 2

Speaking of Patreon, if you’re missing your twice-weekly Overworld fix, you might want to head over there. World’s End (Overworld 6) has already begun and will continue to update about a month ahead of here and Wattpad.

If you can’t (or don’t want to) sign up over there, no worries, the free serial version will begin on July 12th. Hope to see you then!

Books, Overworld, Writing

Burning Sky is Out!

04 Burning Sky Cover 4In case you missed it – Burning Sky is out now!

Buy it. Read it.

Amazon: US || UK || AUS || DE || CAN
Smashwords || B&N || iBooks || Kobo

The rest of the series – Blazing Dawn, Storm Rising and Cloud Cursed – are also only .99 until Tuesday, 23rd April. Grab ’em while they’re cheap!

This book was a real pain to write and felt quite stressful to release, so I really hope you enjoy it. But if you’re still not sure if you want to give it a go yet, here’s Chapter 1, Part 2 to tempt you along. Featuring an anxious Rider and a very poorly dragon.

If you missed the first half, catch up here. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Burning Sky is Out!”

Books, Overworld, Writing

Burning Sky

The Dragonlands series continues in the heat and heart of the desert.
04 Burning Sky Cover 4

Those who dance with fire cannot help getting burned…

The delegation is in trouble. Elder Khennik kin Blazeborn is sick, mistrust festers amongst the dragons, yet the Skylark travels onwards, bound by its diplomatic mission. Clan Sunlord is not known for its tolerance of humans, but the Rift Riders have no choice. The journey must go on.

The desert awaits, full of heat and passion and strange wonders, but each smile is tinged with cunning and betrayal is never far away. New dragons, new dangers, fresh troubles and deep prejudice lurk in the shadows of the Sunlord palace. The Dragonlands are changing, but this time even the strong might not survive.

Available Now!

Amazon: US || UK || AUS || DE || CAN
Smashwords || B&N || iBooks || Kobo

You can also review it on Goodreads.

Read on for the first part of Chapter One.

Continue reading “Burning Sky”

Overworld, Patreon, Updates

Short Update

Firstly, I am on Twitter! Why now? Why has it taken me this long? Why am I so rubbish at social media and promo? There is no satisfactory answer to any of those questions that I can give, but I’m there now.

04 Burning Sky Cover 4

Secondly, Burning Sky (Dragonlands 4) is coming along nicely. Look it has a cover and everything.

You can read the first half of the first chapter right now on Patreon, and the second part will be along tomorrow.

You can also read the whole book right now if you’re signed up to the $5 tier.

I have plans to overhaul my tier system soon to make rewards clearer, but I need to get the book out first. For now the option to read early is there. Both the chapter and the book are early versions, so may change before publication, but I’ll update them as necessary.

I’m aiming at a mid-April release (15th hopefully), but that might change depending on beta-reader feedback.

In the meantime, Merry Wednesday, everyone!

Overworld, Updates

Dragonlands Update

Book 5 is done! Broken Ground is finished! Whoo!

Broken Ground, you say? What is Broken Ground? I thought book 5 was called Ice Falls?

Yes, well, the observant amongst you might remember I kept talking about a book called Ice Falls until quite recently. You might also have noticed that the name on the sidebar changed a week or two ago. This is because I always had a scene in my head for the final showdown in this book. I knew where the action was going, I knew how it would finish.

Except I was well over halfway through the book and there was no ice. In fact I was almost breaking the plot to get everyone somewhere icy before I realised that maybe that scene wasn’t going to turn out the way I thought it was and there might not be any actual ice in the book at all.

*headdesk*

So the title changed. Dragonlands book 5 is now called Broken Ground, and I’ve finished it! As always it’s a complete mess (and I really mean it this time), and needs a lot of fleshing out in places and smoothing down in others. It’s a strange book, because it was only ever supposed to be a bridge between what happens in Burning Sky (4) and Setting Sun (6), mostly intended to kill some of the big time gap between the two.

Turns out lots happens in this book, even if it doesn’t involve any ice or kill nearly as much time as I needed it to. Instead this is the book with all the things. Happening. A lot. If you’ve been missing some action in this series, never fear, this book makes up for any action the others might have lacked. It’s… I… nope. Can’t say anything about it because spoilers, spoilers everywhere. But I think it worked out quite well. Sort of. Depending on who you are and how you look at it. Pretty sure most of the characters don’t agree with me, but alas, they’re not in charge.

Which means I’ll probably hate it when I have to edit it. Oh well, that’s a job for another day. Besides, who cares about book 5? You need book 4 first.

Speaking of… I will now be turning my attention back to Burning Sky. All things being well, it should hopefully come about the end of March/beginning of April. I’ll be doing a quick read through this week, after which I should have a better idea of how much work it’s going to take to bring it up to scratch. I’ll have a more accurate release date for you after that.

But it is coming. And you won’t have to wait a year, as you did with the other books.

Once that’s done I’ll be writing Setting Sun, and depending on how well that goes Broken Ground should come out Sept/Oct time. If everything stays on track and nothing major happens in the meantime to throw it all off. Which… yeah, probably will, because this is me and longterm plans are made to be smashed up into itty-bitty unpick-upable pieces. But for now things are nicely on track.

Merry Monday, everyone!

Books, Free Fiction, Overworld, Serial, Writing

Aquila’s War Character List

Aquila's War Banner 2

Better late than never, right?

Here’s the list of all the characters in this book to help you keep track. It contains all the named characters in alphabetical order and will be updated as I go. It’s only a brief summary of each person, so if there’s more you’d like to see/know, or I’ve missed someone, let me know and I’ll see what I can do (as long as it doesn’t involve spoilers).

Continue reading “Aquila’s War Character List”

Overworld, Updates, Writing

NaNoWriMo Week 3

On and on and on it goes, where the words stop nobody knows!

More snippets below, but fewer Patreon links because I’ve not been keeping up on my updates.

DAY FIFTEEN

It was an expression Lahera hadn’t seen in a while. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until she saw it again, half-lit by fire, half-lit by lightning. That was her human, mischievous and confident. A thief to her bones.

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 6

Day Total: 5435 words
NaNo Total: 54,251 words
Book Total: 11,689 words

DAY SIXTEEN
Nothing. I have no excuse, it just… didn’t happen.

DAY SEVENTEEN

Gods, she was so glad she wasn’t born human. Imagine having to walk all the time? What a terrible way to live.

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 8

Day Total: 3570 words
NaNo Total: 57,821 words
Book Total: 15,259 words

DAY EIGHTEEN
Nothing. Again.

DAY NINETEEN

Very intimidating. So scary. Fear her!

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 11

Day Total: 5180 words
NaNo Total: 63,001 words
Book Total: 20,439 words

DAY TWENTY

“We,” Lahera said slowly, “may have made a mistake coming here.”

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 15

Day Total: 4589 words
NaNo Total: 67,590 words
Book Total: 25,028 words

Novella complete! I wasn’t expecting to write it and I certainly wasn’t expecting to finish it, but yay anyway. Which leaves me one final week to start something else. I love it when a NaNo plan takes off and runs away on its own.

So that’s my recent NaNo progress. Here’s hoping any fellow NaNoers out there are having as much fun as I am.

And to everyone, merry Wednesday!

Overworld, Updates, Writing

NaNoWriMo Week 2

Writing continued apace this week, despite a few days when things were thrown slightly off-track, but it all got quite interesting around the weekend and new projects now loom on the horizon.

Snippets below, no spoilers, along with links to all the Patreon posts where I talk a little more each day.

DAY EIGHT

“Why wouldn’t I want to fix you, Khennik? You’re important.” Litha patted him on the arm again. “Think of all the hard work you do, as a delegate, as an elder. Why, one day you might even change the Overworld.”

Burning Sky Chapter 18

Day Total: 4049 words
NaNo Total: 29,747 words
Book Total: 75,573 words

DAY NINE

“It mattered. It mattered a lot, because Nera desperately needed to know which dragon she could punch for this.”

Nera, Burning Sky Chapter 19

Day Total: 8600 words
NaNo Total: 38,347 words
Book Total: 84,173 words

DAY TEN

Jesral grinned. “Now that is a very clever trick.”

Burning Sky Chapter 22

Day Total: 4215 words
NaNo Total: 42,562 words
Book Total: 88,288 words

I finished Burning Sky! NaNoWriMo GOAL ACHIEVED!

DAY ELEVEN
Zero, zip, zilch.

DAY TWELVE

History, they say, is written by the victors. This is invariably true, but they often forget to mention that it is frequently edited by prudes and fusspots, who take out all the interesting bits.

Thief’s Gamble, Prologue

Day Total: 2173 words
NaNo Total: 44,735 words
Book Total: 2173 words

New book, new characters, new series, old world. It’s an Overworld novella and I’ll talk more about it when I get further into it.

DAY THIRTEEN

“You’re cracked. He’s cracked. I’m cracked!”

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 2

Day Total: 4081 words
NaNo Total: 48,816 words
Book Total: 6254 words

And that’s it for the moment, since I haven’t written anything yet today.

Week 2 done, the halfway point approaching, 50K almost reached and I’m onto a second, unplanned project. Ha! This is why I love taking part in NaNo.

Here’s hoping everyone else out there is having as much fun as I am.