Home of The Overworld, Tales of the Aekhartain and Wrystan
Sorry for the delay, Google Books readers, but I’ve fixed the issue and can now publish direct to Google Play. In theory this means future releases shouldn’t be a problem, but we’ll see.
I’ll be adding the Dragonlands series there too throughout the month, so if you want more Overworld, it’s heading your preferred reading way soon.
Cheers!
The Rift Riders are ready.
Yullik is waiting.
The fight for Aquila is about to begin.After siege and exile, the Rift Riders have drifted around the Overworld for long enough. The troops have been gathered, the dragons are willing to help and everyone is ready to depart. Now they only have to get there.
While Mhysra, Lyrai and their friends prepare for the battle ahead and Yullik lays his traps, hidden on the far side of Aquila, Mouse and Nightriver have their own challenges to face. Despite everything, the mountain has a few surprises in store for all of them yet.
For Aquila is waiting to be won and the stakes are high. When war rocks the citadel, even the winners may end up losing…
Available Now!
Smashwords || B&N || iBooks || Kobo
Amazon: US || UK || AUS || CAN || DE
The first three chapters can be found on the Wingborn serial page.
The 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 ;)
Beyond 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.
In 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.
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!
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.
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!
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!
December is here, NaNo is over, let’s see what I managed to get done.
NaNoWriMo Goal 1: Complete Burning Sky
Even though I was already nearly halfway through writing this book, the only thing I really wanted to achieve last month was finishing it. And I did!
Day 10. 42,562 words added. Goal achieved.
But I didn’t want to stop there, so I took a day to prepare myself to start the next Dragonlands novel – and promptly jumped into an unrelated novella from a brand new series.
NaNoWriMo Goal 2: Write Thief’s Gamble
The idea of a Foundation of Aquila series has been knocking around the back of my brain for a year or two (someone asked about it on Wattpad), but I hadn’t really pinned anything down yet. Until Keo and Lahera burst into full life and took over NaNo, leaving me with a completed novella and plenty of ideas for the series to follow. This one should (hopefully) be a lot of fun. I really do need to write another Dragonlands novel first, though.
Regardless of my plans or best intentions, I finished it. And for once an attempted novella stayed an actual novella. I am all astonishment!
Day 20. 25,028 words later. Goal achieved.
Two things down and I still had nine days left. I guess that meant I could finally crack on with that Dragonlands novel.
Wrong.
NaNoWriMo Goal 3: Finish Aftermath
I fully intended to make a start on Ice Falls, I swear I did, but to be honest the last nine days of NaNo weren’t great for me. Mostly because of fatigue issues. I also don’t really have a feel for where this book is supposed to start, so I need to go back and look at the end of Burning Sky before I tackle it.
Anyway, my head was so desperate not to start Ice Falls it seized on Aftermath instead. This is an entirely self-indulgent, overblown epilogue novella for the Wingborn series, which ties up some of the romances and side characters and little things that I didn’t really have room for in the main books. It was supposed to be short and sweet and full of warm fuzziness. I originally dove straight into it after finishing Wingborn 6, but I stalled after a while and it became yet another thing I’ve struggled to finish this year.
However, NaNo was going well, so I thought, why not? Give it a go. The worst that can happen is I’ll get stuck precisely where I’ve been stuck all year.
Day 30. 19,947 words added. Goal achieved!
Three stories finished. 86,340 words written in total. Two major albatrosses released back into the wild. I can’t believe how well that went.
Although, if I look back at my daily tallies, it could have gone a little better. There were 13 days when I didn’t write a single word, and even my biggest daily haul (9135 words) is a bit below my best. I didn’t experience my usual rush of momentum where I write more and more and more as the month goes on, but that’s probably because I’m used to focusing on one project from start to finish, not jumping in halfway and finishing several things along the way.
So perhaps I could have written more, but looking back I am more than happy with how I did. Burning Sky is finally finished! A pair of new characters have established themselves in a whole new series and I’m excited to get back to them and let their story unfold. I’m also relieved that Aftermath is done, even though I acknowledge it’s no longer a novella, bonus or otherwise. But I knew that after it passed 30K, I was just living in denial. Still, it’s done, yay! And I’ll figure out what to do with it later.
For now, thanks NaNo! I don’t know why the mere thought of the challenge can break through blockages that have frustrated me all year, I’m just glad that it did. November is done. Thanks for the word count, but now it’s time to move on.
To all my fellow NaNoers, I hope you enjoyed your month and had fun with all your words. Here’s to you all! And I’ll see you again next year.
Merry December, everyone!
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.
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
“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!
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.
“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
“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
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.
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.
“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.
Before it all began, here’s where things stood.
NaNoWriMo Goal: Complete Burning Sky
Pre-NaNo Word Count: 45,826
Now onto the first week round-up, complete with non-spoilery snippets.
Indoor plumbing had long been one of her favourite aspects of travelling through the Dragonlands, but the Sunlords had elevated it to a new level. Ready-heated water at the wave of a hand. Dragons truly were miraculous creatures.
Nera, Burning Sky Chapter 12
Day Total: 4447 words
NaNo Total: 4447 words
Book Total: 50,273 words
NaNo Day 1 and I’m already over 50K. I win! XD
A chance to assist in an effort to bring down the arrogant swamp creature who had most probably sent him and Estenarven far below the Curse, intending it to end with their deaths? Hmm, let him think…
Khennik, Burning Sky Chapter 13
Day Total: 3126 words
NaNo Total: 7573 words
Book Total: 53, 399 words
The poor woman. The poor, poor, deluded fool. Mastekh’s heart clenched tight in sympathy.
Mastekh, Burning Sky Chapter 14
Day Total: 4517 words
NaNo Total: 12,090 words
Book Total: 57,916 words
DAY FOUR
Nothing.
“Breakfast,” Mastekh announced, throwing the word out like a challenge, with no hint of bubbles or hesitation.
Estenarven smiled as he crossed the room to accept a steaming mug of honey-scented tea. “Thank you,” he murmured, kissing his lover on the cheek.
Cool skin heated beneath his lips and Mastekh’s colour returned with a hint of a green blush. “Oh.”
Burning Sky Chapter 15
Day Total: 4473 words
NaNo Total: 16,563 words
Book Total: 62, 389 words
DAY SIX
Nothing.
“Overkill,” Jesken said, after Wellswen flicked a goose a little too hard and shot the wooden fox straight off the board and over the edge of the table.
“That’ll teach you to pounce so gleefully.”
“It won’t. I’ll be even more merciless next time and cow the rest of your gaggle into submission.”
“Geese never submit.”
“And foxes never die.” Jesken held up her hand and Gharrik placed the recovered fox into her palm. “Best of three?”
“Of course.” They reset the board and hunched over it in intense silence once more.
Burning Sky Chapter 17
(They’re playing Fox and Geese, btw, so no actual fake geese were harmed by Wellswen’s inability to lose with grace.)
Day Total: 9135 words
NaNo Total: 25,698 words
Book Total: 71, 524 words
So far, I think it’s going rather well :D
Daily updates can be found (open to all) on Patreon. Hopefully by the next update I’ll have finished this book and be moving onto the next one.
But enough of me, how are the rest of you doing? If you’re doing NaNo too I hope it’s going as well as mine and that you’re comfortably on track.
And to all, NaNo writers or not, Merry Wednesday!
Becca Lusher 