JANUARY: The Legend Mirror #2 gets a title and blurb!

Happy 2015! I hope the new year is treating you good. I'm having an ... interesting January. I'm experiencing a totally new pace of writing, which is to say: slow. Agonizingly slow. Snail's pace. I'm hoping it picks up pretty soon so I can actually finish a book this year. Oop.

But enough of that. The title probably clued you in - I'm working on the second book in The Legend Mirror series, my YA mythological fantasy. If you haven't read it (or have and just can't remember what it's all about), The Legend Mirror follows Yasmin, a teenage girl who shape-shifts into a mythic beast, others kids like her in the Red - a group of Legendaries - and Fray, a human girl with a psychic connection to, and romance with, Yasmin. If it interests you, you can find more into on the nav bar at the top and buy links on the side.

The title of book two is

You've probably seen this title floating around my blogs and my website if you happen to go into the individual book pages, but now it's official!

The Dryad of Callaire follows on from book one, taking you into the aftermath of the fight with Discordia and the abduction of Fray. As the title suggests, a dryad (or two) features heavily in the story. This book will also see the introduction of a new Legendary main character! Here's the initial blurb:

The Legend Mirror series returns with more mythology, more danger, and more Majick as Yasmin Wikke sets out on a grief-driven quest to find her missing girlfriend. To get her back, Yasmin will have to ally with Gods, rely upon strangers, and go to extreme lengths. But is rescuing Fray the right path? Has her time away from Callaire altered her beyond repair? And will Yasmin and Fray’s relationship survive even if one of them doesn’t?

A release of August has been penciled in, but nothing is definite so this could change. You can expect a full blurb, cover reveal, and a reveal of the redesigned The Beast of Callaire cover in the months to come!

Let me know your thoughts on the blurb and title! Will you be reading The Dryad of Callaire?

~Saruuh

FREE FOR CHRISTMAS: Love In The Gilded Age

Love In The Gilded Age is FREE for this weekend. If you've been wanting to buy it but not got around to it or had enough money, now is the time to read it! Head over to Amazon UK | US | DE and download it now. If you don't have a kindle, you can even read it on your computer/android/apple device by downloading the Kindle app.

Love In The Gilded Age is a collection of short stories inspired by Grimm fairy tales, with a focus on race, sexuality, and disability representation. If these things interest you, get LITGA now. If these things don't interest you, get LITGA anyway - it's free. Want more info about the stories? - go here.

Offer ends 21st December.

Happy holidays, everyone!

~Saruuh

DECEMBER: New ideas and a Lux Guardians question

I think I completely skipped over November's blog post. Unsurprising, if you count the fact it was my most stressful month of the past two years and I've been growing a new book idea. I don't want to say much about the book so far, since it's only a baby idea, but I have codenamed it ApocalypseGirls.

And now for the question portion of the blog post. This is aimed primarily at people who don't own copies of The Lux Guardians, or wouldn't be opposed to owning more than one copy.

You've probably noticed by now that the waiting list for The Forgotten is closed, because a year has passed since its release, and my answers on when it will next be available as paperback have been pretty vague. My plan was to completely redesign the jacket (which I have done) and rerelease all four books shiny and new a year after The Union (i.e. in 2017) for you to purchase when the waiting lists are all shut down. 

But since that leaves a good three years without any TF paperbacks available, I thought I would pose this question before I concreted any decisions: would you rather I wait until 2017 and release all four books together, or release them staggered so you can, for example, get a paperback of The Forgotten next year?

If you're alright with just having an ebook of The Forgotten (or The Wandering and The Revelation when their waiting lists close) I'm content to wait to release The Lux Guardians in their new covers, but I just thought I'd ask, since I am, after all, releasing these books for readers.

~Saruuh

Love In The Gilded age pronunciation guide.

In case you missed my influx of posts and tweets, Love In The Gilded Age released this week. 

Because the stories are set in a high fantasy world, they carry a big amount of unfamiliar names. I know some people prefer not to have things such as these guides, and I understand that. Once the stories have left me, they belong you readers anyway, so it's up to you to decide how things are said. But I also know there's a bunch of people who appreciate a bit of direction, and I wanted to make a guide handy for those who want it.

There's no strict rule that these are the only acceptable pronunciations, but this is how I said the names as I wrote them:

Cities/Towns

Linxe - one syllable. Like the cat lynx.

Voivaren - VOI.varr.en. First sound rhymes with toy, the second sound rhymes with bar and car, and the last is basically en.

Sorrin - SORR.in.

Taul - one syllable. Rhymes with Paul and haul.

Characters

Xanna - XAN.na. First sound rhymes with van and can, and the last sounds exactly how it looks: na

Kiejn - KEY.enn

Koal - one syllable. Like coal.

Niesk - NEE.esk.

Kerenne - Kerr.ENN. First sound rhymes with burr and fur, the last sound rhymes with ten.

Elyn - ELL.in.

Rosany - ROSE.an.ee

Auriiel - AUR.ee.ell - First sound rhymes with oar and boar, and the last two are pronounced how they look.

Hope this helps clear a bit of any confusion that might arise. Just comment if there are any other words you'd like me to add to this.

~Saruuh

OCTOBER: Fairy tales and first chapters (including an excerpt of Love In The Gilded Age!)

 The Wandering is now out in the world in shiny paperback form!! It's very pink and, in my opinion, very pretty. If you signed up to the waiting list, your copy is winging its way to you right now. You can find a couple photos of The Wandering over on my instagram (and follow me if you're into books and photos of my cat.)

But this month isn't only the paperback release of The Wandering - it's the month Love In The Gilded Age comes out! It's not actually set in the Gilded Age, rather a fantasy world called Fissure, and is an anthology of fairy tales retold with a focus on diversity. The title is a nod to one of the fairy tales -  Rumplestilskin - in which the protagonist is expected to spin straw into gold. All the main characters of the anthology are people of colour, one of them is a lesbian, and one of them is disabled (a supporting character also has partial hearing.) LITGA explores themes and ideas I think traditional fairy tales lack - ladies saving themselves (and other ladies!), ladies being in charge of their sexuality, and so on.

It's out today, so I hope you'll check it out and buy it. It's just 99 cents/77 pennies and available on Amazon for Kindle. If you want to read the blurb or know more about the anthology, click the other books link on the navigation bar above, or visit my website.

BUY NOW

Want a sneak peek at Love In The Gilded Age?

Read on for the first chapter of A Fortress of Thorns, a retelling of Brier Rose (Sleeping Beauty)