JUNE: The Forgotten second edition, The Wandering progress & a new anthology

I wasn't sure I'd have much to write about this month, but it turns out I had a lot of news piling up, all of which I hope you'll find as exciting as I think it is.

Firstly, the second edition of The Forgotten has now gone to press, which means everyone who signed up for the waiting list last year (especially those in the first block of 20) will either be in possession of the book, or much closer to getting it, by the end of next month. There's been small design changes to the book jacket, but the content remains the same as always. There is, however, a small sneak preview of The Wandering in the back of it, which will, I hope, answer the question of what the heck happened to Bennet.

Here's the new jacket:

(click to make bigger)

My second bout of news is about The Forgotten's sequel, The Wandering. I've made considerable progress since I last wrote of it, and if you follow my tumblr you might have seen a few unedited snippets. My tentative release for The Wandering is September 23rd, though it may be pushed back to October 7th (though no later) should any delays with betas arise.

The blurb is as follows:

Honour Frie has escaped Forgotten London, but he’s not happy and he’s not safe yet. His sister is mute with grief, what remains of his family is suffering, and when The Guardians lose faith in their purpose, Honour is tasked with restoring it. But inciting the rebellion isn’t something that comes easily to Honour, and with every burden weighing on him, cracks appear in his sanity.

Branwell Ravel will do anything to reunite with his missing sister, but with no word of her for months he’s lost hope of saving her. Bennet Ravel doesn’t want or need to be saved. She has a purpose. She will avenge her father—she will kill the President of States—no matter the cost.

Miya and Yosiah have fought everything together—Officials, Strains, starvation, and even their own feelings for each other—but will they stay together when the secrets between them grow too vast to stay hidden? Or will they fight each other?

With a dangerous journey to Bharat and a plot to overthrow States’s Ordering Body, the second instalment of the Lux Guardians series will wrench everyone to their breaking points.

You can sign up to the waiting list for a free copy here. Same policies apply as to The Forgotten: it's a first come, first served basis, please enter your address correctly or you won't receive it, and though I hope to get books sent out ASAP, delays are inevitable and I hope you'll forgive those.

I have a limited number of review copies available for The Wandering (there are only 5 places left) so if you're looking to review it, get your name down now.

Thirdly, I have a new anthology due for release this October. It's called Love In The Gilded Age, and is a collection of fairy tale reimaginings, and like all my other works, LITGA has a focus on diverse heroes and heroines. It will be available in ebook only for the time being, and is the first installment in a series of diverse anthologies called Fissure Chronicles.

The very brief summary is this: 

In an original epic fantasy world, Love In The Gilded Age reimagines the heroes and heroines of Grimm fairy tales as ethnically diverse, LGBT, disabled, and gender flipped. 

Here's a snippet to tide you over until October:

There is an ocean: In the infinite distance, between one hidden world and the next, is an unmeasurable expanse of twenty seas. One sprawling edge of the world to another is filled with waters as beautiful as they are deadly, as miraculous as they are fraught. Treasure and treachery litter their ocean beds, sleeping side by side with adventurers whose travels ended abruptly, lives caught and held under a wave until all breaths fled.

Seas shallow and deep, wide and thin as shards, transparent as glass and dark as pitch. The black sea, the silver sea, the sea of hidden wealth. The bright sea, the far sea, the star gem sea—bright and depthless as the most precious stone.

There is a land: Tucked into a corner where four oceans fold together, land rises up illustrious in a jagged slash of mountains and forests, with secrets and wonders as plentiful as any water.

In the far south blustering winds sear brown grass, and a only rocky line of mountains can withstand the vicious heat that cripples men. In the far north cold has formed cities of frost; towns are littered with snowflakes and buried under a sheet of emptiness. And betwixt the two, a realm spread out like the curve of a body, perfectly temperate, perfectly formed, with plains flat and vast, mountains short and gentle, forests as abundant as Crown Fish in the rivers that snake into all three realms, and life—life in every crease of every hill, farm, and town.

There are chronicles: Not of the twenty savage seas but of the fissure of land and the people who sigh life into it.

~Saruuh