Tag Archives: The Hall of the Prophetess

What’s Book 3 about?

20 Oct

The Hall of the ProphetessThis evening I finished my final read-through of Book 3, The Hall of the Prophetess.

What’s this mean? Well, only a few steps remain to publish the book, so everything is on track for the book to be released Nov. 18. But what’s the book about? Well, here’s what the book’s back cover says:

By now, Karia should be used to finding out that everything she thought she knew was wrong.

Girls can’t do magic? Wrong. Faeries aren’t real? Wrong. No such thing as redbears? Wrong again.

So it shouldn’t surprise her – but it does – when her enemies treat her as if she is an honored guest. And she ought to have realized her quest to destroy magic would be nowhere near as straightforward as she thought.

Maybe she should even have expected a bloody confrontation, and new friends who are willing to die for her because of her forgiving, gentle spirit.

But nothing could have prepared her for what is being withheld from her.

Of course, before you get The Hall of the Prophetess, you’ll need to buy and read If you haven’t yet) The House in the Old Wood (Book 1) and Karia’s Path (Book 2)

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Preview of Book 3

18 Oct

Karia’s Path includes the first chapter of The Hall of the Prophetess, so people can get a feel for what comes next. And so here it is, so you can get a feel for it too:

CHAPTER ONE

The high-strung mare whinnied and pranced, her hooves clattering, as she slipped on the snow-covered ice of the frozen river. She tugged on the line Karia was using to lead her. Karia’s hands were so numb she almost lost her grip on it.

“Shh, Tsilinki,” she said. “Easy girl.” Her heart raced. She slipped a bit too as she stepped back to put a hand on the horse’s shoulder to calm her.

She heard a sharp crack behind them and looked nervously down the line from Tsilinki to Nebok. The big draft horse was usually rock-solid and calm, but even he looked skittish now. Or maybe he just looks that way to me because I’m shaking.

Karia took a deep breath. “Steady, Nebok. Almost there, big boy,” she called to him. Oh, great, I’m squeaking. That’s not going to help calm him.

She turned back and stepped forward, placing her feet carefully to keep from slipping. She was just beyond the center of the river, with perhaps forty feet to go to the safety of the shore. She felt the line to Tsilinki tighten and then go slack again as the horse began walking with her.

She thought, Nebok should be stepping forward now. That’s when she heard another sharp crack, then a crash and deep snort from behind her. She spun in time to see Nebok falling through the ice. Spinning threw her off balance, but she had almost caught herself as she saw Nebok trying to leap back up onto the ice; it just broke in front of him.

But Nebok’s leap tugged on the line from him to Tsilinki, pulling the mare from behind. And Karia, trying to steady herself, tugged on the line she was using to lead the mare from the front. Pulled from both sides, Tsilinki whinnied and reared, pulling the line away from Karia, but not before disrupting her precarious balance.

Karia’s feet and hands flew toward Tsilinki, and her behind landed hard on the ice, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped as she tried to take a breath in that tiny pause between when she hit the ice and the time it cracked, then shattered, and she smashed through. The current under the ice went up her cloak and it billowed into the icy water like a sail.

She grabbed in vain at the edge of the ice, but could not even slow herself as she was sucked through the hole into the frigid river below. She gasped for breath again, but got only water as the current swept her under the snow-covered icy surface of the river.

Want to read more? Soon. In the meantime, make sure you have The House in the Old Wood and Karia’s Path

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The rest of the series

25 Sep

With all the news about The House in the Old Wood and Karia’s Path (books one and two of the series, The Day Magic Died), you might think nothing is happening with the rest of the series.

And you would be wrong.

The Hall of the Prophetess (Book 3): On track for November. All four of my critical readers have finished reading the final draft, and my designer is already at work on the cover, so as soon as the final review of Karia’s Path (Book 2) is done, I plan to:

  • Begin working through the critiques to revise the book, then start the final proofreading
  • Sketch out a map for my artist (though I still have to figure out what it will be a map of)

If all goes well, it could even be released in October. I’ll keep you posted, and I’ll share more about this book soon too.

The Dwarf’s Legacy (Book 4): Ugh. Stupid dwarf. This one is giving me fits. I spotted two serious problems with the draft: One key character came back after a betrayal, and there’s no way he would have been so trusted; and another character conveniently showed up just as he was needed and died when he was no longer needed. Ugh. Who writes this stuff? Oh, yeah, me.

So I am moving through a complete rewrite, but I’m just not feeling the magic, if you know what I mean. The primary reason is that I’ve been trying to do the rewrite while:

  • Finishing the second edition of The House in the Old Wood
  • Finalizing Karia’s Path and
  • Getting The Hall of the Prophetess ready for my critical readers.

Soon, however, I’ll be done with the first two. Once I have completed the semifinal text for The Hall of the Prophetess and turned that over to my wife for proofreading, I can really focus on The Dwarf’s Legacy (Book 4), starting with a list of everything I need the replacement characters to do. So, looking at that timing, I’m hoping for a January 2014 release.

The Day Magic Died (Book 5): I think this book needs only minor revisions, which makes an early spring 2014 release likely.

By the way, the book titles The Dwarf’s Legacy (Book 4) and The Day Magic Died (Book 5) are still working titles and subject to change. Especially if the dwarf keeps giving me grief.

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Books Two, Three and Four coming along

2 Jul

Where have I been?

Writing. Not writing blog posts, but writing more of The Day Magic Died series.

As I told you June 21, Book Two, now tentatively titled Karia’s Path, is out to a few critical reader for their input. I’ve heard back from two of the four. One gave me two-and-a-half pages of notes, which is very helpful. She even spotted an issue with the storyline, which gives me an opportunity to fix something I overlooked before I make it available to all of you.

The other critical reader I heard back from? Well, she got so caught up in reading Book Two that she neglected to take any notes. She enjoyed it that much. That’s great, but I sent her back to look through it again and mark it up.

So, two of four down, but three to go. No, I’m not going to rush them. I know you want to read Book Two, but I want to be sure the book is ready for you.

Back in June I also told you I was making progress on the revisions of Book Three, The Hall of the Prophetess. Well, guess what? I finished the revisions, and it’s now awaiting proofreading.

So what am I doing now? You guessed it – I’ve started on the revisions to Book Four, The Legacy of the Dwarf. Because to write epic fantasy fiction, you gotta have a dwarf, right? Well, maybe not. Anyway, I’ve just started. In fact, all I’ve done so far is write a new Chapter One. And I was just looking at it, and it seems kind of flat still.

Ah well.

At least everything is still on track to release Book 2 in September and Book 3 in November. I’ll keep you updated.

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Not the right time for Reason No. 13

21 Jun


OK, so if I was following my normal sequence, this would be Reason No. 13 to read The House in the Old Wood. So I thought that instead of giving a 13th reason today, on a Friday of all things, I’d tell you how things are going with the next books in the series The Day Magic Died.

The second book, tentatively renamed Karia’s Path, is out to a few critical readers for their feedback. Depending on what they say, I may be able to move the release date for Book 2 up from October. I’d like to do that, if I can do so without rushing the book out before it’s ready.

By the way, why is it now Karia’s Path instead of Tsilinakaya’s Path? Well, it’s because of something important I’ve learned as a budding novelist: Big words like Tsilinakaya are awfully hard to fit on a cover. Profound, huh?

I am about one-third of the way through revisions on Book 3. I’m having to completely change the setting in which the majority of the book takes place — and that’s not simple. The setting has quite an influence on the story itself. It’s just that the setting for the book did not fit with the rest of the series. Maybe after it’s out and you’ve had a chance to read it, I can explain more.

That one may undergo a tentative name change too. In The Hall of the Prophetess, the word Prophetess is also going to be tough to fit on a cover well.

Oh, and, if I manage to move up the release date for Book 2, I’ll definitely be working toward moving up the release date for Book 3.

What I’d really like to do is release Book 2 in September and Book 3 in November. I should be able to update you on those plans in a week or two.

 

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