2020 Wrap-Up

I drafted this post an embarrassing number of times yesterday, each more detailed and ridiculous than the last, and finally just tossed them all out. No matter how I approached it, the post was a semi-ranty throat punch, in which it became clear how hollowed-out and overtired, and joyless I've felt about writing this year. 2020 kicked everyone's ass, and, for me,  it arrived on the heels of three years of feeling less and less like anything I was doing actually mattered. This spring, I realized it was time to step back, stop posting, stop talking about writing, stop putting any part of myself out there, and just write. And write, and write, and write. I could offer nothing in the way of joy or hope to anyone, but I could offer a few stories. 

The end result is a personal record of six published works this year, over 540k words. I don't  know when or if I'll return to having an online presence again. I still feel incredibly frustrated, and incredibly numb, and just...tired. And, ultimately, expressing myself beyond my published words never leads to anything good. So.

Here's a quick recap of this year's offerings, if you'd like to lose yourself in a book for a little while:

May: Lone Star - Dartmoor book 7..

June: King Among the Dead - Hell Theory book 1 (a new horror/dystopian erotica series that I started on a whim after reading The Mirror & The Light but which contains my sharpest prose by far of the year).

August: Homecoming - Dartmoor book 8, with a side of extra smut.

September: Night In A Waste Land - Hell Theory book 2

October: Mystic Wonderful - Hell Theory tie-in novella

December: Heart of Winter - Drake Chronicles book 1 (high fantasy romance with dragons and multiple pairings, and all the feels)

Who knew you could start two brand new series in the midst of a pandemic? I've got another very full publishing schedule for 2021, and there's lots to look forward to on that front. Stay safe, everyone, Happy New Year, and be on the lookout for new books. 

New Book: Heart of Winter

 New book alert! Book one in a new fantasy romance series is now live. You can grab Heart of Winter for Kindle HERE, and it's coming to Nook and Kobo soon.

“It so happened that Oliver’s father was a profligate, a playboy, and an exceptional warrior. He was also not at all married to Oliver’s mother, a washerwoman, who died when Oliver was only six.”

Oliver Meacham, bastard nephew of the Duke of Drakewell, and a massive disappointment to his father, has just lost all his male relatives to the war with the invading Sels from the West. Without an heir, the duchy of Drakewell stands to fall into enemy hands, unless one of Oliver’s cousins can marry a lord with an army strong enough to defend it – which is how he finds himself escorting his cousin Tessa to the Great Northern Wastes; to the kingdom of Aeretoll, with a hope that Tessa might wed the fearsome warrior king who rules there, Erik Frodeson, in order to protect her people.

But the stern, forbidding Erik refuses to marry. He offers his nephew’s hand to Tessa instead. And to Oliver he offers insult, challenge – and the sorts of loaded glances that leave Oliver as flustered as he is furious.

Tessa doesn’t relish the prospect of marrying for a political alliance, but she’s ready to fulfill her duty to her family and people – even more so when she realizes that she won’t have to wed the churlish Erik, but his charming nephew, instead. Only…the king has two nephews. And Tessa has a choice to make.

The Drake Chronicles is a slow-burn fantasy series, full of court intrigue, adventure, drama, dragons, and passionate romance. Heavily influenced by Viking history and mythology, the series follows the intertwining stories of multiple couples as they fall in love, and fight to save their families, and their kingdoms.