New Release: Demon of the Dead

“The blood of the living shall welcome the blood of the dead. I am the keeper of the Fault Lands, and the dead shall keep me.”

For generations, the Corpse Lords of the Fault Lands have watched over the fire mountain of Aeretoll, preventing it from erupting and laying waste to the North. Not yet twenty, Náli is a powerful necromancer in service to his king, a talented swordsman known for his razor-sharp insults…and chained to his destiny as Corpse Lord, doomed since birth to lead a short, painful life; forced to beget an heir so that his essential magic can be passed on to the next Corpse Lord.

War looms on the horizon, but Náli must return to his homeland, to soothe the mountain, and to finally choose a bride. Painfully in love with his Dead Guard captain, Náli sets out to discover the secrets of his power once and for all – to settle the mountain, spare himself a wedding, and finally seize all that he truly wants.

The enemy is lurking, though, and war won’t wait for long. A war in which the heroes of Aeretoll will need the Demon of the Dead on their side.

This is the fourth installment of the Drake Chronicles, an epic fantasy romance series intended for adult audiences. Look for the first three books: Heart of Winter, Edge of the Wild, and Blood of Wolves.

DOTD is live, and you can grab it HERE.

I hope you all enjoy book four of our ongoing Drake saga. I had fun focusing a little more strongly on Náli, and on expanding the lore of the universe. I do want to stress, though, while I have your attention, that, as an ongoing series, and as an ongoing fantasy series, the Drake Chronicles is not formatted as a sequence of standalones meant to exist independently. The books do need to be read in order, and while some books will shift the focus onto certain characters, this is most definitely not a "main couple per book" sort of series. Our characters face challenges, and gain new ground, but the overall story is ongoing, as are their individual stories. Nothing will be "decided," as it were, until the end. Oliver and Erik have much more page time ahead, as does Amelia, teased only in a few chapters so far. The pacing is intentional - I'm writing it as a fantasy series with strong romantic storylines, rather than a romance series with fantasy elements. It's important not to expect tidy resolutions in each book. It's also important not to take what you read on GR as fact. I've seen readers claim they know how many books the series will contain, when I've never given a firm number. I don't have a newsletter, so if someone assures you they "read it in her newsletter," they're lying. Always come straight to the source with questions, y'all!

Book five is titled Fortunes of War, and I'll be working away on it (along with other projects) in the weeks to come.

Happy Tuesday, and happy reading :)

Updates & Such

 Is #FlowerFriday a thing? Can I make it one if it isn't? These are from last night's garden sniff-and-wander through the garden with the dog. He does the sniffing, I should clarify. I do the picture snapping while he strains at the end of his leash. It works. Sorta. 

The two weeks since I blogged last have been crazy. We lost my grandfather and my great-aunt within days of one another last week, and things have been a little understandably topsy turvy. We held a visitation for my grandfather Wednesday night, and will have an internment ceremony next month (backlog at the military cemetery). Next week is visitation and funeral services for my aunt. 

In the midst of all this, the weather's been dangerously hot. We've had severe thunderstorms two nights in a row - Wednesday night, rain and standing water on the road forced me to pull over on the way home from the visitation and sit in a church parking lot until the rain eased up. It's been horses out early and in by two. Lots of Miracle Gro in the garden. And, somehow, quite a lot of writing. 

Sometimes, writing feels like the drudgery of a day job - which it is - but in times of stress, I fall back on it the way I always did pre-publication, when it was a wonderful escape from real life stress. 

Hence, updates:

I'm nearly finished with book four in the Drake Chronicles, Demon of the Dead. I'm writing the final climax, now, and then it will be on to edits. Expect an announcement soon. This book has a slightly different feel than the others, mostly because it's so heavily entrenched in the magic of this series. We travel to the Fault Lands with Nali and his Dead Guard, where we learn a whole lot more about the history of the North, its feud with Seles, and what threats lie ahead for our heroes. It's an integral part of the ongoing story, and while it does have some fun moments with Erik and Oliver, Tessa, Leif, Ragnar, and Amelia in the South, Nali's story dominates most of the page time, and will lead right into the next installment. 

I've also started work on the next Dartmoor offering. This one will actually be a Lean Dogs Legacy installment, a smaller, more intimate story starring Melissa Dixon and Pongo, who we met in New York during The Wild Charge. A step back from the big, multi-book action of the last few books, it will be more of a thriller/mystery. I'm going for a Law & Order meets Silence of the Lambs vibe. It'll be my next main project once I finish with DOTD.

So that's what's coming up next. Feeling grateful for family. Hoping for a break in the heat. And hoping to have lots more words to offer soon. 

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. 💓

Dartmoor Futures: Violet Part 3

 Uncle Ten is my fave.

You can read Part One and Part Two of this little future-set Dartmoor story in previous posts. 

It was alarmingly easy to get spoiled for life’s normal drudgeries when your honorary uncle was filthy stinking rich. The club leaned on Ian when necessary, but tended to push back against some of his more lavish offers of assistance. Vi was glad Walsh’s stubbornness had given ground in this instance; even gladder that a miserable twelve-hour car ride turned into a quick, cushy flight back on the jet, laid out on a plush leather seat with a movie playing half-watched in the background.

A Little Devin Green Never Hurt Anyone (Unless It Did??)

 

I think The Wild Charge has out been in the wild (ha!) long enough for me to safely discuss more spoilery topics. But I’ll still put the majority of this post under a cut for those who haven’t read it yet. You can grab the book HERE or HERE if you still need to get caught up with Dartmoor book nine.

#Dartmoor Futures: Violet part 2

 A continuation of this from a few weeks ago. Not sure if it's a whole story, or just part of one; might keep it as blog fluff. Contains mild spoilers for The Wild Charge - which is available now! - and is set in the future, when the kids are young adults. 

They kept her in the hospital for three days. She had breaks in her right tibia and fibula that required surgery: bone chip debris that had to be extracted and pins put in. The broken ribs hurt, but it was a pain she’d endured before; the worst was the dislocated hip that had been put back in place while she was unconscious, upon first arrival at the hospital. Even with the morphine, breathtaking pain spiked outward from her pelvis every time she so much as shifted her weight. Her head hurt, too, but it wasn’t her first concussion. Her broken arm was pinned immobile across her chest with a sling. She hadn’t been brave enough to look at her reflection yet, but Emmie’s face, when she accepted the Facetime call, told her it was rough.

Emmie clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going comically wide…and then glazing over with tears. She rallied admirably with a few blinks and a smoothing of her expression that took obvious effort. “Oh, baby,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Violet had shed her own tears earlier; had pressed them into the pillow in a stolen moment of quiet after Dad had arrived – Ian had sent him down in the jet while Emmie stayed behind on foal watch – and before her next round of poking and prodding had begun. Dry-eyed now – if wincing as Abbie attempted to comb her hair into some semblance of order – she said, “I’m okay.”

She wasn’t, in more ways than one, but in her world of horses and horse people, okay was eloquent of many things.

Emmie, the barn wall serving as backdrop behind her, dashed quickly at her eyes, took a breath, and was then her normal, no-nonsense self. “Did Daddy get there okay?”

Vi had no doubt they’d already spoken with one another, but she said, “Yeah, a few hours ago. He said Ian already had a car waiting for him at the airport.”

“At first he said he was gonna drive down.” She rolled her eyes. “When I reminded him you wouldn’t enjoy twelve hours in a pickup truck on the way home, he took Ian up on his offer. Is he harassing the doctors yet?”

“No, that’d be Tenny,” Abbie said, separating Vi’s hair in sections so she could French braid it into pigtails. “He’s got everyone terrified he’s going to sue, or go the press. Uncle Walsh hasn’t had to lift a finger.”

“That’s probably because he explicitly threatened to go to the press,” Vi said, sighing.

“Oh, God. Any particular reason?” Emmie asked.

“No. He’s enjoying himself.”

Emmie shook her head, but cracked a grin.

“It’s hilarious,” Abbie said.

Emmie’s look said, your cousin isn’t right, and neither is your uncle. It might have also cast loving aspersions on all of other uncles, too. One had birthed Abbie, after all.

“So how’s Luna?” Vi asked, to change the subject.

“You mean aside from keeping me from my baby’s bedside?”

“Mom.”

She made a sad face again and smoothed the flyaways from her ponytail – but then she shifted into Horse Mode, and was all business, her eyes dry. “She’s doing good. The foal’s shifted back, and she’s only picking at her hay today. Fred and George both think it’ll happen tonight.”

Emmie flipped the screen on her phone and gave them both a shaky, Facetime survey of a very-pregnant Luna, swishing flies and stomping unhappily, ears back and lip curled.

“Oh, yeah,” Vi said. “She looks miserable.”

They ended the call with a little more maternal angst on Emmie’s part, some bitten back sighs on Violet’s, and promises to check in again soon, and tell Walsh that she’d called. By that time, Abbie had finished her hair, two tight plaits that pulled painfully at her scalp, but which Vi was determined to endure.

A swift knock heralded a nurse’s arrival, and she carried in a vase of flowers. The first of many, it turned out.

“Holy shit,” Abbie said, unselfconscious and too loud, as vase after vase was brought in.

There was a delicate purple orchid from Ian and Alec.

An arrangement of pink and white lilies from Millie, Lainie, and Lucy.

Sunflowers from the brothers Lécuyer, with an accompanying message that read Glad you didn’t die, signed Remy, that made both girls laugh.

Mom had sent a rabbit’s foot fern and Maggie had sent a huge arrangement of eucalyptus, lavender, and purple roses that filled the room with heady scent. Every family in the club was represented, sometimes twice over.

They were just about out of table space when Walsh walked in carrying a clear vase of nothing but pink peonies. Vi perked up, surprised her dad had remembered her favorite flower – but when he set them on the last bit of room on her nightstand, he said, “The nurse handed me these in the hall.” He cast a glance around the room and let out a low whistle. “Well. That’s something.”

“I’m so jealous,” Abbie said. “If I ever get runover by a track full of horses, I’d better get as many flowers as this.”

Walsh said something dry in response, but Vi wasn’t listening. She’d reached over, with some effort and a teeth-gritting amount of pain, to pluck the card from the vase. The message was typed.

I remembered these are your favorites. Get better soon.

Ash

She set the note facedown on the table. Despite all the competing floral perfumes around her, she could still detect the peonies’ soft scent when she took a deep breath. When she glanced up, Abbie was staring at her, while Walsh fiddled with the TV remote. Behind his back, Abbie mouthed Was it him?

Vi nodded and glanced away before she had to witness her cousin’s doubtless shit-eating grin.

#TeaserTuesday - A History

Demon of the Dead sheds new light on the mythology and history of the fantasy realm in the Drake Chronicles. It's a history Nali, like all his fellow Northmen, thought he knew well, but the truth of which will trouble them all, and further explain their enemy, the Sels. 

It's also great fun to write 😊

First, the fire we rebuilt, which took some time, and even then, the damp wood smoked and spit and filled the longhouse with yet more noxious gray clouds. Then tea was prepared, and poured into two wooden cups. Náli let the heat of his warm his palms, but didn’t sip at it. The shaman bolted one cup down straight away and poured another before he finally settled on the stool opposite and took a long, deep breath. Though his physical features remained unchanged, he seemed to have aged a decade since Náli saw him last. Strained and gaunt. When his gaze lifted to meet Náli’s through the smoke, his eyes had gone that same eerie, timeless blue again; the eyes of a man who had seen too much.

His hands shook on his cup, but his voice was steady. “You must understand: when I speak of ‘the bloodline,’ it’s far older than you have ever imagined. The truth of it is something you might not receive gladly.”

“An upsetting truth is better than never knowing,” Náli said.

“Even if it upsets the balance of all you now know?”

He glanced toward Valgrind, who’d coiled up just outside the open doorway, snoring lightly in the wash of pale sunlight. “I’ve begun to think, lately, that I don’t actually know anything at all.” He met the shaman’s gaze again. “So, yes. It’s better. Even if it’s upsetting.”

The shaman nodded. Took a long sip of tea, eyes closing; then opened them once more, cleared his throat, and began. “It’s fitting that your king is descended of the first wolves – of the Úlfheðnar, the strongest and fiercest of the clans in the Early Days of the North. But the wolf-shirts are not the oldest clan in our history.”

“No, that’s the Dreki clan,” Náli said, impatient. He already knew this. “That’s why it’s Dreki Hörgr, and not Ulf Hörgr.”

“Yes, but what do you know of them save the fact they were the first settlers of the Waste?”

“They…had drakes. They bonded with them. Rode them. Just as Oliver has done, and the Drake lords of the South before him.”

“But where did the drakes come from?”

“I don’t bloody know that. Am I supposed to know when the first leaf unfolded at the dawn of time?” Náli huffed. “Can you not dispose of the questions and just get on with it?”

Unperturbed by his outburst, the shaman said, “There is a cavern beyond the ancestral seat. Up high in the mountain passes, never traversed by the men of the North.”

In an instant, Náli’s aggravation was replaced by a cold lick of fear. He recalled waking in a cold ice cavern, the way sealed by iron bars. The Fangs with their filed teeth, and their arena full of snow-buried dead men. They’d found Valgrind and his mother there. Strange glowing sapphires. And a verse etched in runes on the wall.

“What sort of cavern?” he asked, though he already knew.

“One glistening with ice, its light blue with the breath of cold-drakes.”

DOTD: Mattias

Back writing Demon of the Dead today - 4k words today and counting, let's goooo - and look, what's this? Mattias POV? 👀

This book has that *special* feel to it. I've enjoyed every scene and every sentence so far. Sitting pretty at 52k words so far, and a way to go yet. 

“Mother?” he inquired, but Father kept him from following her; got down on one knee so they were of a height, and gripped him firmly by both shoulders.

“Mattias,” he said, and his voice was oddly tight. “This is Master Sigismund. I want you to listen to him. Do everything he says.”

“But why?”

“He’s your teacher now. You’re to be a member of the Dead Guard.” And though Father’s smile was proud, his eyes glittered in the slanted morning sunlight, tears that he refused to shed.

Mattias went with Master Sigismund to live in a crude timber longhouse on the back side of the fire mountain. The sky was gray, hazy with a constant layer of smoke, and the ground beneath their feet in the training yard was dried magma covered with sand. When you slipped and went down while sparring, you left wide slashes in the white sand, black of the old magma showing through in jagged, cut-off shapes like runes. There were no girls or women. Their beds were low and hard, their meals nutritious, but not rich. They were woken before dawn each morning, and made to run a long, narrow trail that carved its way through the lowlands. Afternoons were for study: military history, tactics, rudimentary first aid; reading, writing, and sums. Then, later, there came the sparring.

That was Mattias’s favorite part. He was the tallest, and the strongest, and graduated quickly from a wooden practice sword to a steel one – even if it did have blunted edges. In the hours before dinner, he put the other boys on their backs in the sand, again and again.

He didn’t tell anyone, though, that sometimes he missed his mother’s lullabies as he tried to fall asleep. That sometimes he pressed his face into the blankets and let the wool drink his silent tears.

His homesickness eased with time, and his prowess in the ring grew. He licked his bowl clean every night and heeded all of Master Sigismund’s instructions.

“You’ll make a fine captain, one day,” he was told, and struggled to keep the smile from his face. Not just a Guard, but a captain. His young mind could think of no higher honor.

But always there was that underlying strain: being apart from his family, from his boyhood friends. Games had been replaced with exercises; flights of fancy for learning well the weight of armor. They wore mail shirts, gods-awful heavy even if they were boy-sized. And after meals, they scrubbed the wooden bowls and spoons, cleared and waxed the long tables where they ate; banked the fires and raked the hard-packed dirt floors. His life was half sword practice and half maid duty, and it became routine. Became normal and inescapable.

But then he turned ten. And the reigning Corpse Lord died.

A coronation day was announced for the heir, newly born. Master Sigismund brought him a new tunic and trousers in fine gray wool, and he shaved his head for him; braided his hair in the single long tail that was the style of proper Dead Guardsmen. Mattias’s pulse beat drum-quick on the long cart ride around the mountain, to the base of the palatial Naus Keep, home of their lord and master.

Mattias was overwhelmed by the crowded, switchback labyrinth of the Keep, studded here and there with pockets of soaring opulence. All in shades of gray. All of it glittering with diamonds. He struggled to keep his gaze level and his mouth shut, filled with a ten-year-old’s amazement. He’d never seen such wonders as this, the palace of his duke.

But then he was led into a room carpeted with furs and kept warm by two roaring fireplaces. And a bundle was lowered into his arms, swaddled all in gray silk and linen. A baby, small and pink, wrinkled and fussy.

“This,” Master Sigismund said, voice gone grave and heavy, “is Náli, Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands. His life is yours to guard and serve, Captain.”

The other boys were named to the Guard: his strong second, Klemens, and Einrih, the cousins Danksi and Darri. All strong, all quick, all loyal and trustworthy. But from that first moment, when a tiny hand batted Mattia’s nose, and newborn blue eyes peeped up at him, it was Mattias who became the steward of the new lord’s every need and want.