I’ll start with some exciting publishing news. Editora Wish in Brazil will be soon be releasing a new translation of my novel Heart’s Blood under the title A Montagna das Feras (The Mountain of Beasts.) The lovely cover art is the work of Janaina Medeiros, who did the cover and internal illustrations for the special edition of Wildwood Dancing from the same publisher. A Montagna das Feras comes out very soon. Readers have asked me whether they can purchase this edition from outside Brazil – I don’t know the answer. I suggest waiting until it comes out, then contacting the publisher to ask.
Next an update on the current project. I’ve finished the manuscript of my first novel for New Dawn publishers, though I still have further revisions to do before I send it to them. It turned out a bit longer than I planned, which is not necessarily a good thing – probably too much internal monologue from my angsty characters in some places! On the other hand, the story does include a substantial journey with all kinds of challenges for the small central cast. It’s written in immersive third person, past tense, which I used in quite a few of my earlier books – it has been quite challenging to go back to this mode of storytelling after finding I love the immediacy of first person, present tense, as in the Warrior Bards series. But I am aware that some readers really dislike a present tense narrative. Immersive third person means the entire scene or chapter or story is seen from one character’s point of view and their attitudes govern the way the story is told, even though the narrative is ”he/she/they” rather than ”I”. With several characters having point of view chapters, we get an insight about how characters are feeling about each other, what information they are choosing not to share, whether they are keeping secrets and so on. The story is set in a cold northern place with vast areas of forest. I have (respectfully) borrowed character names from a particular region in the real world, but the setting is imaginary. My next challenge is to produce a rough draft for a map – the final version will be done by an expert.
Last but not least, I’m hoping to arrange a complete redesign of my website prior to the release of the new series in 2025. It’s time for a more streamlined look. More on that at a later date.
