From the Publisher's Desk

Our next release will be Fire's Tongue, the second book in the Element's Opening series. The first book in the series, Water's Eye, came out last year, and featured Maya San Lucas, the main character from the Doors of the Mind series. This new installment introduces Megana Hurley, a new character to the series. She works as a shop girl in the general store of the small town of Chicagorn, several days west of The Capital. Most of the people in Chicagorn know of her, but only her best friend Claire really knows her. Knows that she is secretly a mage, hiding her power in a world that would see her dead if they knew it. Only Claire has a secret of her own that Megana doesn't know about. Not until Megana's boyfriend heads off to join the trooper corps, leaving the two girls behind all on their own.

Did you know that we also have audiobooks? We're currently working through all our previous books, trying to include them in our current audiobook collection. But going forward, all books, including Fire's Tongue, will now be released with an audiobook. These are only available on Google Play at the moment, but we are still looking into other avenues as well. Check out our Audiobook page on the website for which titles are currently available.

From the Writer's Desk

So, part of why I'm able to write so many books in a year is because I don't need to do much in the way of editing. Every once in a while, I'll have a chapter here and there that doesn't really make sense. I'd have to go back later and rework the chapter, sometimes needing to rewrite it from scratch. But this is the exception, usually just one or two in a single book, and one or two books out of ten. The rest of the book usually is unaffected by the heavy rework.

There were only two exceptions to this, namely Missing Mars and In Time for Prom. These were the first and third book that I ever wrote, and they're the ones that I have edited the most. Mountain Princess had two chapters that needed to be reworked, but that had no impact to the rest of the book, and it took me three tries to get one chapter in Crowbarland Prep to make sense.

And now, Cary Simms: The Witch Ring, the fourth book in the Cary Simms series, unfortunately is going to be joining the list. Now, by itself, the book was pretty good. There are some items that I need to feed into the earlier chapters, which happens often enough and is easily done in editing. However, the last ten or so chapters of the book don't make sense for the main character. If this was a one off, not part of a series, it wouldn't matter. But when you base your ending around a character who is overly religious stealing something as part of the plot, you've made a major mistake somewhere.

On the bright side, the ending was a bit slow as well. With my chosen villain for the book, which is important for the main storyline, there wasn't much of an epic battle at the end. But then, that's not what this book was about. I think the main point of this book, the split between two of the characters that is a driving force in book five, was delivered properly. It's all about make everything make sense for the main character without losing that main message in the rest of the book. But, that will have to wait a few months, for when it comes around for editing.

From the Event Desk

This year's event schedule is a bit up in the air at the moment. Jersey Pride and Collingswood are definitely happening again, and I'll let you know when I have information on those. As for IABX, they changed this up a bit this year. Instead of a single event in the middle of August, when no one wants to be out in the sun, there's one in June for children's books and YA, and one in September that seems more for adult readers. I am considering going to the June event, though it is the weekend after Jersey Pride, so... Well, I might be sold out, and there's not enough time for re-ordering any books.