Hello.

I am tagging this post in the Paths of Fantasy category/blog because most of what I’m going to share here is more in that category. However, the Enthralled By Love Blog is still active. I split my blog posts into two categories in December. The Enthralled By Love Blog is the majority of what I used to post; usually religious or philosophical musings and poetry. I am going to try to post at least once per month to the Enthralled By Love Blog, so those who follow for that, don’t worry, I haven’t completely abandoned it!

Paths of Fantasy is fiction reviews, possibly some author spotlights and interviews, character and world art, writing updates, and book tags, and maybe a few more things that are more or less of that sort. Most of what this post shares is going to fall more or less under this category.

First, the wrap-up. In January 2021, I published The Gifts of Faeri, a standalone prequel novella to the Return of the Dragonriders Trilogy, available in Paperback or free as an ebook from most retailers and in PDF form on my website. In April, I published The Three Scrolls, a Kaarathlon Novel and sequel to Knights of the Promise (which is standalone). In June, I published Children of the Dryads, #1 in the Legend of the Singer Duology, one of multiple series set in my fantasy world Areaer. I finished drafting Kindred of the Sea, another Areaer standalone featuring Corostomir and Aderan, two minor side characters in the Legend of the Singer Duology. Kindred of the Sea is about a very close asexual partnership, and it also introduces Alaer, Areaer’s sister planet, though I do not have a page for Alaer yet (that is one of the things this up-coming year should bring).

I made a number of pieces of character and world art. I’ve started doing posts for each piece of art, and I expect to do more shortly. And I read I-do-not-know-how-many novels and started posting reviews regularly. You can find both of these in the Paths of Fantasy blog.

I also entered DragonBirth in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off for 2021!

Now to touch on my expectations for 2022. Aside from making some aspects of my website more streamlined and continuing reviews (which I hope to post about once a week near the beginning of the weekend, though I may miss some weeks; this is not a guarantee, just a current expectation), the first order of 2022 is a Cover Reveal!

Sorceress of the Dryads, sequel to Children of the Dryads, is coming on February 22nd, and preorders are already live at some retailers. The Cover Reveal is on January 8th, in just six days (I think; I can never remember how most people count days). Starting then, I will try to regularly post fun stuff, from art of various different characters in the Legend of the Singer Duology, to art of the world and creatures, to a poem written in Elethrian in Elethrian characters! I will provide more information on expected frequency and precisely what to expect with the Cover Reveal!

And you won’t see this on the blog, but I am currently working with my editor on the final stages of editing Sorceress of the Dryads. I will, however, post when that is done (probably in a couple weeks, but I cannot predict the precise date), as it should become available for preorders at almost all retailers when I upload those files.

Farther-off 2022 goals include to edit and publish Kindred of the Sea, which I mentioned earlier. I already have the proto-cover, though it might still need a few changes, and I’m itching to decide when to do the Cover Reveal for that! It is so beautiful, and a different style from anything I have tried before yet! I also hope to publish The Wings of Healing, another sequel to Knights of the Promise, in Summer/Autumn 2022. Hopefully, that won’t be delayed into 2023, the way Sorceress of the Dryads‘ release was delayed into 2022 (I originally intended to do a December release).

And, a writing update. I am currently working on four drafts more or less concurrently. Here is a little bit of information about each:

Lirulin-and-Eldor:

This is the story of Tara-lin’s parents, the elf huntress Lirulin and the human warrior-assassin-spy of the Valor Hall, Eldor. How they met and and fell in love, and how they survived. A synopsis already exists as part of Tara-lin’s thoughts about life in Children of the Dryads before I ever considered writing the full story, so I won’t worry about spoiling it! This is a rather unique fantasy romance (I think – at least, I have never seen or heard of anything like it). It is my first attempt to write a story where the romance is not very much a sideplot, and also my first attempt to write a romance between two people who aren’t at least somewhat asexual. (Many of my novels have no romance in them at all). I am currently about 30k in, and enjoying it, but sometimes my characters are very frustrating. I am certainly learning a lot from them!

Slave-determined-to-be-free-and-ride-dragon:

This is likely to be a trilogy, and I have already written #1. I am presently about 35k into #2. This occurs about 50,000 to 60,000 years after the Legend of the Singer and Return of the Dragonriders series. It is the story of a slave who is determined to be a Dragonrider, even though her people are forbidden contact with the dragons, and to free her people, but as she is fleeing with her dragon, a terrible disaster strikes the land, and an enemy even more pressing and horrible than her people’s ancestral oppressors becomes a foe to be reckoned with. Alongside her, there is another primary character, who is a young girl from the third continent (Galen), who comes from a people who generally dislike dragons and exile anyone who becomes a Dragonrider, who is chosen by the Obsidian Guardian. A lot of what is going on in this trilogy ties into events tens of thousands of years earlier and could be considered a spoiler, so I will share more as I get closer to publication, but I want to give readers the chance to read the earlier series before they are spoiled!

Library WIP:

This one is contemporary with the previous series. I expect it also to be a trilogy, but I am currently about 70k into #1. The main character is a side-character in the Slave-becomes-Dragonrider, as the main characters of that series are side-characters in this one. Library WIP is actually a mis-nomer, and I also call it Dawn-song WIP for the translation of the main character’s name. It starts with Dawn-song reading his favourite story, which is supposed to be a children’s legend but which fascinates him and which he suspects for various reasons, some of them linguistic, to be based on truth, in the library garden, so I made up a working name for it based on that first scene! This one may be even more tied into previous events, so I can’t share much about it either without risk of spoilers at the moment, but what follows is a little bit I can share. Dawn-song is a half-elf, asexual and aromantic. I’m sometimes concerned readers might have a hard time relating to him, even though I love him so much and the only reason I’m currently writing his story (because I hate having so many novels in progress at a time) is because his personality is just so real and vibrant to me and captures my attention so much. But he’s very caught up in something he needs and can’t find, that the people around him cannot relate to, and a lot of the first book is also about his need to be absolutely alone. I’m really enjoying writing it, and how he often does things or thinks things that make so much sense yet surprise me! But he’s very, very different from most people in so many ways. I think that’s something I like about him, but I think he might be hard for a lot of people to understand. Still, I’m not worrying about that yet.

New World WIP:

This one I can’t share that much about yet, because the egg is only rocking and has not hatched yet! It is set in a new fantasy world that has no humans and a lot of other things that are strange and cool! I am also taking a try at writing something in 1st person because that is how the main character’s thoughts and perspective came to me.

I will also be making pages for all of my available series, describing something about them and how I came to write them, along with some moodboards. I’ve already done Return of the Dragonriders and Legend of the Singer is next up. I will probably get that up the same day as the Sorceress of the Dryads Cover Reveal.

Stay around (or check up once in a while) if you are interested in any of my fantasy, or if you are interested in my book reviews! And feel free to check out anything you like on my website. My Resources and Favourites page is a mess I need to clean up (and hopefully I will get to that and find a better way to do it soon), but everything else should make sense, and you can take a look at that, too, if you want to. I will also try to compile a list of the author interviews and spotlights I have done (as an author – not as an interviewer, since I have not done that yet) in the next week or so.

Or you could subscribe to have an e-mail sent to your inbox whenever I post something new here!