It’s October, and I will start with what I forgot about last month.

I’ve recently decided that the Kaarathlon novels, previously Knights of the Promise and The Three Scrolls need new titles particularly Knights of the Promise. It’s a long story how it got that title, but it was never an appropriate titles plus the cover I originally published it with was neither one I liked and saw my book with, nor one that conveyed genre well. That whole situation was a compromise because I needed to start publishing. If I didn’t, I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to start. And it’s been time to move on from there for a long time now.

The decision to give the books new titles and covers caused me to push off working on Wings of Healing, even though I’d intended to publish it this late Summer. When I decided to do an entirely new titling scheme, causing The Three Scrolls as well as Knights of the Promise to need a new title, that pushed things back even farther. But I have finally gotten to work on that, after re-designing the titles and some of the back cover descriptions/summaries with the help of some friends and some folks on Discord. I’m currently working on the new cover and back cover for what was The Three Scrolls, and I have the titles and back covers (though I may tweak the latter still) for what was Knights and Wings of Healing.

Here are the titles:

Epoch of the Promise: Dawn Unseen

Epoch of the Promise: Vision’s Light

Epoch of the Promise: Wings of Healing

I’m not quite ready for a cover reveal yet, but here are the current back cover descriptions for Dawn Unseen and Wings of Healing.

Epoch of the Promise: Dawn Unseen

“When twilight gloom has turned to darkest night, watch for your hope, the long-awaited Promise, for it is in the darkest and coldest of night that the Morning Star rises.”

All the dragon Camri knows is that life is dying. In a bid for immortality, she sets out on a rampage of torment and conquest.

When Cassian and her play-mates explored a cave, they woke a tormented dragon, twisted with unnatural powers. Now Cassian is bonded to Camri as a rider is bonded to a dragon, even while Camri destroys all she knows and loves. There is nothing she can do except try to appease Camri, but sometimes Camri’s atrocities are so horrible they drive Cassian to a defiance she always regrets. Punished by the death and torture of the people and dragons she loves, Cassian wishes to die, but is kept alive by Camri’s magic.

When no kingdom or wizard has been able to stand against Camri, can Cassian see the Promise of relief when it stares her in the face? Or will she commit the greatest of her bonded dragon’s atrocities by her own hand?

Epoch of the Promise: Wings of Healing

Six years ago, a desperate mother asked Lynn to take care of her baby. The solitary huntress never expected it to be so long-term, but now her loyalty is to Ameriasel.

When Lynn bonds to a dragon, she realizes that she and Ameriasel have to escape from the Servants of the Dragonqueen. But the Servants pursue them relentlessly, and along with Lauray, a lame woman whose spirit and beliefs rouse confused feelings in Lynn, she and Ameriasel flee into the southern jungles, where only Ameriasel’s awakening gift for speaking to animals keeps them safe.

But Ameriasel’s gift does more than keep them safe. When she bonds to a family of the dangerous wusren and helps a lonely moon dragon form a bond with Lauray that could help both of them to heal, Ameriasel attracts the attention of a lost tribe that believes she might be the one to fulfill an ancient prophecy.

I’m sort of trying to look for quotes if I can for all of them, though it’s not a must, and here’s one of the prospective quotes for Wings of Healing.

“Though there is no destiny and there is no fate, sometimes the spirits can give us glimpses of what may come, or even of what will come …”

I‘m really enjoying how my new covers are coming out! There are some cool themes between them, but I’ll probably show that to you all next month! I am hoping to re-publish Dawn Unseen and Vision’s Light and release Wings of Healing for the first time in November. Hopefully.

On the Areaer Novels side of things, I’ll probably get to making the cover for Gryphon’s Escape and publishing that after all the Kaarathlon/Epoch of the Promise stuff is largely taken care of, since I’m right in the thick of it right now. I’m truly disappointed that I’ve made so few sales on the Return of the Dragonriders illustrated omnibus edition – and no sales at all this past month of September, but such is life!

I’ve been writing a little, and you can track my WIP progress on the Works-In-Progress page. I’m really enjoying the Lìrulin-&-Eldor WIP however. Since they’ve gotten together and there’s no longer certain tensions between them – well, I’ve gotten to what is in my mind the good part, and I’m enjoying it more than I ever expected to! I’m almost sad that it’s not going to go on longer, which is a new thing for me, even though I love all my characters and their stories! But … I’m not quite sure how long it is going to be yet, either. It’s a little weird to be so close to done, to be writing a story that’s already “plotted” being a prequel about events already told in later books, and yet not really knowing how long what’s left is going to take in terms of words and pages!

No matter when I get it done, I don’t expect to be publishing this one earlier than Spring of 2023. After the free novella, Gryphon’s Escape, my plan is to publish Heart of Fire, another book with dragons and another first-in-a-trilogy.

That’s pretty much it for the writing/publishing update, I think, so onto the reading/reviewing one.

As you can see if you browse my archives, I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping to my one-review-a-week-usually-on-Fridays goal! I started reading again, and have read four books (one of them not yet published) this last month of September. So that was good. The ones that are published are Stranger Back Home by E.L. Haines, Demon’s Call by Julie Boglisch, and Tethered Spirits by T.A. Hernandez. I may be able to open review requests a little in the Autumn, like I had hoped, along with adding to my preferences so it’s clearer what I’m interested in.

By the way, as we go through October, I will try to get more pages on the Epoch of the Promise novels and world up, so you can all can learn more about those! Feel free to share your updates, comment on my back cover summaries, or ask questions!