It’s been one month since this year started, and I can hardly believe it. Not that the time passes so quickly, maybe it does, but it feels like it’s been forever since I posted the last one of these. So much has happened. There won’t be a Saturday Art post, since I’m doing the Monthly Update this first Saturday and I’m too busy to do that, too, on to the updates…

I have revealed the cover and set up preorders for Heart of Fire. (You can see the cover reveal here.) I am also looking for ARC readers (people who want to read the book and review it by or on the release date – which is April 16th by the way), so if that interests you, let me know in the comments or via my Contact form (you can find that on the home page).

And, if anyone has been following the story of how I wrote a short story for this anthology (Apologue of the Immortals) and it was accepted, here’s my interview about it, just posted yesterday.

Hmm. Okay. So Heart of Fire is happening, I am making progress in several of my Works-In-Progress (I seem to have fallen into a writing mood now that Heart of Fire is so totally coming!!). I still haven’t made any progress on getting Gryphon’s Escape published. It’s still hanging out in that zone where it could be available almost any time, but it isn’t yet. I will be trying to release Epoch of the Promise: Darkness Bright later this year, but I am not thinking too hard about that yet, and maybe the second Dragon-mage book, Scars of Fire, as well. You will have to stay updated to follow my plans.

Oh, and … Heart of Fire is on a 99cent preorder sale this month! The ebook isn’t on Amazon yet, but you can get it for a deal almost everywhere else.

You could also check out the

ALL FANTASY 99CENT PREORDER SALE

Which has a total of 21 preorder titles you can snatch for 99cents if you get to it anytime in this month (or March, but why not do it earlier rather than later)? Heart of Fire is here, too! Of course!

Oh yes, on the reading side of things. For whatever reason, I saved that till last.

Somehow, even with everything else I was doing in January, I read NINE books.

Here they are. One has already been reviewed on the blog. Reviews for the others will probably come sometime. The order they are listed here has little to do with anything. But I found a new favourite series! YES!!

Return of the Griffin by JCM Berne (Review)

Blood Reunion by JCM Berne (Review)

The Hag of the Hills by J.T.T. Ryder

Queen of the Warrior Bees by Jean Gill

The Invasion of Luster by Bruce Coville

The Wounded Tree by Bruce Coville

Miss Percy’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson (Review)

The Laran Gambit: A Novel of Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Deborah J. Ross

The Beginning of Wisdom by C.J. Brightley

Let me know what you read this month, or are planning to read in February, and what you are excited about!

May the Heartfire embrace you and may your wanderings ever bring you back to the Flame of the Earth.

-Raina Nightingale