I wrote another book!

First off, I'm sorry I've not been as on top of updating my website recently! I promise, I have some new pieces that I've made this year that I will be adding soon(ish). I just need to finish tidying up the photos and watermarking them first and then they'll be ready to list. However, there is a very good reason for my absense. As you may know from my bio and previous blog posts (or social media if you follow me there), a few years ago I discovered a love for writing while coping with a very, very difficult situtation at my old day job (which I'm thrilled to say is very much in the past as I left that job years ago now). Well, I'm still writing! I have several different books in progress, including a second book in my first series, but one book in partiular really took off and I've been hyperfocused on it now for hte last year-and-a-half. It's been a long, long process, but it's finally finished!

Finishing writing it was only the first step though! I completed that step back in March, but then had to hand it off to my editor for feedback (thank you, Mom!). I also had to paint a couple of maps for it. Okay, so I didn't really have to, but come on! Who doesn't like maps in a fantasy book?! So, I worked on that while the book was being edited. After going over the editing feedback and making changes/additions where needed, I got to learn a new indieauthor skill that I didn't on my first book: formatting. Last time, I got so overwhelmed and confused when I attempted to format it myself that I chucked the idea and hired someone else to do it. However, as much as I loved the job that they did (and will very likely be going back to them for the rest of the series so that the format style stays consistent), I really, really wanted to learn how to do it myself as it feels awkward having to go back to my formatter every time I find a typo I need to fix or want to add/change something in the back matter. This time though, I bought some software that was specifically for formatting and figured it out myself. It was tedious, but I'm thrilled with the results!

Of course, I had to go and make things harder on myself though by deciding to paint illustrations for some of the chapters which I then had to format around. The reason for this being that I made a slight goof while painting the maps and forgot to consider the greyscale value tones so the maps ended up working much better in colour than they did in black-and-white. Not realizing just how much more colour interior printing is than the standard B&W printing, I decided to go with colour and have a bit of fun with it my adding more artwork throughout the book. It ended up with two maps and thirteen interior illustrations.

This jsut left the biggest piece of artwork to do: the cover art. And, oi, was the cover complicated! Once again, I decided to do things differently than last time and went with a true full-wrap cover art that would seemlessly flow from front-to-back so that there wouldn't be any potential for spine edge issues because of Amazon's tendancy to shift things during printing. Which, let me tell you, is not easy to do as you have to very carefully consider the placement of every teensy, tiny detail as to how it relates to the spine, the typography, the barcode, and, of course, the bleed trimline so that nothing important ends up getting cut off. It took me three weeks of burning the midnight (and well, well beyond midnight) oil,  but I did it and I'm extremely proud of it!

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce my newest young adult fantasy book!

From the Ashes is a young adult, high fantasy Cinderella retelling and the first in a series of interconnected standalones.

Synposis:

A young artist desperate to be free.

For nearly seven years, Lael Verane has lived under the ever watchful eye of her stepmother. Forbidden from leaving the grounds of the estate and locked away whenever visitors come to call, Lael's only solace is in her art. There's just one problem: due to another of her stepmother's strange restrictions, art is not welcome at Avarill.

A prince on a mission.

Agents of the Crown have been dying and elves are disappearing from across Rynn. Prince Nathyn Trysele is determined to find out why. His only clue? A letter from the deceased spymaster, but he's convinced that the answers he seeks are buried somewhere in the Caeth night-markets.

But not everything is at it appears and, in a kingdom where art guilds and magic collide, deadly secrets lie buried that could tear the kingdom apart.

Here's the full cover minus all the typography.

From the Ashes is available in ebook, Kindle Unlimited, and two different paperback editions: coloured interior and standard black-and-white (I found a way to make the maps work in B&W afterall). However, to see both paperback editions you need to click on 'see all formats and editions' as Amazon does not immediately show both. I have tried to mark each one as to which it is so please read the descriptions carefully. Each book in the Guilded Kingdoms series will feature a different form of art (whether visual or preforming) and involve a different fairy tale or combination of fairy tales. Book two is already underway! Oh, and, as the series progresses, there will also be some fun overlap between books with character crossovers as they will all be in the same fantasy world.

Book links: ebook, paperback (colour), paperback (B&W)

You can also find merch for the books using all the artwork I painted for it on RedBubble and ArtStation!