Updates and More Fun BoT Insights

Hello everyone! Sorry the post is so late this week. It’s been a wild one with a holiday Monday, snow days, and sick kids. So let’s get to it.

Updates

A Blaze in the Dark is with my editor after it was approved by both my alpha reader and a beta reader. It looks like February 7th is definitely the publication date. I’m still waiting on the cover, but as soon as it’s done, I’ll do a cover reveal. This story is in the Bearer of Truth world, but you don’t have to read it to keep up with the BoT books, though I did put some fun clues in it for those who do! You also don’t have to read the BoT books to understand what is going on in this novella. It’s more of a romance than the BoT series because the focus is on Antonio and Bain’s relationship.

I’m currently back to work on book 2 in The Bearer of Truth series. I need everything I’ve already written fixed up for my new direction before Wednesday when I’m renting a place to be alone for a few days and write. I’m really excited about this book, and I hope you guys will enjoy it as much as you enjoyed the first book. Again, this will be romance light as Gabriel and Evander are on a journey to making their relationship work, but it is not at the forefront of the story. The main story line is about what they’re trying to accomplish in the world as a team and who Gabriel is. But, for those of you who want to throat punch Evander, he is going to make some important positive steps.

Also, I’m going to give this blog more structure, so here is my proposed schedule:

Me Monday – This will be personal posts including author stuff or any subject I choose to discuss.

Watch Out Wednesday – Book Recs and Reviews

Fantasy Friday – Delving into the lore of my worlds or any other Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Sci-Fi subject

Gabriel, Evander, & Series Direction

This is another post that was previously posted on the blog tour but I edited it a bit and cleaned it up. I wanted to share the information here too. Next week will be an entirely new post about how the immortal warriors fell from grace.

A lot of what I know about my characters and world can’t be shared yet since I’ve only released the first book and it’s a planned five book series. I don’t want to spoil anything. So, I’m going to give you a little insight into Evander and Gabriel and why they avoided each other for so long. Also, some information about the mate bond.

I think it’s hard to strike the right balance when you’re writing a series following the same two main characters stretching over several books. We often want the characters to change quickly, to get better and become better people immediately because seeing that change is so satisfying and being able to point at exactly what changed them makes us feel like there’s a chance it can really happen. But my guys aren’t so easy, unfortunately. They are, in fact, stubborn.

Gabriel is a good guy at heart, but he’s damaged. He has a dark past we don’t know anything about (yet), and it still affects his present. He’s very clearly a good person, but he’s closed off, doesn’t trust anyone, and too apt to use his tongue as a weapon. Evander is arrogant and has made the mistake of believing his own hype. He’s sheltered, ignorant of the real world, and even worse, doesn’t care to learn, and his team isn’t much better. They’ve been living in an isolated location, some of them for decades, only leaving when sent on missions individually or as a team. They didn’t even take the time to really get to know each other outside of the superficial.

Evander and Gabriel have known they were mates for a few years, but they have been very careful not to establish any type of real connection between them. You can feel the mate bond’s pull, but without acknowledgement or feeding it by getting to know each other, it can be ignored and will have very few real consequences. Or at least the one’s it did have both Evander and Gabriel were willing to put up with; though they each had their own reasons for doing so. They were still able to fight on opposing sides; Evander was still able to try to kill Gabriel, or at least he believed he could. He never really wondered why he kept coming close but never finished the job. At the start of the first book, they can no longer avoid one another and have to function in each other’s orbit. That’s when things get interesting because the pull gets stronger, and the true side effects of an incomplete mate bond start to show.  

That being said, the romantic element of this book is merely a subplot. The main focus is on their mission as a team, building relationships within the team, and the other strange occurrences that are happening all around them. They are trying to complete their mission and figure out what is happening on earth. Are all the things they keep stumbling upon just coincidences, or are they all connected? Is there a master plan, or have they been sent on a wild goose chase? What do their leaders know that they don’t? What is Gabriel truly capable of? Along with many, many more questions, some of which will be answered in this book, but most will be answered as the series goes along. I hope to answer enough of these questions in each book that they feel like a satisfying read by the end even if it’s obvious there’s more to come.

If you haven’t read it yet and would like to check it out, you can find Shadowing the Light at this universal link.