Book 3 is taking shape

I've been encourage by the reviews of the first two books - well most of them :0) It was quite a nervy few weeks when I published the first book after committing to write 5 in the series. What if everyone hated it? Should I continue?

Thankfully, it hasn't come to that, and many readers have also rated the second book, 'Age of Shadow' highly - with some saying they enjoyed it even more than the first :0)

So, now I'm fast-approaching the half-way stage with the third in the series. Unusually for me, I came up with the title before I'd written 10,000 words. The working title, 'Something of Something' (yes, I think I'll stick with this formula) quickly morphed into 'Sea of Souls'. Hopefully, this will become obvious when you read the book!

As the story expands and we head up the east side of the Kolossos Mountains, I'm also going to split into 3 strands by adding Nyomae's adventures. I feel this will help with developing the story, plus save Nyomae having to explain to Elodi and Toryn what she's been up to. Just a quick heads up - she discovers something pretty huge about a certain person on the dark side.

And now to the cover. I cannot rate Kentaro Kanamoto highly enough. I love his work and am so pleased with the first two covers. So, naturally I asked him to do the third. I can't do a full cover reveal yet as a) it's not completely finished, and b) I haven't paid for it yet! But here's the tiniest of details of the cover just to whet your appetite --->

As you can tell, the story moves out to the coast, but this time it's the other side of the Five Realms. I've had two covers with Toryn so I thought it was time to give Elodi that accolade :0)

Kentaro has sent a couple of interpretations of what she might look like, and one perfectly depicted her. Now what she's doing at the east coast, you'll have to wait and see!

I hope to have the first draft ready by the end of July and sent out to my invaluable beta-readers. If you want to volunteer, please let me know. As a thank you, I name characters after my readers who have taken the time to read and feedback their views. I 'fantasize' their names and come up with a selection, then ask for them to choose - a new character in book 3, Amyndra, is one example :0)

Once I get the responses back from my beta-readers I hope to crack on and get the kindle edition out by late September, then the paperback sometime in October.

This is the third out of the intended five, but I have some ideas for going further back into the past of the Five Realms, or as it was back then, the Seven Realms. However, I have to be pragmatic about my writing, so that depends of the sales. Even though it's technically a hobby for me, I do spend close to two hours most days writing. But with the cost of everything rising I still have to earn a living from my main role as an Alexander Technique teacher and may write another book on that subject.

I also have some news to come out soon regarding the first book - so, watch this space!

regards
Roy

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