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Great news! The revised edition of Battle of the Iron Gates is finished! It will be renamed to just The Iron Gates on its commercial release.
The book has grown to more than twice the length of the original novella, giving the characters and story much-needed breathing space to become more engaging and enthralling. If you read the previous version, you might have caught glimpses of the others characters' personalities, but Arthur, the main character, has been completely rewritten. He's a whiskey-loving warrior with a sharp wit and sharper tactics, who'd much rather share drinks with his soldiers than give rousing speeches, yet somehow manages to be the perfect leader when a demon army comes knocking at the gates.
I won't be releasing the book commercially until early May, but I wanted to give the ebook version away to you guys early. If you click on the link below, you'll get a free download that will expire at the end of April. If you like it, feel free to share it with your friends and family. The more people who read it, the better!
Also, to celebrate this release, throughout April I'll be posting a bunch of free ebooks from other authors. I'm collaborating with fellow writers who will share their books with you, while their readers will receive mine. This means you'll get access to some fantastic free books!
I had hoped to finish updating my website to something respectable, but alas time got away from me. So for now, it's still slap-dash thing it's been for the past year and a half. The new one that I hope to have up next week is straightforward, but it feels sleek and clean
Progress on the Third Book
I've finally gotten Ardan out of Barleron and engaged in the War of Light! I was lucky that many of the scenes I had previously written were transferable. I'd forgotten how much research I had done on medieval nomadic cultures, particularly the Mongols, for this part of the story. Ardan, having spent most of his life in and around the forest, is having a rough time adjusting to life in the saddle.
There's a scene where I'd written two shapers—a fire shaper and an air shaper—working together to create a fire tornado during a skirmish. It might feel a bit over the top and extravagant, but I still love it, so it's staying!
Personal Update
We're getting ready to move to the USA for an extended period at the end of June. I've been going through the green card process for a little over 20 months now. While it feels like they're often moving the goalposts, I've almost completed all the required documents and have my interview in just a few days.
Our little guy got approved for his American citizenship the other week, so he can enter the USA without any issues. The amount of paperwork is always such a nuisance, but I'm happy both processes are almost complete.
I'm finishing off the last of our house renovations in the meantime. With luck, I think I've got about ten days of work ahead of me before everything's in order. Then, hopefully, our last six weeks in Australia will be relatively stress-free as we prepare for the big move.
While there will be several newsletters next month, they'll mostly just be announcements of free books, depending on how many promotions I enter. I don't want to join groups just for the sake of it—I want to check out the authors and the quality of their books before committing, so it could be one announcement per week or just one overall. We'll see!
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