Cover Art by Alison Hunt

Feels like it’s been a long time since I prepared for a new release.  Actually, it was early September and that had to be a decade ago.  Now, I’m preparing to release War of Nytefall: Savagery in about a month.  So begins the posts about Dawn Fangs and the upcoming story.  Hopefully, it gets people interested, especially since this a book where a lot of things happen.  Supporting characters get more attention, Mab’s issues take a turn, a frightening new villain appears, the miracle of un-life is seen, and Clyde is driven right into a corner.  That’s a long list of things to accomplish, right?

This was a difficult book to write.  It’s the 6th of the 8 book series and it went through many changes.  The main villain who turns up is another third party who threatens Nyte and Nytefall, but he’s different in one important way.  He’s as strong and vicious as Clyde, which means this isn’t a problem that can be overpowered.  It’s truly a battle of monsters, but that can only go for so long.  Total boredom if it’s 200 pages of these two having a slugfest while the others watch.  That’s why it was tricky to work on.  I had this great battle in mind, but it could only be done once.  So, what was the answer?

Readers will see Clyde do something he’s never done before in the series.  He’s going to have to get some training, which was awkward.  How do you have a guy get stronger when he can already split a mountain with one blow?  Where would he do this too?  I had to create an isolated land with an intricate background for him to go through a series of challenges.  Originally, this was going to be a ‘Twelve Tasks of Hercules’ type of thing and you can see it remained.  I’ll get more into this on the 17th when I talk about the challenge of having Clyde train.

I also had to keep the new villain busy, which was originally going to be Mab’s job.  Only I gave her the drug addiction in the previous volume, so the chances of her being able to handle this wasn’t very good.  This guy would know her weakness, so he’d pounce on her right away.  This meant that I had to hand the job of toying with him to the rest of the cast, which included the villains this time.  To be honest, I’m rather proud of how I fleshed out a handful of characters who hadn’t had many spotlight moments.  The only one I can mention here without major spoilers is Kai Stavros.  I’ve been tormenting him for a while with him becoming mortal, hyper-aging, and then barely getting that under control while staying mortal.  His loyalty to Xavier Tempest has been a surprise strength that I finally get to show along with how cunning he can be.  If I had to pick a secondary hero in this volume, it would be him.

Does it sound like I’m excited to unleash this volume?  I really am because it’s one of the ideas that I’ve had stirring since the beginning.  Clyde vs this new villain was part of the original concept.  Those who have read Ravenous already met this character briefly, but there isn’t much known about him.  I don’t even know how much I can talk about since he’s a big spoiler in my mind.  Not until I get closer to the release date.  With this book getting published, I only have the penultimate and finale volumes left.  Having finished them last year, my mind is already moving on to the next series, so I kind of want to just blurt out everything.  Especially here because I think this guy came out better than I imagined.

So, enjoy the month of promos and we’ll start seeing some Teaser Tuesdays for the book coming soon.  If anybody wants to help announce when the book is live then let me know.  I can either send you the standard ‘book is live’ post or write a special one if you have a topic that you know will appeal to your audience.  Thanks.