Happy Book Birthday to The Seeking

When I first wrote this book years ago, I never imagined the kind of response it would get. I never thought I would have friends messaging me in the middle of the night telling me how much they loved my work, or readers on Instagram I had never met telling me how they cried at work over my book.

I’ve been absolutely blown away by the response this book has had, and I’m so very happy to see it out in the world.

Today The Seeking is available at your preferred online retailer. It’s available in paperback and soon in hardback. I hope you enjoy it!

The Seeking

Beware the Gray People

Each Seeking, the magic that protects the town of Carra must be renewed, which means the children of the Exalted Family must go into hiding. Whether through disguise or bribe, through trusted friends or perfect hiding places, every child of the Priest family must avoid capture for the full day of The Seeking.

When things go wrong with the renewal, it’s up to seventeen-year-old Dahlia, the middle child of the Priest family, and her girlfriend, Bisa, to escape Carra and find the magical beings responsible for the protection. They must learn who would require such a cruel game every year and if the protection of the Gray People is really worth such a price.

What they will discover is far worse.

Get your copy here.

Read a Preview of The Seeking

Believe it or not we are only two days away from the release of my YA Horror novel, The Seeking! This is my first full-length horror novel I’ve ever had published and I’m super excited by the early reviews coming in for it.

Read the first two chapters of The Seeking today!

Today you can read the first 2 chapters of The Seeking posted up on the Parliament House website. And even in those first two chapters, things get pretty dark. So make sure you’re in a well lit room before you dive in!

If you like what you read and decide to pre-order your own copy, don’t forget to enter my Pre-Order Giveaway! The deadline is October 26th at 11:59PM EST to email me your submission.

Happy spooky reading!

A Bittersweet Ending

The last month or two have been crazy, both with the world in general and in my very busy writing corner. It’s led me to be a little behind on posting here, but I’m hoping to fix that! So first up some announcements.

Updates on Chosen

I have officially turned in my fully written and fully edited copy of Chosen, book 3 of the Stolen series! Somehow through everything that has been going on, between the COVID-19 outbreak and all the violence and tears of the last few weeks, I was able to focus and finish this book. It really is a culmination of years of work since I first started writing Stolen in 2013. That’s a good seven years of work to get here, and wow, what a ride!

Shaleigh has grown so much throughout the books, but so have the other characters too. Each one of them have grown into their unique selves and I’m really happy with that. I’m so excited to share the final chapter of this emotional trilogy with everyone.

However it’s also bittersweet. I’ve fallen in love with these characters and the world, and it’s going to be very difficult to let go of them. I’ve had these characters in my head for years, so it’s difficult to just let go of them. However I also have a very full plate of other books in my brain that also want attention.

In Progress

Speaking of… the next book I’ll be tackling is Colton Fen’s novel, currently titled Descent. It’s the first of the Colton Fen series and Night Feeders is going to be book 0.5. This book has had an ongoing facelift and I’m going in to work on it more with a long list of to-do items to tackle.

After that, I’ll be working on the long-awaited sequel to The She-Wolf of Kanta, which I plan to make a full-length book. I have a whole outline figured out and plan to write the entire book long-hand. I’ve already started writing on it, but it still has a long way to go to reach completion.

There are the projects I’m comfortable sharing now, but there are a bunch more I’ve hinted at during interviews or in chats that are on the horizon. So expect to hear more announcements and progress updates as I go.

The Seeking is now available to pre-order!

I’m thrilled to share that The Seeking is now available to pre-order on Amazon! This dark young adult horror novel has already had reviews come in on Goodreads, and I’m thrilled with the feedback so far! This book features weird creatures, a diverse cast of characters, and terrifying monsters.

The Finish Line!

Oh my gosh, you guys. I can’t believe I’m writing this. I just finished the first draft for my YA Horror novel The Seeking!

I had to look back over my blog to see when exactly I had started writing this piece, and it was back on September 11th of last year – so about six months back. That’s a wonderful rate for me – The She-Wolf of Kanta took multiple years to finalize. This draft on the other hand needs work of course, but I generally know where it needs to be fixed and tweaked.

The Seeking was a novel purely inspired by a dream I had. I was Dahlia in that dream and I had a position of power in a society. I saw the Gray People lurking in the trees and had this horrible feeling of dread. It was poignant. When I awoke that feeling lingered with me for just long enough for me to scratch out the scene I had witnessed – and that’s how this novel was born. I guess you’ll have to read it if you want to find out what that scene was.

For now though, this book is being put aside so that I can take some time to celebrate and forget the novel so I can tackle the edits with fresh eyes next month.

Project: The Seeking

Each Seeking, the magic that protects the city of Carra must be renewed, which means the children of the High Family must go into hiding. Whether it be through disguise or bribe, through trusted friends or perfect hiding places, every child of the Priest family must avoid capture for the full day.

When things go wrong with the renewal, it’s up to seventeen-year-old Dahlia, the middle child of the Priest family, and her girlfriend, Bisa, to escape Carra and find the magical beings responsible for the protection. They must learn who would require such a cruel game to be played every year and if the protection of the Gray People is really worth such a deadly cost. What they will discover is far worse.

THE SEEKING is a YA dark fantasy novel

Words Written:
3/8 – 924
3/14 – 5,538 (OMG muse, calm down! haha)
3/26 – 2,058

Current Word Count: 67,102

Progress:
DONE!

Next Up:
Putting it aside for edits next month!

Commentary:
I can’t believe the progress I made on this book on the 14th. It was one of the final big scenes, and I had been putting it off for days because I knew it would be difficult to tackle. I kept finding other things to do instead of work on it, then on Wednesday my sister was like: “Why don’t you just work on it now?”

It seems simple, but damn. I was like, why not? Next thing I knew I had churned out 5.5k words and it was dark outside. I feel so good getting this novel finished. I already have some ideas of where I want to try to find a home for it. Meanwhile I can go play some video games for a bit and let my brain step out of the sauna for a little while.

Progress Is Not Easy

As you could probably guess from my last post, moving forward on this novel was a difficult process. I had to squeeze out a few hundred words here and a few more there. Much like Dahlia is in this piece, I felt like I was having to find my way around in the dark. I knew where the story needed to go, but I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to do it. (I suppose that’s a drawback of being a pantser at heart.) That said, walking a mile requires taking lots of little steps, and I finally got this bunch back on track toward the finish line.

Project: The Seeking

Each Seeking, the magic that protects the city of Carra must be renewed, which means the children of the High Family must go into hiding. Whether it be through disguise or bribe, through trusted friends or perfect hiding places, every child of the Priest family must avoid capture for the full day.

When things go wrong with the renewal, it’s up to seventeen-year-old Dahlia, the middle child of the Priest family, and her girlfriend, Bisa, to escape Carra and find the magical beings responsible for the protection. They must learn who would require such a cruel game to be played every year and if the protection of the Gray People is really worth such a deadly cost. What they will discover is far worse.

THE SEEKING is a YA dark fantasy novel

Words Written:
3/6 – 712
3/7 – 1,330

Current Word Count: 58,503

Progress:
Moving into the final stage!

Next Up:
There are too many eyes on them, but they can’t let that stop them.

Commentary:
I’ve almost hit the 60k mark! It’s hard to get much writing in during the week since my job takes up so much time, so I’m proud to have gotten so much done this week.