Last week, I shared my two bucket list items for 2025. I’m happy to report that I managed to cross one of them off last week. Tales of Ciel Book 3: The Mark of Cain is now polished and off to the proofreader.

This is one of the final stages in our publication pipeline. In a few weeks, I’ll get the proofs back and likely give the galley one more read-through before sending it off to Amazon and Ingram for distribution. It’ll be a few weeks until I have the art to show y’all for this one, but I know the cover is in safe hands with Zefanya. This all means that we’re on target for our April 21, 2026 release date. It also means that we’ll have published the entire first trilogy in the Tales of Ciel in a little over six months.

That’s exactly the kind of speed we’re aspiring to at HTP. I can’t promise it will always be that rapid, but you’ll never have to wait too long to continue whichever series you’re waiting for.

With that task off my desk, I dipped back into the first draft of What Lies Between (The Divine Heretic 2). I’m still hovering around the 80% complete mark here, but assuming I hit my stride this week, I have confidence I’ll reach “The End” before the holiday season takes over all of our lives. Then it becomes the editor’s problem.