I just finished reading Pierce Brown’s Red Rising and took to the HTP blog to jot down some thoughts. The article meanders into a broader discussion of how writers read, Greco-Roman mythology, and the expectations of genre. If that kind of thing interests you, you can find the whole article here.
Final art for Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies is currently with the printer. It already looks great in Ebook form. I just need to confirm it looks equally beautiful in print before the grand reveal. Once that last detail is finalized, our first book should be available for preorder in Ebook and paperback.
With all the new readers joining the fold, I want to once again extend the invitation to join the ARC team for Ardent Wings. ARCs will be distributed next week, so if you loved the extended sample and would like to see the whole book before release, just send an email to [email protected] with a link to your Amazon and/or Goodreads profile. My goal is to launch with a healthy supply of early reviews. This more than anything else will fuel a successful debut.
Progress report
I’m climbing deeper into the weeds on Book 2 of The Divine Heretic, What Lies Between. As is often the case with first drafts, I usually discover that the outline needs some refinement after I’ve written the first few chapters.
A little insight into my early process: I begin every novel with a chapter-by-chapter outline. This is usually a vague summary of what I hope to achieve with each chapter. Once I have the skeleton of the novel down in top-level synopsis, I go back through and create a bulleted scene-by-scene summary. For anyone familiar with screenwriting, this yields a document resembling a beat sheet.
Once I begin writing the actual prose, it often reveals thematic deficiencies in the beat sheet. I usually pause at some point to go back and revise the outline to address that issue. That’s the stage I’m at right now with What Lies Between. The story beats all work, but the story isn’t as thematically cohesive as I’d like.
Book 1: Seven Days of Mercy for the Apostatic Priest is currently with the proofreader and awaiting final art. Tentative release date: January 11, 2026. Here’s the blurb:
You are more.
More than your skin and bones. More than your name. More than the words you speak and the thoughts in your head. You are more than the actions you take. More than your choices. More than memories. More than pleasure and pain. From the ecstatic shudder of your conception until your last stubborn bone rots back into the earth, you are more.
You don’t see it, and well you shouldn’t. Sight is a privilege, and we lost ours long ago. But you wonder, don’t you? And sometimes you grasp.
It wasn’t always this way.
Your forebears stared into the firmament and saw the truth of their divinity, a darkling hint of the vast eternity contained within every thriving soul. No such certainty exists anymore. Not in the night sky or anywhere else. Believe me. I’ve looked. The stars are only lanterns now, and the gulf between them, an abyss in truth. When we exorcised our G-d, we were nothing if not thorough.
We are artifacts, you and I. Fossils of a murdered deity rendered down to mud and stone. Irreducible reflections of a divine spark, beautiful and terrible. Fallen and pure. It is a lonely condition—containment. To be both blessed and forsaken, haunted and ignored. Our fallen G-d still reaches for us across that infinite gulf, and we are cursed to reach infinitely back. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we are nature and this abhorrence both. This is why the Selki still speak the old hymns, and the Huskan Clerics their feral mantras, reduced by time and memory to an insensate blur. It’s why the Lucente poison themselves with lichen, lying wasted in oneiric fog. It’s why the Elan Friars spend their lives painting votive murals only to see them burned. After all this time, The Karochan kantors still sing in trope, and the Celukids hang new ribs from their Abattoir with every passing moon. Prayers by a thousand names, cast in as many tongues into the same deaf void.
My job is to keep it that way.
Ages ago, the people of Hebdomar killed their creator. But Gods are ever restless, even in death.
In every generation, a child rises from the desert of Ohtahp, bearing within them the seed of creation itself. These “Eidolons” are called to complete a pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mahakalpe, a place to plant their Godling seed so it might take root and germinate among the faithful.
Dispatched by her Apostatic Priesthood, Ruxindra l’Maer sets out for the ancient walls of Mahakalpe on a mission to slay the latest Eidolon before the Syzygy of Avum, preventing the cycle of divine rebirth. Once she reaches the Holy City, however, she discovers preparations for a forbidden blood rite—a human sacrifice to accompany the Eidolon’s investment. The fell ritual reeks of eldritch arcana, and Ruxindra is not eager to see the two sorceries mix.
On thing is certain: the Eidolon must be destroyed. The last time the Godhead walked the mortal plane, every soul on the face of Hedomar bent to his implacable will. Never again. Ruxindra swore an oath to her priesthood, but Mahakalpe is home to Gods far crueler than creation, and this young Eidolon she is sworn to destroy might be the only power capable of preventing their release.
With only seven days until the syzygy aligns, the fate of Mahakalpe turns on the mercy of one Apostatic Priest.
If that piques your interest, be on the lookout for an extended sample in September.
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