I’m nearing the end of the draft on this book. I’ve still got a little more to write, but I estimate that I’ll finish the last chapter by mid-November based on where I’m at now. While I’ve gone back and revised some chapters multiple times already, this will begin the point where it’s entirely down to working on revisions as I work out the kinks before the manuscript goes to beta readers.
This novel has been so much fun to write. There was one scene involving a chicken that had me laughing so hard while writing it that I could barely see my laptop screen to get the words down. I wish I could share a snippet of it, but the amount of redacting I’d have to do to avoid spoilers would ruin it. In another scene, I actually cried while writing it, and the crazy part is…no one died. It wasn’t even sad, just a touching scene. This novel has had me feeling all the emotions. For those who are wondering, there is plenty of banter, along with more serious and heartfelt moments. Sometimes, both in the same scene.
At the end of this post, I am including the two snippets I shared on social media, so those who don’t follow me on IG or Facebook can see them. Also, they’re for anyone who does follow me but missed them.
Next up, what is the title for this novel? It’s killed me to sit on this one, especially since the cover has been done for over two months. I’m going to go ahead and share the title now because I’m tired of publicly calling it book two…
It’s overdue for me to post an update on where I’m at with writing, publishing, and life. The last couple of months have been busy after the Oaths & Vengeance release. I’m happy to see many people have enjoyed it, and the novel has received some wonderful reviews. Sales and page reads are still not where I’d hoped, but they have been steady. New readers are giving it a try, and I’m still getting occasional late ARC reviews. Better late than never, though!
Someone sent me a screenshot of an email from Amazon this past weekend showing they received a recommendation for Oaths & Vengeance, so I appreciated seeing that. I have noticed a ranking improvement in the last couple of days with more page reads and sales. That might be contributing to it, along with a couple of small ads I’m currently running. If you get an email from them for Oaths & Vengeance, you’re welcome to let me know if you’re inclined. It helps me gauge the visibility of the book.
Below, I’ve included some updates on my life behind the scenes that you can read if you want, or you can skip that to only read the writing updates down the page if that’s what you’re mainly here to see.
If you enjoy enemies-to-lovers romantasy and want to meet a female character who cultivates a wickedly dangerous garden, then this book is for you. Aella isn’t a young, inexperienced girl just discovering her powers. She’s in her thirties with life experience, has a strong handle on her magic, and strains against a system that keeps fae women under men’s control.
Her careful obedience is about to be shattered when she has to ally with a rival lord’s powerful son in secret. If her guardian uncle finds out, he’ll execute her for treason. She’s going to be walking a careful line to survive what lies ahead, but she’s out of options. As for Darrow, he may hate Aella at first, but he’ll soon discover she isn’t at all what he expected. She’ll challenge and taunt him at every turn. Too bad he’s cursed not to love because he may have met his match.
Oaths & Vengeance is available in ebook, hardcover (availability varies by retailer), and paperback (Amazon only). For the ebook, it will only be on the other retailers until August 25th, when I’ll pull it from them to put it into Kindle Unlimited. Be sure to grab your copy before then if you shop elsewhere. The rest of the details are below.
SUMMARY
Darrow has so many secrets that even those closest to him don’t know them all, but she’s about to become his favorite. He is powerful, ruthless, and her sworn enemy. The wickedly good-looking elf is also cursed never to love.
Aella should stay far away from him, especially considering he could kill her from a distance with little effort. Except that someone close to her is dying, and he is the only person in the realm with the means to help. She has strong powers of her own to offer in exchange, but to her dismay, Darrow wants a secret marriage as part of the bargain. Fae marriages are forever, so she’d always be his.
With other factors pushing her toward it, she agrees to a private wedding that the king himself officiates while hiding the ceremony from her disapproving family. Aella suspects there is far more to Darrow’s motives if Zadrya’s monarch is involved. It isn’t long before she discovers that dark forces are circling, and it’s her rare magic they want to use or eradicate by any means necessary. Her new husband has drawn her into a dangerous conflict started centuries ago that could either end in the salvation or destruction of their world. If she wants to survive, she’ll need to trust Darrow with her body, but never her heart.
Note- This novel is an enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn romantasy. It contains adult content, including violence, foul language, rough spicy scenes, torture, and a sentient murder garden that you’ll either adore or have nightmares about for years to come. Read Oaths & Vengeance at your own discretion.
Don’t forget to add Oaths & Vengeance to your Goodreads TBR list HERE!
If you’d like to read the first two chapters of the novel, click HERE! Otherwise, I hope you give this new series a chance. It may include many familiar tropes to romantasy, but the world-building is unique and vibrant, so you’ll feel like you’ve truly stepped into a new place you’ve never been before.
I am excited to announce that Oaths & Vengeance is available on Amazon in paperback format. This edition has full-color maps inside, which turned out amazing. For those who are interested, the details are below. For those waiting for the ebook, it will be released this Friday, August 22nd. I chose to make the paperback available sooner, so it would reach readers around the same date as the digital version, depending on where you live (sooner for some, later for others).
While the paperback will only be on Amazon to keep the price lower (they required setting it for $8 higher if I wanted wide distribution), the hardback will be available everywhere because I went through Ingram instead for it, but that format will have the maps in black and white to keep the cost down. Expect to hear more about its availability later this week.
There are plenty of reviews on Goodreads and other book review sites to help you decide if Oaths & Vengeance is for you, thanks to a very enthusiastic response during my ARC campaign. I truly appreciate everyone who took a chance on my new series, most of whom had never read my work before.
The rest of the details are below, as well as a closer look at the book with the video I made to show it:
This is the final version of Oaths & Vengeance for the paperback version. It will be releasing ahead of the ebook on August 19th and includes full color maps! #romantasy#enemiestolovers
Darrow has so many secrets that even those closest to him don’t know them all, but she’s about to become his favorite. He is powerful, ruthless, and her sworn enemy. The wickedly good-looking elf is also cursed never to love.
Aella should stay far away from him, especially considering he could kill her from a distance with little effort. Except that someone close to her is dying, and he is the only person in the realm with the means to help. She has strong powers of her own to offer in exchange, but to her dismay, Darrow wants a secret marriage as part of the bargain. Fae marriages are forever, so she’d always be his.
With other factors pushing her toward it, she agrees to a private wedding that the king himself officiates while hiding the ceremony from her disapproving family. Aella suspects there is far more to Darrow’s motives if Zadrya’s monarch is involved. It isn’t long before she discovers that dark forces are circling, and it’s her rare magic they want to use or eradicate by any means necessary. Her new husband has drawn her into a dangerous conflict started centuries ago that could either end in the salvation or destruction of their world. If she wants to survive, she’ll need to trust Darrow with her body, but never her heart.
Note- This novel is an enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn romantasy. It contains adult content, including violence, foul language, rough spicy scenes, torture, and a sentient murder garden that you’ll either adore or have nightmares about for years to come. Read at your own discretion.
I have a few things for you all about Oaths & Vengeance and Galadon. The first thing I want to let you all know is that the Galadon audiobook pre-order is up, and it will release on August 19th, 2025. You can check it out on Amazon HERE. It will be available pretty much anywhere audiobooks are sold if you prefer somewhere else. Even most of the libraries in the United States have my audiobooks via Hoopla.
Oaths & Vengeance has multiple updates. For one, I’ve been doing an ARC (Advance Review Copy) campaign ahead of the release to help get word out about my new romantasy series and so readers can see what others think of the novel before choosing to buy it once it releases. Almost all the people who have read it so far have never read any of my other books. I wanted to test the waters with an expanded audience, and thankfully, the reviews have been amazing. There are currently over fifty of them on Goodreads, along with some of them posted in other places like Instagram, Storygraph, and Fable.
I took a lot of chances with this book that bucked the trends of the genre a bit by making the FMC in her thirties and already in full control of most of her powers. Her growth comes from other facets. Also, this series has sentient plants, some of which are even mobile when the urge strikes them. I had no idea how that was going to be received, but I had to write it. For about seven years now, I’ve really gotten into gardening and love it. I thought it would be fun to create unusual and rather moody (sometimes hostile) plants since this series is set on a different planet with magic. Thankfully, that appears to be one of the favorite elements reviewers have mentioned (wipes forehead in relief). The magic system and world-building are also designed to be unique and stand out from other series in the genre, and that has been really well received as well.
PAPERBACK FOR OATHS & VENGEANCE
I’ve set up the paperback through Amazon, so it’s ready to go and will release on August 18th. That’s a few days earlier than the ebook to allow for shipping time since I can’t do a pre-order for it. I am amazed at how beautiful it came out, especially because it has color maps inside (the color maps are also in the ebook). The drawback is that color printing is more expensive, but I priced it as low as I could at $28.99.
The other drawback is that Amazon doesn’t offer color printing in Australia, and I have a decent amount of readers there. As it stands, they’d have to have the paperback shipped from the United States. I know that’s expensive. I may set up an Etsy shop or something to sell signed copies at a lower price so I can ship them down there (need to research this). Also, we hope to visit Australia again in the next year or so. When that happens, I’ll pack some in my suitcase to bring for readers. My in-laws haven’t met my youngest son yet, and my oldest turned one while we were there, so he doesn’t remember my husband’s family. While there, I can try to plan a meetup with readers in Melbourne or at least ship the paperback to them while I’m much closer.
HARDBACK FOR OATHS & VENGEANCE
I finished formatting the interior for the Oaths & Vengeance hardcover a few days ago. My cover designer is on vacation at the moment (bad timing on my part), but hopefully soon after she returns, she can format the cover for that edition and I can move on with the next step. I’m using Ingram Spark for it, which will provide much wider distribution and make it more accessible worldwide. At this stage, I’m not sure if it will be ready the same time as the paperback and ebook, but I will do my best. A lot depends on how long it takes before I receive the physical proof copy, and if it looks good, approve it for sale. The maps will be in grayscale for the hardback to make it more affordable (sorry, no color for this one). It will be $24.99, which is cheaper than the paperback, though. I will update more on this once I’ve finalized everything.
KINDLE UNLIMITED AND AUDIO
For those who have been with me a while, you know that when I release ebooks, I have them wide on all the retailers for a few days. In this case, Oaths & Vengeance will be available on Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play for four days. I’ve also given a long pre-order period, so there has been plenty of time to order it. On the evening of August 25th, I will pull the ebook off those retailers, and once it’s cleared (usually about 12 hours or so), I’ll put it in Kindle Unlimited for the readers who prefer to borrow it through Amazon. This only affects the ebook version.
For audio, most of my books have been published through Tantor/Recorded Books. I am hoping to work with them again for Oaths & Vengeance. First, though, I need to prove it will sell since it’s a new series. I also desperately want this one in duet format, which requires two narrators and costs a lot more to produce. As a result, I haven’t contacted the publisher yet (I don’t have an agent and just pitch my work to the editor they assigned me). If this book proves to do well enough after release, I will see about getting it into audio and let you all know. Fingers crossed!
That’s it for now, but feel free to ask questions below if I’ve missed something. I’ll be out doing school clothes and school supply shopping today, but I’ll get back to you all as soon as I can. Hope you’ve all had a great week!
