It’s time to announce my next book launch! It’s been a long time coming. At least, it feels like it to me after so many delays. But I am pleased to announce that the fourth entry in The Augment Saga, and its second full-length novel, The Shadow of Arcadia, will be releasing into the world on Monday 15th July 2024. What’s more, you can pre-order it now!

That’s right, for the first time I’m putting out a call for ARC readers for The Shadow of Arcadia, the second full-length novel in the Augment Saga! With three books already under my belt, you’d think I’d have gotten this publishing stuff figured out by now. But the one thing I’ve always missed out on during the run-up to release is sending out ARCs. And the main reason for that is timing…

I am excited to say that I have now completed all the beta reader edits for The Shadow of Arcadia and it is now at the point in the book creation process where it needs to be sent off for a professional edit. The word count currently sits at around 126,400 words, which is a little bit longer than From the Grave of the Gods was. All major rewrite and scene additions are done; I’ve tidied up the prose and typos as much as I possibly can. So now it’s time to turn it over to the professionals…

First of all, I need to update you all on the progress of The Shadow of Arcadia. I’ve made no secret that I’ve struggled writing this book. It has absolutely been the hardest book I’ve ever written, and things have taken a lot longer than I wanted. The good news, however, is that the book is now away with beta readers! I’ve asked for around 3 months of turnaround time, so it’ll likely be January before I get their feedback to incorporate. As you can probably tell, this means the bad news is that the book won’t be coming out this year, something for which I feel I must apologise profusely.

The day has finally arrived. Here is the cover reveal for The Shadow of Arcadia. What a week it’s been! If you’ve been following my social media, you’ll have seen the daily teasers I’ve been putting up for this cover reveal, and it’s been really amusing seeing your reactions, and overall great fun. I worked hard on this cover, and I don’t mind telling you it was a nightmare putting together. It went through several iterations before I decided on this one, and the painting of it was some of the hardest I’ve ever had to do. The process has really stretched me as an artist and designer, and I feel like my powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count I’ve grown tremendously in both of those areas.

I am beyond thrilled to announce that I’ve finally reached the end of my second full-length Augment Saga novel, The Shadow of Arcadia, and it feels amazing! So mark your calendars! I’ve got something special for you all. I promised on my social media that I would do a cover reveal once the draft is done, and true to that promise, the cover art and blurb reveal for The Shadow of Arcadia will happen on FRIDAY 26 MAY - that’s 7 days from now. Keep watching my socials, as I’ll be posting a new graphic each day revealing just that little bit more of the cover. I’m very happy with the artwork I’ve produced for the book, and I hope you’ll join me in giving both it and the book the celebration they deserve.

From 1st to 3rd April, I’ll be partnering once again with Narratess for the #IndieApril mega sale, celebrating independent speculative fiction authors. You’ll be able to get yourself some lovely discounts on a huge range of books from indie sci-fi, fantasy and horror authors. And that’s kind of downplaying it. The sales in April and August were fantastic last year, but this year? Oh boy. 170+ books! So much bigger. It’s a great way to share the love for indie authors while also grabbing yourself some screaming deals. Find your next favourite author!

Progress on The Shadow of Arcadia is still slow. I’m finding this to be the hardest book I’ve yet written, but I am still making progress. It is now past novella-length, and past the length at which I extracted it from the original draft of From the Grave of the Gods, but there’s a lot still to add, and I’m just shy of half the way through. As I write Part Two of the novel, I have a very clear picture in my mind of where it’s heading, and there’s a sequence which I am absolutely dying to write.

It’s 1st November, and that means it’s the turn of From the Grave of the Gods to have its book birthday! Two book birthdays in a year? Surely not! Now I’m just hogging all the celebrations. But it is true, From the Grave of the Gods, my first ever full-length novel made its way into the world one year ago today. It’s hard to believe. So much has happened since, and so many of you have welcomed my humble series starter with open arms, following along with Commander James Fowler’s remarkable journey. I’m honestly blown away by the reception.

Once again, I’ll be partnering with Narratess for another mega sale, this time for #IndieAugust, celebrating independent speculative fiction authors. August 6th and 7th, the ebook of From the Grave of the Gods will be discounted for the sale hosted by Tessa Hastjarjanto of Narratess.com. As in April, I'll be running a Kindle Countdown Deal for the US and UK marketplaces at 99p/99¢, and dropping the price in all other marketplaces as much as I can.

My next novella in the Augment Saga, The Flight of the Aurora, has returned from its beta reading phase and I am busy implementing the changes. I am immensely grateful to my beta readers for looking through my work and providing their invaluable feedback. Thankfully, there’s nothing major to adjust, so after another couple of editing passes, I’ll commence work on typesetting the thing - a process that ought to be easier this time around because I will be using my file for The Re-Emergence as a template.

From 18th - 22nd April, I’ll be partnering with Narratess for the first #indieapril mega sale, celebrating independent speculative fiction authors. April is the month we in the Writing Community celebrate independent authors, and there’s something extra special on the horizon this year. During the third week of the month, I and over 70 other indie authors will be taking part in an absolutely huge sale on speculative fiction books, hosted by Narratess.com.

It’s been a little while since I shared a writing update on the blog, so I thought, as it’s New Year, it was time to let you all know what I’ve been doing since the release of From the Grave of the Gods. Well, first of all, after I picked myself up off the floor from the absolutely incredible launch of my first novel (which is now sitting at well over 60 sales), I continued working on my next novella, The Flight of the Aurora. If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning, you’ll know that in response to some very valuable beta reader feedback, I had to cut my draft of From the Grave of the Gods into two novels. The first of which became the one I took to publication in November this year.

Launch week for From the Grave of the Gods was incredible. The outpouring of love and support from so many places has been overwhelming in the best possible way. I’ve posted sporadic live reactions to various updates surrounding the launch of the book on my social media channels throughout that week. So I thought I’d gather things together here on the blog and take you through what happened since day one, noting a few observations about the experience and things I wasn’t expecting.

Launch day! From the Grave of the Gods, the first novel in the Augment Saga is out now. Wow, what an amazing journey this has been. I can’t believe it’s been just over two years since I started writing the book that would become From the Grave of the Gods. From that tentative start faffing around in an excel spreadsheet making a vague timeline one evening while on holiday in August 2019…

When I first started my writing journey two years ago (or ten years ago, depending on how you count it), I thought it was a simple case of coming up with a vague plot and writing down the vivid scenes that popped into my head. Of course, after I actually made a start I realised there was a lot more to it than that, especially when it came to worldbuilding. So here’s five things I’ve learned along the way:

Angela works as a secretary at a solicitor’s firm in London, but her true passion is for poetry. She studied English Literature at university where she was also a member of her campus table-top RPG society…

After having been asked by absolutely no-one, I thought I’d share a list of all the books I’ve got on my TBR. And because I have taken it upon myself to post up a review for every book I read, you can consider this a kind of sneak-peek at the reviews you can look forward to in the future on this blog, plus get an idea of the kind of books that have captured my interest…

Thank you to everyone who took part in my recent giveaway which will see five Advance Reader Copies of my novel, From the Grave of the Gods, in the hands of the winners, who were chosen randomly from those who entered, and have now been notified…

The time has finally come… From the Grave of the Gods, the first full-length novel in The Augment Saga and follow-up to companion novella, The Re-Emergence, is finally being released to the world on 1st November 2021! What’s more, you can use the links to pre-order the novel right now.