So many questions. Where the hell is book 4? Why is he showing a partially-completed map? What do sheep count when they want to fall asleep?
First off, there will now be two more books in the series beyond the existing 3 on Amazon. Yes this is different from how I thought it would go, where book 4, Secrets of the Land, would be the End of It All. What I’ve found out is that, while I know everything that’s going to happen until the end of the Spellgiver series, I cannot fit all that into one book. Thus, two more books are born:
Book 4: Secrets of the Land
Book 5: Mage and Prophet
Book 5 will positively, absolutely be the last book of the series, though there will be novellas set inside the world of Spellgiver (one novella already exists in the world of Spellgiver—if you haven’t read Mountain Witch, it’s available on Amazon now).
In book 4, Larin, Trana, Sirte and Rhelas must survive a town of pirates, cut-throats and vagabonds long enough to book passage across the dangerous seas to the Southern Continent. The land of creation—where humanity first sprang into existence on this world—is on that Southern Continent, surrounded by snowy mountains and lake cities wrapped around temples to monstrous gods. But first, they will have to navigate the freewheeling and murderous Freetown, and find passage with pirates to cross the water. It is no easy feat for any captain, for those seas are filled with terrible indigen creatures that suck boats into vortexes, beautiful islands with deadly secrets, and volcanic rocks spewing fire. And they’ll have to make that crossing on a ship full of men and women enhanced by ancient magic into something beyond mortal, a group of criminals in which friends and enemies can shift like the island tides.
Meanwhile, in the remnants of the Tanbar Empire, Vandir the Usurper once again rattles sabers against Lukas’s kingdom of Uvalan, this time in conjunction with the Kulathi tribes to the east. Both Vandir and the Kulathi are driven by hatred of the Lidathi and all things indigen, and Vandir seeks to restore the entirety of the Tanbar empire. These two enemies box Lukas between them, with treachery and maneuvers at every turn. During this chaos, Laniette must make a harrowing journey to the steamy Shernock swamps, to wake the indigen Lidathi from their infighting. And deep within the bubbling mud, assaulted by a toxic stew of indigen emotion, she must search for the Carver obelisk that holds the Lyrashi words to save them all.
All of this will lead to a stunning conclusion in Book 5, which I will discuss in a later blog post. The rather spare map above is a depiction of the northern and southern continents, and is as yet only partially filled in. The northern continent map in book 2 and book 3 shows only the left-most portion of the upper continent, here we see the whole thing, along with the general shape of the Southern Continent.
So does the semi-blank nature of the Southern Continent imply not much has been done yet on book 4? No! That leads me back to the titular question—when is Secrets of the Land coming out?
I am putting finishing touches on the main story arc of that book, and am about 75% done overall with the first draft. Then it will be off to the beta readers and editor. I hope to have book 4 published by the end of August, though I won’t rule out end of the year. I know it’s still a ways away but I wanted to tell my readers that I am definitely working on finishing Spellgiver, despite the fact that I almost never post anything to my FB author page. And despite the fact that I blog so rarely, I have to look up technical details of WordPress every time. But regardless of all that, it’s a comin’.
Thanks to you all for hanging on so long. And if you want to be a beta reader for book 4 or book 5 drop me a line. My contact form is on my website www.steverodgersauthor.com. Till next time!