Cover and Title Reveal!

I am so happy to announce that my latest Faradelian novel is now live! It has been for a few days, but I am ready to announce it now. 🙂

And so! What is the title for this fabulous book?

*drumroll*

The Tale of the Poison Heart!

Yes, beloveds! For particular reasons that will only make sense once you read the book completely, ‘The Tale of the Poison Heart’ is how ‘the dinosaur book’ has been named!

Because, lo, there is much more than dinosaurs that happen in that book. There is sweet romance, a mystery most mysterious, and there is even suspense! *gasp!*

If I was to give a summary of the book, say it was to have a pamphlet, it would go like ‘When a young mage accidentally summons a dinosaur during their magical exam, chaos is unleashed upon Farfadel. Romance is set a-flutter as a beautiful mage named Ka’an enters the scene. Drama is uncovered as the true culprit behind the dinosaur insurrection is hunted for. Oh! Will Taayet and Ka’an be able to discover who is the one with the poison heart before it’s too late?’

I’m so so excited to be sharing this book with you all, but I must warn you first of something… dire? This book is very different from the other Farfadel books in that it has… a sort of ending? Something particular to its ending? I don’t want to spoil anything, but I want to warn my readers that, indeed, this Farfadelian book is not like the others.

This book, in fact, leads into the trilogy that I’m finishing! It is a sort of prequel, I suppose? It sets the scene for what is to come, and does so very dramatically!

But enough bla bla! What does this book look like, and where can you buy it?

As usual, my books are available in soft cover on Amazon HERE, as well as in kindle. If you don’t have a kindle, or are against Amazon, you can also get my books on Smashwords HERE.

And this, lovely people, is the cover!

Image description [two people rest their foreheads together, smiling and holding onto each other. The background is light blue and there are sparkles all around them.]

I really do hope that you all like this book. Do let me know if you want a copy and can’t afford it. If you do buy yourself a copy, first of all Thank you! Second, let me know what you think! Leave a review and send me your thoughts!

Wishing you all the best ❤

A NEW Release!

After a long afternoon of plugging away at it, I am so proud to announce that my latest Farfadelian novel is about to be released!

Yes! The book is actually completely finished, and now it’s just to finish the technicalities of getting it out there.

I am so happy to be able to write this. I’ve felt so many times like this book wasn’t worth it, wasn’t good enough, and wasn’t ever going to happen. But it has! After grueling edits and re-edits, it has made it through!

I am so so happy, so relieved, and quite motivated! For yes, this book kicks off the setting for the trilogy that I am currently working on. It’s the prequel, laying the groundwork for all that is to come. Which is quite a lot!

So please, be excited! Share this post, tell a friend, and be ready to grab yourself a copy (or ask me for one)! Stay tuned for cover and title reveal!

Wishing you all the very best, ❤

Now on Tapas!

I just wanted to pop in real quick and let y’all know that I have decided to repost at least the beginning of my novels to Tapas! This way readers can get a nice taste of the novel without having to buy them 🙂 Follow the link HERE to read the Tale of Adelaide and Shadow on Tapas!

Author’s Update

Lately, I’ve been struggling with my mental health. This means -> Lots of Farfadel!

In the world of Farfadel, I feel safe and secure. I know what’s about to happen (ish) and nothing seems terrible. I find myself wanting to go there almost first thing in the morning. I wake up, have coffee, and I’m like ‘oh hey, how about some writing?’. It’s an escape tactic, I know it, so I try and focus on doing other things in life.

Where am I with Farfadel? Well, I’ve almost finished a trilogy, which comes after a book with dinosaurs in it, that will be released this summer. Yes, dinosaurs! I’m pretty excited for it, truth be told, and the trilogy is coming out pretty badass as well.

And yet, in my little author’s heart, I feel like I should be cranking out MORE. More than silly fairytales. Something more serious, profound. Something snobby-nosed people will read and go ‘ahh, literature’, while sniffing into their kerchiefs, or whatever it is wealthy people sniff into these days.

Lately, I’ve been trying to rework ‘Lage’s Game’, and I’m so not sure about it. I mean, the story is more cohesive this time around but… I don’t know. I’m hesitant.

And let’s not even get started with Chaos! I tried editing that series once and got so down on myself. Chaos feels like such an idiot and ahhhhh, it was depressing, okay?

I want to work on these more serious projects. I’m just not sure ‘how’ to tackle them. Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe Farfadel should come first. Maybe, if I was honest with myself, Farfadel is what I need right now, and the rest is just too much work. I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure about anything right now, and feel like a bit of a failure as an author.

To be extra honest, I miss posting daily writings and getting likes and views. It felt good to get the writing ‘out there’ and get some sort of positive feedback. Writing is such a lonely and ‘in your head’ art, it’s kind of crushing some times.

Anyways, I will get back to my writing. I’ll try and keep you all updated on my progress! Take care ❤

Happy Women’s Day ~My own Story

Happy women’s day, lovelies. This is a day to celebrate the struggles and victories of women all over. Whether they are recognized as women, or in the closet with their identity hidden – they deserve a round of applause.

I write about plenty of women and female-identifying characters. It’s long been a passion of mine, ever since I was a child in fact, to see better women identifying characters. Even as an itty-bitty child, I noticed that women were treated differently, often poorly, and that many of their characters were secondary and poorly written.

To this, I would like to offer a story that comes to mind.

Once upon a time, there was a herd of geese in my childhood backyard. Now, if you know anything about geese, you’ll know they’re watchdogs and they can be downright vicious. And these were untrained, relatively wild, geese. They were ‘domestic’, but they bit to give an opinion of themselves.

Well, one day, as this flock grew up, a certain goose distinguished himself. He chased us children (and bit!), herded the flock, and heckled the other geese. We named him Cesar, being little history nerds.

Come one day, the other geese were losing their feathers to Cesar, who was pecking them. So, Cesar was removed from the flock and put in an isolated cage.

It was in this cage that Cesar laid his first egg. Cesar was a female!

To an impressionable little child, this was quite the lesson. Females, women, could be quite badass and territorial. It was a lesson that, truth be told, repeated itself quite often. Often it was the females in the flocks that would stand out, become prized pets, and try and bully all the others.

To me, nature showed me that women, females, could be very much everything males could be, simply because they both had souls and personalities. Women weren’t ‘less than’ or ‘half witted’ or somehow inferior. They were just as present, motivated, and clever as the males. It isn’t nature that makes women ‘inferior’ or ‘second class’, but society.

I could go on a huge rant about how gender norms affect women and how they really just need to go. But for today, I want to keep the focus on women. Let’s celebrate them, their achievements, and see how far as a society we need to go to achieve equity.

I’ve attached a picture here that I’ve recently done. It contains Rita, a martial artist, in a Farfadelian novel I’m working on, and a swan that follows her throughout the story. A swan is not exactly a goose, but they’re quite as badass and vicious, I’ve heard.

I chose this picture because, to me, it shows how women can be completely badass and lead their way, inspired by the power of the women in the natural world.

I hope you celebrate well, and have a great day ❤

Coloring Book Release!

Yes! It has arrived! Well, not to me, physically, but virtually! The Farfadel Fairy themed coloring book is now ready to be bought and colored, and bring all the love and cheer of Farfadel fairies into your home!

I have to say, I am so proud of this coloring book! It has 50 coloring pages (50!), which was a whole lot for me to draw and put together. At the very squeaky end, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I was running out of ideas (always my problem with coloring books) and thought I’d have to lower the page count. But then! Magically! I found exactly enough old sketches to finish the last few coloring spots. And lo! Be-Hold! the coloring book was finished.

So where can you get this lovely coloring book? HERE! It is only available in the physical copy, and I’ve tried to make it as cheap as possible so that y’all can enjoy it as much as can be.

As always, please review and DO let me know what you like or don’t like about it. I LOVE feedback, especially if it’s constructive!

Finally, if you are as excited as I am about this release, contact me! I am always looking for people to do blog tours of my stuff, as well as give me ideas of shops to contact to try and get my stuff into them.

As always, much love to you all ❤

Fire! Its Alive!

When I first started writing Farfadel novels, I did not have access to a fireplace. Fire was a fun thing to dabble with via candles on occasion.

But now? Its been two years of living with a wood burning stove, and this winter I’m actively trying to keep it alive and burning to heat our tiny home. And, well, I’ve noticed a large change in how I approach fire.

Maybe its my overactive imagination, but I’ve started enacting rules from my Farfadel novels around my own fire! For example, I do not speak to the fire, unless I am certain what I say cannot be taken out of context to cause damage or silliness. I am cautious, really, not to speak disrespectful things around the fire. You wouldn’t want the Fire Lady to appear, in spirit of course, but I wouldn’t want to piss off the element of fire!

It sounds silly, right? But I’ve really come to see the fire as a living entity within my home. I cajole it quietly some days, trying to get it to burn higher. It burns my hands when I try and feed it without my thick gloves on. I wake up grudgingly to feed it at nighttime, and relay the care thereof with my wife.

Now, I can’t say this has affected my writing that much. But it has brought my writing about fire to be more… alive? For me, at least. It has brought what I thought of as a silly, fun thing, into a real life application!

I dont have great shards of wisdom to share about this. On one hand, I do feel like this brings my novels eerily into a realm of reality im not sure I want them to be. In another, it reminds me cozily of the truth and reality that permeates all things. So… I have no great conclusion. But I wish you well, wherever you are, and hope you are warm and safe 😊 ❤

Fairy Colouring Book ~ Coming Soon!

It’s not a mystery, but I haven’t talked about it enough! I am making a colouring book based off the Farfadel series, mainly about fairies, fantasy, and happy cute things!

Set in the gorgeous lands of Farfadel, surrounded by flowers and happiness, this colouring book is shaping up to be exactly what I had planned it to be – cute and flowery.

I have to say, I am super proud of how it’s coming along so far. The images are up to snuff (in my humble opinion) for a colouring book. They’re cute and adorable, and that’s what I wanted for this book.

When will this book be coming out? Really soon! I personally want to kick it off on the start of spring, so in March, hopefully! It should be feasible, as I have only *drumroll* nine images left to draw up and format! Yes, Nine! That’s not a huge amount, and personal happenings aside, I should be able to make that in the coming month!

But there is one thing I haven’t prepared… and that is the promotion of my adorable coloring book. How do I get this baby out there into the world? Anyone up for a book blog tour? Do those even work? Should I inundate Instagram with clips of my pictures? Facebook? Someone give me some advice, haha, I’m terrible at this part of the process!

I hope you all are doing well ❤

HAPPY SCREAMING!

*screams incoherently*

You know when they say that dreams *can* come true? Well a major one of mine just did!

Ladies and Gentlefolx, I am SO FUCKING PROUD to announce that Farfadel will now be sold IRL in a Queer Bookshop, namely the fabulous ‘Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room‘!!!!!

Giovanni’s Room is an amazing bookshop with a whole wealthy smack-gob of history behind it, as well as being a thrift shop (we all know thrift shops are the best!). These amazing folks have agreed to sell Farfadel’s magical story with you all, and I couldn’t (really!) be more excited!

So what does this mean? Well! If you live in the states, you can order from them at this link for a Tale of Two Queens and this one for A Tale of Adelaide and Shadow! If you already have a copy of my books, and want to support them directly, this is their donation link.

But what else?! I am just SO excited, y’all, I’m thinking of doing some sort of a giveaway! I’m thinking some free coloring pages, some artwork, SOMETHING to celebrate and raise the volume on this awesome shop! So if you have an idea of what you’d like to see done, let me know! And if you know of a local indie shop that you think needs some Farfadel in it, message them, and let me know about it!

And finally, thank you all SO MUCH for your support over the years. It means the world to me!

Take care ❤

Farfadel Coloring Book Update

As I work on the upcoming Farfadelian coloring book, there is so much thought that is happening behind the scenes. Every picture makes me think of this elements’ role in Farfadel, how those elements are at play in the world, and what I am trying to represent of it.

Often, I find myself thinking of the magic, of the cuteness, and the gentleness I am trying to portray. But there are other serious things at play, especially when drawing out the fairies, namely the skin color and gender of fairies.

Skin color is a topic that is very sensitive for me. I feel that, as a white person, I have to be particularly conscious of my usage of it. But also, as someone with dear relatives who are black, I want them to be able to see themselves in my stories, if they were ever to read them. I am also always a bit worried on this topic, as I feel that no matter how much I try, I will never know enough. Which, I think, is a fact. Some things we just can’t grasp properly because they are outside of our field of experience.

So, in short, I’ve decided to make the fairies of Farfadel with a variety of skin colors and hair types. Obviously, as this is a coloring book and my style of drawing isn’t hyper-realistic or even that realistic, the skin color is mercifully largely out of my hands. Eye shape is … well … eye shaped? I like to think that they are enough basically ‘eye’ shaped that everyone will be able to resonate with them. And the hair… I’m trying to include tight curls as well as smooth hair types. And really, I think that’s about all I can do to be inclusive in this way.

Now, as for the gender of the fairies… I feel a little baffled. Fairies always struck me as very feminine, female- presenting even. I even began to wonder if the fairies of Farfadel were all women, point blank. Now, while drawing out the coloring book, I have come across some more masculine-shaped fairies, but they all share the same playful and rather feminine vibes. This has led to me drawing what I think are some transgender fairies! How exciting!

Which, then, leads me to another character who has been featured closely in the Farfadel books who is, actually, trans. And I don’t mean Shadow! Another character in the series is trans, and they will soon be the subject of an epic romance that I will be writing – as soon as I finish the trilogy I am working on!

So, yes, not this upcoming trilogy, but the next one, will have another transgender romance! EEEE! I’m so excited for it!

And that, lovely peoples, are my thoughts of today. I hope you all are well! Take care ❤