Scott shares his view on how this book came to excist , shares an excerpt and brought a wonderful giveaway.
Welcome Scott 🙂
Guest Post – The Gauntlet Runner
Oops – I Wrote a Series… All at Once,
or How a Trilogy Became a Quadrilogy
I didn’t mean for this to happen. I started out with the book that would eventually become parts one and two of the Tharassas Cycle fully intending to send it off on sub to my agent list, and either score a huge book deal or publish it myself, and then write the next one.
Then I sent it to my editor, and he gave me two pieces of unexpected news.
One, it was a YA novel, not an adult one.
And two, my “book one” was actually the first two parts of a trilogy.
So I adjusted my expectations. I split book one in half and reworked it, and then sent the first half, now a book in its own right, out to my agents list.
And waited. And waited.
This was in the midst of the first year of the pandemic.
I decided while I was waiting that I might as well get on with writing the last book. I followed all my plotlines and characters to their logical conclusions, wrapped things up with a (hopefully satisfying) ending, and looked at my word count.
Which was 50% longer than books one and two, and waaaay longer than a YA book should be.
Somewhere along the way, I’d given up on finding an agent with this one, and had instead found a small press who was eager to publish it. So I went back to Steven at Water Dragon publishing and begged him to let me break it into a fourth book. With a little wheedling (and quite a lot of begging) he finally agreed, and suddenly I had a completely finished four book trilogy on my hands.
I don’t like the fact that doing it this way put me on the sidelines for almost two years. But there are some advantages to doing things this way. As an author, it gave me the chance to look at the work as a whole, and to fine tune the entire story before readers got their hands on it. And it also guarantees me two years of new novel releases (one every six months) while I work on some new projects in the meantime.
Would I do it this way again? Probably not. But I’m thrilled it worked out, and hope you think so too once you have the chance to read the whole series.
A GUARD AND A THIEF. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven’s a thief, which makes things… complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.
Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his … friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.
Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik’s ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to do try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik’s stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won’t let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.
Things were messy before, but now they’re much, much worse.
About the Series
The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.
“This was a captivating and thrilling blend of sci-fi meets fantasy. The space opera narrative felt somehow natural in all its glory, and the author did an incredible job of having just the right amount of imagery and atmosphere to really bring the reader into this alien world.” –Anthony Avina
Publisher – Signed Copies | Amazon | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google Play | Liminal Fiction | Smashwords | Universal Buy Link | Goodreads
Prequel: The Tharassas Cycle – 99¢ Sale
Book One: The Dragon Eater – 99¢ Sale
Scott is giving away a $20 bookshop.org gift card with this tour:
Chapter One
Like Fire and Ice
He has to be here. Aik searched frantically through Raven’s pack as the early morning sunlight slipped across the stone windowsill and across the floor, a long, green-tinged ray of light.
He was anxious to be on his way after Raven. His heart was pounding, his thoughts skipping like a spinning stone off hard waters. No one else was awake yet, as far as he could tell, and he wanted to be in and out of the room before anyone was the wiser. Aik glanced at the unmade bed and blushed at what they’d done there the night before. He could still feel Raven’s touch, their bodies entwined….
The sooner he set off, the sooner Aik could rescue him from those awful creatures. The verent must have coerced him; Raven had all but said so. If he could just find Spin, the little familiar could guide him.
He doesn’t love you.
“Shut up.” Knowing that Raven had chosen the verent over him still burned. And that he didn’t say ‘I love you.’ But surely, he wasn’t allowed to be angry about that in the face of what had happened.
His mind was spinning, looking for answers, scared for his love, returning to old, stupid wounds and weaknesses.
Why?
The question reverberated again and again, but not even Aik knew what he was asking. His panic stripped away reason and maturity, and left him dizzy and afraid.
He got to the bottom of the pack, finding nothing but clothing and some toiletries. Farking hell. Where are you?
He started opening some of the side pouches, checking through each one before tying it closed again. Maybe Raven had taken Spin with him?
“Searching for this?”
He spun around to find Tri’Aya leaning against the doorway, looking as fresh as if she’d just slept ten hours, though she couldn’t have gotten more than four at best. How does she do that?
She held Spin’s silver sphere between two fingers.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
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