I was thrilled to get an invitation to do a guest post for Love Bytes. I love their reviews and the work they do to support authors. They were nice enough to let me talk a little bit about my latest book, Summer and Shadows. It is the next episode in the Pact of the Veil series. The first installment the Night Menagerie, introduced us to a world of shape-shifters and to our heroine, Sah Williams. A woman of American /Nepali descent who discovers that she is part of a lineage of people who can make a connection with a snow leopard totem and can take its form. The book was a real celebration for me as I revisited it after writing it several years before. When I came out as part of the LGBTQ+ community. I found that now that I could write the characters as I always intended, I could let them love who they wanted to love and be who they should be.
Now we have Summer and Shadows, which takes Sah from her home in St Louis with the Shape Shifters to the streets of L.A. and the Fae. There is a killer on the loose, and she is recruited to rule out whether or not there is a member of the Menagerie involved. As I was writing the first book, I had visions of an expanded world and dropped a couple of hints at the end about who else the supernatural inhabitants might be. (Though, to be honest, this does not make this book special. My partner likes to joke that I don’t come up with book ideas so much as universe ideas. The joys of being Neuro-spicy).
I like to drop my characters into the deep end, and Sah is no exception. She has little experience with the other magical clans. Val, her partner, is off on an assignment, which means she does not know whom to trust now that she is in this brave old world. There are the ancient, magically connected Fae, keepers of dark knowledge and magic like Baba Yaga, the human (?) group called the Order, constituted to keep it all secret, not to mention whatever eldritch entity is killing people on the streets of the California city.
Besides expanding the mythos of the Pact of the Veil. This book let me do one other thing. My previous offerings were all things I had worked on at various points and then returned to. This was the first sequel I have ever written, letting me pick up with a character and continue to develop them. It also allowed me to take everything I had learned in my previous works and put it all together. Something I hope to continue doing.
Book Title: Summer and Shadows (The Pact of the Veil, Book Two)
Author: Kathryne Lentes
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Cover Artist: Jaycee DeLorenzo
Release Date: August 18, 2026
Pairing: FF
Tense/POV: first person/past tense
Genres: Paranormal, Lesbian Urban Fantasy
Tropes: Taboo, trans, poly, pansexual, shifter, elves, witch, magic, conspiracy
Themes: Self-acceptance
Heat Rating: 1 out of 5 flames
Length: 35 900 words
It is the second book in the series. (Book 1 The Night Menagerie)
It does not end on a cliffhanger.
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Publisher | Amazon US | Amazon UK
The time is now; the city is LA. The hunt for a magical killer has begun
Blurb
Sah has gone through a lot in three years. I mean how often does a person find out their sister disappeared, meet a hot detective, get bitten by a werewolf, and discover they are part of a legacy of shape shifters? She thought her life would calm down and she could enjoy a summer vacation in LA. But now she is mixed up with the Fae and a magical serial killer. To survive she must find new allies and embrace her new self without reservation.
There are real monsters in the world. I know because I am one of them. After three years, I was still trying to get my head around that fact, even though I was getting ready to attend a convention full of them. The Menagerie, as they called themselves, were a group of shapeshifters who hid from the world. Still, since their discovery was always a dangerous possibility, they had created an entire intellectual property called the Façade to coax people into their world. It started as a game, and with my introduction, they had added novels to the mix. Now, I was traveling to California to try to sell my recent bestseller to a movie studio. I wondered if Dominique would ever forgive me if a werewolf novel of mine made it to the Cineplex before she did.
She didn’t speak up. She was the main character in my first book series and the voice in my head when I was doing something I knew, in most plots, would end with me dead. We had had a really good run, and her adventures had brought me my first real success, but after most of the changes I had gone through, I had started a new urban fantasy series. It was almost autobiographical, not that anyone would ever believe it.
I mean how often does a person find out their sister disappeared, meet a hot detective, get bitten by a werewolf, find said sister, lose said sister and hot (now maybe new girlfriend?) detective, and blackmail an entire group of supernatural entities to get the pair of them back. Not to mention discover you are part of a legacy of shapeshifters and can now channel a snow leopard totem. And finish up by trying try to live happily ever after only to have to engage in a death match with a psychopathic grudge-bearing werewolf leader.
It was hard for me to believe, and I had lived through it—even if just barely. I took a deep breath and told myself to get out of bed. I don’t know why I was so focused on my past today when the future seemed so promising.
It was probably because Val was out of the house. This was the first big trip I was going to make without her, and I missed her. She was one of the only people I had ever met who accepted me for being the giant pansexual polyamorous mess of a partner I was. I looked in the closet, trying to decide on a dress to pack in my luggage. I was much more comfortable in jeans and a band T-shirt than I was in Chanel, no matter what my budget told me I could afford. I needed something more formal if I was going to meet with a movie producer. Great, now I was beginning to miss my sister Nisha. She was the clothes horse of the family and would not only have brought me six of her dresses but also tried to do my hair and makeup before I left. She was out in Montana with a pack of werewolves. My life was not the only one that had changed a lot in the last couple of years.
Kathryne Lentes has been writing stories as long as she could hold a pen in her hand. She is a transwoman who, when not working on her own projects, operates Paper Phoenix Ink, a blog showcasing queer creators. She is currently living in Saint Louis with her wife, two cats, and a pile of science fiction and fantasy books.
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