My Books Are Being Published in 2020! (Read the Synopsis!)

*I posted this on Instagram and Twitter but forgot to write about it on my blog. Oops!*

But it's true!

My Young Adult Fantasy trilogy, with elements of horror and romance, is being published February/March 2020 by Fire and Ice YA. The first book is called THE DARK QUEEN.

Fire and Ice Young Adult is an imprint of Melange Books, LLC. They publish a lot of great books - ranging from fantasy to science fiction to romance - so please check them out if you get a chance!

I signed the contract back in October 2018, but I wanted to keep it a secret until the release date was a little closer. But I just can't wait anymore! (I'm really bad at keeping secrets, anyway.)

This is a big step in my writing career. I feel like I'm making progress since I started querying in early 2017. (I've been querying THE DARK QUEEN since May 2018.)

As many of you know, I self-published my first trilogy, THE DRAGONWITCH CHRONICLES, back in 2018. (March 1st 2019 will be the one-year anniversary of THE GIRL WHO WALKED THROUGH FIRE. How exciting is that?!)

I think I'd gotten somewhere around 50 to 60 rejections, but I believed in the story. I decided to self-publish it just to share it with people. It's almost sold 800 copies! To say I'm overjoyed that THE DARK QUEEN found a home would be an understatement.

(For comparison, I think The Dark Queen also received 60 rejections before it found a publisher that was enthusiastic about it. Sometimes the publishing world can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, but it's worth it - I promise!)

THE DARK QUEEN and Book 2 and 3 will be published BOTH as an e-book and a paperback. It'll be exciting to hold my books in my hands!

I'll reveal more details about it - like an exact release date, ARC's, giveaways, etc. - when 2020 gets a little closer. In the meantime, I need to practice my patience. Why does 2020 seem so far away?!

Here's the synopsis (which may be subjected to change during the editing process):

"For centuries, war has been brewing below the surface of New York. People known as the soulless – immortal humans with strange powers – have threatened life on the surface. The Dark Queen seeks revenge for a crime long forgotten, and wants to rule the world.

Eighteen-year-old Riley Stark - a new recruit in the Sentinels, a military group that protects Earth from the Underworld – thinks she’s joining for the right reason. As a child, she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on her life, and has wanted justice ever since. 

After Riley goes snooping through her records, she finds the terrible truth – her ancestor was Mira Stark who killed the famous Dark King, and the soulless have wanted her family’s blood spilled since then. When she falls in love with a soulless boy she’s been taught to hate, she realizes that she can’t trust anyone – soulless or otherwise."

What an exciting way to kick off a new decade! 2020 is going to be awesome.

In the meantime, I currently have three separate novels (not related to THE DARK QUEEN) that are being queried to literary agents. Now that THE DARK QUEEN has been picked up, I'm excited to see what will happen with my other novels. Fingers crossed!

As always, thanks for reading!