The awesome Petros over at Booknest.eu was kind enough to host the cover reveal for INCURSION, check it out here! 

The cover is below, but both Petros and I add some flavour and more information on INCURSION and THE NECROMANCER’S KEY series in the cover reveal, so click the link and head on over!

INCURSION is already up on Goodreads, and on Amazon as a pre-order.

Description:

A corrupted power stirs from beyond the grave.

A sacred order of knights sworn to protect the world from evil.

The Necromancer Queen will rise again.

Seventeen years have passed since the Necromancer Queen Talia was overthrown and slain, and her capital city destroyed by the Knights of the Order of Eternal Vigilance.

Anskar DeVantte, raised in the sacred disciplines of the Order, is now ready to face the brutal initiation trials to become a consecrated knight-sorcerer.

But the further Anskar rises in the ranks the more his faith wavers, and he is beset by harrowing dreams and uncertainty. As troubling powers awaken within him, a schism grows between Anskar and his hallowed Order, and he draws the hungry gaze of the vanquished queen’s fanatical followers.

As Anskar pieces together the mysteries of his early life, and begins to understand the malevolent forces gathering in his path, he finds himself with a crucial choice to make:

Remain loyal to the Order’s righteous mission, or control the dark powers growing within him.

Either way, his destiny is steeped in war. The only question is, which side will he be on?

2019 – Revision, revision, revision…

Christmas is over, New Year’s is approaching, and so another year has passed by. Although I got a lot of work done in 2019, the year felt a lot more stressful than usual. I put that down to the fact I did far more revision than anticipated, which meant less time to write, and my two daughters getting older and cheekier.

End of 2018 recap: I signed with Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky. You can read all about that here. And I signed a six-book deal with Audible for THE NECROMANCER’S KEY.

Most of 2019 has been spent revising and squeezing in new writing when I can, all with the aim of getting a few novels ready for Joshua to shop around to publishers. We decided to bring the quality of the novels up as much as possible, so that all were in fantastic shape (publishers aren’t looking for good, they’re looking for special). If that meant spending an extra six months to bring a novel’s grade up from A- to A, then so be it.

So as of right now I have three novels in publishable shape, all first in new series: SHADOW IN THE FLAME, book 1 of THE NECROMANCER’S KEY hexalogy; RAVEN: REAWAKENING, a sword & sorcery thriller; and FORGED IN COERCION, set in my Sorcery Ascendant world.

There should be news in the first half of 2020 as to what’s happening with each of these new series. With audio off the table for THE NECROMANCER’S KEY, my feeling is that I’ll self publish the series as most, if not all, of the big publishers will not sign print and ebook rights if audio is off the table — and if this happens the first three books are likely to be released in 2020!

I’m also now able to do whatever I want with the short story I wrote for the Art of War anthology for charity, THE LAST ARROW. I’ve revised the beginning and ending, taking the story to a more logical and grimdark conclusion, so all that’s left now is to decide what to do with it.

So writing wise, what does 2020 have in store? I can now revise the next two books in THE NECROMANCER’S KEY hexalogy. Both are written, I just need to go over them taking into account all the changes and feedback for book 1. While I’m doing that, my main goal is to write a third book in THE INFERNAL GUARDIAN series (potential release mid-2020), the sequel to REVENANT WINDS, and possibly get stuck into a new Caldan book. Though depending on any publishing deals this may change.

As I’ve said before, all of these other novels took a lot of time and effort, which delayed the sequel to REVENANT WINDS, but it had to be done in the the best interests of my career, and my goal of remaining a full-time author.

If all goes well, then 2020 will be my year of getting back into the publishing game. Right now my best guess is that I’ll release at least three books, and another three in 2021, which will almost double the books I’ve published!

My heartfelt thanks yet again to everyone who bought my books, or left a review, or helped keep me sane on social media.

Happy New Year, and have a wonderful 2020!

As a few projects I’m working on have reached the end of certain stages, I thought I’d provide an update!

2019 so far has been extremely busy with writing, revision, family, etc, but mostly revision. Far more revision than I anticipated. As you may know, I signed with Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky Literary late last year, and some projects I’m working on needed tweaking and fine tuning before being in the best shape possible to be shopped around.

This has led to three manuscripts in fantastic shape, all first books in three new series. Book 1 of THE NECROMANCER’S KEY (the six-book series I signed with Audible already), RAVEN (a sword & sorcery thriller), and my secret project… which I can now reveal is in my Sorcery Ascendant world, set a few thousand years before the first series.

It might seem like I managed to get a lot of writing done, but the first drafts for these three books were finished in Aug 2017, Jan 2018, and July 2019, so fairly spread out.

All three books are in fantastic shape, and I would be happy to self publish any of them. However, which publishing path each of these series embarks upon will not be known soon. Hopefully I’ll know by late this year or early next year. And the publishing industry is constantly in a state of flux, so I’ll have to weigh my options very carefully.

But why, I hear you ask, didn’t you finish REVENANT WINDS 2 first or another THE INFERNAL GUARDIAN book? There’s a long answer, but the short version is that I needed to do what’s best for my career. Making a living from writing is rare, and extremely difficult. I have been fortunate to have made it this far, and I’d like to continue doing this for a long, long time. Being a hybrid author means taking advantage of the many different publishing paths available, and at this stage there are no bad options for me and many benefits to pursuing multiple paths.

The last 24 months of hard work have now set me up to be able to release a tsunami of titles over the next few years. In addition to these three books, the first drafts of books 2 and 3 of THE NECROMANCER’S KEY are done. That’s five books in total in the bag, and yet to be released.

I now have time to get back to other projects (such as REVENANT WINDS 2, Tarrik, and maybe Caldan…) At the end of the day I hope to give readers who like my work a lot more to be happy about!

I foresee more hard work in my future, but is it really work if you enjoy it so much?!

Mitch