First, thank you! to everyone who preordered the ebook edition of my newest novel, Blade. I truly appreciate it.

For those who get their ebooks from Kobo: Thank you for your patience! Blade is now available for preorder. Here’s a link to the USA store:

(I would include links to other countries, but Kobo hides all that from me!)

For more information on Blade, check out my January 13 announcement.

It’s been a long time coming, I know. But the fourth and penultimate Inverted Frontier novel is almost here. Its publication date is:

It’ll be available on that date in both print and ebook editions. (There may ultimately be an audiobook, though I don’t know yet.)

So without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to…

The starship Dragon, accompanied by its fleet of outriders, is faring ever deeper into that region known as the Hallowed Vasties. Here, at the shattered heart of ancient human civilization, once-living worlds were ripped apart by the dimensional intrusions of a Blade. Yet despite the apocalyptic-scale destruction, the fleet’s telescopes have picked out signs of life among the ruins and the ship’s company is eager to go on—but should they?

From his post on Dragon’s high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship—a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine—has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Urban: Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?

It’s a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead—and every ambition hidden within his heart—is at risk while Griffin’s true nature remains unknown.

Are you a Kobo reader? If so, I want to let you know that the ebook will be available at Kobo, though I won’t be able to set up the preorder there until I have a final version of the manuscript, probably in late February. I’ll let you know!

Do you prefer the print edition? Once the manuscript has been proofread and corrected, I’ll be able to set up a preorder for the print edition. I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready.

About the Art
Sarah Anne Langton did a knock-out job with the first two book covers in the Inverted Frontier series. It was only after I finished those first two books that I decided to continue the series. At that point, I put together ideas for three more books, and I commissioned Sarah to create the covers for them long before they were written, and even before I had more than a seed of an idea for the last two. Sarah did an amazing job, and I’m so happy to finally be able to reveal her beautiful artwork for Blade. There’s only one more cover left to reveal—and I’m eager to write the book for it.

You can check out more of Sarah’s work at her website: SecretArcticBase.com.(Sarah has the coolest domain name.)

Yes, there is a book 4! 🙂

This has been a challenging one to write, I’m not sure why. Progress was slow for most of the first draft. I learned to be happy with 500 words per day. But I did finish a first draft. That was back on September 4. Very soon after that I started revising and yesterday I finished a very solid second draft.

At this point I’ve had zero feedback on it, because no one else has seen a word of it yet. But I’m pleased with it, and that’s always a good sign.

Today I sent a copy to a writer friend for an early beta read (alpha read?), and the manuscript is due to go to my beloved freelance editor, Judith Tarr, in mid-November. Once I get Judy’s comments, I’ll undertake a third and hopefully final draft. I can’t predict how long that will take, and no publishing date has been set. But unless something goes very wrong, I think it’s reasonable to expect #4 to see publication in the spring — maybe even early spring.

If you haven’t already, please sign up for my newsletter. That way you’ll get to see the cover reveal, when that happens, and of course I’ll let you know when #4 is available for pre-order. My sign-up page says you’ll get a newsletter every four weeks, but actually, over this past year, my newsletters have become few and far between. So if you’re not signing up because you’re worried about getting spammed — no worries! 😎

Just to add a little color to this post, here are books 1, 2, and 3…