I’m almost finished with the final preparations for the release of my latest Epic Fantasy & Gay Romance book, Mate, part four of The Invisible Hands, the seventh volume in the Dark Tales of Randamor the Recluse series. This means you can expect publication by Thursday or Friday this week.
I still need to write the blurb and I want to give the book a final once-over, but that should be it.
That means it’s time for a cover reveal.
For this cover as well, I worked with two gifted artists, Irulana for drawing the chess pieces and Adrijus Guscia for the actual design. The first part of The Invisible Hands will be updated soon, so the whole quadrilogy will have matching covers.
What can you expect story-wise?
As per usual the story continues right where Pawn Storm ended. By popular demand — actually because of Verial of the Lake’s inaudible whining — Randamor first relates the events following the fall of Naodyma. For the vanquished Naodymans the world seems to have gone mad as age-old roles are reversed.
For the rest of the book the focus alternates between Anaxantis who is still marching through Lorsanthia and Ehandar who gradually comes to understand how serious the threat of the Mahpodah is.
It is not only in Naodyma that fates are uprooted. A lot of people die in this book, some in a most unpleasant way.
A few highlights
After years of separation, Anaxantis has a confrontational meeting with his father that plants a seed which could have far-reaching consequences.
Ehandar meets queen Emelasuntha, but those of you who have read the second excerpt knew that already. However there is a little bit more to their conversation.
In the Highlands the Mahpodah decides to act now that the warlord is far away. This brings a fundamental rift between the rebellious lords to the foreground, and some of Ehandar’s squires will have to choose sides, as will Lady Brynda of Yondar. A heated confrontation between leaders of the two factions has deadly results.
Some strange turns of events — but not all, of course — dating from the first book of this series, Bonds of Hate, will be finally explained. A new light is shed upon some other events that seemed clear-cut and obvious at the time.
After a long separation Anaxantis and Ehandar meet again under rather dramatic circumstances.
What’s next?
In the very last sentence of the book my devious little prince set me up for another trilogy. At least.
He’s going to have to wait though. This book is almost 180,000 words long, and writing these doorstoppers takes me about a year. I consider the combined trilogy and quadrilogy as the spine of Anaxantis’s world.
A lot of characters have walked in and back out of the main storyline. I’m going to explore what happened to them in shorter work. This could be anything from short stories, over novellas, to novels. This will permit me to have a faster release schedule. Short stories and novellas will be released separately, but will also be available later as a bundle of three to four stories.
While not essential to the main storyline, I think they will flesh out the known events, or give more background information.
But first I’m going to unwind a bit…
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll enjoy reading Mate as much as I loved writing it.
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