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MOTHER OF ENDINGS (FINAL BOOKS AND NEW BEGINNINGS)


Hi All; this month sees the release of MOTHER OF DAEMONS, the fourth and final book of The Sunsurge Quartet. Another series comes to an end, which is always a bit of a gut-wrenching feeling. I have spent so much time with these characters – with Lyra and Ril, Kyrik and Valdyr, Waqar and Tarita and all the rest – that they are part of me. I hear their voices, and their actions haunt me at night, as do the crimes of the villains they face. And of course, there are always so many little sub-plots and matters to resolve. Fantasy takes over from reality, in a fun but exhausting way.



Writing fantasy with one eye on the Newsfeed


The third book of my epic fantasy series The Sunsurge Quartet – entitled Hearts of Ice – comes out in March 2019, and I’ve just finished drafting the fourth book. As the series has progressed its political content has caused my publisher to ask for a blog about its politics: here’s that blog.


Revisiting the Past


My wife Kerry and I lived in India 2006-2010, in New Delhi. In 2007, I had my first novel accepted for publication (The Bone Tiki, a YA fantasy set in New Zealand, by HarperCollins New Zealand), and that encouraged me to look for more writing inspiration. As a Kiwi living in Asia for the first time, India provided plenty of that.


The Wonders of Greek Myth


With my collaborative book with Cath Mayo, Athena’s Champion (Book One of Olympus), now released, I thought I’d talk a little about how I came to be writing in Greek Mythology, why it’s so great, and the problems Cath and I encountered in doing so.


A Collaborative Vision – How the Olympus Series was born.


A few years ago, I was invited to be a participant in the annual “Storylines” festival in Auckland. As it turned out, it had been pitched mostly to children, so my audience (teenage, as I’m mostly known here in New Zealand for my YA books) didn’t exactly flock to it – it made for a quiet day!



The First Draft Blues (or, getting some suffering into your art…)


Just finished the first draft of The Sunsurge Quartet, Book Three – with a working title of Hearts of Ice. Technically its actually first draft version 4.2, having survived a couple of substantial revisions and downsizing. At times it got very big (300,000 words +) but ended up slimmed down to 220,000, which is standard for the series. But the real landmark is that I met my deadline of 31 July, to get it to my test readers.


Finding Inspiration (the origins of The Sunsurge Quartet)


All books in my first epic fantasy series, The Moontide Quartet, have now been released, and I’m at work on the sequel series, The Sunsurge Quartet. It’s set in the same world of Urte, and the first book, Empress of the Fall, came out on 9th March – yesterday as I write this. While I’m pretty excited by that, I’m actually so deeply immersed in Books 2 and 3 that I’ve not had time to even raise a glass to Empress and her launch.



Archive

2020 Mar  275  1
2019 Oct  28  1
2019 Mar  194  1
2019 Feb  47  1
2018 Nov  60  1
2018 Oct  39  1
2018 Sep  146  1
2017 Aug  239  1
2017 Mar  382  1
2017 Feb  311  1
2016 May  140  1
2016 Apr  50  1
2016 Feb  294  1
2016 Jan  62  1
2015 Dec  142  2
2015 Nov  678  1
2015 Aug  157  1
2015 Jul  117  3
2015 Jun  60  1
2015 May  172  2
2015 Apr  118  1
2015 Mar  114  2
2015 Jan  580  2
2014 Dec  871  2
2014 Nov  45  1
2014 Oct  62  1
2014 Jul  112  1

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