Editing is not usually the most fun part of a writer’s time. The further from the initial spark of ideas, the more it feels like work. Fortunately, one more round of editing, one I’ve been working on for a couple of months, is now complete. As with the previous round, it’s made Frostsliver a much better book – tighter, and with more emotional focus.

So, celebration time. One more draft down, a few more to go until the book is ready for publication next year. It’s a long process, but well worthwhile in the end. Hopefully as the time gets closer, there ought to be more to share here – events, cover art and the like.

In the meantime, I’ve got a few new drafts I’m working on in spare moments – two sequels and some new stuff I’ll share details about in another post at some point.

(Not at all final cover)

So, I’ve not had much to say for a bit. There’s a good reason for that.

I now say that not only am I signed up with The Blair Partnership as my agents, but I have also signed with Chicken House Books, and they will be publishing my debut novel next year.

Frostsliver (final title to be determined) is a survival adventure taking place on a sentient glacier.

It is a tale of overcoming the odds, personal limitations and the mountain itself. Magic, gunpowder, monsters and more conspire to try and prevent a girl from reaching home and perhaps saving more lives than just her own.

Sabira is chosen for the honour of bonding a Frostsliver, an intelligent fragment of the living Glacier that spills from the top of her mountain home. Unsure of herself after decisions made years ago, she is forced to come to terms with her personal demons when she is trapped on the mountainside.

The only hope for her is to take up the power and responsibility of a Frostsliver and survive both the mountain’s extreme conditions and perhaps something worse – all assuming she can first get used to the voice of a glacier sounding in her head.

I can’t imagine having a better team to help bring this story – and hopefully many others in future – to bookshelves soon.

The Chicken House competition is creeping ever closer to its end, and they have been posting profiles of the five shortlistees. Mine can be found here. Not long now until the result, one way or another!

Also of note, there’s another excerpt up here, this one from my adult fantasy novel, Stormspinner. It’s set in a city carved from giant trees, stuffed full of totems, shaman, sacrifice and more – not to mention the monsters that stalk the forest around it in the ever present rain. It’s a blend of epic and urban fantasy, with a dash of noir and a pinch of western.

Finally, while editing Bridged, I’ve begun working on the drafts of two new novels – one YA and one for a younger audience. The Pillars Of Being is the story of a young man thrust into investigating the murder of his mentor, while attempting to hold together the trade caravan he lives in as it rushes to cross a great floodplain before the waters come again.

Plaguewalkers on the other hand is a Children’s horror fantasy. The canal city of Morbetzia is stricken with a glowing cloud of magical disease that swells up stronger each night. Its only hope is those immune to the plague, pressed into service of the city’s corrupt nobility. A young thief must find a way to survive his new life – especially the things that stalk the streets at night under cover of plague.

This was the trigger for making this little site – it seemed time. For the moment this’ll be seen by basically no one. Maybe in future that’ll change.

Live in hope, eh?

Now to the horrible process of waiting for the hammer of decision to come down one way or another. June can’t come soon enough!