Hello to my plans for 2025! (You can check out what came out in 2024) As you know if you’ve been reading me for a little, you know that I plan a fair bit out in advance at this point. There’s room for things to move around, but these are fairly stable points.
(This is due to a combination of how I schedule writing and needing to plan out the background research.)
I’ve also got some updates to the website, direct sales via Payhip, and so on in the works over my winter vacation time. (Keep an eye out here and on the newsletter for an update when those are done.)
Coming out
Pastiche in audio book
My first audio book! I’m currently working through listening to it to proofread, with those edits going back to Maria Nicola Johnson (the amazing narrator) at the beginning of January. It will take us a bit longer to get the files together in final form. Then they’ll go to the backers on Kickstarter first.
Once that’s done, I’ll work on making them available through other audio book sites (including direct from me, if you prefer that).
I hope for future audio books, but it will depend a bit on how well Pastiche does. I’ll have lots more about how you can help once the book’s available for purchase.
Weaving Hope
Out on February 7th (pre-order Weaving Hope now!)
Want a gentler and quieter book than the Mysterious Fields trilogy?
In Weaving Hope, it’s 1927 and Jeremy has recently inherited a manor house. He – a diligent clerk in the Ministry – has no idea what to do with a manor house. He can, at least, hire someone to evaluate the house’s tapestries. When Eda visits to evaluate and begin some restoration work, they both become fascinated with the tapestries, a family secret, and each other.
Grown Wise
Out on May 2nd (pre-order Grown Wise now!)
Ursula Fortier’s romance in 1947 and the beginning of the Liminal Mysteries series of post-war romances. Ursula has so many plans. She’s made good progress on several: her apprenticeship in Incantation magic is going well, she has been named Heir to her Uncle Garin. But there’s so much more she wants and needs to do. The land magic of Albion desperately needs help, and she knows that there are people who can help.
Jim, recently returned from time overseas after the Second World War, is trying to figure out what his life looks now. He wants to apprentice, to learn more about everything he studied at Snap, but it’s hard to find a place. And now he’s home in Sussex, he doesn’t want to live elsewhere, on other land. When Ursula sweeps him up in her plans, he doesn’t know what to make of her, but he’s willing to listen.
(Or, as I have been describing this one: “Ursula is a terrifying delight.”)
Harmonic Pleasure
Out on August 8th
In 1928, Farran Michaels is nearly finished with his apprenticeship at Orumlu, one of Albion’s finest auction houses. When he takes on an assignment that brings him to London to work with the much larger houses there, he’s approached for help with a different problem.
Vega is a singer at The Crystal Cave, London’s best and brightest magical night club. But her family needs her help to find a magical object, lost in London for centuries, that appears to be active again. Farran has skills that she could use – and she finds him more interesting the longer they talk and work together. Especially once she figures out what he already knows about her family.
Claiming the Tower
Out on September 19th
The first of a planned duology (with a follow-up novella) about Hereswith Rowan (seen as Head of the Council in the Mysterious Fields trilogy). This novel takes place in 1854, as Hereswith makes the decision to Challenge for the Council and burn parts of her life to the ground to make something better as her conversations with Bess at The Field (the Horse House club) blossom from friendship into that changes both their lives for the better.
(This is the one I’ve just started writing as I make this post in late December 2024.)
Edmund’s book
Out on November 7th
Edmund Carillon is eternally aware of what it means to be his father’s son. And his mother’s. Now in his second year up at Oxford, reading Classics and apprenticing with his Uncle Alexander in Ritual and Naming magic, he already has a busy and complicated life. When he and a female student in his year independently stumble across a puzzle, neither of them can let it alone.
Pen has no reason to trust Edmund – and several reasons not to. No one with his background will respect, never mind understand, what she learned during the war. Not that she can talk about it, anyway.
Extras
I’m hoping to get several sets of extras out (as well as things on the Patreon, keep reading for that!) I also think it’s likely Edmund’s book will produce a number of extras, because he’s certainly producing a lot of research reading for me.
The Changing Door
A series of extras for Old As The Hills and Upon A Summer’s Day. These will be going out to people who chose the Edgarton omnibus on Kickstarter before the end of December. I’ll be sharing them with everyone on my newsletter, Patreon, and Discord around the end of January.
Extras for the Mysterious Fields trilogy
There are a number of extras written for the Mysterious Fields trilogy, with scenes that Thessaly and Vitus didn’t know about. (Yes, this includes more about a key death or two, and more about Alexander in the aftermath.)
I hope to get these edited and out sometime in the first quarter of the year (by the end of March), sooner if I can wrangle it.
Extras for Grown Wise
Grown Wise also comes with a number of extras, because Ursula is a whirlwind and other people want to have conversations about that. These obviously need to wait for her book to come out, and probably a bit after that.
Over on the Patreon
A public post over on my Patreon has more details, but patrons there (at any level, starting at $1 USD) are getting three different series of extras. (I aim for these to be around 2000 words each segment, but some are a little shorter and some are a good bit longer.)
Right now, those are:
- Ritual Time, following Cyrus through the years he’s Head of the Council (finishing in February)
- A Fox Hunt, a prequel series leading into Grown Wise, focusing on Ursula and her family in 1945-1947.
- Friend? Friend. is a series about how Orion and Claudio become friends (overlapping with the events of Eclipse, mostly in 1925)
As those finish up, I have other things in mind!
- Gil finally speaks to his younger brother Michael again in 1943.
- Seeking a Wife: Geoffrey’s attempts (with Alysoun’s help) to find someone to marry and continue the family between Ancient Trust and Goblin Fruit.
- Isembard, 1923-1924: Isembard’s first year of teaching at Schola (the year before Eclipse), full of some good choices and some less wise ones.
- Together with a Common Goal: Arthur and Melusina during the events of Carry On.
- Plus some one off extras or short sequences.
Writing
And along with that, there’s the writing! The writing stack in 2025 includes the following. (They mostly don’t have titles yet: that usually happens when I do the outline, 2-3 weeks before I start writing.)
- Claiming the Tower : Hereswith and Bess’s book (which I’m writing through January)
- Edmund Carillon’s book : Starting writing in February, out in November 2025. Second in the Liminal Mysteries series of post-war romances. (More above)
- Gemma’s book : Starting writing in May, out in February 2026. The later in life (she’s about 40) romance of Gemma Smythe-Clive in 1928. Sixth in the Mysterious Arts series.
- Rowena’s book : Writing starting in August, out in May 2026. Another of the post-war romances, set probably in 1948 or 1949, in Scotland, and picking up on a bit of family history for one of Rowena Edgarton’s friends. Third in the Liminal Mysteries series of post-war romances.
- Hereswith and Galahad’s romance: Hereswith’s romance sometime around 1860 with her eventual husband, much to her surprise. Probably out in June or July 2026, written somewhere before that.
- Claudio Warren’s book: Writing starting in November, out in August 2026. Last in the Liminal Mysteries series of post-war romances, and also the latest chronological point I intend to write (it takes place in 1950). I promise it will also have a fair bit of his friends Orion, Cammie, and Hypatia in there. How could it not?
That Pact project
Finally, I’m continuing to do research toward a series set around the time of the Pact in the 1480s. I am, as of right now, just past the Norman Conquest (up to about 1100), so, um, I have a few centuries to go yet. A lot of what I’m reading is taking my thoughts about the development of management of the land magic of Albion to what it is before the Pact, and why specific aspects of the Pact ended up that way, which makes this a tricky project in terms of scope.
You can keep track of my research with roughly quarterly posts on the Patreon, but right now I’m expecting I might actually be able to start working on writing this series in very late 2026 or early 2027.
