The second book in the Realm Wraith series is now available for download on Amazon.  As part of the promotion, Sunday, December 14th through Thursday, December 18th, the first book, Realm Wraith, along with the short novella that goes with it, are going to be available for free.

Seven Origins is a little different in that it’s not so much a true sequel as it is a prequel. There is an actual sequel to the first book which I do plan to publish as the third book in the series, but it’s a ways off as I still have to take care of proofreading and edits and all that.

While it doesn’t technically continue the story told by the first novel, I feel Seven Origins is important in that it establishes the dynamic between two major characters spanning throughout 2000 years of history, drawing on the backstory detailed near the end of the first book. Plus, it establishes a lot of details about the universe the story takes place in. Plus, it gave me a chance to play around with a bit of historical fiction, studying real world civilizations and figuring out how to work my characters into history in a plausible way, drawing on certain cultural myths and symbolism that fit the narrative.

The cover was the tricky part, as the story itself jumps between many different characters, times, and settings. I originally thought of doing a collage of all the different incarnations of the protagonists, but it seemed too cluttered. So instead, I decided to focus on one story, the important one that I feel climaxes the book, and just sort of establish the setting. I think it sets up the feel of the book without actually drawing on any specific scene or giving away spoilers to the story.

The cover itself was created in photoshop, but I also used some photos I took during a hike last year and painted over them for the snowy ground. It went through several revisions as I had a hard time getting that stupid tree to look right.

So that’s all done with, at least. For some reason Amazon didn’t update the product page for the first book to list it as part of a series even though I changed it to be book one. I suppose if that doesn’t change after the sale goes through I’ll have to contact somebody about it. In the meantime. I’m going to take it easy for while before I start getting the third book ready for publication.

Happy Holidays, everybody!