Whoops! I Did It Again...
When stubborn resolve collides with fantasy storytelling and “real world” print costs
“Where the heck have you been?!”
I knew I was being quiet online—it’s been practically a whole month since my last official post/article/newsletter thingie, I’ve basically abandoned Notes, and social media slid down from “actually scheduled” to “is she still with us?”
Why?
Because I’ve been deep in the writing for Song of the Sidhe, my modern epic fantasy romance whose third book is due to come out later this year.
You know, the book I swore up and down would never, ever be split into two—like I did with Ithandryll, which became Ithandryll and Heir of Oberon—thus making this The Big One.
If you’re sipping an iced coffee and side-eyeing the screen while reading this, you’re completely correct in doing so.
Gardening + Writing = Accepting Difficult Truths
It’s the end of May, which means I’ve been out in the huge bookstore/tea house/family food garden getting burned, bit, and bummed out by the realities that come with growing things from seed.
Listen: I love growing flowers and food from seed! Do not misunderstand me there. I find greater joy in cultivating huge plants from tiny specks that pack more generative power than the human brain (in my humble opinion). As I’m writing this, I’m basking in the high of currently having not one, but TEN apple tree seedlings taking root in their germination pots after nearly 4 months in cold stratification (aka the fridge).
But here’s a harsh truth I’ve had to contend with since I started gardening last year:
You can sow every seed in the packet—but you’ll always need to thin things out if you want the growth to actually work.
This became increasingly apparent the more I drafted Blood of Balor. I’ve been so determined to keep it contained in one book, determined to avoid the “splitting” that I had to do back when I wrote Ithandryll and ended up needing to “figure out” Heir of Oberon even though I was so certain I knew how that was supposed to go.
Why I swore this wouldn’t be split up
Ask anyone who’s been on my ARC Team since the beginning: I’ve been pretty vocal and adamant about keeping everything mapped, planned, outlined, et cetera in one solid tome because I didn’t see any plausible way to split the narrative.
The second book of the series, Heir of Oberon, ended on a note of situational hardship paired with logistical questions definitely about to be answered in the next installment. Without giving away any spoilers, I’ve always known exactly where this next installment would lead because it’s the “Turning Point” of the whole series’ storyline. I knew where we’d pick up, where everyone needed to go in the middle, and where we’d end up before continuing the journey in the next leg, Khali Rising.
Outlining Book 3 quickly became a strong, zero-adjustment-needed Four Act Structure:
The Hunt
The Night Realm
House Dolus
The Trial
Also known in my Author Brain as:
Where the Heck Is Everyone
What the Heck Is Going On Here
Who the F*** Are You & What the F*** Are You Doing
My Readers Are Gonna Kill Me
In its original drafting and developmental formatting, the key points hit every beat without a single misstep, and that crescendo before the hard crash was just…*chef’s kiss*
But an itch kept coming up in the back of my storytelling brain.
It just felt like everything, everywhere, was missing…something.
Why it ended up being split anyway
I kept going back into the draft to answer questions I knew readers would have (because, as an avid reader myself, I’d definitely have them!).
I kept feeling like certain characters deserved more time on the page, more time in their relationships, and more overall exposition to strengthen their positions in the story, for better or for worse.
I kept doing research into the parts of our “real world” that constantly inspire more and more lore. I wanted to find mythical creatures that were/are probably fae from all over the globe, and conspiracy theories that label the perpetrators as “aliens” when all the descriptions nudge harder into the probability that something is definitely calling from inside the house.
Like the mananangaal (super proud of myself for memorizing the spelling): a woman who tears herself in half and grows her arms into bat-like wings to fly in the night sky, hunt prey, and freak people out with her dangling innards until she returns to her hidden-for-safety bottom half to become human again before dawn.
And like that whole Skinwalker Ranch show where I’m tellin’ ya, they got full-on pixies flying right in front of the camera but the scientists on the team never breathe a word about it.
None of this is to say I continued to stuff unnecessary exposition and situations into the manuscript. I actually cut out several chapters of “fluff” because yeah, we get it, people have feelings. People need to process those feelings. I’d just rather Roxi and Devon work through those feelings while also trudging through the jungles of their respective location(s) instead of sitting around sipping lemonade.
Each “Act” in the outline began to develop more subtopics and plot lines, demanding the care and respect that goes into fantasy-focused storytelling. It’s not enough for Roxi to just suddenly find a way back into the Otherworld—she has to grapple with the reality that the majority of her family lives in the American Midwest, which means going back to reunite with Devon requires leaving behind loved ones she’d been missing despite her long-desired independence. She has to confront those who know where viable portals between the realms are but refuse to help her, even though they don’t have a good reason for it.
As for Devon? He’s got some serious family issues.
Like, Dr. Phil-would-be-flipping-chairs-on-that-episode Serious Family Issues.
Before I knew it, Act One had 20 chapters. Act Two had 22 chapters.
I know for a fact that Act Three & Four are even longer because fit’s about to hit the shan hard.
Which brings me to my biggest concern: printing costs.
I was okay with producing a massive ebook.
My readers were ready to carve out the time to read this Game of Thrones-level novel the likes of which could probably fell a lumberjack with one solid swipe to the head. In paperback.
HOWEVER…
Prices have been going up in the printing world, and I feel sick just estimating the MSRP/Retail Price of a Print-On-Demand paperback that’s 80-90 chapters long and close to 1,000 pages.
Then there’s the Kickstarter Factor: I shudder to think what a Collector’s Edition of a book that size, with the gold foil/French flaps/full-color map specs, would cost just at wholesale!
To be honest, that’s the part that made me take a more critical look at the outline and drafted chapters to find The Sweet Spot where I could carefully apply pressure with the “narrative scalpel” and dissect the story. I’m already feeling the pressure of economic inflation in every aspect of my life, my career, and the last thing I ever want to do is make it even more difficult for readers like you to afford the stories I’m crafting for the sake of the message, not the money.
Although, I mean, the money does help.
It just felt gross to cling tightly to my oath that Book 3 would never ever be split into two at the literal expense of everyone eager to read it. I’m not writing novels to market, and best believe I’m not creating more books as a “cash grab” (even though, again, the backlist helps).
So I found that Sweet Spot.
And I spliced the story into what is now Queen of Night and Blood of Balor..
What this means for the future of the series
Well, for one thing: I’m not gonna make such stubborn declarations again!
The biggest adjustment I’m making for myself, and in reference to the series, is identifying the segments of the storyline by the already-established titles but with the open understanding that each “book” may become 2-3 books depending on word count, chapter count, and the story itself.
The Original Lineup:
Ithandryll
Blood of Balor
Khali Rising
When the Firebird Sings
The Updated Lineup As Of Right Now:
Ithandryll
Heir of Oberon
Queen of Night
Blood of Balor
Khali Rising
Dreamwalker
When the Firebird Sings
{Gut Feeling There’s Another Book Here But Title TBD}
The Lineup That I’m Predicting May Honestly Happen:
Ithandryll
Heir of Oberon
Queen of Night
Blood of Balor
Khali Rising
{Title TBD}
Dreamwalker
{Title TBD}
When the Firebird Sings
{Title TBD}
{Gut Feeling There’s Another Book Here But Title TBD}
What’s ironic & hilarious to me is that only a handful of years ago, I rolled my eyes at the authors who write what feels like a gazillion books “just to get one simple story out”.
My sincerest apologies.
Yes, my foot tastes awful.
What you need to know about Queen of Night
First: there’s a tomato breed in the seed catalog I order from called “Queen of the Night” and something in the back of my mind whispered, back in January, “You should totally grow this because it’ll fit with your book launch.”
Which didn’t make sense to me because the upcoming book was called Blood of Balor.
…I ordered the seeds yesterday.
Second: this isn’t just some expository leg of Roxi & Devon’s romantic adventure where it’s only “leading up to” everything in Book 4 (now the official Blood of Balor).
There’s more magic, more mayhem, and more creatures that I always knew would be included in the series, we just haven’t had the logistical opportunity to meet them yet in the first two books. Which, much to my internal chagrin, led to several casual reviews in comments and book recs describing the creatures of the Otherworld as “the typical British/UK bunch”.
Queen of Night begins to introduce both original creatures dreamed up specifically for this series, as well as the ones I’ve discovered during research from regions like the Philippines, Indonesia, rural China, Siberia, Romania, potentially even Samoa and Micronesia. They’re beautiful and terrifying and belong in such an organic way in the regions of the Otherworld our protagonists have only begun to explore.
Like the Outer Wilds of the Night Realm.
The remote islands in the Silver Seas.
The suspiciously uncharted, nondescript, “nothing exists over there” land beyond the northern mountains that border Ithandryll.
One pretty significant thing I think most readers have been overlooking, so I’m giving you the heads up right now:
The White City, the serialized urban romantasy that publishes chapters every weekend here on Substack?
10000% has to do with everything going on in Song of the Sidhe.
Caedmon Dubhoidhe (aka “Cade Devoy”) isn’t just a pretty face and the underworld overlord of Chicago’s mystical/dangerous night life—he’s also a remnant of what the Night Realm used to be like, what it used to mean to people in all the interconnected realms, and he bears both physical and emotional scars from his near-fatal confrontation with Riordhan Rionnaghan.
Remember that prologue in Heir of Oberon?
Yeah, that guy.
Devon’s infamous grandfather.
Let’s just say Cade’s got a bone to pick with a particular family and does not, in any way shape or form, feel the slightest compulsion to help them.
Queen of Night debuts
September 30, 2026
Signups to join the Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) Team are open! The ARC edition is slated to distribute mid-to-late August, so if you need to catch up on Books 1&2 (which are provided in the Welcome Email), now’s the time to join and start reading!