On Sweetblade
I'm very excited because my second book ever, Sweetblade, releases in two days (Goodreads). If you haven't seen the cover art yet, my cover artist, Brit K. Caley, did another AMAZING job. She managed, once again, to not only produce a beautiful piece of art, but to really capture the mood and feel of the book.
I'm also very nervous because my second book ever releases in two days! Banebringer (Heretic Gods #1) has received some awesome reviews and overall seems to have been received quite well, so of course, I'm biting my fingernails wondering if Sweetblade will live up to its predecessor--mostly because it has a different feel.
So, in honor of the upcoming release, I thought it might be worthwhile to do a post with some thoughts on Sweetblade.
As I noted above, Sweetblade is a very different book than Banebringer. While both books could be characterized as "dark," Sweetblade is dark in a different way. Banebringer is dark atmospherically (quite possibly literally: much of the book takes place at night or somewhere with no windows!) and sometimes thematically, but it has whimsical and lighthearted moments and a good deal of plain ol' action adventure fun. Sweetblade, on the other hand, is gloomy, a bit more gritty, and taken on its own, tragic.
Of course, if you've read Banebringer and have pieced together any of Ivana's backstory yourself, this probably doesn't come as a great surprise. Nonetheless, sometimes I wonder if I'm insane in releasing this book as my second novel, because it probably doesn't reflect my overall writing style. I think I may have accidentally written grimdark, which isn't my preferred genre!
All that aside: if you're not familiar with The Heretic Gods (or even if you are), Sweetblade is a stand-alone novel that tells part of the backstory of one of the main characters, Ivana, from Banebringer, Heretic Gods #1. It began when I was struggling with Ivana's character in Banebringer. I ended up having to write 25K words of her backstory before it all came together. Of course, having 25K words, I said...why not flesh this out even more and release it as a "side story" novella? I already had plans to do that with some other characters in The Heretic Gods; this could be the first.
As it happened, it ended up being 90K, not 40-50K like I originally planned, and much more involved than I imagined. I also delved deeper into some potentially heavy topics: depression, self-harm, and loss of self/identity. It's fully a character story about how tragic circumstances drive a "girl-next-door" to some very desperate measures to bury her pain. Standing alone, it's a bit of a tragedy, but I think (hope? *more nail-biting ensues*) the ending is nonetheless satisfying.
So what does "stand-alone" mean? Exactly what it should mean: It can be read alongside the rest of the trilogy in chronological order (Sweetblade, Banebringer, etc), publication order (Banebringer, Sweetblade, etc), or on its own without ever reading any of the other books at all. It if doesn't sound like your cup of tea, rest assured you can also skip it all together and just read the main three books (once they're all out, of course). Heretic Gods #2 and #3 will return to the feel of Banebringer. If you want to read it all, I'd suggest publication order.
So, whether you've read Banebringer and want to know more about Ivana's backstory or you like grimdark and just think it sounds fascinating, I hope you'll give Sweetblade a try! The e-book will be out December 28th, 2018 on Kindle and December 31st in other formats (paperback to follow soon). It's currently available for pre-order on Amazon and other major digital stores.