Are we lost in the Void?

I bring you the bestest news, a new book, the update you have been waiting for plus the trick that will be a treat for your eyes and imagination! Details inside as always.

Nov 17, 2025

Hi! I have good news and bad news. Let’s do the bad news first since the good news is sure to make you smile.

The Bad News

Melinda still has no access to her Amazon account for her published books or her purchased books. We’re stuck in an endless loop of support telling my scribe to reset her password but Amazon does not find her account, so she can’t reset it. She tells them that and they insist she just needs to clear her cache and try again.

I wanted to shout through the internet at them that we tried that on every browser and every device Melinda has. But we just get the same message no matter what we do. So they are still holding our books hostage.

But our books are for sale on Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play too. You can also request our books at your local library and find them all in the Libby app as well as other library systems. So you really don’t have any excuse not to read our books. :)

For more details about the situation with Amazon, see last week’s email since nothing has changed:

Everything is gone

Melinda Kucsera

Nov 10

Read full story

And now I have the best news! Get ready to smile really wide and laugh with us!

The Good News

My scribe reread Storm Spells as authors do when they're trying to make their characters end the book. While doing that, she realized something important.

Storm Spells actually ended many chapters ago!

So Melinda turned to me and waved at the word doc on screen. “When were you going to tell me the book ended?”

If you're a long time fan, then you know the this isn't the first or the second or the third or even the tenth time we've done this. We’ve been getting away with this since 2017 and by now, it’s practically a requirement.

You might be wondering: How did we pull that off?

It was easy actually.

Melinda releases 4 chapters per week on Patreon and our paid Substack tier. So she thinks about the story in 4-chapter chunks. Since she also has a full-time job, needs to sleep sometime, run errands and see her family, she spends a lot of time not writing.

Melinda only spends a few hours a day working on our books, and she likes to make those hours as productive as possible. So that means she focuses on the next thing to write.

But starring in our books is our job. We don’t have anything to do while Melinda is spending all that time not writing. So we have a lot of time to figure out how to get more page time.

At least I do. I’m Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series. He actually does have a job. So I spend a lot of time thinking about the story so far, what I want to do next, and how to get my scribe to write it.

And that, dear reader, is how we trick her into writing more than she meant to.

Melinda is really good at planning what will happen in the next four chapters and writing them. Weeks will go by like that and then she’ll have some time to reread what came before.

I always get nervous when she does that. I wonder if this will be the week she realizes the book ended, and she’s now writing a new book.

This time, I got away with it for a whole month!

(If you’re a paid subscriber to Substack or Patreon, then you may have noticed that Storm Spells ended in chapter 30 Thank you for not telling our scribe that. I hoped we were in cahoots and now I know we are!

Paid subscribers will get a copy of Storm Spells by the end of November. The book is currently with our editor.)

So what does this mean?

Well, it means that when the kickstarter runs in Jan, you’ll get 5 new books instead of 4. What are those books?

Catch the Scribe (new!)
Book Battles (new!)
Rogue Characters (new!)
Dragon Spells
Rogue Spells
Storm Spells (new!)
Void Spells (new!) ← we are here

Let me introduce you to Void Spells, the sequel to Storm Spells.

This is a possible cover for it. We get to ride giant magical flying books! And Melinda gets to use this image she created in 2018.

What are we doing in Void Spells?

We’re taking on those orbs. We thought about calling it Orb Spells but Void Spells makes more sense, and it sounds cooler.

So that’s where we are. Melinda is now trying to finish Void Spells. She thinks she has about 70% written. I haven’t decided if that’s accurate. I might want more adventure than that.

How will this affect the Kickstarter?

It will affect the omnibuses in the Kickstarter, but we don’t know how yet. But it’s safe to say that we can’t fit the seven books into 2 hardcover books, so it’ll have to be 3 at least.

Melinda reached out to an artist recommended by a fellow author to design something special for the covers to make them even fancier.

The omnibuses will be getting some new formatting and design to accommodate the extra book that Melinda wasn’t intending to write. But we won’t know for sure how this will affect things until Melinda finishes writing Void Spells.

Make sure the follow the campaign here, so you get notified when it launches.

I’ll keep you updated on these changes as Melinda figures out what to do now that our newsletter adventures number 7 books instead of six.

Storm Spells was supposed to be the series finale, but now Void Spells might be the finale. It probably will be. I don’t think I can stop that. Events are pushing the story toward the end of this tale.

Will we trick her again?

I don’t know. I’m kind of torn. On one hand, I could trick her again. Melinda is pretty distracted with the whole situation with Amazon. If I did, then it would push the overarching series out to 8 books, and that’s a nice round number. So I’m definitely tempted.

I just don’t know if the plot will let me squeeze in another book. Melinda is working overtime to box me in and make me deal with the orbs. I will do something about them before they completely destroy the Earth, but I might want to chase robots around Times Square first for important reasons.

But, on the other hand, the next book is Curse Breaker Jousts, and I don’t want to hold that up anymore. I’ll see how Void Spells ends, and I’ll let you know. After all, I still didn’t get a side quest.

Why didn’t I say anything in the newsletter?

If I told you about my brilliant trick, then Melinda would have known sooner since she reads the newsletter, and she also helps me type them up when the Newsletter-Dragon is busy. So I had to keep it a secret.

Do you forgive me?

I hope you do. I’ll have more details about how the Kickstarter and the books offered in it is changing over the coming weeks. So make sure to watch out for future newsletters.

In the meantime, read some good books and have a great week!

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