Need help catching all the epic fantasy adventures?

Meet the book-version of an easy button!

Hey,

Before we dive into a preview of Shards For His Gift, because we’re so doing that this week, I want to help you catch up.

There’s 10 books in the Curse Breaker series now, which is exciting because we had lots of adventures. But it might make catching all those adventures hard. So we created a book version of an easy button.

How did we do that?

We created omnibuses!

We have three omnibuses to help you catch all the epic fantasy adventures:

• Curse Breaker Books 1-3 (contains Enchanted, Darkens, & Faceted)

• Curse Breaker Books 4-6 (contains Falls, Sundered, & Hidden)

• Curse Breaker Books 7-9 (contains Fallout, Trapped, & Revealed)

You’ll save money and get all the action.

We’re also working on special hardcover versions of the omnibuses with glossy dust jackets and brand new cover art. But we’ll have more about that soon. Formatting three 800-900 page books so the text is at a readable size is something of a headache. But we’re on it!

We’re also auditioning human narrators for an audiobook version of Curse Breaker Enchanted, so save a credit for it if you’re a member of Audible.

We also have the versions of all our books that are digitally narrated, so you can catch up that way too. More on the audiobook when we have details. Right now, it’s too early to say when it’ll happen.

And speaking of audio, I’ve got three podcast episodes for you! This week, our Scribe, Melinda:

• talked to Chelsea McKenna about soul realms, dragonriders, and magical relics, and Chelsea read an excerpt from her book, The Blood of Lions.

• talked to Jack Adkins about dragon’s blood, dragons as gods, D&D, and their favorite fantasy books, and Jack read an excerpt from his book, The Blood of a Dragon.

• read chapter 24 from Curse Breaker Enchanted since three people who signed up to talk about their books didn’t show up.

Watch those interviews on YouTube. Or listen to them on our podcast.

You’re wondering if Melinda will still read chapters from her books on the podcast, and the answer is yes. Even though we’re looking for a professional narrator for the Curse Breaker series, she’s still going to record her own version with commentary. It’ll be like a director’s cut, but in audio.

And she’ll need to re-record the previous 23 chapters because the one she recorded this weekend with her new microphone sounds worlds better than the ones recorded with the old one. She’s not happy about that, but I told her that’s her assignment, and she’ll just have to make time for it.

(This is Ran, by the way, the son of the Curse Breaker, and that’s why I can give the Scribe orders.)

And now, let’s get to that preview of:

Shards For His Gift

Book 10 of the Curse Breaker Series

by Melinda Kucsera

Knock, Knock

(This story takes place after Curse Breaker Revealed and refers to events in that book.)

Ran opened the door, but the hallway was empty, aside from the statues frozen in fight sequences scattered about. They glared at him with glowing crystal eyes, but Ran ignored them because they did that every day. Pairs of halo-wearing statues flanked the door too, but they weren’t fighting or staring at him. Those statues just looked at each other, but they didn’t knock on the door. Statues couldn’t do that. So, who knocked? 

 Ran glanced around again in case he missed something. Bluish light shone down on him from the lumir crystal mosaic on the ceiling, high overhead as movement caught his eye. Either a shadow flitted around the bend, or he just glimpsed the mysterious knocker. 

Even if the knocker ran, could they reach the bend in the hallway without him seeing them? The shadow was small, so it might just be a cat running away when it heard him open the door. A cat could have run behind the statues, and he wouldn’t have seen it. 

“Where did the knocker go?” Ran glanced at the woman statue cradling a male statue that would have slid off her lap if he wasn’t made of stone. 

Neither statue answered him. Ran listened, but he just heard a faint echo of footsteps in the main transept. I could go to the bend and look. But that meant leaving Inari and Nolo’s flat, and he wasn’t supposed to do that without Papa or Uncle Miren. I won’t do it. Papa got hurt really bad the last time I went out without permission. 

It was my fault Papa got hurt. Ran gripped the door. It was an inch thick and made of the same stuff as Nulthir’s door, but it wasn’t wood. Uncle Miren said all the wood in Shayari was enchanted, and that was why the door wasn’t made of wood. No one ever said what the door was made of, but it was hard like wood and striated too. Maybe the door was made of stone?

 “What are you doing?” Nerule asked from behind him. He was Inari and Nolo’s son, and he was a bunch of years older than Ran and a bunch of years younger than Uncle Miren. But he seemed like a nice boy. 

“I heard someone knock at the door, so I went to see who it was. But there was no one out here when I opened the door.” Ran swung the door wide open to show him. “See?”

Nerule looked more like his dark-skinned father than his mother, but he was more talkative than his dad. Nolo brooded a lot, but he had an important job, according to Uncle Miren. Inari was always sunny, and some of that sunniness had rubbed off on her son because he was smiling. Why was he smiling?

“I see. What’s that on the doormat?” Nerule pointed. 

Ran spun and stared. There was a shiny blue box on the mat. “That wasn’t there when I opened the door.” 

A ribbon wrapped around the box, and someone tied it into a big bow that tickled his fingers when he reached to pick up the gift. “I never saw a box like that before.” The box shimmered in the lumir crystal light like it was a crystal, but it would be cold and hard if it was, and the box wasn’t like that. 

“It must be for someone in your family.” That was only logical since Nerule’s parents owned the apartment. Who was it for? It’s probably not for me. Only a few people know I live here. None had visited, but Ran hoped Furball would since Nulthir’s flat was just on the other side of this floor. 

But Furball might be grounded after their little adventure went awry a few days ago. We were just looking for Saveen, so we could meet his mom and find out what happened to the baby dragon. Ran hung his head. 

He still couldn’t believe an adult dragon lived somewhere under the mountain. But his friend was a baby dragon, so his mom couldn’t be anything else because that wouldn’t make sense. Besides, Shayari was a magical country. If it could have mages, then why not dragons too?

I still want to meet her. But Ran shuddered at the thought of descending to the Lower Quarters again. That’s where everything had gone wrong three days ago. 

“Who’s the gift for?” Nerule rounded the couch, but he left his door ajar. The mysterious gift was more interesting than finding out what was in his room, so Ran stayed in the doorway, unsure about what to do now. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to read yet.” Ran pointed to the card tucked under the bow. “Can you read it?” Ran hoped so because otherwise, he’d have to disturb Uncle Miren, and he didn’t want to do that. His brave uncle needed to rest and stop worrying about Papa. 

I’ll worry about him since he got hurt to save me. Ran glanced at the door across from Uncle Miren’s, and worry weighed him down. The door was also ajar because he didn’t close it when he raced to the front door. Through that gap, light fell, but it wasn’t green because Papa must sleep, or his wounds wouldn’t heal. So that light came from the window or a lumir crystal since Papa hated darkness. 

“Yes, I go to school like your uncle. Let me see it.” Nerule took the gift from his nerveless hands before it could fall and studied the card. “It’s for you.”

Ran opened his mouth, but no words came out. For a moment, he knew how Papa felt when words failed him. “Who sent me a gift? Does it say on the card?” Because the only people who gave him things were in this flat. So they couldn’t have left it on the doorstep. Besides, it wouldn’t make sense for them to leave a gift out there when they could just hand it to him. 

I only have two friends, Furball and Saveen.But they wouldn’t leave a gift and run. They would have waited until I opened the door and at least said hello and maybe came in for a cup of milk and a cookie. Inari always had cookies. Ran glanced at the kitchen, which lay beyond the couches in the living room, and the dining table and its chairs. I don’t deserve a cookie. Not when Papa couldn’t eat anything but gruel until the wounds in his stomach healed.

To be continued in Shards For His Gift. Get your copy now.

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