Ready for a Brand-New Adventure?

May 05, 2025

Hey, This is it! The day I've been waiting for months to come. The kickstarter for the complete, newly-illustrated His Angelic Keeper Series and the first book in the sequel series, Chaos Rises is officially live! 🎉Back it now to secure your copies!

If you love found family, magical chaos, and impossible odds, then these are the books for you! Sovvan, our snarky but very dead heroine, checks ALL those boxes, usually twice, and sometimes while fighting the devil or dodging elephants in the Gray Between.

I poured my heart and soul into these books, and I pulled together hundreds of pieces of original art into two hardcover omnibuses and an illustrated sequel. For the first time ever, you can get these truly special editions packed with full-color chapter headings, beautiful full page artwork, and 5 stories full of found family, angels, demons, and a ghost who just won’t stay dead.

And you know the story behind it, which I’m still not sure if that was a dream or an angelic visitation. Check out campaign here.

Ready to dive into the afterlife with a heroine who refuses to let being dead slow her down?

Start with His Angelic Keeper: Books 1-2, the Illustrated Edition, where Sovvan’s epic, afterlife-defying adventure began.

Sovvan wakes up dead in a place both weird and gray. But that doesn’t mean she’s giving up on her family. Not even Heaven, Hell, or a stampede of memory-eating elephants can keep her from helping her twin brother, Sarn (yes, that Sarn). Alongside snarky angels, a mysterious ex-goddess, and impossible odds, she goes from a ghost to a hero and discovers that family ties truly can survive anything.

What’s in this beautiful edition?

572 pages of magical mayhem
107 full-color illustrations (from my own wild art experiments)
All-new chapter headings that immerse you deeper than ever in Sovvan’s world

If you love found family, snarky humor, and epic quests (with a side of grumpy angels), this is for you.

And now, it’s time for a preview. We’ve shared the first chapter of the first His Angelic Keeper book in the newsletter before, so why not share the first chapter of the sequel instead?

Sovvan is already in trouble on page 1! Trouble just follows her wherever she goes.

His Angelic Keeper Hidden

By Melinda Kucsera

Chapter 1: I’m Fading Away

The blackness faded to a peculiar shade of gray Sovvan hated so much, and that grayness turned transparent. That was strange. But an Agent of Chaos had bitten her a little while ago, so maybe that was normal?

Bits of her body peeled off in a slow motion spray and grayed out. Like cinders on the wind, they flew away, moving in time to that damned metallic clicking, which grew nearer as Sovvan lay there semi-conscious on a branch in the Grove of Memory. This place stored the memories of those who'd died over the centuries. Sovvan still found that hard to believe. Something held her body and soul together. Perhaps it was the bond to her twin, Sarn. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

Beside her, Misriah froze, magical crabapple in hand. The red apple looked like any other ripe apple, just smaller. According to Fay, the ex-goddess of Fate, it could reverse the effects of that bite. Misriah threw back her head and howled one word, “No!” Purple lightning danced over the angel’s armor as it consumed her. “I’m sorry, Sovvan. Your brother needs me.” Misriah let go of the apple, and it fell on Sovvan’s lap.

Pick it up. It’s the only way to fight whatever the Agent of Chaos did to you. But her hand wouldn’t obey her, no matter how many commands Sovvan sent it. Instead, her hand lay limply on the waist-thick branch supporting her. The apple remained on her lap, doing nothing magical. It didn’t even shine.

Misriah vanished in an explosion of purple sparks. Great, now Sovvan was alone with her floating ex-guardian angel, who was working some sort of magic, but she didn’t know what. “Are you trying to summon your dark lord?”

He didn’t answer, but what else could he be doing? Malachiah gathered more power to him, and it ringed him in an invisible cloud Sovvan could sense but not see. That power made her skin crawl and bile rise in her throat at the stench of death and decay in the air. His magic had a bad odor, or maybe that stench of burning garbage came from him.

Below her, metal creatures skittered around the leaf-covered floor of the grove. They were the mysterious Agents of Chaos. What did they want? One had already bitten her, and the rest just massed there like an army of clockwork insects. What were they waiting for?

Probably for me to fall off this branch. And Sovvan would too since she was fading in and out of consciousness. Where would she end up when she finally blacked out? The Gray Between again? Sovvan didn’t feel its pull, nor was she seeing gray anymore.

A metallic insect crawled up her arm, across her shoulder, and finally up the side of her head. The clockwork roach stopped on the tip of her nose and regarded her with softly ticking eyes. Tiny black hands wound around its coin-shaped eyes, keeping time.

“Don’t bite me. Once was enough.” Sovvan stared at the creature until it became blurry. She closed her eyes. Before she could freak out too much, the link to her brother yanked Sovvan off the branch and dumped her onto a carpet of red leaves below. They must have cushioned her landing because nothing hurt from the fall. What a relief. Something had finally gone her way.

Sovvan ran a hand over those red leaves, crinkling them. Each five-pointed leaf stored someone’s memories. Births, deaths, holidays, wars, all were recorded by these leaves, and one might have some information she could use. As Sovvan touched the leaves around her, a compulsive urge to absorb as much information as she could overtook her, and she grabbed handfuls of leaves.

Fragments of conversations about historical events flashed through her mind as Sovvan reached for more leaves. One leaf had even saved an argument about the Adversary. Sovvan paid attention to that one because her ex-guardian angel had tried to hand her over to that creep. She needed to find out as much as possible about him in case he showed up here. Sovvan couldn’t rule anything out at this point. Only Malachiah knew what his spell would do when he completed it.

None of the memories that had been stored in the leaves within reach provided any answers about that spell, or the army of tiny clockwork insects marching toward her. Damn. Someone must have encountered them in the past, and their memories must be here, somewhere. Hers were too, but there were billions of leaves to search through.

Which ones held the information she needed?

Another spread from His Angelic Keeper Books 1-2.

Next, I’ll tell you what happens when Sovvan takes on the literal devil. (Hint: things escalate.)

Are you in?

I’d love your support (and Sovvan would too. She hasn’t had this much attention since she fell into Jerlo’s office).

Even if you can’t back it right now, sharing the campaign would help keep this magical world spinning for years to come.

Thank you for reading, laughing, and questing with my characters and me. I hope the new illustrated books delight and entertain you.

See you on the other side!

— Melinda

(Ran will return soon. He’s taking a break during the Kickstarter, and I hope he’s staying out of trouble. I haven’t seen him in a few days and that worries me.)