Sun, Books, and a war god, oh my!

Sep 18, 2023

Hey,

Last week, I promised two things:

a peek at the proofs of our three omnibuses that you can only get in our Kickstarter, which is coming very soon
And introductions to our 4 protagonists in Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell

Let’s start with Kickstarter first since we’re thinking about entering Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell in a contest. It begins with a high-stakes heist and only gets more epic from there. Plus, it’s an entrypoint to our world, so it might be the perfect fit for a contest we just found out about.

If we enter that contest, that may affect the publication date since the winning entries will have their opening chapters featured in an anthology put together by an author with some seriously awesome writing credits under his belt. His resume made our jaws drop.

This is Ran, by the way, son of Sarn, the Curse Breaker. And you finally get a peek at my magic in Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell. Actually, it’s more than a peek. I sling around some serious spells in there like a proper mage, and I even know what I’m doing!

But I digress as I often do. You forgive me, right? I get distracted easily.

Back to our kickstarter sneak peek.

Here’s a picture of the three omnibus proofs getting some sun in the enchanted forest. The covers are glossy, so that made getting good pictures challenging with the sun glaring on the glossy finish.

Not pictured: the Queen of All Trees flipping pages to make sure all is well inside. Either giant magical trees don’t photograph well because their magic makes technology throw warnings, or she used her magic to stay out of pictures.

I’ll let you to decide which.

This is the trio of anthologies in Melinda’s apartment with drab lighting and but still some glare from the overhead lights:

As you can see, glossy covers are hard to photograph! Maybe we should have chosen matte covers. It’s not too late to change them.

Do you have a preference? Hit reply and tell us which you like better, matte or glossy covers.

Don’t forget to go to our campaign and click the Notify me on launch button, so you know when our crazy campaign of magical mayhem goes live.

And now, let’s talk about the protagonists in Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell. It has 4 main characters. But only one of the four showed up in Chasing Dragons, book 11 of the Curse Breaker series, and that person is holding that book hostage!

(Chasing Dragons is the sequel to Shards For His Gift, and if you read the preceding book, then you know what we’re doing in Chasing Dragons. The title kind of gives it away. So we’d like this character to go away so we can get back to the dragons!)

I can’t tell you who that character is since that would spoil things. So let’s talk about someone less problematic, like an ex-god of war! Who knew we had such a character.

So what’s the ex-god of war’s name? He just goes by Guerren in Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell.

He fought in the last war of Heaven on the side of the Adversary/Prince of Darkness/the Devil and lost. The first scene in the book is actually a flash back to that scene.

After that, he fell and ended up in Hell along with all the other combatants who picked the wrong side. And he’s still sore about that. The loss stung his pride. He usually picks the winning side, since he was a war god at the time, but his luck ran out when he crossed swords with the archangels.

(That story is coming but probably not until for a while. Our Scribe, Melinda, wants to finish a few other series before starting that trilogy. We’ll see if the ex-gods give her a choice about that.

I hope they leave her alone so she can write more Curse Breaker books, but I’m just the son of a mage. So I don’t have any power to compel her to write my story, and I’m not sure the combined cuteness of my best buddies, an OwlCat kit and a baby dragon, will be enough to override their power over her. But we’ll keep trying! And a successful Kickstarter might also help make the case for us. No pressure!)

So is Guerren our hero in Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell?

Nope. He’s more of an antihero at this point, but who knows? By the end of the unplanned trilogy, he could trade in his antihero card for a hero card. It could happen. The characters destroyed the outline and sent the book off on a different adventure than the one Melinda planned, forcing her to make it a trilogy instead of a standalone to explain some pretty inexplicable stuff.

But Guerren does want to defeat the Prince of Darkness and reclaim his lost power and status. So that could lead him down the hero path. We’ll see by the end of the trilogy what happens to him. He’s conflicted about his role in the Last War of Heaven. Usually conflict leads to the dark side but if you’re already on the dark side, does that lead you to the good side?

We’ll find out. Guerren begins Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell with a bang by sneaking across a plain past powerful demons to the Library of Forbidden Knowledge. But he doesn’t stop there. He breaks into the library to hunt for a powerful book that could give him power over the devil himself.

You can read Rogue Gods: Gateway to Hell right now on Kindle Vella, Patreon, and now Ream*.

Ream will have all our books, so you can read both completed and in-progress books all in one membership plus additional members-only perks. More on that in the next newsletter.

Have a great week and don’t forget to go to our campaign and click the Notify me on launch button, so you know when our crazy campaign of magical mayhem goes live:

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