The Fifth Commander & The Joust Ends
Hi! I hope you enjoyed last week’s newsletter. It was something different and sometimes it’s good to shake things up. If you missed it, catch up here.
And now you’re probably wondering did Curse Breaker Jousts finally end for real? And did it stay ended?
Yes, it did! You read that right.
Curse Breaker Jousts ended and stayed ended. My scribe moved onto to write the next book in the Riders of the Apocalypse story arc, Chaos Reigns.
Curse Breaker Jousts ended with 63 chapters, 2 author notes, ~149,000 words.
Melinda had the idea for it in 2012 at the New York Renaissance Fair, where she watched a joust. She wrote the original draft that fall. But it took 14 years to get to the final version for reasons discussed in the two author notes.
Melinda started posting chapters from the final draft the Curse Breaker Jousts on Patreon on Dec 25, 2025 and she wrote the last chapter on April 8, 2026.
Curse Breaker Jousts has 3 climaxes, mesmeric magic-eating monsters, rogue knights, a necromancer who raises the dead (War, the second rider of the apocalypse), thousands of zombies, a possessed queen, and one curse breaker and his friends stand against them.
But that’s not all because it’s also a book about healing and accepting help since that curse breaker (my dad) was wounded in a previous adventure (Curse Breaker Revealed). He finally makes good on that wish to be better and take some tentative steps in that direction.
Melinda wanted to post something on social media to commemorate the 14-year journey from crazy idea to finished book. Since social media isn’t her thing, she asked a friend what to post.
Her friend sent the image below back. She must have grabbed the latest version of the cover from our website because it’s part of this image.
The image above shows the epic scale of what we’re facing in this book. So I obviously liked it a lot. But my opinion might not be enough to convince Melinda to revisit the cover again, and I want an epic cover for such an epic story.
Don’t worry. We still have all the cozy vibes and character craziness as usual. We just do all that around the multiple enemies. So Jerlo will lecture someone, Furball will teleport at the worst possible moment, and I will plot things.
So I enlisted help from the rest of the cast, and they liked the top part too! With their votes hand, I went back to my scribe to make the case for changing the cover. But Melinda posted the above graphic on social media, and non-fictional people commented that they loved the image Melinda’s friend made too!
Imagine that! After I went to all that trouble getting the cast onboard with changing the cover, social media convinced her to change the cover first.
I thought for sure I’d have a battle in my hands since the image is not exactly book accurate, but it does get across the scale of the story visually. So Melinda is working with that friend on a new version of the cover this week that has that top part showing the army of zombies, the evil queen, and the monsters with the less crowded bottom half from the last version.
We’ll have the final version by the end of the week so we can send out copies of Curse Breaker Jousts to our patrons. I’ll show you next week. So that’s exciting. I hope to have more exciting news next week.
Last week, I mentioned some new podcast episodes, so let’s talk about them. This is Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series.
A few weeks ago, Joshua Olivieri reached out and asked if he could come onto the podcast to talk about his debut epic fantasy book, The Fifth Commander. Since my scribe, Melinda, likes to talk about fantasy books, she said yes!
Melinda interviewed Joshua last week and the episode is live now!
What’s The Fifth Commander about?
When the hero chosen by the divine becomes a tyrant, who is strong enough to kill him?
The Alkatharos, Valazar’s prophesied savior, has ruled for five centuries. However, peace is but a memory for its people. A rebellion gnaws at the borders of His Lordship, and whispers of a traitor within His walls turn fear into panic.
Gallen Tramore, the feared Fifth Commander of the Alkatharos, is sent to expose and slay the traitor. What he uncovers instead is a betrayal that shatters his faith in his master, his home, and his comrades.
To discover the truth, Gallen commits a crime worthy of death: abandoning his post. Now declared a traitor, Gallen is hunted by those he once bled alongside. Caught between centuries-old vendettas and a forbidden power that should’ve stayed buried, Gallen must decide where his loyalties lie and if he is strong enough to defy an immortal legend.
Intrigued? Listen to the whole interview now on YouTube or Spotify.
And that other episode? Melinda sat down and talked about the story behind Curse Breaker Jousts. Where did the idea come from? Why did it take 11 books to get to that story? (It wasn’t my fault!)
Listen to that on YouTube or Spotify now.
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