So, I didn’t post an update last week, and that was because the week got away from me. It’s Mardi Gras here in Louisiana, so my plan is to throw you something worth more than cheap beads. This post will serve as a formal announcement of where I am in the drafting process, what is coming up soon, and other things.
Draft Status: Carmilla’s Gambit
The seventh official book in the Adventures of Sam Hain series, Carmilla’s Gambit, has been drafted as is currently in the revision stage. This book was a lot of fun and a lot of challenge to draft. I’ll be talking more about it in the coming weeks, but this book brings the first major arc of the series to a close. There will probably be one or two books before I close out the big confrontation that will change the version of our world in the series. Following that, the series will become what I fully envisioned it to be at the start: independent, standalone novels with loose plot threads spanning a “season” of 5-7 books.
Carmilla’s Gambit features three point-of-view characters, as opposed to the usual one. There are scenes written in the first person for Sam Hain, Destiny Grimm, and Carmilla Karnstein. This book will be dark, as it will involve Carmilla confronting her abuser who is older, stronger, more powerful, and less restricted by a sense of morality than she is.
I will also be broadening the worldbuilding in this novel in ways I wish to remain largely secret for now. However, fans of certain musicals based upon gothic novels may find an interesting take on a familiar character.
And for any who haven’t kept up with the series, I do write my books in such a way that you can pick up and read a complete story that gives you enough worldbuilding to get a sense of what’s going on, what the stakes are, and where things have been to get to this point. So, feel free to give it a chance.
A Venture into the Gothic
A friend and reader challenged me while I was finishing the first draft of Carmilla’s Gambit. She challenged me to write a horror novel set in Louisiana. By and large, there aren’t that many novels of any genre set in Louisiana, and many of those that are don’t make full use of Louisiana the setting as a character integral to the novel itself.
As a result, I’ve gone over options and ideas for various subgenres in horror, and I settled on gothic, specifically Louisiana Gothic. If you’re not familiar with that subgenre, it’s a subset of Southern Gothic, which focuses on small towns, “quirky” locals, and the dark (often brushed into the shadows) past that the South has yet to fully and honestly confront. It presents a setting where the past haunts the present in ways often not fully understood by those living there, and those who understand wish to avoid speaking of it—lest naming the beast summons the beast. Louisiana Gothic will, of course, involve swamps, bayous, and Louisiana’s special brand of Catholicism and lore. I will be talking more about this in the coming weeks, as Lent arrives tomorrow.
Short and Dark
And while I’m working on all of these things, editing, and marketing, I will be releasing a series of short dark fantasy stories set in and around a country broken by the petty greed of multiple factions after a civil war, a world where magical power is both craved and feared, and a world where monsters walk and hunt. Think: The Witcher meets Dark Souls.
Each of these short stories will be released as an eBook individually (99 cents), with a plan for one per week. After enough have been released, I will produce a collection that will contain 2-3 stories what will not be released as individual eBooks; this will be available as both eBook and as a paperback.
Later this week, I will reveal the first story.
cursingravenbooks.com 