If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you might be aware that I’ve been struggling for quite some time to bring the latest volume in the Valhalla series to market.
And so, after too many delays, it’s here! I rather quietly launched the Kindle edition of Raven Quest this past Monday evening. I hope to have the print edition available in the coming weeks.
If you’ve been wondering what’s next for Sally, Thor, Freya, Heimdall, Odin, et al., now you can find out! Here’s the synopsis:
When volcano spirits come to play, things can get toasty.
On the eve of Thor’s wedding, Sally ventures into the Oregon wilderness to learn plant medicine from a native guide. But what promised to be a weekend nature hike quickly escalates into an all-out scramble for survival when ancient tricksters form a shaky alliance to bring true magick back to the land.
Separated from her friends, Sally finds herself at the mercy of a lusty lava god whose gaze sears her skin and crisps her clothes—and whose attentions awaken a deadly trio of dormant volcanoes. Thor faces his own trials on a pre-marital vision quest that has him coming face-to-face with an unexpected specter, a bumbling band of Bigfoot hunters, and the legendary sasquatch itself.
In a wilderness of shadows and light where nothing is as it seems, Sally and her friends are forced to sacrifice much more than they bargained for.
Can the vengeful volcanoes be appeased before a massive eruption destroys all of Central Oregon? Will Thor finally get to punch somebody? And did the Bigfoot hunters capture it all on video?
Raven Quest (Valhalla book 4) was first-drafted in November 2013. It’s been rewritten a few times since then, and it was also my guinea pig manuscript for trying out various editing and revision processes—for instance, using a stylus to make manual corrections in a PDF on my iPad mini versus printing the whole thing out and making manual corrections with a pen. The latter was my old process, and I’d adopted the former as my new process. What I’ve learned through this trial and error, however, is that neither is a particularly speedy or efficient method for revisions any more. I’m likely better off just doing everything in Scrivener via my keyboard. We’ll see how that goes for the MARS books and the next two volumes in the Valhalla series.
Because, it’s true! There are two more books in the Valhalla series. Both have been (mostly) first-drafted, and both are currently the usual mess of overcomplicated plot across multiple POVs—the normal and delightfully chaotic result of my writing from a series of plot points instead of a detailed outline. This is another process that I’m in the midst of experimenting with; the MARS books are being written from detailed outlines, and I’m finding the process considerably faster. It means giving up some of the joy of discovery in the drafting process, but those surprises are still a big part of the outlining process and do occasionally pop up during the writing as well.
Anyway, thanks for reading. My apologies again for my extreme tardiness in getting this one out the door. I’m working on better practices—and better health—for keeping a more vigorous and regular schedule moving forward. Happy reading!