WTFIJWN

I haven’t done one of these “WTF is Joely Writing Now?” posts in a while. As always, I’ll warn that as soon as I write this down, it’ll probably change… But I’ll do my best to keep up with my plan, though Gregar may have other ideas.

Now that Queen Takes Darkness2 is out, I decided to move directly into Queen Takes Darkness3 and Sunfires3. These two side trilogies have unfortunately dragged out over the last two years (thanks to divorce), and I had to cancel the original pre-order for Sunfires2. The cancellation not only really hurt my momentum, but also damaged reader trust. I suspect a lot of you may be reluctant to pick them up until the trilogies are finished, so that’s my #1 priority.

This does put Four Men & A Baby (Sharan Daire) at risk with a projected 11/30 release date. I will most likely need to bump it to 12/30 instead, but I’m going to leave it alone for now. It really depends on how long the third and final books for Karmen and Helayna end up going (expecting 50-60K but not sure).

After that, I’ll move to Leprechauned, another series that has dragged out far too long. If I can finish it up early, I’ll release it earlier in 2022 (currently set for 3/1).

In the spirit of tying up loose ends, the next thing I’m going to focus on is One Cut Deeper, Two Cuts Darker, and Three Cuts Deader. I got my rights back to this series, and so the first two books are getting new covers and a facelift. Since I want this series to do really well, I’m going to hold them until I finish Three Cuts. I know a few of you have been waiting a LONG time for the rest of Charlie and Ranay’s story! I think the series overall will just do so much better if it’s completely ready to go for a rapid (re)release.

Now for the bad news. Or not really bad, I guess, but things that are dropping OFF my schedule. I had planned to do a trilogy for Belladonna (Queen Takes Venom) and (or possibly combined with) a Hades twist with Queen Takes Death. However, I know you’re all anxious to get more of Shara’s and Xochitl’s stories. I even suspect I may have a bit of a riot on my hands if I take the time to write other side queens, even if I think they’d be a blast to explore. Belladonna will be important, but I can figure out what I need without writing a trilogy for her. Other people have done Hades rewrites, so I’m not sure how much new material I would add anyway.

So… if you’re still reading this far, all of this clearing and planning is for one big reason. Watch for Shara to return on 10/17/2022, the five-year anniversary of Queen Takes Knights.

Long live House Isador!