Island of Fog Book 8: Prison of Despair

Introducing the next book in the series! Prison of Despair (Island of Fog, Book 8) is the first of a two-part story to be published this year and continued in Book 9 just a month later. Yes, you heard correctly. Books 8 and 9 will be released within a month of each other in 2014.

Prison of Despair is aptly named. It features a prison, and its prisoners are filled with... well, despair. The general plot involves a villain who takes a lot of hostages and forces Hal and his shapeshifting friends to put themselves under house arrest in a prison outside the village. Being shapeshifters, they can escape any time... but doing so will bring dire consequences. No matter; the incarceration is expected to be a temporary measure until the hostage situation is resolved. Of course, things escalate and the shifters stay quite a bit longer than planned.

The problem is that this prison is specially designed to bring remorse and despair to its residents. Those who are unfortunate enough to stay there are released feeling like they've been locked up ten times longer than they actually have. A great way to put criminals on the straight and narrow, no? And since it's quicker, it costs taxpayers less.

It's not all doom and gloom. Hal and his resourceful friends do find ways to escape the prison undetected, which is fine as long as they're back in time for role call. Can they resolve the hostage situation while supposedly being locked up in their cells?

The eighth book in the series will feature a villain from a previous book and will pick up on a worry Miss Simone had at the end of Book 7. No prizes for guessing, but I don't want to spoil it here because Book 7, Valley of Monsters, is still fairly new.

Prison of Despair is fully mapped out and ready to be written. I'll be getting stuck in sometime in February right after I've written Sleep Writer, my first Unearthly Tales book. Exciting times!

Stay tuned for news on Island of Fog Book 9, which currently has a title but no cover.