For a very long time, Firmament: Eleftheria, book seven in the Firmament series, was sitting at somewhere around fifty percent on the “WIP progress bar” on the side of this website. In fact, I started writing it in 2017 as my NaNoWriMo project for the year. I didn’t win NaNo that year, and I didn’t finish the book then or for a very long time afterwards.
Between that time and this time I’ve birthed three children, moved three times, and published other books. I’ve changed churches and read a lot and been sick and gained weight and lost weight and made my first quilt (albeit a tiny one). I finished the book once and lost the last 6000 words, forcing me to write them over again from scratch.
Bottom line: it has been quite a journey from finishing to completing and PUBLISHING this book!
I say published, but I did something a little different this time — I released the book first on Kindle Vella, an Amazon service where you can publish and read stories in a serial format. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been releasing three chapters a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, on this platform. So far I’ve released sixteen chapters. Then in October, I’ll get the regular ebook and the paperback version out.
So, just to get you as excited as I am, here are a few lines from the opening of the book:
Good news was long past overdue when the orders arrived.
It had been a month since the tragic death of helmsman, first officer, and beloved friend William Guilders and the pain of his absence still ached like a fresh wound. Not only in our hearts, but I swear the ship itself felt different. I could sense the alteration every morning when my feet touched the cold, smooth metal of my cabin floor. Something about the rhythm of the Surveyor had just – changed. After all, Guilders had been at the helm since her maiden voyage sixteen years ago. How could she not miss him?
She’d known him longer than any of us had. And we were heartbroken.
The good news about Kindle Vella is that you can read the first three episodes of any book for free, so if you’re just dying to hear more, you can head over there right now and check out the first few chapters! From there, you can buy the rest of the chapters on Vella or if you’re patient, you can wait for the full release and get a normal Kindle book or (if you’re like me and prefer to turn real live pages) a paperback!
It’s been a journey. And I’m excited to be trying new things, to be picking up some momentum with this series, and to continue to share it all with those of you who have been with me from the beginning! I appreciate you all more than I can say!