Symphony of the Stars is Finally Here!

2021 has been an exciting year for me. For the first time, I managed put out six new books. (One every other month.) It has taken a lot of ups and downs, but I finally seem to have found my publishing groove.

But the most exciting release for me is the one I’m writing this blog post to announce.

I’ve been writing stories since I was fourteen years old. I used to have an entire trapper keeper full of folders, drawings and doodles that held my stories. In high school I regularly snuck a notebook underneath the one I took class notes in so that I could work on my stories when I got bored. (I figured it looked just like note-taking to my teachers.)

In high school, I outlined a fifteen book series that I hoped would one day be my opus. But I was wise enough to know that I didn’t have the skill to properly express the ideas in my head on paper just yet. So I decided to write “practice” stories that would hone my skills for that epic opus.

This led to pretty much every novel I have published so far. Though I had to re-write those “practice” novels several times in order to whip them into readable shape.

I’ve mentioned before that Symphony of the Stars was the novel that ultimately taught me to write. It was only after I managed to assemble its original draft that I went back and cleaned up the Mystical Island Trilogy and Dream Things True Duology. But Symphony of the Stars is special for another reason.

It was the first story that truly came alive for me. It was the first time I felt I actually wrote something special.

A Special Place in My Heart

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my books. Writing Dreamers Do Lie was a particularly enlightening experience. But when I look back over my first two series, I can’t help feeling the plots are fairly simple and the narratives remarkably linear. There are lots of things happening in the background, but I wasn’t good at pulling those threads into the greater tapestry.

Symphony of the Stars is my first truly dual narrative where independent events and storylines eventually weave together in a spectacular tapestry. It’s the first thing I wrote that felt truly epic to me. And while I agonized over the fates of the characters in my previous series, these were the first characters that really lingered with me and followed me after I finished writing about them.

Much of this can probably be attributed to the fact that I was simply a better writer by the time I settled down to write The Celestial Serenade. It was the first book for which I used my entire world building and outlining process. I also wrote it in layers, adding missing parts of the story into each subsequent draft.

I experimented a lot with the various aspects of The Celestial Serenade, and simply dropped or re-wrote the parts that didn’t work. It was the first time I gave myself permission to truly stray from my original plans. And somehow, this granted me a better grasp of the story throughout the writing process. That’s probably why a single book grew into 9 different installments. And as soon as I wrapped up the last one, 3 more came along to make themselves known.

Symphony of the Stars is even the first book I really seriously queried before I decided that I would prefer to be a self-published author.

A Milestone Among Milestones

I could go on at length about the number of firsts Symphony of the Stars provided for me. It was the first time I sobbed myself silly over a scene. It helped me discover naming schemes and actual unified branding. It was also the first story that made my readers truly upset with me. (Sorry not sorry.)

This was the first story that I sincerely promised myself I would publish. So all the books that came before it were sort of stepping stones leading up to this moment.

Which makes it somewhat ironic that by the time I finished writing this series, I realized my opus was something completely different than I anticipated. Not a singular series, but the entire body of my work woven together to form a massive multiverse. A multiverse to which Symphony of the Stars turns out to be the key to unlocking. (But that’s a whole other blog post.)

But for all its firsts, Symphony of the Stars is also a last. It is the last book I will release into the wilds of the world in 2021.

It’s been a wild year. And publishing the first three books of The Celestial Serenade has taught me about as much as writing them did. I’ve got a long, long way to go on this little journey of mine. But I’m quite happy I’ve come as far as I have. I’m looking forward to seeing where the next bend in the road takes me.

Until then, please enjoy the first three chapters of The Celestial Serenade in their original, unbroken form!

Symphony of the Stars is Available Now!

Gaia can’t forget the day the dragon descended over her city, laying waste to everything she knew. Humanity flees in terror of the alien weapon, which no technology on Earth can damage. As the scattered remains of the world’s population unite against the threat, Gaia finds herself at the center of the resistance.

Born from the remnants of a lost civilization, she alone can access the ancient technology which may prove to be humanity’s salvation. But the necessary array is buried beneath the rubble of the dragon’s first attack, and the path to its recovery is bound to draw the dragon’s attention.

Meanwhile, Alrayia dreams of the end of her world. While everyone celebrates the long awaited homecoming of Kantis, the Caltaran Empire’s greatest warrior, Alrayia convinces her husband, a member of the High Council, to build spaceships that might keep her nightmares from becoming reality.

She alone sees the Caltaran Empire teetering on a knife’s edge in the endless war against their bitter rivals, the Ruvalli. For if the Ruvalli should gain an advantage – or if Kantis should fall – Alrayia’s world could unravel. In her dreams, the final blow is delivered by a mechanical dragon of immense strength.

Can these two fierce women reach across time and space to save both their civilizations?

(Symphony of the Stars contains the first 3 books of The Celestial Serenade – The End of All Things, Across the Void and After the Nightmare – previously published separately.)

Grab your copy now!