*insert blissful smile here*
Well, I did it. Touchstone is complete. This is the LONGEST time I have EVER spent on any one project in my life – not book, PROJECT – excepting perhaps my first published novel, because it went through many, many rounds of edits. (Many. It was, after all, my first published novel.)
But! Touchstone is now FINISHED! OMG!
A dear writer friend came to visit Sunday last week with the intention of us having a lil writing party, and wow was it successful. We chatted for about an hour and then got into the writing, and even after she went home, I was so inspired and on such a roll that I kept going and ended up writing 5000 words in the day. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to do that, and honestly I don’t expect to be able to repeat it again any time soon because: Cancer Energy Levels, but it was just what I needed to kick my own butt and get over the awful hump of the final chapters of the book. I finished it and then went back to reread the final ten chapters to make sure the fully edited part segued neatly into the just-written part, and realised I needed another chapter before the climax to set up one plot point.
And then on Wednesday I edited the epilogue to better answer the alpha readers’ final questions, and ta da! She is finished! The cover artist is booked to complete the spine and back cover and the book will be out at the end of September 🙂 I’ll have preorder links at all the usual distributors as soon as I dredge up some energy to get them up, but in the meantime you can preorder right now here on the site 🙂
This is also the LONGEST book I’ve ever written, coming in at just over 95,000 words, which is coming out at about 340 pages (though remember, page count can be SUPER misleading: Touchstone is the second-longest Inkprint Press book in the catalogue now, but it’s the same PAGE count as When Worlds Collide, which was only 65,000 words).
Urgh. I’m so excited to share this book with you.
When I published my first book, Where Shadows Rise, I talked about about the idea of practising in public, and the idea that so many art forms are EXPECTED to do that, while with writing the message is often that you’re supposed to keep your work hidden until you reach some sort of magical indicator of ‘good enough’. I clearly decided to practise in public, and I’m glad of that for many reasons – and at the same time, I think that if I had gone a more traditional route with publishing, Touchstone would probably have been my break-in book. It represents a really serious levelling up in my writer craft, and it’s also one of the many, many threads that are slowly being detangled from the first novel I ever wrote, an assassin fantasy-mystery called Jesscapades.
So there are many reasons I’m excited 🙂
And so, because I’m excited, I’m going to celebrate by adding the first chapter up on the book page here on AmyLaurens.com. If you’re curious about this book you’ve heard so much about these last two and a half years, come take a peek at the first chapter and join we as we wait impatiently for September 😀
Kyla’s magical Touch often lands her in trouble — but nothing compares to the firestorm that erupts when her estranged sister calls a meeting out of the blue. Their father lies dying in the hospital from a mysterious illness.
Then an anonymous blackmailer calls, giving Kyla five days to find the magical, mythical, possibly non-existent Touchstone — or her father dies. Yeah, her father’s illness? Not so mysterious after all.
Alone in a city full of people she desperately wants not to kill and allies she insists she can survive without, Kyla must race against the clock to find the Touchstone before anyone else can. And before the corpses start racking up…
Oh wait. It’s too late for that.
A twisty, richly imagined urban fantasy from Aurealis award-winning author Amy Laurens, don’t miss this standalone in an all-new world inspired by ‘The Snow Queen’ fairytale!
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