Category Archives: The Burning Crown
I started this post in July of 2025, but clearly July has disappeared beneath my feet. July was the month of CAC replacement and readjustment. Which technically started in June. 2025 has been the year of home repair. We live in a house that was built at the turn of the 1900s (I almost said century, but that could easily apply to the 2000s, which would not be accurate). I once dreamed of owning a home that wasn’t subject to landlords and their need to get rid of tenants to raise rents, among other things. And yes, a home doesn’t have landlords; it does require banks, and if you don’t pay your mortgage the end result is the same, but they can’t arbitrarily attempt … Continue reading →
This has not been the best year, and I feel that I’ve been under water for most of 2025. But this morning it occurred to me that I’ve never posted the cover for The Wild Road here, so first things first. Cover art by Jody Lee. The Wild Road is the second book in the series; it follows Hunter’s Redoubt. I have been working on the third book, but ‘working’ means starting it over and over again. But this morning when I woke up, I had that flash of insight that meant I’d been starting from the wrong place. Again. All West novels do this. To be fair to me, much of April was taxes and house repairs and copy edits (Cast in Blood) — the first attempt … Continue reading →
This book had a bit of journey. I’d written 200k words. I’d cut 110k of those words, but still believed I had 90k words. This is not what happened. What happened in the end was I had 0k of the original words I’d written — and 303k of the new words I’d started once I’d typed “the end” (which is figurative as I don’t think I’ve ever typed that unless instructed to do so). It is the longest first book in an arc I’ve ever written. Which was not my intent. But. Michelle. Story length. It is the story of my writing life >.< Jody Lee did the cover art, and Kathleen Oudit, the cover design across all four formats. This is the front cover and the … Continue reading →
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