So here’s an interesting story.

A year or so ago, I started writing a series of three short stories set in the Shattered Sands universe. The three stories, though separate to a degree, were really part of a larger, planned arc. The first of those stories was “Irindai,” which some of you may have read in the Blackguards anthology. I wrote the other two stories in the following months and finished them earlier this year. In the writing, the stories expanded a bit. They each went from short story to novella-sized works, and together all three added up to small novel (50k words).

So what is the story? It’s called Of Sand and Malice Made, and it takes place a few years before Twelve Kings in Sharakhai. It focuses on a younger Çeda, the heroine of Twelve Kings, as her path crosses that of an ancient and powerful creature known as an ehrekh. The ehrekh’s name is Rümayesh, and she has become a legend in the places of power in Sharakhai. Many ehrekh live in the depths of the desert, far from the cities of man, but Rümayesh took up residence in Sharakhai long ago. From the shadows she watches humans live and die. She toys with them. She picks them apart to see how they work, sometimes figuratively, sometimes quite literally.

One day, Rümayesh comes across Çeda. And, well, let’s just say she becomes…interested in Çeda. That’s where the story begins.

I’d planned to publish the stories as a collected set. In fact, I’d made quite a few plans to do so. I had cover and interior art created. I worked on the design with designer extraordinaire, Shawn King. I had a director and recording studio and Sarah Coomes, the voice actor who brought Twelve Kings to life, all lined up to record the audio for it. I had already created the basic campaign to fund the project via Kickstarter. I had it copy edited by Marylou Capes-Platt my wonderful copy editor for Twelve Kings.

Now comes the funny part.

My copy editor, Marylou, is good friends with my editor, Betsy Wollheim. Sometime after Marylou had read Of Sand and Malice Made, she and Betsy had a conversation about it. I won’t pretend to know what was said, but I think it’s safe to say that Marylou spoke positively about the story, because Betsy later pinged me to see what my plans were for the project. I said I was getting ready to Kickstart it, but that it wasn’t written in stone.

After talking a bit, she said she’d like to publish it. It took a bit to get the deal worked out, but just this morning my agent, Russell Galen, worked out the last of the details with her.

So, sometime around the fall of 2016, there will be a new Shattered Sands novel coming out! It’ll be released in hardcover and ebook initially, with a paperback to follow. Needless to say, this is great news. The book is already written, so I’m thrilled that DAW thought enough of it to publish it. I’m hard at work on With Blood Upon the Sand, book 2 of the series, and it’s looking like that’ll be published early in 2017, so this will be a great way to get some more Shattered Sands fiction out there while folks are waiting for the second book.

There’ll be plenty of news in the coming months, including the cover reveal (which is mostly done but will need tweaking and the DAW stamp of approval).

For now, though, woo hoo!