Well, boys and girls, mark your calendars. We’ve got a (tentative, vague) date for the next volume of Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards sequence, The Thorn of Emberlain.

The Thorn of Emberlain “ought to be out in the fall of 2014,” said Lynch in an interview with Fantastical Imaginations. While some guarded skepticism is natural, Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone said, “Scott’s publishers are themselves confident that this date can be met: Scott began work on The Thorn of Emberlain some time before the final edits on Republic [of Thieves] were done, and the novel is already in an advanced stage of writing.”

Lynch also revealed some early details about what fans can expect of Locke and Jean’s misadventures in Emberlain:

The Thorn of Emberlain, the fourth book in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, picks up about half a year after The Republic of Thieves and finds Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen trying to get back on their feet with a major con. They’re trying to sell the services of a non-existent mercenary company to the besieged city-state of Emberlain, hoping to escape with the hiring fees before the chaos of the Vadran civil war overruns Emberlain. Naturally, things don’t go according to plan…

Given my love for Lynch’s most recent novel, The Republic of Thieves (REVIEW), The Thorn of Emberlain has immediately vaulted to the top of my most anticipated novels for 2014.