Skyla Dawn Cameron

My characters kill people so I don't have to.

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“When’s That Book Coming?” Summer 2022 Edition

As I said last week, Summer Revision Madness is underway here at Chez Skyla. Charon’s Gold is off for copyedits, and I finished a round on Witch Hunt last night, so that’ll be off when she’s ready for it. I’m diving into Soul Spell next, to get it cleaned up a bit and the last bundles of chapters scheduled for patrons.

What’s New

All new at Patreon.

Soul Spell started at Patreon in June. There have also been two new vignettes/shorts at Patreon: one was Future Days from Zara’s POV (set during a Witch Hunt flashback) and the most recent Livi’s Choice about the abortion she had a few years prior to Solomon’s Seal.

I finally made up a Demons of Oblivion/Elis O’Connor series reading order in PDF, current as of July 2022, so if that’s your thing, download here.

Oblivion-Elis-Reading-OrderDownload

What’s Upcoming

Unless the copyeditor thinks it’s going to need a huge amount of work (which is possible!), Charon’s Gold should still be coming out October 25.

Preorder links: Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook (paperback coming in October)

Witch Hunt will come out in paperback as well in the coming months. Scheduling is a little messed up due to factors outside my control and I don’t want to toss a bunch of things at the copyeditor at once, so that’ll wait to go out until sometime next month.

Watcher of the Woods is still on track for February 14 2023–it’s on my revision schedule for August.

Preorder links: Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook (there’ll also be hardcover and paperback upon release)

Remember, there’s some crossover with Dweller on the Threshold as they exist in the same world, but you should be fine to jump in without it (though seriously, Dweller is super fun, please go buy it!).

Also in 2023…

The first two Waverly Jones Mysteries have their release dates set for next year, late spring and late fall.

The Killing Beach is up first on May 30 2023.

Preorder links: Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook (there’ll also be hardcover and paperback upon release)

A Wild Kind of Darkness is out after that on November 7, 2023. Currently the only place you’ll find the preorder is at Kobo but the rest will be up in November.

Alone at Night will be a 2024 release, though I’m not sure where to slot it yet.

Summer 2023 will involve serializing Hell Fire (Elis #4), which I haven’t started yet.

Considering I try to space releases out, yes, this means the final Livi book will not be a 2023 release–I could miraculously finish the mostly un-started zero draft by the end of fall, but it seems unlikely, and even if it happened, I always need a lot of time for revisions and edits (and probably extra time with this one). So the very earliest will be spring 2024, probably.

If Elis is the six books I’m expecting it to be, the sixth and final will serialize at Patreon in 2025, so Livi 8 will start there probably 2026 if I’ve got my math right.

What I’m Working On

Thus far this year, I’ve written Alone at Night (Waverly 3) and Soul Spell (Elis 3). I’ve been in revision mode, but I really want to finish the next Waverly book I’ve already started (which…okay so I realized I’m writing them out of order, so it’ll later be book six rather than four). I miss writing new things regularly, working on vignettes for Patreon notwithstanding, and I’m hoping to clear all these revisions off my plate by fall so I can write Waverly 4 (the new one) and 5 by the end of the year.

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New Preorder and Cover Reveal

Officially one year from today, the first in my Waverly Jones Mysteries will release. It’s been up on Kobo for a while, but now it’s live everywhere.

Waverly Jones has been called misanthropic. Distant. Obsessive. Manipulative. And that’s without people knowing she talks to the hallucination of her dead sister.

She’s also a private investigator.

After a lengthy absence, she’s returned to Port Milton amidst the biggest homicide investigation her hometown has seen in over a decade. Bodies of middle-aged men have been washing ashore and the police have confirmed foul play but not much else—making it the perfect case for someone like her.

Particularly when she’s the one to find the latest body.

It’s not a coincidence Waverly happened across the newest victim. She’s been combing the beach because these men match the age and appearance of Detective-Sergeant Sebastian Kyle, missing these past eleven years after investigating the now-dormant serial killer who made Waverly’s sister his last victim.

Her familiarity with the murders has left her well-prepared when hired by the wife of one of the dead men, giving her a professional reason to dig deeper into these crimes. Have the police unintentionally fumbled this case in the wrong direction, or does the widow not know as much about her husband as she thought?

Port Milton has always had its secrets, and Waverly will drag every single one into the light to get to the bottom of this mystery. And maybe somewhere along the way, she’ll get another step closer to who killed her sister and what happened to Sebastian Kyle.

Preorder up at the usual places:

Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook

“I’ve already seen that cover,” you say, “and I thought this post had a cover reveal?”

It does! Read on! Because it’ll also be in paperback next fall and in hardcover.

But not just any hardcover.

See, I’ve always loved mysteries. Other than horror, it’s my first love (I didn’t start reading fantasy until I was in my mid-teens, outside of paranormal horror). Everything from Trixie Belden to Hercule Poirot, I devoured mysteries of all kinds.

But of course my very favourite, the very top choice, was always Nancy Drew.

I still love Nancy Drew. I have the more recent movies. The TV show is the only one where I subscribe to the full season on iTunes instead of waiting for streaming or discounts (despite it’s occasional missteps, McMann is a fantastic Nancy). I have all of the HeR Interactive video games (I used to preorder before the company seemed to implode) and play them regularly.

Those old 1950s hardcovers, though. I LOVE them. I’ve been doing a puzzle of the book covers and reflected on how much I love them, and it was a short leap from there to thinking, “What if I did Waverly Jones hardcovers in that style?”

First I thought I’d need to hire an artist for the vintage painting look, but that’s entirely unaffordable. Then I mocked up a version using the existing ebook cover, just tweaked a little to show the town.

But still, I thought…why can’t I mock up something that looks like an old cover? I’ve got skills. I’ve got resources. So I put together some stock photos, played with layers and filters, did some digital painting, and I’m quite pleased with the results (on the main page, click to read more; directly on the page, scroll down).

CLICK TO SEE AND READ MORE!!!

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“When’s that book coming?” Spring 2022 Edition

I’ve been putting this state of the union off for a couple of weeks as I’m pretty tired, pretty broke, and pretty stressed, but it’s due! And there’s still a few more days of a thriller sale at Kobo, so here we go.

What’s New

Dweller on the Threshold released! And most folks really dig it!

I’m so glad, as it means a lot to me.

Dweller links: Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook – Smashwords – Payhip – Paperback – Hardcover – Signed Copies on Etsy

Patreon also had a Nate-POV vignette post that was set after Witch Hunt.

What’s Upcoming

So much stuff!

Another vignette is coming to Patreon hopefully on Wednesday when I finish writing it (right now they get one every other month, and they can tell me what to write).

Soul Spell is starting June 3.

This is Elis’s third novel (yes, that was supposed to be Hell Fire, but I had to swap some things so now Hell Fire is #4 and next year’s book). New chapter bundles will post the first Friday of every month (except October, which will have a Charon’s Gold extended preview).

There’ll be, I think, two more books in her series after Hell Fire to round it out to six, but I’m not entirely sure yet.

Here’s about Soul Spell:

Serial killer and witch Elis O’Connor finally has a lead on her missing brother, and it’s brought her right back to the person who betrayed her, the one witch she doesn’t want to ask for help: Melinoë Takata.

While she weighs whether or not hopping dimensions with someone she doesn’t trust is worth it—or whether her brother is indeed a lost cause, considering it’s probably a one-way trip—once more the police coming knocking at her door. But this time they don’t bring suspicions and hopes she might incriminate herself: now they have actual evidence for arrest. With more than a hundred kills under her belt, it was probably only a matter of time before the OPP’s occult department was ready to charge her with murder.

The problem? Their evidence is for one homicide she didn’t commit.

And relying on Melinoë might be her only way of getting out of it.

Witch Hunt in paperback has no ETA yet.

A cleaned up draft will go up in May for patrons to read ahead of Soul Spell posting but it has not been through edits yet.

Once it’s cleaned up, what I might consider is offering another serialized option with the polished version of Elis’s books going up at Ko-Fi or Gumroad. Patrons still get a finalized copy (everyone gets it when it’s done, and then it bumps to $5/month for new users), but it’s another thing I’m vaguely considering.

And because I’ve had an influx of people searching: it is only at Patreon currently. Blood Ties is my worst-selling novel and also my most pirated. The series was dead in the water until I decided to resurrect it for patrons. If I release it in ebook, it’ll be three or four years from now when it’s done being written. So you can join Patreon, get a paperback, or wait until then! Sorry but this was the only way I could continue it.

Charon’s Gold is still due out October 25 in ebook and paperback.

This is the penultimate Livi novel–a reminder that it’s ending prematurely at #7. (Again, getting a lot of inquiries about this! Sorry but I have to do this for my health. Yelling at me about it does not improve the situation at all!)

Current preorder links: Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook 

Coming into 2023:

Watcher of the Woods is out February 14 2023.

Again, set in the same world as Dweller (and some tiny crossover) but it’s also standalone.

Preorder links: Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook (there’ll also be hardcover and paperback upon release)

And, finally, with only one link so far…

The Killing Beach is out May 30 2023.

This is the first PI mystery book, which I’m really excited about. Currently only up for preorder at Kobo but by the end of May it’ll be everywhere else.

2024’s schedule is pretty loose right now with zero preorders, but it feels good to at least have some plans.

What I’m Working On

I finished Alone at Night, which is Waverly Jones #3, and I’ve started the untitled fourth book. Honestly, they’re literally all I want to work on right now, I think because they’re solely mine. I’d like to finish four and hopefully five this year and write six next year before the first even comes out, with a plan to put out one a year.

I also have about 20K left to write on Soul Spell to finish it.

And that’s all that’s new here! Honestly I’m just trying to keep my head above water financially at the moment, as the last few months have been rough for a variety of reasons, and I was paralyzed last week worrying about rent.

Sales

Here are some current things!

Kobo’s got a thriller sale going on until April 30, it’s buy one get one. Solomon’s Seal and The Silent Places both count.

All titles: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/aprilthrillsus

Premade cover sale at my design site: 20% off, coupon code SPRINGSALE at checkout.

Same code works at my Payhip shop and Etsy for 25% off and 10% off respectively.

A Note About Twitter

Yeah the hellsite is being bought by that jackass, so it’ll be even more of a hellsite, but I’m still there for the foreseeable future. If you’re leaving but want to keep up with me…I barely use my FB page, I don’t remember my Instagram login, and I still don’t understand what a Mastadon instance is.

If you want new release announcements, there are two newsletter options. Otherwise…honestly, subscribe to my blog or join Patreon, because right now those are the only other options. Again, I’m staying at Twitter for now because fuck that guy, I get too much work through it to give it at the moment.

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Soundtrack Sunday – “Masterpiece”

It seemed like time to get a little normalcy back to the blog and I haven’t done one of these since October.

I’ve two weeks left on one of these meds (the other is for life), though last week got me down to a low enough dose that I can function better now and I haven’t needed benzos to compensate. No panic attacks and tachycardia for a couple of weeks, and no longer lying in bed crying and praying it’ll end soon.

Am I in remission? Who knows! I just want to get some projects finished so I can afford groceries again.

We’re getting close to Dweller on the Threshold‘s release, but I’ll wait and do that soundtrack later in March (also head over to Patreon on March 1 if you want to get an eight-chapter preview!). The last couple of weeks I haven’t been able to write anything new, but I pulled out the Waverly Jones books I finished last year to get them into a more reasonable shape.

I’m very much in love with them.

I can’t believe after struggling all those years with the first book that I not only have two done but they hold up and I’m so excited to write more (I wish, in fact, I had a half a dozen done that I could read back to back right now).

As you can see on the series page as well as with the jacket copy for The Killing Beach, when she was seventeen, Waverly’s sister was the last known victim of a serial killer who went dormant, though her body’s never been found. The Crossroads Butcher killed in groups of three before moving onto a new location, so prior to her sister, there were two other victims, and the high-profile case brought visiting officers–including the brilliant and compassionate Detective Sebastian Kyle, who Waverly fell in love with despite discouragement on his side of things (her therapists would call it “infatuation”–and that’s why she won’t talk to them anymore).

If teen-girl-inserts-herself-in-a-serial-killer-investigation-and-falls-in-love-with-a-detective-who-vanishes-mysteriously sounds familiar, well…

Similarities end there, however–Waverly is a very, very different person. But plenty of songs on Waverly’s soundtrack came from watching Audrey/Cooper vids on YouTube.

Such as this one–“Masterpiece” by Madonna.

From the moment I first saw you

All the darkness turned to light

This is all in the past, of course–Sebastian Kyle has been missing for over a decade, no leads on his whereabouts and his body hasn’t been found (yet), but being drawn back to her hometown amidst a major case, a lot of memories come back.

Like being in love with a masterpiece.

It seems to me is what you are

A rare and priceless work of art

Stay behind your velvet rope

But I will not renounce all hope

I could write entire essays about how I will never ever forgive anyone for how Audrey was treated in The Return, but I think a big part is that as a young girl (seven when it aired), I really admired her. Here was a smart, curious young woman like so many of the heroines in books I read (eg Nancy Drew) trying to investigate a murder, and though gently, respectfully rebuffed by the older man running the case (because she was eighteen!), she still tried to help. Repeatedly. After the premature end of the show, with all this potential the character had…we find out in the intervening years she was raped by an evil doppelganger, had the evil child, did absolutely nothing with her life, went crazy and ended up in a mental institution.

That was not my Audrey.

That was not the capable, resilient person I’d admired since I was seven. That was not the young woman who vowed one day she’d be grown-up and on her own and Cooper had better watch out.

Or, y’know, who went undercover and threatened a dude in an effort to find out who killed Laura Palmer.

Yeah, I’ll die mad about it.

But at least I’ve got Waverly.

She’s an adult now, she’s a private investigator…and she doesn’t like people. She’s got anxiety. She’s obsessive. Super manipulative. She talks to the hallucination of her dead sister. Sebastian Kyle was very much her polar opposite even back then and definitely now, and maybe that’s partly why she clings to the memory of him still.

Along with wondering what happened to him.

And I’m right by your side

Like a thief in the night

I stand in front of the masterpiece

And I can’t tell you why

It hurts so much

To be in love with a masterpiece

You don’t get to meet Waverly until next year (May 30 2023) but I am SO excited to share this book with y’all.

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Next Year’s Release Schedule

This is part proof-of-life post (although another will be coming on Sunday for Shawn’s birthday, theoretically), part actual update.

This week has been marginally better in that I don’t seem to be having the panic attacks and frequent tachycardia–last week was bad enough I very, very nearly considered an ambulance when even medication couldn’t get my heartrate down after an hour–but that might also be due to the lack of human contact. I did spend basically all of last Sunday and most of Monday just crying nonstop for no reason except that it was a taper day for my meds and that’s what happens when I come down, which was not my favourite thing. But Tuesday was unexpectedly a semi-normal workday, as was today, and hopefully that means the end is in sight. I also only had one episode of internal bleeding so SCORE. And my biopsies are all cancer and pre-cancer free.

A couple of bedrest days have lead to binge-watching The Vampire Diaries because apparently I am still making bad decisions. My Platonic Murder Wife checks in regularly and keeps me company when I need it–it’s that weird spot where I absolutely should not be alone, but it also might be safest if I am–and as usual, she and Shawn are probably why I’m not dead yet.

I’m more than halfway through Soul Spell, which is Elis #3…which was supposed to be called Hell Fire, but it’s taking longer to get to the reason WHY the book was supposed to be called Hell Fire, and I just decided to bump that to Elis #4. Confused? Me too! But the end result is that yes, Elis will be back this summer (#2 concluded at Patreon last week) with her third book, now called Soul Spell, and the fourth one that will serialize next year will be called Hell Fire.

I’ve tried my best to keep my Wednesday writing days, along with the Saturday night write-ins, though that’s sometimes challenging as well. I did not have any new words in me yesterday, but I pulled out Watcher of the Woods and…made some more decisions.

Watcher in the Woods–standalone, but set in the same world as Dweller on the Threshold–is going to release next year ON VALENTINE’S DAY (February 14 2023) because either I have terrible timing or I expect other people would rather read a horror book on a romance day like I would. (Why not both?)

A big reason I pulled it out is because Dweller on the Threshold actually has four times the preorder numbers Livi #6 does. And to be honest…that’s still a pretty low number, but it’s not insignificant, so I thought having another standalone hauntings book for preorder when this one comes out in April would be a good idea. I’ve assigned it some ISBNs, set up preorder pages, and given it a dedicated page on my site so…I guess we’re doing this!

As a result of that, I’ve decided to keep Waverly #1 in spring but just bump it later, so The Killing Beach is officially set for May 30 2023.

Most stores won’t list preorders earlier than a year before the release date, except for Kobo, so both are live there now and the books pages here will update as other stores come up (Kindle for Watcher will be next week).

Here’s what that all looks like:

I literally had just redone the graphic to replace Hell Fire with Soul Spell and then redid it again, but here we are.

The UPCOMING page also has everything listed in one handy place.

Still speaking of Dweller: the hardcovers arrived on Monday and they came out lovely. At this point, I’m only doing standalones in hardback (maybe Waverly, we’ll see) because the trim sizes are limited so I have to redo my interiors from 5×8 to 5.5×8.5 and I am not putting that energy into a format no one will buy lol but if that’s your thing, you’ll find Dweller and The Silent Places for sale in hardcover on Amazon. I’ll have a Dweller signed gift box and that in my shop probably by the end of the month.

Hopefully I’ll have a cute post here on Sunday for Shawn’s third (THIRD!!!) birthday–he’s got a bunch of presents from me and his aunties, which is basically already a day ending in y for him, but he’s very special.

MEET SKYLA DAWN

Writer of urban fantasy, thrillers/mysteries, and horror. Fifth-generation crazy cat lady. Bitchy feminist. So tired all the goddamn time.

My characters kill people so I don’t have to.

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