Skyla Dawn Cameron

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

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New Release: Charon’s Gold

It’s been a long time for some of you, I know, but the sixth Livi Talbot novel is finally here.

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook | Smashwords | Payhip | Paperback

I’m not going to repost the jacket copy–you know what’s coming, if you’ve followed the series thus far.

So instead, I’m going to say: thank you.

Thank you for buying these books. It was ten years ago–April 2012–when I started writing Solomon’s Seal. I had this big series in my head but no idea what I was going to do with it; I was publishing Demons of Oblivion at the time, when Exhumed due out that summer, and sales were not great. So I had it in my head to write something high-concept that I thought could combine all the things I love in books in a more marketable package.

I don’t know if I succeeded in the latter part of that–I still think it should be more marketable than it appears to be, which is either a failure on my part or just not hitting that luck that’s needed for something to hit right.

Regardless, here we are: a decade later, six books, novellas and shorts, a very small but devoted following, and the underworld. I feel so lucky that people have picked up these stories and come this far with Livi.

I’ve made mistakes, certainly–no matter what you do to try to reach the right readers (and I obsess over a lot), it’s not always going to work. And it’s bittersweet as seven will end the series of publicly available books to keep my health from tanking any more from the stress.

But I’m so goddamn proud of these books.

These are books I’d want to read if I was looking. I’ve combined all the big adventure that I love plus an epic multi-book arc and with a lot of deeply personal stories about trauma, and Charon’s Gold is the best example of that. It’s dark, but there’s that light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m so grateful to those of you who have trusted me to take you on this journey with Livi.

So I hope you pick it up. I hope you enjoy it. I hope to god you don’t yell at me because I think I have Book PTSD at this point as I can no longer anticipate what folks are going to scream about and it would be so much easier if everyone could just be cool lol. The last thing I want is to disappoint anyone, but there’s so much pressure and expectations brought that I can’t control, I’m sure that’s inevitable at this point.

I love this book, though, and hope you do too.

Please pick it up and venture into hell with Livi. Let her take you to the darkest places imaginable as she does the impossible, and then brings you out the other side again. This is one of those books I hope reaches the right readers who need it the way I did.

Happy reading.

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Soundtrack Sunday – “Rescue”

I am really looking forward to National Not Working Another Fucking Weekend Month in November. (Of course, we know me; I’ll still be working, but at least it’ll be on my own stuff.)

So. Book is out on Tuesday! Having a total normal one here where I want to delete all my books and my entire presence off the internet. As one does.

It’s a very weird psychological thing going on that I was talking to a friend about this past week (she also had a new release) where we know 90% of readers are cool. We know this not because we hear from them but because we have access to sales numbers so we know how many of them are out there.

But that other 10% are so loud. The demands, the insults, and that’s not even covering the percentage hitting my site googling where to steal my books. So our brains do this protective thing where we automatically assume absolutely everyone is going to hate the book so it hurts less when we get yelled at, which makes trying to advertise it with feigned excitement exhausting if not entirely impossible.

I’m several neuroses and a bag of feral cats in a trench coat, I know.

Anyway. Usually before a new book release I post its full Soundtrack Sunday playlist so I can link to it when I send out the new release announcements but no one ever clicks over to that, so I’ll worry about organizing it next week maybe. Today will be the last one specifically from Charon’s Gold. This time the song is “Rescue” by Lauren Daigle.

Warning: this will probably skew your YouTube recs to Christian music for a while

There’s a deeply personal scene late in the book in a chapter titled “Rescue” where I had this song on repeat–you’ll know it when you see it.

You are not hidden
There’s never been a moment
You were forgotten
You are not hopeless
Though you have been broken
Your innocence stolen

There’s this kind of amusing complaint in the readership who thought Solomon’s Seal was light popcorn fun and I guess didn’t get some of the undercurrents that were building up to get us to where we are now. (Which is cool! Not everything is for everyone, and there’s lots I could’ve done differently.) But you can’t have an adrenaline junkie character and not get to the root of where that comes from (or, at least, I can’t).

Yampellec’s Idol started really breaking down some of those coping mechanisms when Livi literally couldn’t run anymore, and Charon’s Gold is about getting right to the root of things and laying them bare.

I hear the whisper underneath your breath
I hear you whisper, you have nothing left

So while the book is about Livi rescuing someone else, it’s also about her rescuing herself. That’s the only real way out of hell.

There’s not a lot else I can say about it without spoiling everything, but some of you will get it and I hope that it helps you in some way.

And that, maybe, Livi will rescue you too, even if only for a minute.

I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you
I will never stop marching to reach you
In the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true, I will rescue you

Charon’s Gold is available on Tuesday.

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook | Smashwords | Payhip | Paperback

The complete list of Soundtrack Sunday posts are here.

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

It’s release month and I don’t really have time to even think about that, which is probably both good and bad. But I’ll get to that.

What’s New

Still no Witch Hunt yet but it’ll be out later this fall. It should go much smoother next year with Soul Spell–it’ll be out for copyedits in the spring and should release in paperback in the summer in time for Hell Fire to start serializing at Patreon.

New Patreon shorts have gone up–there’s a Waverly backstory short, Once Upon a Rainy Day, and a Pru POV one set after Yampellec’s Idol called She Will Be. I’ve got a West one in progress as well that’ll go up for his tier probably next week set while he’s off on his own hunting the Nostoi while Livi’s busy in Charon’s Gold, and all patrons will get a new Christmas one in December about Livi set after Charon’s Gold.

The bimonthly vignettes/shorts are part of a reward for reaching a huge Patreon milestone ($500/month) and are available to all patrons because every dollar counts and has supported the writing of these books. And patrons can make suggestions!

Although it’s not exactly book-related, I did put a lot of work into the two-part patron podcast thing, Letter of Shaming a Murderer about That Murderer from That Viral Thread in August. Part 1 covers my dealings (and correspondence with him) in 2014; Part 2 covers the discovery of his arrest, trial, and conviction (and yes, I name names). It’s for the Patreon writing tier at $2/month.

Other than that, Soul Spell has continued serializing, and nothing else releasing as everything has been gearing up to this month.

What’s Upcoming

Well…I guess we should talk about this thing.

Yeah after a lot of stressing and fears it would be delayed, I’m still making the release date of October 25 and some copies are out in the wild between paperbacks and patrons who get eARCs.

I don’t even know what readers are left at this point? Because apparently I had the great idea to have a slow-burn buildup full of red flags that turned off readers thinking “Oh, this’ll be another alpha male douchebag romance. 🤮” early in the series and then last book pissed off the ones who had stuck around because they thought “Oh, this’ll be another alpha male douchebag romance! 😍” (FWIW: I don’t think West is an alpha male douchebag; I think he’s self-isolating, deeply traumatized, and doing his best, but I recognize some people see things differently.) I’m hoping everyone left is “Yes, I love messy people trying to work through their shit” because, well, that’s apparently my jam. I’m much more interested in how damaged people with a lot of baggage work through their issues and heal (against a big epic backdrop) than playing out another version of “her love heals him” (or, worse still, her love doesn’t heal him but she just accepts a toxic relationship).

Anyway. We’ll see! The most important thing (or so I tell clients when they want reassurance) is that I have been telling exactly the story I want to tell, the story I’d want to read, so at the end of the day at least there’s that.

It’s probably best I don’t have a lot of time to dwell right now–I’m working 10-12-hour days including most weekends and my most recent bloodwork still had inflammatory markers despite the fact that I feel fine so my medication dose has been upped and…that’s fun. I’m very tired and I don’t have time to breathe let alone celebrate a new release (boo) or bracing for people hate it (yay).

So. Preorder! Please don’t hate it–or don’t tell me if you do!

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Next up…I have a release on February 14 for Valentine’s Day!

…yeah, it’s horror.

Bless you if you’re excited by all the new romance books in February–I’m glad you have that–but me, I just want horror and murder. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Because Witch Hunt‘s schedule was all messed up and I didn’t get it out when I’d intended, I spent the time revising that when I should’ve been doing another pass on Watcher of the Woods, so I’m a little behind there but the copyeditor is ready for it when I’m done and it should release on time.

I wrote this one for NaNoWriMo last year and while it’s set in the same world as Dweller on the Threshold, it’s not a sequel (and has a very different narrator). In some ways it’s much darker than Dweller and certainly is less funny, but I ended up very proud of it.

eBook is up for preorder now and it’ll be in paperback and hardcover in February.

Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook 

And of course, at last, Waverly Jones starts next year!

The Killing Beach (aka the book that took me four years to write) is up for preorder everywhere, May 30 2023, and there’ll be not only paperback but a special Nancy Drew-style hardcover edition upon release.

The second book, A Wild Kind of Darkness, is out November 7 2023. The third, Alone at Night, will either be spring or fall 2024, depending on when the “final” Livi book is done.

The second Livi boxset (containing Shiva’s Bow, Yampellec’s Idol, and Charon’s Gold) will be out everywhere but Amazon next September.

And, of course, Hell Fire (Elis O’Connor #4) should start at Patreon summer 2023.

What I’m Working On

I mean, mostly I’m working on keeping my head above water.

I thought I’d been careful with my schedule this year but I ended up squeezing in a lot of favours and now I’m drowning, particularly as I’m trying to keep up with writing commitments–I love freelancing and working with my clients but I’ll have to change things up next year for sure. I only have two things on my plate at the moment but they’re both big ones, and in addition to that I really need to finish another pass on Watcher of the Woods, write Silent All These Years (Waverly #4), finish some Patreon rewards…and, oh yeah, start working on Hell Fire (Elis #4), and Untitled Livi 7 (trying to make that into a series ender for public release is heaping a lot of extra pressure). And there’s another couple of horror books to write. And I’m hoping to write Untitled Waverly 5 and Untitled Waverly 6 before next spring so that I’m super ahead of the game.

(Yes, Norah MacBeth is from Dweller on the Threshold–there’s a book-within-a-book in Watcher of the Woods and I’m going to write that book under Norah’s name because I love that premade cover I did and someone bought it for me.)

So I’m likely not doing NaNoWriMo this year–last year I wrote 150K, so I tend to go a little overboard and I just don’t have time for that this year.

But I have to be writing something. I’ve been exhausted and stressed the last few weeks, unable to even rest because all I can ever think of is just How Much I Have To Do, but when I finally finished a short for Patreon I felt a ton better. Turns out I don’t need (much) rest, I just need to actually write! Who would’ve guessed lol.

Anyway, this was a big one. Expect a couple more Soundtrack Sundays on the blog this month in preparation for Charon’s Gold‘s release. Happy October–I hope you get lots of fun spooky books to read, and please hit me up with horror recommendations! (Ones where animals don’t die, thanks.)

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Soundtrack Sunday – “White Flag”

Today is exactly one month from the release of Charon’s Gold (Tuesday will be four weeks) and my paperbacks just arrived this afternoon.

Here it is on the shelf with my other shinies!

So let’s do another Soundtrack Sunday!

This is a song I put on a few Livi soundtracks, and I’ll probably always have it on them: “White Flag” by Bishop Briggs. It fits well in Charon’s Gold, though, because of Livi’s single-minded pursuit of justice and obsession with doing right by someone she’s lost.

Take a hit, shoot me down, shoot me down
I will never hit the ground, hit the ground
Playing dead, I’ll never do
Gotta keep an eye on you
Patience is wearing thin, paper thin
Promises broke again, what a sin
But it only feeds my energy
So don’t expect no sympathy

Okay so yes, I originally heard it in a commercial for SOTTR, but Livi gets some of her DNA from Croft. So here’s a Tomb Raider vid to go with the post.

Put an X on my chest, on my chest
But I’m still standing ’cause I won’t forget
The hell on earth you put me through
I’ll save myself in spite of you

Yeah, those lines are 100% about Marta. Who, spoiler alert, does make an appearance or two in this one.

One of the reasons I keep coming back to Livi is her strength and resilience, and knowing no matter how dark it gets, she’s going to keep getting up and driving forward, because the situations that would terrify normal people fuel her rather than freeze her. She’s my hero when I need it, because of what she’ll do for her found family when it counts.

Even if it means quite literally going to hell and back.

Oh, won’t wave my white flag, no
This time I won’t let go
I’d rather die
Than give up the fight

Liv won’t wave her white flag ever because she doesn’t have one.

Charon’s Gold releases October 25 and you can preorder the ebook now!

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook | Paperback

All of my Soundtrack Sunday posts are now linked on a central page.

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Soundtrack Sunday – “Next to Me”

Sunday is for doing housework at Chez Skyla, and it only ever gets done with a lot of music playing loudly for motivation. This one comes up often and I like to sing along badly to it.

Last time I did Iluka’s song for Livi; this one is hers for him. It’s on both the Charon’s Gold soundtrack and Yampellec’s Idol. (Haters can deal with it!)

And oh, stupid things I do

I’m far from good, it’s true

But still, I find you

Next to me 

Livi’s in a pretty bad place in the new book–where Yampellec was about her finding her existing coping mechanisms no longer helping her anxiety and depression, in Charon she’s found a new way of dealing: obsession. She’s driven in a way she hasn’t been before as it’s the only way to keep her guilt and grief at bay.

It’s messy.

There’s something about the way that you always see the pretty view

Overlook the blooded mess, always lookin’ effortless

And still you, still you want me

But for at least part of the time, she’s got Iluka by her side, who is always quick to diffuse tension and smooth things out, and who keeps seeing the best in her even when she can’t see it herself anymore.

So thank you for taking a chance on me

I know it isn’t easy

But I hope to be worth it

Afraid for his life but terrified to also let him go, Livi’s only other option at this stage of the story is go to it alone entirely–and I’m glad that, for a while, she doesn’t have to. Friend, partner, lover, and a big part of her journey as she goes to very dark places (quite literally, including the underworld)–she might not always have the words, but this is her song for him.

Oh, I always let you down

You’re shattered on the ground

But still, I find you there

Next to me

Charon’s Gold releases October 25 and you can preorder the ebook now!

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook

Paperback coming in another week or two!

All of my Soundtrack Sunday posts are now linked on a central page.

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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What I’m Working On:

Writing Elis 5 and Waverly 4 Revisions.