I’m adding the finishing touches to the e-book version of The Two-blood Legacy, the first book in The Red Cliffs Chronicles series. Once published, it’ll be free to download, if Amazon allows me this little generosity.

Cover design by Srdjan Filipovic

In any case, I plan to offer it here as well, chapter by chapter. I can’t afford any marketing and promotion, so maybe The Legacy can find its readers this way.

I’m taking this opportunity to express my gratitude to those who, one way or another,  were with me during this long journey. First of all, I’d like to thank the person I always call first when I’m stuck. Thank you, JP McLean, for helping me with the blurb(s) and the title, as well as for your continuous support. I’d like to mention Susan M. Toy and thank her for her tireless promotion of the work of her fellow authors, including mine. And of course,  Meredith Bond, another fellow author, who taught me how to do formatting in the middle of this pandemic madness. “Instead of paying me,” she said, “let me show you how to do it.” So she did, and that’s why I’m now formatting The Legacy.

Incidentally, two very special gals became part of this story: Judy Munos from Winnipeg, and Callie Jones from Glamorgan, Wales. I met them both through Voracious Readers Only, a free book platform. I had offered my Best Friends and Other Lovers (contact me if you want a free pdf. copy) to its readers in return for an unbiased review. Both Judy and Callie liked the book and asked me if I had anything else written. Did I ever! Callie and Judy ended up reading two unedited, raw, messy and huge Red Cliffs manuscripts. And they loved them!

The origins of my gwerin y blaidd, my wolf-people, is in Wales and I wanted to use some Welsh words and phrases. Beautiful as it is (I’ve fallen in love with Welsh; it’s so obvious in my books), Welsh is not an easy language system to grasp, not even for someone with a linguistic background like me. When I was just wondering how to make sure that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself  or, worse, offend Welsh speakers (and the language itself) with my well-intended but surely not competent use of their language, Callie burst into my life, like a shooting star. Maybe it was a coincidence — although I don’t believe in them, and I rather think it was one of these wonderful, mysterious connections between seemingly unconnected things — but it happened that Callie’s mother tongue was Welsh and she offered to help me with the terminology. Thus Callie became my Welsh language consultant on a purely voluntary basis (on her categorical insistence). Her assistance was beyond valuable; it was priceless.

Cover design by Srdjan Filipovic

And then, the covers. A few years ago — by pure chance — I came across a very, very talented but unknown young designer, Srdjan Filipovic. I commissioned two covers, which were beautiful, but I’d never used them because, in the meantime, I changed the titles of my books and many other things. I’m not sure if it was my review that set things in motion (it would happen sooner or later anyway, because he’s that good), but now Srdjan is one of the top cover artist on Upwork, with many wonderful projects in his portfolio, and, I believe, many, many ahead.

When, a few weeks ago, I asked him to do the covers for me again, he said he would, but only if I accepted them as gifts.

And finally, I want to thank my editor, Kristin Muraki, who had to go multiple times through almost 1,500 pages of the manuscripts and catch all sorts of my English-as-a-second-language mistakes, as well as some others, of course.

The first chapter, a prologue, will be here in a day or two.