Well, we're almost at the halfway mark for 2024, and wow, what a year so far. I've managed to release LISTENING TO FEAR (The Girl Who Ran Away, Book 2) in February, SCORCHED EARTH (The Girl in the Box, Book 57) in March, and now HALLOWED (Southern Watch, Book 8) to finish that series after literally years of anticipation. In the last year I've ended both the Sanctuary Series and Southern Watch, which began in 2011 and 2014, respectively, both of which have been tentpoles of my writing career.
Looking around, you may be asking yourself, what's next? Well, I have plans. And they are as follows:
Southern Watch 8 took double the time I expected to write. I think the extra time was worth it, because I am thrilled with the finished product, and feel that it ended the series better than I could have imagined (especially these last few years, dreading/anticipating it). However, it has put me a little behind in my planned schedule for 2024, which means instead of shifting to LIARS AND VAMPIRES 9 and 10 to complete that series, I'm going to take a little break and write HEART OF THE STORM: The Girl in the Box 58, which will wrap up the China story arc and set us up for the last story arc of the series. I always felt a little bad about making readers wait all the way to November after the upsetting shock of SCORCHED EARTH's cliffhanger ending, so I'll try and get that out a little earlier.
Then, I will be shifting to BURNED ME: Liars and Vampires 9, to get it done. It shouldn't take more than about 3 working weeks, but they'll be pure hell and when I'm done, I'll need a break from editing that. So it'll be on to BOUND IN SILENCE: The Girl Who Ran Away, Book 3. After that, if I'm feeling able, I'll go back and finish off SOMETHING IN THAT VEIN: Liars and Vampires 10 to complete the series. If I need a little bit more of a break, I'll write TRIGGER MAN: Girl in the Box 59 first, then go on to LIARS 10. Either way, I'm hoping to get all this done before the end of the year so I can have a few more books out by January 1st, 2025 or shortly thereafter.
That will leave me, as 2025 dawns, with only 6 Girl in the Box books and between 5-7 Girl Who Ran Away volumes left to write. I'm hoping to release 2 Girl Who Ran Away books in 2025 and 4 Girl in the Box books. We'll see if this works out. If it does, that means The Girl in the Box will wrap up in 2026, and The Girl Who Ran Away will wrap up some time after that, within a year or two. Naturally, more will come after them, but I've got nothing else to talk about at this time, just the previously announced high fantasy series in the Sanctuary world I've talked about before, which will probably launch its first book sometime late 2025 or early 2026. I really would like to only be writing two series in the near future; spinning the plates of writing three and co-authoring three more was too much and burned me out. A more manageable workload, especially as I manage family stuff, would be awfully nice.
In any case, I think most readers will be pleased with having long-awaited series wrapped up so they can see how things turn out for their favorite characters. (I am aware that a percentage of Sienna fans are not to be included in this; sorry, even Sienna can't go on forever, much as I might wish she could.) In any case, after 65 books, I'm simply running out of ways I can maintain tension for Sienna. It would have been nice to have made it to 75, but alas, I just can't do it. But you've got a couple more years of story ahead, so enjoy. Whatever you're still waiting for, we should have a little something for everybody this year. The rest of 2024 should be an enjoyable ride.*
*Or as much as that can be said for my books. It is still me, after all. I'm here to chew bubblegum and rip your heart out with my stories, and I'm all out of bubblegum.
