May News!

May is here and I sadly did a terrible job of planting this year so I don't know if we'll get any vegetables! But we've taken to growing sprouts on the windowsill, so that's fresh and fun! 

The littlest cat got his surgery, and it turns out he needed a tooth out too. The poor goof wasn't put together correctly at the manifacturer. But he's recovered well from most of it so far. He's happy to have no more cone on.

May is a lot quieter for events, but I'm being kept plenty busy. The typesets need to be reviewed for both Lione and Corelands and covers are in the works! I hope to have them by summer. Rumours have it I might see To Walk into the Sands coming out October 2025, but the official date is still TBA. 

In the meantime, I'm working on putting together a kids' book (which is a passion project in honour of my late cat Corsair) and have gotten the images back from the amazing Astra Crompton (link here). She's nailed the right mix of fun and colourful for the brown tabby who tamed my ginger scaredy cat with games. And it turned into a sweet story about making friends. I'm going to try and make it into a board book for kids age 3-7y.

I am also finishing the edits for Beyond the Southern Dunes (book 2 Sands of Nanterac) this month. It's due by the end of the month, so wish me luck!  Book 3 is percolating in my brain. Would it be cruel to drag poor Asakaran into another adventure? He's been trying to retire since book 1! 
Lastly, I've been updating the videos on YouTube, and now you can find all sorts of fun things, plus the occasional very random cat video! I'll be starting a series on where I got inspiration from over the years, too, so check me out at https://www.youtube.com/@shakatdamen

Busy, busy, busy...