I know, I’m SORRY.
After a lot of wrangling, sobbing and far too much caffeine, I have essentially torn apart the original manuscript for Souls and sent it back off for another edit. I have a few weeks to wait for the manuscript to come back, then it’ll be final changes and proofing and then we will be DONE.
This isn’t something I’ve done before – I’m normally a fairly sharp and fast writer, but Souls has to be right, and I wasn’t happy with the original structure.
I am VERY happy with the new changes, and I hope you will be too.
Dates for your diary
ARC release: w/c 25 July 2026
Release date: 7 August 2026
All members of my ARC team will receive a guaranteed ARC. If you applied previously through NetGalley, you can let us know here and we’ll make sure an ARC gets to you (please note this will be cross-referenced with the applications received previously, so make sure your e-mail/details are the same as you use on NG!).
To soothe the pain between now and then, here’s a little snippet for you.
The Faeyte
She paced the floor of the Sanctum, but the cool stone beneath her feet did not offer the comfort it usually would. “I don’t understand.”
She had flown here, ignoring the delighted cries rising from the village as her wings had unfurled from her back and launched her into the sky. It was difficult, to take flight from ground—a skill not all faeyte could master, many using the Sanctum or the ledges built into the temple as a stepping point. Normally she might have basked in the attention, though she shouldn’t have, but not today. Her tears had fallen throughout the flight—still fell, she realised, touching her fingers to her cheek.
The emptiness felt so much worse, now that she knew what it was to feel full.
The Crone watched her, disapproval baked into the lines now creasing her eyes that had not been there yesterday. “It is not for you to understand.”
They had both been here—the Crone and the new Maiden, completing the morning rituals when she had landed in a maelstrom of tears and explanations. The Maiden, seeing her distress, had left to fetch a pot of steeped tea, but she did not want tea.
She wanted answers that did not exist. Turning on her heel, she stalked to the walls, to the endless rows of neatly packed scrolls, and began searching through them.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something.” Anything, to explain the pain in her chest. “Perhaps there is information in the records.”
Their records were meticulously maintained. If any answer existed, it would surely be here.
“You are confusing lust for something deeper.” The Crone sighed. “You would not be the first.”
“Why would Hala do this?” The faeyte whirled. She had never questioned Hala before—goddess, she would never have dared—but now, with this emotion holding her tightly, with this sense of something precious slipping through her fingers, she could not have stopped herself even if she tried. And she did not try. “Why would Hala take this from us?”
The Crone came to stand beside her. A hand covered hers, gently, and eased it down from the shelf.
“Because it is agony beyond measure,” the Crone murmured. She reached up and pulled free a single scroll. “Hala loved more deeply than any, before or since. Her love for Endymion was endless, and she was destroyed by his loss. That she prevents us from experiencing the same grief—that, my child, is a gift.”
She pushed the scroll into the faeyte’s shaking hands and wiped away the tears that still fell. “Read the story for yourself, little sister. And be grateful that whatever you believe you feel, it can only be a pale imitation of love. An infatuation, and nothing more. Because the truth would destroy you.”
Selene
It’s an effort to force my mouth into movement. To make my lips curve up and shape them into words I cannot hear.
But he can. And he does.
The gods are watching you.
He flinches back, the redness mottling into skin waxed pale with a sudden wash of fear.
They see you.
I mouth them again as we begin moving. Callan’s footsteps beat against the ground as he cradles me and Petyr and the Metallurgist race ahead, outpacing each other in their attempt to escape the roots that chase us all the way to the edges of the town before they finally slow.
None of us mention that my bleeding stops when the roots do.
They see you.
And they are angry.
