Girl of Shadow and Glass Cover Reveal!

Available for Pre-Order on Amazon soon!

So…what do you think?

To me, this cover is much sharper than my novella cover, and fits the New Adult genre better. I love that it reflects the sci-fi elements of Girl of Shadow and Glass, what I’d call a world-hopping coming-of-age fantasy.

I’m so excited to share it with you all…but you’ll have to wait until January 15th, 2021! 

Till next time. Cheers!

-CKB

New cover, new title…coming soon!

My first full-length novel is on its way!

Girl of Shadow and Glass will be the first novel in the New Adult Tara’s Necklace series (formerly the Open World Series). For those of you who might’ve read A Shadow in Sundown, it will sound familiar and new all at once.

The description:

Six days. Two worlds. When it’s through, Kith Canto’s life will never be the same.

Born into a world of droughts and fading magic, Kith is destined for an unremarkable life, but for one thing. Six days a week, she crosses the gate between Sundown and its neighboring world, where she breakfasts with shadows.

The shadows teach Kith, telling her stories of worlds abundant with life. But Sundown is different. There, Kith is a shade-child, a fragile-bodied outcast with no hope of finding love or leaving her parents’ home.

Then a handsome young man shakes up Kith’s life, just as the shadows begin to teach a forbidden subject. They have their sights on her world, and the girl considered too weak to do anything is suddenly responsible for everything—including saving Sundown.

Proving the worlds wrong has never had such high stakes.

Stay tuned for a first look at the brand new cover. Or, better yet, sign up for my mailing list for the chance to get an advanced copy.

Free ebook, (always free) comics!

First post of 2020!  I hope you all had a great New Year…and if not great, then perfectly quiet and uneventful. 🙂

A Shadow in Sundown is about to start a promotion (Jan. 8 – Jan. 12, 2020)…so, any second now!  The digital book will be free to all readers for 5 days only.  The writing is “clean” (no swearing or excess violence), it’s written in a unique but easy to read dialect (a combination of post-colonial American and contemporary informal/folksy) that really brings it to life.  It’s suitable for young adult readers on up (I personally still read a lot of YA–it is my first love, after all).

This is the story of a fragile, “frail” girl who gets caught between two worlds: the one she was born in and the one she visits every day, where she is taught by some very dangerous residents…Do check it out!  Don’t forget to write a review and be honest.

Here’s a little sample of Chapter 1 to pique your interest:

I’m five minutes late to leave the house when Mum starts sewing up my jumper, with me already inside it and raring to go.  I’m so hungry I can barely get my shoes on.

“I’m going to miss my meal, Mum,” I complain.

“’Course you won’t.”  Mum keeps sewing, and frowns when she runs out of fabric before she runs out of me.  “They wouldn’t let you starve.”

“Teacher Imila would.  She’s strict.”

“No one’s that strict, dear.  The shadows know they have to be careful with you.  Your father and I made sure of it.  Hold still, Kith.  You know I can’t have you catching cold.”

“It’s hot out, Mum.”

“Then I can’t have the sun getting you.”

I lift my arm despite her fussing.  I can count two ribs where the stiff fabric doesn’t meet.  The ancient bone needle is dangling, and Mum snatches it before it can graze me.  I don’t care about scratches from little needles, but I do care about missing my meal.

Mum tuts when I say as much, but then she makes a knot and breaks the thread anyway.  “I bet there’s ten-thousand shadows in their World, and out of all of them who might be teachers, Imila has to be yours.  Go on, Kith.  And slow-like!  Not like yesterday.”

As soon as I get my bark-bottomed shoes tied I ignore Mum’s warning and run straight out the door.  Home is up north of the Old Well, so it’ll take me much too long if I take a cautious walk, and then I’ll be hungry till goodness knows when.  Besides, there’s nothing like running through the valley with the warm wind of the yielding months slapping at my skin.  People like Mum can’t understand.  No one in Sundown can.

Of course my Auntie Arlhabee sees me while she’s out in the garden my mum helped her plant.  As soon as she realizes it’s me whizzing by, she starts to yell.

“Kith Canto, you stop your running right away!  You know what happens to children like you when they stumble and fall!  Oh, and look at you with your bare arms and legs!”

“Anon, Auntie, I’m late to get to the Gate and I haven’t any time!” I call over my shoulder.

I veer away from her garden, all nimble-like as only I can be.  She gasps when I almost stumble, but I manage and go on.  These shoes are supposed to protect my feet from twigs and stones and the like, but most of the time they just make things go half as fast and twice as clumsy, and it’s the Eighth Month besides.  I’d much rather be barefoot.

“You stop this instant!” she keeps shouting, and she looks like she’s about to pull out all her pretty, gossamer black hair.  “I’ll get your Uncle Cahn’s wheelbarrow and take you down there myself, before you break your neck!”

I just go on running and let the summer wind hit me in the face.  I get scolded wherever I go, and a couple of the more solid folk look like they might grab at me.  Once, I feel someone catch at the curls flying out from my back.  Thank goodness he or she thinks better of it and I can keep going without breaking stride.

I have to shorten up my steps to head down the slope, and that’s when I realize I got a follower for real this time.  I look over my shoulder and brace myself like I really am gonna get grabbed, but it’s only my friend Finchoa.

Finchoa looks like she’s been chasing after me for I don’t know how long, and she sure won’t be grabbing me ’cause she can’t hold on to so big and solid a thing as my thin little arm, even if she tried with all her might.  She looks like she’s breathing as hard as me just to skim on over.

I can tell she’s relieved when I stop between the willows, ’cause now there’s something to block the wind.  She’s a wispy one, and it’s hard for her to move around when there’s so much as a stiff breeze on.  She’s got no weight to her at all.

“Oh, Kith, why do you have to do that and scare everybody half to death?” she whines while I let her catch up.  I’m working on getting my breath back myself, and easing the pain in my shins so I don’t trip down the slope and land face-first into a big old tree.

“Nobody in all the World knows what it’s like to starve but me,” I tell Finchoa, “so I can’t be late, and you’ll just have to take my word as to why.”  I try to rub the cramping out of my shins while Finchoa perches beside me on the ridge, and I guess she radiates concern.  ’Course she’s concerned for the wrong reason, which she always is, being the worrying type.  The only thing I worry about is not getting my meal.

I’m so close to the Gate now that I can feel the hair standing on my arms and the back of my neck.  The wispy folk like Finchoa can never tell, but ones like me and my family can feel a shadow within a furlong.  Doesn’t matter what kind of a breeze there is, our hair is gonna stand straight up and our skin is gonna prickle when there’s a shadow on the frontier.  Sometimes I even get a cold feeling, like when I’m standing at the mouth of the old dried Well and the cool air comes up from underground.

I kind of hate my lessons with the shadows all hanging around me.  But I love to eat, and I need to eat, so what’s the use in complaining?  If it weren’t for the shadows I’d be dead.  That’s the awful truth of it.

Phew!  So that’s my sales pitch done.  In other news, we have a brand new episode of Princess Disasterface!  Episode 2.1 is here.  We’re back on our regular timeline, though it won’t be the last we’ve heard of Leona and that mysterious cheeseburger-topped present.  I think the final panel is my favorite I’ve drawn so far!

Cheers to you all,

CKB

A Shadow in Sundown is here!

My first novella has finally made it onto Amazon, after many months of delays!  You can find A Shadow in Sundown (ebook only so far) here.

I also have an Amazon author page now, which I’ve added to my About section.  You can look at that little gem here.

After a lot of back and forth, I decided to enroll in KDP Select.  I had hoped to roll everything out on a variety of platforms (I still can with the paperback, when I get that darn cover done), but then I read this very persuasive article from Draft2Digital about exclusive vs. wide marketing.  (Lot of links in this post, aren’t there!)

In a nutshell, they suggested giving exclusive publishing rights a go, at least for a single term, for authors with less than 3 titles.  That’s me!  And the free promotion that comes with being an ebook exclusive to Amazon could be a real help.  At least I hope so.

Anyway, I now have 90 days to focus on my writing.  And my new four-legged friend.  And my family and the holidays and…you get the picture!

Oh, yeah, and Princess Disasterface, too.  It’s coming back shortly, I promise!

So cheers to you, dear reader, and boo to all the things that take us away from whatever is most precious to each of us!

-CKB