#1: In Which There is More Panic than Prose

Writer’s Corner: An Update on The Ashfire King

Hello everyone and welcome, finally, to the first issue of Prose & Panic, my bimonthly newsletter! In these newsletters I’ll be sharing book updates and announcements, writing teasers, and other exclusive content related to my work in progress.

So…let’s talk updates! Or rather, the ambiguity of them.

First, addressing the question I’ve been getting most over the last year: When is the second book in the Sandsea Trilogy being released? You may have noticed a couple of dates floating around online for The Ashfire King. Yesterday, I experienced a flurry of emotions when I saw my book included on Goodread’s Most Anticipated SFF February List. (My initial response was an excited ahhh! followed shortly by a perplexed ahhh???)

I want to clear up here that February and any other 2024 dates are incorrect. Long story short, these dates fed out online via my publisher’s system very prematurely, and they’ve been there as placeholders until a final date is pegged down. I’ve asked my publisher to take those dates down where they can, but to avoid confusing anyone on my end, I’m holding back on announcing a release date until I know for sure it is final.

One thing I can now tell you, though: This book will not be coming out in 2024. The Ashfire King’s new release date is in 2025, which I’ve added to all my online bios and website for clarification. I know this is probably a bummer—I definitely had to process a lot of turbulent emotions when I found out about this push—but I am so very excited to share this book with you next year, when it’s fully novel-shaped!

Let me take a moment to answer the obvious question: Why? Well, for one, publishing timelines. Publishing has a long lead time; books usually need to be close to “done” 10-12 months in advance to make their print date. Suffice it to say, The Ashfire King was not book-shaped enough to make a 2024 release date. I tried my absolute best in 2023 but, ultimately, between industry timelines (publishing turnarounds can be…very slow…) and stressful extenuating life circumstances, I just couldn’t make it happen. But the book is very much on track for a 2025 release!

When will you have a confirmed release date? you might ask. Well, as I said before, I don’t want to share a date until I know it’s final, but I’m hopeful I’ll have something to share by March. Naturally, as soon as I have that date, I’ll pass it along!

And finally: When will preorder links be up? More to come on this as well, but right now it’s looking like these links will be available closer to mid-year. Updates incoming as soon as I have them!

I’ve been saying it all throughout 2023, but thank you all for your patience and for the continued support. This year, I’ll finally be able to share book news leading up to release, and I’m very excited! I can’t wait to welcome everyone back to this world, and for you all to discover the new characters, magics, and locations the sequel has in store. The Ashfire King has been a challenging book for me to write for many reasons, but it’s also very much been a labor of love. I can’t wait to share more about it when I can take a breather from the current edits!

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Out-of-Context Mayhem

A section in which I share a screenshot related to my work-in-progress, completely out of context 👍

Book Teaser: The Ashfire King

I’ll likely share more when we’re closer to pub date but it would have been sad to start a newsletter without a single teaser so…here are some lines from one of the new story-in-story interludes!

“Remember this, gentle friends: What might today be a flame will tomorrow be ashes. We cannot condemn fire for its nature, but if we attempt to master it, we are doomed to burn with it.”

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Music Corner: A Song from the WIP Playlist

A song from my Work-In-Progress Playlist

Fun fact: I’m pretty sure every project I’ve ever worked on (incomplete manuscripts and all) has had a Fall Out Boy song on the playlist. Last of the Real Ones is on my playlist for The Stardust Thief…and this one feels like a good fit for Ashfire.

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark by Fall Out Boy

I've got the scars from tomorrow and I wish you could see
That you're the antidote to everything, except for me
A constellation of tears on your lashes
Burn everything you love
Then burn the ashes
In the end everything collides
My childhood spat back out the monster that you see
My songs know what you did in the dark

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Outro: Tales From the Sandsea

Going forward, these last sections will be dedicated to events and giveaways. For right now, I’m neck deep in edits and don’t have much to report (though there are many announcements I can’t wait to share in the future when they go live!) so I’m going to sign off by sharing a book-related highlight from January.

This month, I was grateful to celebrate my birthday with loved ones and friends. It was a lovely day, filled with the perfect company, wonderful food…and some really incredible gifts! I gushed about this on my socials earlier this month, but I received what might be one of the best birthday gifts of all time this year from my amazing friend, Kamilah—a beautiful, printed collection of all the interludes from The Stardust Thief, with a cover and illustrations by the talented Samohsai, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with before on preorder campaign art for this series.

It’s always been a dream to have an edition of my book that was illustrated like this (just like many of the 1001 Nights collections it draws inspiration from!) and to have it brought to life like this by two remarkable creatives/people means the world to me.

And so I leave you with this beautiful Loulie on the cover! It’ll be awhile yet before you can follow her next adventure (spoiler: she is still having a rough time) but thank you for uplifting her story—and mine!—as we inch closer to the release of the next.

Until next time! —Chelsea