One Month and Counting for High Seas Adventure

If you look to the horizon, you might just make out a tall ship with flags flying and sails full, running with the wind and a following sea. That would be the Emerald Storm coming into dock after a long winter. She’s a handsome ship, I think, and in a month will be taking on passengers for what may well be the most exciting Riyria adventure yet.

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve made a study of reviews, as well as random posts and personal comments about the series, and have come to the following conclusions. Most readers feel that The Crown Conspiracy was a fun romp, but were disappointed there wasn’t more character depth and world building. Avempartha had more character depth and world building, but like Crown, it lacked any strong female characters. Nyphron Rising had lots of depth, as well as central female characters, but lost some of the action that made Crown so much fun. Not everyone felt this way. As I mentioned previously, men don’t appear to have an issue with a lack of female protagonists and as a result loved Avempartha. Women often did not mind the slower pace of Nyphron Rising because they loved the deeper character building.

Now comes The Emerald Storm. I actually have high hopes for this one.

When I originally wrote the series, I felt Emerald Storm was the weakest of the six. Everyone who has read it so far, thinks I’m nuts. I suppose I am a poor judge of my own work since I felt Avempartha was the next weakest book, and the reviewers loved that one. In going over the book, I have reevaluated it. If I am anywhere near close with my suspicions about reader’s reactions to the first three books, The Emerald Storm might well be the best crowd-pleaser to date.

It has more action than Crown, more world-building than Avempartha, stronger female characters than Nyphron Rising, and a few unexpected twists that I suspect will catch everyone by surprise.

The book has made it through final editing and has entered the proofing stage where an army of eyes will be searching for any typos, missed commas, and any other errors they can find. Once they are done and all corrections are made, then the ship will be ready to take you aboard, so be sure to get your passports stamped, your Dramamine prescriptions filled, your sun glasses and deck shoes packed, because it is almost time to ship out once more with Royce and Hadrian on The Emerald Storm.