I have decided to self-publish my debut High Fantasy novel, DAUGHTERS OF TITH! A few people have known about this for a loooong time but this will serve as the official announcement :D.
DAUGHTERS OF TITH is a 220,000 word* High Fantasy novel that begins what will eventually be a five-book series called CHILDREN OF THE TREES. The story is self-contained and will stand alone but fit into the larger tale of the series. I’ll be releasing it into the wild on May 1st, 2023, assuming everything goes to plan.
Check out my “how I didn’t get my agent” blog post if you're interested in DoT's journey to this point. It mainly addresses the second most obvious reason I didn’t get an agent…DoT’s word count. (The first obvious reason being: it’s very hard to get an agent). I also talk about my decision to give up the trad-pub dream for this project and the reasons I’m not just putting it in a drawer.
I hope you will look out for DAUGHTERS OF TITH in May next year if you're interested in:
non-human characters (6 POVs)
sibling stories (5 sisters specifically–although they are non-human)
secondary-world, reverse-portal fantasy
a multiverse
mind-to-mind connections/a hive-mind
BIG trees (and average trees and small trees)
chonky High Fantasy books
You can add DAUGHTERS OF TITH on Goodreads if you're interested, or follow me on twitter for updates if you aren’t already.
Now let’s try a blurb (subject to change–possibly a million times–before May):
The kandar are the children of the trees. Powerful. Immutable. Nine hundred eternal beings who need no sleep nor sustenance, created at the beginning of time to guard the nine human Earths.
That was never meant to change.
The youngest of five sisters, Tchardin is about to be acknowledged as queen of the kandar. She must lead them in their Creator-given Purpose–to guide and inspire the humans–but her people have been exiled to their homeworld for generations. None of them have seen the Earths. Not one of them has met a human.
Tchardin can think of no way to end their exile until a strange longing calls her from beyond the shore of their island. Most of her sisters tell her to ignore it, to take her place as queen and focus on the kandar. One suggests she answer it, as it might be the key to finally returning her people to their Purpose.
:O!
You can also take a look at chapter 1 if DoT sounds like your kind of thing and you want a little sample to test it out :).
And lastly, because I’m still proud of this one (and it’s pretty accurate–who says you can’t summarise a 220,000 word book in a sentence? Just strip all the context!):
So yeah...
DoT's finally going to be a real book! :D:D:D
* If you've stumbled upon this announcement and you're not a writer yourself, here are the word counts of some popular Fantasy books to compare! At 220,000 words, DoT should be around 640 pages in a tall paperback. tl;dr: it BIG (but not as big as some!)