ICYMI: New Bonus Content Available Now!

Whispers & Waterfalls is a sweet and spicy Harbingers story, free to download for newsletter subscribers.

Hello, my loves!

In case you missed it, earlier this week, I released Whispers & Waterfalls, a short story about Arken and Kieran that takes place during what my writing group and I like to call “the good place” — aka, the nine days of bliss that these two spend together in between Chapters 56 & 57 in Of Blood and Aether.

Here’s what you can expect:

Click the image above to download, or you can find the link here.

Whispers & Waterfalls is also a scene taken from a novella-in-progress that spans all nine of those glorious days, though I fear at this rate, it may end up being longer than a novella. But never fear… I’ve got plans in that regard. Plots and schemes, if you will.

Now, if you’re reading or receiving this in your inbox, you are already subscribed to my newsletter, which is obviously currently hosted through Substack. You will still be required to submit your email address to download, but don’t worry — you won’t get doubled up with spam in your inbox or anything.

I hope you all enjoy W&W! I had quite a lot of fun writing it, and Fates only know that Arken and Kieran have quite a lot of fun, too ;)

Okay, But Book Two When?!

I know this is a question on many of y’alls minds, and I am both honored and inspired by your enthusiasm for the next chapter of this saga.

While I still don’t have any concrete details to share yet as far as release date timing goes, I do still fully intend to publish Book Two in 2025 — and I’m hoping to have a little more information on that to share within the next two months or so. (Fingers crossed!!)

If you’ve followed this newsletter for a bit, or follow me on social media, you might know that I’ve been grappling with some very intense burnout for quite some time now. It had been creeping in for over a year, but reached a fever pitch several months after I published my debut, Of Blood and Aether. This was, regrettably, devastating for my creative process. I struggled to connect with Book Two even though I knew it like the back of my hand. I hated everything I wrote, on the rare occasion that I actually managed to write anything. There was a lot more going on in my life beyond creative struggles, of course, but I’ll spare y’all those gory details.

A couple months back, I decided that I needed to do something about the burnout before it, quite frankly, killed me. An artist without connection to their art becomes a haunted husk, and I was tired of drifting around like a ghost, a shell of who I used to be. I was getting dangerously close to giving up, not just on my art, but on everything.

And so, I made some choices that terrified me. I took some time off work. I found a new therapist. I poured every last drop of my energy and willpower into breaking down the systems that weren’t serving me as an artist or a human. For about two and a half months now, I’ve been busting my ass on an emotional, spiritual, and even physical level to start taking better care of myself in the name of my art, because it is the core of who I am. It’s what I was put on this earth to do.

I am pleased to share that this work has paid off. The work is ongoing, but completing Whispers & Waterfalls and sharing it with you all was a love letter to my progress, and a celebration of being reconnected to my creativity and this universe, which means so, so much to me. And I’m really, really fucking proud of myself.

The point here is that I’m finally ready, truly ready, to tackle what remains of Book Two. The foundation has been laid, reinforced, and all that’s left for me to do is run with the words that have been so desperately trying to flow forth again.

This might mean that you’ll see me less on social media, but generally speaking, any time I disappear from the internet, that bodes extremely well for my writing progress — because when I’m locked in, that’s literally all I do — outside of y’know, the basic elements of survival and existence within a capitalistic society that demands my time and labor. With every spare hour, I write, and write, and write. I live and breathe in my stories, and nothing else matters. I can already feel the tendrils of that beautiful fixation returning, weaving its way back through my bones.

And it feels like coming home.

Until next time, and with all the love in the aetherverse,

Harper