This week saw the reveal of the cover, and full details, for The Blood Scouts Book 2, which I can now announce is titled Drown Deep. Following on around about where However Many Must Die leaves off, it’s a frenetic return to the Rocc with a hefty chunk of lore and an eclectic cast of characters, new and old… Let’s take a look.
Drown Deep – the Cover, the Blurb
For a quick feel, here’s the cover and blurb below, but first a big thanks to all the blogs who helped me share this with the world. You can check out the reveals we did this week on Queen’s Book Asylum, Jamreads, Lynn’s Books, FanFiAddict, ReadIndieFantasy, BeforeWeGoBlog and Fantasy Book Critic!
I was honoured to have the amazing artist Stefan Koidl return for this sequel, and he absolutely nailed the atmosphere I was going for:
Where armies won’t go, the Blood Scouts must…
Wild Wish has reluctantly left the front line behind. No more fighting. No more friends. But she’s about to get an invitation to a fight no one else dares touch.
There’s trouble in the Saints Mire, a strictly neutral land with deep religious history. Here, the secrets of the Prophets are preserved by the foreboding Ten Priories – isolated for centuries, steeped in myth, and now under attack.
A rogue Drail army of veterans, criminals and goblins has invaded, and a reckless company of Comity partisans are itching to stop them. The top brass want nothing to do with it, so it’s up to Wild Wish and her new band of ragged misfits to keep things from escalating.
She must brave the heart of a nightmare land harbouring great, hidden power – and even greater hidden threats. Secrets millennia in the making may be exposed – with the potential to change the very shape of the war.
But if Wish can find an opportunity to rebuild The Blood Scouts, maybe it’ll be worth it?
Drown Deep is a breakneck return to the Rocc and its epic global war: get ready for more heart-pumping action and enthralling characters from this unforgettably unsettling world.
Excited yet? I am. You can keep track of the book’s links for stores and pre-orders by visiting its main info page here.
Where’s the book at?
On top of this reveal, I’m happy to say I’ve also just this week completed the book ready for beta reading! It’s taken a while longer than I intended, as life and work have been getting in the way (it’s not so easy spewing out epic fantasy books with their hefty word counts!), but I’m now aiming for an October release date, TBC.
In the meantime, it’s just a case of getting some lovely people to beta read the book for some final feedback and improvements. On that note, I’m opening this one up to more beta readers – if you would like to get involved and are available to read Drown Deep extra early, drop me a message and let me know. The only conditions are that you’ve already read However Many Must Die and can read this one and send feedback by the start of September.
(This is not a review copy, but if anyone is just interested in advance review copies for later, you can let me know now, too.)
In the meantime, if you haven’t read However Many Must Die yet, you’ve still got time to get through it before the sequel comes out!
What else am I up to…
I’ve been editing a lot of books lately, but my other main distraction right now is WorldCon in Glasgow next week. I’ll be there for pretty much the whole event, so if you want to say hi please do. I’ll have a limited number of signed books on hand for sale (whatever luggage permits), so anyone that would like to be sure of getting a copy maybe let me know in advance?
