One Thing Leads to Another (the Book, It Lives!)

Funny how things work. My recent foray into the world of Mary and George led me to algorithms recommending more gay-themed videos featuring Nicholas Galitzine, which means snippets from Amazon's Red, White, and Royal Blue. And then THAT led to more recommendations of royal-gay-themed videos, which include snippets from Netflix's The Young Royals. And then THAT turned into Netflix recommending other boarding-school or simply school-themed shows.

Where did that take me? 

Back to my experiences in a Catholic school (not a boarding school, though), which led to a nostalgic trip back to the time I wrote Wollstone (a gay YA fantasy boarding school love story), which led me to antiphonal singing (something we did during mass), which then led me back full circle to the scrapped Madrigal, which I was hoping to write but couldn't get the ideas to work as a cohesive unit. 

And guess what! It lives! 

Rather than make it into a full-on dark fairy tale of sorts since it's technically a gothic take on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", it's getting a full-on glow up and will take place in a boarding school that's a mix of Catholicism, superstition, and dark fantasy. Because ghosts. And folklore. The book's title will be different to reflect the shift, but I'm tentatively looking at Compline instead of Madrigal. From secular to sacred but with a twist, I suppose. 

It'll be a treat to go back to writing another boarding school story. Certainly a lot creepier than Wollstone, and I hope to really dig into my Catholic background for more inspiration.

And as a bonus, I'm also beginning to form ideas for a follow-up book (a sequel and yet not quite since it's a standalone) to Nightshade's Emporium. I'm totally stoked for this. I'm still not clear about what kind of publishing calendar to follow, but the sequence can go either Voices in the Briars + Compline + untitled or Voices in the Briars + untitled + Compline. It'll most likely be the first option, but depending on how energized I am, I might work a miracle and actually write Compline and the still-untitled follow-up book simultaneously. I did that before, and I got it done. 

It'll all depend on how the calendar this year works out, of course. That said, it's safe to say both of the latter books won't be out till next year.