Writer's Grove

Prior to the release of A CURSE OF KRAKENS in November, I’ll be doing readalongs for A PLAGUE OF GIANTS and A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS in September and October, so whether you’re new to the Seven Kennings or want to reread and refresh and spot all the spiffiness, we’ll have a good time! You can participate live on Wednesday nights at 7 pm Eastern with me on Instagram Live, and if you happen to miss them I’ll save them to my feed so you can watch them later. We’ll divide each book up into quarters, so here’s the schedule:

September 6: A Plague of Giants Part 1, Days 1-5 (pages 1-214)
September 13: A Plague of Giants Part 2, Days 6-10 (pages 215-386)
September 20: A Plague of Giants Part 3, Days 11-14 (pages 387-534)
September 27: A Plague of Giants Part 4, Days 15-19 (pages 535-724)
October 4: A Blight of Blackwings Part 1, Days 20-23 (pages 1-176)
October 11: A Blight of Blackwings Part 2, Days 24-27 (pages 177-311)
October 18: A Blight of Blackwings Part 3, Days 28-33 (pages 312-499)
October 25: A Blight of Blackwings Part 4, Days 34-39 (pages 500-674)

So what’s a readalong? Methinks it varies! But mine will go thusly:
1) I’ll address some general goodies to look for or keep in mind—that might be thematic or something regarding the story structure or a character or dang near anything, really.
2) I’ll read a passage here and there and discuss what the heck I was thinking when I wrote it, talk about character journeys
3) I’ll address questions y’all submit via the fun little question-mark thingie at the bottom of the Live screen.
4) At the end of each book, I’ll give away my annotated copy to someone who’s participating live!

Happily, these books are in mass market paperback format, so they’re cheap! (Ebook and audio versions exist too.) You can pick them up wherever you like to buy books, but this handy landing page for A Plague of Giants will give you a bunch of places online to grab one in any format, and you can also grab A Blight of Blackwings when you’re ready. If you preorder A Curse of Krakens in any format from any vendor, you will get five bajillion good vibes, plus a free short story to download called “A Whisper of Snakes” when you submit your confirmation screen or receipt.

In case you’d like one, there are signed first edition hardcovers of A Plague of Giants available from Worldbuilders Market. Proceeds from your purchase goes to a number of humanitarian charities.

And what, pray tell, is the Seven Kennings all about? Quite a bit. How we endure and rebuild when the world crashes around us. How a nation’s priorities are reflected in who prospers and who doesn’t, whose stories are told and whose aren’t. How we can coexist with nature and each other. But the kennings themselves are deep magical ties to elemental forces that anyone can tap into if they’re willing to risk their life for it. The first kenning is fire; the second is air; the third is earth; the fourth is water; and the fifth is plant life. When A Plague of Giants opens, the world knows of five kennings and assumes there is a sixth, an affinity with animals, that hasn’t been discovered yet. A seventh isn’t even dreamed of.

I hope you and your friends will join in. There are twenty-two different narrators to love in this trilogy and they’re all kinds of people—young and old from different backgrounds, different orientations, and possessing very different goals. So let’s sink your reading teeth into a juicy epic, yeah?

You’ve probably had carnitas, yeah? Slow-cooked shredded pork shoulder in a suite of spices. Cochinita Pibil takes carnitas up a notch or five, a recipe hailing from the Yucatán peninsula. I’ve had it at a few taco joints now and it’s always amazing, so I had to learn how to make it at home. Cochinita is a suckling pig, which we aren’t doing, and Pibil means pit cooking, and we aren’t doing that either. So this won’t be traditional stuff—I’m using modern cheats that deliver a turbo tasty result with a bit more convenience. (If you missed my other homage to Mexican cuisine, a simplified chicken posole, you can peruse that at leisure.)

First thing: You need achiote paste. That’s the key ingredient here and you can’t switch it out with something else. But it’s not usually available in most grocery stores, so this is going to require a trip to a Latin market near you. And the trip is worth it. I checked prices: A certain giant retailer named after a river in South America was offering a 3.5 ounce package at $9.49 Canadian. Same exact product at the Latin market? $3.49 Canadian. That giant river can go eff itself.

So! Grab yourself a pork shoulder at the grocery. If you’ve never bought one before, you’ll discover that it’s pretty economical compared to a lot of other meats. I went down the US for it and got a 4 lb. shoulder for $7.76. It’s netted, and you gotta free it from the net and then cut it into chunklets about 1.5-2 inches. You don’t have to worry bigly about variations—you’re going to shred it later. The chunks help it all get cooked and tenderized properly. Throw your chunklets into your crockpot or other slow cooker. (You do this before you go to work and it’s ready when you get home.)

Now we make our marinade. Here’s whatcha need to throw into a blender:
1 3.5 oz package of achiote paste
1 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice, don’t use Minute Maid dang it
1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice, squeeze it yourself
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 cinnamon stick—yeah, for reals

That’s the bit where you can get creative. Add other spices, onion, garlic, whatever you like. Everything is negotiable except the achiote, orange, and lime juice. If you’re doing it old-school then you’re using bitter Seville oranges, but those aren’t things you find in Canada, eh? So the combination of regular orange juice and lime juice is a workaround. I found that four limes’ worth of squeezins got me a half cup, but your mileage may vary.

Blend it on medium or high until the cinnamon stick stops making heinous crackling death screams. It will look like you killed the neighbour who lets his Chihuahua poop on your lawn and now you’re making a smoothie out of his inconsiderate heart.

Pour your bright-orange marinade over your chonks in the crockpot/slow cooker, turn that sucker on low, and go to work— AFTER you wash out that blender, post-haste, because achiote stains like a mofo.

If you wanted to adhere a bit more closely to traditional methods, you’d be marinating the meat overnight and then wrapping the marinated meat in banana leaves and cooking them in a pit. The slow cooker allows us to marinate and cook at the same.

So you’ve gone to work and made that money. You come home and your house smells amazing. Your dog, if you have one, has spent the entire afternoon drooling on all your furniture. Everything glistens. Grab two forks and put on a playlist of your favorite heavy metal, then you and your band just start shredding. (If I may suggest “Redneck” by Lamb of God, you’ll have that cochinita shredded in no time.) The pork chunklets are gonna be so tender that they’ll practically auto-execute the shred command, and once that task is finished, it’s time to go down to taco town. Oh, and remember I said that the achiote stains? I’d recommend shredding on some aluminum foil or something to protect your fine counters/cutting boards. In the picture you’ll see the chunklets on the left, shreds on the right. I placed the meat on a taco, then spooned some juices back on—get it wet. There’s a lovely sweetness to the meat because of the orange juice.

You don’t need a lot else to serve this up: Corn tortillas, pickled onions, cilantro, and That Thing You Like to Drink with Mexican food. These days I’m into Corona Sunbrews—they taste exactly like regular Coronas. Cheers, friends!

Epic fantasies are hard. Some of them never get finished, because dang, they’re long and difficult to write, especially if you’re trying to take the road less traveled. But I’ve finished the Seven Kennings trilogy, and the third book, A CURSE OF KRAKENS, comes out November 7. I’m super proud of it and have given myself a pat on the back for Doing the One Big Thing I Always Wanted to Do. Here’s the cover:

That’s the zephyr Koesha Gansu featured there, one of twenty-two narrators we meet throughout the series. Choosing just three of them to appear on the covers was difficult, and writing the flap copy was likewise a challenge—we wound up choosing three characters to feature for each book because we couldn’t possibly fit all the story threads in such limited space.

So how does this trilogy represent a road less traveled? Well, in terms of its structure, it might actually be unique. I don’t want to say definitively that it is, because maybe I’ve missed that someone else has already done it, but so far as I know, this is the first epic fantasy told through twenty-two first-person points of view. It jumps around in time as well, so that’s fun. Twenty of the points of view come to us courtesy of a bard, who can magically take on the physical appearance and voice of others, and he does this to weave a tale for a live audience over the course of fifty-four days, involving a war against giants and wraiths and including extraordinary animals, spies, love (all kinds), a revolution against a monarchy, and lots of cheese and mustard. The points of view feature the young, middle-aged, and seniors from a variety of backgrounds and identities. We’re not just hearing from political leaders or great warriors, either: we’re hearing from a language scholar, a lovelorn courier, an unhoused girl who slept on a muddy riverbank, and more. It was my attempt to update the experience of Homer sharing The Iliad and The Odyssey for a modern prose audience—could I give readers the chance to experience an epic in that way? And could I maybe try some other different goodies?

For example, lots of epics deal with maintaining or restoring a monarchy, a horrific system of government in which the masses are exploited for the benefit of the rich. That’s not so very different from capitalism, so those stories have their useful parallels! But what if we could try some new shit? Like, a system of government formed on the principle that compassion is the only moral use of power? Very few revolutions in fantasy are progressive, so what would that look like? I gave it a shot.

Other things I did are not unique or even unusual but rather things I heartily agree with and appreciate when I read them: There’s no sexual assault, no slavery, and queer folks get happy-ever-afters.

AND THERE ARE MAPS. I love fantasy maps. I especially love that I got to do my own. The same map appears in the first two volumes, but in A CURSE OF KRAKENS, there are two new maps to enjoy! Yeah. I geeked the heck out.

I must give enormous credit to my editor, Tricia Narwani, for her support of a project that was not the usual. If no one had ever written an epic with 22 first-person points of view before, nobody had edited one before either. She’s brilliant. And to help readers keep the narrators straight in their minds, she commissioned portraits by artist Yvonne Gilbert to be included at the beginning of each volume. Gonna give y’all a treat and show you the new portrait of Nara du Fesset, who was featured in the first two books in others’ narratives but becomes a narrator herself in book three:

For those of you already familiar with the story, Nel Kit ben Sah’s cousin, Pen Yas ben Min, becomes a narrator in this volume, as does Hollit Panevik, the chef and owner of The Roasted Sunchuck who happens to be a firelord. When she puts down her wooden spoon and gets involved, things happen. And of course you’ll get to enjoy the return of favorites like Tallynd, Abhi, Hanima, Gondel, and Daryck. Please spread the word and get your friends on board, eh?

For those of you who aren’t familiar yet, the Seven Kennings begins with A PLAGUE OF GIANTS and continues with A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS. I hope you’ll give it a try, especially now that you know it’ll be completed. Thanks so much for reading and sharing—it means the world and I appreciate you.

(This update has been updated!) Hey y’all, thanks so kindly for your donations to Ayesha’s care and the sweet messages you’ve been sending along. We appreciate you so much. I have some updates!

1. Ayesha is currently out of the hospital after the first round of chemo to get the leukemia under control. They’re going to move forward with bone marrow transplant now, but that’s a long process.
2. We sent out the first big batch of books just before Christmas, sent the next big batch after the new year, and now we’re on to the third big batch!
3. If you’d like to donate $50 to Ayesha’s medical expenses (because American healthcare is hella expensive), I’ll give you a signed book from my author copies, shipping included, for every $50 you donate. You just donate here, screenshot your receipt, and email the screenshot along with a shipping address (that’s very important) and your book request to treats@kevinhearne.com. (And yes, we do ship internationally, we’ve already sent stuff to Germany and Norway.)
4. Because the first books in series are (for obvious reasons) the first to go…I’ve run out of those. But I have good numbers for a lot of other titles! Please see the list below to aid you in making your request. And thank you so much again.

Key:
HC = Hardcover from Del Rey
SP HC = Subterranean Press Hardcover edition (exclusive cover and interior art)
TPB = Trade Paperback (larger sized paperback)
MMP = Mass Market Paperback (the “normal” smaller sized paperback)

Hounded: 0 (Sorry, out of stock)
Hexed: 5 TPB
Hammered: 13 SP HC, 7 TPB
Tricked: 17 SP HC, 8 TPB
Trapped: 20 SP HC, 6 TPB
Hunted: 25 SP HC, 8 TPB
Shattered: 27 TPB
Staked: 25 TPB
Besieged: 19 TPB
Scourged: 1 HC, 24 TPB, 5 MMP
The Purloined Poodle: 0 (Sorry, out of stock)
The Squirrel on the Train: 0 (Sorry, out of stock)
A Question of Navigation: 2 SP HC
Ink & Sigil: 5 TPB
Paper & Blood: 12 HC, 23 TPB
A Plague of Giants: 0 (sorry, out of stock)
A Blight of Blackwings: 17 MMP, 15 UK editions (TPB)
Kill the Farm Boy: 4 HC (out of stock of the TPB)
No Country for Old Gnomes: 5 TPB
The Princess Beard: 3 TPB

I’ve written a few books, y’all, and the author copies have piled up over the years. There are literally piles of them now in my guest room. Makes it difficult to have guests.

You might like a signed copy or five for yourself or some buds. You might like a signed bookmark too, heck, why not? And, it turns out, I have a friend in need. Kimberly’s best friend, Ayesha—maid of honor at our wedding, an awesome nurse and spiffy mom—has had a rough few years. She discovered she had breast cancer at the start of the pandemic and beat it, but now she has leukemia and is currently undergoing chemo and soon after that, a bone marrow transplant. That’s expensive stuff. So maybe we can all help each other a bit here? You get signed goodies, Ayesha gets some help, and I get my guest room back. Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll pay for the shipping to wherever you are. You donate $50 to Ayesha’s bills for each book you want, screenshot your donation receipt, and email that to treats@kevinhearne.com along with a request for a book (or books) and your shipping address, and we’ll get it in the mail. And Ayesha will get better. Thank you so, so much for considering it.

EDIT: My inventory of what’s available has changed, please see the list on the update post.

So this dude had $44 billion, and instead of helping people with all that money or even allowing his workers to unionize and earn a decent living, he decided to buy and destroy a social media platform.

I’m honestly okay with it—Twitter was already toxic and unfun. The ability of things to go viral was occasionally a good thing, but more often what happened was people dogpiled and harassed and spewed inflammatory stuff to get engagement and…yeah. It was icky. So my account is active, but I don’t visit it and it’s just gonna sit there until such time as Twitter becomes viable again (which may never happen).

In the meantime, I’m still on Instagram (username @kevinhearne) but have also set up a space at Mastodon. My username there is @kevinhearne@ohai.social if you’re already tooting. And if you’d like to sign up for the platform—you can use any server and still follow me—here’s an invitation.

What I’ve started to do—and will continue to do—is check out some hashtags to find folks who will be sharing nature photos and giving them a follow. I’m following a few journalists as well. I’ll of course be talking about books and tacos and so on too, but mostly I’m interested in this new space that’s sort of designed from the ground up to limit toxicity. I’m not sure how to find other writers very well yet, but hopefully I’ll get that figured out soon. I hope to see you there.

Billionaires shouldn’t exist. That is all.

Today I became a Canadian citizen. Still an American citizen, of course. But I guess you could say I’m able to Dual Wield now. My family’s incredibly happy about this, as am I.

From time to time people ask why I moved, so I thought I’d write this post as an answer so I can just deploy a quick link whenever it comes up. The list of reasons is in no particular order. Here we go:

1. I haven’t paid a dime for medical insurance in five years and even if I get sick, I’ll never go medically bankrupt. Not writing a check to ghoulish profiteers and not worrying about how much my rates are going to go up this year and not worrying about what’s covered is the fucking best for reals. Like, seriously, USA, you should try this shit. It feels great. Also? People in Canada live longer. Argue about systems all you want, throw around words like “socialism” as if that label automatically disqualifies something from being considered seriously, but you’re likely to live longer in Canada, period. So Canada wins.
2. Did you know that kids in Canada go to school and don’t have active shooter drills? And that when the rare mass shooting does happen, the government responds with more than thoughts and prayers? Gun ownership is allowed in Canada, but it’s heavily regulated. And so folks can reasonably expect to live their whole-ass lives without getting shot. One less problem to worry about. And again: It feels great.
3. Regarding college, Canada doesn’t get the sweet deal of many European countries where it’s basically a few hundred Euros a year, but compared to the US it is a bargain. The yearly tuition of where my kid was going to go in the US was $24,000. But in Canada, my kid is attending college for $7400 a year. So that’s less than a third of the cost. They can graduate without crippling debt. Holy shit! Does that feel great? Yes, it does.
4. Human rights are superior in Canada, and both rights and freedoms are quantifiable things. There’s a Freedom Index, in fact, that breaks it all down, and Canada is the sixth freest nation in the world. The US, which has that bit in the Star-Spangled Banner about being the Land of the Free, isn’t even in the top ten. It’s number 15. And I’m sure that ranking is going to drop next year, once they take into account all the rights and freedoms that have been taken away from women and LGBT folks this year.
5. Canadian citizens get to vote. You don’t have to register and you don’t have to worry about one political party trying to throw up obstacles to your vote or purging voter rolls, because you’re registered automatically and Canada sends you a postcard with details about where and how to vote and that’s it. No shenanigans! When I mention voter suppression tactics my Canadian friends are like, wait, what? That’s a thing? And of course it absolutely is in the US. Voter suppression, along with gerrymandering, Fox News, and insane amounts of dark money, is how the GOP has engineered their minority rule so far out of step with the general population’s wishes.
6. There’s no Fox News. I mean, yeah, there are right-wing batshit white supremacist folks here—some really nasty ones too—but there’s no major network steadily poisoning the minds of millions with fascist propaganda. It makes a huge difference in political discourse. The general vibe here is some spirited argument about how do we make things better for Canadians. In the US you have one side trying to be as cruel as possible to anyone who isn’t straight, white, rich, or Christian, and the other side is just sorta fundraising off that, as in “help us stop them from being such huge dicks. We won’t do anything helpful or progressive, but we’ll at least stop those dicks if you send us money.” I cannot emphasize enough how nice it is not to have the national conversation entirely consumed with HERE’S HOW WE’RE GONNA BE DICKS TODAY versus OH NO YOU DON’T YOU DICKS. People actually talk about art and music and improving public transportation here, and it’s so gentle on my psyche compared to the daily bloodsport in the US.
7. Water. Sorry for the incoming bummer, but uh…climate change is going to be kicking our asses for a long time. And if you look ahead, fresh water is going to be scarce. The American west is already hurting for it and it’s not going to be better next year or the years after that. Where will all the fresh water be? Canada. And where, in general, will it be more pleasant to live as things heat up? In the north.
8. This isn’t a thing I moved for, because how could I know? But dealing with drivers licenses and registration and stuff is far simpler and cheaper here than the US. I remember pissing away four hours of my life waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Haven’t had to wait for anything here more than ten minutes—and that’s when I couldn’t do things at my convenience online.
9. Butter tarts. Until you’ve tried them you won’t understand.

None of the above should be taken to suggest that Canada is perfect. It ain’t. I think most Canadians would agree. There are lots of issues to work on here. And there are lots of wonderful things about the US that we love and miss sometimes. But items 1-6 are why we moved, why we love living here, and why we’re happy to be Canadian now.

If you happen to be someone who’s interested in moving, here’s what we did that might help you out: We used an immigration lawyer who charges a flat fee with a money-back guarantee. In other words, if they accept you as a client and you follow their instructions and somehow don’t get in, you get your money back. So obviously, they won’t take you unless they’re positive they can get you in. If you head to their website, they have a free questionnaire you can take that determines whether you’d be a good fit or not. Go visit Abrams & Krochak if you want to check it out. You become a permanent resident first, and then after three years you can apply to be a citizen. We wish you all the best, eh?

Available now: The Super Mega Turbo Spiffy Ultra Rad editions of the Iron Druid Chronicles, books 1-3!

The whole series will be reissued this year in groups, and each book has been revised/expanded and almost every one also has bonus material never in print before—a total of seven short stories and three novellas. Here’s the release schedule and what they’ll have:

Available Now:
HOUNDED: “Kaibab Unbound” and “Clan Rathskeller”
HEXED: Grimoire of the Lamb
HAMMERED: “A Test of Mettle”
June 14:
TRICKED: Two Ravens and One Crow
TRAPPED: “The Dead Flea Scrolls: A Sirius Prophecy of Poochism” (Oberon’s religion for dogs)
HUNTED: This is the only one with no bonus goodies, just revised/expanded text
September 13:
SHATTERED: A Prelude to War and “The Book of Five Meats”
STAKED: “Granuaile’s Notebook”
BESIEGED: “The Naughtiest Cherub”
SCOURGED: The Buzz Kill

The ebook editions will also contain these bonuses. Audiobooks will not, though those of you who are already longtime listeners will recognize that almost all of those bonuses in print are already available in audio. There are four short stories up there, however, that aren’t, and won’t be, in audio. These print editions are basically the deluxe cat’s meow. But don’t tell Oberon I said that.

The cover art will be all new and consistently designed on the spine so you won’t have the titles and name switch at book seven. YES! Cover artist Sarah J. Coleman and designer Ella Laytham have done absolutely gorgeous work on these and I couldn’t be happier.

Basically, these editions are the equivalent of “The Director’s Cut” in movies, since we are including all the novellas and putting them in chronological order for you. I hope you’ll enjoy them, get a full set for yourself and your buddies, maybe another full set for your dog, and sort of quiver and hum happily whenever you see them on your shelf.

Thanks so much for reading and please give your doggies a belly rub for me. May harmony (and sausage) find you.

Juuuust in case you’d like to try it—Stove Top ain’t doing it for you, or whatever—here’s the recipe my family has always used from my late grandmother (who was the inspiration behind the Widow MacDongah in the Iron Druid Chronicles). It uses basic stuff, nothing fancy, because it’s a recipe born in the Great Depression. It just requires a wee bit of planning.

This is made of cornbread and biscuits in a 2-1 ratio. You can make the cornbread and biscuits from scratch or use a mix. In days of yore, we used a cornbread mix—making two batches—and one batch of Bisquick biscuits. Cornbread mix is bizarrely not a thing in Canada, however, so we have to make our cornbread from scratch now. Either way, you make all the carbs the day before you’re going to make your turkey, whether it’s for Thanksgiving or Christmas or [insert special occasion here].

And once you’ve baked your batches o’ carbs, you break them all up into a bigass bowl and mix together with some salt and pepper and a buttload of sage. Like…a whole thing of ground sage. We don’t go easy on that one. I’m talking one of those 18g rectangular coffins full, not a ginormous bottle of it. Still, on the small coffin it says “use sparingly” and we’re like, “Listen, mothercustard, we’re gonna sacrifice every last microgram of your plant-based ass to the God of Stuffing.” If you have some poultry seasoning, you can throw that in too—not necessary, but if you have some on hand and have always wondered when you were gonna use it, now’s a good time. Shake it like a Polaroid picture in there. Mix well, cover with a towel, and forget about it overnight, because you’re gonna finish it in the morning before you stuff your turkey.

So, kablam—you’ve woken the next day, you’ve slurped down a coffee or five, and you’re ready to get some major poultry going. It’s time to finish off that stuffing. Get out your cutting board.

Chop up a white, yellow, or sweet onion, fairly fine, but not minced—we’re not making hot dog toppings here. (Red onion is Against the Law for this recipe, it ain’t gonna taste right.) Then chop up some celery into chunks. 4-6 stalks, I guess? You throw all that into your big bowl of carbs and sage, which has dried up a bit overnight. That’s okay. You want that. Because now you’re gonna moisten it. Aw yeah, it’s gonna be plenty moist, don’t you worry. Let me say that one more time for everyone who enjoys it: Moist.

Pause to wash your dang hands. I mean, you should have done that already. But really. Do it again. The clinically safe fifty thousand seconds or whatever it is. Because it’s gonna get messy.

Crack two (or maybe three!) eggs in there and then smoosh them into the stuffing. You just grab fistfuls of the carbs and let the proteins in the eggs bind them so it clumps together. You don’t want the cornbread and biscuits to be sodden, but you don’t want a mess of dry crumbs either. Just hanging together in bunches, you know? This is where you have to make a judgement call. If the 2-3 eggs weren’t enough to make it all work, add sparing splashes of chicken broth (or veggie broth if you have vegetarians in the family, this will make sense in a bit) to ensure your stuffing has become cliquish, shall we say. Again, not sodden balls of sadness! It’s a balancing act.

Now, unless you have an absolute hulk of a turkey, you’re going to have more stuffing than you can practically stuff into the bird. You should have enough to stuff both the cavity and the neck and adorn the creases where the legs meet the breast and still have plenty left over. That leftover you’re going to bake on its own in a baking dish, and if you have vegetarian family members, this is where using vegetable broth above comes in handy. You can grease up that baking dish with butter and rock it for a half hour or so after your turkey is out of the oven. You want it to cook until the top is crispy. And that’s what we usually wind up serving, along with the stuffing from the top of the turkey. Because…

Moisture from the bird is gonna make the stuffing inside SUPER moist—which is why you don’t want it to be especially juicy to begin with. Some folks like it that way—which is cool, more power to them—but we like to have the drier baked stuff ready too. This glorious carbfest is amazing at the main event with gravy, and fantastic later reheated or deployed on turkey cranberry sandwiches, what have you.

Bookmark for the day you need it, and enjoy!

To celebrate ten years of the Iron Druid Chronicles and to give the entire series a consistent look, Del Rey is reissuing the adventures in trade paperback featuring cover art by Sarah J. Coleman (@Inkymole). They’ll be released three at a time spaced a few months apart, and the first three will be available March 15, 2022!

The second three will be released in the summer, and so on, so that you’ll be able to have the entire series with a consistent look (which has been A Thing We Needed). What I love about this is that you get both Atticus and Oberon on the cover, Celtic knotwork that represents the magic system, and book-specific art in the corners/on the spines. The different colors are going to look absolutely gorgeous on your shelf, and there’s BONUS CONTENT in these editions!

Each book will contain some short stories or a novella that was previously available only in ebook and audio, or, in one case, printed out of sequence in the series, and in another case, it’s completely new stuff. We’re giving print readers all the goodies this time—and updating the text a bit too, fixing typos and such!

The new edition of Hounded will contain two short stories, “Clan Rathskeller” and “Kaibab Unbound.”

The new edition of Hexed will include the novella Grimoire of the Lamb.

The new edition of Hammered will feature the short story “A Test of Mettle.”

When we get to the reissue of Tricked, that will include the novella Two Ravens and One Crow. It’s supposed to fall chronologically between books 4 and 5, but previously had been included at the end of book 6. So we’re fixing that!

And the new edition of Trapped will feature all-new stuff from Oberon: “The Book of Five Meats” (Oberon’s attempt at a cookbook) and “The Dead Flea Scrolls” (which establishes the dog religion, Poochism).

But enough about the words—let’s see that cover art, eh? Here’s Hounded (presented with spine on the left)!

Love the blazing sun and the suggestion that things are going to get hot—as they do when Aenghus Óg opens a portal to hell. I also love the knotwork and that Oberon is properly sized—lots of people are unaware just how huge wolfhounds are until you see them standing next to someone. The eyes you see up top represent magical sight or the Third Eye.

For Hexed, we chose purple as a nod to the favorite color of the Sisters of the Three Auroras. If you look in the top corners, you’ll see some demon rams there! And there are some mystical symbols worked into the knots as well.

Hammered has some of my favorite goodies in the art: Thor’s hammer (which Leif Helgarson wears in the book) is at the top, along with some thunderbolts, and down below you’ll see Ratatosk as well as Odin’s ravens, Hugin and Munin. The midnight blue references the nighttime raid on Asgard.

Here’s a look at the spines, which should give you a glimpse into how cool the series will look on your shelf:

Breaking that down — we have a cool world tree design at the top, and some subtle sun/moon stuff going on. Then you have the book title, the number in the series, and then a cover element specific to the book. A Celtic knot for Hounded, a mystical symbol from Hexed, and a raven for Hammered. Then my name and the publisher logo. That’s going to be a consistent look across the series, and of course there will be different dominant colors, so it’s going to be quite the rainbow when finished!

All hail artist Sarah J. Coleman and designer Ella Laytham! You can preorder these beautiful editions now using this convenient page. (If the cover art isn’t quite there yet it will show up soon—sometimes the retailers take a few days to update.)

For those of you who might wish to have signed copies, I’ll try to get something arranged for that! My hope is that I’ll be able to visit at least one indie store (if not more) in the US and they’ll be able to ship you signed copies wherever you are. But if you’re cool with unsigned copies, that link above is ready to go!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. If you’d like to enter a sweepstakes to win a handpainted mini of Atticus O’Sullivan together with a trade paperback edition of Hounded, enter here! (You can order your own Atticus mini from Hero Forge in colored plastic (seen on the right) or get an unpainted one and paint it yourself. The painted model on the left with the tattoos and strap and everything was done by Alan O’Bryan, who can be found as @gorillabrush on Twitter and @gorillawithabrush on Instagram. Get your own Atticus mini from Hero Forge here.

Thank you all so much for reading the Iron Druid Chronicles and spreading the word over the years. I hope you’ll love these beautiful new editions and all the goodies inside!