I’ve been namedropping Crowflight a lot around here – for those of you just joining us, it’s the dark fantasy novel that I have coming out in September from Masque Books (Prime’s new digital imprint, which is now offering all kinds of tasty reads) – and I think it’s probably a good idea at this point to go into some detail about what it is.

SO. For your edification: A Crowflight fact sheet.

• What’s it about? It deals with a young woman named Turn who’s in training to be a guide of souls into the lands beyond death. Everything is going according to plan, when a chance at a new level of training throws her into a conspiracy for which she takes the blame. Betrayed by everyone she ever trusted and thrown into exile, she ends up in the company of members of the Raven tribe, mysterious denizens of the equally mysterious Shadowlands, and people whom Turn was always taught to mistrust. But they appear to be the only friends Turn has. Forced to live among them or die alone, Turn begins to understand things that cast a very different light on the events that led to her exile. And her newly-gained knowledge is pressing her forward into a terrible responsibility and a task that might cost her everything she still has.
• What’s the deal with the worldbuilding? The book is set primarily in Nicht, the Land of Terrible Night, and its sisterworld Sol, the Land of Dreadful Day, from where the souls that Turn and her fellow Psychopomps guide come. Sol is very much like early 20th century America or Europe, and while it contains more than one city, we only see one. Both worlds are smaller than ours, and in fact don’t even exist on a planet in the way that ours does. Rather, they should be thought of as two halves of a single small globe, a night side and a day side, both unmoving and both separated from each other by a gray haze of nothing in particular. They’re each lit by a single source of light and energy, Sol by a sun and Nicht by a moon – which are in fact the same thing. Nicht is populated by three tribes, the Crows, the Ravens, and the Rooks. The Crows are primarily responsible for the guiding of Sol’s souls, while the Rooks are concerned with order, law, and justice. The Ravens are nomadic magic-users and mystics, and are viewed with deep suspicion by the other two tribes. All three tribes worship a single goddess: the Lady Atropos, the mistress of death.
• Where did the idea come from? Actually, it came from the idea for a book title. One day I suddenly decided that I wanted to write a book called A Murder of Crows, and then I had to decide what kind of book that might end up being. Obviously the title changed, but – also obviously – the book remained.
• What formats is it going to be available in? Just ebook for the moment. Possibly print if it does well enough.
• Is there a sequel? There is. The second book is halfway done and will be called Ravenblood. The third book, Rookwar, is in the planning stages. I aim to finish the remaining two books in the trilogy by the end of the year if possible.

Be on the lookout for goodies all this next month, including excerpts, a chance to win the book, and possibly book-related jewelry that I’ll be making.