Archivist 0: it’s vintage.

I dropped the prequel to the Archivist Series in the editor’s inbox yesterday for line and content edit, which means I’m not allowed to make any more major changes to the storyline. So there you go … my quiet ‘what happens in the moments before the series begins’ prequel novella that wasn’t supposed to be more than 30k is now a novel of 53k, and is on track for a January 2021 release.

I’ll be releasing the book – as a serialized freebie, as I did with Amplifier 0 – on my blog but I’ll also put up the preorder ahead of time for those of you who don’t want to read online. I’m actually hoping to drop the first section on January 1, 2021, but with the holidays coming up I need to check to see if I can get on Pauline’s schedule (aka the proofreader). I’ll keep you posted.

To celebrate getting the book into the editor I’m posting a sneak peek of the book cover over in the Facebook fan group. And I’ve added an excerpt below that totally highlights how Dusk’s mind works.

Scene set-up: Dusk is wearing a sweater with a patterned yoke as well.

The woman was wearing a pretty red sweater with a Fair Isle pattern on the yoke. Her light blond hair coiled into curls that barely brushed her shoulders. So unlike my own wild mane that I felt momentary … frumpy.

She caught me looking, glancing at my own outfit. “Oh, does your grandmother knit?” she asked in English.

In English!

Sigh.

“Um,” I responded slowly. My maternal grandmother, Ruth, had died before I was born, having ventured into sixteenth century China in pursuit of a bashe that — having gone insane and decided it was a dragon — was obsessed with reclaiming a pearl it claimed contained a prophecy. Since my grandmother had inadvertently released the gigantic snake from a misfiled artifact in her own archive, she’d been responsible for its release and therefore its recapture.

My grandmother’s ashes — authenticated, so my mother could claim her inheritance of the estate — were housed in an ornate urn on the mantel in the library. The pearl was safely housed in the treasure keeper’s personal collection where all the exceedingly dangerous artifacts were stored. Pulou, aka the treasure keeper, aka the guardian dragon who oversaw all the dragon archivists, had personally returned my grandmother’s remains. And the prophecy was a separate thing altogether.

That either the pearl or the prophecy even existed was knowledge that wasn’t mine to collect. Yet. But the family library yielded things to my touch it shouldn’t, including personal family journals. And my mother hadn’t caught me. Again, yet. 

The woman was staring at me. Her eyes widening as my silence discomforted her.

I touched the neckline of my sweater. “It’s vintage.”

“Oh!” She smiled broadly. “Good find.”

– Awakening Infinity (Archivist 0), fourth draft

Coming January 2021