[Deleted long blog post. Then distilled it down to the important beats].

It is with joy in my heart but tears in my eyes that I share the cover for Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9). And yes, it is the last book – for the foreseeable future – in the Dowser Series.

And the release date: DECEMBER 4, 2018.

The preorder will start to appear on all retailers in the first week of November. But there is no preorder giveaway for this release. Make sure you are on my new release mailing list so you don’t miss the release and any other ‘goodies’ I decide to include. 🙂

I haven’t been sharing as many teasers as I usually do while writing Dowser 9 because the entire book, practically every single line, is a freaking spoiler, ha! But I really felt like sharing something today, so here is the unedited opening of Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9).

– SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS  – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – 

A man hung suspended in a whirlwind of magic above me.

No … not just a man.

A dragon.

I crouched on the back edge of a six foot wide, foot high white platform over the elvish tech I was tasked to repair, fiddling with a gemstone I’d previously removed. Pretending to work while peering through the maelstrom of golden-tinted magic that fueled the gateway.

The golden-tint of the dragon’s magic.

Of his life force.

Energy … magic … life … that was slowly being siphoned away through the tech.

Something was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong with that … scenario, that situation. But whenever I tried to grasp that thought, to fully articulate it in my mind it hovered just beyond my understanding.

I glanced to my right, then left. The center section of the stadium grew smaller and smaller each day as the elves erected sections of walls, closing in on the gateway. If I tilted my head, I could still see the upper rows of seating that rose almost all the way to the domed ceiling. There were less rows than there had been the last time I’d counted. Not that I could remember the exact number. Or why that mattered.

We, the dragon and me, were surrounded by elves, including my liege.

But … we weren’t a ‘we’.

We’re we?

And why would being surrounded by elves matter?

I’d repaired the tech.

I’d created a pathway at my liege’s command.

Opening a rift between dimensions so that the elves could cross into the earth’s dimension from their own.

That I knew for certain.

That I remembered doing.

Except, yesterday — if my sense of time could be trusted — something else had occurred, something that upset my liege, disrupting our connection for a moment that lasted long enough for me to remember … other things, other ideas.

Ideas that fluttered just out of my reach even as I gazed up at the dragon fueling the gateway with his life force.

Though my liege’s hold on my mind kept slipping, through her I came to understand that the witches who claimed this territory, this city, had somehow reined the elves in, curtailing my liege’s plans.

For the moment.

The stadium was slowly filling with restless warriors as one elf at a time stepped through the gateway. Then waited.

Everyone was on the edge of violence, caught in the waiting.

Me especially.

– Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9), fourth draft (unedited, unproofed)

Are you new to the Adept Universe? Book one is Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1).

Click here for the reading order of the Adept Universe.