THE LIAR'S KNOT is out! . . . as of yesterday!

Yeah, uh, so, Alyc and I were so busy running around like chickens with our heads cut off on Twitter and Facebook and our Discord server that I failed to post here about the fact that The Liar's Knot is out at last! (Tomorrow for the U.K., though some people got their copies early, and the audiobook is in progress but not released yet.)

Trust is the thread that binds us . . . and the rope that hangs us.

In Nadezra, peace is as tenuous as a single thread. The ruthless House Indestor has been destroyed, but darkness still weaves through the city’s filthy back alleys and jewel-bright gardens, seen by those who know where to look.

Derossi Vargo has always known. He has sacrificed more than anyone imagines to carve himself a position of power among the nobility, hiding a will of steel behind a velvet smile. He’ll be damned if he lets anyone threaten what he’s built.

Grey Serrado knows all too well. Bent under the yoke of too many burdens, he fights to protect the city’s most vulnerable. Sooner or later, that fight will demand more than he can give.

And Ren, daughter of no clan, knows best of all. Caught in a knot of lies, torn between her heritage and her aristocratic masquerade, she relies on her gift for reading pattern to survive. And it shows her the web of corruption that traps her city.

But all three have yet to discover just how far that web stretches. And in the end, it will take more than knives to cut themselves free…

We celebrated by, uh, working. We really want to finish the draft by the end of the year -- which we can probably do -- but that means we spent the afternoon writing a scene, before taking a break to do an Orbit Live event with the awesome Fonda Lee. But we made the Vraszenian spiced chocolate drink created by Elias Eels, and we watched some TV that night, so that counts for a celebration, right?

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/rUbw5w)

Rook and Rose Book 3, Chapter 22

This is probably an incomplete chapter as (non-linearity ahoy!) we need to add a scene into it. Nothing load-bearing in terms of the narrative logic of the plot; we just need a quiet moment between two characters, to address what happened last chapter and set up what's coming after.

Most of this chapter is character moments, actually, though not all of them are quiet. Really, very few of them are. But if this chapter has a theme, it's "people have some long-standing issues out with the other people in their lives." Some of those confrontations end in reconciliation; some really, really don't. It makes for a nice mix, I hope, and the other reason to add in that extra bit will be to create some space between two scenes that are otherwise a bit similar in their creation of some rifts that have been a long time coming.

Also? Alyc and I are really enjoying the avoidance of toxic masculinity. Whatever issues our male characters may have (and boy howdy do they have some), they aren't generally rooted in the need to create and defend a certain gendered image of themselves. It's other aspects of their identity they're trying to uphold, and those aren't necessarily incompatible with saying "yeah, I need to talk about what I'm going through."

Word count: ~159,000
Authorial sadism: We didn't have to clarify the role that character played in those events. But . . . yeah, we kind of had to.
Authorial amusement: Kind of thin on the ground, honestly, given some of the trauma being unpacked here. We punched the air a couple of times for characters standing up when they needed to, but that's not the same thing as amusing ourselves.
BLR quotient: The blood was necessary. Sometimes you have to lance a boil before healing can begin.

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/op0hTu)