It’s been a great release week! Thanks again to everyone who has purchased Shadow Empire, and for those that have gone back and either started at the beginning or picked up where you left off earlier in the series. As a reminder, if you NEED recaps, I have written some here for the first three books.
The book is long, I get it, but when you finish don’t forget to rate and review! If you are a Goodreads user, that is the best place to leave a rating, and of course Amazon itself is best for reviews.
But, now that the cat is out of the bag, I do have a couple of things to share with you all.
What to Look for in the Future
As much as I love this story, I have so many more stories to share, and so I’m anxious both to wrap up the Shadow Saga in a satisfying way, and to move on to what’s next. Yes, this has been a series 20 years in the making, but my next two projects have also been in the works for more than a decade now, so I’m excited at the prospect of being able to shift gears and focus on them more directly. I’ll have more to share about those projects as we near the end for the Shadow Saga.
And speaking of the end, now that many of you have your copies of Shadow Empire, it is safe to announce that the title of the fifth and final book of the mainline series will be Shadow Gods. The first draft of the book is already in progress, and cover concepts are pretty much complete, so be on the lookout for additional extras to hit the website and my Facebook author page sometime in the future.
A little preview?
I won’t give anything away, but I will say that Book 5 involves a significant time jump. I’ve always imagined the Shadow Saga as a three-act story, and in fact it was originally planned as a trilogy. Each act grew too large for a single book, and so now you have Act 1: Shadow Soldier and Shadow Fall, military thrillers that primarily follow 301-14-A; Act 2: Shadow Heart and Shadow Empire, which I would describe more as action/adventure war epics primarily focused on Grace Sawyer and Liz Aurora; and finally Act 3: Shadow Gods, which will have a similar shift in tone and focus as what took place between Acts 1 & 2. For those who were a bit put off by 301/Elijah’s lack of “screen time” in Books 3 & 4, don’t give up hope! And of course, if you have finished Book 4 you can anticipate the series is about to bend into a slightly different sci-fi genre.
Any plans for the Shadow Saga after Book 5?
You may have noted that I used a clarifying word, mainline, above in relation to the Shadow Saga. That’s because I am seriously considering a prequel to the series.
I won’t reveal too much about this, but the concept would be one novel, potentially two if it got too long, to focus mainly on Lauren Crenshaw (Charity) and recounting the events leading up to and during the fall of the Old World, probably going all the way through the first rebellion. If it comes to fruition, this would be entirely different in tone than the mainline Shadow Saga. I resisted a prequel at first because I didn’t want to recount the military side of the Resurgence (Silent Thunder’s mission in the East), as that will be hashed out pretty well by the end of the mainline books. But a political/suspense/thriller about the world as it experiences collapse does intrigue me.
That one, however, definitely would be a few years out, as I do intend to shift gears to a different series concept after the release of Shadow Gods. As for any more sequels, I honestly doubt it. The ending we are now hurtling toward will wrap things up to a degree that it is hard to imagine a continuation. But, as they say, never say never.
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