Fantasy Author Gail Z. Martin: It’s a Wrap—Writing the Final Book in a Series

It’s a Wrap—Writing the Final Book in a Series

By Gail Z. Martin

As a reader, I love series. When I find characters and a world that I really love, I want to pitch a tent, move in, and stay for a long time. I’ve always loved immersive fictional worlds and characters with sufficient depth that you learn new things about them and see new angles as you get to know them better.

So it made sense that as an author, I wanted to create those detailed worlds and characters so I could share that kind of experience with readers. I knew that, as a reader, finishing a series left me with ‘book drop’, a sense of loss and emptiness, missing and even grieving fictional characters. I hadn’t realized that the same would be true, even more so, as an author.

I’ve wrapped up two fantasy series recently, Darkhurst and Assassins of Landria. On one level, they couldn’t be more different. Darkhurst is dark and gritty. Assassins of Landria is epic fantasy bromance, Butch and Sundance as medieval assassins. I loved writing both series, and the characters will always live in my mind.

The Darkhurst trilogy is the story of the Valmonde brothers, undertakers who become tangled up in much bigger issues when monsters start killing their family and friends. Once they begin fighting the monsters, they realize that the stakes are higher, the lies bigger, and the reality much darker than they ever imagined. While Darkhurst is a bit darker than my other series, there is always hope and the bonds of family and friendship are strong enough to overcome all obstacles. Although I don’t have plans at the moment for anything else in this universe, I never say never!

The Assassins of Landria is different from my other epic fantasy series in that the books are shorter (about 250 pages), fewer point-of-view characters (two instead of four or five) and a little more humorous. I have had so many people come up to my table at conventions and heft one of my doorstopper books in hand and tell me that they used to love to read epic fantasy but no longer have the time.

So I wrote Assassins to be a little shorter and funnier than my regular epics, but with all the feels and worldbuilding of the longer books. It’s buddy-flick epic fantasy. Orphan best friends Ridge and Rett rise through the ranks of the army to become the most feared assassins in the land, tasked with protecting the king. But when a wandering mystic foments treason among the aristocrats, Ridge and Rett go rogue to save the kingdom—and find themselves on the most-wanted list!

Over their six-book series, Ridge and Rett stop the bad guys, protect Landria, and redeem their reputation, with a lot of humor and swashbuckling adventure along the way. There will be four more series-adjacent books set in the same world as prequels that tell the stories of two important pairs of allies. The books will be released under my Morgan Brice pen name.

I love my characters even as I put them through all sorts of anguish on their path to triumph. Now that these series are finished, I have plenty more tales to tell and worlds to build that I hope you’ll enjoy!

Be sure to watch for my new books coming soon in the Deadly Curiosities and Night Vigil worlds, as well as the Joe Mack Chronicles, Wasteland Marshals, and Spells, Salt and Steel series that I co-write with Larry N. Martin!

And please check out the newly updated Chronicles of the Necromancer books (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, Dark Lady’s Chosen) now in trade paperback and hard cover (for the first time!) as well as ebook and audiobook. Two different limited-edition seventeenth anniversary editions with new cover art are available only on our Square store.

The Darkhurst Series

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Assassins of Landria Series

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Follow me on Facebook in the Shadow Alliance reader group (www.Facebook.com/Groups/MartinShadowAlliance),  X/Twitter, @MorganBriceAuthor on Instagram and @MorganBriceAuthor on TikTok!

Gail Z. Martin writes urban fantasy, epic fantasy, steampunk and more for Solaris Books, Orbit Books, Falstaff Books, SOL Publishing and Darkwind Press. Urban fantasy series include Deadly Curiosities and the Night Vigil (Sons of Darkness). Epic fantasy series include Darkhurst, the Chronicles Of The Necromancer, the Fallen Kings Cycle, the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, and the Assassins of Landria.

Together with Larry N. Martin, she is the co-author of Iron & Blood, Storm & Fury (both Steampunk/alternate history), the Spells Salt and Steel comedic horror series, the Roaring Twenties monster hunter Joe Mack Shadow Council series, and the Wasteland Marshals near-future post-apocalyptic series. As Morgan Brice, she writes urban fantasy MM paranormal romance, with the Witchbane, Badlands, Treasure Trail, Kings of the Mountain and Fox Hollow series. Gail is also a con-runner for ConTinual, the online, ongoing multi-genre convention that never ends.

Days of the Dead blog tour: Assassin's Honor (Assassins of Landria Book 1) by Gail Z. Martin + giveaway

Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve….when better to celebrate books about magic, necromancers, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night?

We’ve got plenty of new ‘treats’ in our Trick-or-Treat lineup this year: Vengeance, Tangled Web, The Dark Road, Salvage Rat, Assassin’s Honor, Sons of Darkness, and Close Encounters. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how the books came about and what the heck we were thinking with the guest blog posts and author Q&As.

Find links to all the post on the tour here:
https://www.ascendantkingdoms.com/

Today at I Smell Sheep Gail is sharing an excerpt from Assassin's Honor. The first book in the new epic fantasy series Assassins of Landria.

Assassin's Honor (Assassins of Landria Book 1)

by Gail Z. Martin

October 15, 2018

genre: epic fantasy, sword and sorcery
206 pages

First in the new Assassins of Landria series from the award-winning, bestselling author of Scourge: A Novel of Darkhurst, and the Chronicles Of The Necromancer books!

Friends since their orphanage childhood, Joel “Ridge” Breckinridge and Garrett “Rett” Kennard rose through the ranks of the Landrian army together, from teenaged conscripts to seasoned fighters. Together, they became the most feared team of assassins in Landria, surviving longer that most in their profession by virtue of excellent fighting skills, legendary bravado, peerless strategy, and an uncanny synchronicity. Henri, their long-suffering squire, tends to the thankless jobs of provisioning and logistics, while Ridge and Rett fight and recover.

When wandering mystic Yefim Makary becomes the darling of disenchanted aristocrats, Rett and Ridge fear Makary—or the Witch Lord, as his followers call him—is a threat to the crown. As treasonous whispers spread, Ridge and Rett go rogue to stop the threat, save the kingdom and protect the king—while landing on the “Most Wanted” list themselves!

Assassin’s Honor
By Gail Z. Martin
Assassin’s Honor – Chapter One (Excerpt)

He rolled the warrant up and tucked it into Destwiler’s bloody vest, a formality. Ridge bent down to search Destwiler’s pockets, curling his lip at the still-warm blood that soaked the shoulders and sleeves of the man’s coat. He found a parchment note tucked beneath the vest and took it to read later, figuring that anything Destwiler found important enough to carry on his person bore looking at closely.

“Are you stealing from him?” Kelvin asked, still eying Ridge with a mixture of fear and awe.

Ridge replied without looking up. “I’m trying to find the keys to those manacles, because I sure as hell don’t want to have to carry you and them out of here, and we need to leave.” He took the iron key off the strap and then stood and crossed the distance to where Kelvin huddled against the wall.

He stared at Ridge in wide-eyed apprehension, unsure what to make of his terrifying rescuer. His wrists were badly bruised from the weight of the iron, and the mark on his cheek suggested Destwiler or his guard had backhanded the child at least once.

“I’m here to take you back to your father,” Ridge said quietly, approaching Kelvin as he would a spooked horse. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Are you a Shadow Killer?” Kelvin’s tone shifted, still frightened but clearly intrigued.

Ridge had always hated that term—he argued that it made it sound like they killed shadows.

About the Author:
website-@GailZMartin-@LNMartinauthor
Facebook-DisquietingVisions blog
GhostInTheMachinePodcast-Goodreads
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Gail Z. Martin is the author of Scourge: A Darkhurst Novel, from Solaris Books. Gail is also the author of Vendetta: A Deadly Curiosities Novel and Trifles and Folly 1: A Deadly Curiosities Collection, the latest in her urban fantasy series set in Charleston, SC; Shadow and Flame is the fourth book in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga; The Shadowed Path (The first Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures collection), as well as Iron and Blood a Steampunk series, and Spells, Salt, & Steel, both co-authored with Larry N. Martin.

She is also author of Ice Forged, Reign of Ash, and War of Shadows in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, Dark Lady’s Chosen); The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn, The Dread) and the urban fantasy novel Deadly Curiosities and Tangled Web. Gail writes three ebook series: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures, The Deadly Curiosities Adventures and The Blaine McFadden Adventures. The Storm and Fury Adventures, steampunk stories set in the Iron & Blood world, are co-authored with Larry N. Martin.

Gail’s work has appeared in over 35 US/UK anthologies. Newest anthologies include: The Big Bad 2, Athena’s Daughters, Heroes, Space, Contact Light, With Great Power, The Weird Wild West, The Side of Good/The Side of Evil, Alien Artifacts, Cinched: Imagination Unbound, Realms of Imagination, Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens, Gaslight and Grimm, Baker Street Irregulars, Journeys, Hath no Fury and A Haven Harbor Halloween.

GIVEAWAY

Enter my Rafflecopter giveaway to win a Kindle Prize Package with a free copy EACH of — Tangled Web, Assassin’s Honor, Salvage Rat, The Dark Road and Sons of Darkness!

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04215/?