I got an email from my editor that she reviewed my revisions to “Aluminum Leaves,” the novella Falstaff Books accepted, and the story was being sent on for copy-editing. This is exciting! My revisions satisfied her questions and there are no extensive structural, character or world-building rewrites needed.
I’m thrilled and curious to participate in this next step, since I’ve never worked with an actual copy-editor before.
I still don’t have an ETA on the book, but I’m guessing early 2019. There are other novellas in the series, and I don’t know where mine is “in the queue.” I’m hoping mine will be available before March, 2019, so I can hype it at FogCON.
Despite the title, “Aluminum Leaves” are not things you add to extend the length of dining table, or something that gets attached to the side of your house. The story is a “portal” story. Erin Dosmanos, who lives in this world, is one of a group of families that guard magical artifacts from other worlds. When a villain comes from one of those other worlds and starts picking off the families, collecting the artifacts, she flees through a known portal near her house. The world she enters has disorienting similarities to ours but it is a world where elemental magic is ascendant. Certain metals are magical. Two of these are copper and aluminum. I picked them because they are both highly conductive; but also, I wanted a bit of a “steampunk” flavor to the story.
Erin meets a man who is magical himself. The two must overcome not only a language barrier but issues of trust in order to save both their realities from the villain.
I’ll keep you updated!