All you need to know about Blackbriar Cove!

It’s release week for Blackbrair Cove! For those who aren’t already in-the-know, the long-awaited sequel to Silver Hollow goes live on Thursday, May 12th.

The journey to bringing this sequel to life has taken me 10 years. It’s amazing looking back on how much has changed and ways I’ve grown as a person, not just a writer. They say life imitates art, and I believe our struggles and trials shape us into more refined versions of ourselves. We carry those traits into all we create. And so by taking a page from my past mistakes, I’ve decided to publish two books in the Borderlands Saga each year moving forward. I have at least 8 books planned, though how many I publish will greatly depend on you 🙂

For every copy of Silver Hollow and Blackbriar Cove I sell and you review, or every cup of coffee someone buys me, that much more goes toward the next book in this series. I’ll do everything I possibly can from my end to bring the rest of this series to life, but I’ll need your help along the way to get there. Even by sharing about the new release would be such a huge help. To those of you who have already done and given so much to make this possible, I can’t thank you enough. Only tell you how humbled and grateful I am to be part of this fantastic bookish community.

To keep posted on all release and future book news, sign up for my newsletter! Want to learn more about Blackbriar Cove? Keep reading for a special teaser 🙂

Blackbriar Cove goes LIVE Thursday, May 12!

Here’s a sneak peek…

Time passed differently in the Cove. The girls were soon too big to sit on their grandmother’s knees. Though they were still young, their spirits had wandered the Cove long before Nanny wove them into their bodies. No matter all they had seen, to the twins, everything was new and wondrous. Many years after their parents had dropped them on Nanny’s doorstep, and yet not so long at all, they learned of the magic of their kind, and how the world was a web they would one day weave.

They were weaving the day their father burst through the cabin door, a bloody child clutched in his arms.

“My medicines,” Nanny instructed, her soft whisper loud as a thunderclap the twins obeyed.

Jo moved first, Faye trailing behind as another man, skin pale as snow, stumbled after them.

“Forgive me, Grandmother, I would not have intruded on your peace had I any other choice,” Faye’s father said. Everyone in the Cove called their Nanny “Grandmother,” for reasons they never thought to ponder. It simply was.

“She’s losing blood too quickly!” The pale man choked on his words, tearing Faye from her wandering thoughts.

“Please help them, Unitsi!” the twins’ mother cried from the open doorway.

Nanny waved away their mother’s concerns. “Udli hwilohi, Andatsi.”

“Thank you, Unitsi,” Mama replied.

The pale stranger cleared the kitchen table they occasionally used, allowing their father to lay the girl’s body down. Jo stood at Nanny’s side, kit in hand. All the while, Pa spoke meaningless words to Nanny of the girl’s condition and how long she’d been unconscious.

Faye ignored their babbling, too struck by the silent tears streaming down the pale stranger’s beautiful face. His hair was black as the shadows she loved to play among at twilight.

“Drustan?” Mama called again.

Faye gripped the edge of the table to hide her surprise.

“Drustan, I am sorry, but I need you to help me protect the border.”

Candlelight revealed the spirit—Drustan’s—crimson spattered cheek. His even bloodier hand held the unconscious girl’s in a white-knuckled grip.

Nanny’s skin glowed as she stepped into the light and ran her hands over the girl’s broken body.

“Drustan! Please!” their mother cried before the earth shook, and the rafters rattled overhead.

“I need to see the wounds,” Nanny instructed. “Jo, boiling water, please.”

Jo’s hands glowed a luminous blue over a nearby urn.

Pa wasted no time opening the broken girl’s tattered silk dress.

The pale man—Drustan—brushed against Faye as he bent over the broken girl to whisper in a musical tongue she’d never heard before.

“We must go now!” Mama cried.

Tears streaked Drustan’s cheeks as he tore away from the bedside table and clasped their father’s arm. “Do nay let her die,” he begged.

Pa nodded, bearded jaw set in determination. “Aye,” he said.

Drustan drew in a deep breath. “Please, she is our greatest hope.”

“I know, old friend,” Pa replied. “Go with Star. I will guard her.”

Mother’s name didn’t fully translate into their father’s tongue. Yet both names suited her amber skin, glowing with her power and the waning light of the sun as she cried, “They’re almost here!”

Drustan looked helplessly over the room before his leaf-green eyes fell upon Faye and held. A primordial force, ancient as the moon and stars, rocked between them.

Faye didn’t know how many years she’d passed in the Cove, but she no longer felt like a child. Not with the power of this strange and ancient spirit piercing Faye one last time before he stumbled after Mother through the door.

The earth rumbled in his wake, and a wave of magic washed from the tips of Faye’s toes, breathing fresh life into her lungs. The stranger’s magic was distinct and heady even after he had fled the cabin.

“Girls,” Nanny whispered, reeling their focus back to her sharp black eyes, “place your hands over mine and share your breath as I taught you.”

Jo covered Nanny’s weathered hands with her own. Faye shook herself, attempting to dislodge the strange feelings awakening within her.

“Faye?” Jo hissed.

Faye slapped her palms over her sister’s, completing the link. The Cove woke beneath their feet, lending its own strength to the three Blackbriar women.

Pa held the broken girl down and spoke in a rushed, tremulous voice. “—had not seen Drustan in half a century, since the last uprising. He has been on the run for years with his little girl. You have not seen her eyes, Grandmother, but Drustan swears she is the key.”

“Enough.” Nanny’s rasping tone broke their father’s rambling.

Another day, Faye and Jo would have gazed upon the man in wonder, for they had been quite young during his last visit. He was almost as much a stranger as Drustan.

“This girl is dying…” Nanny continued.

For the first time, the twins looked at the bloody girl and felt the truth through their linked hands.

“She has been too long from the land that gives her life,” Nanny claimed. “We must sever the link now or she will not survive the night.”

Faye met Jo’s frightened gaze across the table. Whoever this girl was, they sensed she was like them. A child of two peoples and of great expectations. Special. Different.

To sever the link from her home would be like cutting out her heart.

“Grandmother, surely there is another way?” Pa said. “Can’t you sense her power—what she is? Severing her nixy shall kill her.”

Nanny raised her chin. “The child’s spirit is old and angry. Her thread will not be cut but bind the realms together.”

Jo’s hand twitched beneath Faye’s, the only other sign her twin was just as afraid as she was. The twins nodded to each other, then turned to find Nanny’s sharp black eyes watching them.

“What we do today cannot be undone. To save this one’s life, we must bind her with new threads. She will lose all memory of her past lives, and she cannot touch her magic. She will be as the children beyond our borders, no longer Seelie. Yet our mark will cover her spirit so others may not do her harm unless they are of greater strength.”

Jo and Faye did not look away from Nanny. What they were about to do would be terrible, unforgivable to any in the Cove. It would weaken the girl in other ways after this, forced to live as a human. The twins would have returned to the spirit world before giving up their magic.

“Wrap your threads tightly to mine, girls. No matter what happens, do not let go.”

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