Launch Day: The Princess Beyond the Thorns

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News, Writing1 Comment

My newest book is launching! The Princess Beyond the Thorns, Book Two of the Thorns Saga, is now available as a Kindle, paperback, or hardback.

This has been a long time in the writing (since 2019!) and I’m excited to finally share this book. It continues the character and relationship arcs of the first book, exploring deeper into the world and the new challenges the characters are facing.

Here’s a little more about the story, from the back of the book:

What’s a princess to do when happily ever after proves anything but guaranteed?

Princess Rose Amelia has defeated her curse and married her prince – and now the real work begins. Rose and Terrence must navigate politics and court intrigue to gain support for their claim on the throne – while also evading assassination attempts and facing their own disagreements about the threat from Terrence’s father and brothers.

Rose and Terrence can only rely on each other, but with new conflicts erupting between them, they start to question their whirlwind romance. Love and loyalty will be tested and new dangers faced in the world beyond Rose’s enchanted wall of thorns.

This fantasy romance, the second in a continuing series, is a unique fairy tale retelling about what happens after Sleeping Beauty wakes up. If you enjoy heroines finding their strength, fantasy worlds with a touch of intrigue, and increasingly magical cats, you won’t want to miss the Thorns Saga.

I hope you enjoy reading your copy today!

Coming Soon: The Princess Beyond the Thorns

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News, Writing1 Comment

I’m so pleased to announce my next book will be out in March: The Princess Beyond the Thorns, Book Two of the Thorns Saga.  The Kindle edition is already available for pre-order, and the paperback and hardback will be available on launch day, March 12th.

As I’ve shared on the blog before, I’ve been working on this one for a very long time – since NaNoWriMo 2019!  That makes it especially exciting to finally be sharing it with all of you.  I hope you’ll enjoy reading the next installment in the series (and if you haven’t started it yet, this is a great time to read Book One!)

Here’s a little more about the story, from the back of the book:

What’s a princess to do when happily ever after proves anything but guaranteed?

Princess Rose Amelia has defeated her curse and married her prince – and now the real work begins. Rose and Terrence must navigate politics and court intrigue to gain support for their claim on the throne – while also evading assassination attempts and facing their own disagreements about the threat from Terrence’s father and brothers.

Rose and Terrence can only rely on each other, but with new conflicts erupting between them, they start to question their whirlwind romance. Love and loyalty will be tested and new dangers faced in the world beyond Rose’s enchanted wall of thorns.

This fantasy romance, the second in a continuing series, is a unique fairy tale retelling about what happens after Sleeping Beauty wakes up. If you enjoy heroines finding their strength, fantasy worlds with a touch of intrigue, and increasingly magical cats, you won’t want to miss the Thorns Saga.

2023 Reading Round-Up

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations1 Comment

We’re entering into January, so it’s time to look back at my reading from 2023.  I read 120 books this year, which is a nice increase on recent years.  I’ve been trying to do more reading, less phone time, so maybe that’s why!  Here’s a look at the details…

1) Best of…
I’ve been splitting my “Best of” books for the past several years, so that I can highlight the ones that were best in very specific ways.

1A) Best Premise: After Anne by Logan Steiner – I loved the idea of a novel retelling the life of my favorite author, L. M. Montgomery.  And then some parts were excellent and some parts seemed like–very strange choices.  I’m fairly sure Steiner and I have read all the same source material (particularly Montgomery’s journals and Rubio’s excellent biography, The Gift of Wings) but we reached some very different conclusions!  I ended up feeling mixed on the book, but I did love that premise.

1B) Best World Building: Indexing by Seanan McGuire – A dark urban fantasy, I loved the exploration of fairy tales and how they impact the world, particularly recognizing how dark and deadly they can actually be!  A very cool magic system and concepts over-laid on (almost) the real world.

1C) Best Romance: A toss-up here, between Book Lovers by Emily Henry and Landline by Rainbow Rowell.  In both cases I enjoyed the romantic couples defying romantic cliches.  The heroine in Book Lovers knows the cliches well and recognizes where she fits in – she’s the big city, high-powered girlfriend who gets dumped for the simple small-town girl – and I loved that twist.  In Landline we see a couple a decade into their relationship who have real challenges but also really love each other, and I liked that a lot.  So many things shouldn’t have worked with the two of them, but I loved it anyway.

1D) Best Character: Eliza Hamilton in My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie – It might be a little unfair since Eliza was a real person, but the book brought her to life beautifully, and really portrayed how amazing a force she was – as more than Alexander Hamilton’s wife.  Although, surprisingly, Eliza and Alexander could also be contenders for best romantic couple!

Continue reading “2023 Reading Round-Up” →

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (November & December, 2023)

On By cherylmahoneyIn ReviewsLeave a comment

With all the writing focus on NaNoWriMo in November, I missed doing a reading update last month!  So now that the dust has settled on NaNo and on the holidays, I thought I’d hit the highlights today for the last couple months, before doing my annual Reading Round-up at the end of the year.

In the past two months, I read two more Terry Pratchett books, Interesting Times and The Last Continent, both wizards/Rincewind books.  Rincewind went first to Discworld Asia (with a surprise return of Twoflower) and then to Discworld Australia.  Chaos ensues, of course, and they were both quite amusing.

I got one more Martha Wells book in this year – City of Bones, a stand-alone with Wells’ usual excellent world-building, if a little less found family than I usually find in her books.  And I did one more T. Kingfisher book as well, Thornhedge, a truly delightful spin on Sleeping Beauty. Continue reading “What I’ve Been Reading Lately (November & December, 2023)” →

NaNoWriMo 2023 – Day #30

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo1 Comment

It’s the last day of November, and that means the end of NaNoWriMo!  I’m happy to report a very successful NaNoWriMo this year.  I actually passed 50,000 words on November 26th, and managed to make it to 60,000 words today, for a final total of 60,417.

I really wanted to get as much of the story written as I could while I had good momentum going.  I probably need around 10,000 words more to get to the end of the story, so I plan to continue in the first part of December.  At a slower pace, though!

I’ve really enjoyed writing this one all through the month.  I hit some walls around the 3/4 mark, which I hear is common – it’s when the story needs to stop expanding and start contracting down towards the end, and pay-off all the things that have been set up along the way.  It’s a change of focus so it’s a bit of a bump, but I had a couple scenes I was excited to write that helped me make the shift.  I have a couple more scenes coming up now that I’m excited about, so I hope that will help me keep up momentum even though we’re past NaNoWriMo now.

I have a few more books in this series to finalize before this new one will be going out into the world, but in the meantime, here’s an excerpt…

Rose stared across the length of the long lawn, heart pounding in her chest, and felt time double-back on itself.  Surely she wasn’t now, surely she was having some hazy hallucination of then – but the shouting council members, the lurching ground, Elena’s wide-eyed gaze all felt too real, too present.

Which did not explain what she was seeing across the lawn.

A wall of thorns was growing.  Stalks were springing up out of the ground, putting out branches, growing and doubling and expanding at a visible rate.  They stretched along the edge of the lawn and out of sight, surely wrapping their way around the perimeter of the castle.  The branches were brown and gnarled, not a softening leaf or flower in sight.  She couldn’t see thorns from here, but she knew, deep down inside, that they were there.