Next week, a new series in the Shadow World begins.

The Shadow Games, Book 1: A Mirror of Shadows releases in ebook across all major platforms. It feels so good to be back in the Shadow World with a new story and a set of new characters that have been in my head for more than a year.

More about this new series and why it’s coming before Book 12 of the Shadow Demons Saga at the bottom of this post, but for now, let’s look at the opening prologue where we meet our new heroine, Bex, for the first time.

Prologue

Bex

June 11, 1971

The last thing my mother ever did was beg me to run.

I’d always been a rebellious child. Never doing as I was told. Always causing trouble. And even then, as her final breath crossed her lips, I refused to obey.

Instead, I crouched behind the door, watching through the crack as a woman my mother had once trusted knelt on her back. She looked human enough, but when you looked closer, the edges of her hands blurred into smoke, and the extra dagger at her hip breathed shadow.

My mother struggled and shouted as a man standing next to them yanked my sister Trista’s hand up and placed it on a book that looked older than everyone in the room combined. Something ancient with a gray leather binding and tattered edges.

My eyes searched for a title or identifying mark, but there was none. Not at first.

As he forced my sister’s hand flat against the cover, though, the image of an intricate, curved rune appeared like a flame licking its surface. The man inhaled sharply and then nodded to the woman.

Without hesitation, she slid her blade across my mother’s throat like someone playing a violin.

Elegant and practiced.

I pressed my fists hard against my mouth as hot tears burned a river of sorrow down my cheeks. I couldn’t just stand there and watch. I had to save them.

I eyed the second dagger on this demon’s hip, calculating the distance between us. Could I reach it fast enough?

I was six at the time and small for my age, but I knew how to vanish in a room. How to take a step no one heard.

She’d never see me coming.

But the man? He was fast. He might catch me before I could kill either one of them.

And so what if I died, too? What was the point in living if I was alone?

As the shadow demon stood and walked toward my sister, I knew it was too late. No matter what I did now, they were both gone.

I was too weak to save them.

This was everything she’d taught us to fear. Everything she’d fought to avoid.

This was the reason she’d moved us every few months, never settling in one place long enough to make friends or build a life.

Each night before bed, she’d draw a triangular symbol across our forearms and speak the words that still rang through my memory. Fae words, she’d said once. Words of protection.

But protection from what?

She’d never told us, leaving it for us to find out the hard way that every protection spell had its limits.

As the demon lifted her dagger to my sister’s throat, I had a split second to choose.

Fight and die? Or run and live?

As I watched my mother’s blood flow across the hardwood floor, her emerald eyes held mine through the crack as their light faded forever.

“All of this. It’s worth nothing if you don’t survive,” she’d said to us a thousand times. “Your lives are worth a dozen of mine.”

So that day I chose to live, and I left them both to die.

A Mirror of Shadows releases next Friday, March 27th. I’ll be posting more information throughout the week, and I hope you’ll join me on YouTube 3/27 for a 2-hour special release launch party from 4-6PM Eastern! Details and links coming soon, but if you’re not following me there yet, come subscribe!

So, why this new series instead of the final book of the Shadow Demons Saga?

For a long time, I’ve had the intuition that there was something I still needed to know in order to write that final book. A secret about the world that I needed to uncover. I spent a lot of time just trying to think through it, but I couldn’t quite get to where I wanted it to be, and the characters had seemed to go quiet for a whiole.

But then I realized one day while George (my husband) and I were out for a walk. I still had another story to tell. Something that happened in the world before Harper was even born. As a storyteller, when this idea came to me, I knew that it had to be told before we could finish the rest.

So here we are. It’s not Book 12 yet, but it’s the beginning of our journey back to it so that the ending can be what the series deserves for it to be.

This story doesn’t pick up where Book 11 left off. Like I said, the events of this series happened before Harper was born, though you will see or hear mention of some major characters you recognize along the way.

The Shadow Games takes you somewhere else entirely.

A hidden realm. A set of deadly games. A girl searching for answers about the family she lost.

It’s darker. More dangerous. The Shadow Games opens up a part of this world we’ve never explored before.

If you’ve been here for years, this is a chance to step back into something familiar. The same fast-paced story-telling you’ll see like a movie in your head. The same types of twists and turns. Found family. A new romance at the heart of the story. The same magical world with gemstones, witches, and secrets. Characters I hope you’ll fall in love with the way I have.

If you’re newer to my books, this is a place you can begin even if you haven’t read the Shadow Demons Saga.

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll be sharing more with you here. Some behind-the-scenes, a few sneak peeks, and maybe something extra just for my email readers.

And next Friday, we’ll celebrate together with a live ​launch party on my YouTube channel​ from 4-6PM Eastern with giveaways and some fun together. A Mirror of Shadows will be available at all major ebook retailers, and the paperback will be coming soon after. I’ll send all the links as soon as I have them!

I want to be clear about one thing. Book 12 and the end of the Shadow Demons Saga is in progress again. I won’t promise a timeline, but I’ll just say that I’m actively working on these books again full time. The Shadow Games series isn’t a delay but rather an expansion of the world, giving me the pieces I need to finish the series the way it was always meant to be told.

I know many of you have been waiting several years for me to return to this world, and I’m so excited you’re still here, because The Shadow World isn’t finished yet.

Not even close.