Good evening, all! First up, the question I know many folks will ask: yes, the new Daniel Faust novel IS on the way. The final draft is in Kira's hands, undergoing the last round of edits, and as soon as she's done it'll be unleashed upon the world. I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting, but I hope you'll agree that the final results were worth it.
The next Harmony Black adventure is underway, too; I'm writing the first draft right now.
But today I have an unexpected surprise (unexpected even by me at first -- to make a very long story short, this wasn't supposed to happen for a few months yet, but a happy accident made it possible.) Any Minor World, my first new release in nearly a year, is out right now! Yep, I stealth-released this one. I like to keep y'all on your toes. The ebook is out now, the paperback should be available by tomorrow night, and the audiobook version will hopefully be in production soon. What's it about? Here's the pitch:
"For Roy Mackey -- a recovering addict who makes his living as an unlicensed PI and occasional muscle for hire -- tracking down a dead writer's final manuscript should be a walk in the park. Too bad his client is a phony, the dead writer is a thief, and shadowy men are watching his every move. All clues lead to a canceled pulp-adventure comic, The Midnight Jury, and its mousy, reclusive author. Lucy Langenkamp is living a quiet life as an art restorer in Las Vegas; when Roy helps her escape from a crew of armed kidnappers, she's as baffled as he is.
Then one of her own characters, a flamethrower-wielding "human exterminator," steps out of the pages of her comic book and into the real world. He's intent on hunting her down, and he isn't alone. The pulp villains spawned from Lucy's childhood imagination are coming to life, searching for their long-lost author. Her most sinister creation, the Illustrated Duke, has a dark plan in motion.
This is a job for Lucy's two-fisted vigilante, the Midnight Jury. But the Jury is missing. To save the day, Lucy and Roy must descend into a noir-drenched nightmare city on a rescue mission. The walls between fiction and reality are shattered, there's wild magic in the air, and it's up to two unlikely heroes to risk it all and save the day."
(Oh, for the Faust readers...remember Chapter Tangerine, the weird and brief parallel-world jaunt from The Locust Job? Hint, hint. Several of you said you wanted to see more of that place, and so did I, so here we are. The story itself is a standalone piece with new characters.)
I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited, nervous, hopeful, grateful...but most of all, I'm back. And now I'm getting back to work. Can't keep Harmony and Jessie waiting.