Tim Frankovich

Finally, finally, finally! You would not believe all the behind-the-scenes stuff that has gone on for the past few months to get this done. Unbelievable. HUGE, HUGE THANKS to the wonderful Tremani Sutcliffe for stepping in and creating the special art for this cover. Check out her epic fantasy art here.

But now, here at last is the cover for Chroma, the final book of the Dragontek Lore series:

The danger from outside The Circle may be greater than any of the dragons Beryl and his friends have faced so far. Chroma, mother of dragons, is at work.

But can Beryl deal with that problem while the last and deadliest dragon, his former friend Onyx, still roams? And the draconic claiming to be the dragon Viridia reborn is plotting something sinister as well.

This triple threat sets the stage for the spectacular conclusion to the Dragontek Lore series. It all ends here for Beryl and friends. But will they emerge unscathed? Or even alive?

Pre-orders are now available!

After a flurry of publication in 2022-23, 2024 was… not so busy. I was in a serious writing slump for most of the first half of the year, but things picked up the last few months.

I started the year having just finished the first draft of Wolf Chosen(which didn’t even have a title at that point!). I worked hard on edits and rewrites to prepare for its launch in May.

I spent all of the rest of the year tinkering with Chroma, the final book of the Dragontek Lore series. But I wasn’t getting very far.

Finally, as I’ve detailed in previous newsletters, I took a writing retreat in September. After that, I was able to focus much better. I completed Chroma and made plans for the next two books.

I’ve done the edits and revisions to Chroma since then, and it’s ready to go now (more on that in the next section). At the same time, I started writing the third (and final) book in The Certainty of Blood. I’m about 20% through the first draft right now. I took off a few days during the Christmas break, but I’m back to it now.

My record words in a year came back in 2021 with over 500,000 written. I haven’t gotten near that since. In 2022, I was on track for 300,000, but injured my hand in October. For the past two years, I’ve only written around 120,000. That’s enough to keep things going, especially since I built up such a backlog in 2021-22. But it’s not enough to meet my own standards. Which leads us to 2025…

First up is the long-awaited publication of Chroma. Unfortunately, I can’t say the exact date it’s arriving now. As you know, I postponed it to January 14, but… I don’t have a cover. I’m experiencing communication problems with my cover artist. But as soon as that’s resolved, I can schedule everything for sure. The book itself is ready to go.

I’m aiming for at least 250,000 words written this year, and hoping for more like 300,000. Here’s how that will break down:

I still have about 100,000 words left to go in the current book (The Certainty of Blood, book 3). My target publication for this one is early June.

After that, I’ll be working on a… somewhat secret project (though if you’ve been following me online, you might have discovered it). That book will be at least 100,000, and I’m hoping to have it published by October.

I’m currently undecided on which book I’ll be working on after that, but there are multiple possibilities. Whatever it ends up being, I should be able to easily write 50-100,000 words of it before the end of the year.

I say all this with no knowledge of what else might happen, of course. Things can and do change, as is evidenced by the past couple of years.