Monthly Archives: April 2026

Armies of the Forgotten Lands Out Now!

Posted on by

It’s a launch day!

ARMIES OF THE FORGOTTEN LANDS – Book 5 of the Vanished

It’s out now in electronic form. The paperback will be along shortly. Here’s the quick blurb on it:

Enemies march on Alcort!

Aiden Holt and his allies built the impossible: a free community in the heart of the Frontier, the most monster-haunted wilderness in the known world. Sheltering in an ancient Vault, a fortress full of forgotten magic, the Sparks of Earth have carved a bastion of freedom, hope, and peace in a magical world that would destroy them or put them in chains.

They knew the peace couldn’t last. Now the great powers have found them, and are hungry for the secrets the Vault holds. Wars exact a price. Before this one ends, Aiden will have to decide what—and who—he is willing to sacrifice.

Armies of the Forgotten Lands is Book 5 of The Vanished, a portal fantasy series where Earth’s missing persons didn’t just disappear—they were taken.

So if the above description doesn’t sound familiar to you at all because you haven’t read the series — or if you are a few books behind — I have more good news. The first three eBooks of the series are currently discounted, and will be until the end of the month. (Originally it was only going to be until the 26th, but I have decided to extend it a few more days.)

This is the best time to get into the series. You can grab them here: The Vanished series: now on sale at Amazon!

What’s it about?

Are you familiar with portal fantasies / isekai stories? A person from our world gets transported into another world? Like John Carter going to Barsoom (Mars), or the children going to Narnia?

Now, imagine a world like that, but it is not a one-off event. Maybe dozens of people every year. In our world, they become unexplained disappearances. In this world, they arrive with special powers. Because this happens regularly, and because of their special powers, they are hunted down and enslaved as soon as they arrive, treated as both a national resource and a threat.

This is a fun series to write in, for a couple of reasons. First off, I get to bring real-world unexplained disappearances as characters in this world. D.B. Cooper, Amelia Earhart, and others. But even more interestingly, I get to imagine how this fantasy world would be influenced by a steady trickle of visitors from our world. Visitors who are often treated with suspicion or downright hostility.

It’s been a fun ride so far. I hope you’ll enjoy it with me!

 

 

The Vanished Series on sale now…

Posted on by

The first three books of the Vanished series (Queen of Monsters, Sorcerer of the Ancient Depths, and War-Priests of Kalnath)  are now discounted over at Amazon. If you haven’t started the series yet, this is an awesome opportunity. The sale will continue until the end of the month.

If you are a newsletter subscriber, you already know why:

Armies of the Forgotten Lands, book 5 of the series, is coming out next week. It’s a little delayed due to a couple more writing projects and just the fact that it was a challenging book to write for several reasons. But it’s finally out, and Book 6 isn’t that far off, arriving later this year.

I have been a big fan of portal fantasies since I was a kid, and even the Blood Creek series has portals to an alternate West Virginia. In this case, I asked a question: What if being transported to another world wasn’t a unique event? What if it had been happening for hundreds or thousands of years, and some of the stories of people vanishing without a trace were actually getting transported to another world? How would a constant trickle of people from all over Earth influence this other world?

My answer is in this fantasy novel series, starting with Queen of Monsters. Anyway, I hope you like them!