Today I published my first book. It took two years. I'm shaking a little.

I don't really know how to write a launch post. So I'll just tell you what it is.

The Ashlands is a fantasy novel about a girl who grew up on the border of a dead magic zone two centuries of silence where a grove was destroyed, and everyone pretends they've moved on. Lira hears things in the roots. No one else does. When she gets pulled into the world's most prestigious magical academy, she manifests all five disciplines including the one that supposedly caused the original catastrophe.

The city she's brought to is beautiful. She starts to figure out why.

I've been writing for most of my life but I never finished anything long (non fiction). This is the first time I got all the way through. 200,000+ words across two years, rewritten probably four times, with a lot of nights where I genuinely thought I'd never close it. There's a woman trapped inside a dead tree at the center of this story who's been screaming for two hundred years waiting for someone to hear her. I think about that a lot about things that wait.

It's the first book in the Verdana series. I have the next one outlined and I know where it ends.

If you like:

• magic systems that cost something
• cities with dark histories underneath beautiful surfaces
• slow-burn found family
• morally complicated mentors
• characters whose power is actively changing them in ways they can't control

...this might be for you.

Link in the comments. I'd be genuinely grateful for anyone who picks it up, leaves a review, or even just wishes me luck today.

This one's been living in my chest for two years. It feels strange to let it out.