I am super excited to be reading at Barrow's Intense Tasting Room in Brooklyn on April 18 at 7pm! The Rooftop Readings series -- currently indoors and not on a rooftop due to, you know, THE COLD -- is organized by the super awesome debut novelist and super-talented entertainment journalist Randee Dawn. This reading will also feature Nadia Uddin, Richie Narvaez, and Katharine Duckett!

Barrow's is at 86th 34th Street, Brooklyn, NY (D train to 36th Avenue, then about a 5 minute walk). You DO NOT NEED TO PURCHASE A TICKET to attend, but if you'd like a drink while you're listening, please make sure to snap one up for $10 at Eventbrite. Which honestly? A cocktail in Brooklyn for $10? What a deal! Nevermind the entertainment! Purchase a ticket here: https://buff.ly/3G9ZVEZ and learn more about the Rooftop Reading Series here: https://buff.ly/3Mq63wT

Yes, this is basically my springtime promo blog tour for Wings Unfurled, and I cannot wait to share this sequel with East Coast epic fantasy fans! SF in SF went great, and now NYC will get its own taste of this book. And I'll get to taste Barrow's Intense Ginger Liquor, and honestly, I'm probably just as excited for that.

I'm looking forward to raising a glass with you, Brooklynites!

Don't forgot! Tomorrow, I appear at SF in SF for the second time, to celebrate Wings Unfurled! This reading series takes place on Sunday, March 26, at 6:30pm at the American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco. There's a $10 entry fee, but no one is turned away for lack of funds.

After our readings, Cliff Winning will interview me and fellow guest, Mia Tsai, who's promoting her paranormal debut Bitter Medicine. We’ll be taking questions from the audience as well, and Soma FM will be recording the event for their station. Come grab a seat and ask me whatever you’d like. Even what my characters would pick as their favorite cocktails. 🍹 All proceeds from the $10 entry fee and the cash bar are donated to the American Bookbinders Museum.

See you there!

Today's Blog Tour review of Wings Unfurled is glowing! Thanks to Monty's Book Reviews for sharing their thoughts. Here's a snippet:

"An enthralling story told from three separate viewpoints which are skillfully woven into a free flowing narrative that keeps the reader's interest throughout. The characters are both interesting and flawed which endears them to you as the story progresses and ensures that a vested interest in their future is maintained. "

Read the full review at https://montysbookreviews.blogspot.com/.../wings-unfurled... and find an excerpt from Chapter 3, the silver moon's first POV chapter! Have you entered the Meerkat Press Wings Unfurled prize drawing yet? Only four days left to enter....

And here's today's contextless quote from Wings Unfurled:

He wilted, a vine in the sun. Alive, but with too much taken from him.

Today, on the Wings Unfurled Blog Tour, you can visit Ali Lucia Sky's blog, where I answer "What’s The Worst Writing Advice You’ve Ever Received?" It's a claim I've heard many times, from many writers, but one that lacks the nuance that newer writers need to hear, in my humble opinion.

You'll also find an excerpt of Chapter 1 in the book! This comes from Serra's point-of-view, and she's at Castle Callyn for the first time in quite a while....and for reasons she needs to report to King Dever right away.

Don't forget to also visit the Meerkat Press masterpost to enter our $50 giftcard prize drawing! And now for today's contextless quote from Wings Unfurled.

“I heard the Green Lady was building a new glass house, so I came with my hammer and thought to help.”

In slightly under an hour, I'll be hosting SFWA's Weekly Writing Date!

These writing dates are one of the primary ways that a core group of SFWA members and Nebula Conference attendees have kept in touch over the past pandemic years, providing community while taking part in writing sprints together. I've only been able to join a few times, and I'm delighted to host the week of Wings Unfurled's release!

I'm also excited to dive into some freewriting - my skills are rusty these days, and writing dates are a wonderful way to exercise them. For me, freewrites really loosen my imagination, so I can better grasp the stories my psyche wants to tell.

If you're a SFWA member or Nebula Conference participant, come join me from 2pm to 4pm! Details here.

And here's a contextless quote from Wings Unfurled for release week!

Vesperi rarely spoke of her brother, and when she did, it came coupled with a curse.

Today's Wings Unfurled Book Tour Blog Stop is at TKentWrites.com! I'd like to think them for hosting my short post on "Psychoanalyze This! Please?" in which I talk about my dislike of the idea that all authors' work are autobiographical in some form . . . while also wondering if maybe some of the symbols and images that fascinate me do have deeper meaning for my life and I just don't know it! Read it here:

http://www.tkentwrites.com/psychoanalyze-this-please-by-rebecca-gomez-farrell/

Also be sure to swing by Meerkat Press's Wings Unfurled Blog Tour masterpost to enter their $50 giftcard prize drawing! There are not quite 100 entries yet, so now's a great time to get your name in there. Good luck!

As promised, here is a line from Wings Unfurled, with no context. I'm sharing one each day we have a new blog tour post to feature.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to come help you folks, but that was a jolly good time.”

See you for tomorrow's blog post feature!

Release Day is here! Or rather, release day has already come and is almost gone and I'm just now getting to a post on my own blog to mark it—it's been busy, y'all! Busy in a good way.

I am thrilled to report that whatever snafu Amazon had going on is now resolved, and you can order both paperback and ebook copies of Wings Unfurled through them again. But of course, they are also availabile at all the usual suspects of online vendors! Here are your options:

Bookshop.org Barnes & Noble Meerkat Press Amazon Apple Books Kobo

And I believe it may be on Google Books now as well. As the author, it does not make a difference to me which one you order from, but ordering straight from my publisher, Meerkat Press, is best for supporting this awardwinning, quality small press!

I would also love to invite you all to my Wings Unfurled Book Launch Party on Sunday, December 18, at 4:30pm Pacific Time! This will be a Zoom-based event, and my husband will present me with AI "art" he has generated from passages in the book, which will be a fun show-and-tell. I'll also be giving away two sets of the Wings Rising duology, so if you do not have Wings Unseen already, this is a great chance to get signed copies of both books for free! After the prize drawing, it'll be a casual hangout time for friends and friendly readers. Register here to join.

Of course, there is also a new port of call on the Wings Unfurled Book Blog Tour today! Head by the Speculative Fiction Showcase to read Chapter 3, the first one from a brand-new character's perspective: Esye, the silver moon. Don't forget to enter the $50 giftcard prize drawing at the end of the piece!

As promised, I'll leave you with a line from the book:

“I’ll be right back, or someone else will, okay, Izzy? Don’t go far.” “Okay,” she said. How far could she go during a right back, she wondered.

And here's how I celebrated Wings Unfurled's publication, with one of my favorite things...a crab roll!

May your successes be as tasty! I look forward to sharing more exciting Wings Unfurled news with you tomorrow.

Along with a new book publication comes a new blog book tour!

I invite you to take a tour of a number of different book-based blogs over the next two works for interviews with me, excerpts from Wings Unfurled, posts on various writerly topics, and book reviews! A new blog will post a new piece each day from now until December 16! And what's more....

Meerkat Press is giving away a $50 gift card at the end of the tour! At any of the featured blog posts or at Meerkat's master schedule of the blog tour, you can find the giveaway form to complete. So far, we only have 26 entries, so your chances are high!

Today's book tour blog post features more book recommendations from me!

Check out "Five Book Series Where Women Wield the Power" at BigIndieBooks.com for recommendations of more recent book series I've read that explore the power of women in the narrative, just like I do in the Wings Rising series. And....enter that $50 gift card raffle while you're there!

I'm going to share a teaser quote from the book with each new post on my own blog these next two weeks. Here's today's:

Once before in her life, Vesperi had felt this thoroughly at sea, when she’d held her father’s corpse, drained of all life and matter.

When I wake tomorrow, I will be the author of two published books! Life goals achieved! I hope you enjoy following Vesperi, Serra, and Janto as they pursue they own in this next stage of our Lansera adventure.

Over at Shepherd, which is a newish website to help shepherd readers toward their next favorite books, I compiled a list of books that impress me with their sometimes poetic, sometimes beautifully figurative, prose: The Best Speculative Fiction Books with Lyrical Prose.

My choices:

This list is heavily informed by my love of African American literature (this was my Modern Literature focus in college) and my willingness to follow gorgeous imagery anywhere, anytime. Feel free to ask me more about any of my choices; I'm happy to gush.

I also mention in the article that I'm preceded by THREE GENERATIONS(!) of poets on my mother's side. Thanks to my mom, my grandfather William Parker, and my great-grandfather William Lee Popham for that legacy!

Wishing you some great new lyrical prose favorites! If you like my work, you may also want to check out the Shepherd list of Ominously Atmospheric Stories for Winter's Night for suggestons, as Wings Unfurled does have a good share of its own haunting. Also take a gander at their new Magicians (Fantasy) shelf on their bookshelves.

At the Speculative Fiction Showcase blog, Jessica Rydill shares a nice interview with me on a number of topics, many of them related to Wings Unfurled.

I love when interviews actually focus on the books themselves - most folks want to know more about the writing process than the story, so it was refreshing to take a deeper dive into the world on the page. Learn what headspaces the characters are in at the beginning of the work, my future writing plans, and even why my replicator order is "Absinthe verte, one cube."

Be sure to read it here! Thanks to Jessica for the opportunity.

I am delighted to share that you can now pre-order Wings Unfurled. Officially Book 2 of the Wings Rising series, Wings Unfurled releases on December 6, just a little over a month from now. Just in time for those holiday gifts, right? *wink wink nudge nudge*

The print version is $18.95 and the ebook is $8.95.

At the Meerkat Press listing page for the book, you can see all the ordering options. But if there’s one thing authors know, it’s that we should give you direct ordering links to your favorite service whenever possible! So here they are:

• Amazon Print
• Amazon Ebook
• Barnes & Noble Print
• Barnes & Noble Ebook
• Kobo
• Meerkat Press

You can also order it from your fave local bookstore!

Now, the first question you’re going to ask me is which vendor should you buy it from so that I get the most royalties? The answer is honestly that I get the same royalties no matter where you buy it from. But if you’d like to support my publisher, then ordering directly from Meerkat Press is best.

The second question is “So, what's it about, Becca?” Well, here’s the backcover blurb!

The vicious claren that used to plague the reunited countries of Medua and Lansera are long gone. So what are the new dark patches appearing in Lady Serra's second sight?

She rushes to King Albrecht to report the danger, only to discover that he's ailing and Vesperi, Prince Janto's wife, has fled far to the north to grieve her disappeared daughter.

Vesperi still wields the silver flame, possesses all the authority she's ever wanted, but nothing can heal the wound of a missing child. When the silver moon Esye begins to fade, a gnawing fear preys on her for the first time since she escaped her father's cold rule.

Ominous creatures once thought mythical are now rampaging through the countryside. Janto sends Serra to investigate. But without her friendship and Vesperi's love, he fears he cannot slay this challenge. He failed to find his own daughter, after all.

To save the Lanserim, the legendary bird with three heads must fly again. Will Janto, Vesperi, and Serra find the strength to raise it? Or will this menace, with the might to drain a moon, devour them first?

I hope that gets you excited to read about the new adventures and challenges Vesperi, Janto, and Serra face, six years after the events of Wings Unseen. I also shared a geeky writer note on book structure with my newsletter subscribers this past weekend, so I'm going ot share it with everyone now: I didn’t know that Wings Unfurled’s organization would so closely follow Wing Unseen’s when I started writing it, but I’m delighted that it worked out that way. Wings Unseen is laid out in two parts: The Breeding Season and The Culling. Wings Unfurled also has two parts: Moonfall and Moonrise. Two stanzas of prophetic prophesy are also very important to both plots! Here’s a teaser of the first two lines of the new prophecy from Wings Unfurled:

When leaps the mighty cantalere the dark brother drains his foes.

Uncover the rest of that prophecy and what it portends for the Lanserim by preordering now!

I am so delighted to announce that Wings Unfurled, the sequel to my epic fantasy novel Wings Unseen, will be coming out in 2022! Meerkat Press will publish the sequel, just as they did Wings Unseen. Here’s their official announcement of the upcoming publication.

Some of you may remember that I wrote Wings Unseen as a standalone novel. Or rather, I first dreamed of it as a trilogy in the early 2000s, but by the time I seriously started writing it, in 2009, the going advice was that a first-time novelist couldn’t get a multi-book deal. So I shifted gears, focusing on writing the full story in one book instead. That made for a much tighter narrative, but by the time I began shopping the manuscript around, the collective wisdom in speculative fiction was back to recommending series of books as the best bet for a writer, first-time or established!

Luckily, Meerkat Press took the risk on Wings Unseen as a standalone book, and I’ve always been happy that I could tell people that the story is complete in and of itself.

Such a shiny, pretty debut novel![/caption]

But after its release, my publisher, Tricia Meeks, the driving force behind Meerkat, mentioned that she’d be interested in a second book. So of course the wheels of a new story for Janto, Vesperi, and Serra began turning!

My wheels don’t turn very fast. Wings Unseen was published in 2017, and I didn’t begin writing Wings Unfurled in earnest until October 2019. Yet somehow, I managed to send off the manuscript’s third draft for consideration by Meerkat in March 2020, and they purchased it! That’s the fastest I have ever written a book, for sure – faster than I’ve written most short stories, to be honest. I’m definitely someone who puts manuscripts aside for a while, letting time do the solving of plot puzzles before coming back with fresh eyes.

So what’s Wings Unfurled about? Well, I’m not going to spoil it, but it begins about six years after Janto, Vesperi, and Serra have rid Lansera and its formerly Meduan lands of the invisible plague of claren and the thrall of the Guj. I won’t tell you more than that for now – except to tease that there’s a fourth, and briefly a fifth, new point-of-view character in the book. Not a pigeon this time! But rest assured, there are plenty of feathers left to lash in Lansera.

I'll be dropping hints about Wings Unfurled along the way to its publication, leaving you a tasty trail to follow until then. Maybe I'll even share a recipe for the lemon cakes that Janto, and another family member, so loves! Waits are always easier to endure when there's a snack.

That image is of Pittsburgh's Grandview Bakery's almond cupcakes - NOT Mar Pina's lemon cakes in Lansera, but not far off from what I imagine...