Okay, so technically, this happened yesterday, September 1, 2022, but it took me a few hours to come down out of the clouds and write the post. As of yesterday, Indomitable, Book 1 of The Viceroy Chronicles, was released into the wild. It is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback, with the hardcover edition to follow very soon and the audiobook set to go into production. To say it’s a huge relief is understating it, as this book has been seven years in the making. Yes, seven years.
Seven years from the day, I wondered aloud to my not-yet-husband, “what if there was a talking vampire dog with an impossibly snobby master? And what if they lived in New York, near where we used to live? And then, what if he hired a dog walker who turned out to be special? Do you think that’s too weird a premise for a story?” He said, “No, not at all. It sounds like a great idea for a story.” Then he began to riff on the dog’s master (which is only one of the many reasons I married him). And so, Viceroy, a little tan cairn terrier, and Felix, a half-vampire of particularly discerning sensibilities, were born. From there, it was a short leap To Gracie, the MFC, and Lucy, a reaper. The next dilemma was how to structure the story.
It would have been easy to write it as third-person omniscient. And, in fact, that’s how I started. But It didn’t feel “real enough” to say she, he, they, when each character had insights and plans I felt they needed to articulate for themselves. So I went with multiple POVs. Four, to be precise, though Viceroy, being a dog, only has a couple of chapters. Now multiple POVs are not a popular choice. In fact, some people hate them. I don’t really know what to say about that, except giving each character a voice was the only way I could manage to write the story.
Another reason it took so long to write is that a lot happens. To each character. Though the story starts out feeling very cozy, with Gracie having the first five chapters all to herself, When Felix enters in chapter six, all hell breaks loose, and it doesn’t stop until the end of the book. I give my editor, Kate Angelella, endless credit for never trying to talk me down. She went with the flow and never said a word about how much insanity was happening on the pages. If she had tried to cut some of the insanity, Indomitable would have been a very different book. And while I know that frenetic stories aren’t for everyone, they’re what I like to read best!
So, in the end. Indomitable became a fast-paced urban fantasy, with vampires, reapers, angels, a troll-raiser, a mob-affiliated bagel maker, a witch, a little vampire dog, and a young woman who only want to marry her boyfriend and run a cake truck. And I couldn’t be happier. If this sounds like your kind of crazy, you can get the book on Amazon. And thanks for being here. I’m doing all of this for you! *If you sign up for Amazon Smile, Amazon will donate a portion of your purchase prices to a charity of your choice!
https://smile.amazon.com/Indomitable-Viceroy-Chronicles-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0B8TLSKBP/