S.J. Parker

"Malrik knew the number because he had counted each one." Ten days through the high passes, eleven men lost to the cold. A general the Duchy cast out and forgot about, and the most careful accountant in the book. The War in the North. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"She made good decisions under pressure. She made the same good decisions when she was exhausted." Not the most talented officer in Book One. The most consistent. The War in the North. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"He said nothing, and that silence said everything." Roberto doesn't plot. He doesn't raise his voice. He declines to speak, while the calculation behind his eyes is already running. Omission, not conspiracy. Footprints in the North. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Two men in a council chamber, counting the same decision differently. Roberto counts the cost of being wrong. Baron Dennison counts the cost of being right. One line, and it's the better half of the argument. Footprints in the North. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"The bad news is we're out of that trail bread." A quartermaster in hostile country reports the rice, the salt beef and the hunting levelly. The thing his face falls over is the bread. Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Friday....long week in the day job. But a weekend of worldbuilding is ahead, always a fun job, fleshing out structures of places, new characters, plot lines, rivalries and all the fun stuff, before forcing myself back to another round of edits :-) Have a good weekend all!

"Twelve years she kept that fire lit. Never missed a night." Then the Duchy closed the station, and Vedra's sister walked south with "a letter of thanks from a clerk who couldn't spell her name." Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"Nils mapped the world the way other people breathed. Constantly, without deciding to." A clan mark on the western trail, old but maintained. He copies it down, because he copies everything. Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"The trees are listening," Tonia said. An hour watching the treeline before anyone speaks to her. Then the line that makes the whole exchange: "Vedra didn't argue." Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"Plans don't survive the North." Dawn at the city gate, and Cel is the one who stays. He doesn't say be careful. They've both been soldiers too long for that to mean anything. Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"Or he'll learn. Same thing, at that age." Hugo gets eleven words while the patrol is being chosen, and you know exactly what kind of soldier he is. Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"The North has been silent for too long, and silence has a habit of meaning something." Liam Adair does not go north. He is the man who decides somebody has to. Footprints in the North. Start here. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Finished the novella? Here is what you are standing at the start of. They got the warning south. The War in the North is what happens when it arrives, while the Duchy is still arguing about whether it is real. Book One. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

A burned farmstead, and a gatepost worth stopping for. Three sets of marks, cut into the same post. Clan script. Duchy writing. Goblin runes. They torched the farm, then sat down together in the ashes. Not a raid. A council fire. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Eight people go north. It is not really about the army they find. It is about a patrol sharing bread and arguing about who hums when they are nervous. Seven shadows where there had been eight. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

The antagonist of these books is not a dark lord. He is a reasonable man with a ledger. It was a reasonable argument. That was what made it dangerous. The opening scene of Footprints in the North. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Start here: Footprints in the North. Eight people ride north to find out why the beacon towers have gone dark. Somewhere in it, a promise gets made that Book One spends its entire length keeping. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Four books now, and the same question every time: where do I start? The War in the North. Book one. That's the whole answer. Footprints is what you go back for afterwards, when you want more of the world. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Roads run both ways. And whatever is waiting on the other side of this one has been watching it climb, all season, from below. What the Mountain Kept — out now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

Tomorrow. What the Mountain Kept — a Chronicles of Sui-Denas novella. Pre-order now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

Readers keep reaching for the same names. 🏔️ "If you like John Gwynne you'll like this." "Great for fans of LOTR or Game of Thrones." Their words, not ours — go and read them yourself. The Chronicles of Sui-Denas → sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

"So you tell me what's up there that's bad enough to put the thing everything runs from on the run." What the Mountain Kept — 1 August. Pre-order now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

Today's words..... "Timeline" and "You've broken it again Steve..." it's so easy to forget the bigger picture when you're in the zone throwing down words on the page!

Off the edge of the maps. 🏔️ In The Far Watch, the land does what the maps say — for a morning. Then it stops. Because the maps stop. The Chronicles of Sui-Denas, out now. amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H4RJMV4W 💙📚 #BookSky

Few beers in the pub...oh lets crack on with a few scenes, get some prose laid down, a few edits, tomorrow Steve can sort it...committed five scenes and 20 edits to the DB....good luck tomorrow Steve! :-D

The lad tells the story of the stone four times tonight. The shovel rings a little louder each time he gets to the good part. Nobody stops him. What the Mountain Kept — 1 August. Pre-order now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

The Duchy of Valbena — the realm's northern shield. 🏔️ The last duchy before the mountains, where the maps run out and the watch begins. Everything south of it sleeps easier because Valbena does not. The world of the Chronicles of Sui-Denas → sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

He did not say the name. He did not need to. 🏔️ "Last time we ranged out this far, it was to carry a boy home." Hugo has served long enough to know what the north costs. The Far Watch, Book Two, out now → amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H4RJMV4W 💙📚 #BookSky

A slide is not a wall you take down. Seventy years reading stone. One season to open the pass. What the Mountain Kept — 1 August. Pre-order now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

Six ride north. 🏔️ Garn reads the ground at a canter; Vedra takes the high lines and says less; Tonia watches a country by its exits; Hugo rides at the back and watches them all. The scouts of The Far Watch, Book Two. Out now → amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H4RJMV4W 💙📚 #BookSky

Four hundred people walking north up a frozen road. The officer in charge does not make speeches. He counts heads. And when the carts are full, he gives them his horse and walks. The War in the North — Chapter 7. sui-denas.com/go/series 💙📚 #BookSky #ChroniclesOfSuiDenas

Their captain is north, beyond a barred pass. Asher is an engineer. He can open a road toward it. What the Mountain Kept — a Sui-Denas novella. 1 August. Pre-order now. sui-denas.com/book/what-the-mountain-kept 💙📚 #BookSky

Different authors write at different speeds. Even one author's pace can vary. I know peers who think I write quickly, but I didn't write anything for several months this year thanks to my lungs trying to kill me. I beg everyone to give themselves--and others--grace.

Editing chapter 5 and you find a timeline wrinkle...that starts from chapter 1...what was the cause? A character with a life of his own making me go off-plan as I was writing a scene....these things feel alive sometimes, I swear!

The Kingdom of Suralis — beyond the pass, off the edge of every southern map. 🏔️ "Not empty. Held. Lived in, and worked, and walked, by people who had set their boundary on this slope before Black Hollow had a name." The world of the Chronicles of Sui-Denas. 💙📚 #BookSky

Wear the watch. 🏔️ The Chronicles of Sui-Denas, off the page — the rider seal on your chest, and "We don't hold grudges. We hold axes." on the back. Tee + mug → sui-denas.com/shop 💙📚 #BookSky

Writing the books is the fun bit, writing marketing content, scheduling it, posting it, keeping up with it and constantly feeding the machine that you never quite know is working or not...is not fun. Keep at it you crazy Indie Author types! #BookSky #IndieAuthor

Hear the north. 🎧 The War in the North — Book One of the Chronicles of Sui-Denas — read aloud. "If you don't know where your feet are, you don't know where you are." Own the audiobook DRM-free at sui-denas.com, or stream on Spotify. 💙📚 #BookSky

Men laid this road before the north was shut. Nobody south of the mountain remembers why. 💙📚 #BookSky #ChroniclesOfSuiDenas

Footprints in the North — the way into the Chronicles of Sui-Denas — is now wherever you read. 🏔️ On Apple Books & Kobo as well as Amazon, plus audio on Spotify (or DRM-free direct). Start here → sui-denas.com/book/footprints-in-the-north 💙📚 #BookSky

Of all the comparisons a reader could reach for, Rosemary Sutcliff is the one we never expected — and the one we'd have chosen. "That powerful sense of place and people." We'll take that. 💙📚 #BookSky #ChroniclesOfSuiDenas

"Gemmell without the weirdness... Rosemary Sutcliff's powerful sense of place and people." A reader, last week. He thanked us for what the book hasn't got: no chosen teenager, no ancient prophecy, no supernatural. sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky #ChroniclesOfSuiDenas

Note to self....helps if you turned on newsletter new subscriber notifications....I thought I had zero folks subbed...turns out there is quite a few....!

Five stars, over and over — and nearly every review of The War in the North asks the same thing: when's Book Two? 🏔️ It's here. The Far Watch, Book Two of the Chronicles of Sui-Denas, is out now. amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H4RJMV4W 💙📚 #BookSky

Hear the north. 🎧 Footprints in the North — the prequel where the Chronicles of Sui-Denas begins — is now an audiobook. "…like forgotten promises." Start here, on Spotify or DRM-free at sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Hear the north. 🎧 The War in the North — Book One of the Chronicles of Sui-Denas — is now an audiobook. "…an army out of the north." Stream on Spotify or own it DRM-free at sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Furiously working away on edits to Book 3, when it comes into my head...hang on, you've enough "in between" book 2 and 3 material that probably makes a novella to "bridge"...that was not in the plan, do i pivot and make this thing, or plough on and get book 3 out the door?

30c in my study, attempting to get line edits done in this heat is not a pleasant process.........!

Hear the north. 🎧 The Chronicles of Sui-Denas is now an audiobook trilogy — Footprints, The War in the North and The Far Watch, narrated cover to cover. Stream on Spotify or own them DRM-free → sui-denas.com 💙📚 #BookSky

Three books, one saga. 🏔️ The Chronicles of Sui-Denas — start at the very beginning with Footprints in the North, then The War in the North, then Book Two, The Far Watch, out now. amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H4RJMV4W 💙📚 #BookSky