Book Three is Coming

After six years of false starts, a mess of abandoned drafts, and plenty of tears, I'm pleased to announce:

The Lost Diamond of Skywallow will be released on November 1, 2026. 🎉

The audiobook is scheduled to follow in December 2026. 🎉

If you'd like to support the book before it's out, please add it to your 'want to read' list on Goodreads. ☺️ You'll be able to bookmark it on Bookbub after it's published.

Note! There are no buy links on the book page yet - those will magically appear November 1st.

It's been a long, hard road

Way back in 2016, my then-13-year-old son and I sat in the front room of our new house and continued firming up plot ideas for a book series we'd begun talking about two years earlier. At the time, his favorite books included the Percy Jackson Series, the Five Kingdoms Series, and The Seven Realms Series. (Kit's jumping spear is my son's homage to Cole's jumping sword from the Five Kingdom's series!)

We talked about the things he liked (cool weapons and talismans and extra magic abilities) and didn't like (main characters who took too long to master their new skills). His other main pet peeve? Villains who were villains for no good reason. Like his mom, he liked a good bad guy backstory.

We made the first rough plan for five books built around five missing rulers and unique gemstones. And some time that summer, I started writing.

Book one went through about a million different drafts over the next four years. I'd been writing books every year during NaNoWriMo for a decade, but felt like I still had a lot to learn. (And I did!) But even so, I think I might still be editing and rewriting that same book today without my husband supporting me and (gently but firmly) pushing me toward publication.

When I started querying book one, I received two publication offers: one small and one that was pretty exciting and worth considering. Most people probably would have accepted the latter offer without hesitation, but we were huge weirdos, in case you didn't already know.

My husband read through the contracts and told me he thought we should publish independently. His reasoning was simple: together, we'd already built and run successful businesses. Why should books be any different?

He painted such a lovely picture: He'd handle everything else so I could focus on the things I loved: worldbuilding and writing.

So we took the leap

He really meant he'd handle everything. Even while juggling our other business, he managed budgets, taxes, advertising, launch plans, distribution, contracts, rights management, and all the millions of other little details that go into an independent publishing venture.

He kept me functioning as well. He ran the household while I disappeared on writing retreats, brought me snacks while I was lost in revisions, read countless drafts, and helped me wrangle my ADHD brain (long before I was diagnosed).

By the time I was writing book two, we had it down to a rhythm, and I was able to launch The Lost Sapphire of Azure Isle much quicker.

When he died on November 26, 2020, I lost the love of my life, my best friend, and a stable and steady business partner. And I lost the one person who knew how all the back end, behind-the-scenes stuff for Vona Stewart worked.

For years, I'd get emails from readers asking when book three would be available, and I'd have to go lie down on the floor with a cold compress on my forehead for a while. I didn't know how to explain that it was so much more than just finishing the book.

Yes, there was deep mourning and awful grief-induced writer's block, but there was also the overwhelming realization that everything my husband had planned to handle was suddenly my responsibility.

And while I'm finally finished writing the long-awaited book three, I'm still overwhelmed by the business side of things and probably will be for a while.

I do, thankfully, know a lot about running businesses and it's not that I can't do it on my own, just not what I signed up for and it's all tangled up in ever-present grief.

It's going to be tough, and probably a little messy. I know I won't run as polished a publishing operation without my husband's help. But this entire series has been rattling around in my head since 2016 and it needs to come out. (That 13-year-old who helped me brainstorm it all will be 23 soon, and is still rooting for me, bless him.)

I never gave up (just kidding, I gave up dozens upon dozens of times)

The original plan was always five books (plus a prequel), and present-day-me would like to have some very strong words with past-me for planning a series instead of simple stand-alone books! But for the first time in years, I can see the path to the finish line.

There's still plenty of work ahead. Instead of a glossy ad campaign, I'm relying on word-of-mouth, begging readers to take the time to leave reviews (they seriously help so much!), and I'm carrying a lot of sunk costs while I get books four and five finished and published.

But there's time enough for handwringng! Today, we celebrate.

Book 3 of the Shadow Sovereign Series, The Lost Diamond of Skywallow is finally coming. And that is a big freaking deal. Thank you so much for being here!