Fantasy

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

2025 ends tonight, and we’re not sorry it’s over. I’d escort it to the door and kick it out if I could. This past year was an emotional rollercoaster for us and our scribe. I hope 2025 was kinder to you.

(This is Ran, Sarn’s son in case you forgot. Find us in the Curse Breaker series and also in this week’s preview. My scribe is Melinda Kucsera, and she will give me lots of page time in 2026 because I was really good character in 2025, and I deserve it!)

So what happened in 2025?

Let’s start with the good stuff, and by that, I mean book stuff!

  1. Melinda finished Chaos Rises and Catch the Scribe. She started both books in 2024.

On Monday, I brought you the first chapter of Catch the Scribe.)

Melinda started and finished writing in 2025:

  • Book Battles
  • Rogue Characters
  • Storm Spells
  • Void Spells

(Chaos Risesis out now, the other 5 new books are launching in our kickstarter as soon as we get the proof copies in our hot little hands.)

  • Melinda started but has not yet finished Curse Breaker Jousts.

When I asked why she hasn’t finished a book she started back in 2012 after attending the NY Renaissance Fair, Melinda said she had to write a whole new beginning.

So I said, “that’s no excuse. You’ve wanted to do this story for 13 years. Why aren’t you writing like crazy at all hours of the day and night?”

Melinda said something about “family obligations and chores don’t do themselves.”

She might be mad at me. So if I don’t get tons of page time in that book, you know why. But I’m sure I’ll get plenty since the plot revolves around my dad and I stick to him like glue.

If you want to read Curse Breaker Jousts right now, you can! The first 4 chapters are posted on Substack and Patreon.

In honor of the New Year, we unlocked chapter 1 of Curse Breaker Jousts so everyone can read it for free on either platform:

That’s our gift to you. Chapters 5-8 are coming, starting tomorrow because New Years Day isn’t a recognized holiday in our world, so we’ll be working!

Melinda will be writing our story and trying to get us to that joust so we can face War, the second Rider of the Apocalypse. No pressure.

Back our list of the highs and lows of 2025.

  • In April, the new owners made our scribe redundant and told her she would be let go on Jan 16, 2026.
  • But on the last day of August, they reversed that decision and offered her a job, so that’s both a high and a low since Melinda spent about 4 months working out what to do in January 2026 and worrying about finding a job.
  • Melinda ran two Kickstarters in 2025 and the support meant a lot since both took place during that period of uncertainty. Thank you to everyone who backed those projects.

We like sending ebooks and physical books to people and imagining the joy they feel when they receive their books. So we’ll definitely be doing more of that in 2026!

  • We rescued our scribe a lot in 2025, and she wrote about it Catch the Scribe, Book Battles, Rogue Characters, Storm Spells, and Void Spells. You can read all about that when the kickstarter for those books launches in a few weeks:

The proof copies have printed but they aren’t in the mail yet. So we can’t set the official launch date yet. The Kickstarter could kickoff as early as Jan. 12 or as late as Jan. 26.

At some point between those two dates, we’ll have the proof copies and have corrected all our digital mockups to match them or have replaced all our mockups with actual photos and be ready to hit the launch button.

So that’s the good parts of 2025.

The Low Points of 2025

  • Melinda had to say goodbye to people she worked with for more than 10 years when groups were laid off in April and September.

Another group, which includes the rest of her team, is slated to be let go on January 16, and the last group will depart in June. So there are still more tearful goodbyes to come.

  • Losing access to our Amazon account including our publisher account and then regaining access only for their bots to terminate the account.

That’s a really tough one since Melinda published our first book on Amazon in 2016 and this coming fall marks 10 years of curse breaking magical mayhem for us.

There’s still no news about Amazon yet. No one has replied to our scribe’s emails, and we are making peace with the fact that we may never get the account back or the ability to publish on Amazon.

I hope I’m wrong about that, but I am pushing my scribe to make plans that do not include Amazon just in case. I’ll keep you updated.

  • The one year anniversary of the death of Melinda’s father.

You never got to meet him, but he was a great guy who liked to crack jokes. He also wanted Melinda to write a book about roulette since that was his game of choice at casinos.

Melinda declined for obvious reasons and now that he’s gone, she’s definitely never writing a book about that. Since I can’t get any page time in a book about gambling, I’m not sorry.

And now let’s kick 2025 out the door to make room for a better, brighter and more magical 2026!

However you choose to celebrate, I hope you are surrounded by goodwill, good cheer, and a cozy warm space filled with people who love you.

Happy New Year from Melinda and her cast of lovable characters.

On Monday, I’ll bring you the next preview. I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much magical mayhem when you’re celebrating!

Melinda’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.