From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for reading the Altswood series. There are too many of you wonderful human beings to name so I won't try because it would take up half of this book, but every single one of you who has left a read, a vote, a little comment, a big comment, a giant essay comment hypothesising about the mystery: thank you, none of this would be possible without the support you have all given me!
I wrote The Hunt of Altswood High back when I was 14ish, and it was a project that I came up with out of the blue while my school was playing a game that I based the Hunt off of. (Except we tagged people with our hands instead of using paintball guns, and you know... nobody died.) I never expected the first book to blow up (no pun intended, omg - metaphorically), in fact, for the first year or so it was up, it only had about 100 reads steadily. When I got it featured though and more people gave it a chance, it became what it is today. Can you believe I actually didn't have plans to write a second story in this world? I came up with Luca and Gabriel while I was recovering from saying goodbye to my first-born characters Ariel and Jesse (shout out to all you readers out there who know them as well) and I thought I wouldn't have the time to dedicate a whole series to them. But then you guys kept asking, you kept loving the first story, and I had left a huge question unanswered that I wanted to come back to, so I thought, welp, why not?! Under the Altswood Sky was born and then I knew I couldn't just end it there, I had to go back to the beginning and solve every mystery of Altswood, so To Tell An Altswood Lie capped off the series. What a journey, hoooooo boy.
At this point in time, this is certainly the end of the tales of Luca and Gabriel and Annabelle and Jules. They've had their solid ending, all questions answered, and while I'm not ruling out a possible re-visit to their world, there are no plans right now!
But nooo! I hear you say. What do I do now? What shall I invest my time in? Not to fear! Let me try convert you to my other ongoing series that starts with Treachery Queen! The tone is vastly different, that much is true, but if you reckon you can switch from a contemporary mystery to a high fantasy, this series has most elements in all of my stories: You want your protagonist kind of morally grey and your narration a little sardonic? You got it. You want a slow-burn romance that you're pretty sure has to be endgame but at the same time, you don't know whether or not I might just kill both of them? You got it! You want death, death, and another splash of death? I mean, you've kind of got in because there's a sickness killing everyone, but it's not as satisfying as a murder spree, I'll give you that.
If that's still not your cup of tea though, here's what's coming from me soon.
My next new project could potentially be something called Where the Dark Ones Go to Die, which, I didn't realise rhymed with the Altswood series until just yesterday, but it is certainly something completely different. It's set in our world but it's magic realism, taking place in rural New Zealand as three teenagers become camp counsellors for camp run by an American religious organisation that no one has heard of - there's a girl with a curse and a boy who has never followed a rule in his life. There's a sentient tree and dreams that meld into reality and there's a semi-mystery as the little kids start disappearing one by one.
Or it could be These Violent Delights, which you can currently find the preface already posted! One part historical, one part romance, one part paranormal, one part mystery, this is a Romeo-and-Juliet-inspired (but not retelling) story set in 1920s Shanghai as bodies start turning up all over the city and two heirs of blood-feuding families must work together to follow the bloodtrail, find the monster, and solve the mystery. Click the external link to go to it now!
I'll finish off this message now because it's become 2:30AM aHHH so again, thank you to everyone who has ever said something kind on any of these three stories, thank you to everyone who has squealed over Luca and Gabriel, thank you for all your speculation at the end of each plot twist and thank you for the endless love <3