The Hollow Queen Series

After hearing back from a few ARC readers, I decided to perform another massive edit on Vows of Shadow to try to reduce the word count a bit.

I was told it was too long, that the detail in the writing seemed to repeat at times when I’d already made my point. It’s true, it is a slower read than others, and I also understand that not every book is for every person. But I do agree that the book drags a bit, so I’ve been working to fix it.

Every reader has been nice about it, and the feedback hasn’t been terrible, but also not as good as I would like. So! I decided to cut the text down a bit. I did this a few different ways. I edited the text in general but I also searched for chunks that seemed unnecessary, or that I could reduce and combine with another section.

My goal was to cut it from 250k to 200k, but I didn’t quite get there. I got it down to 225k, which is still significant.

In addition to all the ways I cut the text down, I also ADDED, which seems crazy, but I decided to add 7 short interludes that give a bit of foreshadowing and I believe they help move the story forward.

All that said, I’m still on track to publish December 2, 2025 like I planned. I have the paperback ready to go and I have a hardback copy on the way to me (which I published with Barnes and Noble press because Amazon wouldn’t print a hardback for my page count).

Now that all that is ready to go, I can work on book 2 again! (more on that later)