The Ruling Mask

Dan and I are delighted to announce the release of The Ruling Mask, the third book in The Grey City series.

I have to apologize for how long it's taken to get this book done. Of the entire series this was the hardest book to write, for several reasons. First, we were so burned out from releasing two novels in two years that we just needed a break, and that break seemed to go on and on. Second, 2016 was an incredibly busy year for us; in addition to finishing Mask, we launched a weekly podcast and wrote a paper that was published as part of Sense Publisher’s Challenging Genres series. (This in addition to jobs, family obligations, and taking care of a house seemingly determined to fall apart.) Third, we have a process by which we write together, and for this book we for some reason decided to abandon that process—and we paid the price in a wearying succession of revisions. Lastly, Mask turned out to be a much more complex story than we ever envisioned, something we discovered only in the middle of writing it.

That said, The Ruling Mask is the longest book we've ever written—almost twice as long as The Duchess of the Shallows—and in many ways I think it's the best. You can decide for yourself if I am right; a sample chapter is available on our web site, as well as links to purchase the book for Kindle, Nook, or in paper.

Once again, we were lucky enough to work with the inimitable Amy Houser, whose illustrations are so in line with our work that it is difficult to envision a Grey City book without them. Jim Genzano was a tremendous resource, as he picked through more than 140,000 words to find all of the mistakes we’d made. (No small task!) We are also honored to have the services of our test readers, particularly Mark Fabrizi and Suzanne Onesti, who kept us from getting lost in the fog of writing.

Finally, we are eternally grateful to everyone who has ever bought a book, written a review, tweeted a tweet, or in some other way taken a chance on a couple of indie authors. You are superheroes, every one!

Enjoy!