Happy New Year to everyone!

Good progress has been made on book two (working title Hunting Blood), although maybe not as much as I had hoped. Chapter three is finished. It is from the perspective of Shadow and also features Shroud and Nightlocke. Chapter four is about half complete and continues the story of Jhenna and Ghost from chapter two, but switches the point of view to Ghost.

Chasing Portals focused on the individual story lines of single characters or pairs of characters. In Hunting Blood, multiple characters will begin to cross paths. As I was writing chapter two it became clear there was a potential intersection point between characters I hadn’t previously considered, but would add great content to the story. Consequently, chapter two grew in length and ultimately it made sense to split the chapter. The outcome is that chapters two through six will now be inter-related to an extent.

Taking this approach also provided the opportunity to involve a character who has become one of my favorites, Ambernifer. The name popped up on a random name generator years ago and I immediately liked it. I pronounce it Am-burn-if-er. She was originally intended to be a one-shot character, but my daughter liked the name so much she asked me if Ambernifer could have a larger role in the story.

Not wanting to disappoint my child, I did some brainstorming and came up with an expanded role for Ambernifer. I won’t spoil anything by giving specific details about Ambernifer or her storyline, but she has become my wildcard character. You never know when or where she may show up.