Hope and the Patient Man is out today, and you can get it on the Kindle Store.

This is the sequel to Hope and the Clever Man. I’ve already referred to it as “Hope 2: The Patienting” and “Hope 2: Compressed-Air-Powered Boogaloo“, but it’s quite a different story. The potential romance at the end of Clever Man becomes actual, though there are several knotty problems: Hope’s splashback curse from when she cursed her first boyfriend, a fairly serious head injury that indirectly results from it (I don’t count that as a spoiler, since it happens practically on the first page), and the mystery of why her mother is so hostile to her.

I started writing it in August, while my beta readers were looking at the first Hope book, because the characters would not shut up. This is a good thing.

I now need to decide what’s next. I have a largely drafted book set in the same time period as Realmgolds and most of the first Hope book, but it has multiple issues (as they say on Wikipedia). I’ll probably toss it over to my miracle-working editor and she’ll give me a two-page summary of how to rescue it and make it my best book so far. This is likely to involve several months’ work, of course.

There are two more books to come out of the Hope characters. One is hinted at in Patient Man, and involves Mister Gizmo the gnome and his team as they try to rediscover the techniques for making an ancient elven material that will indirectly help the cause of gnome freedom. I’ve got a few chapters drafted, but it’s not really singing to me yet.

The other involves Bucket, the Clever Man’s gnome assistant, and Hope’s best friend Briar as they navigate the choppy waters of politics.

Then I’ve got a heist novel planned, and then a kind of steampunk Star Trek airship voyage of discovery and diplomacy. Somewhere in there there may be another book or two that I’m currently vague on or unaware of. There’s a general plan, but I uncover the details as I get to them.

All of which to say: the Gryphon Clerks series continues, there’s plenty more to come, but right now, Hope and the Patient Man is fresh and new and I’d love you to take a look at it.

(Edited to add: With excellent timing, and much to my flattered surprise, the New Podler Review of Books has included Realmgolds in their Best of 2013 today!)

Mike Reeves-McMillan

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Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.