Authors

I’ve been playing a lot of Halo lately.

I don’t think that’s quite the same, my dude.

Shhh, if he figures out electronics he’ll want his own phone next.

I gets it. See dis my zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoom meeting.

Guys, being the dimmest bulb on the tree is my gig. Lay off.

In reply to Benedict.

Do the companies also offer a paltry discount when replacing them, if the employee turns in the worn out sigl? I imagine that the profit margin could be increased further if the company did so.

Obviously it would take multiple busted sigls to offset the essentia cost of a new one, but if they’re all produced at the same well or wells they could probably get some amount of return. (Based on your sigl recycling articles)

…and here’s the video. I just finished it. As you can tell, I had a blast doing it.

If you want to be notified at the time of launch, click here.

I’ll have more information for you on Tuesday. Stay tuned!

Alien Influences Kickstarter Low Resolution

I had a lovely February of reading. Lots more time than I expected, which is fun. As regular readers of this feature know, I don’t recommend everything nor should I, considering I’ve also been reading 300-year-old plays for my Theatre History class. But there’s lots of good here, including a nonfiction book that everyone in the U.S. should read.

You’ll note some recommended articles from On Wisconsin, the alumni magazine for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I learned something rather amazing. The University has a foundation that has existed for 100 years to manage its intellectual property. Well…hmmm…made me wonder if most universities do that. I know the bigger ones do. This one is proactive, though. I did not link to the article, but found its concept interesting.

Started a book by a well-known producer, songwriter, and DJ, the stepson of a rock star, and the child of privilege. As interested as I was in the start of his career, I couldn’t get past all the sweaty teenagers at raves in the 1990s. Clearly the book was a compilation of the stories he tells his friends. So, I donated it to the library. Maybe someone else will like to read about sweaty wealthy teenagers taking drugs and learning about music, but not me.

And then there was the science fiction novel I pulled off my TBR shelf. The novel is fifteen years old, but new to me. I like the author’s work. I’ve read some of his books before. This one started really well. It was scary and dark and intriguing…but the mystery that drew me in got resolved halfway through and suddenly we were in some kind of galactic war that wasn’t well described and read like an outline of a larger work. I actually got bored. So I won’t be recommending that, which kinda makes me sad because it started so very well.

Even though I recommended a lot of stories from the Best Mystery Stories of the Year, I’m not recommending the whole volume. I had to skip too many due to my own issues with child endangerment. Also, some of the stories I read just didn’t hold me. So, if you want to see what else I thought good in the volume, check out November’s Recommended Reading List.

I am also recommending a story from a collection that includes a story by a now-disgraced sf author. Dunno if the editor knew the accusations before buying the story; I’m guessing not. But just be cautious if you don’t want to buy anything with that man’s name on it.

Here’s what I recommend from my reading in February.

 

February, 2026

Armstrong, Kelley, This Fallen Prey, Minotaur Books, 2018. Yes, yes, I know, I came to this series late, but OMG, is it keeping me enthralled. The problem is that it is so dark I cannot read one book right after another. And, the deeper I go in, the more it violates a few of my personal reading rules, but I’m committed, which is a testament to Kelley Armstrong’s writing.

SPOILER ALERT for those of you who share my aversion to children/animals (cute ones, anyway) harmed in books:

an animal we care about gets injured…and some baby animals die.

END SPOILER ALERT

Note that I’m a hypocrite because I’m writing a story right now with a five-month old baby in mortal jeopardy. (It is a Nelscott story, which are often dark and noir, but still…)

Anyway…this book is amazing. I thought of trying to describe it to Dean, but I can’t because there’s so many areas where you must suspend your disbelief, starting with the town of Rockton itself. But within the world of Rockton, this story is a true thriller, filled with situations that would never happen anywhere else. And that’s a great thing. Kelley Armstrong has created a world so vivid and powerful that I believe every word she writes about them. (And I’m so happy I don’t live there.)

I really can’t say anything else without spoiling the story. Start with City of the Lost and read on. These books are that good.

Boschert, Sherry, 37 Words: Title IX And Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination, The New Press, 2022. First a note on the link: I sourced the New Press’s site because I couldn’t get any of the other places that will give me links to various ebook sites like Kobo and B&N didn’t work. I’m happy to have you all order directly from the publisher, even though they slapped an awful cover on this book. I mean truly terrible. And I only found the book while I was buying books on women’s basketball, so there wasn’t much promo either. It makes me grumpy, since this is a good book and an important topic that got buried by publisher mistakes.

The book was published in 2022 and written before that. So it does not reflect the era we’re in at all. There’s a lot more hope in this book for the future, and an assumption that the rebuilding we’d have to do was rebuilding from the previous time the orange menace was in office. Sometimes that made me sad.

But Title IX was passed in my lifetime. I did not benefit from it because it took forever for schools to implement it. I watch now with joy, tears, and a little bit of envy over the girls who get to play sports I was denied. I have no idea if I would have been good, but getting the opportunity would have been nice.

The fight for Title IX impressed me. Even though it happened in my lifetime, and I really study the time period, I had no idea what these women went through to get it passed. And as I write this, the WNBA and the players are negotiating a CBA for their next contract…and can’t agree on revenue sharing which every male professional sports league  has (even the minor sports, like bowling). This, after A’ja Wilson just won Athlete of the Year. Not Female Athlete of the Year. Best athlete in general, male or female or nonbinary.

If Title IX had passed in its original, there wouldn’t be the fights over trans kids in sports. There wouldn’t be a lot of problems that we have now. But we also have the WNBA and other great professional women’s sports now because of it. The book does show the deeply embedded misogyny in U.S. culture, which partly explains the situation we’re in with our leadership right now. (Let’s vote for a white man who failed the first time over a highly decorated and extremely competent Black woman. Sigh.)

There’s a lot of hope in this book and it’s not false hope. It’s the strength of people fighting for ground, inch by important inch. Read this, even if you think you remember or know what happened with Title IX here in the States. Understanding what happened in the past is essential to our future.

Kilkenny, Katie, “Extras! Extras! Read All About Them!” The Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2025. At the end of every issue of The Hollywood Reporter, they pull something from the history of the magazine. Usually, they’re fun things related to current events. This one was fascinating. The thug in charge uses the phrase “central casting” to describe people. The cliche has been around for 101 years, and The Hollywood Reporter explains why, and what Central Casting really was. (And, oh, yeah, it still exists.) A short, fascinating read.

Millman, Ethan, “‘I Think Everything I Write Is Going To Be A Hit,'” The Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2025. This link is to the Songwriters Roundtable that The Hollywood Reporter runs every year. Usually, there’s a quote or two that I pull from the roundtable, but this time, most everything here was strong and good and (weirdly) not very pithy. So writers, music fans, read this one.

Schmitt, Preston, “A New Era For College Sports,” On Wisconsin, Fall 2025. Dean follows college sports more than I do. He’s been griping about some of the changes for years now, especially the transfer portal. I know he supported the changes in students being allowed to profit from their name, likeness, and image. In other words, they can earn money, which is something that he has been held against the NCAA for more than fifty years. (He was disqualified as a student athlete because he taught skiing, so he couldn’t be on his college’s ski team because he wasn’t an “amateur.”) I’ve been griping about the Big 10, calling it the Big 100—which, right now, has 18 “member institutions.” 18 is not 10, and yes, I understand why the branding hasn’t changed but…get off my lawn.

Anyway, this article explains in great and clear detail about all of the changes in college sports. From deals to laws to sports agents, it’s all here, and it finally made the era we’re in clear to me. I hope it helps out those of you who haven’t been following this as closely as Dean. And, from a contract/negotiation/intellectual property standpoint, it’s fascinating as well.

Specktor, Matthew, “After Burn,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 2, 2026. A fascinating article about Los Angeles, one year after the fires. The piece (and the sidebars) show a city divided between haves and have nots, between people who are still dealing with the fires and people who “know someone who lost their house.” Worth reading.

Stegman, Casey, “Effie’s Oasis,” Mysterious Bookshop Presents The Best Mystery Stories of The Year 2025, edited by John Grisham, Mysterious Press, 2025. As regular readers of this little blog feature know, I hate children-in-jeopardy stories. I have a system: when I hit the mention of a kid in a story/book/novel, I skip ahead to see if the kid is mentioned (and alive) at the end. If the story seems a bit too rough, I quit then and there. (I do the same with pets.) Usually, I find out that the kid’s dead or not important, and I don’t read the story.

So, when I read Stegman’s story, with its wonderful voice and great main character, I got to page four or so, when a child starts crying after being called a name, and I of course skipped to the end. Yep, the kid’s there. And the ending was so fascinating that I did something I hadn’t done outside of my editing days.

I read the story backwards. That usually means something kicked me out in the middle, but I’m intrigued enough to want to know what happened. And in this case, I had no obligation to read the story, but I did so anyway. It’s good, it’s smart, and it’s powerful. I suggest reading it forward, however.

Wenc, Christine, “Fake News!” On Wisconsin, Fall 2025. Well, I ordered a book because of the alumni magazine. I had forgotten that The Onion was founded at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and came from a particularly Madison sensibility. I had already moved away from Wisconsin when it started and hadn’t seen the early editions—which I guarantee that I would have since I never missed the free newspapers around town. I even wrote for one, Isthmus, for years before I moved.

This is a fascinating little excerpt on the actual start of The Onion. It’s worth the read to see how crazy ideas can often work, and work well.

Wignall, Kevin, “Retrospective,” Ink and Daggers, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Titan, 2023. I have to admit some disappointment with this anthology. It’s a collection of stories chosen from the short list for the British Crime Writers Association Dagger awards. It took until I got halfway through the book before something really held me. (Except for one story that might’ve worked for the Brits of the world. I had to look up all the references, which took some of the punch out of the ending.) “Retrospective” is a story of a war photographer who has given up his work for a reason that we learn later. Very powerful, and worth reading.

I've officially started work on The Commander!

Of course, "started" is a bit of a fuzzy concept. I'd done some initial work on The Commander last year, along with The Pilot, but now I'm full-on writing the book.

What did I write in between? I'll share more details on that when I'm allowed to. Currently, your security access isn't high enough.

If my new, secret manuscript were in Resident Evil 9, it would be hidden behind two doors, one of which is opened by a horse-shaped crystal and the other by a crystal-shaped horse. Top security, that's what I'm saying.

But for now, it's back to the open ocean for me, where I will return to The Last Horizon while on the deck of a ship. A regular water ship, not a spaceship, unfortunately. I've only written while on a spaceship once.

​In preparation for The Commander, I re-read the existing four books, which was pretty fun. It's always hard to read your own stuff, but I don't get to read enough about wizards flying spaceships. So it's a welcome break from what I normally read: arcane tomes written in languages that only exist in dreams.

If I were a Resident Evil 9 character, I would end this by saying something like "I sure am glad to not be getting eaten by zombies right n--"

-Will

P.S. You get no points for guessing what game I'm playing.

Great plot so far can not wait for book 4 to come out. Its fantastic to see you continuing on with writing on book 5.
Its a pity edits for book 4 is taking longer but it can’t be help.
keep going….

Yes, we find out the Queen put members of the Seelie Court under a geas that prevented them from saying certain things about Ash to outsiders/non-Seelie Court members. We find this out from a different faerie under the geas, who tells it to Kit, and it's mentioned in relation to Nene as well. We haven't explored the concept of the geas much before, but it's an old part of Faerie folklore and would supersede the "not lying" — especially since most of what Nene says in TDA (that she doesn't know exactly how old Ash is now and wouldn't recognize him) — is true.

Yes, you'll see his POV in Last King of Faerie.

In the Anna and Ariadne story in Better in Black, we do see what Matthew and Sylvain are up to! There are also hints about them in several of the other stories, like Who The Wolf Loves (Luke/Jocelyn.)

In reply to Jim Sackman.

Yes, there’s no such thing as an off-the-shelf sigl.

And essentia is very much a limited resource. That doesn’t stop companies from selling it to their own employees, providing those sales are profitable.

In reply to Celia.

It’s roughly measurable, so yes, buyers can take manufacturers to task over it.

In reply to Jason Enberg.

Yes, the “you can’t buy sigls off the shelf” thing was discussed back in book 1.

Lead time is going to vary. The cheaper the sigl, the lower the lead time.

Okay so I guess I misunderstood when I was listening. Stephen was offered Locator sigils that were threaded for a price. My read of that was that these were off the shelf and available at will. But after reading this, he would have had to buy a threaded locator sigil made just for him. Correct?

I recognize that this became overcome by events, but it seems to me to be a waste of good essentia. That, in turn, leads me to believe that essentia is not a scarce resource. Otherwise there would be more profitable ways to employ it.

I will share a thing to think about? Ash has the power to make people love him and want to please him, so how does that go when he can't turn it off? Even if he wants to? :-)

I mean, I have adored writing Dru. She is so sharp and so funny, and I loved writing her reactions to Faerie, especially when things are ridiculous. And her annoyance that you cannot find a bra in Faerie because of course not.

I love her dynamic with Ash, too, and writing a plus-size Shadowhunter was incredibly interesting and fun. I got to draw on a lot of my own teenage experiences (not that I was ever a badass demon hunter) which is always interesting and revelatory.

Hi! I hope you've been well, too.

I am not sure where the idea comes from that Ash is not trained? He is very well trained and an excellent fighter.

In Forever Fallen we already know Ash can fight; Sebastian dropped Ash into a pit of demons with only a sword and Ash fought them off. So that is canon. At that point, he is a much better fighter than Kit.

In FF, Janus agreed to try to train him as a Shadowhunter but in TKLOF we learn that due to his nature, there is some angelic magic Janus cannot access. That doesn't mean Ash isn't trained though; he has been training for years. He just doesn't know a few Shadowhunter things. He knows, however, plenty of other fighting skills Shadowhunters do not know. He has his own training room and weapons, etc.

Kit and Ash are not in competition — not in the books or, I hope, outside it! Ash's strengths are not Kit's weaknesses nor are Kit's strengths Ash's weaknesses. They are very different characters, just as Kit is very different from Will or Jace and Ty is very different from Dru or Julian.

They know Kit and Ty had a fight and that things are weird between them. They are not dumb, and know there was a romantic aspect to Kit and Ty's relationship even if they think Kit and Ty themselves might not have known that. Without being able to answer any questions about whether they are even around to see Kit and Ty's relationship develop in TLKOF I am sort of stuck saying anything else. :) We do see how the Carstairs-Herondale family functions a bit though. They're very cute.

Manipulative.

I think you may well suspect who it is the first book.

Friday means winners! And today we have three of them for the This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me giveaway.

US Winner – This Kingdom Hardcover Copy International Winners – 2 ARC pdf copies

and

Congratulations all!

Winners will be contacted from the modr@ilona-andrews.com email. If we don’t hear back by Wednesday, March 4th, a new winner will be drawn next Friday.

A special thank you to the Horde’s creativity for keeping me snorting through the week with over 3,000 comments of the most flooftastic alter egos. The portal fantasy realms would not know what hit them if we landed.

Online safety reminder: please be vigilant for social media scammers. We will never ask you to cover postage costs or have any other money transfer related to these giveaways and will only contact you from the official Ilona Andrews accounts, with the public blog post link as proof that you are indeed the winner.

If your name was not drawn this time, do not despair. There are more prizes and surprises to come, as we’re finally heading into the release month of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

Squee and happy weekend!

The post Winners of This Kingdom Will Giveaway first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.