A year...?!

Okay. How funny is it that the day I'm ready to update the blog...it is a year after the last post?? Gosh.

First...apologies for the silence. I have a million (valid) excuses, but I don't want to list them all. So let's just jump right into the updates...

July 19th...

About Seraphina Grey & the Carnival of Nightmares taken from the Newsletter...

"This story...was a long time coming. And I'm so very sorry it's taken me so long to get it to you. But honestly, I could not be happier with how it turned out. It's weird to say but I'm so proud of it. I don't usually come out and say those kind of things (at least it feels like I don't hah!) but...I feel like I needed to acknowledge that. Like with Blood Farm, I tried not to be so obvious with the Carnival of Nightmares. We tend to think of nightmares as simply things that scare us...but I truly believe our real fears are rooted in an avoidance of truth. They need to be contemplated so that they can be conquered. And I think this book hit all the notes.

I hope you love it as much as I do ✨💛✨

{Book description & buy links here...}

Recommended reading order...immediately following Blood Farm 😉

If you sneak a peek at the first page you'll see what I mean..."

August 16th...

Seraphina Grey Summons a Demon hit #1 Best Seller in YA Monster Fiction & #2 Best Seller in YA Coming of Age Fantasy on Amazon. It was an amazing experience, and I'm so grateful for all the love everyone has shown the series.

September 24th...

And then Dark Reflections earned two #1 Best Seller tags on Amazon. YA Ghost Stories and Monster Fiction which was completely unexpected and such a happy day.

And then March 29th...

I finished the final draft of book four of the Grey Sisters Saga... Phoenix Grey Forges a Blade 💛

Completing this book... It was the most incredible experience of my writing career.

It is crazy to say that because you'd think all the best seller Amazon tags would've been better...

But, no.

Finishing Blade tops everything thus far.

It was literally my favorite book to write. I love everything about it. Absolutely everything. This book...gah.

I just love it.

It is with the editor now, and I'm hoping for a late April release 🥰

Newsletter Update...

At the end of the summer, I will not be renewing my service provider so...although I will still be sending out newsletter emails...it will be directly from my email and not through the service.

This means, no more automated sign-ups for new subscribers and the emails won't be as fancy. I apologize for that. But hopefully you'll still enjoy them.

And...yeah. I think that's it.

A lot of personal stuff going on...but I'll save that for the next newsletter email...which should be sent out sometime this week.

Now...back to drafting book five!! 😱🥰💛

Scarlet Hunger...

So, this book...was dark.

It was a lot darker than anything I've written in the Nile Universe, so far. That can easily be contributed to the mental state in which I wrote it. The process was incredibly theraputic, and I credit Scarlet Hunger with helping save my soul during the darkest days of my life.

But because of the darkness (which is kind of the opposite of what I'm going for here with 'dark fantasy, light heart' 😉), I was honestly really nervous about how it would be received by readers.

But the reviews are coming in and the consensus seems to be that it is enjoyable & not depressing, which is everything to me. I seriously am so grateful that the story resonated in the ways I hoped it would and left everyone at least a little hopeful in the end.

(I even had a reader request Jaqueline have her own series...!!...I make no promises, but I'm sure she'll show up again in somebody's series, if not her own 😉)

Scarlet Hunger was ranked #1 New Release in Teen & Young Adult Ghost Stories and it was also a #3 Best Seller in the category, giving some side eye to V. E. Schwab! That's incredible. So, again, thank you all for making that happen.

And I'm going to take a minute to remind you, if you enjoyed the book—don't forget to leave a review!

So...I Don't Normally Do This...

Warning: This blog post is a rambling mess of thoughts, typos, and spelling & grammatical errors. Apologies. A lot has happened in the past...God, 9 months? Is that right? I don't know. Whatever. The point is, I've been quiet due to a personal heartbreak I'm trying to keep to myself. But during that time I've had a lot of writing updates and none of which I've shared on the website, or on Facebook, just with the the Courcy Camp newsletter subscribers. This is because my creativity seems to be so closely tied to my heart that this trauma is all tangled up with my writing, and I can't talk about one without at least hinting at the other. And I wasn't ready to be public about it...and I'm still not, but whatever. Anways! I don't normally do this, and honestly I never wanted to, but in the interest of not going back into painful memories, I'm going to share parts of the updates from the emails sent to subscribers...minus a few details and sneak peeks...

Please remember...if you want to be updated most regularly...please subscribe to the newsletter. That's where I put things out first...and share extra stuff. Free books. Early (free) access to some stories. And all the juicy gossip goes through the newsletter. Trust me. Subscribe.

Okay...deep breath...here we go...

October 7th : "As you know, this year of my life has not been the easiest...actually it's been arguably one of the hardest I've ever experienced. And in the interest of keeping private lives private, I will not be expounding upon it—just suffice it to say: the trauma of this life change completely drained my creativity along with a lot of my soul. Throughout it all, I was still trying so hard to work on book three of the Grey Sisters Saga, but it simply was not coming to me.

I was truly desponded...BUT! Then I remembered how much Dark Reflections helped me unblock my storytelling when I was working on Summons a Demon & I realized that's something I could try again:write a short(er) story, with love for all of you as my focus; side-step into a completely new character and see if that helps.

So! I grabbed an incredible cover. I plotted the whole thing...and I've started writing it!

And the words are coming!

A Little About the New Book...​Like Dark Reflections, it is another Nile Ghost Story...with a brand new main character we've never seen.​Some characters I expect to make an appearance are:​ Lacey McGregor Rosalind (Zan) Grunberg A surprise fan favorite character from Blood Farm...​Just to name a few...😉

Now, I make no promises on when this book will be finished 😅 but by working on this book, I'm hopeful I'll be successful in sparking my storytelling.

And again, rest assured book three is next on my list of writing priorities, but this book will be key in not only unblocking my creativity, but also saving my sanity and healing my broken heart in the process.

I don't know if this experiment will work...but so far, it's looking good. And I'm so grateful to each of you for making the hard days worth it 🥰"

October 29th: "An update...

I wanted to give a writing update and a sneak peek at the new (heart-healing & creativity-recharging) book project... Has it helped? Thus far...it has helped tremendously. And I'm feeling really confident that once this book is finished, I'll be able to fully immerse myself back into book three of the Grey Sisters Saga. I'm so excited for that. What's it about? As you know, I have many stories sitting in my head and waiting to be written, but this one was completely new. Like Dark Reflections, I started with the cover and used it to create a brand new story in a handful of days. And like Dark Reflections, it is closely tied to my Nile Universe and will feature in a series I'd planned previously of spooky Nile fairytale retellings (which are my favorite!) starring some of the Nile girls (Lacey, Rachel, Courtney, etc.)...

This story is a Red Riding Hood-inspired ghost story and stars a completely new character named Jacqueline Charlebois."

Anyways, that's the jist. Send me love. And leave reviews.

Current Status:

Writing - Seraphina Grey and the Carnival of Nightmares

Release - May 22nd

Editing - Scarlet Hunger

Release - TBD