Book Release: Song of the Steadfast

I swear, there were times I believed this day would never arrive. I’ve had novels that took twenty years to write and others that took six months. Song of the Steadfast came nowhere near the first category, but it did take twice as long as any other book in the series—even Song of the Shaman, which required not only extensive research into what we know about shamanism as practiced in the sixteenth century (spoiler alert: not much) but also a lot of work to convince the heroine to reveal her internal goal. Yet I can now announce that the book release for Song of the Steadfast, despite all the setbacks, will take place less than two weeks from now.

In part, as I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog, the longer-than-usual writing time can’t entirely be blamed on Steadfast itself. Rather, the delays were caused by various personal and family events, including my transition out of the regular work world and into a still-active retirement.

That said, Anna and Yuri proved early on that they would not make it easy for me to write their story. Individually and together, they are the kind of people one loves to encounter in real life: sweet-natured, calm, kind. They see the best in those around them and worry about hurting others’ feelings or acting inconsiderately, regardless of social position or wealth. They are faithful friends, charming companions, loyal subjects, and generally well behaved. When challenged, they persevere, but they would much rather go through life without rocking the proverbial boat.

All of which means that, if I’d left it there, they’d also be total bores. Whatever we want in real life, readers have no desire to spend their time among blissful lovers without a care in the world. When Gene Roddenberry declared that the Enterprise crew on Star Trek: The Next Generation could not engage in serious disagreements with one another, he reportedly sent his screen writers round the bend looking for ways to introduce external sources of conflict. Because the fun—some people say the whole point—of reading or watching fiction lies in the opportunity to engage with events and people you would never want to encounter in real life.

In this way, the reader/viewer gets to imagine ways to deal with tragedy, to play off one strategy against another, and to experience the characters’ emotions without having to suffer through the events themselves. That’s why reading breeds empathy. We can experience things we hope never to endure and see the world through the eyes of a person unlike ourselves.

But although entire genres revolve around the “blow ’em up, burn it down” style of external conflict, I find that internal conflict is, in the end, what brings a novel to life. And that’s what took so long to discover about Yuri and Anna and even their adversary, Prince Pavel: the voices in their heads that slowed them down by distracting them with messages from the past—once relevant, perhaps, to themselves as children but no longer appropriate to their maturing selves. Because unearthing and adjusting those childhood assumptions is, in the end, the journey we all must take if we wish to grow.

Whether I’ve succeeded in conveying what I found out about these characters, I leave for you to decide. You can find out on June 3, 2025, when both the print and the e-book editions go live. In the meantime, if you’d like more information or even to pre-order the e-book, you can find links at our own Five Directions Press site or by going directly to the book page at Amazon.com.

Fortunately, Kiraz, heroine of Song of the Silk Weaver, has proven herself far more revealing and resilient than I had feared, so with luck it won’t take another two years for her story to appear …