After two months of doing nothing on my books, I went through and gave the first novel in the trilogy a stiff paring down. I dropped 30,000 words from it so that it will read faster. I could probably drop more, but at least this way the story should get a better reading.

In addition I wrote a much better cover letter for the book. I hope that helps.

Today I went to book two and added over 9,000 words. Wow. Imagine what would happen if I spent nine hours a day on it every day.

Nothing is what would happen, because I don’t think I would be that productive every day. But I am thrilled that I’m up to 63,700 words. Almost to the halfway point on the long version, before I start culling to make it faster.

Do you want to know what happens in the second book? Okay, I’ll tell you.

D is kidnapped by slavers, her parents shot, and she and her uncle sold away from all their friends. She is sold to a slaver in the far away country of K and lives with her uncle there for several weeks waiting for the slave market to be open. She meets other slaves who have been abused, rather than treated well, and realizes that she’s not so badly off.

She is sold to the leader of the army and the cousin and BIL of the king. With his help, her uncle wins his freedom. He vows to work and get home as soon as possible to come back and free her.

Slavery under the K is not as onerous as she feared and she is doing fairly well, except that she’d really rather be home.

The king gets married. Her uncle heads home for help. And her owner moves out of town. She’s devastated; her uncle won’t be able to find her. She leaves word for him.

They arrive at the new city. (This is as far as I have written so far.) Her owner gets sick. No one can heal him. He is quarantined. After lots of effort on many people’s parts, all of which fail, D suggests a prophet she knows.

With the king’s blessing the whole quarantined group set off across the country, across several countries, and arrive at the palace of the prophet’s king. This king is sure it’s a ruse to go to war with him, since he’s not a healer. But the prophet, who the king banished, says to send him on to him. The king does.

Her owner and entourage arrive. The prophet doesn’t even come out, but sends a servant with the “cure.” Her owner is insulted and determines to leave. Maybe he’ll even be mad enough to go to war over it.

D reasons with him. He takes the cure. It takes. He’s healed.

The prophet will not accept a reward. D is hoping her owner will free her in gratitude, but he doesn’t even think about it.

Even though she’s very close to home, she has to go back to the country where she’s a slave. And she’s devastated.

Not a very happy ending to a book. Maybe I’ll have to slip the aide in here, so that she’ll have some reason to be glad to be going back to N. (I’m thinking of the possibility of a romance, though I don’t know that there will actually be a romance.)

By the way, this story is set 3200 years in the past, in a fairly realistic setting, though it doesn’t match reality because I took events and compressed them. So what happens in the book (the history not the story of D) happened in real life, probably, but from 1650 BC to 900 BC. And I make several things that happened over 700 years, happen within one person’s lifespan. It’s not impossible; it is just not the real timeline.

Book 3: A power encounter with a demon’s priest leaves D free to go home.