2017 has gotten off to a very rough start. It’s not all bad, but it started very badly with the death of my mother after an illness that had her hospitalized since just after New Year’s day. Around that time, the house we’d been trying to get out of so we could move in with my parents and take better care of them finally sold after about five years on the market. Timing, right? We finally closed last week, and still have loads and loads of boxes to unpack.

Along the way, I actually managed to finish the first draft of Oathbreaker, the fifth and final installment of Into the Wonder. We’ll finally see what Taylor has to do to satisfy her debt of honor to Mara Hellebore. (Hint: It won’t be anything Taylor would have chosen for herself!) And, with any luck, everybody—well, most everybody—will get their happy ending. Oathbreaker is now in the able hands of Team Beta, and I look forward to getting some good constructive feedback from them throughout the spring and early summer.

All this to say, I’ll soon be taking the blog off autopilot and putting up some new content. Look for an upcoming series on the “monstrous races” discussed in Pliny’s Natural History, with particular emphasis on how early explorers placed many of these bizarre not-quite-humans in the Americas.

So, thanks for your patience and for the “likes” on my Sunday Inspiration posts. More folkloric goodness will soon be on its way!