A Sinner’s Shadow
A Sinner's Shadow
Law student Julia Day knows nothing of the Immortal War that grips the human race until she unwittingly steals a soul and lands in the crosshairs of Hecate, goddess of witchcraft.
Soft-spoken saviour Atos recognises her best friend Tat as a goddess of lightning, and Julia is strangled by her terrifying new reality. Everything she thought she knew is thrown into doubt: her friendships, her family, even her career is in jeopardy.
Now Tat is missing because of Julia’s link to Hecate, and a series of grotesque murders plagues London’s streets. If the witches really have Tat, Julia has no choice but to turn to Atos, but with him comes death and a rage hellbent on ending Hecate. Atos is shackled to his past and has vowed to bring down Hecate no matter the cost, and for Tat, Julia will pay any price.
The Mess
This book has been on a journey. A disaster of a journey. Allow me to explain.
The very first thing I did with this idea was turn it into an RPG Maker game.
It was extremely different to what it is now. Atos was a different god called Mortus, and it was set in a pseudo-historical fantasy world.
As always happens with any of my projects, I got bored and decided it would be quicker to write it.
At the time, I was going through the start of my weeb phase, so I thought it’d be cool to turn SAGA into a manga.
As it turns out, I don’t have the patience to learn how to draw. Instead, I wrote a series of manga-esque chapters, strung them together into the flimsy volume you see on the right and self-published it via Lulu.com.
I quickly took it down.
The next iteration of SAGA actually had a name, or rather, two. Open Your Eyes, complete at 22k words, and A Sinner’s Shadow, complete at 60k words, self-published via CreateSpace.
Never have I regretted anything more.
I should probably make it clear there is nothing wrong with self-publishing. However, when you’re sixteen and know next to nothing about writing… Don’t.
Just don’t.
Fortunately, only a handful of people bought copies, most of them friends and family. The ironic thing is I actually thought what I’d self-published was good, at least until I came to uni and had my soul crushed by my first critique partner ever.
Her: Why does it jump between 1st and 3rd person?
Me: …
Her: Where are the emotions? Why are you telling us everything?
Me: …
Her: And why are there no character arcs whatsoever?
Me: *cries*
I joke, but she was the best thing that could have happened to my writing. I pulled the self-published books from sale, merged them together and eleven drafts later, and A SINNER’S SHADOW was finally ready to query!
Unfortunately, what I didn’t know is that by the time I decided to query, urban fantasy as a genre was long dead. The rejections rolled in, and a year later I recognised it was finally time to move on. I learnt a great deal writing this book, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Enjoy the final mock cover I made for A SINNER’S SHADOW below. May it rest in peace!
