Happy Thursday!
To start off, if you haven't read Golden Touch there will be small spoilers about the ending. If you don't mind spoilers or have read Golden Touch, read on!
Today the sequel to Golden Touch and the second book in my Archive Series comes out! I've been sitting with this book since February 2020, so it feels a little surreal and strange that its actually out in the world today. That people besides me can actually read it. All week I've been trying to figure out why I've felt so strange about Emerald Phantom coming out and maybe I know why now. Because I've been working on this book on and off since February two years ago! No wonder its felt so weird all this week and I can't quite believe that its actually out in the world now.
Where to start about Emerald Phantom? Sequels are usually the hardest books for me to write. I struggled so much with Cursed (the sequel to Wayward) and Project Hellion (the sequel to Weapon Icean). They were some of the hardest and messiest books I've ever written. But Emerald Phantom just flowed so well. I mean, it wasn't a perfect first draft by any means and it definitely wasn't as clean of a first draft as Golden Touch was. But it was by far the easiest sequel I've ever written and cleaner than any of the others too. I think it really all comes down to Amaya and Darren and how they both live rent free in my brain. They're like true friends to me and they just flow right onto the page every time I sat down to write them. They made my life as a writer very easy. I let them tell me the story instead of trying to force my will upon this sequel.
But, really, writing Emerald Phantom was a dream come true. For years I've had this idea of a girl who can see a boy no one else can. A phantom of sorts. The girl's name changed over the years and the boy changed too. But the concept was always the same. A girl who could see a boy no one else could and kind of like him living in her head. I've been daydreaming about this scenario over and over for years and years and had always hoped I could somehow put it down onto paper one day. And when I got to the end of Golden Touch and realized I had the perfect opportunity to put this concept into book form? I was so excited. More excited than I had been in a long time about an idea. The emerald and Mateo and Amaya became the catalyst for this scenario that I've been running in my head for forever. It was so fun to get to write this plotline and the fact that it led me to introduce Mateo made it even better. Mateo is one of my favorite parts of Emerald Phantom. I had the best time getting to know him and bring him into the story. He brings such a fun dynamic to all the characters.
To me, Golden Touch is the stepping stone that launches the entire series (as a first book should be) and with each book in The Archive Series, everything gets deeper and deeper. Emerald Phantom introduces a lot of important elements that slowly peels back layers of the story and is another stepping stone that helps to reveal all the big things that happens in Scarlet Phoenix. I'm honestly super nervous because it has a lot of complicated threads and twists and turns that won't fully make sense until book 3 comes out... I'm nervous people won't stick with the series... But I'm also excited because I love where Emerald Phantom takes the characters and I loved writing every bit of it. I love this book so much. I love that I've gotten to put my blood, sweat and tears into this book over the past two years and I love that I finally get to share it with the world.
I hope you guys love it as much as I do and I want to say thank you to everyone who has encouraged me, who has shown interest in this series and everyone who's stuck with me on this little blog. You guys are so amazing and I'm so thankful for each of you. 💖
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