Candles in the Storm broken from Darkest Hour

Realizing that Darkest Hour was just too long, I decided to break it in half. From the second half I am creating a new book, which I call Candles in the Storm. Thus, Beacon Burning now becomes the fourth book in the series.

Leaving Darkest Hour was fairly easy; starting Candles has been a bit more of a trick. Re-establishing an entire world without burdening the reader (and myself) with a lot of boring backfill is not an easy task. I rejected the idea of a Reprise for Darkest Hour and didn't want to use that for Candles either. An action chapter for Saray in Ravelacca wasn't too hard, although it still isn't finished, as I suddenly realized I needed to reintroduce King Barlz's connection to the Demons of Darkness, and then was disappointed with the resulting fight scene--all of which means nothing to you if you haven't read the books, I know. Sorry about that! (Well, I'm a little bit sorry, but not very.)

The last two days, I've been working on Beacon, first to give myself a creative break from Candles and, second, because I have to be sure to have in place anything I'm going to need in Beacon.