Welcome back, and I apologize for how long it’s taken me to send out another newsletter! To all my new subscribers, thank you for subscribing, I hope you’ll enjoy your time here!

So, What’s New?

My hiatus has officially ended, and I’m getting back into the swing of writing and publishing. I’m participating in a writing challenge that is 100k words over the course of Q4. It started in October, and I’m on track with it, so hopefully I can get at least one more thing out before the year ends. I might not be able to, but I at least want to get a preorder open before the end of the year.

As of right now, I’m not planning on going back to ghostwriting. I’m looking into alternative avenues of income to tide me over, so hopefully I will be able to create more without that hanging over me, or actively draining my creative energy.

New Book: UNHOLY FAVORS

An itchio exclusive release, UNHOLY FAVORS is out as of Oct. 31st! It’s a short story duet, but novella length over all because I am not good at writing short things lol.

Blurb:

Two tales of sinister influence, two trans protagonists struggling to come to terms with the consequences of relying on the supernatural to fix their problems. Trick or Treat.

THE SOUL LOTTERY
Tate played the soul lottery and won a single wish ten years ago, but now his years of fortune are up, and the demon who owns his soul has come to collect. On the run from Hellhounds, and with only one person to turn to, he's out of options. But what awaits him isn't what he expects.

SILVERTONGUED DREAMS
Kiran is an insomniac and college student who dreams of more than what he has. After finding a rare spell book, he brings an egregore into being, and feeds it his ideas and dreams in hopes that it can be his equal and help him become great. But what happens when his dreams outpace him and take on their own life?

UNHOLY FAVORS is a dark, mature book and is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. Please read CWs before purchasing.

You can find it here!
UNHOLY FAVORS by mars adler (itch.io)

Blood & Flowers News

I’m finally wrapping up the deep edit on Blood & Flowers and the accompanying short The God of Bruised Knuckles. I’ve added 11,000 words to the original 28,000 words, so it is hardly novella length anymore. The core story remains the same, so if you aren’t interested in re-reading, you won’t be missing out on the basic storyline, but I’ve added a lot more about the haunted house aspect, and I think it’s a much better, smoother novella that’s up to par with my writing abilities now.

Just a reminder, it will be getting a new cover as well, and I’m very excited to share that when it’s ready! I’m working with a wonderful artist for a gorgeous, illustrated cover. It will remain on itchio as an eBook, as well as going on Amazon as an eBook and paperback.

The accompanying short, The God of Bruised Knuckles will remain free for a couple more weeks, but then I’m pulling it. It will not be available as a separate listing anymore. Keep an eye out for a release date as well as preorders for the Amazon listing, for paperbacks and eBooks!

2025 Plans

I don’t want to give too many specifics on release dates, or even vague release times, simply because I’m working on a lot of things right now and I’m not sure which ones I’ll finish first, and I don’t want to hype anyone up for something that won’t come out soon. That being said, I have lots of plans for standalones as well as continuing series and books I’ve already talked about.

Right now, I’m working on some books that I’ve talked about recently, such as HEAT STROKE, a folk horror, forbidden romance that catalogues the downfall of two siblings trapped in a small town with a freaky lake and weird deer.

I’m also working on CLIPPED WINGS WIP, a religious horror age gap novella with an angel and his human mentor who shaped him into a weapon to fight evil and then abandoned him. Now, the angel seeks revenge against his old mentor, but he finds that things aren’t the way he left them.

As well as the new stories, I’m hoping to release THE SECOND UNMAKING OF ADAM DAGON soon, the sequel to EYETOOTH. I am also starting to think about the next book in the Hunger Magic series, which will be Black Swan x The Little Mermaid, and have the same elements as EYETOOTH did of Faustian pacts, weird and gross body horror, and a trans protagonist biting off more than they can chew when making a deal with something they shouldn’t. It will follow a different protagonist than EYETOOTH and TSUoAD does.

SWEET LAMB has been on my mind a lot lately, and I’d like to revisit that now that I’ve let the idea rest for a bit an expand. I read a book this year that gave me a LOT of inspiration about the cult aspect, so I’m glad I held off returning to it until I read that book.

Of course, I’m still hoping to get COMMUNION, the short story sequel to FIRST CREATION that will introduce the third main character, Malphas, and set up Book 2.

BLOOD & FLOWERS is getting a sequel as well, which is something that the deep edit has made me especially excited for! It’s from Valerian’s POV and about another haunted/cursed house, because the boys really can’t escape that.

Will I have time to finish all of these in 2025? Probably not, lol. Some of them might get pushed back to 2026, unfortunately. But I haven’t forgotten about them, and I’m hoping to finally make some progress on the sequels to the series I’ve started, and get books like SWEET LAMB out!

Newsletter Plans

I hope to give you all some extra content as a thank you for subscribing, including the rest of that FIRST CREATION short of Amitiel and Stolas’ meeting, as well as the original ending of EYETOOTH. I don’t want to put out newsletters very often, so it likely won’t be until early 2025 that I do another one. Keep an eye out for that bonus content in early 2025!

Unfortunately, most future newsletters will probably be about this length because I tend to hold onto my updates until I have multiple at once, so I hope you’re okay with a few longer newsletters per year rather than multiple, shorter newsletters.

If you made it this far you are stronger than any US Marine and thank you ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Until next time,
— mars