debut novel coming soon

Inkd Publishing has contracted my novel “Skies of Fire and Smoke” for a 2026 release in hardcover, paperback, and digital. It’s a historical fantasy set in World War I…and there are dragons.

It’s 1916 and Lieutenant Johann Fischer, in his Fokker triplane, attacks the European dragon Citadel. This salvo ignites the first human-dragon war in centuries, and Johann is determined to break dragon dominance over humanity and stop the coming conflagration of cities. Gretchen, once an impoverished farm girl, had been sold to the Scale Guards in service to the dragons. Now recruited as a spy, she’s stationed as a domestic in the Fischer household, passing intelligence to her superiors as she cares for the Fischer’s son. Elderly, achy, and lusty, Cardinal Lanzo Cellucci, living decadently in a Roman palace within the Papal States, attempts to take the Throne of St. Peter for himself while maintaining the power of the Church, allied with dragons since its inception. Lanzo attempts to reinstate The Peace between man and their flying reptilian overlords, while not interrupting his resplendent lifestyle and legendary orgies.

There’s plenty of action (WWI aeroplanes vs. dragons) and blood (and fire!) and intrigue (Machiavellian maneuvering within the College of Cardinals). There’s also weird: Exemplars, the bizarre hybrid of humans and dragons, mostly human-looking beings with dragon minds that serve as a link of power and communication between the two societies and species.

It’s too early for a release date or pre-orders, but that news will appear here and on social media.