Thoughts on finishing The Famine Cycle

I don't often take much time to reflect, honestly. I think it's easy for a lot of us to slip into that habit — life gets busy, and we just keep pressing forward to the next task or goal on the horizon.

But today, as I sit here a bit sleep-deprived at my keyboard, I'm in a thoughtful mood. So if you'll allow the indulgence, I'll share a few of the things I'm thinking about as I close out this series.

As I've mentioned before, The Famine Cycle is my first complete epic fantasy series. Now, it's not my first complete series — Godslayer Rising, my LitRPG trilogy, has that honor. Nor are they my first epic fantasy books — the unpublished In the Shadow of the Rook earned that medal (what happened there is an entirely different story).

But this is the first series in the genre I've tied a bow on. And so one cycle is complete... but the thing with cycles is they keep going, and more epic fantasy books are always on their way.

But back on The Famine Cycle. The journey of these books really catalogues my progression as a writer, in a way. They've gone through three iterations of covers, as I first learned to invest in them (after attempting to create ones on my own), then optimizing the process to get ones I'm really pleased with.

The progression of Book 1's cover and title.

The insides of the books — at least the first book, Whispers of Ruin, and the prequel novella, Secret Seller — were likewise not spared. When I got new covers, I took both through complete revisions, as I felt they didn't at the time live up to my current standards. The beginning of Whispers in particular has given me trouble, and it only just reached a point that I'm finally happy with it in the past six or so months.

But I put in that work because I believe in the story. The Famine Cycle is my brother's favorite series of mine to date (at least since I last checked in with him). It also has some of my favorite ideas in it, particularly the core one: that of Finches, traders of secrets unveiling truth in a seedy medieval city, a profession that the protagonist, Airene, has adopted as her own.

And not only that, but there's always been a certain mystique for me about these books. The idea of Finches came to me as the first thought when I woke up in Seattle after just having moved there. How cool is that? And with Airene, she was the first character I heard speaking in my head (not in a crazy way, I swear!), which has always made me feel pretty attached to her.

There have been growing pains in writing this series, yes, and plenty of stumbles. But I'm happy where it's ended up, and I hope you will be too.