
Category: Fantasy
Video Tuesday: Book Trilogy Trailer Edition
https://youtube.com/shorts/6KsxPAlEONk
Meet Chloe Fortebat and Dr. Maxim os Storm in this trailer for the Hunter Healer King trilogy. She’s a rancher’s daughter facing werewolves in a world of airships and steam power. He’s a monster hunter avoiding his destiny as king. Three books of monster hunting, political intrigue, and slow-burn romance where saving the world takes priority over bedroom scenes. For fans of Patricia Briggs and Lindsay Buroker.
Continue reading “Video Tuesday: Book Trilogy Trailer Edition”Book Quotes: Wolf’s Trail
Book Quotes Friday: Wolf’s Trail

From Gaucho Lifestyle to Monster Hunting: Chloe Fortebat’s Journey in the Hunter Healer King Trilogy
What if a rancher’s daughter discovered that monsters were real?
Chloe Fortebat left her father’s ranch in Silberne with nothing but her horses, her knive, and a mysterious inheritance. She expected to find a new life in the Old World. What she found instead were werewolves, necromancers, and a sharp-dressed monster hunter who would change everything. This is the story of how a pragmatic frontier woman became the co-protagonist of the Hunter Healer King trilogy.
Continue reading “From Gaucho Lifestyle to Monster Hunting: Chloe Fortebat’s Journey in the Hunter Healer King Trilogy”Video Tuesday: Dancing Mecha Edition
https://youtube.com/shorts/XhTQ__CjtVY
A 40-foot mecha dances to Slavic-inspired folk music in this music video from the Hunter Healer King trilogy. The Armor of Arent has been waiting for a worthy pilot. Now it has one. 🎬 Created with AI tools (Midjourney + Suno) 📚 From the gaslamp fantasy series by Mel Dunay! The Hunter Healer King trilogy combines steampunk monster hunting with slow-burn romance. For fans of Patricia Briggs and Lindsay Buroker.
Continue reading “Video Tuesday: Dancing Mecha Edition”Dragon’s Teeth (Hunter Healer King 3) is Now Live

The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I don’t understand this place at all.
Maxim and I are engaged, but there’s a problem: his late mother may be too closely related to my mother. We need answers about her past, but she abandoned me as a child, and we don’t know where she is now. Meanwhile, a candidate for Emperor was attacked by a vicious beast, and Maxim’s friend the Prime Minister is pushing him forward as a replacement. I think Maxim would be good at it, but right now, we have bigger problems. We have to find my mother, and stop the monster stalking this city. But neither the monster nor my mother may be what we expected.
My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night.
I want to marry Chloe more than anything, but first we must find her mother, who vanished years ago under suspicious circumstances. As we investigate, the questions multiply. What creature killed one man and mauled another near the Beast Garden? What is the meaning of the signet ring marked with a face that is half woman, half dragon? Why does the Prime Minister want to thrust the Imperial Crown onto my head? But Chloe’s courage never wavers, no matter what ancient horrors await us. We will find the answers we seek, and face the darkness together.
Weird Wednesday: The Role of Religion in My Science Fiction and Fantasy
(Adapted from a comment made elsewhere.)
Religion is not at the foreground of the stories I tend to tell, but it is in the background, part of the “vibe,” so to speak. I tend to stick to versions of a specific cosmogony (Creator+quasi angels+quasi devils), partly because it reflects my own Catholic beliefs, but also frankly because my world-building energy is limited, and most of the time, I’d rather spend it elsewhere.
Continue reading “Weird Wednesday: The Role of Religion in My Science Fiction and Fantasy”State of the Author, 4Q2025
It’s been roughly three months since the last State of the Author, so here’s where I’m at:
Continue reading “State of the Author, 4Q2025”It’s Midjourney Monday! And Suno Monday! And Cheesy Music Video Monday!
I’m kind of proud of the fact that it only took me about three hours to do this in the free editing software Kdenlive. What actually took longer was generating the different source clips in Midjourney one weekend in September when the end of the Midjourney billing period was approaching, and the words weren’t coming on Hunter Healer King 3. I’ve told the story behind the song before: I went to Claude asking it for a Suno prompt for a certain kind of music, and then I went and pasted the prompt into the lyrics area in Suno instead of the prompt area. I ended up liking it better than the songs I got with Suno prompting “properly” for what I wanted. (I believe I already had at least some of the footage, and felt like this song had a good tempo or rhythm that worked with the clips.) Anyway, silly little car chase with a fantasy premise that excuses some of Midjourney’s weirder tendencies. Never forget: we live in an age of wonders. Horrors, too, but we can’t forget the wonders.

