This is it! The final author commentary for The Final Gauntlet! FINAL FINAL FINAL. (Okay, that’s enough…) SPOILER WARNING is in effect.
My last word on the series
The Greystone-in-Training trilogy has been a dream to write. It was supposed to be three short stories at one point. That was it, just brief glimpses into Soriya’s training to be the Greystone.
The growth that came in building this series was tremendous, and a point of pride for me. Soriya’s world has evolved to the point where the characters know the story better than I do. They set the tone and the pace. I am merely the chronicler.
I am grateful to have been able to return to Portents, and with how this trilogy now impacts the five remaining novels in the main series. It’s made the journey so much more interesting for me, and I hope for you as well.
My last word on The Final Gauntlet
Now for the rest. There are times when I look back at The Final Gauntlet and absolutely love the challenges it presented – both internal and external. This is my 14th novel, and each one has had its moments of pride and pure agonizing torture.
None more than this one.
The truth of the matter is that the book is what it is and I love the action and adventure. The climax in Rose Riley Forest is one of my favorite sequences since I started. I really pushed the action elements with this one to keep readers going.
And that’s where I feel like the weaknesses come out as well. In the back of my mind, this book was always about connecting the Daughters with Evans and the history of Portents. I think I could have done more there. There were some important things to discuss and push to the forefront, but I was too afraid to deviate from the path.
I regret not doing more with the Daughters. My notes are filled with info about their history, about what they did for the founding of Portents. Some of which WILL be coming out in a Greystone book.
But should it have been here?
That’s what I keep thinking about as I write these commentaries. Could this book have been more than it was? Could I have done better with it?
I think the pandemic influences these thoughts of mine. The external forces were tremendous in the creation of this novel. Maybe if I had pushed back the release, not jumped the gun in marketing and put more effort into the draft…
Or maybe The Final Gauntlet is what it always should have been. The choices I made are the ones that ended up on the page. That’s all there is to it. There is no going back. There is no what if scenarios or updated versions to come out at a later date.
The Final Gauntlet will always be the book where everything that could go wrong with the world did, but the book still found its way to life. All those challenges weren’t enough to stop Soriya Greystone from reaching her potential in these pages, and for that I am eternally grateful to the family, friends, and colleagues who push me to keep writing.
