Hello and welcome to the fifth and final book of the Delilah Cross series, The Astral Eyes! For those who may have wandered in here without reading the previous books, I highly recommend that you go back and read them. This is not a standalone novel and will expect you to know the basics of the Whisper Valley universe. Books 1-4 are all available for free on my profile. The order is:

1. The Death Thief

2. The Phantom Touch

3. The Blood Moon

4. The Bone Chapel

5. The Astral Eyes

With that being said, let's get down to business!

Okay we've got a lot to discuss and there's good news and bad news. So let's just rip the band-aid off and do the bad news first. Posting for this book will not begin until March 2024.

I'm sorry. You all have been so patient with waiting for this next book and I didn't want to push this date, but I just don't think it's feasible. Let me explain why.

First of all, I'm spending a little over a week in January in Disney World. And this may be a shock to you, but I have zero intentions of do anything resembling work while I'm there (except maybe post to social--follow me on Instagram at sylviaNgould!)

Okay, so there's that. Then in mid-February I'm having surgery on my nose...again... If you've been with me over the years then you might know that I had septoplasty, along with some other work, done back in 2019. It was to reduce a significant obstruction in my nose. Well, since I've been working with an ENT this year to get a CPAP, I asked about the fact that, quite frankly, I still can't breathe very well. Wasn't much of a confidence booster when he was shocked to hear I already had septoplasty to correct my deviated septum.

Unfortunately if he was to go in and do another septoplasty, there's a high chance for complications due to the scar tissue that's already there. So I'm having two other procedures done that will hopefully provide some correction and open up the passageways. All around it sucks, but I would really like to be able to breathe easily at some point in my life. So fingers crossed this time will do it. However, it does mean I will be heavily medicated and possibly incapable of doing any writing for at least a week in February.

Now if that all wasn't enough for postponing my initial plans to start this book in January, I have one more piece of news that was really the deciding factor on the matter. So, as for the good news I have to share with you...

A story I pitched back in the summer has been acquired by Wattpad to be part of their Wattpad Originals series program. Only a select few have been chosen to be a part of this initiative and I'm so grateful to be one of them. This has been a real learning curve for me as I am working directly with Wattpad on developing this story for publication. I'm not used to having an editor other than people I know or ProWritingAid so it's been both fun and challenging.

Anyway, the reason I've been absolute crap at posting with any regularity for most of the year is because I've been diligently working on the initial load of chapters for a launch that is scheduled for the end of February. I will continue to have a commitment to Wattpad after launch to deliver a certain amount of chapters each month. This will take some getting used to. I hope I will eventually hit my stride with this program, but I don't expect it to be immediate.

Which brings us full circle as to why I'm delaying the release of this book. I need to survive the first two months of 2024 before I can commit to you all. I'd like to post with a decent amount of regularity once I do start posting so I'm using January and February to sneak in little chunks of writing time for The Astral Eyes. That way I can have some backlog to rely on moving forward.

I also will only be able to post new chapters for this book once a week, there's just no way I can manage more than that. What day I will be posting will depend on the posting schedule for this new Wattpad Original series, which I haven't been given yet. So stay tuned for more info on that.

So I know this may be disappointing, but I hope you can also rejoice with me on this exciting opportunity I've been given. This will hopefully introduce my work to more people and maybe we'll get some more readers for Delilah Cross. This new series is a paranormal romantasy, so they have a similar vibe!

In fact, I hope you will consider reading my new series called Treasured by the Dragon! A princess is sacrificed to a dragon and whisked off to the beast's castle on a frigid mountain peak. She awaits whatever unpleasant death he has in store for her, but is surprised when he lets her live and even more surprised when he transforms into a strikingly handsome man. Beauty and the Beast meets Avatar in this mature romance!

Thank you for your continued patience and I hope to see you in March!