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The Prudential Light-launches tomorrow

December 15, 2025 by donnamareehanson

The ebook is loaded on all the platforms.

I’ve started the process for print production. Just in time because Frauke, the cover designer is taking off on holidays! There will be a paper back version, a hardback version and a large print accessible version (mostly for libraries).

We have updated the blurb. I saw ‘we’ because Matthew Farrer did the hard yards. I send him my thoughts and he turns them into blurbs.

New and updated blurb

A book of manners, magic and mayhem

Aunt Prudence Wainwright, famously daunting dragon lady of the Hardcastle family, has set herself to writing her memoirs. But which Prudence will have her story come out?  

Will it be the maiden aunt who lived quietly in a small village, bringing up her niece Milly and sewing and embroidering to her heart’s content? Maybe it will be the outrageously-dressed, old busybody whose battle of wills with her niece, Jemima, unfolded in Ruby Heart? Better yet, the doughty old warrior hidden under the lace and brocade, who fought off villains with her hatpins and umbrella in Emerald Fire?  Perhaps it will be the family matriarch featured in Amber Rose, prim, dependable, astute at procuring baked goods and deft at baby wrangling, who is at times a tad flirtatious with the older gentry?  Or will these memoirs reveal yet another side of Prudence that the rest of the Hardcastles have yet to see?

With the family’s magical gifts running through her veins, there will be plenty to astonish her relations: adventures, abandonment, heartbreak, secret loves, and dangers. But with new babies on the scene, marriage proposals, battles with rogue magicians, and the very past she is recalling bursting back into her life in startling ways, how will she ever find the time to finish writing!

I’m very excited to see it out there in the world. I can’t wait for feedback, truly. It might be a bit different from the other books in the series.

I’ve started work on The Gentleman Magician but I’m getting lots of ideas for Book 5 so much so that I found it hard to sleep last night. I’m going to be playing around with tropes and cliches. I’m currently contemplating a title too.

Some pre order links but it is also listed on Google Play Books, Barnes and Noble.

Posted in A writer's life, blurb, new release, Steampunk, strong female lead | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Launch day approaching-The Prudential Light

December 10, 2025 by donnamareehanson

The book is edited.

The proofing changes are taken up.

Just waiting on a few little bits to complete the package.

Launch date is December 16, 2025.

My second novel of the year. A good year for the Cry Havoc Series indeed.

I have been looking at the blurb and I think I need to expand on it. However, I just need some brain space. But first I have to find my brain.

Blurb

Aunt Prudence Wainwright, famously daunting dragon lady of the Hardcastle family, has set herself to writing her memoirs. There will be plenty in these pages to astonish her relations: adventures, abandonment, heartbreak, secret loves and dangers and the family’s magical gifts running through her veins. But with new children, marriage proposals, battles with rogue magicians, and the very past she is recalling bursting back into her life in startling ways, how will she ever find the time to finish them!

Here is the series link.

A few words on writing the book now that it’s packed up, nearly ready to launch.

If you read the book you will see in the author notes that I found this book challenging. You might think this is funny given I have written over 20 books now of various lengths and have been writing since 2000. But every book/story has its own challenges–it’s own problems to solve. If you are panster you do that issue wrangling on the run. If you’re a plotter/planner you do it at the planning stage.

I’m definitely in the panster category and until I’ve written the first draft I don’t know if the story is going to work. A short recap on my story writing for this book. I went off to Singapore to stay for 4-5 weeks with a side trip to China. I walked in the pool everyday, went back upstairs to write. I thought The Prudential Light was going to be a novella of say 30,000 words and 30,000 words was my goal for the month. I drafted over 50,000 words while in Singapore. You see, while in the pool, Aunt Prudence, Mr Chen and even Jemima came to have a word in my ear and the story grew from there. However, there were problems.

The structure of the novel became a bit complex. 1864ish timeline and a 1836-1841 timeline, with some other little bits between, usually Prudence mulling stuff over and some bits of research to add validity. (Note The Prudential Light can also be called historical fantasy).

Meanwhile, I developed a hole in my macular, had to have eye surgery and recover from that. Thanks to excellent beta readers and the amazing editor, Brianne Collins, the story got ironed out from the chaos that was.

During the process though I seriously doubted my ability to write; I felt cognitively challenged and thought my writing career was over.

A bit overwrought wouldn’t you say?

Matthew (partner) thought it was due to me writing a more complicated story, rather than me sinking into my dotage!

The good news is I feel fine now. I have started a new project, The Gentleman Magician and the head wheels and turning nicely. The Gentleman Magician is meant to be a novella but I won’t know that until I’ve done the draft. While I am nearly 10,000 words in, I know I have to give it a punch in the jaw to get the story going. Luckily I have some ideas in mind. I’ll also be covering some of the magic system that Edward Huntington uses: his strengths and weaknesses, methods etc. I may have a bit of thinking to do over the Christmas break.

As for other stories in the Cry Havoc series. I have The Lady and the Magician in my back brain. That’s the story of Wilbur Hardcastle and Elinor, Jemima’s parents and will be a novella (I promise!) And after some prodding from my sister-in-law a Cyr Havoc Book Five featuring Milly and Jemima, not title yet. I have to do a bit of research into English faerie first.

Given tight timeframes, the ebook will be up on the 16th but the print version may be a bit after that. I have to get the cover flats done, upload and so on.

Cheers

Donna

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To do lists

November 28, 2025 by donnamareehanson

I find to do lists helpful and I do use them sometimes.

Although when you have a lot on, lists can be overwhelming. Just looking at all the things you need to do! Crazy.

I’ve just downloaded an app to help with that called To Do but often I just use my notes function on the phone or a bit of paper.

I’ve tried bullet journals but I then write everything I want to do and it all gets impossible, particularly when you aim to do a bit of each thing per day.

With things like Christmas and birthdays, list can get really out of hand.

Also, when I publish a book there’s a heap of back office stuff to do and a particular order to do them in. For example, grab and ISBN and register it, then set up the book in Vellum, etc. I had a check sheet for publishing and I have no idea where it is. Time to do a new one.

Yesterday, I checked my books page and realised that all my Dani Kristoff books only have Amazon links. When I went back wide I haven’t put the other links up. Also, I found that Destiny’s Blood is not on Kobo at all. Obviously, I have some serious back office admin to do. I realised I could have just unpublished the page, kept all the links and made a new page just for Amazon. As I’ve deleted them all I have to do them from scratch. Ouch!

Balancing that with creating fiction can be hard for me. It’s a different head space. I’ve been drafting Gentleman Magician but then I remembered that I had been revising another book before my edits arrived back. So actually, I should be drafting and then revising the other book because I want to sub it. Also, the proofing changes will come through soon.

It’s a whole out of mind thing. To do list help keep things front of mind. Even here on holiday in Perth, I need to get my list together because there’s stuff I need to do on line for presents.

Also if you want achieve things, tick off things that need doing, having things crossed off the to do list is great for the morale. The queer thing that happens is that sometimes I’m doing things not on the list so have to add them and then cross them off. They are only not on the list because I’ve forgotten they are there.

Anyway, here is my poor forgotten book that I need to take care of.

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New book project

November 26, 2025 by donnamareehanson

I’m currently in Perth, visiting a writer buddy (Hi Cat). We have been talking all day, mostly about writing, our process, indie publishing, traditional publishing, ideas, editing, book production. All the things.

We have also been writing.

I’m currently working on Gentleman Magician, which I started in the Hunter Valley. I had a lovely writerly time there hanging with Keri Arthur and Jenny Kew after attending the Next New Book Boyfriend event at the Mecure Hunter Valley.

I’m now just over 4000 words in.

Firstly I had a plot glitch. A character I was going to include could not feature in this story so I had to rethink that and did manage to sort it.

I’m not rushing this project, but aiming for 1000 words a day and I’m getting a feel for the narrative. As this story will be in Edward’s point of view I’m going to have to once again get used to not writing in Jemima’s. She will return to the pages in Cry Havoc book five though so don’t worry. I love Jemima and have so much fun writing her.

The challenge with Gentleman Magician is to work out Edward’s journey in becoming a magician. He has inherent talent but it must be developed and his meeting with Fulton, healing him etc, which are two interesting plots entwined.

As I’m a pantser I have no idea how long this book will be. I have no idea if other plot bits will show up. It’s early days in the words on a page.

However, it is good to be writing, good to be enjoying it and I’m waiting eagerly for The Prudential Light proofreading changes to come back so I can upload the book to retailers.

Like my sewing and craft projects, I have way to many book ideas and projects on the boil that I don’t know whether I will get them all done. However, Cry Havoc is likely to be my focus for at least the first six months of 2026. Then I’ll need to work on a Dani Kristoff novel. Who knows priorities shift.

Meanwhile I’m enjoying being in Perth for nine days and seeing friends.

Work in progress

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The Prudential Light

November 22, 2025 by donnamareehanson

Exciting news!

I am out of editing hell. The Prudential Light is at the proofreaders and is up for pre-order.

I’m so excited by this. It was a challenging book, with two historical timelines. Lots of birthdays to keep in my head and historical research to undertake.

I’d like to thank readers who have encouraged me to write more Cry Havoc stories, particularly Louise who was a 100% champion of Aunt Prudence and is now urging me to write a story featuring Milly.

However, next off the bat will be Gentleman Magician, a Cry Havoc novel. This will take place after Edward inherits Willow Park and his journey of becoming a magician, him and Heaton meeting Fulton and saving his life. Again I’m hoping this will be a novella, but The Prudential Light was meant to be one and became a novel. Also, I’d like to write The Lady and the Magician, which will be Wilbur and Elinor’s story, Jemima’s parents and late Regency/early Victorian setting. Eep! Definitely a novella, but (rolls eyes) who knows. The there will be a Cry Havoc Book Five as I’m getting some hindbrain ideas happening there.

Blurb

Aunt Prudence Wainwright, famously daunting dragon lady of the Hardcastle family, has set herself to writing her memoirs. There will be plenty in these pages to astonish her relations: adventures, abandonment, heartbreak, secret loves and dangers and the family’s magical gifts running through her veins. But with new children, marriage proposals, battles with rogue magicians, and the very past she is recalling bursting back into her life in startling ways, how will she ever find the time to finish them!

Check out my books page for buy links.

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In editing hell

November 16, 2025 by donnamareehanson

I’m back and well life has been busy, with travel, with writing, day job and just stuff.

My eye continues to improve from surgery and next month I’ll see about a new set of spectacles to see if that helps. I’m over the horror of it and the doom saying about what happens if they other eye goes. Not point in fretting.

The Prudential Light is back from the editor. She’s a damn fine editor that I had at Pan Macmillan and she freelances and has worked on the dragon wine series with me. For me, The Prudential Light was a bit ambitious, two different historical timelines, a lot of birthdates, event dates to keep straight. However, I’m nearly there and the ed has taken a feather duster to my prose and worked on the plot tension. There are unfortunately (or fortunately) less baked goods in this story.

I expect The Prudential Light to be out early December, maybe earlier but next stop in the proofreader and you can’t rush the proofreader.

I’m behind on other things. Newsletters, BAS statements, blogging and social media. As much as I hate to admit it, I only have so much energy.

Appearance wise, I was at Books and Beyond in Ourimbah in September. It was such a fab event. So many keen readers and it looked so pretty, even though from the outside it looked like the car park of a Mitre 10. I’ve put in an expression of interest for next year, so fingers crossed they let me come back. I also had a stall at the Goulburn Steampunk and Victoriana Fair and that was a fab event. We are taking the whole family next year, or as many as we can muster. I made two bustle dresses for this event. One took me a very long time. Did I not say I’ve been sewing lately? Sometimes, I. have to write before I allow myself into the craft room.

A very difficult fabric to work with. All that pattern matching.

Me with pink hair. I’ll be sporting that colour next week in Pokolbin.

This dress was an adaption of the plaid dress patter. I had less fabric to work with so bought the Apricot satin for contrast and bustle. It is a lighter dress for the heat and the bustle is not as overly engineered.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES

First up, next week, I’m at the Meet Your Next Book Boyfriend at the Mecure Valley, in Pokolbin.

Tickets are available here. $50 for full day $22.50 for half day. Apparently, the gardens next door have an amazing Christmas display so come along and check it out. Link to Tickeboo here.

Next March, I will be in Sydney for the Australian Romance Readers Romantic Rendevous, March 22, 2026. at the Rydges, in Surry Hill. Tickets are now on sale. There will be panels, an author lunch and the signing in the afternoon. I’m only doing Sydney this year, but the event is happening in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth. Check out this Trybooking link.

The good news about this event is that I’ll have The Prudential Light with me. I’ll be putting up a preorder too on Benenti.

I have other appearances coming in in Canberra and elsewhere. I’ll update you all. Now to head over and do my newsletter, which is also long overdue.

Posted in A writer's life, author appearances, Creative passion, Editing, fantasy, Fashion | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Surgery day

August 19, 2025 by donnamareehanson

The day has come. I have surgery, a vitrectomy, this afternoon. To say I’m not looking forward to it is an understatement. I have a few fears. One that the surgery won’t happen. Two that I will lose the plot while having it. (Shit scared might cover it) I’ll be awake you see (Holy moley!). That it won’t work and I’ll have to have another surgery and you know loss of vision. That I’ll have to have a cataract surgery in about a year, if the predicted rapid growth of cataract after surgery happens. That I might have other eye issues in future or with the other eye. The macular hole was totally unexpected. I get checked annually for macular degeneration and glaucoma.

I will be missing the RWA in Hobart! I will have EMO (experiencing missing out) as Matthew told me as FOMO is fear of missing out and I’ll be definitely missing out.

I only got half of my conference fee back and I was lucky to get that. The committee’s advice is to take out travel insurance. A bit late for me though. However, in future I will consider it as I usually don’t take out insurance when I travel domestically. Recall how Matthew and I got COVID when we were heading to the Terror Australis Writing Retreat? That was a lot of bucks and luckily we were able to stay and do the workshops via phone. Not ideal but the best outcome in the circumstances.

A win though for me. I have been able to massage my draft of The Prudential Light into something beta readers can wade through. I sent that off to four of them so it will be interesting to see the feedback. My take on it that I will need to really hone the structure down. I thought I had been introduced to a good editor but they did not answer my email about a quote and timing and I’m afraid a non-responsive editor is a horror story I don’t need. I even texted them and they said I’m in holiday mode will respond tomorrow and they didn’t. Oh well. Time to look for another. Not that I have issues with editors I use at the moment, but as this is a complicated structure for me and has memoir elements I thought I needed to find a specialist and someone who can suggest things, rather than a copy edit, if you get my drift. In the worse case scenario I can do it myself. I did study editing and considered hiring myself out but that’s a lot of creative energy that I can use for my own work.

Anyhow, time to go write a newsletter and send that out.

Cheers!

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Update on medical issues

August 7, 2025 by donnamareehanson

I didn’t want to spoil my cover reveal post so I’m writing this separately, and also scheduling it for the next day.

Last Wednesday while at a work planning day, I noticed that my vision was blurry. I cleaned my glasses, checked for sleep in my eyes, took my glasses off to see blurry faces and put them back on again. I looked the powerpoint screen and asked my neighbour if it was blurry for her. She said it was clear as day.

I then hastily made a Specsavers appointment for the next day, thinking I had had some rapid decline in my middle distance sight. I wear glasses mostly for reading and screen and have 20/20 distance vision.

The optometrist was great. He went through the motions. My right eye was fine. When we switched to my left eye, I swore. What’s wrong? he asks and then I explain that I could see the first letter, a blank for the second, the third one was half there and I could sort of see the last letter. That’s never happened to me before says I. He says ‘Let’s forget that then’ and went to look at my retina scan. It showed a full thickness hole in my macular. A full thickness hole in my macular? What the hell is that?

If like me you have never heard of such a thing, then you will understand my growing trepidation. He says you will need surgery. Will I get my vision back? I ask and he says, yes but probably not the same.

I practically ran out of there. I was so shocked and upset. I had to ring later to ask if I owed money. I went looking for Matthew so I could throw myself at him and bawl my eyes out. However, he’d gone back to the car and by the time I made it there the urge to cry had passed. We spent time looking up what the condition was, how it happened and what the surgery entailed. The optometrist referred me to the retina clinic.

I’ll find out Thursday about the surgery and when. At least I have private and some superannuation stash to pay the out of pocket expenses. I’m luckier than some as I can go private. Most of the tests I’ll have tomorrow are not covered by Medicare.

Anyway, I went to the day job on Monday and managed okay. Tuesday was harder but I wanted to complete a task in case I had surgery before I was due back. I only work two days a week. However, while my right eye is picking up the slack, my brain is having a hard time with a blurry spot in my left eye and this leaves me with a headache, not severe, and a bit of nausea. Not enough nausea to quell my appetite for Turkish Delight and peanut biscuits. Yeah, I stuff my anxieties.

The upside is that I can still watch TV/stream. I can type a bit as I’m a touch typist and I can read my phone sort of. Doing the phone is probably why I have a headache all the time. After surgery it is a different story, because they will replace the fluid in my eye with gas and from what i understand, you can’t see past the bubble until it dissipates. Removing the fluid allows for the hole to repair itself.

There might be a pirate eye patch in my future.

Of course, if I can I will keep you posted.

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The Prudential Light Cover Reveal

August 6, 2025 by donnamareehanson

Frauke, the fantastic designer from Crocobooks, has outdone herself with this wonderful cover for The Prudential Light, Cry Havoc Book Four.

I love this so much. Originally I wanted a silhouette of an older woman but once I saw this one, I realised that was how Prudence sees herself and how she would want to be remembered. The skinny, pretty young thing. You might notice so Chinese influences in the cover and that’s part of the story as is the magnolia.

Originally this was going to be a novella, but as you know from previous posts, lots of story came out while I was in Singapore and in the pool and there was also a front story of what was happening with Jemima and crew and then the memoir component. Now it’s going to be a novel, if a bit shorter than the earlier ones.

Now I might have mentioned I was also going to do a story about Edward, Fulton and Dr Heaton. It is sort of a prequel, but isn’t. This story is about how they met, how they fixed Fulton etc. Well guess what kiddos!!! Another cover reveal.

I have not started this one yet. But look! I love it. I realise it says novel right now. However, I do think it is a novella or shorter novel. However, when the time comes I’ll adjust the cover if necessary. Fingers crossed I get this written by the end of the year. Next blog post will reveal some health issues that might impact my writing for a bit.

Originally the title was going to be Edward Huntington Esquire: Gentleman Magician but that was way too many words if I was to stick to the style of the other books. So I trimmed it to Gentleman Magician. I also went for a younger model. The first iteration had a bowler and didn’t look right. The joys of self publishing.

Remember if you like any of my books, please leave a review or rating as it really helps.

Also if you haven’t read any Cry Havoc books, Ruby Heart, book one is currently free until August 15.

Apple

Google Play

Kobo

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

And on my bookstore.

Appearances

My partner Matthew Farrer (Black Library) and I will be guesting at Ozcomicon in Canberra this weekend. Fingers crossed.

I’ll be at Gamacon on 6 September in Canberra. That sounded so far away before but is coming in hot.

I’m also scheduled for Books and Beyond in Newcastle on 27 September.

I’ll have a table at Conflux in Canberra on 4-5 October.

On 18 October I will have a table at the Steampunk Faire in Goulburn. Hopefully I would have sewn my bustle gown by then.

And Newcastle Book Boyfriend on 22 November.

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Procrastawriting or taking care of business

July 11, 2025 by donnamareehanson

Yesterday, I did zero work on my current WIP, The Prudential Light. I did not have the excuse of the previous couple of days of recovering from my shingles vaccination, which really did knock me about. I did procrastawriting.

I wrote and sent a newsletter, and prior to that I signed up to Benventi for preorders for Books and Beyond 28 September. That took time. Here is a link to that preorder form. This is evidence and also if you are in the Central Coast and want to check out the event, please do. I’d love to say hi. It’s a first time, small writer event, which I think is free for the public.

I’ll be at the Geekmarkets on the CSFG table in the morning of 19 July with some of my books on offer. Also, free and fun.

I’ve signed up to Gamacon 6 September and I will have another appearance in August to announce soon.

Early October, it’s Conflux in Canberra, where I’ll have a table too. Not sure if I’ll make it onto any panels yet. That’s 3-5 October over the long weekend. A great SF con and a real experience if you have never been. I am hoping to launch The Prudential Light there but if so I need to get cracking.

I have other events later in the year as well but that’s the next few.

I have ordered book covers for The Prudential Light and Edward Huntington Esquire: Gentleman Magician so keep your eye out for those. I’m super excited about those.

While I have mucked about for two days, I actually did do some work this morning on The Prudential Light. It requires some additional structure so I had to write some new bits and one section needs a bit of research. The word count is now 53,000 word and I am not sure if this will reach 70,000 by the time I’m done.

I am in the ‘this is a mess, everyone will hate it, I can’t make it good’ stage. Or trending that way. I am still having fun with Jemima and Aunt Prudence.

Now as you can see I am writing a blog post. Is this procrastawriting? Or a heavy dose of writerly admin? I find it a bit of a diversion and I like blogging. Often I think of things I want to blog about and then don’t get around to it and then forget.

Have I told you I have started a TikTok? I am very much a Noob and the platform has amazing potential but being time poor I don’t have time to explore it and I’m also distracted by all those TikToks. My lastest talk about how hard I find revision. I love drafting novels. The hard work is shaping them into something you can read. Hence, my angst over is it good enough, can I make it better and so on.

I also owe the blog some posts from China, which I will get to.

Now it is time to get another cuppa.

PS my daughter just made me tea, put the heater on, brought me slippers, my hoodie and a cookie. I’m so spoilt.

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, author appearances, Author signing event, Book cover, book signing, Conflux, Creative passion, fantasy, Geeking out, research, revision, Science fiction conventions, Steampunk, Victorian | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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