
I don't want to give away too much about this book, but I'm happy to now reveal the title.
Book five will be called Consort to the Shadows.
I'm quite happy with this title, because it is something that people will be able to pronounce. I've heard all sorts of variations of my book titles before: RAY-fen instead of RAH-fen, The Sea Onion Wolf instead of The Sianian Wolf (that mistake nearly made it into the New Zealand Herald!), and The Fourth Runny instead of The Fourth Roo-NIGH. So hopefully no one is going to have any trouble with pronouncing Consort. I'm pleased to say that all my other titles from this point on are going to be in plain English as well, which is great. I've learnt my lesson the hard way.
Consort is an interesting book, not least of all because it will now be told in two parts. Some of you might remember that Rafen suffered a rather dreadful hand injury (with compliments from the Lashki) at the end of book four. Well, you might want to remember that, because that hand injury is very critical to what direction Consort goes in.
The word "consort" is an old one, often referring to the spouse of a monarch. However, it can be used as a verb as well. Consorting with villains and scoundrels is never the best occupation, but Rafen is obliged to do some of this in the second part of book five, which is why the book has this name. However, there are other people who consort with the wrong folk as well in both parts of this book. Richard meets an unlikely ally, which pretty much makes him a consort to the shadows, and a few people that you hoped might know better make some rather poor decisions regarding how they treat their sister, spouse, country, and world's future, etc. This book also focuses a lot on the desire to know one's future - and whether or not inklings or visions about what might happen to us are actually helpful.
Lastly, this book contains a dragon with a lot of attitude.
I'm not ready to reveal full covers yet, but let me just reveal to you the lettering of part one. The font is called Captain of the Pirates, and it's a good one!