Updates and Newsy Things

Audiobook production of our novels has been on the ol’ To Do list for a while. Like everything we procrastinate on, eventually it gets tended to!

We’d like your help making the decision: who will be the voice of our Ascending Mage series?

We asked a selection of talented voice actors to read a sample passage from Ascending Mage 1: Changeling Justice. From the initial group, we narrowed the field to our four favorites.

Have a listen, then cast your vote and comments below!

Corinne Davies:

Stephanie Willing:

Sarah Colton:

Gert Kimpton:

Now that you’ve listened to the auditions, cast your vote!

Thank you for listening to the auditions! This poll is now closed. We’ll be announcing our decision in a future post to this site.

To stay current with such announcements, please be sure to sign on to our email list. As a bonus, you’ll receive a free copy of our prequel novel, Fog Over Mandaree!

More about the Ascending Mage cast: hear A.V. Caris perform Chapter 1, our conversation about Ember’s character, and the full series lineup.

The Ascending Mage series has many subplots and characters. We use spreadsheets to outline and keep our descriptions consistent while keeping the overall story arc on target.

One of the aspects we track for each book is what we like to call the “Emotional Intensity” of each chapter. It’s subjective, but allows us to ensure we aren’t including too many low-key scenes in a row–or conversely, too many high-intensity scenes without an emotional break so our readers can catch their collective breaths. Essentially, the goal is to create an escalating saw-tooth pattern.

Below is a screenshot for the Emotional Intensity we’ve mapped for Ascending Mage 4: Nothing Broken. I’ve blurred the chapter descriptions to avoid spoilers.

Why We Track Emotional Intensity

Pacing is one of the hardest things to get right in a novel\u2014especially in a series like Ascending Mage, where each book juggles multiple storylines, character arcs, and escalating stakes. Early in our writing journey, we realized that “feeling” our way through pacing wasn’t reliable enough. We needed a system.

The Emotional Intensity chart is our solution. Each chapter gets a score based on the level of tension, conflict, emotional weight, and action it contains. A quiet conversation between Ember and a friend might score a 2 or 3. A life-or-death confrontation with a changeling? That’s an 8 or 9.

The saw-tooth pattern you see in the chart isn’t accidental. Readers need valleys between the peaks\u2014moments to process what just happened, connect with characters, and brace for what’s coming. Without those valleys, even the most intense scenes lose their impact. It’s the contrast that creates the thrill.

This technique has become one of our most valuable writing tools across all eight books in the series. If you’re a writer, we highly recommend experimenting with something similar\u2014it changed how we approach every chapter.

Ascending Mage 4: Nothing Broken is releasing on June 16th. Pre-ordering is available.

More from behind the scenes: updated book descriptions for all eight books, Chapter 1 of Ascending Mage 2, and our conversation about Ember’s character.