reading | Alexandra Gardner

Work-In-Progress Wednesday # 6

Posted on 11 Days Ago by Alexandra Gardner

Where in the 2026 Are You, Queen?

Hello, and chaotic day to all y’all, my lovely minions of chaos!

Well… it’s April somehow???

I’m not sure how that happened???

That said, there’s quite a few things that I meant to get around to that just… fell off the face of the planet — like me, apparently.

So let’s do a quick 2025 wrap-up, then let’s get started on expectations for 2026.

(Buckle-up, this is going to be a bit longer than my normal newsletter).

What happened in 2025?

Published:

Projects written:

Sticks & Stones: The Underground (7 short stories)
Sticks & Stones: Mischief Manor (12 short stories)
Sticks & Stones: The Fae Realm (2 short stories)
Sticks & Stones: The Crematory (5 short stories)
Light of Chaos, books 6 & 7

Projects put on the back burner:

Sibling Charm (Light of Chaos: Born Elementals # 3) Novelette

Whew! That was A LOT of stuff. So much stuff. The only “breather” in there is that the short stories average 10,000 words each, so in reality, they total out to be roughly 2 full-length books (when compared to the main Light of Chaos books). Yeah, I know — that’s still a LOT of writing. Not to mention the editing for the published items.

The year came and went, with struggles and triumphs, but now we’re in 2026, and it’s already been… interesting.

What’s happening in 2026, you ask?

Currently:

Editing all Sticks & Stones short stories and sending them to beta readers. (I’ve completed first-round edits for all but 2 of the stories already, and have had 5 of them beta read. So, I’m making headway toward publishing a few of them in the summertime-ish).
Wrote, sent for beta, and am now editing a new steamy paranormal romance novelette (17,000 words)

Later:

Put together “Light of Chaos Series Collection Volume 2 (Books 3.5, 4, 4.5)”
*Hopefully* wrangle “Sibling Charm” into submission
Poke at Light of Chaos # 6 and see if it bites

Still seems a bit ambitious, TBH…

My goal this year is to center my focus. Last year, I was trying to do 9,001 things, and it really took a toll on my mental health. I pushed myself too hard to meet a ridiculous, self-imposed publishing schedule, and it cost me. I spent so much time pushing myself to write, edit, and publish that I’ve seen my babies leave the nest… and fall straight to the ground without spreading their wings. (AKA “Published into the Void that is amazon’s content-suppressing algorithms” — which are getting more and more ridiculous with each passing day, especially now that amazon is using AI to “help” authors categorize books. AKA — remove books from categories that it THINKS books don’t belong to / put them into categories they DON’T belong to… — and assign obnoxiously similar keywords that reduces search terms that can be used to find genres/themes — among other things).

When I say “center my focus,” I mean I want to focus on the demon of publishing: Marketing. I want to reach new readers who will love the Chaos Universe. BUT ALSO!!! I want to continue to bring new content to current readers, which is why I’m prioritizing the 10,000-word short stories. This year, I’ll be publishing The Underground series. There are 4 main stories (and 3 shorter-short bonus stories that will be free downloads, which range from 3,000 – 6,000 words). The Sticks & Stones stories became somewhat of a passion project, and they were the breath of fresh air I needed after spending 3 years repeatedly rewriting full rewrites of Mórrígan’s Curse.

Some of the toll on my mental health is that I’ve *never* had a book give me so much trouble. Most of my full-length books were written, beta-ed, edited, and formatted within 12 – 18 months. Mórrígan’s Curse was 3 years of just WRITING, REWRITING, and EDITING before even getting content edits from my editor. It felt like bashing my head against a wall, lighting myself on fire, and jumping into a dumpster to burn in the flames of Elmo Hell.

Mórrígan’s Curse *is* much improved for spending that time tightening up everything and bringing in new concepts and elements that I never expected to introduce. Such as the “dangerous” Legendary Sibyl coming into contact with three powerful covens, which helped better launch the existing content in books 6 and 7. Part of the “issue” was that Mórrígan’s Curse is one of my most complex storylines to date, and with so many interwoven plots, everything had to line up in a logical way that not only flowed but maintained the on-going high stakes.

All that to say, I hope you find Mórrígan’s Curse to be one of the strongest stories I’ve written in the Chaos Universe.

With all of that in mind, it’s unlikely that Light of Chaos # 6 will publish this year. I’ve maintained a publishing schedule of one main-series novel per year since 2019. It practically makes my OCD (real OCD, not joking) skin crawl to think that I might not maintain that publishing schedule. The logic behind maintaining that one-per-year schedule was keeping readers engaged, but it’s hard to engage readers when I’m not marketing. If readers are unable to find my content due to amazon’s algorithms, then there’s no readers *to* engage.

Beyond that, I’ll be taking things as they come.

Thank you for understanding and for your continued support.

More to come later.

As always, welcome to the Chaos.

With love 🖤,
Your Queen of Chaos

**Don’t miss out on the beginning of Rin’s next adventure! Download his special bonus scene directly through this BookFunnel link OR “purchase” Elite Hunter FREE on amazon! New purchases include the special bonus scene as the epilouge.**

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New Release: Mórrígan’s Curse

Posted on November 4 by Alexandra Gardner

Hello and wonderous day, my lovely minions of chaos!

Today is release day, and I’m so very excited for this one! After years of reworking Mórrígan’s Curse, it’s time to share it with the world. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s chaotic, it’s emotional — it’s full of twists and turns you won’t expect. New friends, new allies, new conflicts — old enemies.

Prepare yourself for: action, love, grief, anger, vengeance, family, friendship, covens, ~magic~ and so much more!

All magic comes with a price.

Samantha Anders successfully forged bonds with her cousins, repairing her soul. But it came at a cost: she’s draining their lives. As Sam’s godling powers grow, her abilities become harder to control.

They’re not the only ones fighting to survive…

The Ravenhart curse is haunting Vincent. Grief is stirring dark feelings, driving him to fits of madness. With each passing day, his gruesome nightmares take him closer and closer to the edge of despair.

And a sinister voice invites him to give in…

With lives hanging in the balance, Team Sibyl will have to pay a price to keep each other safe, and the consequences threaten to unravel the Cosmos.

Get this thrilling novel HERE!

Thank you for your continued support.

As always, welcome to the Chaos.

With love 🖤,
Your Queen of Chaos

Start the Adventure

P.S. Don’t forget to like, comment, and follow below ☺️!

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Work-In-Progress Wednesday # 5

Posted on October 22 by Alexandra Gardner

All The Book Things™️

Hello and wonderous day to all y’all, my lovely minions of chaos!

A few updates as we approach Publishing Day.

To start, Light of Chaos # 5, Mórrígan’s Curse, is publishing November 4th, so don’t forget to snag a copy, available for pre-order.

As far as my #AuthoringAdventure…

I’m currently mid-edits for the Sticks & Stones series. My beta reader is enjoying them profusely, which is a good sign! Minimal edits will be needed on my part, which means I’ll be able to publish those in the near-ish future. That’ll start sometime in 2026, since I’m still wrapping up other Light of Chaos things. No promises on when publishing will start.

With Mórrígan’s Curse finished and ready to publish, the “other Light of Chaos things” include book 6, with the tentative title Godling’s Folly, which I’ve somehow — MIRACULOUSLY — managed to finish a rough draft of. I’m also about 3/4 way through a rough draft of book 7, which is going a lot more smoothly than expected, considering I’m “cobbling” it together from a previous draft.

Let’s just say, when I originally wrote book 6 back in 2021, I kept writing and didn’t stop until the draft was over 257,000 words long. So, I’ve already taken about 80,000 words out of that for Godling’s Folly, while needing to cut content, seeing as how the plot changed DRAMATICALLY with Mórrígan’s Curse. The latter half of the that content is also being picked through, and I’ve already set aside the key content for book 7’s draft. Now all that needs to be done is backfilling with new content, just as I’ve already done with Godling’s Folly. I already know how I want to adjust that, so it’s just a matter of writing it.

The other “Light of Chaos things” I’m working on are trying to wrangle Sibling Charm (Born Elementals # 3) into a coherent draft. It’s the final novelette in the trilogy, and while I’ve gotten over half the content written — and I enjoy it quite a bit — there’s been some teething problems with trying to wrap up the trilogy without giving away too much content in the main series. The Born Elemental crew overlaps pretty heavily with Sam’s crew (aka Team Sibyl), and it means trying to have the Born Elementals trilogy come to a satisfactory conclusion WITHOUT spoilers, which is proving to be more challenging than I originally thought. The original ending I had for what *was* the complete draft gave away WAYYYYYY too much, so I had to delete nearly all of it… *sob* 😭

And last but not least, I teased a “special project” VERY early this year when I gave a rough estimate of my publishing goals for 2025. So, what exactly is that project? Well, without any spoilers, in Mórrígan’s Curse, you’re going to get a brief glimpse into Henry Anders’s past, and just how… sketchy it was LOL. So, I’m excited to announce that Henry and his brother, Daniel Anders (who y’all know as Neil Hunter), will be getting a dual point-of-view novelette!

It’s Dark, it’s sassy, it’s hilarious, it’s bonkers, and I can’t wait for y’all to get a better idea of what set Henry, Neil, and their wives on the paths their lives take. You’ll learn how Henry came to work at Morley Enterprises, how Neil and Maverick Ravenhart met, and how the Legend of the Sibyl was revitalized.

So, what’s the title of said novelette? Rogue Caster (Light of Chaos: Cloak & Dagger # 1). I bet y’all noticed that says “# 1” *smirks* 😏. I’ll give more details when # 2 is in the works, but it will be a continuation of Henry’s story, but VERY indirectly. It’ll follow different characters in the Light of Chaos universe, set 7 years after the events in Rogue Caster.

Okay. I’ve probably overwhelmed y’all with a barrage of information. The TL;DR boils down to:

Mórrígan’s Curse publishes November 4th;
Book 6 and 7 should both have completed drafts by the end of 2025;
Sibling Charm is taking a bit longer than expected, but rest assured, it will see the light of day;
Rogue Caster will be coming to a shelf near you in the near future.

Okay, I’ll leave it at that for now, but don’t forget: the PRE-ORDER for Mórrígan’s Curse is available now, so order your copy today.

Anyway. Thank you for your continued support. More to come later.