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The Cipher is the first book in my new Crosspointe Chronicles series. It was released just a few weeks ago. You might think I was resting on my laurels (if I had laurels—and no that's not a euphemism for any part of my body). But as it turns out, there's no time for that. I have hovering deadlines, don't you know. What I'm working on now are two related things. The first is the revision for The Black Ship, a loose sequel to The Cipher. It takes place on a clipper ship and focuses on several new characters who find themselves having to make some difficult choices. In The Cipher, we're introduced to treason and intrigue, and in The Black Ship, we see more of both—as it turns out, chopping off the head of one snake doesn't mean the end of the plots against crown and country. Except that there's quite a twist at the end . . .
The Black Ship had some pretty important plot problems that my editor (Jessica Wade) most helpfully pointed out and now I'm scrabbling with my knitting needles, bondo, bricks, nails, chewing gum and glue to fix it. Hey! Where's that Dutch boy and his finger? I've got a dam breaking here! No, really. The revisions are coming along nicely—which is to say, as difficult as some of them are, the book is improving hugely. (Look for it on the shelves in about a year).
The second thing I'm working on is the third book in The Crosspointe Chronicles. It's titled The Turning Tide and begins again with new characters, and reintroduces us to several old ones. Again, the intrigue and plots that have been developing in the first two books drive this story. And this time it forces three close friends to make terrible choices, choices that could destroy them and Crosspointe. One of the reasons I'm working on it now along with the revisions to The Black Ship, is so that I can be very sure that the foundation I need for The Turning Tide is laid in The Black Ship. While these are loose sequels, and while I've known what I wanted to do in The Turning Tide, some recent ideas have made me rethink some smaller events in The Black Ship.
View some more information on Diana Pharaoh Francis' The Cipher
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