As promised, finally, I have the Twenty Palaces prequel ready for sale.
Here’s the cover:
Here’s the book: When Ray Lilly was 13 years old, a handgun accident landed his best friend, Jon Burrows, in a wheelchair and turned Ray into a runaway and petty criminal. Fifteen years later, Ray returns home after a stint in prison; he’s determined to go straight, but he knows he can’t do that without making peace with his old friend.
What Ray doesn’t expect is to discover that Jon has just received a mysterious cure–not only is he out of his wheelchair, he seems stronger and faster than… well, pretty much anyone. Worse, his cure has drawn all sorts of unwanted attention: the media are camped out on his block, the police are investigating him for insurance fraud, and weird shadowy figures have begun to draw closer, figures who clearly do not mean to do Jon any good.
Can Ray atone for the biggest mistake of his life by protecting his oldest and best friend? What’s more, should he?
Yeah, this is the book where Ray meets Annalise, creates his ghost knife, and sees a predator for the first time. It’s also going to be the last Twenty Palaces novel for a while.
Buy here:
Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords
Thanks for reading, folks.
Hello, Harry.
I’m the guy who wrote (and sent translated version) the Game of Cages review on 3droid.com not so long ago.
I’m very glad to know that another Twenty Palaces book is out. Even if it’s self-published. I heard rumors that publisher don’t want to sign a contract for further novels so this release is a relieve to me.
I still haven’t read the Circle of Enemies. So there are 2 books await me.
Thanks for your work!
Thanks, Yaroslav.
You might want to read the prequel before Circle of Enemies. Just sayin’
Take care and have a great day.
Aha, thanks for the tip!
YAY! Christmas comes early. I’ll likely buy it again on the Kindle when Amazon has it, but in the meantime I bought the DRM-free version. Yum!
Thanks, Carl. I’ve uploaded it to Amazon.com already, but it takes a while to work through their system.
Purchased. Can’t wait to start uncovering the Ray’s dark past.
I am all over this like arrogant judgementalism on Westboro Baptist.
Purchased! The page now says that the payment is processing and I should receive an email soon…how long should that take? Just wondering, got my excitement level up for the prequel!
Would you prefer if I bought this via PayPal or Amazon?
I just finished Circle of Enemies, which was easily my favorite of the three–mostly because it dealt with people Ray actually knew and cared about, which made me care more. So obviously, I jumped on this right away. :)
Also, great cover, George!
I’m kinda new to ebooks. What’s the epub format? Can I read it on a computer, or should I just go with the pdf version?
The epub format is for some of the book reader devices, and there are programs you can load on your computer to read it as well. But in your case, probably just download the pdf.
Bob, did you get that email? Be sure to check your spam trap to make sure.
If not, let me know.
I get more money faster if you buy it through Paypal, but I don’t have an Kindle-friendly file for sale here. The most important thing is that you buy whatever is convenient for you. I hope you enjoy it.
Nothing yet Harry, and nothing in my spam…
What Bob said. Epub is essentially a book written in a sort of html language to allow it to be read in ebook readers. Everything except the Kindle can handle this format.
There are some free downloadable ebook readers that will handle epub, but pdf is there for folks who aren’t interested in ebooks
I just emailed the file to you. Let me know if it comes through.
Got it, Harry. Thanks! Looking forward to it!
YEAH!!! Thank you for making my holiday weekend! I bought the SFBC collection for a friend’s birthday, and another for my shelf to loan out to friends. This will be awesome for me to enjoy on my new Nook.
Super excited about this book! Just ordered the epub/PDF – how long should it take for the email with the files? Can’t wait to get started reading!
Just saw the second update – Thanks!
Let me know if you don’t get it.
I haven’t received an email since the Paypal receipt an hour ago, even spam is empty…not that I’m rabidly waiting to devour this.
Thank you again for releasing this!
I just emailed it to you. Let me know if you have a problem
So very excited to see how this magnificent creature survives in the great big world.
I’m so glad you did this—I finished Game of Cages just before your announcement that there would be no more books, and I was very sad!
Sooo… any chance of you self-publishing more of the series someday?
Me, too! It’s an interesting experiment.
Carole, sales of these books have been so low that I’ll only revisit them when I’ve started building a readership again. The sales trend for this series has been heading downward like cliff divers.
But someday, I hope. I’ve spent ten years on this setting, and it means a lot to me.
Can’t wait to read it Harry, this is a terrific series!! Will you sign my iPad? ;)
Next time I’m in town I’ll bring my Sharpie.
Could you add a Google Checkout option?
I’m scared of PayPal.
Thanks!
The plugin I’m using doesn’t offer Google as an option.
One more reason to switch to something else.
The epub will soon be available from B&N soon (I thought it would be ready now, actually) if that seems more secure.
Got my copy without any problem and it is a great read. I hope it works out financially and you will be encouraged to write book five. I look forward to reading how the experiment goes and if you are happy with the numbers. Its a tricky pricing decision. Selling for, say, $1-2 dollars might attract a lot of new readers on Amazon but obviously produces less revenue for the Paypal sales.
Child of Fire is already priced at $1 on Amazon.com and has been since July. Whatever new readers are going to be drawn in have been, I think.
“Child of Fire is already priced at $1 on Amazon.com and has been since July. Whatever new readers are going to be drawn in have been, I think.
Not on Amazon UK where all your books [paper and kindle] are $6-7 each.
Ah yes. Random House UK is their own entity and make their own decisions.
Still, I think this series has proved it’s resistant to success. I’m happy to offer the book at a fair price, but I don’t have a lot of hopes for it.
Would you like text corrections, and if so should I post them here or send an email?
Text corrections would be fine, but in email, please. harry at harryjconnolly period com
Thanks.
http://calibre-ebook.com/ is a pretty nifty program I use to convert epub books into .mobi files.
This will allow Kindles to read it.
The program will also allow you to move the file onto your kindle.
Thank you for writing this!
My friend Chris Valin recommended your books to me, and I’m so glad he did. Good to hear you are still publishing Twenty Palace stories. I’m a big fan of DRM-free and look forward to buying more from you in this fashion.
Love your books. It’s nice to see “magic” that’s not sparkly or nice. Please keep up the good work.
I found this blog post (and the new prequel) via a posting by Kevin Hearne on his Facebook feed.
I can convert files into .mobi, but I didn’t for this because I figured people would rather buy them from Amazon.com. Maybe that was a miscalculation on my part.
And thank you for reading, Bryan. I hope you enjoy it.
Chris just became my bestest friend in the world.
Thanks, Leesa. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks, Lynne, and thanks to Kevin, too.
Yep, I’m with Lynne. I just found out you had published the prequel through Kevin Hearne’s post on Facebook. ;) Another, of my favorite authors who is apparently a fan as well of your fantastic novels! You should build a Facebook fan presence. I know people blow it off, but sad to say in today’s world more people spend more time on there and find out their news and what is going on then anywhere else. We need to spread awareness and get more people reading so we can find out what happens next to Ray! Ha! ;)
Just bought and received the PDF. I’ll try to get the Kindle version later. Totally made my day to find out there is some more Ray story to read! Thanks, Harry!
You’re welcome, Dawson, and thank you for the kind words.
I am on Facebook, but as a person, not with a fan page or whatever. I don’t like the site much, but I do like some of the friends I have there.
I got mine very quickly. No problems opening it with Calibre. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
I was amazed and saddened all within a moment when I saw this book for sale on Amazon and that the publisher has dropped the series.
I don’t like the Twenty Palaces novels, I LOVE them! They’re the best urban fantasy books out there, hands down. The prequel’s bought and at the top of my queue.
Harry, please consider T.A. Pratt’s model that he uses for his Marla Mason novels. He faced the exact same thing with his publisher, and took his series independent with great success.
You may not have a huge following, but I’d bet we’re loyal as hell. We’d support you!
Thank you, John. I’ve been following Tim Pratt’s choices for a while now. I wish I could be as prolific as he is!
Only read the first one when Suvudu had the sale/discount/whatever it was. Found it surprisingly fun. Then was deeply depressed when I found this blog :p
Buying now, will buy the Amazon version when available.
Yo Harry,
Didn’t notice your post about the new/last 20 Palaces book until today. I would like to buy posthaste, but I have a Nook. Any update on when it might be avail on thru B&N?
And you can be sure that I will spread the word!
Andy, I uploaded it to B&N at the same time I put it on my site and uploaded it to Amazon, which was Thanksgiving night. B&N says that they take up to 72 hours to process a file and make it available for sale, but it’s been more than that now. I’ve contacted them twice about it with no response. To be honest, I’m not sure what I can do.
However! The Nook reads files in the epub format, which is one of the formats I’m selling on my site. You could buy the epub from me by clicking the link above and uploading it to your Nook. If it doesn’t work of course I can give you a refund.
Sorry for the problems. B&N is making it rough on me (I assume because they suspect I’m publishing fan fiction).
Got it directly through your site. No problems. Looking forward to reading it.
Hopefully see you if (when?) you venture back East. Take care.
Nice. I’m super excited to read this. Consider it purchased.
I would really hate to see this series go entirely or even for a long period of time. I have been raving about it since the last book to anyone I could because it blew me away. On top of that my brother who rarely reads was actually sucked in after four pages of child of fire. so I bought him his own copy. It’s a wonderful series backed by an amazing character that I can’t have enough of. So thank you sincerely for the great reads for what it is worth..
What are the odds of you reconsidering? Just a couple of books more?
To be honest, I’m quite surprised to see you “had” to go solo on the Twenty Palaces series. Its an outstanding series, I devoured each book within hours after having bought them. I hope that the prequel sells well enough for a publisher to reconsider. Or for you to just keep writing them, at least!
Anyway, I just looked for the prequel on amazon, and apparently here in Germany we cant buy it that way. consider it bought as soon as i know where from…
Very glad to see the prequel. I would have bought it directly from you, but since you’ve disabled the link because it wasn’t working I’m forced to buy it from Amazon.
Hi Harry,
I love this series and was upset that there are no other books coming up. I have just bought the prequal from Barnes and Noble but am having trouble. They wont let me download it. I will be contacing them soon to see what is going on. Anyways I really really hope that the company reconsiders and you can write more books, I cant wait to read what happens with Annalise and Ray, and the Twenty Palaces Society. Thank you so much for writing these books, they are my all time favorites.
Thank you.