The House of the Crows

[ecosophia]

I'm very pleased to announce that the fourth Ariel Moravec occult detective novel, The House of the Crows, is now available for preorder.

It's winter in Adocentyn, the strange old East Coast town where 18-year-old Ariel Moravec is studying magic with her adept grandfather, and a new investigation has come her way. One of the old mansions south of Coopers Bay is haunted by the ghost of an old woman with a cane, who is only seen by moonlight. Behind that shadowy figure is a mystery professional ghost hunters have failed to solve -- a tangled web of grief and passion that began with a 1931 gangland massacre, and set cascading consequences in motion down to the present. The further Ariel investigates, the outline of a forgotten tragedy begins to surface, centered in the old mansion and the uncanny numbers of crows that haunt it day and night...

The House of the Crows will be released on April 7. If you're interested, you can preorder a copy now and get a 20% discount off the cover price. The ordering link is here: 

https://sulbooks.com/bookstore/p/the-house-of-the-crows-by-john-michael-greer

Use the discount code JMG2026 when placing the preorder. 

BTW, for those who like their novels in matched sets, the new publisher is bringing out all three of the previous volumes with cover art by the same artist who did this one. Details will be out this coming May. 

Comments

Ariel!

[kallianeira]

Dear JMG,
Is Ariel the New England version of Amelia? :)

I am close to finishing the Witch of Criswell and what a delight it is! (I am getting my local library to order as many of your books as I can manage).
This cover art is way classier.

I was going to ask you a MM question about the novel anyway but while waiting for midnight in your part of the world I might just mention that these books are a nice way to present a little bit of magic and practical folklore in slightly disguised fashion.

Re: Ariel!

[ecosophia]

1) Nah, she's just a geeky, bookish eighteen-year-old who's discovered that she has the chance to do something genuinely interesting with her life!

2) I'm delighted to hear this. Yeah, I appreciate the new cover art.

3) Granted, but my main reason for writing them is that I wanted to do some books that present magic as it actually is, without the Bertie Scrubb nonsense.

Re: Ariel!

[kallianeira]

3) Not saying that the magic is not as it actually is, but that it is presented under cover of the story, as it were: one can safely be seen to be reading a detective novel in public, or borrowing it from the library, which one might not do so freely with something more textbook.

[(Anonymous)]

Yay!

I’ve preordered and am eagerly looking forward to the next Nancy Druid novel!

Annette

[kylec]

Pre-ordered! I like the new cover art. Hopefully it was human-crafted! I recently got a cover for one of my books done by an artist, and specifically requested that he not use AI in any of the design or illustration process. He was thrilled to hear it. Apparently he had been losing a lot of his business from publishing houses to AI designs. BUT, lately the publishers have been coming back to him in a panic asking him to replace covers for books they already released because people didn't like them, and they felt too inhuman. The details were too precise, and they wanted more of the odd brushstrokes that don't make sense to a computer but are unavoidable to the human hand.

[ecosophia]

Yes, I should have specified that -- the artist's name is Ivana, and to the best of my knowledge she doesn't use LLMs at all. Her first draft wasn't really to my taste, so we worked together to come up with imagery that was better suited to the book. I've also seen the first draft of the new cover for _The Witch of Criswell_, and it's great.

I'm not surprised that LLM-generated covers are alienating readers. Blowback against LLMs is likely to become quite a phenomenon in the years ahead...

[open_space]

AI art is extremely bad for some reason. I don't think its about the lines themselves, some of them are actually quite good but I believe its because it carries the intent of plagiarism instead of the passion of the artists when they draw. Even if people don't know they are tuning into that, it's very clearly there, or rather, not there.

I will make up of the next ten unexpected "free days" to read the last two of the series before getting my preorder.

[baconrolypoly]

Good, I detest AI art. To me it's stealing, taking someone else's style and using it to make money.

I knew someone who was doing this about five years ago. She was an artist herself and a good one too, but she started messing about with AI, using another artist's style, then she began having her creations printed onto duvet covers and whatnot and selling them. I was absolutely appalled that she could do that and it put me off AI right from the beginning.

[ecosophia]

I've just confirmed with the publisher that the artist, Ivana Mundja, doesn't use AI at all. You're seeing the work of a genuine certified organic human being. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Really looking forward to it! Thanks to you & the folks at Sul for the preorder code. I plan to do that on my next payday.

JPM

[baconrolypoly]

Looking forward to this and have pre-ordered, it'll be just the ticket in terms of distraction.

Fantastic!

[(Anonymous)]

Woho! My daughter will be over the moon!

108

Ordering problem

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings!

Unfortunately, the order page wants me to choose a cover, but doesn't provide cover options, and the order process hangs up at that point. I've tried several browsers, and none had worked.

All the best,

LeGrand

Re: Ordering problem

[ecosophia]

I've contacted the publisher and will get back to you promptly.

another book of yours...

[mskrieger]

...is unavailable on Bookshop.org: Arkham, the final book in the Weird of Hali. Is it a stocking issue? Is there another place to buy it from which you would still get decent royalties?

--Ms. Krieger

Re: another book of yours...

[ecosophia]

I've just contacted the publisher. This happens from time to time with small presses, and it usually just takes a day or so to get the ISBN back in the relevant systems.

Re: another book of yours...

[mskrieger]

It’s available on their website as of right now—and I just purchased a copy. Glad I asked!
—Ms. Krieger

Re: another book of yours...

[ecosophia]

Please do ask -- and this goes for everybody. In the era of the decaying internet, questions and comments like this are one of the few ways I can find out if something has gone haywire.

[jenniferkobernik]

Congratulations! Just ordered it, and can't wait to receive my copy! I hope you keep writing these, as they're some of my favorites.

[ecosophia]

The fifth in the series, The Sign of the Phoenix, is already finished; volumes six and seven, The Greater Key and The Marble Sphinx, are partly written in outline, and volume eight, The Serpent Ring, is in outline. I think you'll be pleased.

[jenniferkobernik]

Excellent!!