Dear Reader,

Have you ever reached a point where everything just gels? All the work you’ve done, all the education you’ve enjoyed (in some cases, endured), all the connections you’ve made, the folks you’ve boosted and the beginners you’ve encouraged—all of it falls into place and you make a great leap forward. This can happen in work, in relationships, in music or learning a new skill, in spiritual growth—in just about any aspect of your life. Albeit rarely. In my experience, this happens only a handful of times in an average human lifespan.

Yes, the leaps are more frequent, and greater in magnitude, the more preparation you’ve made. “I’m a great believer in luck,” Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said, “and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

NewMyths seems to be at a ‘gel point’ right now. More positive attention comes our way than ever. Newsletter subscriptions, site visits, and submissions continue to rise. The number of well-known and award-winning authors filling our pages goes up every year, and the number we’ve had to reject would surprise you.

This ‘gel point’ idea really came home to me when our dear friend and mentor Jeanne Cavelos agreed to collaborate with us on a combined Odyssey-NewMyths anthology. That means in 2026, New Myths Publishing will release two NM anthologies (Janus Gates and Driven), not to mention the second novel in my Chronicles of the Ever-Guise series. (The first, Chaos Woods, just released.)

Why is this happening?

Well, Susan could tell you a lot about hard work. She does most of the reading and choosing, editing and organizing. By the time you read this, we likely will have been publishing for 19 years, with Susan at the much of the way.

A ‘gel point’ indeed.

~Scott T. Barnes, editor & founder

“The Ever-Guise series is fun, vivid and engaging…We are off on a grand adventure and I am hooked and enjoying it.” —Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Dune: House Atreides

When the auction for a magical artifact goes awry, killing the thief who tried to steal it, young barmaid Telyn Brower winds up with a fragment of a forbidden mask. Highly illegal. Highly dangerous. And highly addictive. As Telyn and her friends begin to use its power to reshape their town of Harlech, they unleash unforeseen consequences.

But Harlech is no ordinary town. Isolated on the high plateau of the Chaos Woods—an enchanted forest where magic proves unpredictable—it survives in precarious balance between the magic-wielding armies of the coast and the wild denizens of the deep woods.

Soon, that balance shatters, and everything begins to change. A daemon smashes the prefecture. Slavery returns. Secrets surface and puzzles multiply. As winter storms gather and evil forces close in, Telyn and her friends must embark on a high-stakes adventure to break free from the mask's grip, survive ferocious beasts, and confront the dreaded mind wizard...or lose everything they hold dear.

A sweeping coming-of-age story about the allure of magic and the cost of wielding it, Chaos Woods begins one of the most original fantasy series since Roger Zelaznie’s Chronicles of Amber and Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer.