So here is the first thread to pull. Some of the names in this book are doing more than one job. If a name gave you a small chill, or sent you to look something up, or felt like it meant something you could not quite place, say so below. Tell me which name and where you were in the book when it snagged you. If nothing has snagged you yet, that is worth saying too. It tells me how quiet the quiet parts are.

Two house rules. Mark how far you have read before you speculate, since your fellow readers are at different points. And know that I will neither confirm nor deny anything, ever. If you land on the truth I will smile at my desk and you will not know it. That is the whole game.

The pear tree remembers. Start digging.

This is what a seat at the Hearth is for. The Blood of Winter releases to the world on December 1. You hold it now.

Ebook: https://books.sckincaid.com/eul1erhy81

Audiobook: https://books.sckincaid.com/we9olbp20d

Both links run through BookFunnel, which will walk you through sending the book to any device you own, Kindle, phone, tablet, or the BookFunnel app for the audiobook. If anything gives you trouble, their help button actually helps, and if you are still stuck, say so in the comments and I will sort it out with you.

Two small things I ask of the circle.

First, these links stay by the fire. Early access is the privilege of a seat here, so if someone you know wants the book, send them to the Hearth door rather than the links, and they can pull up a chair of their own.

Second, when December 1 comes, an honest review wherever you buy books is the single most valuable thing a reader can give a new author. Honest is the whole request. I am not collecting praise, I am collecting witnesses.

Beyond that, the fire is yours. Tell me where the book kept you up, what you saw coming, what you did not. If your comment gives away what happens, lead it with the words SPOILERS BENEATH so slower readers can look away in time.

All sagas begin in fire. Glad you are at this one.

S.C. Kincaid

books.sckincaid.comThey burned his mother for singing to the earth.You are holding an advance copy of The Blood of Winter before the world sees it, and I am grateful you wanted to be among the first. This is a finished manuscript, though small refinements may still occur before publication. If you catch something that snags, I would genuinely welcome hearing about it. One ask, and only one. If the book moves you, consider leaving an honest rating or review on Goodreads or Amazon around launch week. Launch is set for December 1. Honest is the key word. A real reaction does far more good for a new author than a kind one. Thank you for reading. It means more than you know. S.C. Kincaid Cristóph was raised beneath a hill, in a hollow that never knew frost, taught to hear the Song of the Earth and to hold the cold itself in his hands. He is half of something the world has spent a century learning to fear. When the hunters come for the hill, they take the one person who understood what he is, and leave him a locket, a grief, and a country full of smoke. On the road he finds Elizabeth, a healer condemned for coaxing life from plants out of season, and the infant daughter she will not surrender to the fire. Two strangers bind their survival to the same frozen branch, and run. Ahead of them lies an old prophecy, a scattered and hunted people, an uncle on a contested throne, and a war already gathering at the gates of Prague. Behind them lies everything the fire took. And in a boy who answers cruelty with small, deliberate mercy, a figure the world will one day soften into a symbol begins, very quietly, to wake. A legend has to begin somewhere. This one begins in the blood of winter. Book One of The Aelf-King Sagas. For readers of Katherine Arden and Guy Gavriel Kay.

books.sckincaid.comThey burned his mother for singing to the earth.A note before you begin Thank you for being one of the first to walk into the world of The Blood of Winter. Advance listeners like you are the reason a book like this finds its footing at all, and I do not take your time lightly. One favor, when you are ready. The Blood of Winter releases December 1, 2026. If the story stays with you, the single most helpful thing you can do is leave a review on launch day or in the days just after. Reviews posted close together at release are what help a new book surface for readers who have never heard my name. For an independent author, they matter more than almost anything else. A few things worth saying plainly: Please wait until I let you know it is published and live to post. Many stores will not accept a review before a book is officially live, and reviews clustered at launch carry far more weight than ones scattered across the months before. Honesty is the whole point. I would rather have your true response than a kind one. Say what you felt. A few sincere lines are plenty, and you do not need to summarize the plot or soften what did not land for you. You can leave your review at Amazon and Goodreads, or wherever you listen and shop for books. A rating alone helps. A rating with a sentence or two helps more. If it is useful, mark December 1st somewhere you will see it. I will send one short note when the book goes live, so you have a reminder and a link in hand. Thank you for listening early, and for helping carry this story out into the world. S.C. Kincaid Cristóph was raised beneath a hill, in a hollow that never knew frost, taught to hear the Song of the Earth and to hold the cold itself in his hands. He is half of something the world has spent a century learning to fear. When the hunters come for the hill, they take the one person who understood what he is, and leave him a locket, a grief, and a country full of smoke. On the road he finds Elizabeth, a healer condemned for coaxing life from plants out of season, and the infant daughter she will not surrender to the fire. Two strangers bind their survival to the same frozen branch, and run. Ahead of them lies an old prophecy, a scattered and hunted people, an uncle on a contested throne, and a war already gathering at the gates of Prague. Behind them lies everything the fire took. And in a boy who answers cruelty with small, deliberate mercy, a figure the world will one day soften into a symbol begins, very quietly, to wake. A legend has to begin somewhere. This one begins in the blood of winter. Book One of The Aelf-King Sagas. For readers of Katherine Arden and Guy Gavriel Kay.

Working on these books, I spend a lot of time in old records: trial transcripts, parish ledgers, account books, the dry paper of the past. And the moments that stop me are almost never the dramatic ones. They are the small hesitations. A clerk who changes his handwriting for one line. An entry struck through but left legible. A gap where four pages should be, and a note in the margin explaining nothing.

Someone, centuries ago, sat with a pen and decided what could be said and what had to be left in silence. You can feel the deciding, right there on the page.

So I want to start us here. Have you ever found something like that? In a family document, an old letter, a public record, a photograph with someone cut out of it. A place where you could tell that someone did not want to write the thing down, and wrote around it instead. Tell us what you found, and what you think the silence was hiding.

I will go first in the replies.