Free Book and a Cheeky Little Bird

March 27, 2026 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings,

Heh. After a long nasty winter, spring is here! In the north where I live, that’s debatable. But hey, it’s worth a book sale. I know, it’s been a while. In fact, I’ve all but dropped off the face of the earth. Another story.

Okay things have been weird. But I’m still working on my next book, best I can. I’ll post an excerpt soon.

For a limited time, the Chronicles of Ealiron will be on sale on Amazon. An ancient hierarchy of wizards. Votaries of the old powers. Warlords, fiends and shadows. Enter the world of Ealiron, where Lorth, a highly paid assassin with the skills of a wizard, voices in his head, and a bent toward bringing things to grim ends, discovers there are worse things in the dark than him.

——— F R E E! ———

To get you properly pumped and distracted, Book One, The Hunter’s Rede, will be free! Here, Lorth returns to his homeland and gets caught up in a raft of trouble that he negotiates in badass style. Give it a shot, and you can follow his adventures through the rest of the series at a discount.

“The main character Lorth is a masterpiece.”

Amazon
Amazon CA
Amazon UK

Halloween Book Sale

October 28, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings!

I hope you’re all well, and weathering these troubled times with grace and dignity. Yeah, okay, I think most of us are freaking out and flailing around in some way or another. Things are weird. Bad, even. That aside, it is human nature to focus on dreadful things and overlook nice ones — that 9000-year-old reptile brain survival thing that media and algorithms are very good at manipulating. Sadly these days, they have a great deal to work with, god help us.

This is my favorite time of year. Predictably, my writing is full of dark and spooky things, monsters, curses, wicked trees, otherworldly villains and the like, mostly under the banner of high fantasy. But not entirely.

Recently, I broke ranks and wrote a Gothic horror novella about a crossroads bargain, which involves a deal made between a desperate (i.e., stupid) human and an otherworld entity, in the liminal space where two paths meet. Such bargains are tricky and usually result in unpleasant consequences. This one did—a centuries-old curse by the Unseelie Fae, more specifically, a wicked elf with an army and an axe to grind.

Enter Elspet, the unfortunate progeny of this bargain, a sensitive, hyper-vigilant young woman who sees things in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper—including a beautiful elven lord who is the ancient enemy of the aforementioned bastard.

Against the backdrop of an old, neurotic family, a creepy forest bordering the estate, a string of grisly, unexplained deaths and an antagonistic aunt, Elspet lands into a situation that forces her to make a devastating sacrifice that brings her to the threshold of the otherworld…and herself.

For a limited time, A Northward Gaze will be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon.
Read the story for free with Kindle Unlimited.

Be well, stay safe, and Happy Halloween! And remember, even the most ghastly, tragic tales can have a silver lining.

Dark Night of the Book Sale

March 9, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings. I hope you’re all well, and hanging in there.

It’s been a little while since I’ve written here, though not for lack of love and dedication. I have been busy facing demons, crossing chasms, and oh, I don’t know, losing everything I hold dear, at least for a time. And I’m not alone. It seems almost everyone I know is, or has been, having experiences like this in one way or another. Frodo on Mount Doom kind of stuff.

The Dark Night of the Soul, as it is often called, among other things, is something we all go through at some point or another. One could argue the planet itself is in the midst this presently. Nowadays, the Dark Night is often talked about in terms of vibration, frequency, timeline shifts, etc. But it always involves some kind of upheaval that wipes out everything we thought we were, because birth of any kind involves dissolution. Something has to die, fall apart, return to the earth. You can’t get there from here, or you would be there already.

So those lovely YouTube videos with the beautiful clouds, beams of light, and soft images of contemplative, suffering souls, while some guy in the background drones in an exotic voice about the ten stages of spiritual ascension? Spoiler alert: there are a whole lot more than ten and that death thing will be in there someplace, like a trapdoor spider coming after a cricket. Yeah, you’re the cricket. Don’t feel too bad.

In my own defense, I haven’t spent all this time ignoring my work. Nope, I’m still working, albeit a bit more slowly. But I decided a proper book sale would be nice because, well, things are getting expensive. So how about a good deal on a fantasy series that revolves around a protagonist who’s a trapdoor spider in his own right, a Hunter of the Dark Night, and no stranger to personal cataclysm? Ravens follow him around as they do wolves. He leaves them treats.

The Chronicles of Ealiron

An ancient hierarchy of wizards. Votaries of the old powers. Warlords, fiends and shadows. Enter the world of Ealiron, where a highly paid assassin with the skills of a wizard, voices in his head, and a bent toward bringing things to grim ends discovers there are worse things in the dark than him.

“F.T. McKinstry is a master of this genre.”

From now through March 12, the Chronicles of Ealiron Omnibus will be on sale for $0.99 (usually $7.99) on all the major retailers. This edition includes all four books: The Hunter’s Rede, The Gray Isles, The Winged Hunter, and The Riven God. You can get it here:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple
Kobo
Google Play

Enjoy, and remember: a caterpillar is a mess of gunk before it becomes a butterfly. True story.

Summer Story Sale

June 23, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry

Hi Beautiful Campers!

I hope you’re all well, and staying cool. Whether you’re baking—I mean basking—by the lake, sheltering in the woods or just hiding out in the AC, I have some fantasy stories for you, to take you to cool, dark, interesting places. From June 23-27, these stories will be on sale on Amazon.

Wizards, Woods and Gods: Short Stories. $0.99
Twelve stories involving swords, sorcery, love, gods, assassins, shapeshifters, wizards, war…and a badass cat or two. 206 pages. “F.T. McKinstry writes in a way that involves all the senses. Highly recommended.”

The Sea Witch’s Bargain. This story is included in Wizards, Woods and Gods.
An ordinary hedge witch falls afoul of an ancient order of sorcerers. They know her secrets. They know her weaknesses. And she has something they want. To escape them, she must make a deal with a devious, vengeful monster that will most certainly get her killed, unless she uses all her wits and then some. 24 pages. “Grim, eerie, almost tangible world building.” Based on an excerpt from The Wolf Lords, Book 2 in The Fylking.

A Northward Gaze: A Novella. Free!
An old forest with a dark history. An old family with a lot of secrets. And a young woman who sees faces and creatures in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper. When an unholy tryst with an elven lord and a series of grisly, unexplained deaths drive her into the labyrinth of a faerie curse put on her bloodline in a centuries-old crossroads bargain, she must sacrifice the dearest thing to her in all the world—or lose her life and serve the Unseelie Fae for all eternity. 124 pages.

These stories are all available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
Enjoy!

SPFBO Finalist Book Sale

April 13, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings!

Well, all the excitement over the solar eclipse has died down. Now for interesting articles about how animals reacted to four minutes of darkness in the middle of the day. Here’s my unscientific report.

The only thing more amazing than having the path of totality go right over my house was getting a sunny day at this time of year (trust me, that was a freaking miracle). The darkness wasn’t completely dark but eerily dim, otherworldly, like the late evening cycle on the aquarium lights. All the birds stopped chirping. When the edge of the sun flared out, they started again. Weird.

My cat, who is already weird, didn’t care.

So how about a book sale?

Today through April 16th is the annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog Off Finalist sale, which showcases the finalists from the SPFBO contest over the years. These books will all be on sale for $0.99. Additional books in each series will also be on sale. Check it out. Good stuff!

SPFBO Finalist Sale Landing Page

Included in this, both books in The Fylking, Outpost and The Wolf Lords, will be available on Amazon at the sale price of $0.99.

Outpost and The Wolf Lords are also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Tormented Writers, Aquariums and the Art of Distraction

January 29, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry

Writers are the most tormented of all the different categories of artists that are out there in the world. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Procrastination is a time-honored tradition among writers. We stare at the screen while looking for any and every distraction to avoid doing it. The edge of the void can be a scary wary place. No one knows where the words come from. What if they don’t come? Or what if they do, and then the visions stop? What if it sucks? (Pro tip: It usually does.)

There’s an old joke that writers have clean houses. You’re sitting there, drinking coffee as if it’s the antidote to a cobra bite, maybe the words aren’t flowing, or maybe they are and well, you don’t trust it. You’re not sure. The whole thing just bothers you. Suddenly, cleaning the toilet, weeding the garden, and picking the cat hairs out of the beater brush in the vacuum cleaner seem very important. Critical, even.

I think there’s a pill for this. I don’t take it.

Enter the aquarium. This is a distraction par excellence and, one might argue, more fun than scooping that one little poop out of the cat litter box. It is certainly healthier than surfing the internet, in that you won’t feel so trashy afterward. On my desk next to the monitor, I recently upgraded to a 10-gallon tank. There isn’t much room on the desk now aside from some valuable real estate where I keep my special clutter.

At some point, I had the idea of turning my new tank into a riparium. This setup re-creates the edge of a pond or stream, where things grow in that marginal space between the land and the water. It’s a lovely part of an ecosystem and a spectacular way to filter an aquarium. So now there are plants growing from the water, their stems and roots all tangled around everything beneath like an overgrown mausoleum in a gothic horror tale. Underwater plants growing amidst the hardscape create a happy place for cherry shrimps, bladder snails, Endler guppies, and otocinclus catfish (who appear to be hiding).

This baby is still in its early stages, but you get the idea. I’m hoping the impatiens bloom. And the schefflera, well, if it likes this arrangement, it will get big. Really big. I’ll need a plan.

Tinkering with something like this is boundless. It’s a work of art, and every little thing, how it feels, where it is, how it interacts with things around it, is important. It’s a living, breathing entity, always in motion, always expanding, always whole. And like a character in a novel, it does what it wants to do, despite my best laid plans.

Yeah, with this thing sitting on my desk, it’s a miracle I ever manage to write anything.

Seriously though, I am working on Masters of the Veil, Book Three in The Fylking. No, really. I am.

Monsters, Books and Liminal Spaces

October 25, 2023June 20, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings, Trick or Treaters!

So I have this new favorite word: liminal. It means relating to, or being in an intermediate state, in-between, not one place or the other. It beautifully describes those mysterious, shady places that occur in nature, such as twilight, the edge of a river or pond, the space where a forest meets a field, or the veil between the mortal world and the otherworld. It can also refer to a state of consciousness or an aspect of life in which a person is in transition, suspended in that frustrating hinterland where everything is still for a time.

October is a liminal time of year, when the sun drifts lower in the sky and shines through tall trees, casting long shadows. The wind is cold, whispery and strong. This shift culminates on All Hallows’ Eve, when spirits and dark things emerge from the veil between the worlds, curious and enraged. This is the realm of not only honoring the shadows, but facing them: the beast in the dark you don’t see coming, or that keeps rising again and again no matter how many times you kill it, and will shred you like a cabbage if it catches you. This can be transformative or terrifying—usually the latter.

Some souls are more attracted to monsters, cliffs and chasms than others. It’s a dirty job. Personally, while I love a good science experiment gone bad, my favorite monsters are those that are themselves liminal: shapeshifters, vampires, elves, draugr, demons and the like. Fae cursing humans. A river or a tree that can devour you. That eerie feeling of being watched from the eaves of a twilit forest.

Naturally, this comes out in the things I write. A shrink might say that’s healthy or even necessary, to give my personal monsters some airtime. Well. Maybe. Assuming I have a choice.

Ahem. Anyway, if you like dark fantasy, here are some offerings:

The Chronicles of Ealiron. This series involves the shady exploits of an assassin who is trained in magic and has an inborn talent for sensing and trafficking with the darker forces of nature. By way of his penchant for getting into trouble with all the wrong kinds of things, you’ll find powerful witches, apparitions, curses, immortal predators, sea monsters, evil gods and wizards behaving very badly.

The Fylking. This series takes place in a war-torn realm occupied by immortal warriors who for millennia have used it as a military outpost. Magicians, shapeshifters and masters of the liminal, these beings maintain an interdimensional portal that has, over the centuries, caused the natural veil between the worlds to thin. When their enemies come to play, all manner of things come to life: tricky gods, sorcery, draugr, goblins, immortal warlocks, elves, demons and an order of witches founded by an ancient king to honor the magic practiced by their immortal overlords.

A Northward Gaze. A gothic fantasy novella. This is a wicked dark tale with a silver thread. Neurotic family, old tricky forest bordering the estate, a string of unexplained deaths. A sensitive, hyper-vigilant young woman who sees things in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper.

And elves. These aren’t the goofy little characters you see in Christmas specials. No, this lot plays for keeps. The forest is theirs—and so is our protagonist.

She leaves a trail of monsters, brutes and fools on her way across the threshold.

Stay safe, stay sane, and remember: “Fun Size” is a shameless marketing euphemism.

October Dark Fantasy Book Sale

October 8, 2023 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings, spooky peeps!

It’s that time of year again. Flying leaves, dark windy nights, black cats in menacing poses, and pumpkin spice 🤮.

Time for a treat! October 8-10, both books in The Fylking series will be on sale on Amazon: Outpost will be FREE; and The Wolf Lords will be $2.99. Better than a king-size Snickers bar. Well, okay, that’s a weighty claim, but books won’t make your teeth rot. Probably.

Enjoy yourselves, stay safe and if you’re into pumpkin spice, I forgive you.

Outpost, Book One in The Fylking.

A race of immortal warriors who live by the sword.
A gate between the worlds.
Warriors, royals, seers and warlocks living in uneasy peace on one side of the Veil.
Until now.

“The tone is excellent, reminiscent of some of the earliest examples of grim Norse fantasy.” – G.R. Matthews, Fantasy Faction
SPFBO Finalist

Amazon
Also available on Kindle Unlimited.

The Wolf Lords, Book Two in The Fylking.

A wounded immortal warlock bent on reprisal.
An ancient order of sorcerers hungry for power.
Warriors beset by armies of demons and immortals.
And a lonely hedge witch whose dark secrets could change everything.
…If only they could find her.

“This is a gem of a novel.” – Leslie Jones, Readers’ Favorite

Amazon
Also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Masters of the Veil, Book 3 in The Fylking..

The war is over. The Fylking’s ancient enemy was destroyed, and the Veil between the worlds has been restored. Mortals have buried their dead and begun to heal despite the specters of war haunting their dreams.

But there was one thing no one, mortals and immortals alike, had considered as they put the High Warlock of Chaos to a fiery sword.

His master.

Coming in 2024.

Sneaky Owls and a Midsummer Book Sale

June 25, 2023 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings, campers.

I hope the summer solstice found you well. The days are getting shorter now, technically, though depending on where you live, you’ll have some time before that becomes obvious. In the north where I live, the shift between summer and autumn swoops down as quietly and with the same deadly precision as an owl.

Yeah. It’s a thing.

But enough of such grim imagery–unless of course you’re into that, in which case I have a book sale for you. For the next few days, you can get the first book in the Chronicles of Ealiron, The Hunter’s Rede, for free. In this tale, a highly paid assassin with the rough skills of a wizard and a penchant for bringing things to their darkest ends discovers there are worse things in the dark than him. Wizards, war and badassery abound.

The next three books in the series, in which our redoubtable assassin gets involved in all kinds of otherworldly mayhem–with the same stealth and skill as the aforementioned owl–will be offered at a discount.

The party starts here: Amazon
You can also get this series on Kindle Unlimited.

Cheers, and stay cool. 😎

Masters of the Veil

March 27, 2023October 18, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry / 3 Comments

——— U P C O M I N G ———

Welcome to the official page for Masters of the Veil, Book Three in The Fylking. This novel is in the works. It’s big, bad and beautiful, and it will, barring some silly life catastrophe I’ll probably never tell you about, be out in 2026.

The War of the Veil, they called it, the last in the nine-millennium occupation of the Fylking, immortal overlords of the mortal realm of Dyrregin. Their ancient enemy, a fiendish warlock named Vaethir, wove an intricate spell that compromised the Veil between the worlds and flooded Dyrregin with armies of demons, dark elves and Niflsekt before stalwart mortals with reckless connections to the Otherworld called in some favors.

Scarred yet undaunted, the Fylking’s mortal allies, including seasoned warriors haunted by grief and trauma, an order of witches who serve the old gods, and powerful seers who tend the Fylking’s interests in the mortal world, have returned to their lives to rebuild the realm and bury their dead. And while the Fylking repaired the Veil as only they could, no one trusts the sanctity of liminal spaces as they had before the war.

As warriors know, the lingering effects of war often appear as nightmares, flashbacks and the resurrection of old fears. But distrust deepens when an outbreak of attacks from the Otherworld begins to spread, marked by encounters with dark, dangerous beings that seem to target those most deeply wounded and sensitive to the unseen.

Despite this, mortals and immortals alike take comfort in Vaethir’s demise, knowing the warlock will never again return to wreak his personal vengeance on the realm. But there is one thing they had not counted on, as they put the Fylking’s most redoubtable foe to a fiery sword.

His master.

Outpost, Book One in The Fylking.

A race of immortal warriors who live by the sword.
A gate between the worlds.
Warriors, royals, seers and warlocks living in uneasy peace on one side of the Veil.
Until now.

“The tone is excellent, reminiscent of some of the earliest examples of grim Norse fantasy.” – G.R. Matthews, Fantasy Faction
SPFBO Finalist
Read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

The Wolf Lords, Book Two in The Fylking.