The Summer Realm series of books is a unique tale of three agents:
Wren – a reclusive loner mage and her beloved fox,
Cleaveskull – a gentle-hearted airship guard-winder,
and Ash – a skilled-in-the-art-of-disguise wily spy,
with Tricky – an intriguing and potent witch from another world,
fighting to defeat a threat that will annihilate their realm.
Their stories weave together until they meet for the final showdown.
About two years ago Michael Wombat approached myself, Miranda Kate, and Victoria Pearson with the acorn of an idea and it grew into this huge old oak tree of three books.
As soon as I was approached, I jumped at the chance and it was a privilege to write with this group. We brainstormed on WhatsApp and created the Summer Realm, a land of steampunk, medieval, and fantasy tech with just more than a hint of Dungeons and Dragons. Michael assigned us a corner of the map and let us loose to create our characters and their stories. Michael knew how the story started, and sent messenger parrots to deliver an individual mission to each of our characters. From there we set about crossing snowfields, deserts, inhospitable lands, and traipsing through towns and cities to achieve our objectives.
We totally surpassed our original anticipated wordcount, and the single book expanded to become three.
Michael worked tirelessly, though, he was probably exhausted, pleaching* our four stories together – weaving them as if they’d naturally grown together twining like ivy, jasmine, wisteria, and convolvulus.
All through this, Michael was fighting cancer.
As we neared the end of 2025, Michael’s body had done with fighting.
Miranda worked every hour of every day (I’m not even joking) editing, collating, and preparing the files for publishing. Victoria worked on marketing, and we all made tongue-in-cheek videos of our characters. Even I did a video, as camera-shy as I am!
To Miranda’s eternal credit, she privately got a version of all three books in one omnibus printed and sent to Michael. He wept when he opened it. He held the three books in one volume, and saw the fruition of two solid years of work in his own hands.
To our devastation, Michael Wombat passed away, quietly in hospital, just a few days before the first book was published and released.
The Summer Realm was his realm.
To say how proud we, and he, are of these books is an understatement.
I put aside the chaos my own books were going through (I’ll post another day about that), to spend two years writing and being part of this Summer Realm series, and I’d do it all again if it gave me the opportunity to work with these wonderful authors.
And this is what we wrote!
The first book is out there right now, the second available for pre-order and released on 6th February 2026, and the third also available for pre-order and slated for release on 20th March 2026.
We hope you love reading them as much as we loved writing them!
*Pleached When we first started this project, Michael used The Pleached Path as the interim name of the book, because it defined, quite literally, what we were about to do with our writing and stories.
Pleached definition:
Webster Dictionary: pleach plēch, vt to intertwine the branches of (eg a hedge); to fold (the arms; Shakesp); to plash. [From form of OFr pless(i)er, from L plectere
Roget’s Thesaurus: weave, loom; pleach, plait, braid; … enlace, interlace, interlink, interlock, interdigitate, intertwine, intertwist, interweave, enmesh, engage gear; twine, entwine, …wreathe, pleach;
Hence, the four of us will be forever pleached together because of this work.
The Last Krystallos 