Hi everyone!
We are so excited today to show you our latest Gryphon Chronicles cover. Ta daaa!!! We just love it and think it's the best one yet! And surprise, the eBook edition of is now available for pre-order. Check out the book description below, then watch the video to get your first glimpse at THE SORCERER'S ARMY cover. (We're not able to put up a pre-order for the paperback or hardcover editions, but they will be available on release day.)

Thanks for reading!
:)
Eric & Gael (E.G. Foley)

From the back cover...

NY Times Bestselling Author E.G. Foley brews up a magical potion for fantasy readers of all ages!

Take a dash of Harry Potter and a splash of Oliver Twist, add a pinch of steampunk and a sprinkle of Victorian fairy lore, and what do you get? The Gryphon Chronicles! A rollicking fantasy adventure series that’s as much fun for grownups as it is for kids.

A DARK FUTURE…
When Lord Wyvern’s outrageous rebellion succeeds, the half-demon sorcerer now sets his sights on world domination, accepting nothing less from humans and magic-kind than total obedience. The Order of the Yew Tree—humanity’s best hope of stopping him—has already been brought to its knees. Jake and his friends, meanwhile, have been left shattered and reeling after a devastating loss. But then, a gift from a mysterious friend changes everything—a sword unlike any other. Only, in order for Jake to harness its power, he must first dig deep and win the raging battle between dark and light within himself.

Faced with overwhelming odds, can Jake unleash the power of the brightwield in time to save his beloved friends from Wyvern’s horrific army? Or will his hatred and hunger for revenge consume him and drive the would-be hero into making a terrible mistake? One that could lead him straight into Wyvern’s clutches and fulfill the dire prophecy of the Black Prince…

This intricately woven tale takes readers on an epic journey where goodness, loyalty, and love stand as humanity’s last hope to hold back unthinkable darkness.

​​Watch the vid to hear the latest bullet points & then scroll down to read about 5 pages out of the middle of the long, very long, long tome that is still bubbling away in our cauldron. It's a fun, fairly humorous passage and, don't worry, any spoilers have been REDACTED.

Much love!
Gael & Eric

With the Dark Druids doing their best to take over the blasted world, the last thing he and his friends needed was to start squabbling amongst themselves. It was stupid.

Besides, there were jack-o-lanterns to carve.

And so, when Hallowe’en dawned the next day, Jake cast off all his tangled confusion to try and bring everyone back together, at least somewhat.

Aye, and he knew just the thing for it, too.

From the moment he looked out his bedchamber window, still buttoning on his striped tan waistcoat for the day, a roguish smile crooked his lips.

Finally, the sun had decided to break through the gloom. He could hardly believe it. It was the first time he’d seen it in days.

For now, a soft thready mist swirled over the palace grounds, but the eastern sky was pink and peach and gold, overhead, a pale delicate blue.

Perfect, Jake thought, his heart lifting. He could already tell the bright misty morning was going to develop into a gorgeous autumn day.

With building excitement, he finished getting dressed, pulled on his boots, and raced off to carry out his plan even before breakfast, beckoning Red after him. The roguish feeling grew as he swung astride his Gryphon.

“Let’s go, boy!”

After all, despite the heaviness of all the current crises, Jake hadn’t forgotten about the contest he’d devised between the English and the Yanks.

Pumpkins versus turnips!

He grinned as he told Red their destination and made up his mind that, today, he would simply enjoy being a kid mucking about with his mates in whatever time remained before the bloody apocalypse exploded. Why not?

Everyone knew Halloween was a day for mischief, even the Gryphon. Red let Jake talk him into flying back to that farmer’s pumpkin patch they’d spotted from the air coming back from the train tunnel.

Jake made him land in the apple orchard nearby, where he could hide among the trees.

Then, wearing a wicked grin from ear to ear, Jake sneaked off alone into the field and nicked eight plump, jolly pumpkins for himself and each of his friends: me, Dani, Archie, Izzy, Nixie, Maddox, and Brian.

He even stole one for Red, since animals liked to eat the things. Brian said pumpkins had a mess of seeds inside, so it made sense that the Gryphon’s eagle side would at least enjoy that. It could be his Halloween treat.

Red, of course, did not entirely approve of this thievery, but it was just a few pumpkins, and besides, pranks were as much to be expected as restless ghosts on Halloween. (Speaking of which, Constanzio was still miffed at him about the train.)

As an afterthought, upon remembering Aunt Ramona making him pay back the London shopkeepers he had stolen from long ago, Jake reached into his pocket and scattered a few gold coins atop the soil to pay for his contraband before he left. Maybe the farmer would think they had sprouted from a few magical seeds.

The only witness was the scarecrow.

In any case, Jake learned something new that morning: Flying on a Gryphon’s back while levitating a small squadron of pumpkins through the sky was no easy feat.

He hoped none of the local peasants saw him. They knew strange things happened in these parts, though most of Merlin Hall’s magic stayed hidden by the dome.

Seeing a boy pass by on a Gryphon with a formation of pumpkins flying beside him like geese might’ve sent a sane mumper over the edge.

Jake carefully shepherded his little flock of floating pumpkins through the canopy of trees as Red descended into the woods.

Then, using his telekinesis, he set them all down gently in the same pretty glade by the brook where he had drunk the firepower. Jake swung off Red’s back, gave his Gryphon a grateful pat, then ran to arrange the pumpkins for his friends.

Behind him, Red padded over to the stream and took a long gurgling drink.

Laughing under his breath, Jake placed all the pumpkins in a row for the carving contest, trying to match which of his friends ought to go with which pumpkin.

The tall ugly one was obviously for Maddox. The narrow, slightly crooked one with the over-tall stem had to be for Arch. It only needed a pair of glasses and it would be the perfect portrait of the boy genius, pumpkin-wise.

Dani’s was the cute, round, roly-poly, very orange one, while the perfect looking gourd had to be for Isabelle—only, she’d have to ignore the healed-over gash in the back of it and carve a smile into the smooth side.

As for the Yank, the largest pumpkin would be for him.

Ha! Jake thought mischievously. Let’s see what he can do with a proper pumpkin canvas. Even a brand-new Guardian ought to be good with a knife.

Grinning like a jack-o'-lantern himself, Jake rolled Brian’s pumpkin through the light weeds sprinkling the ground until the hefty gourd took its place at the end of the row.

This left a small, hard, dark orange pumpkin for Nixie. Jake picked it up and gave it a light rap with his knuckle; it sounded tough inside. Aye, that should suit her.

As he placed it on the ground beside Maddox’s, he wondered if he should inform his friends that he had chosen their pumpkins based on their personalities.

Probably not.

He thought it was funny but everyone was so tetchy these days, it was hard to tell how they’d take it. Besides, if it was a pumpkin-personality contest, the sad-looking gourd left to represent him was nothing to brag about.

It was a very ordinary, boring-looking sort that would have blended into the pumpkin patch and probably been chosen by no one. Smudges of dried mud dirtied its pimply orange surface. It had a few nicks and even a small gash where a crow must’ve pecked it.

When Jake placed it down next to Brian’s robust, prize-winning specimen, it looked even sadder. It tweaked his secret jealousy toward the Yank about Dani O’Dell and all the time he got to spend with her in classes and training drills.

Jake scoffed at himself as he straightened up, dusting off his hands after placing the pumpkins where he wanted them.

That’s just stupid, he told himself. Brian was a right proper chap and Jake (in his saner moments) could see with his own two eyes that the two were only friends.

Still, he thought—arching an eyebrow at his own startling inspiration—maybe there was something he could do this very day to make sure that Dani knew she could never choose anyone but him.

Not that he really thought deep down that she ever would.
But she mustn’t.

For if she did, he would be, in a word, devastated.

Jake knew, after all, that he wasn’t the perfect beau. He drove her up a wall with frequent regularity. He asked too much of her all the time, strained her patience with his moods and his occasional brushes with death, and sometimes, he took her for granted simply because she’d always been there and he knew she always would.

But the lass meant everything to him. Her steady affection was the one sure foundation under his feet in this mad, wobbling world. Especially now, after recent disasters.

Jake never said it out loud, but he...he…

His face blazed hot even thinking the word that unmentionable word. There was no one else even there to mock him, yet he’d managed to feel mortified all by himself. All I know is that if I ever lost her...

He shuddered and thrust the unthinkable thought away, turning to his thirsty Gryphon, who was still standing by the stream, looking very noble with his front paws perched on the large, flat rock at the edge of the water.

Jake saw Red’s hawkish stare tracking a large trout through the stream. “No, boy! We’re not done yet,” he called.

Red turned to him with a feathery scowl.

“First, turnips. Then breakfast.”

“Becaw?”

Jake smiled. “You’ll see.”

As Red hopped gracefully off the rock and prowled across the clearing toward him, Jake took a moment to glance around at the glade.

How different it looked compared to the last time he’d been here. It was much lovelier than he remembered from that perilous night he’d changed his fate by [REDACTED!].

The woods had been dark and slightly sinister that night, with only the moon playing over the black, whispering trees.

​But now, soft morning sunlight filtered into the glade, reawakening all the rich jewel colors that had drowned in the grayness of so many long dreary days in a row.

Finally, Autumn returned like a queen wearing her golden crown. Ruby, topaz, garnet, and amethyst. Jake’s stare traveled over the parti-colored leaves scattered all over the ground. Many still clung to the boughs arcing overhead. His gaze traveled on as though he’d never seen a forest before.

It was beautiful. Emerald moss sprawled like luxurious green velvet over the cool roughness of gray rounded rocks while the brook sang and murmured. The white-trunked birches had claimed the best spots beside the water, but mushrooms had sprouted up among the gnarled roots of an ancient oak tree with knobby brown bark.

It looked like the sort of tree where pixies should live. Indeed, the whole clearing looked magical.

In fact—Jake turned slowly, wonderstruck—this looked just like the romantic sort of place for a boy to kiss a girl for the first time.
If he had the nerve.

This time, he felt the blush start all the way down somewhere beneath the folds of his neckcloth and burn its way slowly up his face. His heart pounded, daftly.

But maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

There was a war coming, after all. He could die. (If he didn’t die of awkwardness first, merely attempting the notion.)

I don’t know…

Jake suddenly felt jumpy, nervous, eager, terrified all at once. Scandalized and slightly panicked.

He wasn’t sure he had the nerve.

If it went wrong...blimey. It could make things weird between them forevermore. And Lord forbid she take offense! Her five semi-criminal elder brothers would beat him into jelly. Not to mention the lass had a mean right hook of her own.

Probably not worth it, he decided, half relieved, half disgusted with his own cowardice. Then he fled the glade, hastily returning to his Gryphon and thoughts of carving jack-o-lanterns only.

This was a day for fun with his friends, that was all...

Psst!
THE SORCERER'S ARMY Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

Please read this short but important update regarding our next book, coming out this Fall. (Exact on-sale date to-be-determined. It's another long one, but it's going well!) Thank you! xo ~ Gael

We're really excited about THE SORCERER'S ARMY!
More info & official Cover Reveal coming soon! Love you guys! Hope you're having a good summer. ~ Gael & Eric ;)

Hi guys! Gael here. 😊 Yesterday, I was doing research on 19th-century communication technology for a scene I’m working on in The Gryphon Chronicles Book 8 and came across “speaking tubes,” the Victorian version of an intercom. Check this out! And so very steampunk!

Speaking tubes, also known as voice pipelines, date all the way back to 1849. Way before Jake’s time. How cool! Have you heard of these? Oh, my sisters and I would’ve had great fun playing with these as kids.

Clearly, speaking tubes would be useful in an office or factory setting (or a very large Black Fortress, ahem!). But they were also used in large middle- to upper-class Victorian homes to connect various regions of the house, particularly, servant work areas.

So, instead of yelling up and down the stairs to family members or staff all day long, all you had to do was: 1) blow into the correct speaking tube to signal the person on the other end to open their side (when not in use, the tube ends were fitted with whistle flaps), 2) then the person on the other end opened their flap, and 3) speak normally into the correct tube that would then transmit the message. There were multiple tubes running to and fro all throughout the house.

I would imagine that you’d have to be careful what you say, lol, when speaking tubes were around. You might think you were speaking the latest gossip in private around the water cooler when in fact you might very well be broadcasting the latest scandal to the boss, or the entire office.

The below image is from 1903. Do you see the 4 speaking tubes on the side of the desk? Judging by the scene in the picture, where do you think those tubes might be connected to? Would speaking tubes be handy in your house or work?

For more info on speaking tubes:
https://www.friendsofdalnavert.ca/blog/2019/1/10/the-speaking-tube
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/can-you-hear-me-now-sound-technology-of-the-19th-century/
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/rare-victorian-intercom-phone-samson-junior

By Photographer not credited - http://www.officemuseum.com/photo_gallery_1900s.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9744722

Midsummer's Day occurs later this week, and you know what that means -- the fairies are restless! Folklore tells of great celebrations as fey folk, sprites and pixies dance around the fairy rings on every barrow beneath the midsummer moon.

Happen across them, even by accident, whatever you do, don't step on any mushrooms or you might make them angry. You could find yourself whisked off to fairyland, their captive forever!

Pictured below is Sânziene dancing honoring the fairies during the Cricău Festival in Romania. (Not to far from Janos's castle in the Carpathian Mountains, by the way.) This  celebration takes place annually on June 24th.

Do you celebrate Midsummer's Day? How? Do share!

​By Saturnian - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26838120