An Update, A Recommendation, & A Free Book
How it's going here at the Not-Yet Novelist
Hello Readers,
It’s been about a year since my last update—and since publishing the last bonus-chapter of the The Glaciermen, a chilling adventure set in the icy reaches of the Greenland glacial sheet.
(If you haven’t read it yet for some reason, you can start here.)
UPDATE:
Well, a lot has gone on. Yours truly is now a Firefighter EMT ( a shiny, brand new one; I haven’t even fought a single fire yet). I spent the spring going through Fire Academy and EMS school, so that took a lot of my time and I pushed most things to the side (i.e. finishing the final edit of The Glaciermen).
But we’re back at it now! And I’m almost done.
No, really, I’m actually almost done. A few tweaks, some formatting, and then it will be up and live on Amazon. Keep an eye out.
A (FREE) RECOMMENDATION:
If you like fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, progress fiction, or RPGs, then you’ll love Mother of Learning by nobody103/Domagoj Kurmaic. From the description:
A teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, Zorian is attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. A driven and quiet young man, he is consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, resenting the Kazinskis for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, Zorian has no time for pointless distractions, much less other people's problems.
As it happens, though, time is something he is about to get plenty of.
On the eve of Cyoria's annual summer festival, Zorian is murdered, then abruptly brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take the train to school. Finding himself trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, he will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery set before him. He does have to unravel it, too, because the loop clearly wasn’t made for his sake, and in a world of magic even a time traveler isn't safe from those who wish him ill.
This four-part series is available for free here on Royal Road, and it has options to purchase for Kindle, audiobook, and hardcover.
P.S. I have no affiliations and make nothing off these recommendations.
Not the Normal Schedule
Thanks for reading! Unlike my normal weekly cadence while composing (which hasn’t been normal for over a year), I’m in the editing stage now, so I will be switching to less frequent updates until the The Glaciermen is published and I begin work on the next one.
Keep an eye on your inbox, because once it’s out, I’m going to ask for your help with leaving some good—honest—reviews to boost me in the old Amazon algorithms.
While it will always be free here on Substack, you could, you know, buy one too :)
(Learn more about possible upcoming books here).
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Thank You
If you want to lend some encouragement and help me out, the best thing you can do is subscribe, then share this story with a friend. If you have your own Substack and you like what you see, a recommendation would be truly appreciated.
I sincerely appreciate it.
– Xavier
Author, The Glaciermen
©Xavier Macfarlane 2026. All rights reserved.