If there’s one holiday made for The Blood Zodiac, Halloween is it.

Sure, you’re thinking occult suspense? serial killing? rituals? odd occurences? haunted characters? OF COURSE Halloween suits it. Blood Zodiac Halloween for realz. But there is more to it than just the dirty wickedness of Peach Barrow and Riley Wanner.

There’s me. Scary, I know.

See, the third book in The Blood Zodiac series was supposed to drop two years ago. I’ll let that sink in. Two years. We had a different president, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson hadn’t adopted a pig together yet, Florida wasn’t broken by a hurricane (just broken in other ways). The Twins was supposed to be out in the world. Hell, to say nothing of the other books. They were supposed to be out, too.

I’m haunted by The Blood Zodiac. Halloween is scary because the remaining ten books in the series hang like little severed heads on a chain around my neck, dragging me down. I’ve got to pop them off and let them roll about on their own. I can’t carry the weight. Peach and Riley aren’t the only haunted characters in this sordid relationship of ours.

I’ll be writing an update on the series release timeline soon. I’ll also do one of those ugly cry/pour your heart out soul searching posts about the why and how I got to this damned point. Here’s a hint: best laid plans. They only stay best and laid if life stops throwing hand axes at your face. And let me tell you, life has one hell of an arm.

So what will I do with another Halloween spent without all of TBZ in the world? Will I let the ghosts wake me at night, hovering over me, pointing to a translucent manuscript with their middle fingers? Or will I let my own psyche strap me to a table and suspend a pendulum blade over my eyes? I don’t think so. See, I’m moving away from the self-deprecation over what I haven’t done, and embracing all I have completed.

Book three, The Twins, will be live November 30th. It’s release comes nearly a month after Halloween. But demons be damned, that day I’ll party like it’s a holiday. This volume will have just as much strangeness, death, and sex as a good All Hallows Eve should. Roll free, little shrunken, severed head. My own neck is about to get lighter.