Kaylin Wise's Blog

CHAPTER 1: A New Battle

Daphne peered with caution from behind a wide oak, straining to perceive the two black blurs that had vanished farther into the woods over a minute ago. Nothing.

There was no need to track down the dyszoons herself. While they might flee to regroup, the evil creatures never abandoned a fight for long.

“C’mon…” Daphne muttered, ears still ringing with their shrill screams. She bounced on her cold feet, hoping this would help warm them up. “I know you’re coming back.”

The woods...

Daphne’s story will pick up in March a few months after the events of Mist & Shadow. See bel...

COVER REVEAL! Mist & Shadow #2 is in the works!

Just wanted to drop a note to say that I’m plugging away on Flame & Fury and have just a few chapters left in the rewrite. I don’t have a release date yet, but I’m hoping the first part of next year will have everything wrapped up and edited to satisfaction. I’m super impatient to get it done but don’t want to publish anything until it’s the best I can make it (without losing too much sanity).

HOWEVER - In light of the wait, if you have any questions...

Mist & Shadow #2 has a title!

The sequel to Daphne’s adventures will be called…Flame & Fury!

Here’s a glimpse of the cover.

Status update: I’ve been working steadily on the sequel f...

With extra time during my stay-cation this week, I worked a ton on my book cover for Mist & Shadow’s sequel, which will be called [REDACTED].

While I’m still working on the draft for [REDACTED], I thought it would be fun to tease the cover!

Most of the dialogue in my novel Mist and Shadow is something that I made up (as writerly peeps tend to do.)

But there are a few lines in there that were spoken by other people in Real Life and written down by me for posterity.

I enjoy using real comments here and there because it preserves what was otherwise a fleeting, unimportant comment lost to time and memory. And they are comments that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own, which makes them opportunities to create an authentic moment in the ...

Note: Spoilers for the book below.

If you’ve read Mist and Shadow, you might have noticed that owls keep popping up.

There’s the bracelet Daphne always wears, the owl she meets in the woods in chapter 2, the owls in her dreams, her dad’s last birthday card, and the stuffed animal Nathan wins fo...

Mist and Shadow is here, hooray!

Nothing exploded, so that’s good, and this book I’ve been working on for five years is finally published!

The actual publication day actually pretty anti-climactic (no explosions), but there was BOOK LAUNCH CAKE!!

Behold:

If you’ve finished t...

The most important part of an unread book is the book cover. It’s what draws us in as readers and allows us to make a quick assessment—Does this look like something I’d be interested in?

While I’ve read plenty of times that authors shouldn’t design their own covers, I minored in design in college and wanted to at least attempt it, both to save money and also because it’s fun.

I won’t understate the amount of work the whole process took, so be warned if you are going this route—it took a good chun...

The idea for Mist & Shadow has been sitting in my head for a long time.

I was actually watching an early episode of The Vampire Diaries when the first inspiration hit. The main character hands her friend Bonnie a glass bottle, and instantly Bonnie has a vision. I immediately thought it would be cool to have a YA novel with a main character who was psychic.

A lot has changed since then. My main character Daphne is no longer psychic, but works with one to try and meet the evil that is rising up in...