Some Midwinter Gifts

As I send this, it is precisely midwinter, here in the northern hemisphere at least. Summer feels a long time ago.

However, despite the darkness, midwinter has always been a time of light, a time of warmth, and a time of celebration. The sunlight is about to return, as we sneakily pilfer it from our friends in the south, a few minutes here, a few minutes there, day by day, slowly—so slow they barely notice. Sorry, friends.

In our little valley on the side of our mountain, direct sunlight has been blocked by the mountains and hills for weeks now. There is still daylight, of course and, when the sun does arise from behind those ridges to the east, it can still be felt, warm on the face but, for the last two weeks or so, when it disappears behind the big peak at lunchtime, it no longer appears on the other side, instead illuminating a hair-thin line of cornicing on the snow, a teasing montane tracery of potential and temptation. The snow is brighter on the other side of the mountain.

This is the dark time when, to see the sun for all but an hour or so a day, I have to look to every other side of the valley but ours. To feel it would involve a long walk and, seeing as the river valley is oft wreathed in thick mist, a climb too.

When I was peedie¹ in Orkney and, later, when I was larger, in Caithness, the sunlight at midwinter carried little to no warmth. She is watery and pale, exhausted by the constant late-night parties of summer, barely capable of dragging herself above the horizon—a horizon frequently obscured by cloud and approaching weather systems, spun out across the Atlantic.

I appreciate the sun, she is a gift to me. She always has been. Sunlight in a blue sky, even in midwinter, tingles through me. When the snow arrives and the sun reflects, I feel dizzy with the simple, pure joy of daylight. I do not take that for granted.

You may already have seen my somewhat epic post about six years of sharing a letter, mostly on Substack? In this, I mention that I am offering a discount on both monthly and annual subscriptions, 20% off, for as long as you stay subscribed. This offer will run until mid-January—the 18^th, to be precise. It is a sort-of gift but, of course, you still have to pay.

Actual Free Gift (s)

Therefore, I thought I’d send another gift your way—one for which you do not have to pay, not a penny.

For a limited amount of time (yet to be determined, but probably until the end of January, 2026), you can read each and every chapter of each and every novelette, novella and novel I have shared here on Substack.

In total, this is 140k words, more or less. For free.

Of course there are maps. There have to be, right?

I shared these stories with subscribers as weekly chapters, also for free, then paywalled the stories after a time, when the next was due to be shared. As such, most of these stories have only been available to a fraction of my subscribers and followers.

It being midwinter, a cosy time to curl up with a book—or six—I thought I’d offer you the chance to have a read.

If you enjoy fantasy fiction and, especially, darker fantasy fiction—there are no merry singing elves here, no happy hobbits, just characters who feel real, who have real struggles (along with some very unreal struggles), and who are not trying to be heroes or kings, just live their lives as best they can, without being killed or, in some cases, eaten—then you might enjoy these tales.

This is what I said about the series on my Fiction page.

This is not Grimdark—there is hope here—but it is certainly on the darker end of the spectrum. And a quick glimpse at the titles might give you an inkling that there is a lot of death…

I have six stories—whether novelettes, novellas, or novels—which I have crafted in this sequence, with a further pair drafted. Once these are complete, I shall be working on a longer trilogy featuring many of the characters and locations introduced in these tales. In short, consider the Tales of The Lesser Evil a very long prologue.

(I do seem to enjoy slipping sneaky secrets into these letters, so here’s another—I’ve already begun work on that trilogy, just a little, but the idea is growing teeth, it is sharpening its claws and, soon, I am sure, it will start to devour me.)

The fiction page I link to above also includes a brief backcover blurb for each book, with links, and each book has its own introduction and navigation page, as well as quick links to the next chapter embedded within every post.

As I mention, this is a limited time offer—in 2026 I shall be releasing these books in print and digital form, something I talked about before, when I said this:

Self-published books live and die by the algorithmic small gods. And the ambrosia of these gods is reviews.

In that letter, I talked about how important reviews are for a writer, especially for sales. I asked if anyone would like to receive an advance reader copy of the ebook I shall be publishing next year, in exchange for leaving a review on Amazon (and no, I do not like the platform, not one bit, but I have to be realistic about where potential sales are likely to come from. I shall also be selling copies directly from my website).

If you would like to be included in the list of people who want to receive such an ebook, pop a comment below, or hit reply to this email; I’ll add you to the list, thank you!

However, you don’t have to wait until the ebook is ready to read the stories, you can start now, if you wish.

If you want to read more about my mapping process, then you can find a post about that here.

I have already received some lovely comments on my fiction here, in posts, in emails, and on Notes, and I know many of you are already engaged with the characters. I can’t wait to share what is to come. If you have friends or family who also enjoy fantasy fiction, do please send this post their way.

That’s it, for now. Just a free gift (or six free stories).

I might send out some older work again over Christmas and New Year, as I did last year, but I might not. It really depends on time.

As such, I am going to wish you the very best for this festive midwinter (or midsummer) season, and I hope you have been good enough for Santa to visit. I am generally of a mind—a mind born out through experience—that the vast, vast majority of the people of the world are good, are friends I’ve yet to meet, rather than potential enemies, so I suspect poor Santa might be exhausted.

Here’s the link to my fiction page again, just head there to select any stories you wish to read:

The Western Interior and the Northern Ribbon. That purple thing, The Ribbon? That's going to play a rather major part in the coming longer work...

ADDENDUM: A special note for those of you who are reading this from the UK: the recently introduced change in the law regarding online access almost certainly will mean many of you will potentially be unable to read these stories without having provided some means of age verification. There are words and terms in most chapters which will make these stories unable to be read. I’ll be clear here—this is censorship in a manner which has never existed in the UK before.

I won’t wade into this discussion here, but what I will say is this—if you want to read these stories, you could either use a VPN to do so (try ProtonVPN, for example, or Windscribe) or, if you are unable or unwilling to do that, and you find you can’t read a chapter (or the whole thing), then send me a message, or comment below, and I’ll send .epub copies to you or, if that doesn’t help, find some other way to let you read it, such as via email. It might take a wee while to get things to you, but I shall do so.

I read all manner of things before I was 18 and did so with the knowledge and support of my parents, of librarians, teachers, and of booksellers. I cannot change the law, but I can do all I can to encourage all people to ensure literature and story is never censored in such a manner.

1. Orcadian dialect for small. In Shetland, it is peerie. Orcadian dialect is a rich and wondrous thing, and something I often think about, a secret language of sorts, known only to a select few.