Month: October 2026

She’s Done Waiting to Find Out — And So Am I

/ Wendy Cheairs / Leave a comment

Hello Readers!

She flies.

Trial by Air is out today, and I have been waiting to say those three words for a very long time. Four books in. Four elements down. Shayla Montgomery has been through fire, sea, and earth — and today she finally takes to the air.

I am so happy about this; I don’t quite have the words. So let’s get right into it.

💨 Trial by Wind — Out Now

Book four of the Richmond Academy series is here, and I could not be more excited for you to read it.

Shayla survived the Earth binding. She’s not sure she’ll survive everything that comes after it.

The wind tunnel beneath Richmond Academy has been unstable since the night she touched it — and it isn’t calming down. The council wants it contained. Her father wants a guardian worth the family name. And Shayla wants to make it through one term without losing control of the one thing she can’t afford to lose: herself.

Then the new cohort arrives. And Shayla realizes the tunnel was never the real threat.

A silver-eyed transfer student who watches too closely. A water-shifter with a smile like a closing door and secrets to match. A quiet historian who knows more about Richmond’s buried history than anyone should — including the parts about guardians who never finished what they started, and the family that’s spent generations deciding who gets to try.

Somewhere in that history is the answer Shayla has been too afraid to look for: what happens to a phoenix who never learns to fly.

She’s done waiting to find out.

👉 Read Trial by Wind now

The Richmond Academy Series — Four Down, One to Go

I cannot believe we are here. Four books out in one year. One more to go. By December, the series will be complete, and I’m still working through my feelings about that.

Here’s the full arc:

🔥 Trial by Fire — Book one. Where Shayla’s story begins. Available now and on Kindle Unlimited.


🌊 Trial by Sea — Book two. Deeper secrets, underwater trials, trust pushed to its limit. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.


🌍 Trial by Earth — Book three. The pivot point. Darker, heavier, everything shifts. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.


💨 Trial by Wind — Book four. Out now. She flies.


✨ Trial by Spirit — Book five. The finale. December 2026. Pre-order open now.

If you’ve been waiting to binge the whole series — December is your month. All five books, complete, ready to read straight through.

✨ Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl — Still Available

Wisteria Creed is out and waiting for you if you haven’t met her yet.

Half-Pixie, half-Sidhe Fae, graveyard-shift radio host, firm policy against being anyone’s idea of harmless. Paranormal romance with urban fantasy bones, slow-burn romance, found family, and a protagonist who refuses, at every turn, to be what the story expects her to be.

Book two — Not Your Book Boyfriend — is in edits, and the cover is almost ready. The moment I have it I will have a pre-order date to share and I will be making considerable noise about it. Watch this space.

👉 Read Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl now

Anthologies — All Available Now

🍂 Seasons of Magic: Mabon-Samhain — The autumn anthology. Six witches, spells gone wrong, magic that always has a price. Perfect October reading.

🌊 The Call of the Sea — My story The Drowned Chorus — a marine bioacoustician, a remote North Atlantic island, a voice in the water. A siren story unlike any other.

📖 Once Upon A Fairytale — My story Half-Coin Promise — two best friends, a split coin, and a promise that holds all the way to their happily ever after.

☀️ Seasons of Magic: Summer — My story The Flames of Lammas — emotional, transformative, the kind of magic that stays with you.

👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Mabon-Samhain


👉 Grab The Call of the Sea


👉 Grab Once Upon A Fairytale


👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Summer

From the Writing Cave

After the great backyard water adventure of last week, things have settled down considerably on the home front, and I am choosing to appreciate every quiet moment of that.

Fall has finally, truly arrived. The nightly freezes have started making appearances after a summer that seemed genuinely committed to never ending. The cats have discovered the balcony again now that the temperatures are reasonable — they’ve been out there soaking up the autumn sun like tiny, opinionated solar panels — and the whole writing cave has a different energy to it. Cooler mornings. Better light. The particular kind of productive that only comes when the season finally shifts.

Four books out. Edits happening. A cover incoming. December on the horizon.

It has been quite a year.

Thank you for being here for all of it — every launch, every countdown, every quiet week in between. Trial by Air is out today. I hope you love it.

Happy Reading,


Wendy

P.S. One book left. Trial by Spirit — Shayla’s ending, the finale of the Richmond Academy series — lands in December. I have been writing this series all year, and I am so close to the finish line I can feel it. Pre-order now so you’re ready the moment it drops. December is coming faster than any of us are ready for.

The Backyard Flooded. The Book Launches in a Week. October Has No Chill

/ Wendy Cheairs / Leave a comment

Hello Readers!


One week.

ONE WEEK.

Trial by Air drops October 20, and I have been waiting to type those words for a very long time. After fire, sea, and earth — after four books of building toward this moment — Shayla is finally going to fly. Next Tuesday. Seven days. I am ready, and I need you to be ready with me.

💨 Trial by Air — One Week Away

October 20, 2026. Mark it in your calendar. Set a reminder. Tell a friend.

Book four of the Richmond Academy series is the one I have been building toward since page one of book one. Shayla is a Phoenix — flying was always who she was meant to be. But she had to earn it. Through fire and sea and earth, through every trial this series has put her through, she has been working toward this moment.

Next week she gets there.

If you haven’t pre-ordered yet — do it now. It lands right on your Kindle the second it drops, and you won’t have to wait a single extra minute.

👉 Pre-order Trial by Air — October 20

And if you need to catch up first — you have one week. Go:

🔥 Trial by Fire — Book one. Where it all begins. Available now and on Kindle Unlimited.


🌊 Trial by Sea — Book two. Deeper secrets, underwater trials, trust pushed to its limit. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.


🌍 Trial by Earth — Book three. The pivot point. Darker, heavier, everything shifts. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.


✨ Trial by Spirit — Book five. The finale. December 2026. Pre-orders are open now.

One week. We can do this.

✨ Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl — Out Now

While you’re waiting for Tuesday — Wisteria Creed is right there waiting for you.

Half-Pixie, half-Sidhe Fae, graveyard-shift radio host, firm policy against being anyone’s idea of harmless. When a Wendigo tears through her San Diego neighborhood, she calls it in and gets Detective Trevor Gibson — the one cop in the city willing to take her seriously. What follows is a reluctant partnership, a slow-burn romance, and a case that keeps getting worse in exactly the ways she should have seen coming.

Paranormal romance with urban fantasy bones. Found family. A protagonist who refuses at every turn to be what the story expected her to be.

And — I got a sneak peek at the cover for book two, Not Your Book Boyfriend, and I am barely containing myself. The moment it’s finished, I will have a pre-order date to share. Watch this space.

👉 Read Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl now

Anthologies — A New Season Is Here

🍂 Seasons of Magic: Mabon-Samhain — The third collection in the Seasons of Magic series is here just in time for the season. Mabon brings balance, gratitude, and the coming darkness. Samhain brings divination, the thinning of the veil, and honoring the dead. Six witches. Spells gone wrong. Intentions turned sour. Magic that always, always has a price. This is the autumn anthology, and it is perfectly timed.

Seasons of Magic: Summer is wrapping up its run soon — grab it while you still can.

🌊 The Call of the Sea — My story, The Drowned Chorus — a marine bioacoustician, a remote island, a voice in the water, and the ancient impossible being behind it. A siren story unlike any other.

📖 Once Upon A Fairytale — My contribution: Half-Coin Promise — two best friends, a split coin, and a promise that holds through labyrinths and fog-wrapped citadels all the way to their happily ever after.

☀️ Seasons of Magic: Summer — My story, The Flames of Lammas — emotional, transformative, the kind of magic that stays with you. Grab it before it’s gone.

👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Mabon-Samhain


👉 Grab The Call of the Sea


👉 Grab Once Upon A Fairytale


👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Summer

From the Writing Cave — A Week in Review

Fall has been full of surprises here. The lovely kind: my sister-in-law came to visit from out of town, which is always such a treat. The less lovely kind: the backyard decided to flood.

Turns out the irrigation system we thought was completely off was, in fact, not. Not even a little. We found out through increasingly urgent warnings from the water company about continuous water usage, followed by a very long day of multiple visits from multiple water people tracking down the source, determining the fix, and getting it sorted before it became a much larger problem than it already was.

The good news: it is handled. The irrigation is now genuinely, verifiably off. We know where the cap needs to go. We lost a writing day to the chaos, but the backyard is contained.

The balloons are still drifting overhead. My sister-in-law has headed home.

And I am back in the writing cave where I belong, counting down seven days to launch.

Thank you for being here. One week, readers. One week.

Happy Reading,


Wendy

P.S. Last week I lost an entire writing day to a flooding backyard, multiple water professionals, and an irrigation system that had opinions about being turned off. This week I get to launch a book. I genuinely cannot decide which one is more chaotic. At least the book was planned.

Hot Air Balloons, Fourteen Days, and a Phoenix Who’s About to Fly

/ Wendy Cheairs / Leave a comment
Hello Readers!

Every year, without fail, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is the moment fall becomes real for me.
Not the calendar. Not the temperature. Not even the rain that soaked my entire state last week. The balloons.
This week the sky filled up with hundreds of hot air balloons at dawn and something in my chest just — settled. I grew up watching them. As a kid it meant either bundling up and heading to the Fiesta grounds or standing outside watching them drift overhead, enormous and colorful and impossibly quiet for something that size. Now I watch them from my balcony. Sometimes they drift low enough over the park behind my place that I get to watch them land.
Every single time it still gets me.
That is fall in New Mexico. That is what October feels like here. And this particular October has a lot going on — so let’s get into it.
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💨 Trial by Air — Fourteen Days
October 20th. Two weeks from now. I am not calm.
This is book four of the Richmond Academy series and the one I have been building toward since the very first page of book one. Shayla is a Phoenix — flying was always who she was meant to be. But the series needed her to earn it first. Fire, sea, earth — each element teaching her something she couldn’t have learned any other way — and now, finally, the air.
Fourteen days.
👉 Pre-order Trial by Air — October 20th
And everything leading up to it:
🔥 Trial by Fire — Book one. Where Shayla’s story begins. Available now and on Kindle Unlimited.
🌊 Trial by Sea — Book two. Deeper secrets, underwater trials, trust pushed to its limit. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.
🌍 Trial by Earth — Book three. The pivot point. Darker, heavier, everything shifts. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.
✨ Trial by Spirit — Book five. The finale. December 2026. Pre-order open now.
If you’ve been waiting to start the series — this is your window. By December, the whole arc is complete and ready to binge.
✨ Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl — Out Now
Wisteria Creed is still out there waiting for you.
Half-Pixie, half-Sidhe Fae, graveyard-shift radio host, firm policy against being anyone’s idea of harmless. Paranormal romance with urban fantasy bones. Slow-burn romance. Found family. A protagonist who refuses, at every turn, to be what the story expects her to be.
Book two — Not Your Book Boyfriend — is in writing and editing, coming later this year. And yes, I am already planning book three to close out the trilogy. Wisteria’s story is just getting started.
👉 Read Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl now
Anthologies — Still Worth Your Time
🌊 The Call of the Sea — Out now. My contribution: The Drowned Chorus — a marine bioacoustician, a remote North Atlantic island, a voice in the water calling her name, and the ancient impossible being behind it. A siren story that isn’t what you expect.
📖 Once Upon A Fairytale — Now Available! My contribution Half-Coin Promise — two best friends, a split coin, and a promise that carries them through labyrinths and fog-wrapped citadels all the way to their happily ever after.
☀️ Seasons of Magic: Summer — Out now. My story, The Flames of Lammas — emotional, transformative, the kind of magic that stays with you.
👉 Grab The Call of the Sea
👉 Once Upon A Fairytale
👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Summer
From the Writing Cave
Getting back into normal writing life after vacation has been lovely — and also slightly complicated because all that beautiful rain we got last week left a few uninvited surprises in the house. Leaks. Oddities. The particular joy of discovering that your home has opinions about heavy precipitation, but declined to share them with you until after the fact.
Nothing catastrophic. Just the kind of thing you must deal with before it becomes the kind of thing that becomes catastrophic. The glamorous reality of home ownership, arriving right on schedule.
Writing life, at least, is settling back into its groove. The balloons are in the sky. Fall is officially here. October has a book dropping in fourteen days, and I am ready.
Thank you for being here. October is going to be a good one.
Happy Reading,
Wendy
P.S. Fourteen days until Trial by Air. Shayla has been through fire, sea, and earth — and she has earned every single moment of what comes next. Pre-order now so it lands on your Kindle the second it drops—October 20th. We’re almost there.

The Cats Are Hiding. The Rain Is Staying

/ Wendy Cheairs / Leave a comment
Hello Readers!

Welcome to October.
The month of cooler temperatures, spooky season energy, and — if you happen to live in my corner of New Mexico right now — an absolutely relentless amount of rain. We will get to that. First: Trial by Air is twenty days away and I cannot contain myself.
💨 Trial by Air — Twenty Days Out
October 20th. Mark it.
Book four of the Richmond Academy series is almost here — and this is the one I have been building toward since page one of book one. Shayla is a Phoenix. Flying was always part of who she is. But letting her get there too early wouldn’t have worked — she needed to earn it, element by element, trial by trial, through fire and sea and earth, until she was finally ready.
October 20th is when she gets there.
I cannot wait for you to read this one.
👉 Pre-order Trial by Air — October 20th
And here’s the rest of the series while you’re getting ready:
🔥 Trial by Fire — Book one. Where it all begins. Available now and on Kindle Unlimited.
🌊 Trial by Sea — Book two. Deeper secrets, underwater trials, trust pushed to its limit. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.
🌍 Trial by Earth — Book three. The pivot point. Darker, heavier, everything shifts. Out now and on Kindle Unlimited.
✨ Trial by Spirit — Book five. The finale. December 2026. Pre-order open now.

🌊 The Call of the Sea — Still Available
Speaking of dark and atmospheric — this one could not have better timing.The Call of the Sea: A Collection of Dark Fantasy Tales is out now and my story The Drowned Chorus is inside. Mermaids and sirens torn between land and sea, stories of danger, betrayal, and love that cannot be. Dark fantasy that dives deep and does not come back up the same way it went in.
Maren Voss is a marine bioacoustician who arrives on a remote North Atlantic island expecting solitude, data, and silence. Instead she finds a voice in the water calling her name — and the ancient, impossible being behind it. Science meets magic. Grief meets wonder. A discovery that could change everything, and a presence that has finally taught her how to hear herself again.I wanted to write a siren story that wasn’t typical for the genre — and this one became one of my favorite things I’ve written all year.
👉 Grab The Call of the Sea.
More Anthologies
It has been an unusually anthology-heavy season for me — they all came together at the end of the year at once, which made for a busy few months but also meant I got to write in a lot of different directions. I am not complaining about any of it.
📖 Once Upon A Fairytale — Original dark fantasy fairytales, pre-order now at $0.99. My contribution Half-Coin Promise — two best friends, a split coin, a promise that holds through labyrinths and fog-wrapped citadels all the way to their happily ever after.
☀️ Seasons of Magic: Summer — Out now. My story The Flames of Lammas — emotional, transformative, the kind of magic that stays with you.
👉 Pre-order Once Upon A Fairytale for $0.99
👉 Grab Seasons of Magic: Summer
✨ Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl — Out Now
Wisteria Creed is still out there waiting for you if you haven’t met her yet.Half-Pixie, half-Sidhe Fae, graveyard-shift radio host, firm policy against being anyone’s idea of harmless. Paranormal romance with urban fantasy bones. Slow-burn romance. Found family. A protagonist who refuses at every turn to be what the story expected her to be.
Two years in the making. Worth every rewrite.
👉 Read Not Your Maniac Pixie Dream Girl now
From the Writing Cave — Moody October Edition
October arrived with rain. A lot of rain.
Parts of New Mexico have flooded. Flash flood warnings have been everywhere. The cats — who have strong and well-documented opinions about thunder and lightning — have been hiding under furniture for days with the kind of betrayed expression that suggests they hold me personally responsible for the weather.
Here is what I did not expect: I love it.
I am a desert person. I write in sunshine and heat and the particular bright clarity of a New Mexico afternoon. But something about the rain on the windows and the gray sky outside has unlocked a completely different writing mode — darker, moodier, more atmospheric. It is genuinely a different vibe and I have been leaning into it fully.
Whether it lasts or not, I am writing while it does.
Thank you for being here at the start of what is shaping up to be a very full October. Twenty days until Trial by Air. I am ready. Are you?
Happy Reading,
Wendy
P.S. Twenty days. Trial by Air drops October 20th — the book I have been building toward since book one, the one where Shayla finally flies. If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, now is the time. It lands right on your Kindle the moment it drops and you won’t have to wait a single extra minute.