It’s Valentine’s Day! To celebrate, I’m sharing some of my favorite love-filled illustrations from the Keepers of the Wellsprings series. Click on the first picture to see the gallery, and scroll down inside the gallery for the image description.
Here’s to celebrating love in every shape and form, including self-love! Wishing you a beautiful day this Valentine’s Day, and sending love to everyone.
Do you love looking at beautiful, bright artwork of fairies? Would you like to look at fairies for 18 whole months? If so, you should get my brand new 2021-2022 18 month FAIRIES Art Wall Calendar!
Oh, and by the way, Call of Kythshire, the first book of my epic, award-winning Keepers of the Wellsprings series is FREE today only! Saturday, 12-12-2020!
I’m beyond excited to offer this collection of illustrations to my readers, which is the first time they have ever been printed in FULL COLOR, the way I intended them! Whether you enjoyed my series via paperback or Kindle, these are scenes from the books like you have never seen them before.
The lulu site has a great reputation for excellent customer service, but their calendar preview requires flash, which I know is a problem for IOS users. Don’t worry! I have created a gallery on my website that allows everyone to browse through all of the enchanting images featured in the calendar. Click here to view the preview on my website.
Discover the rich world of Author/Illustrator Missy Sheldrake’s Keepers of the Wellsprings series. This stunning spiral-bound wall calendar will capture your imagination and whisk you into the epic story readers are calling “a high-fantasy Harry Potter.”
Best of all, it’s on sale now at a special introductory price of 30% off list: just $17.49! (plus shipping and tax where required)
Introducing young Mya! I’ve been hard at work writing her story, and let me tell you, she is not at all what I expected she’d be at 13 (going on 14) years old. This future leader of His Majesty’s Elite is quite a handful!
I’m still in the early stages of my draft, so I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to estimate a release date for a while. I promise it’s going to be amazing, and I can’t wait to share it with you.
If you’d like some sneak peeks and more regular updates, I invite you to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. Come on over and see what I’ve been up to. See you soon!
Before I say goodbye for now, I have one last bit of exciting news. I’ll be setting up a booth at the 2018 Clifton Day Festival here in Northern Virginia on October 7. I plan on signing books and calendars, and offering lots of paintings from my studio! I might even have a fairy or two there with me. If you’re local to the area and plan to attend Clifton Day, I’d love it if you stopped by and said hello.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end! Fairy wishes for great adventures until I see you again. ❤
(This message was originally sent to my mailing list on September 16. If you’d like to sign up for email updates, click here. Thanks!)
I’m so excited to announce that Call of Elespen, the fifth and final book of the Keepers of the Wellsprings series, is now available on Amazon!
All of your favorites are back in the epic conclusion of the series, including:
Flitt
Azi and Rian
Tib
Celli
Margy and more!
Check out all the illustrations from Call of Elespen here.
Today only, November 29, 2017, in celebration of the completion of the series, I’m offering books 1-4 for free!
Click the pic to visit the series page on Amazon
When I wrote this series, my hope was to capture a world that would enchant my readers and bring them to a place they’ve never been before. To me, the joy of reading is the escape of it. Growing up, I had few friends. I imagined them in the forests where I wandered, as fairies, and I imagined them in the pages of books.
In the Keepers of the Wellsprings, my hope was to create friends that would capture my readers’ hearts, just as those in the books I’ve read have done for me. Finishing the series has been bittersweet. I’m relieved to have been able to tie up to so many strands of the story so neatly, but it’s sad to say goodbye to these characters who seem so real now.
Rest assured, though, I don’t think I’m finished with these folks just yet. I intend to take a break, but there are so many stories to write, yet, from the world of the Wellsprings.
Special thanks to my friends who have agreed to participate in my blog tour! Please swing by and check out these fabulous authors:
Daniel Layfield, author of The Spellstone Legacy series
https://youlookconfused.blogspot.com/2017/11/call-of-elespen-epic-conclusion-to.html
Owen R. O’Neill, co-author of the Loralynn Kennakris Series
http://www.loralynnkennakris.com/keepers-of-the-wellsprings-new-release/
Joshua Blum, author of The Thirteenth Hour: A Retro 1980s Illustrated Fairytale Fantasy Novel
https://13thhr.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/the-thirteenth-hour-podcast-120/
Meg Welch Dendler, author of the Cats in the Mirror series and more
https://megdendler.blogspot.com
Jenelle Schmidt, author of The Minstrel’s Song series
http://jenelleschmidt.com
Joanne Van Leerdam, poet of The Passing of the Night
https://bookssquirrel.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/announcing-the-epic-conclusion-to-the-keepers-of-the-wellsprings-series/
Joshua Robertson, author of the Thrice Nine Legends Saga
https://robertsonwrites.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/featuring-keepers-of-the-wellsprings-call-of-elespen/
M. Ray Holloway, author of Let No Word Be Spoken
https://mrayhollowayjr.blogspot.com
I’ll be adding even more posts to the list as they go up, so please make sure to check back!
The epic conclusion to the Keepers of the Wellsprings series is almost here, and you know what that means: It’s time for a cover reveal!
If you’re familiar with the series so far, you know that I have illustrated designed all of the covers myself. It has always been important to me to make sure each cover is unique enough to be attractive on its own, but consistent enough with the rest of the series that it looks like a series when all of the books are displayed together.
To do this, I really thought about color, giving each book its own unique palette and tone. I knew Kythshire, for example, would be blue and gold, because those colors appear prominently in the book. They’re the colors of Azi’s guild, and the colors of the golden field she visits in Kythshire.
For Call of Sunteri, I chose red for the dye fields Tib escaped, and gold for the wings of a prominent fairy in the book. I won’t say who, just in case you haven’t read it yet!
For Call of Brindelier, it had to be purple for the mystery and majesty of the hidden kingdom of Brindelier, and gold, of course. This time, for Azi.
For Call of Hywilkin, I knew I wanted flame orange and yellow to represent the fiery mountain of Kerevorna, and the wings of its Keeper had to be very distinct. I also wanted it to feel quite ominous because of the dark, dramatic tone of this book.
Finally, here we are at Elespen! As the final book in the series, I hoped to make this cover really stand out. This book and its cover had to feel like a triumph. I wanted it to feel mysterious and creepy, but also bright and hopeful. I painted the wings to seem like they could be a butterfly in a rain forest jungle, and gave them eyes to make them curious and interesting. It was important that the green felt like a jungle, with all of the wonder and danger that the idea of a jungle invokes. I wanted it to feel ambiguously good and evil, beautiful, and unnerving. My favorite part about this cover is how the area beneath the wings feels like a portal into a strange blue sky or tropical water, which happened accidentally as I was painting it.
Without further delay, here it is, the cover reveal of Call of Elespen!
I’m still planning on releasing the book in the later part of November. I promise to keep you updated! In the meantime, you can download Call of Kythshire for free today, in celebration of my cover release! Enjoy!
I just wanted to write a quick note to let everyone know I’m still here, and I’m still writing! The conclusion of the Keepers of the Wellsprings is taking up every bit of my time and energy, leaving little time for blog posts.
The majority of the book is already in the hands of my trusted beta readers, and is so far very well received. This ending is going to be EPIC, and I’m really excited to get it out to the rest of you.
I’m still hoping to release in November. Keep an eye here for news, and as always, I’d love to hear from you. Post a comment here to say hello or ask a question, or send me an email if you’d like! See you soon!!
I know I’ve been quiet here in blog land, but I have a great excuse. I’ve been busy writing and illustrating Call of Elespen! I’m up to Chapter 13 now, with a total word count of 41,069.
I’m not going to tell you anything at all about the following illustrations, posted in no particular order. I’ll let you wonder what’s happening based on what you see. You can click on each pic to see a larger version.
Which one do you like the most, and why? Let me know in the comments! Feel free to ask a question if you have one. I’ll answer anything that’s not a spoiler. 😉
All images are Copyright 2017 Missy Sheldrake, so please don’t share without crediting me.
If you’ve read my books, you know each title refers to the place where the book is set. The series starts with Call of Kythshire, which focuses mainly on Kythshire and the wide variety of fairies who live in its enchanted glens, forests, and mountains. From there we have traveled to Sunteri, Brindelier, and Hywilkin.
The Known Lands, as I call the world of the Keepers of the Wellsprings, are as vast and varied as our own. Like ours, so are its people, geography, and creatures. Look at the map above, and you’ll notice one continent which has been largely ignored in the series up until now: Elespen.
I’m not sure I’ve made an official announcement yet, and so I’ll take this opportunity to do it. The fifth and final book in the Keepers of the Wellsprings series will be titled Call of Elespen!
Elespen is a land of jungles and deserts, geographically inspired by areas of Africa and India. I love the idea of long forgotten ruins, overgrown with lush jungle plants and inhabited by stealthy, mysterious magic.
You can see a few more inspiring images on my Elespen Pinterest board.
Elespen has been mentioned a few times in my previous books. Mya was born there, and Tib sailed down its Jairun River on his way to Cerion in Call of Sunteri:
(AUTHOR’S NOTE! Don’t be afraid! The following excerpt is spoiler-free!)
We sail into the mouth of the river they call Jairun. I don’t like it. We move slower here through the center of Elespen. The jungle creeps into the water on both sides of us. Days more of this. Days of watching jungle become village and jungle again, and then sand and only sand as far as I can see. An ocean of sand. Too much like Sunteri. Too much like the home I never wanted to see again. I feel the panic rise in me. I don’t want to be in the desert.
“Sleep.”
Yes, sleep. I curl up in the safety of the fore nest, and when I wake the stars stretch out endlessly above me. Noise. Lapping and chatting. Laughing and shouting. Bargaining. Unloading. The thud of the hull against the pier as they tie it up.
“Boy!” Cap shouts. I slip down the ratlines and drop to his side. The deck is deserted except for the pair of watch guards at the gangway. I stand straight and look Cap in the eye, as he has told me to do. It keeps a man honest, he says, to meet his crew’s eyes.
“Sir!” I shout. He taught me to do that, too.
He tells me I’m a hard worker. I have earned five copper, which he jingles in a pouch. I like the sound of it. I have never held coin before. It has more weight than I expected. He tells me I can go ashore if I want to, and then he goes back below. I peer out at the city. Cresten. Capital of Elespen. It’s different from Zhaghen. Cleaner. Brighter, even in the starlight. Noisy, but the noise is happier. They don’t have towers here to watch and rule over them. Just a castle, low and sprawling. Music drifts merrily from the taverns into the street. People in beautiful colors dance in the glow of torchlight. Others toss coin at them. Even in the night, merchants in booths cook and sell. The aroma is exotic and flavorful. My mouth waters.
I hope you’re as excited as I am to finally get to Elespen, where tribes of elephant riders lurk in the dense jungle, and even the vegetation itself can’t be trusted. I won’t say any more here, you’ll just have to wait until the end of the year when Call of Elespen is released, and read for yourself!
Check back soon for more updates, and be sure to click here and join my mailing list for upcoming contests and promotions!
Author’s Note: This post was written before coffee.
It’s release day! I can’t stand it, I’m so excited!! Call of Hywilkin is finally available for sale on Amazon, and you are definitely in for a treat if you get it! You’re going to meet so many amazing characters and go on such an adventure!
You’ll meet Wyvern:
“Talk plain to me. You know I don’t like all that frilly talk.”
And Tulya:
“I am not porcupine.”
And Kenrick:
“Mentalism, my dear, is not like other schools of magic.”
And Pippa:
“How can I keep it out when it is all I ever see? Night. Always, night.”
And you’ll travel with old favorites like Azi and Rian:
“A screech from the darkness…a strange glow fills the space like cool, blue moonlight.”
Flitt:
“Want to play?”
And of course, Tib!
“I just want to do what I want, and I don’t want to answer to anyone.”
And don’t forget Celli and Quenson!
“What have you done to this girl? What dark magic is this?”
You can order Call of Hywilkin by clicking here.
All the other books in the series are available for free today only! (March 3, 2017) Click here to download them!
With my draft in the hands of my beta readers and my Apple Pencil on fire from illustrating, I’ve decided it’s time to reveal the cover of the Keepers of the Wellsprings series, Book Four: Call of Hywilkin!
The story takes place in Hywilkin, a treacherous frozen country where the use of magic is forbidden upon penalty of death. Its Wellspring, which lies deep in the center of a towering mountain, has been sealed off from the world for decades.
Here it is with the rest of the books in the series:
When I designed the cover, I wanted to be sure it kept with the theme of previous covers while also conveying the dark, dangerous themes of the book. Rian must learn his worth without magic, Azi struggles to maintain balance between her own powers and her duties as a Knight, and Tib delves into the shadowed mysteries of the floating city of Brindelier. As always, their fairy companions guide them on their way, providing advice and encouragement as they work to bolster the Dawn and snuff out the Dusk.
Click here to read more about the Keepers of the Wellsprings series!
Call of Hywilkin will be available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited March 2017! Check here for details coming soon!
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