MTHS teacher releases second fantasy novel, giving free digital copies of first novel for February

Stephen Merlino, an English teacher at Mountlake Terrace High School, recently released his second fantasy novel, and is letting readers dive into his first novel for free during the month of February.

The new book, called The Jack of Ruin, is the second in Merlino’s “The Unseen Moon” series.

The Jack of Ruin was released in late 2017. To celebrate, he is offering ebook copies of his first book, The Jack of Souls, for free on Amazon, Nook, iTunes, Smashwords and KOBO for the month of February. The Jack of Souls was released in 2015 and has since won an Independent Publishers Award, a place in the Writers of the Future anthology and a five-star review from Awesome Indies.

In The Jack of Ruin, Harric bargains with a spirit of the Dark Moon to preserve his Queen and kingdom from the deranged and immoral Old Ones, led by Sir Bannus.

Stephen Merlino

At 516 pages, The Jack of Ruin is over a hundred pages longer than his first book, and it took him much longer to finish it than he first planned.

“In fact,” he said, “in the back of book one I naively predicted something like, ‘Look for book two at the end of 2015!’ Some writers can finish a book in less than a year, and I thought I was one of them, but I’m not. Not yet anyway.”

He doesn’t plan to stop teaching to write for a living, he said.

“Writing is lonely,” he said. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to shrink my contract to two classes a day, instead of five, but I can’t see not teaching.”

“Plus, I became a teacher because I in that role I believe I can help some of them, too,” he continued. “It’s why I started teaching in the first place–to make a difference in some lives–and if stopped teaching, I’d feel like I stopped making a difference.”

Right now The Jack of Ruin is available in ebook, paperback, and hardback through Amazon. Plans for an audiobook for The Jack of Ruin are in the works.

To stay updated on the series, events and promotions, sign up for The Jack of Souls newsletter – https://eepurl.com/YT5Vv.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Real first and last names — as well as city of residence — are required for all commenters.
This is so we can verify your identity before approving your comment.

By commenting here you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct. Please read our code at the bottom of this page before commenting.