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Hey, everybody! I'm excited to announce that the third book in my Henry Rider series, Henry Rider and the First Hunter's Hammer, will be coming to Honeyfeed on Wednesday, July 9th, with one new chapter going up a week. For those of you who don't want to wait, the entire book is already published and for sale on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. In the meantime, here is a short sample of what you can look forward to!

If you haven't already, you can read the first book for free here: https://www.honeyfeed.fm/chapters/80364

Henry’s life has always been a cruel joke,

but can she stop her family from becoming the punchline?

It’s been almost a year since Henry and Ethan discovered the laughter farms, but they’re still no closer to stopping the one who built them. Legion has infiltrated the Council of Shnoob, but does anyone care enough to listen? Nooooo! As usual, it will be up to Henry and her friends to stop the bad guys and save the world…

Until the unthinkable happens.

Evil has found its way to Henry’s door, and now the ones she loves will pay the price. If she ever wants to see them again, she will have to infiltrate the Jocular Brotherhood of Zanni, an ancient organization dedicated to maintaining the balance between humanity and klaonkind. Guided by a living puppet—because her life wasn’t weird enough already—Henry must face three deadly trials in order to steal their most ancient and powerful artifact, the First Hunter’s Hammer. But can she bring herself to fight for the side of evil, even if it means saving her family’s lives?

Henry Rider and the First Hunter’s Hammer

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“Henry, could you come down here, please?” Dad called.

I stopped in my tracks, hugging myself. I’d spent the past two hours pacing back and forth while my stupid imagination made up increasingly horrible—but not quite impossible—ways things could play out. Now that the moment had finally come, it occurred to me that none of those scenarios were actually going to happen.

Whatever did happen was going to be a hundred times worse.

“What are you so worried about?” Ethan asked. “It’s just your parents. It’s not like they can fire you like the council could.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s worse. They could ground me.”

“Funny.”

I turned to him, eyes wide. “You think I’m joking, but I’m not! My parents have a kind of control over me that the council could only wish they had! They may not be able to fire me, or arrest me, or pass laws, but there are a thousand little ways they could make my life miserable!”

“It can’t be that bad,” Jade argued.

I began to count on my fingers. “They can ground me, make it so I can’t leave the house without permission, forbid me to go anywhere without an escort, set a curfew so I can’t stay out late! A hundred tiny roadblocks, and they’ll just keep adding more and more until I finally cave in and give Grandpa Teddy what he wants.”

“Henry?” Mom called.

”The council is all bluster and no mustard, but my parents,...” I hesitated, glancing at the door. “They know exactly how to hit me where it hurts, and they won’t hesitate to do it. All Grandpa Teddy has to do is convince them that it’s for my own good.”

“I still think you’re overreacting,” Ethan said, going to the door and opening it for me. “Besides, Jade and I will be right here with you the whole time.”

Jade got up and squeezed my hand. “You’ve been through worse things than this, Henry. Stay strong!”

She fwooshed into her gem, and I nodded.

“Let’s do this like fondue crisp,” I said.

“Like…what?”

“I don’t know. I’m having a hard time thinking straight.”

The air felt heavy as we headed downstairs, even though the conversation in the living room seemed oddly light.

“There you are!” Mom said from the couch. “I was starting to think I would have to go wake you up.”

“Take a seat, both of you,” Dad said, gesturing toward the minicouch by the far wall. I know it’s technically called a loveseat, but that always sounded weird—especially when I was sitting next to Ethan.

“We ordered pizza,” said Mom. “It should be here any minute.”

Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought, I told myself. You don’t order pizza if you’re planning to rip everything your daughter loves away from her.

As soon as I sat down, though, the atmosphere darkened.

Yep, I thought, bracing myself for the worst, there it is.

“So, Henry,” Dad said after a moment’s hesitation, “your grandfather tells us you’ve been sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

I turned to glare at Grandpa Teddy, who met my eyes unflinchingly. I felt my anger rise up again, my face turning blue. Sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong? Did they think I was five years old, and this was nothing but a scheme to find out where they’d hidden the cookie jar?

“Henry…” Ethan said, putting a warning hand on my shoulder.

I ignored him, standing back up. “How can you say it isn’t my business? It became my business when Le—”

“Henry!” Grandpa Teddy barked, his voice echoing through the room like a gunshot. “That is classified information!”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Even for my parents?”

“Absolutely! Being related to someone on the council—or the Hunter—doesn’t entitle them to hear state secrets.”

I threw my arms open. “How am I supposed to defend myself if I can’t even talk about…the thing we’re talking about?”

“Perhaps, just this once, you could try listening instead of talking,” said Grandpa Teddy.

“Le…the bad person came after me! He wanted to use me to get to Ethan, and he wanted to use Ethan to hurt everyone I care about! How can you tell me that I’m not involved after you-know-what happened?”

“You were involved,” Grandpa Teddy said. “And as I’ve said before, I will never forgive myself for allowing things to get to that point. But that is over, Henry!”

“But it’s not over!” I yelled. “Victoria is—”

“You have no proof of that!”

“I WAS TRYING TO GET PROOF, BUT YOU STOPPED ME!”

“Henry, lower your voice!” Mom scolded me.

Grandpa Teddy shook his head, as calm as ever. “If anything else does happen, then the council will handle it.”

“Like they’ve been handling it up till now? By doing absolutely nothing?”

“That’s enough, Henry!” Dad said.

“No, it isn’t enough!” I shot back. “This may not have anything to do with maiams, but it has everything to do with us! People are being tortured and killed—”

“Henry,” Grandpa Teddy said warningly.

“—and a magical psychopath is running around with a grudge against the entire klaon race, and I’m the only one who freaking cares! I’m the only one doing anything about it! And the people who I should be able to depend on more than anybody else are…are…”

I had to stop, trying desperately not to sniffle like the overemotional little girl that I absolutely wasn’t. I looked at my family. Mom. Dad. Grandpa Teddy. All the frustration that I’d been bottling up inside me over the past year was boiling over, threatening to make me explode like a shaken up can of soda. And after I sprayed my sticky brown anger all over everyone in the room, I’d be left empty. Hollow. Unable—and even worse, unwilling— to summon the energy to keep going.

Maybe that was Grandpa Teddy’s plan tonight. To make me lose control, let everything out in a big ugly tantrum, and get it out of my system. Maybe then I’d go back to being the obedient little granddaughter he so desperately wanted me to be. I’d go to school, I’d hang out with friends, and occasionally I’d fight an unholy abomination against nature, but I’d never talk back to him or look too deeply into anything he told me to stay away from.

“You’re not going to listen, are you?” Grandpa Teddy asked softly. “No matter what I say, you’re never going to back down from this ridiculous crusade.”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “I’m sorry, Grandpa Teddy, but I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that this kind of evil is going on, and I wasn’t doing something to—”

Ding dong!

“That must be the pizza,” Mom said. “Henry, Ethan, will you two go get it, please?”

I deflated, feeling like my skin was hanging limp from my skeleton, and nodded. Ethan rose, and the two of us made our way to the entryway. For once, the thought of pizza didn’t cheer me up at all. Even the thought of eating made me feel sick. I pushed open the door, already reaching out to take the pizzas from the delivery—

There was nobody out there.

CRASH!

I froze, then spun around.

“That came from the living room!” I yelled, already sprinting back through the house.

I was too late. By the time I got to the living room, Mom, Dad, and Grandpa Teddy were gone. The picture window looking out into our backyard had been shattered, and glass was scattered all over the place. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed, but…

Someone I didn’t recognize sat on the couch.

“Hello, Henry,” he said. “Let’s talk for a bit.”

IF YOU WANT MORE, BE HERE ON 7/9/25!