I hope my readers have had a fulfilling holiday season, whatever you may celebrate. I got out of town for a couple of days, lost my Kindle reading streak in the process, gained five pounds, and then got sick when I got home and lost the pounds but restarted the streak.

First, the “big” news.

The long-awaited final epilogue to Mendocino, Christmas Charm: A Mendocino Series epilogue, is live on Amazon and free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription. Since its precursor Easter Miracle was posted at 99 cents for almost a year, I launched this one at 99 cents and will leave it there for a while.

And the rest of the story….

I’ve been sidetracked with things here and there, but since my last missive, I finished my November Novel with just over 51,000 words, and I’ll be pruning and polishing it next year.

The 2025 November Novel, Protege, was originally intended as a prequel to another story I started about a very unique consulting agency. Unfortunately, one of the female main characters got pregnant, and I wasn’t going to have the male lead leave her behind. So the new story will be different.

And for a year where I planned to focus more on editing and publishing than writing, I’ve come up a bit short on new works on the shelf but managed to break 370,000 words for the year.

My take last year:

With 2024 being the year of word count and idea development, 2025 will be the year of condensing those words and ideas into stories and books you can read.
–me, last year at this time

Nineteen (19) works have come into their own documents in Reedsy, four of them likely to be ready for your Kindle or other reader by summer 2026.

That’s a total of 66 individual documents, almost a third of them published, and over 900,000 words since mid-December 2023. Add 54 chapters in my project file to that, and I have a lot to put together in 2026.

Speaking of other readers, I had some inquiries this year about other marketplaces than Kindle. Like many authors in my space, I count on Kindle Unlimited revenue for a fair bit of my earnings. As Mark Knopfler might say, “I’ve got a daytime job, I’m doing alright,” so I’m not dependent on my royalties, but if there are readers who’d get more if they didn’t have to go through Amazon, I’d definitely consider it.

One thing I’m considering is releasing initially without Kindle Unlimited, offering new books for sale on another venue (maybe my nascent Patreon) and then moving them to Kindle Unlimited after an initial release period.

So what’s on the platform for early 2026?

• You Are My Water, My World. This contemporary paranormal harem romance has a scene in need of softening, and a soupcon of discomfort to be added in one scene to make part two work better.
• An Accidental Monarch (Taledin part 2). The continuation of early 2025’s Majesty of Defeat has been nearly done for a while, but the squirrel factor has kept it down. Davian is introduced to Alyssa’s childhood friend, and things develop from there.
• My Network Effect project needs to either turn into a single large work, or a third volume is coming, but I’ll work on the first two stories and make sure they fit together properly.
• New covers for Mendocino are also long overdue. The two epilogues have the new design language, but the late-2023/early-2024 Amazon cover designer look is overdue for replacement.

There are a couple of shorter harem type stories coming along nicely, and a non-exclusive romance tale that’s taken form this month.

Some other short bits:

My Patreon has been pretty quiet, but I’m hoping to liven it up a bit in 2026. There’s a free month at the mid tier for the first ten days of 2026 (https://www.patreon.com/marklinfoster/redeem/EE7FF) or half off any tier (use code 72563).

I’m going to share some other authors’ books I’ve enjoyed, to get you exposed to more than just me.

I’ll start you with Mack Landry’s Chef’s Kiss Barbecue series.

Whether it’s escaping a grueling day job, or the outdoor cooked meats, or the beautiful women, this one really fulfilled a reading need I didn’t know I had. The first two books are out with the remaining two coming in January 2026. Check it out.

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As always, all of my works are on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited*, and Goodreads as well. If you need a free trial to KU, here you go.

Image not entirely related, yet, but I’d welcome you to try out NightCafe with my referral link. It’s fun, and can be free if you’re patient. Create a free image a day while you build up your free credits.