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@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 12:39 PM

things are not very fuzzy in #Dogwood1 i guess because that would imply some level of comfort for the characters....

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 11:10 PM

Apparently I haven't been talking enough about the fact that #Dogwood1 preorders are open 😅

preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLBF4CP1

Thanks for hosting Steve. Sorry bsky is...like this. 💀 #SFFCHAT #FreeSFFChat 😭✊

This is the announcement flyer for THE DOGWOOD CHRONICLES 1: HOUND FATALE by Aud Connelly. The cover is a starry night sky with silhouettes of trees in the foreground. The title HOUND FATALE is a mix of gothic and cursive lettering with a woodcut of a rabbit from the public domain.

Around the cover are the following details:
Gratuitous violence, profanity, and laughing at all the wrong shit.
Pathetic yearning lovesick
“bad guys”.
Messy people, trippy magic.
Alternate-timeline fantasy.
Bad takes on classic literature.

As a feral child, Owen was chosen as the Donovan family’s tithe to the otherworld—until a fey rescued him, to raise him in the human world.
Twelve years later, the Donovan family’s fortune hinges on the sale of a Stupendous Dogwood, an otherworldly tree with bioluminescent flowers, to be auctioned at the annual Dogwood Gala. The trees are such a closely guarded secret, Kenzie’s parents were killed for researching them, and her sister taken as a ward of the Donovans..
To finish her parents’ research and save her sister, Kenzie steals the key to the mine that holds the secret to the trees’ origins. Her actions reawaken the Hound, the Donovans’ cursed fey servant. Though his original master is dead, the Hound is enslaved to the current heir: Rowan, the disappointing scion of a legacy he cannot begin to understand. But if commanding the Hound to find the key will cement the approval of Rowan’s family, so be it.
Owen’s knowledge of the otherworld proves invaluable to Kenzie’s work, while his sweetness entrances the Hound, delaying his search for the key. As the three conspire behind Rowan’s back to undo a string of Donovan crimes against nature, their discoveries force more of their own secrets into the light, casting shadows of doubt on each other and reality itself, and setting off a chain-reaction of consequences for the people and fey who live there.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 11:04 PM

#SFFchat #Dogwood1

Here was a laboratory, equipped with work tables, appliances, and storage cabinets arranged around a central point: the sole source of light, a Stupendous Dogwood tree growing directly from the concrete floor, cast in the eerie amber glow of emergency lights. Its flowers were dimmer than the ones aboveground, like glow-in-the-dark stars losing their charge.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 11:00 AM

#Dogwood1 #wipsnips

“All other characteristics aside, they look like toads.” Without thinking, she touched one wart-like nodule on the head of the nearest creature. Instantly, it and all of its companions leapt backward on their short, muscular legs. The group around Owen retreated likewise. The sudden jolt of movement all over their moonlit campsite spooked Pest, making the pony trumpet and kick. The night dissolved into a mad flurry as every one of the small creatures scrambled and bounced off one another before vanishing down well-hidden tunnels between rocks or leaping gracelessly into the pond. Within seconds, only one remained, careening around their campsite, bouncing off trees and boulders, blinded by the knapsack it had been raiding, now stuck on its head.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 11:37 AM

the girls are fightinggggggg #Dogwood1 #WIPsnips

“You spoke to my master?” said Wesley. “When?”
“Your master is…Rowan Donovan?” Owen stepped back from him, horrified expression so fixed on Wesley that he did not see Kenzie’s fist coming before it sent him staggering into the rock wall, nose gushing blood over his mouth and chin. The light from Kenzie’s flashlight swung wildly.
Owen pushed off the wall and charged at her. “You! Fucking! Lizard person—!” He ran full speed into the heel of Wesley’s palm and the sudden stop took his breath away in a wheeze.
“ME?!” said Kenzie. “You’re the one who brought Donovan’s henchman into this! We’re as good as fucking dead because of you!”

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 11:46 AM

Just one of the scrapes Owen gets into in #Dogwood1 😅

#WIPSnips

Kenzie finished washing her hands, dried them on her thighs before remembering she was wearing her best dress, cursed herself, and turned the walkie back on. It immediately crackled in the middle of a message: “—STUCK IN A WALL!”
“What?” she hissed.
“KENZIE, I’M STUCK IN A FUCK-ING WALL.”

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 11:55 AM

Was this week of #wipsnips made especially for #dogwood1?!

Literally "and there's the dent where I met-ugly my boyfriend"

“I had to salvage all the parts. It took like two years… Speaking of which, I need to get a new grille. This one still has the imprint of your ass.”

@audconnelly.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 11:40 AM

#Dogwood1 #Wipwnips because the book is up for preorders 🥰

Owen set Frankenstein aside and tried to rub some feeling back into his ankle. His foot tingled unpleasantly in his shoe. Though he never heard Wesley turn, he could feel those keen eyes on him, could remember the impatience shadowed by something almost like desire. What is the nature of your injury? Freak.
“It’s old,” Owen said now, on that narrow strip of grass between the student center and the cornfield. “It happened a long time ago.”
“You were a child,” Wesley said, having evidently run the math of an old wound on a young man. “And the wolf who stole you…”
“She didn’t steal me. She saved me.” Nervous hands wrapped a bootlace around his ankle and pulled it tight.
“Saved you for what?”
Owen started. “What do you mean?”
“For what purpose is your guardian saving you?”

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 12:18 PM

Today's #WIPSnips is the very first paragraph of the #Dogwood1 prologue!

I'll be doing HOUND FATALE snips through November to (hopefully not obnoxiously) let people know the book is available for preorder 🥰

When Owen was very small, before he was “Owen” at all, he lived in the old church in the woods with the other orphans, playing in the weeds amongst the crumbling headstones, eating cold tinned stew and peaches in syrup. They were wild things with dirty faces, but never truly without guardians, for the wolves watched them always from the woods encroaching like a rising sea.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 12:06 PM

#Dogwood1 info-post

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 12:18 PM

Switching back to #Dogwood1 for October and November to celebrate the preorder link going live!!😚

Here's a #WIPsnips with a hint of plot...

As she stepped through the open gate, the wind changed, becoming more like whispers, swirling and clawing at the seams of her clothing. Barely breathing, she crept along, following the tunnel to its end, where she found an old-fashioned wishing well, complete with crank, pulleys, and ropes. She swung her flashlight left and right, but there was—nothing. No underground laboratory, no classified weather tech-nology to explain the endless winter gripping this pocket of the forest, and nothing at all pertaining to the Stupendous Dogwoods’ bioluminescence and year-round blooming, that so-called miracle of selective breeding and genetic mutations her parents had been willing to risk everything to uncover. There were only the petals, blowing around on the icy wind amidst flurries of snow.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 12:11 PM

#Dogwood1 HOUND FATALE is coming on November 17! But you can preorder the ebook now! Paperbacks on release day, and it will be available on KDU.

preorder link: www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLBF4CP1
sample chapters + content warnings: www.audconnelly.com/the-dogwood-...

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 5:20 PM

#DOGWOOD1 PROOF COPY IS IN MY HOME STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When it's delivered I'm going to double check the formatting (I did slightly larger font than my previous books and I want to be sure it doesn't look too goofy) and then I'm going to finalize the listing details.😋

YOU WILL HEAR FROM ME.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 8:02 PM

#Dogwood1 promo graphic blooper reel

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 11:22 AM

Along with my proof copy of #Dogwood1, I went ahead and ordered a personal copy each of WINGS IN THE VALLEY and THE CONSORT AND I. I don't think I've read either of them since 2024! (I do have 1 non-proof copy of WINGS already but none of CONSORT, bc I gave it away.)

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 10:51 AM

#Dogwood1 is coming out in November and I'll have preorder links up on Tuesday!

Also I do have two other books. It's been a very sluggish summer of sales, and they're such good stories I really ought to do better by them and try to market. #PretendPanel

www.amazon.com/stores/Aud-C...

Wings in the Valley is a high fantasy in which two fauns and a harpy must save their homeland from a dragon. It features a non-human, polyamory, low heat, enemies-to-parents romance, and cover art by Arden Powell. (The cover is the silhouettes of 2 fauns and a harpy against ancient ruins, flamed by squash vines and grapevines, with the shadow of a dragon behind the title.)

The Consort and I is a m/m court romance with a slash of treason! (And some explicit sex scenes.) The cover is by The Author Buddy.

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 21, 2026, 10:30 PM

Owen, Kenzie, Rowan, and Wesley are all the official POV characters, but #Dogwood1 prologue is omni, Owen's guardian gets a chapter at the end of #Dogwood2, and an unnamed helicopter pilot lends us his pov briefly in #Dogwood3. But Wesley is The Narrator, regardless of POV. #AwesomeCharacters

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 12, 2026, 6:40 PM

#Dogwood1 line edits are all plugged in. final word count 100,114

not bad, considering the starting point was 95k and i had to retrofit a LOT of world building!

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 10:44 PM

SEX SCENE EDIT ONLY ADDED 200 WORDS TO THE TOTAL!! WE'RE STILL AT 100K!!

this was the biggest rewritten section (entire paragraphs instead of a sentence here and there) so i really thought it would add 1-2k. 🫠 but it turns out i cut as much as i added.

40/60 scenes done. #Dogwood1

@audconnelly.bsky.social Sep 8, 2026, 10:51 PM

#Dogwood1 🤣