Rob’s Update: Home!

And the cats have started to forgive us.

Week XX of 2026

Greetings all!

Before I get into all the cool stuff from the last few weeks, let’s talk about the really cool thing of today! Giant Killer Kaiju is now available! Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HNTXHBZJ. Instead of a cat picture this week, you get kaiju in all their RAWRRRR!!!!

Many thanks to Raconteur Press for giving me the opportunity! Read on below as I talk about The Shattering of Spears, another opportunity they’ve given me, which comes out on November 13th.

Before I get into that, though, I need to set the scene. Everything has been a jumble since I left for Pennsic exactly 3 months ago. There was Pennsic itself, of course. Then the quick return home to help mom. Then some weirdnesses that made everything tense and almost prevented our trip to Italy. But we were able to go, and that was an amazing, glorious jumble of awesomeness!

After the crap that was August and the recovery in September, I was feeling really overwhelmed and down at the heels. I don’t know when I’ve come home from a lengthy trip feeling so rejuvenated and energized. For a trip lasting 3+ weeks, I usually just need to sleep. For some reason, that’s not the case this time.

It really was an amazing trip and I’m so glad we could go. We ate amazing food, drank all the wines, came back with the intent to get good at making Italian food, brought fun prezzies for everyone, especially the grandlittle, and saw so much amazing stuff!

On a personal note, I’m pleased I only gained a little weight, about 8 pounds, and some of that has to be muscle mass after walking about 80 miles. This despite going off Mounjaro for the past month and eating everything I wanted.

And the trip home was actually about as smooth as it could have been, including finding a new DFW restaurant, the Cafe Brazil.

But now we’re back and it’s time to get rolling again! I’m raring to go, which hasn’t always been the case of late.

To prove it, I’ve had a very productive week. I did the final edits on The Shattering of Spears, my boy’s adventure novel set in 10th-century England which comes out on November 13th. I also got a goodly amount written in The Breaking of Oaths, which is the working title of book 2 in the series.

Also, we finally nailed down a series title. It’s the Youngest Thegn Saga, which I thinks is really cool. Again, thanks to Raconteur!

I also got back on the horse with the podcast, having david butler join me again to talk about his Witchy War Kickstarter. Check out the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hapaxpress/the-witchy-war and watch the show below.

Not only that, I have a new and updated schedule all the way into December and beyond! Call me Rob Lightyear! Anyway, that’s listed below.

If you’re getting this, you probably know I blogged throughout the trip. Since I didn’t want to overload your email box, I didn’t push those entries out. If you’re interested, just go back through the blog and check them out.

Eventually, I’ll make a special post that links to all the entries, which I may push out to email to make things easier. However, I won’t do that until I do all the picture dumps.

The first collection of pictures came from our great trip to the Antica Fabrica Passementerie Massia Vittorio https://www.massiavittorio1843.it/we-make-passementerie/. Find the pictures here:

The day after, we went to the Antica Fabrica Passementerie Massia Vittorio, both factory and antique store, we did a bunch of sightseeing in Turin.

Here’s another photo collection, this time from the Museo Egizio, a large museum of Ancient Egypt in Turin. Here’s the link: https://museoegizio.it/en/. And here’s the collection:

Anyway, what all this means is I’m finally getting sort of back to normal and after all the jumble, normal is pretty darn awesome!

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Weekly Question

With Halloween coming up, what are your favorites for the holiday? Favorite candy? Special Halloween traditions? Any costumes you’re especially proud of?

Send them in and I’ll mention them in the show!

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This Week’s Show

This week I hosted david butler join me again to talk about his Witchy War Kickstarter. Check out the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hapaxpress/the-witchy-war.

Next Week’s Show

Next week I host a newer author, Claire Merrick. Check out here first book, The Screaming Tree here: https://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Tree-Claire-Merrick/dp/1969374322.

And here’s the show link:

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/419555

Join us as we have some Halloween fun!

Upcoming Schedule

• November 3^rd: Orson Scott Card

• November 10^th: The Shattering of Spears Release Party

• November 17^th: Mark Amundsen

• November 24^th: Thanksgiving Food!

• December 1^st: Charles Gannon

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Thanks for reading!

Hit the button below to subscribe, I mean, if you wanna (and you know you do!).

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Creator of the Firehall Sagas Universe

Founder of the Queen Elizabeth’s Own Foresters

My Weight Today: 314.2lbs

• Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/-/e/B00X95LBB0

• Website: robhowell.org

• Blog: robhowell.org/blog

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Weekly Update Archive