Tor Books have agreed to revert the rights to the first four books in the Sword of Shadows series to author J.V. Jones. Jones had completed the fifth book in the series, Endlords, last year but Tor had declined to publish it. Jones is now free to pursue either publishing the entire series with another outlet, or self-publishing herself.
As has been related before, Jones launched her career in a blaze of success in 1995 with the Book of Words trilogy. Emboldened by a strong critical reception and cover quotes from Robert Jordan, the trilogy went on to sell over a million copies for Warner Books. Jones also published a successful standalone novel, The Barbed Coil, and then started the Sword of Shadows sequence in 1999 with A Cavern of Black Ice. The fourth volume, Watcher of the Dead, was published in 2010. Subsequent major life issues interfered with the writing and publication of further books in the series until she was able to resume work on it in 2017. The writing went slowly due to the demands of the day job, until she was able to leave that job and work full-time on the book in 2024, after which progress dramatically increased.
Jones isn't resting on her laurels, as she has also been shopping around a complete urban fantasy novel, Sorry Jones, and is now some way into the writing of the sixth and final Sword of Shadows novel, A Sword Named Loss.
The reversion of the rights means that Jones now controls the audio, ebook and print rights for her entire body of work. The Book of Words and Sword of Shadows are set in the same world (though you do not need to have read the prior trilogy to enjoy the last sextet), giving a new publisher access to a nearly-complete nine-volume sequence, not to mention two more standalone books.
Whether another publisher would be interested in the series remains to be seen (although I believe some talks have been held), but it does confirm that the remaining two volumes in the superb Sword of Shadows series will appear at some point, which is sure to relieve fans.
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