We're Dungoneering now
- joelcmckay
- Aug 7, 2025
- 4 min read
A little over a week until The Dungeoneers and the Treasure of Roan is out in real life. Phew. Can't believe it. Half a decade since I first came up with the concept and here we are. It feels ... anti-climactic?
But it's also very exciting. I keep reminding myself this is my first full novel and not a small thing. In fact, it's THE thing I've been trying to do since I was 12, which was a while ago. Anywho, some early reviews are in courtesy of #NetGalley
"I LOVED this story so so much. It felt like the best kind of adventure fairytale."
"The settings definitely bring me back to my early days of ready fantasy in all the best ways....unique monsters, swords, legit sorcery, and amazing ADVENTURE."
"What stood out most was the tone—it struck a great balance between action and light-heartedness."
"Loved the story and feel like it would be great for younger readers."
And here's reviewer Anthony Avina's take:
Meantime, I've been making some appearances in podcast and interwebs land for promotion:
A Q&A with author Peni Jo Renner: Meet Award-Winning Author Joel McKay! – Musings of an Author
On how leaving this world for a fantastic one grounds us: LEAVING OUR WORLD FOR A FANTASTIC ONE GROUNDs US — Tranquilo Retreat
Escape with a Writer: The Dungeoneers and the Treasure of Roan by author Joel McKay – Escape With a Writer
An interview with Lisa Haselton: Interview with fantasy author Joel McKay – lisahaselton.com
On Para or Normal Guyz podcast: Para OR Normal Guyz | From Fiction to Phenomena: A Paranormal Night
On Book Lights podcast with Lisa Kessler: Lost Treasures and High Fantasy with Author Joel McKay on Book Lights
Phew. Yeah. It's been busy.
So where can you buy this thing?!?
August 15th, Amazon ebooks and paperbacks will be on sale here:
If you happen to be in Prince George or Quesnel, I'll be stocking copies at our lovely, local independent book shop Books and Co. - so check there latter half of August. They can also order it in from me. Here's another review from Review Tales Magazine this August:
Other things:
It's been a wildly busy summer, which means I haven't been tending to my socials or blog nearly as much as I should. I'm looking forward to getting back to the routine of day-to-day life in the fall, especially since it's hunting and fishing season. But, yes, it will also mean more time for this, which matters.
The good news this summer is we've managed to fit in camping, lake time, fishing and just hanging out as much as possible. There's a lot going on, but the amount of time with my girls, flexibility at work and not having to breathe through wildfire smoke every day all feel like a win.
Completely unrelated to my fiction but definitely related to being a writer, I recently published a column at The Line Alberta on some pipeline policy issues here in Canada. I don't write columns as often as I used to, largely because I rarely have anything smart to say that someone else hasn't already said. Yet given that energy corridors are back in the news, I couldn't resist offering my take on the issue. To reiterate, I'm supportive of pipelines where it makes sense - I just know British Columbia really well and wanted to highlight for some folks some challenges they may run into if they don't know it as well...
What else is going on?
I'm just getting into Clay McLeod Chapman's Ghost Eaters and Josh Malerman's Incidents Around the House. I've been reading more classics and some history and fantasy this year so not as much horror. Yet it's August now ... first month of the harvest season ... and that starts to get my spooky spirits all woken up. So here's to some fear!
I've been back into X-Files Season 1 as background noise, and recently enjoyed Orang Ikan (Monster Island) on Shudder. Fun movie. I finally watched Gladiator 2 and was disappointed, so now I'm watching HBO's Rome for the first time and am decidedly not disappointed. Elsewhere, I've watched Untamed on Netflix. Good, but ultimately anti-climactic, to borrow the word again. It felt like it had a cool supernatural vibe coming into it then ... not so much.
Game-wise it's been Resident Evil 4 (the remake), Mario Kart World and Doom the Dark Ages. All a lot of fun. I spent a few hours on Commandos Origins, which is a solid stealth challenge similar to Desperados - worth playing if you're into that.
As for writing, I've been up to my eyeballs in other stuff - family, work and my volunteer work at the university. So, not much time for writing when you layer summertime fun and book promotion into that. Good news is The Dungeoneers will be behind me shortly, I'm back in class this fall for my MA and working through edits on my thesis (a cosmic horror novel). So, the hope is as the days grow shorter I might have a little bit more time for tapping away at the keyboard on something new.
Anyway, we're still in full-on summer mode and Dungeoneers promotion. So, yeah, go buy it:
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