RELEASE NOTE
Why 08.08.26?
Every story begins long before the first page.
People have asked me why I chose 08.08.26 as the release date for The Tide Chronicles.
The answer isn’t marketing.
It isn’t publishing strategy.
It is something much quieter.
Some numbers accompany us throughout our lives.
Not because they possess mysterious powers.
Because, over time, they become part of our personal story.
For me, that number has always been eight.
I was born on the eighth.
It appears in places where I least expect it.
Sometimes I notice it only after looking back.
Other times, it quietly reminds me that certain patterns don’t need an explanation to become meaningful.
When I was choosing a publication date, I realised that 2026 would become 2 + 6 = 8.
Then came the obvious choice.
08.08.26.
Three eights.
A date that felt less like a calculation and more like a quiet circle closing.
There is another number that has always followed me.
Three.
If you turn the number three on its side and mirror it, it becomes the shape of an eight.
Perhaps that is only coincidence.
Or perhaps coincidence is simply another way of recognising the stories we tell ourselves.
Either way, I have always loved that image.
Three has always been part of my life.
I am the third of six siblings.
I have three children.
Today, I live at number 3, apartment 8.
These details do not prove anything.
Nor are they meant to.
Life is not a puzzle waiting to be solved through numbers.
But memory has a curious way of weaving small connections into something that feels larger than chance.
Writers spend much of their lives looking for patterns.
Not because patterns explain the world.
Because they help us understand our place within it.
Perhaps that is why this date felt right.
Not inevitable.
Simply true.
The Tide Chronicles is a novel about memory.
About the invisible threads connecting places, people and choices across time.
Choosing 08.08.26 felt like honouring one of those threads in my own life.
A quiet reminder that stories do not begin when they are published.
They begin years earlier.
In ordinary moments.
In unexpected places.
Sometimes in the numbers we carry without even noticing.
There is another reason I chose not to rush this book.
Stories have their own tides.
Some arrive quickly.
Others ask for patience.
This one deserved time.
Time to grow.
Time to become exactly the story it wanted to be.
That is why 08.08.26 feels less like a deadline and more like a destination.
A date I have been slowly walking toward for much longer than I realised.
When that day finally arrives, I hope readers will discover more than a fantasy novel.
I hope they will find a story about memory.
About the sea.
About beginnings.
About the quiet courage of becoming who we are meant to be.
And perhaps, years from now, when I look back at that date, I won’t remember it because of the numbers.
I’ll remember it because it was the day The Tide Chronicles finally found its readers.
Because, in the end, dates don’t become meaningful for what they contain.
They become meaningful for what begins there.
08.08.26
The tide is coming.