The third weekend of January will see throngs of furries flocking to the Bay Area for Further Confusion, presumably to compete in a fursuit decathlon and freak out the staff of the new hotel location. And in addition to panels about connecting with your inner fox or whatever, artists and authors will be showcasing their new works. Among them are Kevin Frane and Kyell Gold, both of whom will premiere their new novels. Real fucking books, y’all.

Frane, aka Rikoshi in the fandom, will debut his new novel The Seventh Chakra, a psychological spy thriller set in a not-too-distant-futuresque alternate world (the same world used as the setting for his previous novel, Thousand Leaves).

Chakra follows Arkady Ryswife, who fans may remember from Thousand Leaves and his team of secret agents who work for a group called the Iolite League, a religious and philosophical organization that’s dedicated to foster a sense of world peace based on smoothing out relationships between people of different species. Kind of like a big furry United Colors of Benetton ad.

“Arkady and his team, however, work sort of ‘behind the scenes,’” Frane explained. “Specifically, they’re tasked with tracking down and recovering relics and artifacts from the world’s past, from a time back before ‘world history’ as civilization knows it covers.”

While technically a prequel, the events in Chakra don’t lead directly into Thousand Leaves so readers can start with the new book. Though you should really go read Thousand Leaves anyway because it’s pretty badass.

Gold’s upcoming book, Shadow of the Father is the third novel set in the world of Argaea, a furry medieval universe. The story follows Yilon, second son of Volle, who moves to a remote mountain province to assume lordship. There he has to deal with the political trials of being a lord, as well as having a mouse for a boyfriend in an area where rodents are the underclass (as well they should be!).

And while Shadow is still considered an adult romance novel, don’t expect the same level of sexual mischief and mayhem that made Volle a book that was nearly impossible to read in public without getting arrested.

“Shadow of the Father probably has the least sex of any book I’ve written so far,” Gold said. “When I was writing Volle I was most interested in the story. But I thought, ‘Alright, I need to put sex in to the beginning so people don’t get bored.’ That was my first novel, there was a lot of experimenting with what’s the right level. And I had people come back and tell me there’s too much sex in it.”

But don’t get discouraged that there won’t be any steamy scene, because there definitely will be. But Gold said it works in the story.

“I always try and make the sex relevant to the plot and reveal something about the character.”

And as for Chakra, Frane classifies it as a mature book, but not an adults only book. And definitely not an erotic book.

“If there’s anything even remotely sexy about it, write to me a let me know what it was.”

There’s a secret agent ferret and a buff wolf in the book. Sounds hot already.

Both The Seventh Chakra and Shadows of the Father will be available at the Sofawolf Press booth during Further Confusion, January 21-25 at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel, and shortly afterwards on Sofawolf’s website.