You’ll know you’ve wandered into a Robert McCammon novel when you encounter sentences such as this on page 1: “Grim thoughts did not help the grimnity.”

“Grimnity?” There are few words in the universe that can’t be found in Merriam-Webster’s master work, and fewer still that can stump the entire internet. This is one of those.

But because it is a word penned by McCammon, winner of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, it is not only a fitting word, it is the best fitting word — shaped and seasoned to flavor the mood matching weather and woman as his eighth Matthew Corbett novel, “The King of Shadows” (Lividian Publications), opens with a farewell.

But more on this in a bit. First comes the backstory — and not only the backstory of this book, but the story of why Corbett is a series of books at all. Like McCammon’s deft touch with words, a brief version of this tale is one of a craftsman ever-plodding a path toward his own true north.

The writer who stopped writing, and then began again

It was shortly after the beginning of the millennium when a biographical essay in the then-exhaustive “Supernatural Fiction Writers” provided guarded optimism for readers of the immensely popular Birmingham-writer Robert McCammon.

After a nearly decade-long withdrawal from writing that flowed from a dispute with a publisher over the direction of his planned historical fiction — McCammon would initially call the hiatus a retirement — the World Fantasy Award winner (“Boy’s Life,” 1991) announced that he had a new book coming out, something different from the fantasy-horror genres into which he felt he had been previously pigeonholed.

McCammon’s “self-imposed retreat concluded in 2002, when a small press, River City Publishing, Montgomery, Ala., announced it would be publishing ‘Speaks the Nightbird,’ a historical novel written in the early 1990s,” the essay reported. And then added a caveat, “but it remains uncertain whether McCammon will ever resume writing.”

Twenty years later, the issue of McCammon’s literary output has been certainly decided. With more than two dozen novels and short story collections in his current oeuvre — 14 of those since 2002 — the Alabama native not only “resumed writing,” but continues to expand “Speaks the Nightbird” into a planned series of 10 books (the Matthew Corbett novels). The eighth of those novels, “The King of Shadows,” published in trade hardcover Dec. 6 — a continuation story that was much anticipated by his readers.

The Corbett novels leading up to Book 8

McCammon’s historical series centers on a 17th century magistrate’s clerk, Matthew Corbett, and the mysteries he unravels in Colonial America. The success of that series, beginning with “Speaks the Nightbird,” remains unabated today.

Testament to that popularity is two-fold: “The King of Shadows” itself, and the backlist catalogue of Corbett novels.

Although the December debut of the eighth novel marked the trade hardcover edition of the book, at $37.50 from Lividian Publications, a deluxe, limited edition of the novel was published from the same press on July 11. When that lavishly illustrated version of the novel was announced, pre-orders for the book, at $125, sold out in seven hours.

Similarly, Lividian released this year the past five Matthew Corbett novels in trade paperback — the first such editions of these novels — through a monthly publication cycle. “Mister Slaughter,” the third book in the series, published in July and “The Providence Rider” published in August with “The River of Souls,” “Freedom of the Mask” and “Cardinal Black” followed each month up to the December launch of “The King of Shadows.” The first two novels in the series, “Speaks the Nightbird” and “The Queen of Bedlam,” had previously been released as paperbacks in 2007 by another publishing house, Gallery Books. All of the Lividian titles are framed by fresh and enchanting covers painted by Vincent Chong, and are available at the publisher’s website and other sellers.

Shedding light on publication of ‘The King of Shadows’

Despite noted paper shortages that delayed the initial trade book launch of McCammon’s current piece de resistance from April to December in 2022, the author admitted on his website that the wait for a sequel to 2019’s “Cardinal Black” was of his own making: “I have to say the long delay of ‘The King of Shadows’ has been primarily of my doing, since it took me awhile to saturate the idea with the bourbon of imagination and the scotch of effort. And then it did take a long time to write, as it’s pretty involved and everything had to mesh just so.”

But even with this admission, the book’s publication came in various and unusual iterations. For eager readers who were unable to get in on the initial limited-edition launch of “The King of Shadows” — or couldn’t wait for that early publication date — the e-edition and audiobook (narrated by Edoardo Ballerina) dropped even earlier, on June 28, nearly six months before the trade hardcover. The dates for a paperback or, even better, trade paper edition — hopefully to match the Chong covers — are typically six months to a year out from a hardcover publication, though all bets are off with this book’s trade hardcover edition now in production. The first trade hardcover printing from Lividian was listed as still available in early December on the publisher’s website, but print-on-demand copies are likely what you’ll now find from large online sellers.

The backstory gets physical

Beyond the stories, the lure of a McCammon title often lies in the physical versions of his books. Even today, that lure can prove daunting, because McCammon, like other authors, such as Dean Koontz, initially refused to allow the republication of his early novels, reportedly saying that those early books were not up to the standards of his later works and so decided to “retire” them.

Later, he would relax this attitude and those titles are now available as ebooks and audiobooks. But even today, finding a hardcover copy of the award-winning “Boy’s Life” means shopping used titles at prices more than double of what his new books typically sell for now.

Obtaining the current adventure of Matthew Corbett — the year is 1704 and on Corbett’s continuing mission to Italy he is joined by Hudson Greathouse and a former mortal enemy in searching for information about a sorcerer-crafted mirror that can summon demons; of course, this is a Matthew Corbett story so getting waylaid by a pod of whales and rerouted to a secluded and mysterious island isn’t out of the ordinary — won’t be quite as arduous, although as time marches on finding that first trade hardcover printing might mean a search.

But that’s a search worth the work, and that’s especially true for book geeks: That first trade edition features Chong’s dust jacket artwork in full-color, the paper stock is archival, the binding is Smyth-sewn, there are twine head and tail bands, colored endpapers and hot foil stamping on the spine.

All in all, it’s a beautiful printing that comes packaged appropriately so if ordered from the publisher: Check out the myriad McCammon box openings on YouTube, some of which are almost theatrical presentations at more than 20 minutes (you can begin here: https://youtu.be/yM597eCLi5Q?t=419).

Such anticipation and video production for a book release may not be common, but McCammon is not a typical author. Working to maintain the integrity of his stories and reader base is his day job, even as he out-performs other big hitters. Hitters such as George R.R. Martin, who, not coincidentally, is also mentioned in the 2002 “Supernatural Fiction Writers” as working on a series of books.

With Corbett, though, the game is on and McCammon continues to surprise — the next of which we hope will be what the author has teased on his website about the current Corbett releases: (This book production) “schedule will see me finish the book of Corbett short stories I’ve wanted to do for a while, titled ‘Seven Shades of Evil,’ and then finish also the last book in the series, ‘Leviathan,’ so there should be no long delay as there’s been in the past.”

Paper shortages notwithstanding.