In his blog post, George R.R Martin stated, “For months now I have wanted nothing so much as to be able to say, ‘I have completed and delivered THE WINDS OF WINTER’ on or before the last day of 2015. But the book’s not done.Nor is it likely to be finished tomorrow, or next week. Yes, there’s a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters. (Those ‘no pages done’ reports were insane, the usual garbage internet journalism that I have learned to despise). But there’s also a lot still left to write. I am months away still… and that’s if the writing goes well. (Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t.) Chapters still to write, of course… but also rewriting. I always do a lot of rewriting, sometimes just polishing, sometimes pretty major restructures.”
He further mentioned that he tried and promised a lot but ultimately he failed the Halloween deadline and now, the end-of-year deadline has been blown as well. This clearly means that The Winds of Winter will not be released before the premiere of Game of Thrones sixth season in April. In his post tagged with ‘current mood: depressed’, this was revealed.
The cover with the Horn for Winds of Winter has been around for a pretty long time but there has been a lot of speculation regarding whether this cover is official for the book or if it is simply a nicely made piece of fan art.
It showcases a single object in the background and this definitely indicates that it is the cover for a book in The Song of Ice and Fire series. This was earlier witnessed in a sword in Game of Thrones and in Clash of Kings, we saw a crown.
Stay tuned for more updates on Winds of Winter!