Book! Look, it’s a book!
*ahem*
I should try for something more professional than the impulsive squeeing that is going on inside my head, so here we go. It is with great pride, excitement and trepidation that I announce the arrival of We Ride the Storm, the first instalment in my new series The Reborn Empire. For those who have visited The Imperial Expanse of Kisia before in The Vengeance Trilogy or In Shadows We Fall, there will be some familiar ground and characters, and for those who have not they will make you welcome with open, if blood-stained, arms.
I had wanted to tell this story ever since I finished working on The Vengeance Trilogy, because I knew, just KNEW, the direction the world was heading at the end of that series was going to get… interesting (read: bad). I wanted to see the fallout, to explore how small decisions could have big consequences, how kept secrets could fester, and how a world on the brink of social change could either bend or break when force was finally applied. And if it breaks, what will rise from its ashes?
I had no great plan going in, I never do. I knew who I wanted to write about and had a vague sense of their character arcs, and from this vague miasma came a story darker even than I had expected (with promise of still more pain to come) and yet owning more humour and humanity than I had thought possible. And there is still so much journey left to take you on. Rah, Miko, and Cassandra still have a long way to go.
It’s safe to say that I love this book. I laugh out loud at the dialogue even though I wrote it, I cry with the characters even though I know what is coming, and I marvel at the occasional line that even I don’t want to fix. (They are rare. I’m such a perfectionist I don’t know whether my books would ever go to print if my editor didn’t prise them from my hands.)
We Ride the Storm will be followed in March 2019 by We Lie with Death, which will feature the delightful (read: cold, snarky killer) Cassandra on the cover, a picture I just CANNOT WAIT to see. She is a fascinating character and I am sure John Anthony will do her justice with his fantastic work.
We Sing for Blood and We Dream of Gods will follow and conclude the series in March 2020 and March 2021 respectively, though there is always a chance the timing will be brought forward if everything goes well. And there is already a portion of my brain busily working away on what happens after the end of THIS story and how that moves even further into the rest of my world, so there’s plenty more to come.
We Ride the Storm is now available worldwide in ebook and paperback (it makes a very pretty paperback), from wherever you most like to get your books. While it’s easy to get on Amazon and Book Depository etc, if you prefer to shop at a local bookstore you can always ask for it to be ordered in. Prefer to get your books from the library? Why not request your local branch gets a copy? Then it will be available for lots of other people to read and enjoy.
And of course if you read and enjoy then please do consider leaving a review, either where you purchased it or on Goodreads, and just generally shouting at all your fantasy-reading friends about it. Indie books (all books really) live and die by reviews, so even if it’s just a single line and a rating it is much MUCH appreciated.
Ok, now the whole formal promotional thing is done, I can run around squeeing, yeah? And get back to working on the next one of course.
War built the Kisian Empire and war will tear it down. And as an empire falls, three warriors rise.
Caught in a foreign war, Captain Rah e’Torin and his exiled warriors will have to fight or die. Their honour code is all they have left until orders from within stress them to breaking point, and the very bonds that hold them together will be ripped apart.
Cassandra wants the voice in her head to go away. Willing to do anything for peace, the ageing whore takes an assassination contract that promises answers, only the true price may be everyone and everything she knows.
A prisoner in her own castle, Princess Miko doesn’t dream of freedom but of the power to fight for her empire. As the daughter of a traitor the path to redemption could as easily tear it, and her family, asunder.
As an empire dies they will have to ride the storm or drown in its blood.
