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Celebrate Dragon Week With These Epic Ebook Deals!

Celebrate Dragon Week With These Epic Ebook Deals!

The time has come! Dragon Week is finally here and to mark the start of such a fiery week, we’re helping you stock up on the dragon books you love. Add these ebooks to your eReader for just $2.99 each, but hurry the sale is only for today!

The Assassin King by Elizabeth Haydon

Placeholder of  -10The Assassin King opens at winter’s end with the arrival by sea of a mysterious hunter, a man of ancient race and purpose, who endlessly chants the names of the pantheon of demons that are his intended victims, as well as one other: Ysk, the original name of the Brother, now known as Achmed, the Assassin King of Ylorc.

At the same moment of this portentous arrival, two gatherings of great import are taking place. The first is a convocation of dragons, who gather in a primeval forest glade–the site of the horrific ending of Llauron, one of the last of their kind. They mourn not only his irrevocable death, but the loss of the lore and control over the Earth itself that it represents. The ancient wyrms are terrified for what will come as a result of this loss.

The second gathering is a council of war held in the depths of the keep of Haguefort: Ashe and Rhapsody, rulers of the alliance that protects the Middle Continent; Gwydion, the new Duke of Navarne; Anborn, the Lord Marshall; Achmed, the King of Ylorc, and Grunthor, his Sergeant-Major. Each brings news that form the pieces of a great puzzle. And as each piece is added it becomes quite clear: War is coming, the likes of which the world has never known.

Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Image Place holder  of - 21In Bones of the Dragon, Skylan Ivorson is a sea-raider of the Vindras and eventually becomes the Chief of Chiefs of all Vindras clans, an honor he truly feels he deserves as one who has been blessed by Skoval, the god of war.

But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise.

Skoval and the other ancient gods are under siege from a new generation of gods who are challenging them for the powers of creation… and the only way to stop these brash interlopers lies within the mysterious and hidden Five Bones of the Vektan Dragons.

It will be up to the Vindras people, as the dragon-goddess’s champions, to undertake the quest to recover all Five. The fate of the Old Gods and the Vindras rests on their recovery–for this is not only a quest to save the world. It is also a quest for redemption.

Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

Place holder  of - 96Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, bestselling authors individually and together, return to the world of their New York Times and USA Today bestselling Obsidian and Enduring Flame Trilogies with Crown of Vengeance.

Here, readers will learn the truth about the Elven Queen Vielissiar Faricarnon, who was the first to face the Endarkened in battle and the first to bond with a dragon. She worked some of the greatest magics her world has ever known, and paid the greatest Price.

Dragon Age by David Gaider

Poster Placeholder of - 77Dragon Age: The Calling by David Gaider is another thrilling prequel to Dragon Age: Origins, the hit role-playing video game from award-winning developer BioWare!

After two hundred years of exile, King Maric has allowed the legendary Grey Wardens to finally return to Ferelden. When they come, however, they bring dire news: one of their own has escaped into the Deep Roads and aligned himself with their ancient enemy, the monstrous darkspawn.

The Grey Wardens need Maric’s help, and he reluctantly agrees to lead them into the passages he traveled through many years before, chasing after a deadly secret that will threaten to destroy not only the Grey Wardens but also the Kingdom above.

The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick

Image Placeholder of - 70A war-dragon of Babel crashes in the idyllic fields of a post-industrialized Faerie and, dragging himself into the nearest village, declares himself king and makes young Will his lieutenant. Nightly, he crawls inside the young fey’s brain to get a measure of what his subjects think. Forced out of his village, Will travels with female centaur soldiers, witnesses the violent clash of giants, and acquires a surrogate daughter, Esme, who has no knowledge of the past and may be immortal.

Evacuated to the Tower of Babel — infinitely high, infinitely vulgar, very much like New York City — Will meets the confidence trickster Nat Whilk. Inside the Dread Tower, Will becomes a hero to the homeless living in the tunnels under the city, rises as an underling to a politician, and meets his one true love–a high-elven woman he dare not aspire to.

The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin

The Ice Dragon is an enchanting tale of courage and sacrifice for young readers and adults by the wildly popular author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin. Lavish illustrations by acclaimed artist Luis Royo enrich this captivating and heartwarming story of a young girl and her dragon.

In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire the ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember.

Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, and in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back for the first time. Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara’s home. And only a winter child—and the ice dragon who loved her—could save her world from utter destruction.

The Knight by Gene Wolfe

A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero.

Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, wizards, and dragons.

Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis

Mistress of Dragons is the first volume in an epic fantasy trilogy entitled The Dragonvald. Here is a world where men and dragons coexist amid political intrigue and dark magic, where the uneasy balance of power between the two is on the verge of becoming undone, threatening to unleash waves of destruction that will pit humans against humans as well as dragons against men for the domination of the world. Humanity’s very survival is at risk . . . .

The power to hold the chaos at bay, the terrible secret that maintains the balance, rests in the hands of a new and inexperienced.

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.

Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

The tale of a family dealing with the death of their father, of a son who goes to law for his inheritance, a son who agonizes over his father’s deathbed confession, a daughter who falls in love, a daughter who becomes involved in the abolition movement, and a daughter sacrificing herself for her husband.

Except that everyone in the story is a dragon, red in tooth and claw.

Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses…in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which society’s high-and-mighty members avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby.

Celebrate Dragon Week With These Epic Ebook Deals!

The time has come! Dragon Week is finally here and to mark the start of such a fiery week, we’re helping you stock up on the dragon books you love. Add these ebooks to your eReader for just $2.99 each, but hurry the sale is only for today!

The Assassin King by Elizabeth Haydon

The Assassin King opens at winter’s end with the arrival by sea of a mysterious hunter, a man of ancient race and purpose, who endlessly chants the names of the pantheon of demons that are his intended victims, as well as one other: Ysk, the original name of the Brother, now known as Achmed, the Assassin King of Ylorc.

At the same moment of this portentous arrival, two gatherings of great import are taking place. The first is a convocation of dragons, who gather in a primeval forest glade–the site of the horrific ending of Llauron, one of the last of their kind. They mourn not only his irrevocable death, but the loss of the lore and control over the Earth itself that it represents. The ancient wyrms are terrified for what will come as a result of this loss.

The second gathering is a council of war held in the depths of the keep of Haguefort: Ashe and Rhapsody, rulers of the alliance that protects the Middle Continent; Gwydion, the new Duke of Navarne; Anborn, the Lord Marshall; Achmed, the King of Ylorc, and Grunthor, his Sergeant-Major. Each brings news that form the pieces of a great puzzle. And as each piece is added it becomes quite clear: War is coming, the likes of which the world has never known.

Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

In Bones of the Dragon, Skylan Ivorson is a sea-raider of the Vindras and eventually becomes the Chief of Chiefs of all Vindras clans, an honor he truly feels he deserves as one who has been blessed by Skoval, the god of war.

But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise.

Skoval and the other ancient gods are under siege from a new generation of gods who are challenging them for the powers of creation… and the only way to stop these brash interlopers lies within the mysterious and hidden Five Bones of the Vektan Dragons.

It will be up to the Vindras people, as the dragon-goddess’s champions, to undertake the quest to recover all Five. The fate of the Old Gods and the Vindras rests on their recovery–for this is not only a quest to save the world. It is also a quest for redemption.

Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, bestselling authors individually and together, return to the world of their New York Times and USA Today bestselling Obsidian and Enduring Flame Trilogies with Crown of Vengeance.

Here, readers will learn the truth about the Elven Queen Vielissiar Faricarnon, who was the first to face the Endarkened in battle and the first to bond with a dragon. She worked some of the greatest magics her world has ever known, and paid the greatest Price.

Dragon Age by David Gaider

Dragon Age: The Calling by David Gaider is another thrilling prequel to Dragon Age: Origins, the hit role-playing video game from award-winning developer BioWare!

After two hundred years of exile, King Maric has allowed the legendary Grey Wardens to finally return to Ferelden. When they come, however, they bring dire news: one of their own has escaped into the Deep Roads and aligned himself with their ancient enemy, the monstrous darkspawn.

The Grey Wardens need Maric’s help, and he reluctantly agrees to lead them into the passages he traveled through many years before, chasing after a deadly secret that will threaten to destroy not only the Grey Wardens but also the Kingdom above.

The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick

A war-dragon of Babel crashes in the idyllic fields of a post-industrialized Faerie and, dragging himself into the nearest village, declares himself king and makes young Will his lieutenant. Nightly, he crawls inside the young fey’s brain to get a measure of what his subjects think. Forced out of his village, Will travels with female centaur soldiers, witnesses the violent clash of giants, and acquires a surrogate daughter, Esme, who has no knowledge of the past and may be immortal.

Evacuated to the Tower of Babel — infinitely high, infinitely vulgar, very much like New York City — Will meets the confidence trickster Nat Whilk. Inside the Dread Tower, Will becomes a hero to the homeless living in the tunnels under the city, rises as an underling to a politician, and meets his one true love–a high-elven woman he dare not aspire to.

The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin

The Ice Dragon is an enchanting tale of courage and sacrifice for young readers and adults by the wildly popular author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin. Lavish illustrations by acclaimed artist Luis Royo enrich this captivating and heartwarming story of a young girl and her dragon.

In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire the ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember.

Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, and in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back for the first time. Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara’s home. And only a winter child—and the ice dragon who loved her—could save her world from utter destruction.

The Knight by Gene Wolfe

A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero.

Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, wizards, and dragons.

Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis

Mistress of Dragons is the first volume in an epic fantasy trilogy entitled The Dragonvald. Here is a world where men and dragons coexist amid political intrigue and dark magic, where the uneasy balance of power between the two is on the verge of becoming undone, threatening to unleash waves of destruction that will pit humans against humans as well as dragons against men for the domination of the world. Humanity’s very survival is at risk . . . .

The power to hold the chaos at bay, the terrible secret that maintains the balance, rests in the hands of a new and inexperienced.

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.

Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

The tale of a family dealing with the death of their father, of a son who goes to law for his inheritance, a son who agonizes over his father’s deathbed confession, a daughter who falls in love, a daughter who becomes involved in the abolition movement, and a daughter sacrificing herself for her husband.

Except that everyone in the story is a dragon, red in tooth and claw.

Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses…in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which society’s high-and-mighty members avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby.

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New Releases: 6/27/17

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what went on sale today.

Mad as Hell by George Noory

Image Placeholder of - 59 As the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven, Americans are mad as hell about the problems facing our country. George Noory hears these problems every night, all night, and this is how he would deal with them. This is Mad as Hell.

 

The Queen of Swords by R.S. Belcher

Placeholder of  -50 1870. Maude Stapleton, late of Golgotha, Nevada, is a respectable widow raising a daughter on her own. Few know that Maude belongs to an ancient order of assassins, the Daughters of Lilith, and is as well the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Anne Bonney, the legendary female pirate.

Leaving Golgotha in search of her daughter Constance, who has been taken from her, Maude travels to Charleston, South Carolina, only to find herself caught in the middle of a secret war between the Daughters of Lilith and their ancestral enemies, the monstrous Sons of Typhon.

Twelve Days by Steven Barnes

Poster Placeholder of - 3 A paranormal thriller from master storyteller Steven Barnes: A broken family struggles to hold itself together against a plot to unleash global genocide.

Around the world, leaders and notorious criminals alike are mysteriously dying. A terrorist group promises a series of deaths within two months. And against the backdrop of the apocalypse, the lives of a small shattered family and a broken soldier are transformed in the bustling city of Atlanta.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Any Minute Now by Eric Van Lustbader

Eterna and Omega by Leanna Renee Hieber

Going Home and Downriver by Richard S. Wheeler

The Weaver’s Lament by Elizabeth Haydon

NEW IN MANGA:

Beasts of Abigaile Vol. 1 Story and art by Aoki Spica

Freezing Vol. 15-16 Story by Dall-Young Lim; Art by Kwang-Hyun Kim

Hour of the Zombie Vol. 5 Story and art by Tsukasa Saimura

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New Releases: 6/21/16

Here’s what went on sale today!

Judenstaat by Simone Zelitch

Judenstaat by Simone ZelitchOn April 4th, 1948 the sovereign state of Judenstaat was created in the territory of Saxony, bordering Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia .

Forty years later, Jewish historian Judit Klemmer is making a documentary portraying Judenstaat’s history from the time of its founding to the present. She is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband, Hans, a Saxon, shot by a sniper as he conducted the National Symphony. With the grief always fresh, Judit lives a half-life, until confronted by a mysterious, flesh-and-blood ghost from her past who leaves her controversial footage on one of Judenstaat’s founding fathers–and a note:

“They lied about the murder.”

Stealing Fire by Win Blevins and Meredith Blevins

Stealing Fire by Win Blevins and Meredith Blevins

When Navajo detective Yazzie Goldman sees a hood hassling an old man, he has no idea what a long fall into trouble it heralds.

The old man turns out to be none other than the most famous architect in the world, Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright e is carrying the sketches for his most important building, the Guggenheim Museum. Some bad people are after him: A Chicago gangster wants Wright to pay back money he’s borrowed. One of Wright’s apprentices wants to steal the drawings and sell them. So does the son of the gangster.

The Sword of Midras by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott

The Sword of Midras by Tracy Hickman and Richard GarriottAbandoned by the mighty Avatars and their Virtues, the people who remained were left defenseless in an untamed land. That is, until the Obsidians came. Through dark sorcery and overwhelming force the Obsidian Empire brought order to chaos, no matter the cost.

Aren Bendis is a Captain in the Obsidian Army who has seen enough of what a world without Virtue looks like and is willing to do whatever it takes to establish a lasting peace. But after finding a magical sword that only he can wield, a sword his trusted scout, Syenna, claims is a blade once used by the legendary Avatars, Aren is thrown into a far more unfamiliar battle. One fought with whispered words and betrayal instead of swords and arrows.

The Weaver’s Lament by Elizabeth Haydon

The Weaver’s Lament by Elizabeth HaydonFor a thousand years, the lands ruled by the Cymrian Alliance have been at peace. When the brutal death of a dear friend catapults the kingdom to the brink of civil war, Rhapsody finds herself in an impossible situation: forced to choose between her beloved husband, Ashe, and her two oldest friends, Grunthor and Achmed. Choosing her husband will mean the death of thousands of innocents. Siding against him will cost Rhapsody the other half of her soul, both in this life and the next.

In The Weaver’s Lament, the lines between the past and future are irrevocably blurred, and the strength of true love is tested in unthinkable ways. Bestselling author Elizabeth Haydon has delivered a spectacular conclusion to the Symphony of Ages.

NEW FROM TOR.COM:

Pride’s Spell by Matt Wallace

Pride's Spell by Matt WallaceThe team at Sin du Jour—New York’s exclusive caterers-to-the-damned—find themselves up against their toughest challenge, yet when they’re lured out west to prepare a feast in the most forbidding place in America: Hollywood, where false gods rule supreme.

Meanwhile, back at home, Ritter is attacked at home by the strangest hit-squad the world has ever seen, and the team must pull out all the stops if they’re to prevent themselves from being offered up as the main course in a feast they normally provide.

NOW IN PAPERBACK:

The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway

The Unnoticeables by Robert BrockwayThere are angels, and they are not beneficent or loving. But they do watch over us. They watch our lives unfold, analyzing us for repeating patterns and redundancies. When they find them, the angels simplify those patterns and remove the redundancies, and the problem that is “you” gets solved.

Carey doesn’t much like that idea. As a punk living in New York City, 1977, Carey is sick and tired of watching strange kids with unnoticeable faces abduct his friends. He doesn’t care about the rumors of tar-monsters in the sewers or unkillable psychopaths invading the punk scene—all he wants is to drink cheap beer and dispense ass-kickings.

NEW IN MANGA:

Freezing Vol. 9-10 by Dall-Young Lim

Not Lives Vol. 2 by Wataru Karasuma

See upcoming releases.

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Reflecting on the Completion of The Symphony of Ages

The Weaver's Lament by Elizabeth HaydonWritten by Elizabeth Haydon

The process of writing the Symphony of Ages began on a dark, damp evening in New Orleans in 1993, at the American Library Association’s annual conference. A dear friend and colleague, the great historical non-fiction editor Ward Evers, seventy-five years old at the time, asked me to dinner at NOLA, the fabulous restaurant in the heart of the French Quarter for the purpose of discussing an idea he had about female writers and post-Tolkien epic fantasy.

We ordered a dark, clear beer called Dixie Blackened Voodoo, which he consumed a great number of, and of which I drank an inch of mine, not being a beer drinker. [The next morning he met me at the elevator on the floor of the exhibit hall, utterly unscathed by his dance with the devil of Deep South alcohol, while I felt as if I had been hit by a train.] In the course of a very delicious and strange dinner, he asked that I consider writing a work of epic fantasy for him, a genre which he felt needed some different sorts of character development, historical treatment, and the cross-genre elements of history, mystery, creeping horror, and especially romance which he felt was lacking from the then-current offerings. “Every great epic tale in history has a love story of some kind at its center, though not always a happily-ever-after one,” he opined, “from the Odyssey to the Arthurian Legend to the Thousand and One Nights. I want to experiment with that, while not losing the classic elements of battle, journey, and magic. Female characters need to more than Xena Warrior Princess or arm candy.”

I told him to drink up and largely ignored what he was saying.

One thing that did take hold in my mind, however, was the very first thing he said about writing such a fantasy series.

“Before you begin the history of a world of your own creation, you owe it to your readers to know how it’s going to turn out,” he said.
“Tell a complete story. You should map out the entire life of your new universe, from its birth to its death, and all the major historical eras, before you begin writing the prose. You will undoubtedly be surprised by how that history wrestles with you, and sometimes wins, once you begin the actual composition—characters you thought you had clearly drawn will argue with you. You can deviate from what you thought was the path. But don’t write without an endgame. Make it all tie together. You owe that to the people who invest their time in it.”

Sadly, Ward did not live to see even the publication of Rhapsody: Child of Blood, the first book of the series. But now, reflecting on his comment about telling a complete story, I think he would have been pleased.

The godfather of this series and its first editor, Jim Minz, was in utter agreement with Ward. He was its biggest supporter and its strictest critic, which went a long way toward teaching me the difference between knowing how to write and being a writer. It was shepherded through to its end by the endlessly patient Susan Chang, who gave me completely different insights, especially one that I think greatly improved the last book in the series, The Weaver’s Lament.

When I turned in the manuscript for that final book, I felt only the slightest bit emotional, as my creative process had turned to other things. But each time it returned to me in the various stages of production and publishing, I found myself becoming more and more tearful, more proud, more satisfied, more sad—the loss of the telling of this tale was a deep one. When it is finally released, I’m not sure what I will feel—relief, perhaps, or maybe grief. I will greatly miss spending time with the characters, who have become very much like family, friends, and annoying acquaintances to me.

There are two things I am happiest about in its ending. The first is the way the last book came out. Susan Chang put it this way in her initial response to me: “You have truly ended the epic in a way that seemed inevitable after finishing, but utterly unpredictable in the reading.”

The second happy thing is that I was finally able to tell the end of the tale in a way that connects it to each book along the way. One doesn’t always get to experience that feeling in the crafting of a nine-book series—it’s a deep and contentious process. But to finally hear the reactions of the early readers, most of which are non-verbal or something resembling the word “oohhhhhhhh,” is highly satisfying.

It’s hard, tiring, and, finally, rewarding playing God in your own universe.

I highly recommend the experience, however.

Buy The Weaver’s Lament from:

Amazon Image Place holder  of bn- 62 ibooks2 64 indiebound powells

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Sneak Peek: The Weaver’s Lament by Elizabeth Haydon

Amazon-1 Image Place holder  of bn- 32 ibooks2 37 indiebound-1 powells-1

The Weaver's Lament by Elizabeth HaydonFor a thousand years, the lands ruled by the Cymrian Alliance have been at peace. When the brutal death of a dear friend catapults the kingdom to the brink of civil war, Rhapsody finds herself in an impossible situation: forced to choose between her beloved husband, Ashe, and her two oldest friends, Grunthor and Achmed. Choosing her husband will mean the death of thousands of innocents. Siding against him will cost Rhapsody the other half of her soul, both in this life and the next.

In The Weaver’s Lament, the lines between the past and future are irrevocably blurred, and the strength of true love is tested in unthinkable ways. Bestselling author Elizabeth Haydon has delivered a spectacular conclusion to the Symphony of Ages.

The Weaver’s Lament, Elizabeth Haydon’s heartbreaking tale of love and valor, will become available June 21st. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Chapter 1

EASTERN BORDER OF THE FOREST OF TYRIAN

At the crossing of the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare and the eastern forest road, Achmed the Snake thought he had caught the faintest trace of woodsmoke in the air.

He reined his horse to a stop and inclined his head to the west, seeking to confirm what his nose had hinted at, but sensed nothing further.

The Bolg king wearily loosed the reins and rubbed his face vigorously, then ran his thin-gloved fingers through his hair, damp with sweat. He took another breath, only to be greeted with the warmth and heavy perfume of late summer, wafting over him on a brittle wind. Nothing more.

Achmed glanced around for a place to water his mount and located a nearby quick-running stream winding its way out of the forest in the distance. He nudged the horse toward it and dismounted, allowing the animal some rest with its refreshment and himself the whimsy of memory.

It had been just short of a thousand years since he had been in this place, owing largely to its status as a backdoor route into the eastern edge of the forest of Tyrian. There had been no reason to brave the hidden defenders that were invisibly guarding this part of the Lirin kingdom when he could just as easily enter Tyrian via any of its public entrances, as he had done whenever the spirit had moved him to do so in the past. There had been relatively few times that the spirit had so moved him; Achmed disliked forests in general and the Great Forest of the western part of the continent in particular. He preferred to do his visiting with the other two people in the world who, with him, made up what had been known long ago as the Three in the quiet solidity of his mountainous kingdom of Ylorc, where the ancient stone hallways and cavernous rooms were immune to prying eyes and free of the tattletale wind.

But since one of those two people was not cooperating, and the other would be arriving from the south shortly, he had decided to undertake a journey to check on his Wings, the network of carefully bred and selected horseflesh that he kept in secret stables across the continent for his personal use, which allowed him to traverse substantial distances in minimal time.

It was as good an excuse to leave the mountains without a guard regiment as any.

Achmed pushed his cloak back over his shoulders and crossed his arms, then turned around, taking in the sight of the forest to the west, the Krevensfield Plain behind him, and, in the distance, the jagged mountains to the south known as the Teeth, the cousins to the mountains of his own kingdom.

His eyes narrowed as the memory he sought returned.

The last time he had been here had been in the throes of the War of the Known World, the last intercontinental conflict the Cymrian Alliance, to which his kingdom was a signatory member, had suffered. A millennium had passed since those days, a largely peaceful time in which great advances in architecture, mechanics, medicine, and machinery had been made in Roland, the central nation in the breadbasket of the continent; political strife and diplomacy had been undertaken in the former empire of Sorbold, where now seventeen city-states, most of them members of the Alliance as well, had sorted themselves out of the destruction of that broken empire into independence; and his own kingdom had continued to rebuild and grow its military might. A substantial amount of progress had been made on all of those fronts—the center, southern, and eastern lands of the Middle Continent.

But here at the outskirts of Tyrian, the western coastal region covered mostly in thick, primeval forest, the view could easily have passed for that time long ago when last he had stood in this place.

It also could have reasonably been mistaken for a moment even longer ago when he had first stood there, upon coming to this continent.

Achmed knew that the primitive appearance of the forest was in many ways an illusion. Tyrian had undergone great progress in the last thousand years as well; healing centers and repositories of lore had been erected within the arms of the great wood, along with improved defenses and cooperatives for agriculture from which the Lirin fed much of the northern lands that could not grow their own food. But all of that millennial progress had been undertaken with an eye toward preserving the innocence of the forest, the natural antiquity of the land, and so it was not surprising that he was seeing now what his eyes had seen a thousand years before.

In the near distance to the south, he caught a trace of a familiar heartbeat approaching.

The Bolg king smiled slightly.

When counted in real time, his familiarity with that heartbeat had a history of almost three thousand years. He had walked, hidden, fought, and slept beside it on two sides of Time, and of the world as well—as well as in the world’s belly.

It thudded mightily on the wind, but less so than it had in the Past.

He walked back to the horse and stood beside it, waiting.

A few moments later, a mount of almost twice his horse’s size appeared over the edge of a swale in the forest road coming from the south. Atop it was his oldest friend in the world, the massive Sergeant-Major whose actual title was Supreme Commander of the forces of the mountainous realm of Ylorc, far to the other side of the continent, at its eastern edge, but who chose to be called Sergeant by his troops.

Grunthor by his friends.

From a distance, the giant grinned in greeting, but maintained his steady canter.

Jutting from the bandolier he wore, the hilts and handles of an impressive collection of bladed weapons still stood at the ready, as they had on both sides of Time, making him appear to have a sinister sun rising behind him, or as if he were the center of a monstrous daisy. His seat on the specially bred horse was as natural as it had ever been, his seven-and-a-half-foot frame sitting erect, without a nod to age or the damage he had sustained over his lifetime, more through sheer force of will than anything else.

Achmed, arms still crossed, assessed his friend’s health and stamina as the giant rode closer, displeased with what he witnessed. While he had noticed no signs of aging or decline in his own status for the last millennium or so, nor had he seen a wrinkle or graying of hair on Rhapsody the last time he had been in her presence, the third member of the Three was not faring as well. His shaggy hair and beard, once an impressive shade of burnt orange and the thick consistency of a horse’s mane, were sparser and gray; his skin, the color of old bruises, seemed more sallow than the last time Achmed had beheld him, which had not been that long ago.

But the grin was still bright, the eyes twinkling in the aging face.

Given the two races from which he was descended, Achmed thought, it was impressive that Grunthor was still moving autonomously at all. His father had been Firbolg, the race of demi-human hybrids that careful medical attention and a thousand years of peace had managed to bring to an average life span of forty years. Grunthor’s mother was Bengard, one of the long-dead race of enormous desert dwellers who were impossible to gauge years for, owing to their love of bloodsport and arena fighting. The Bengard had put a premium on living bravely and dying young gloriously.

The fact that both of the only friends he’d ever had were still living was a miracle.

Achmed exhaled, lost in memory.

The new world had not been new for a long time, he mused; the places that he and the other two of the Three had discovered upon coming through the Root of the great world tree Sagia from their island homeland of Serendair were no longer fresh or alien, but dull in their familiarity. He and Grunthor had together completely restored, reoutfitted, and reenvisioned the massive, mountainous city-state of Ylorc, carved into the eastern Teeth almost three millennia before by Gwylliam the Visionary and left in ruins by the Cymrian War a thousand years later. The secrets in those endless, broken tunnels had all been found, the mysteries had all been solved; now the Bolg army, half a million strong, was the best-outfitted and best-trained fighting force on the continent, perhaps in the Known World, but it had seen nothing but military exercises and war games, with no live battle, for many centuries.

All that peace was aging Grunthor, a child of the arena and the battlefield, Achmed knew, even more than some of the cost of war he was paying from ten centuries before.

“Well met,” he said to the Sergeant as he drew his enormous horse to a halt.

The giant pulled off his helm, ran a hand through his sweaty hair, and nodded.

“Well, ‘allo, sir,” he said cheerfully. “Glad ta see you, too. Where’s the Duchess?”

“Late. Are you surprised?”

“Not a bit. All well in Ylorc?”

Achmed watched as Grunthor dismounted slowly, shaking the ground as he alighted. “Indeed. The vineyards are beginning the first round of harvest. Looks to be a fine one this year—if the weather holds as the Invoker predicts, we should even get a late third, an ice wine that they’ll love in Marincaer, the simpletons. How were your travels?”

The Sergeant-Major’s smile dissolved into a solemn expression. “Buried Trom.”

The Bolg king exhaled. “I’m sorry.” Grunthor’s success as the sire of a multitude of Bolgish children with superior genes for war, originally propagated as a side effect of one of his favorite appetites, had so far produced thirty-seven generations, the first round of which had been gone for nine centuries—except for Trom.

While all of the mothers of his other children in the first generation, Bolg women of various levels of stature, were long deceased, Trom’s mother had been Lelik, a Finder, spawned of the rape of a First Generation Cymrian, probably a woman, and one of the first ranks of Firbolg who overran Canrif, as Ylorc was known at the time, in the days following Gwylliam’s death and the evacuation of the mountains by Anborn, Gwylliam’s son and general, a millennium and a half before the Three had come to the continent.

Her Cymrian ancestry meant that she was exceptionally long-lived.

Lelik had become one of Achmed’s second round of Archons, the select caste of Bolg who had been determined to be of leadership ability, and the mother of one of Grunthor’s first children. The extraordinary longevity Trom inherited from his Cymrian/Firbolg mother, in concert with the apparent immortality of his father, had allowed Grunthor the pleasure of keeping a child over the centuries, when all of his other progeny had come and gone in what seemed the wink of an eye. It had also allowed for at least some duration of an individual woman’s company, the only example of it Achmed knew of in Grunthor’s life on either side of Time.

Trom’s demise was the end of an era, even if that era only had one successful example of procreation and female companionship.

Grunthor made a gesture brushing off the sympathy.

“Well, thank ya, sir, but it was time. Long past, rather—’e’d lost the use of ‘is legs and other functions long ago; no soldier wants to live like that.”

“I suppose not. How many did you get out of that line, do you suppose?”

“Dunno,” said the giant cheerfully. “Twen’y or more generations. Think Oi still see new litters of Trom’s ‘Greats’ every now an’ then. Lookin’ forward to gettin’ back to Ylorc an’ knockin’ out a few more brand-new ones o’ my own.”

Achmed smirked. “No luck in the pleasure palaces of the former Sorbold, eh?”

Grunthor shook his head. “Lost my taste fer women other’an Bolg a long time ago, sir. Well, at least that kind o’ taste. Always willin’ to snack on a few Lirin, but seems that’s frowned upon nowadays.”

“Truly we have lived too long. Well, best of luck with the new crop. If you keep at it, you may even catch up with Rhapsody. How many brats has she pushed out so far?”

“Still only six,” came a voice in their ears, as if from the air around them. “And you would both know if anything had occurred otherwise, given that one of you is godfather to each of them, and the other is guardian to them all.”

Both men looked around them in surprise.

“Where are you?” Achmed demanded of the air.

“On my way. You’re standing in the vibrational buffer zone surrounding Tyrian, Achmed, you idiot. You didn’t think I, and every communications specialist in the Lirin army, could hear you? And yes, snacking on Lirin is still considered frowned upon, Grunthor. Now back up about three hundred paces and, for the love of God, the One, the All, stop talking until I get there.”

The two men looked at each other, then dissolved into quiet snickering.

Achmed sought her heartbeat on the wind and caught it a moment later, a strong, steady rhythm, though light in tone compared to the thundering of Grunthor’s. They were two of the only heartbeats he could still feel in his skin, a gift he had inherited long ago from a Dhracian named Father Halphasion, who had been his mentor in youth, and had named him the Brother.

He thought back, for the first time in as long as he could remember, to the gentle monk who had rescued and cared for him after his escape from the Bolg of Serendair who had raised and abused him from birth. The name had been bestowed upon him, the priest had said, because he was “brother to all, akin to none.” The resulting connection to the populace of the Island of Serendair, the drumming, tittering, pounding, and thrum of every heartbeat on that island, had all but driven him mad.

Now there was most often silence in his skin unless he sought those heartbeats.

But one that he frequently monitored was approaching from the west.

Grunthor was the first to catch sight of her, and broke into a wide grin upon doing so.

“Well, there she is. The ‘orse looks new.”

Achmed nodded as the forest roan, and the woman atop it, came into his view.

He breathed a little easier upon beholding her.

Occasionally over the centuries when seeing her after a long absence he found her appearance startling. While neither Time nor battle had made a mark on her physically, there was often something in her eyes and expression that was different, or something off-putting to him about the clothing in which she was attired at events where they met up.

While he and Grunthor, in his estimation, had changed very little from the days when the Three had first met, Rhapsody had evolved a great deal. Her inability to contain both excitement and wrath from her younger days had resolved into a queenly calm, a steadiness he recognized as necessary to her role as Lady Cymrian and Lirin sovereign, but he considered boring nonetheless. Her emerald eyes used to sparkle at anything she found interesting, and it had been a secret challenge of his in the old days to make that happen. Now they tended to gleam when she was pleased or angered, which brought the same light into those eyes, but it was hardly as interesting.

And the court clothing in which she was often garbed at events of state was nothing like the two or so dozen dresses he had reluctantly purchased for her when they first had come to the mountains of Ylorc together. In those days, Rhapsody’s excitement upon receiving what was by and large high-quality peasant garb had made his skin-web, the sensitive network of veins and nerve endings that scored the surface of his body, tingle and hum pleasantly for days afterward. Now she was routinely gowned in heavy fabric of countless cost, sewn and embroidered by the patient hands of expert seamstresses from around the world. It was always a spectacular blending of beauty and artistry to behold, but it made her seem an entirely different person.

But the woman atop the roan was the one he remembered.

Rhapsody was smiling broadly, her face alight, her golden hair pulled back in a simple fall and tied in a black ribbon, as he remembered it from the old days. She was garbed in a white muslin shirt like any other Lirin citizen and wore moleskin pants tucked into sensible boots, much like the ones she had clothed herself in during their time together as the Three.

Achmed could hardly contain his relief.

“You came alone?” he demanded as she reined the horse to a stop and vaulted down from it, running to greet them.

She wrapped her arms around him first, filling his nostrils with her scent and soothing his prickly skin with the natural musical vibration that emanated from her. Then, upon comprehending his comment, she pulled back and looked at him in surprise.

“You have a problem with that?” she asked incredulously. “I somehow thought you preferred it when Ashe doesn’t come with me.”

“That goes without saying,” Achmed said as she moved on to Grunthor, who picked her up and spun her around like a child. “I was referring to Meridion.”

“Oh,” said Rhapsody when the giant returned her to the ground after a long, warm hug. “I hadn’t realized you would want to see him, I’m sorry. He can be here if you’d like. He and you, Achmed, are the only people—besides Rath and the other Dhracians, of course—that I have ever known who can travel in a way that essentially overcomes time and distance—you by riding the currents of the wind, as the Dhracians taught you, and Meridion by collapsing the passage of Time. I would be happy to summon Meridion if you’d like. He’s nearby—he and I have been attending a Namers’ convocation at the Repository of Lore in Tyrian City.”

“Yeah, why not?” Grunthor said. “Always a nice thing ta see my first godson.”

Rhapsody nodded and turned back to the forest. She sang a sweet incantation, repeating it several times, then loosed it to waft away on the hot wind of summer’s end.

“Come with me,” she said, waving them both back in the direction of her roan. “I’ve arranged a meal, some privacy and security at one of the border watchers’ longhouses just inside the forest edge. I know that you aren’t fond of being away from the deep Earth, but the longhouse roof is enclosed, so it’s a little like the caverns of Ylorc, and I think you should enjoy the food and libations. And we can be together, just like old times, at least for a while. I’m so glad you both were able to come for the family gathering.”

“Family gathering?” Grunthor queried.

“I am not coming to that,” Achmed said flatly. “I came to see you, and perhaps Meridion, or any other of your progeny you had with you, but I believe I was clear in my response to your invitation to the gathering at Highmeadow.”

Rhapsody hoisted herself back up atop her roan.

“Oh, that’s what I was supposed to infer when you returned the invitation I sent you via avian messenger, for security reasons, by shredding the paper and blowing your nose on it? I completely misunderstood. I apologize.”

“You should consider yourself lucky with my choice of bodily excretions,” Achmed said, mounting as well. “I had to scale back my original intentions for the health of the innocent bird.”

“Why would you not come?” Rhapsody asked, appearing sincerely stricken. “You are the only members of my family that won’t be in attendance.”

“My point exactly.”

Rhapsody sighed as Grunthor finally summited his mount, taking his time and care.

“You could come, you know, Grunthor. I hope you will. Your godchildren, and all the Grands and Greats, are really looking forward to seeing you.”

The Bolg Sergeant shook his head regretfully.

“Naw, thanks, Yer Ladyship, but I’m not really feelin’ up fer it,” he said wistfully. “Just came from putting Trom in the ground. Not in the mood for a celebration, sorry.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rhapsody said, reaching across horses and patting his arm consolingly. “I had no idea.”

Grunthor covered her small hand with his enormous, pawlike one. “Yeah, it was quiet and fast,” he said, taking the reins in his own. “The way ‘e woulda chosen if ‘e’d been given the choice. Do ya think you might sing ‘is dirge? Trom always did love to ‘ear you sing.”

“Of course; I’ll do it tonight before Meridion and I head back toward Highmeadow. Was he ill?”

“Not really.” Grunthor nodded to Achmed as the Bolg king signaled his readiness to ride. “Trom never really got back ta whole from when those Alliance soldiers beat ‘im into oblivion a couple ‘undred years ago.”

Rhapsody’s eyes flashed with anger. She set her teeth and nodded, but Achmed could see the rage swim through the muscles of her shoulders.

He took silent pleasure in the fact that she was still furious over the unprovoked assault that Trom and his regiment had endured at the hands of the soldiers of her husband’s army.

And hers.

He had stood beside her on the gallows at the hangings of the men responsible, with very much the same look on her face, the same anger in her eyes.

“Grunthor is looking forward to returning to Ylorc and getting started on fathering a new rash of baby Bolg,” he said, attempting to lighten the mood.

Rhapsody’s eyes cleared of anger, and she smiled in the direction of the Sergeant.

“That’s wonderful,” she said sincerely. “I know how much you love your children, Grunthor, especially in the infant phase.”

“‘At’s right,” said Grunthor smugly. “Bite-sized, chewy, with a nice crunch. It’s a good breedin’ plan—either they’s well-be’aved, or they’s delicious. Ya win either way.”

“Oh, stop that,” Rhapsody said to the back ends of both of her friends’ horses, noting how much they had in common with their riders as she rode astride, catching up and leading them into Tyrian by the forest road.

Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Haydon

Buy The Weaver’s Lament from:

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Rhapsody eBook is Now on Sale for $2.99!

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Rhapsody by Elizabeth HaydonElizabeth Haydon’s The Weaver’s Lament, the final book in The Symphony of Ages series, is due out on June 21st. This month we are making it easy to get started with the series by releasing the first ebook, Rhapsody, for only $2.99!*

About Rhapsody: Rhapsody is a woman, a Singer of some talent, who is swept up into events of world-shattering import. On the run from an old romantic interest who won’t take no for an answer, Rhapsody literally bumps into a couple of shady characters: half-breeds who come to her rescue in the nick of time. Only the rescue turns into an abduction, and Rhapsody soon finds herself dragged along on an epic voyage, one that spans centuries and ranges across a wonder-filled fantasy world.

Buy Rhapsody today:

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Sale ends June 3rd.

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New Releases: 5/3/16

Here’s what went on sale today!

Assassin’s Silence by Ward Larsen

Assassin’s Silence by Ward LarsenEvery so often, a great assassin novel comes along: Brad Meltzer’s The Fifth Assassin, David Baldacci’s The Hit, Daniel Silva’s The Kill Artist. Now Ward Larsen brings us Assassin’s Silence, featuring David Slaton, hero of Larsen’sAssassin’s Game and the award-winning The Perfect Assassin.

When it comes to disappearing, David Slaton has few equals. Police in three countries have written off trying to find him. His old employer, Mossad, keeps no forwarding address. Even his wife and son are convinced he is dead. So when an assault team strikes, Slaton is taken by surprise. He kills one man and manages to escape.

Bailey’s Story by Bruce CameronBailey’s Story by Bruce Cameron

Every dog has work to do. Every dog has a purpose.

When Bailey meets eight-year-old Ethan, he quickly figures out his purpose: to play with the boy, to explore the Farm during summers with the boy, and to tidy the boy’s dishes by licking them clean (only when Mom isn’t watching). But Bailey soon learns that life isn’t always so simple–that sometimes bad things happen–and that there can be no greater purpose than to protect the boy he loves.

Better Dead by Max Allan Collins

Better Dead by Max Allan CollinsIt’s the early 1950’s. Joe McCarthy is campaigning to rid America of the Red Menace. Nate Heller is doing legwork for the senator, though the Chicago detective is disheartened by McCarthy’s witch-hunting tactics. He’s made friends with a young staffer, Bobby Kennedy, while trading barbs with a potential enemy, the attorney Roy Cohn, who rubs Heller the wrong way. Not the least of which for successfully prosecuting the so-called Atomic Bomb spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. When famous mystery writer Dashiell Hammett comes to Heller representing a group of showbiz and literary leftists who are engaged in a last minute attempt to save the Rosenbergs, Heller decides to take on the case.

Fatal Thunder by Larry Bond

Fatal Thunder by Larry BondJerry Mitchell, skipper of the USS North Dakota, receives a message from Girish Samant, a submarine captain and former enemy of his, requesting a meeting. Girish once tried to kill Jerry, but now he and Aleksey Petrov, a former Russian sub captain, need the American’s help to uncover a terrible truth: Nuclear weapons of the fallen Soviet Empire are being sold to people more than willing to use them.

But who has stolen the nuclear weapons? ISIS? Al Qaeda? Iran? Hezbollah? No one knows. Furthermore, nuclear explosions destroy all evidence. The world may never know who stole the nukes and set them off.

Over Your Dead Body by Dan Wells

Over Your Dead Body by Dan WellsJohn and Brooke are on their own, hitchhiking from town to town as they hunt the last of the Withered through the midwest–but the Withered are hunting them back, and the FBI is close behind. With each new town, each new truck stop, each new highway, they get closer to a vicious killer who defies every principle of profiling and prediction John knows how to use, and meanwhile Brooke’s fractured psyche teeters on the edge of oblivion, overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of dead personalities sharing her mind. She flips in and out of lucidity, manifesting new names and thoughts and memories every day, until at last the one personality pops up that John never expected and has no idea how to deal with. The last of Nobody’s victims, trapped forever in the body of his last remaining friend.

NEW FROM TOR.COM:

The Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde

The Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran WildeThe kingdom in the Valley has long sheltered under the protection of its Jewels and Lapidaries, the people bound to singing gemstones with the power to reshape hills, move rivers, and warp minds. That power has kept the peace and tranquility, and the kingdom has flourished.

Jewel Lin and her Lapidary Sima may be the last to enjoy that peace.

The Jeweled Court has been betrayed. As screaming raiders sweep down from the mountains, and Lapidary servants shatter under the pressure, the last princess of the Valley will have to summon up a strength she’s never known. If she can assume her royal dignity, and if Sima can master the most dangerous gemstone in the land, they may be able to survive.

NOW IN PAPERBACK:

The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson

Ellie’s Story by Bruce Cameron

Fast Shuffle by David Black

The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon

Hover by Anne A. Wilson

Journey of the Dead and the Undertaker’s Wife by Loren D. Estleman

Lash-Up by Larry Bond

The Memory of Earth and the Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card

Power Surge by Ben Bova

Quag Keep by Andre Norton

A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

Valley of the Shadow by Ralph Peters

Vostok by Steve Alten

NEW IN MANGA: 

Arpeggio of Blue Steel Vol. 7 by Ark Performance

Shomin Sample: I Was Abducted by an Elite All-Girls School as a Sample Commoner Vol. 1 Story by Nanatsuki Takafumi; Art by Risumai

The Testament of Sister New Devil Vol. 2 by Tetsuto Uesu

See upcoming releases.

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Paperback Spotlight: The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon

The Hollow QueenOnce a month, we’re spotlighting a Tor/Forge book that will soon become available in paperback, like The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon. The paperback version will be released May 3rd!

About The Hollow Queen: Alliance finds itself in desperate straits. Rhapsody herself has joined the battle, wielding the Daystar Clarion, leaving her True Name in hiding with her infant son. Ashe tries to enlist the aid of the Sea Mages. As they struggle to untangle the web of Talquist’s treachery, the leaders of the Cymrian alliance are met with obstacles at every turn. Rhapsody soon realizes that the end of this war will come at an unimaginable price: the lives of those she holds dearest.

1

THE FORGES, YLORC

The ring of steel against anvil was always a lovely percussion line for a song, and Sergeant-Major Grunthor was in the mood for singing as he pounded away, shaping the new pick hammer he was making.

The fires of the ancient forges of Canrif, designed and built a millennium and a half before by Gwylliam the Visionary, splashed light over the enormous smithy, adding a dance of shadows to the heat and smell of the place, increasing the Sergeant’s already considerable pleasure. Gwylliam, an ancient king he had never met, was a genuine anus of a human being in Grunthor’s estimation, but an undeniable genius at smithing and architecture. Therefore he thought it only right and fitting to shape his newest song in tribute to the long-dead inventor, whose mummified remains he and his comrades had come upon a few years before, splayed out on a table that was hidden away in the vault of a secret library in the bowels of the citadel the man had literally carved out of a mountain range in what now was the kingdom of the Firbolg, known as Ylorc.

(more…)

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Sneak Peek: The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon

The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth HaydonAcclaimed author Elizabeth Haydon returns with a heartbreaking tale of love and valor in The Hollow Queen, the eighth installment of her USA Today bestselling Symphony of Ages series that began with Rhapsody, publishing June 30th.

CHAPTER ONE: THE FORGES, YLORC

The ring of steel against anvil was always a lovely percussion line for a song, and Sergeant-Major Grunthor was in the mood for singing as he pounded away, shaping the new pick hammer he was making.

The fires of the ancient forges of Canrif, designed and built a millennium and a half before by Gwylliam the Visionary, splashed light over the enormous smithy, adding a dance of shadows to the heat and smell of the place, increasing the Sergeant’s already considerable pleasure. Gwylliam, an ancient king he had never met, was a genuine anus of a human being in Grunthor’s estimation, but an undeniable genius at smithing and architecture. Therefore he thought it only right and fitting to shape his newest song in tribute to the long-dead inventor, whose mummified remains he and his comrades had come upon a few years before, splayed out on a table that was hidden away in the vault of a secret library in the bowels of the citadel the man had literally carved out of a mountain range in what now was the kingdom of the Firbolg, known as Ylorc.

Grunthor threw back his head between swings of the forge hammer and let his glorious bass, often a few notes flat, fill the high-ceilinged chamber with song.

(more…)

Not at San Diego Comic-Con Sweepstakes – Swag Bag #2

Tor Books is heading to San Diego Comic-Con!

Poster Placeholder of - 57We hope to see many of you there. Stop by Booth #2707 to say hi or to participate in one of our many events and signings.

But for those of you who couldn’t make it out to California, we wanted to offer you the chance to grab some of the same amazing swag and books that we’re promoting at #SDCC. To enter for the chance to win one of these three prize bundles, leave a comment on this post telling us one amazing thing that you’ll be doing this week while you are #NotAtComicCon. Whether you’re training your dragon, building your own TARDIS, or dealing with that pesky deadline at work, we hope you have a wonderful week. Here’s a look at the prize:

SDCC 2014 Swag Bag Prize

And here’s a list of what’s included in each prize bundle:

  • Signed copy of Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
  • ARC of Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass
  • Audibook of A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
  • Among Others by Jo Walton
  • Blood’s Pride by Evie Manieri
  • Blindsight by Peter Watts
  • Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
  • Dragon Age: The Masked Empire by Patrick Weekes
  • The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
  • Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal
  • Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear
  • Kitty’s Greatest Hits by Carrie Vaughn
  • The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind
  • Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
  • Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson
  • The Thief Queen’s Daughter by Elizabeth Haydon
  • Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
  • And a tote bag

Plus, one winner will receive this display exclusive – a signed Three Parts Dead booth poster!

Three Parts Dead Poster

And, after you comment below to enter this sweepstakes, head over here to enter for a chance to win our other amazing swag bag!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of 50 United States, D.C., and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are 18 or older as of the date of entry. To enter, leave a comment here beginning at 10:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) July 24, 2014. Sweepstakes ends at 12:00 PM ET July 28, 2014. Void outside the United States and Canada and where prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

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