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HARE AND ADDER
Hare and Adder: Of Granaries, Traders, and Circles of Inspiration is now available as an e-book on pre-order from Amazon. Both e-book and paperback will be available on 10th June 2023.
Available with this universal link
Hare and Adder is Book One of Alsaldic Lands Trilogy. Book Two follows later this summer but Book Three must wait till next year.
Alsaldic Lands Trilogy
Two thousand years after the events of The Spinner’s Game, Kerrid is the Head of the Kerdolan and granary traders. Though established in this role, there are still Asars who oppose her, led by Urinod who believes the moment of Kerrid’s death will return the Asars to their rightful otherworld realm. Stuck between these are the next generation, Brictans born of Asar-human parentage, and those who seek to make a life within the increasingly important Alsaldic Lands. The trilogy maps the development, flowering and collapse of the Alsaldic Empire as it moves from its birth within an early agricultural society, through the copper and bronze-using warrior cults, to topple at the first whisper of iron.
Hare and Adder
Of Granaries, Traders and Circles of Inspiration – A Neolithic Odyssey
Hegrissa should have been a granary keeper. She should have been able to find her way back to Lienershi when Kerrid, Head of the Granaries, sent her south to meet with her father. She should have been safe with the copper-smith since smiths are sworn off women. But now seduced, pregnant and with her trade lost, her only hope lies with her native family. Yet rejected there too, she finds acceptance with an eblan, a Speaker for the Dead, who believes her inspired. Can she find a new identity amongst these people, or will she reclaim what should have been hers?
A Note about the Neolithic
When I started my nerdy love affair, we had little solid knowledge of the Neolithic. But that’s no longer the case. Yet my stories took form in those earlier days.
Therefore, I have to say these are works of imagination, inspired by mythology, anthropology and archaeology; they do not purport to be accurate or speculative accounts of the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Western Europe.
ROOTS OF ROOKERI
A Key, a Tree, a Prophecy
The Cast:
Booderas Rookeri-Sharmin – better known as Boody, playwright, poet, dancer and chorusmaster – orphaned nephew of the Elect of Raselstad, disciple of the Forty-First Avatar who brought the Founders to this new world.
“Worth is not measured in gold. To ban a word is not enough. To forbid the metals silver and gold will not lessen their attraction. The Guided Guilds give no protection against the Old-World demons.”
Eshe, daughter of Judge Madir, believes herself tough (she enjoys caving and climbing), unsuccessful in matters of the heart, fears her father will intervene and arrange a marriage.
Kalamite, head of the quasi-religious Runman Order, son of a queen no one has seen, for to ensure her safety he keeps her locked in the mysterious Wood Tower at the heart of Citadel Lecheni. He is her sworn protector.
Sifadis Lafdi, heiress of the wealthiest House in Lecheni. Owns every ship in the Luant; no one eats fish except by her catching. But marriage arrangements threaten, and a ruling husband would separate her from her passion – the study of the ancient documents stored in her library.
The Play:
A violation of Wood Tower has astrologer-priest Kalamite in fear for his mother, his queen. Planetary alignments foretell an invasion from the south. When Eshe arrives in Lecheni from southern Raselstad, Kalamite moves into action. He insists a spy is sent to Eshe’s hometown. Sifadis jumps at the opportunity to be that spy, to pursue a project of her own and to delay further marriage arrangements.
In Raselstad Sifadis meets her antithesis, Boody with his abhorrence of everything northern and Rothi. Yet they share a love for ancient books and Daabian plants. They also share an ancient connection which on meeting neither expects.
Available as e-book and paperback on Amazon
LEARNING TO FLY
Medievalist Neve is delighted to find herself surrounded by swirling colours and foot-stomping music in Regin-jarl’s mead hall… even if her presence is dependent on the memories of a banished angel.
Prompted by that angel to find the truth of her grandfather, locked in a cage to be food for vampiric grimmen, trapped beneath a dragon… life isn’t fun for Neve… though she does like the music!
e-book and paperback available on Amazon
The Spinner’s Game
Set in the between-time, when hunter-gatherers turned to settled agriculture, when spirits and demons morphed to gods, the five books of The Spinner’s Game takes Kerrid’s story across continents and weaves through ages fraught with floods and droughts to become the prototype of our most ancient myths.
The Spinner’s Child
Book 1 The Spinner’s Game
Kerrid, a fraudulent seer born of a fisher-hunter clan, holds two beliefs. That in her psychic abilities and exuded light she is unique, and as Voice of the Lady she’s exempt from an arranged marriage. Both convictions are shattered when nine boats arrive from the east carrying the ancient Chief Uissinir who wants her for his wife, and five of his sons who emit similar lights and share tricks like her own. Forced to make an unwise judgement, a trail of death follows.
Questions plague her. Why does she dream of babies dying? Why does a voice in her head taunt her: Suffer the loss, suffer the pain? And what is she that no matter how lethal the wound, she does not die?
Lake of Dreams
Book 2 The Spinner’s Game
In the first book of The Spinner’s Game, Kerrid explored and developed her powers, gained a glimmering of what she might be, discovered the source of the accusatory voice, and worked to transform her status to that of a genuine shamanic wise-woman, able to enter the Spinner’s Otherworld Web. At the last, the Spinner tasked her with the eradication of Neka, the snake-demon. To do this she must understand the cause and the source of their Asaric nature.
The eldest of Gimmerin’s Asaric brothers also wishes to discover this source. But to join his quest Kerrid must gain the approval of all the brothers, hindered by Gimmerin’s repeated efforts to undermine her, and the strange pull she feels to the second-born brother, Jiar.
The Pole That Threads
Book 3 The Spinner’s Game
Kerrid has discovered the Asars are banished divines. Now to regain their divine heights, she seeks the Pole that Threads the Worlds, for in that high place resides the demon Neka, which the Spinner has tasked her to eradicate.
No longer with her wed-man, Kerrid ventures alone on a journey that takes her to the western shore of the Boundless Sea and into the frozen wastes of the north. Along the way, she encounters a delusional Asar with a burning lust for her, a trickster heron, and a knowing-man who loves her. Can Kerrid navigate these treacherous waters to succeed in her task?’
Lady of First Making
Book 4 The Spinner’s Game
Tasked to eradicate the snake-demon Neka, shamanic wise-woman Kerrid believes that first she and her friends must regain their divine world from which they were banished. But unable to use the pole she sought in the north, how is she to gain it?
There are holes in the sky; one sits above Black Mother Mountain in Gushan, land of her birth. If she returns there, climbs the mountain… but to gain it she faces three obstacles. Her sister has forbidden her access to Gushan. That same sister is the keeper of the demon Neka in physical snake-form. And that demon is determined to kill everyone she loves. She now has a child. How is she to protect her infant and yet complete her task?
The Spinner’s Sin
Book 5 The Spinner’s Game
Faced with a flood of refugees, Kerrid leads her people south in search of new land, only to find people are everywhere. The only unoccupied land lies in the grasp of a mysterious Asar known as the Qar of Lohanit with whom she must bargain if she is to complete her plan to regain her divine world and eradicate the snake-demon Neka.
Who is this Qar of Lohanit? What hold has he over her? And what is his connection to the Southern Lord, ally of the demon, whose murderous host is slaughtering the peoples of the eastern lands?
Kerrid must face the consequences of two broken oaths. And if she doesn’t make amends, humanity will die.
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