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The Signet Ring

Now available at Amazon, in paperback and ebook.

The Signet Ring is the first installment in a series of six mystery adventures set in the fantasy world of Altearth. A troupe of acrobats and performers, known as the Compagnie des Trouvères, let by their capo Valentin, have come to southern Italia. They’re broke, broke down, and when a job offer walks up to them out of the blue, there’s really no choice to make. They accept it, even though it means working for the nobility.

The Trouvères don’t have a good track record of working for nobles.

But it’s on the beautiful island of Capreae, where the daughter of a duke is to be betrothed to the son of a marchese, and the Trouvères will be well paid–well enough for the company to get their wagon out of hock and maybe even get back across the Alps where they feel more at home.

All goes well until another performer, an illusionist, appears to steal the duke’s signet ring as part of a trick. He’s innocent, and despite all his misgivings, Val decides he’s going to prove it. Doing so means running afoul of, well of just about everyone on the island. Then a murder complicates things even more, and getting off the island alive starts to become more urgent than just getting paid.

The Signet Ring is an exciting tale with dwarves, gnomes, a philosophical ogre, and a elf. And a few humans thrown in just for local color.

Available now as ebook and in paperback

The Trouveres

The Trouvères are a company of performers–dancers, singers, jugglers, acrobats–all with at least some modest magical ability. While they seek only to entertain and make enough silver to keep their wagons on the road, they do have one other ability that seems almost magical: the ability to get into trouble.

Their adventures are chronicled in a series of six novels, the first of which will be published summer 2022. It is entitled The Signet Ring.

The setting is late medieval. That’s the 22nd century AUC, or 14th century in traditional Earth dates. The first novel is set on the island of Capreae in southern Italia. The next novel takes place in northern Italy, on Lake Garda, then two in Germania, one in Breizh (Brittany) and the last in Paris.

Watch this space for updates. And for the latest, subscribe to the Altearth Chronicle, published six times a year.

Work in Progress

The Tower of Guard is the second volume in my series covering the adventures of the Compagnie des Trouvères.

Having managed to rescue Tarvixio from false accusations in Capreae, Val and the other Trouvères have gone north. At Sirmione, they encounter a tower full of wizards. Despite their best efforts, they become entangled in a complex and gruesome vendetta that not only threatens their own lives, but the lives of all who live near the Tower of Guard.

Into the Second World

Not every lost civilization wants to be found.

Far below the surface of Altearth exists a land of bright magics and pale monsters, a place the surface world has long dismissed as legend. Some, however, believe in legends.

When Gabrielle Lauten joins the Queller Expedition, it’s her last, best chance to be taken seriously as a scientific journalist. The expedition is led by a crackpot professor, and guided by a dwarf who claims he can get them past the Troll Gates. No one knows what lies beyond that.

Getting into the Second World is hard enough. Surviving there will test Gabrielle and her companions to their limits. What they find there will make them famous, if it doesn’t kill them. And then they’ll have to find a way to go home again.

 

Paperback

A Child of Great Promise

Orphan. Half-breed. The girl who can fly.

On the run from a powerful wizard, Talysse and her faithful gnome companion, Detta, must find their way to the man who has been her patron. They are helped along their way by Occitan cowboys. They travel with elf wagoneers. They meet a troubador and an elf chevalier, both of whom link their fortunes to hers.

All answers lie high in the Pyrenees Mountains. There Talysse must face the truth about her past, if she is ever to have a future.

Kindle

Goblins at the Gates

When goblins invade the Roman Empire, everything in Altearth changes. A Horde a quarter million strong is moving toward Constantinople, and the Empire’s best hope for survival is not all that great.

Julian is the son of a famous general, but he hates the army. He’d rather drink, gamble, and annoy his fellow nobles with pranks. One prank has gone very wrong, though, and Julian’s only option is to escape his enemies by taking command of a frontier legion on a mission for the Emperor.

There he stumbles into the goblin invasion, and now must learn how to become a general even as he struggles just to survive and keep his legion intact. He does have help, of a sort.

Inglena is a princess in exile, cast out by her tribe for the terrible crime of magic, for she has a remarkable white sword that never stains and never dulls. She has gathered other exiles to her, and decides to join forces with the Roman general. If her own people will shun her, then Rome is her only hope. Her magicians can wield astonishing power, but their command of magic is erratic, and they have never had to work with disciplined troops.

Together these unlikely allies must escape the onrushing Horde, warn Emperor Valens, and find a way to save the Empire from the monsters.

All will be needed. Not all will survive.

 

Kindle

Mad House

Mad House

Quinn-the-Sprite and the ogre, John Golly, accidentally steal an island, but the wizards sort of had it coming to them.

Amazon Kindle

The Roadmaster

Read for free

A young hitchhiker stands on a desert highway fleeing something he doesn’t quite understand. An aged wizard driving a Buick Roadmaster can provide answers, but will he be in time?

Read at Bewildering STories

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