Game Of Throne meets Die Hard in this explosive epic fantasy, packed with tattooed mages wielding unbridled spells, meddling gods, dragon-riders, and twisted Norse mythology. Only half the recruits that undergo the Ritual survive to become Written mages. Only they can wield the fiercest of magics, to protect the Arka, until either death or the madness takes them. Five scholars of Arfell have been assassinated. A spellbook has gone missing – a powerful summoning manual from the time of elves and fire-born daemons. The Arkmages are running out of time and options, and the world is once again on the brink of war with the Siren dragon-riders. It falls to Farden – one of the Arka's most powerful yet troubled Written mages – to keep Emaneska from falling into chaos. Entangled in a web of lies and politics, Farden is tasked with hunting down the assassin, and recovering the spellbook before it falls into the wrong hands, and the world is cast into shadow. It will mean fighting his way across savage Emaneska and back, a land infested with wyrms, marauders, and betrayal. It will take every fibre of his will, every scrap of magic in his bones, and if he falls, so shall the world. Welcome to Emaneska.

Treat yourself to a free sneak peek of PALE KINGS, the brand new and upcoming sequel to the fantasy novel The Written.

The sky is falling. The world trembles beneath it. Emaneska is crying out for a saviour. Somebody is hunting down the Written mages in the wilds. Murdering and skinning them alive. Who? A mere girl. A girl who was born to rip the stars from the sky and bring them crashing down to earth. The direst enemy Emaneska has ever faced. In the wake of the Battle of Krauslung, the world has changed. For the darker. For the stranger. Magic swells like a storm, spilling from the stunned lips of farmboys and milkmaids, burning spell books to cinders at the lightest of touches. As Krauslung unknowingly balances on a knife-edge, tension mounts. Insidious whispers have begun to spread, drawing new enemies to the surface. Discontent, fear, betrayal... it seems that the girl is not the only enemy Emaneska faces. Who can stand in their way? Will it be a pair of struggling Arkmages, one blind, one Written? An Albion maid, on the cusp of her wedding day? Three shadows of gods? Or will it be a ghost, a bloody rumour, lost in a dark world of murder and bitter memories? One question above all lingers on their lips: where in Emaneska is Farden?

North, is where the battle will take place. North, is where Farden must go. But to death, to glory, or to both? The Arka have chosen their champion, and now he must lead them to the top of the world - The Spine, where the black mountains belch fire, and where the battle against cataclysm will take place upon the ice. As they travel north in a warship clad in iron, the Krauslung they leave behind is crumbling. Not under the onslaught of the girl and her daemons, but from within, under the force of greed and poisonous ambition. It seems there are too many battles to fight. Now, with the Sirens silent, the frozen north in uproar, and the responsibility mounting, Emaneska's champion must face a choice. Can he tread the tunnels of Hel to save the world? To save a woman more ghost than alive? To claim the armour he has always longed for? For salvation lies in the hands of a Knight fifteen-hundred years dead, and in the red-gold armour of a certain mage. Salvation lies with Scalussen.

After the Last War, the world has all too easily forgotten the time of the Written and the Arkmages. In their place, an iron-fisted empire has arisen, one that has finally brought order to the war-torn lands. An empire that has outlawed magick for anyone but itself. At last, it seems that peace has come to Emaneska. Or, that is what the emperor would have Emaneska believe. On the fringes of the Arkan Empire, a different story is being written. Those who show magick talent must join the empire, live as an outlaw, or hang for their crimes. The Last War is still being fought, homestead by homestead, and a young peasant girl is about to be thrust into the violent world that exists beneath the lies of empire. Welcome back to Emaneska.

Revenge loves company. Mithrid Fenn wants nothing to do with magick. Magick is a curse word, banned by the vast Arka Empire and punishable by death. Its purging has finally brought peace to war-torn Emaneska. Only a stubborn rebellion, led by the warlord Outlaw King, raids and pillages the empire’s northern fringes. To cliff-brat Mithrid, this is an age of tranquility and childhood games. That is until an illegal spellbook washes up on her shores, and she finds herself thrust into a war she never knew existed. Now hunted by daemons and mages, she is dragged inexorably north to Scalussen and its rebels fighting doggedly to preserve a memory of freedom. Mithrid holds no such ideals. She fights for revenge and nothing nobler. If spilling blood means helping the Outlaw King, then so be it. Even if it means all-out war. ——— The Forever King is the first book in a new trilogy – The Scalussen Chronicles – set in the dark and nordic world of The Emaneska Series.

You don’t have to save the world, you just have to survive it The battle for freedom has left Emaneska reeling and desolated. Both Scalussen and Arka are scattered to the winds. With the Blazing Throne now empty and the Arka Empire for the taking, the race to claim Emaneska has begun. Farden and Mithrid have been stranded alone in strange eastern lands by errant magick, They battle not to return home, but to uncover an ancient weapon capable of defeating a god. A god who desires nothing but chaos. In Emaneska, Elessi leads the survivors of the Rogue’s Armada to safer havens, something rare and lacking in the uncharted waters of the south. Treachery and pain await them both, but the price of failure is steeper. New enemies lie in wait on those foreign paths. Dark creatures born of nightmares and forgotten powers. Warlords set on mastering magick. And an old threat reborn, doggedly pursuing one fate: The death of Farden.

The Scalussen Chronicles and the world of Emaneska are coming to an end in 2024... Follow or sign up at Ben's site to get notified of the launch and get updates