Part of Series
Victory is theirs, but are they safe? With the dark host defeated, peace finally descends upon the war-weary land. Even as the fragile truce keeps conflict at bay, each kingdom must deal with rising tensions within its own borders. An arranged marriage in the Clanholdings promises to bring an end to centuries of in-fighting, but only if ancient animosities can be set aside. Opposition erupts against Alric as the Weldwyn earls gather to select their new king, threatening the shattered realm's future. After an untimely death in Merceria, a new claimant to an old title forces the queen to choose between friendship and the law of the land. As hostilities increase on all fronts, a new danger emerges in the east. Can they look beyond their inner turmoil to realize the true threat, or are they sowing the seeds of their own destruction?
Author
Paul J Bennett (b. 1961) emigrated from England to Canada in 1967. His father served in the British Royal Navy, and his mother worked for the BBC in London. As a young man, Paul followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the Canadian Armed Forces in 1983. He is married to Carol Bennett and has three daughters who are all creative in their own right. Paul’s interest in writing started in his teen years when he discovered the roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons (D & D). What attracted him to this new hobby was the creativity it required; the need to create realms, worlds and adventures that pulled the gamers into his stories. In his 30’s, Paul started to dabble in designing his own roleplaying system, using the Peninsular War in Portugal as his backdrop. His regular gaming group were willing victims, er, participants in helping to playtest this new system. A few years later, he added additional settings to his game, including Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, World War II, and the all-important Fantasy Realm where his stories take place. The beginnings of his first book ‘Servant to the Crown’ originated over five years ago when he began a new fantasy campaign. For the world that the Kingdom of Merceria is in, he ran his adventures like a TV show, with seasons that each had twelve episodes, and an overarching plot. When the campaign ended, he knew all the characters, what they had to accomplish, what needed to happen to move the plot along, and it was this that inspired to sit down to write his first novel. Paul now has four series based in his fantasy world of Eiddenwerthe and is looking forward to sharing many more books with his readers over the coming years.
