Masters of the Elements

Series · 4 books · 2011-2014

By S.A. Bolich

Books in series

Firedancer

2011

Jetta's Dance is the first line of defense in the war to vanquish the Ancient, the malevolent, living fire that dwells in the heart of the world. When the Dance no longer holds the Ancient at bay, a failed Firedancer and her erratic apprentice are all that stand between a helpless village and the impending firestorm. Finalist for the 2013 EPIC Award for Fantasy.

Windrider

2012

"Leave singing to the Hag to Fifth Ranks, lad, if you don’t want to end up a witless madman shrieking to the storm from a cell in the Tower of Winds." Good advice, all in all. Sheshan ak'Kal lives to regret that he did not heed it. Desperate to remember the windsong that once let him sing even the great storms off the sea to tatters, he forgets for one foolish moment of shared rage that Wind's gentle sister is the angry, vengeful—and quite insane—Hag. With the Hag stalking him across Metrenna, singing a wild, terrible note that only he can hear, Sheshan discovers that weaving torrents of living air between his hands is no longer enough to keep her at bay. For his clan, his life, and a fragile new love he has found with the most unexpected of women, Sheshan must learn a new song, and become what none of his people have managed in millennia—a Windrider indeed.

Seaborn

2013

Nes Riverborn of the Water Clans has her people's inborn magic in huge measure—but her Da refuses to train her and all of her instinctive control over tricksy, elemental Water comes down to stubbornness and good luck. So when the River Melth in fury flings a devastating flash flood at the town of Southbridge, Nes finds herself not only separated from her ship, but swept away on a quest to discover the source of the river's distress. For an untrained young woman who has scarcely set foot ashore in her life, traveling with an exotic company of talented strangers is less a source of wonder than of daily embarrassment as she runs up hard against all the things she doesn't know. Alternately humiliated, angry, frightened, over-confident, and confused by her feelings for a man not of her clan, Nes struggles to bring her talent to bear on a mystery that could overwhelm her whole world. If Water herself has chosen to join her rebellious siblings Wind and Fire in attacking Earth Mother...where in Metrenna will there be anywhere left for mortals to stand?

Delver

2014

The fourth and final book of the triumphant Masters of the Elements series finds our weary crew of adventurers back where it all began, in Annam Vale, but now Earth Mother herself is restless. One Delver, haunted by his past, holds the key to finding what is wrong, but to use it, he must venture where he swore never to go again...deep underground, to the heart of the Ancient's lair. Into the heart of Fire.

Author

S.A. Bolich

Author · 5 books

S. A. Bolich is a fulltime freelancer with a number of published fantasy stories as well as many nonfiction articles in print and on the web, covering a wide variety of subjects from horsemanship to travel (usually with an historical slant) to the state of Flash web design. A native of Washington state, she resides there again after serving six years in Germany as a regular army military intelligence officer. She graduated summa cum laude from college with a degree in history, which she confesses was greatly aided by devouring historical fiction of every era and kind through her formative years. Since then she has taught web design, trained horses, spent a few hectic and thoroughly enjoyable years volunteering with the United States Pony Clubs (kids and horses, oh, my!), worked in global marketing and project management, and finally managed a long-overdue escape from corporate world to write. Her first published short story earned an honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror; other stories have earned honorable mentions from Writers of the Future and 5th place in the Preditors and Editors online poll for best fantasy short (2009). Her first novel, Firedancer, appeared in September 2011. She is currently working on the sequel to Firedancer, "Windrider." You can find some of her previous work in: Beneath Ceaseless Skies (December 2009) Defending the Future IV: No Man's Land Wolfsongs 2 On Spec (Fall 2010) On Spec (Summer 2002) Science Fiction Trails (March 2009) Damnation Books (September 2009, a short published as an e-book)