Where the Heroes are all local... And the Princess lives next door... Jarod Klum was trapped in his small life in the small village of Eventide and saw no means of escape. He would never be worthy of the woman of his dreams, never achieve great deeds of valor and never be remembered in song or story. It wasn’t that he was without dreams. He dreamed them every night; of rescuing the imperiled Caprice Morgan from some terrible rampaging monster or from marauding pirates who had somehow come up the river or of returning from a great Quest beyond the village boundaries laden with treasure that he could lay at the feet of the appreciative Caprice Morgan. But each morning he awoke in his straw bed and knew he was just Jarod Klum. Until, that is, the coming of the Dragon’s Bard. The Dragon’s Bard convinced Jarod to win his fair Caprice through ‘heroic deeds of a more manageable scale’ – setting Jarod on a course of misadventures that turns the town on its head. Jarod’s single-minded pursuit of his greatest wish – even if it is a broken one – escalates until the only thing left for him to do is to become a dragonslayer and save the town from a ferocious, legendary monster that everyone fears but no one has ever seen. ‘Eventide’ is brought to life through the stories of the interweaving lives of its citizens, their follies, joys, tragedies and triumphs on a scale of life to which we can all relate. It is about the Gossip Fairy, the gnomes of the tannery who, by law, do not exist, a centaur farmer with a mysterious past and a rough, blacksmith dwarf who secretly longs to dance. It is about the three wisher-women who supply the broken wishing well with wishes but have none left for themselves. In the end, it is a visit to a place where we ourselves would like to settle down and live out our lives as we should. Welcome ... to Eventide... http://dragonsbard.com

… is where adventure makes port. Percival Taylor ran away from Eventide. Some say it was because his father threw him out of the house. Others say it was because he was made of fool of by Vestia Cooper. Whatever the reasons, Percival—a young man who by all accounts never did an honest days work in his entire life—has made his way down from the little town of Eventide and to the port of Blackshore to seek his fortune at sea and become the man everyone thinks him incapable of becoming. Unfortunately, no one will allow him anywhere near a ship—even the impress gangs consistently pass him by—and it looks as though he shall have to find other means to make his name. His heart is plundered however, by the beautiful—if rather sheltered—Bellisia McQuary. She has mistaken him for a pirate rogue out of one of the Dragon’s Bard tales and is entirely willing to swoon into his arms if he can prove his buccaneer soul. Percival hires a down-on-their-luck pirate band to help him prove his swash-and-buckle to the girl by faking her abduction and sailing her around the local waters for a while before giving up piracy forever on behalf of her love. Blackshore is the story of Percival Taylor, his attempts to learn a manly trade at sea and his adventures in a fantasy seaport. [Description and coverart posted by permission; taken from dragonsbard.com, 28 May 2010.]

Of the three wishers at the well, it was Melodi Morgan—the youngest and least comely—who is chosen by her married sisters to travel to the city of Moredale and enter the Enchanting Academy. There she may properly learn the art of Wishcraft and take over the family business of keeping the Wishing Well supplied back home in Eventide. But life in the city is vastly different than in Eventide: society is a morass of ministers and titles each with terribly important meaning but without making much difference in the people themselves—each of whom strikes Melodi as backward in their own pompous way. None seem more noble than the Entertainer with the Dancing Dragon or the Fortune Teller who is depressed over everyone elses future. It doesn’t help Melodi that Kendal the Beautifier—second to last of the seven local Princes—was smitten my Melodi on a chance encounter in the marketplace and now seems determined to make her a princess of the realm despite the fact that his family has spent nearly all of their fortune on the Ogre Wars and that with five brothers ahead of him—and one very scheming and determined Princess—he has not even the most remote chance of becoming the King. All that could be overcome … if Melodi did not find the sight of him repulsive. Moredale is the story of Melodi Morgan, her education in wishcraft at the Academy and her adventures in a greatl fantasy city. \[Description and coverart taken from dragonsbard.com, by permission, 28 May 2010.\]