WInterhaven for 99 cents

My novel Winterhaven is on sale for 99 cents for the next 3 weeks on Amazon, and it’s still free on Kindle Unlimited.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Winterhaven-Gi...

 

Fantasy novels tend to revolve around a very small cast of characters whose actions move mountains and determine the fate of worlds. The scale tends to be grandiose right from the beginning—destroy the one ring or find the Sword of Shannara. Even if the heroes are men or women of modest birth, the action often depends on the decisions of a few great individuals. I had been wondering for years if there wasn’t a different formula on which to build a fantasy epic. I wanted the grandiose scale, but I wanted to take my time to build up to the world-shattering challenges. Phrased a little differently, I always wondered why the entire universe had to be at stake in every Doctor Who episode. So, I invented my Duchy of Winterhaven with two main goals in mind—crafting a tremendously exciting story on a less than global scale and adding a touch of realism by showing how great deeds depended on a large cast of people doing their small but pivotal part. In doing so, I hoped to bring to life not a trio of intrepid adventurers but a duchy’s worth of players.

 

So Winterhaven became the tale of a massive political struggle to pull the reins of power away from the lord-constable who rules the city and into the hands of the conniving Lord Maldon. Both men depend upon a host of great and minor lords to maintain themselves, and Maldon appears to have subverted a great many of them. Yet, every man and woman acts in their own perceived interests, and many are just as cunning as Maldon as he leads the duchy into its first major war in a generation.

 

At the same time, and equally important, Winterhaven is the story of a young knight and his brothers and sister trying to make their way in a world that doesn’t quite fit them. The knight is investigating a horrific crime that has the potential to shake the city to its core. The siblings are caught in the center of the political struggle, trying to support their uncle, the lord-constable, while slowly uncovering evidence that the threat facing them is far graver than the political struggle everyone else thinks they’re fighting.

 

What results from these two major plot threads is a standalone novel that launches my Winterhaven series. It’s packed with intrigue, military clashes, betrayals, fell magics, and a few men and women who find themselves on the sharp end making choices that will determine the fate of the entire duchy.