Novels

The Seven-fingered Hand

A divine storm batters the shutters of Purast, city of outcasts. Her people sleep fitfully, dreaming of coin and the blood that stains it.

Adosha, toothless guardian of a rotted system, dreams of something better: an end to the Seven-fingered Hand, the criminal brotherhood that pulls Purast’s  strings. But in a city of open secrets, he must cling to the shadows.

Devesh, a casteless thug, dreams of something better: the respect of a world that would sooner pretend he does not exist. But Purast barters in fear, not kindness, and his path leads down dark alleys.

When the storm ends, both men will set their plans in motion, and uncover the only secret Purast yet hides: the true nature of the Seven-fingered Hand.

The Seven-fingered Hand is currently available in Kindle format on Amazon.

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A Century of Swollen Clouds

Below Seri Ambara, the storm has raged on for a hundred years.

Above the clouds, on the island of Daya, Surya inherits the title of Chief Cartographer from her hated father.

She must leave behind her home, her sister and her lover, to set sail for far-off Opalescent. There, she expects to lead a boring life charting the already well-charted. But fate has a different path in mind. Surya’s ship is attacked by a creature of legend, unseen for a generation. The sorcerer that fights it off is like no temple monk she’s ever met. And the position of Chief Cartographer is about to become anything but ceremonial.

Somewhere beneath swollen clouds lies the truth behind what happened to her world.

Surya will risk everything to find it.

A Century of Swollen Clouds is currently available in Kindle format at Amazon.

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The Whitechapel Gambit

When the Haversham sun grinds to a halt before dawn, Daniel (or David) Squeak expects that he and his fellow sunwell workers are in for an awful day. What he doesn’t expect is that a furious foreman will be the very least of his problems. One gear turns another, and Squeak finds himself injured, sacked from the only work he’s ever known, and afraid for his very life.

The mysterious Sir Nicholas offers Squeak a way out of his predicament, but this knight is no saint. As Sir Nicholas slides around the pawns and bishops of a decades-old plot, it’s Squeak who finds himself in motion: from sunwell to manor, from soot-stained Haversham to wealthy Rawlish, and even to the deadly jungles of the surface.

Workhouse lads are resourceful. Everybody knows that. But the bloody alleys of Haversham are not nearly as dangerous as the glittering avenues of King’s Court.

The Whitechapel Gambit is now available in Kindle format at Amazon.

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When on High

War has returned to conquered Ekka. At its heart, a sorcerer promises victory and, at last, freedom from oppression. All he asks in return is a throne.

Hidden in the salt marsh, a banned cult hatches its own plots. Gemeti, daughter of a dying priestess, has few allies. If she is to a win a throne of her own, she will need support from all the wrong people.

Rimush has good reason to distrust Ekka’s would-be liberator. His own hands are not so clean. If he is to blunt war’s blade, he must journey into the very heart of the invader’s empire, and convince the sun not to rise.

Ekka’s future hangs in the balance. War has returned.

When on High, the final book of the Moonlit Cities trilogy, is now available in Kindle format and in other formats at Smashwords.

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Golden Feathers Falling

Alit is a girl like any other.

By night, she wards off clumsy advances from boring scribes and functionaries, and dreams of other lives she could have led.

By day, she carries letters across dangerous Numush to add coins to her dowry, and awaits with some trepidation the day when her brother is finally old enough to sign her over to another man.

Her world shatters when her tablet house is attacked, for the second time, by men with knives. They want to know more about her father, who disappeared six years ago.

So does she.

Alit hires a band of mercenaries to chase after the only lead she has, and is drawn into an Ekka she has only glimpsed: a land built on vengeance, crime for coin, and simmering revolution.

Golden Feathers Falling, a stand-alone follow-up to Pale Queen’s Courtyard, available now at Amazon and Smashwords.

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Pale Queen’s Courtyard

Kamvar, a soldier, has lost his way. Leonine, a thief and sorcerer, has forgotten that he had one to lose.

When the daughter of a High Priest finds herself exiled and hunted across the entirety of conquered Ekka, both men will remember who they are, and the country’s invaders will learn that memories, unlike temples, are not so easily torn down.

Pale Queen’s Courtyard is the first novel by Canadian author Marcin Wrona, and a finalist in SciFiNow’s 2009 War of the Words.

Electronic versions are available at Amazon and Smashwords.