Germany 1626: A War, a Witch, a Reckoning…
Richard Treadwell is a young man who dreams of glory and honour on the battlefield—and the plunder and riches that would follow. Newly arrived in Hamburg to seek his fortune as a mercenary in the Danish army, he joins the vast war in northern Germany between the Catholic Hapsburg empire and the Protestant princes of the north. But he has also brought with him an old secret—and with it the seeds of his own destruction.
A young gypsy woman foretells that Richard cannot outrun his fate, and then he is swept headlong into the terrible war. The bloodshed he witnesses among the Danes strips him of conscience and hardens his heart, as the opposing armies close for the battle to decide the future of the kingdom—and maybe his own soul. But even as Treadwell steels himself for the final contest against the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor, an unseen enemy stalks him within his own camp…
The hero of Gideon’s Angel returns to tell how his journey into the supernatural began.
Clifford Beal’s Gideon’s Angel impressed me very much last year and when the author told me a prequel was in the works I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Raven’s Banquet is set 26 years before Gideon’s Angel and is told in memoir form by Richard Treadwell in 1635, so nine years after the main events related in the book and running up to the earliest events recounted in Gideon’s Angel. While the narrative as such stands alone quite well, its ending clearly makes it a prequel and the 1635 arc definitely isn’t resolved. To find out what happened the reader will have to seek out the next book. Continue reading
Last April Jo Fletcher Books published the last book, Spira Mirabilis, in Aidan Harte’s The Wave series and published the first one, Irenicon, in the US. The Wave is a series which I’ve heard much praise for, but unfortunately haven’t (yet) read myself, though I do have Irenicon on my TBR-pile. However, having heard so much good things about the series, and being curious about Aidan’s dual career as a sculptor and a writer, I asked Aidan for an Author Query. He sent me back some awesome answers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.