Showing results by author "Gilbert M Stack" in All Categories

Jewel ran away from an arranged marriage and the Cartel Worlds with just her wits to help her. She returns as one of the wealthiest and most sought-after people in the galaxy. But with great wealth comes even greater danger. Jewel and her new husband must navigate social norms and political mazes that make avoiding hit squads look easy. And the friends of her childhood aren’t quite the people she remembers. They’re all anxious to renew their relationships with her, but which of them are truly trustworthy? Jewel once forced the narrow-minded Armenites to realize that she was indeed an ...

For months, Prefect Marcus Venandus and his legionnaires have handed Diamonte a series of setbacks and defeats. They have crushed armies on the field of battle and captured cities and towns. But they have yet to face Thegn Clovis and the awesome might of his high mago with his Qing amulet of power. With victory at stake, even the smallest misjudgment could prove devastating. Did Marcus make a mistake when he decided to harrow Diamonte?

The Duchy of Winterhaven lies at the edge of human civilization. There, Great Lords scheme to expand their borders and take control of the dukedom. Meanwhile the young knight Dhrugal of Edgefield investigates a most unusual murder, little suspecting how this gruesome crime links to a much greater threat. A decade of relative peace is about to collapse, and only Dhrugal and his brothers and sister stand between Winterhaven and dark-spun chaos.

While Marcus Venandus and his legion pluck a second jewel from the crown of Thegn Clovis in Diamonte, Lord Unwen’s army moves in for the kill in Amatista. He has assembled the greatest military force ever seen in the Southern Jeweled Hills and he is determined to crack Amatista wide open with it. Faced with siege engines, scaling ladders, magic, and treachery, while its own legion is far away in Diamonte, how can Amatista hope to survive? Were all of the legion’s valiant efforts for naught? Can anything stop the Fall of Amatista?

After a long and grueling fight in Angosto Pass, Marcus and his legionnaires finally catch a break. The Diamonte city of Malaquita is not only badly under garrisoned, it has no idea that the legion is on its doorstep. Yet driving out the Gota and capturing the city only creates more problems for the legion. The city is barren of supplies and could easily turn into a deathtrap if Marcus and his men remain to defend it, but if they can hold it through the coming harvests its strategic location will greatly bolster Amatista’s chances in the war. His only hope is to build an alliance with the...

Undersheriff Joanna Donovan has defended Hadrian’s Well from waves of uninvited guests before—including a zombie apocalypse—but now she just may have met her match. Brownies are small, quiet, cute, and want nothing more than to help people tidy up their homes—as long as you respect them. Her other visitors are loud, untidy, high-handed, and don’t respect anyone—hardly the perfect houseguests. Together, they may prove too much for the undersheriff and her overworked department to handle.

Legionnaire is a gritty high fantasy series set on the borders of the far-flung Republic of Aquila. While political in-fighting and scheming are the order of the day in the heart of the Republic, the borderlands are awash with dangers, only kept in check by the might of the legions. Fell magics, savage peoples, and scheming empires all threaten the country Patrician Marcus Venandus has sworn to defend using his wits, military strategy, and his small command of highly disciplined legionnaires.

Despite their impressive victories in the north, Prefect Marcus and the Black hat Legion stand alone against the full might of Diamonte and Aquamarina. With their home city under siege and the cowardly Lord Totila refusing to lead his host out from behind the walls of Centinela, it falls once again to Marcus to protect his adopted homeland by himself. His only hope is to thread the needle, maneuvering his legion across enemy-occupied Amatista to the one location that might enable him to recapture the initiative in this war. It’s a risky gamble. With multiple armies afield and none of them...

ABBA, Air Supply, Charlie’s Angels, Ronald Reagan—it’s 1981 and real estate attorney, Lynne Winters’, is struggling to manage a constantly complaining mother and a law practice tanking in the worst real estate market in a decade. Then her life really goes insane when a long brown envelope lands on her desk. The heir to the Mackland furniture empire has been kidnapped and the kidnapper has forced Lynne smack in the middle of the ransom negotiations. It’s the most important case of her career, but in a time when professional women too often aren’t taken seriously, it will take all...

Marshal “Sturm Front” Sturm comes to Aachen to consult with the high king of Kriegsturm before taking up his responsibilities as earl of Fortaleza. After a year at war, Sturm hopes for a well-deserved rest before journeying south, but the royal capital is filled with new dangers for the young earl. Some maneuver to steal his title and wealth, others hate the Hero of Steil Pass for his astounding victories on the battlefield, and some fear the headstrong young Liberator of Hekt will ignite a civil war in the contentious south when he claims his contested lands. Sturm is about to learn ...

Marcus and his legion have knocked Morgantia and Granate out of the war, but that didn’t stop Diamonte from laying siege to his adopted home of Amatista. The invading army is simply too large to confront directly, so Marcus has determined to invade Diamonte itself to force his enemies to break their siege and come defend their own homes. There’s only one problem with the plan. Diamonte has an army of reinforcements heading through Angosto Pass toward Amatista and a second army trailing after the legion trying to catch it from behind. Can Marcus blaze his way through the opposition or ...

Ellen Specter thought she knew what she was getting into when she won her spot on the new Reality TV show, Panic Button and a chance to win a quarter million dollars. Take a few contestants, isolate them from the rest of the world, set them a few competitions and watch the sparks fly as people forge and break alliances in a desperate attempt not to be voted out. Too bad that’s not the way things work on Panic Button—a show designed to terrorize people into freely giving up their chance at the prize money and run by a mentally disturbed host who doesn’t seem to care how badly he has to...

With the passes to Ópalo forced open again, Prefect Marcus Venandus hoped to gain a respite to build his army for the war he knows is coming in the spring. Unfortunately, his enemies understand all too well the threat he poses to them, and they are taking steps to kill him before he reaches next year’s battlefields. Assassins, both mundane and magical, step out of the shadows to strike at him, while other conspirators take advantage of the intense divisions within the city to spark riots to bring the government down.

Thegns Beremund and Alaric have done the impossible. Following a plan constructed by Prefect Marcus Venandus the previous winter, they secretly led a couple of thousand people out of Amatista under the very noses of the Diamonte invaders. But now they have to get all of their refugees past the enemy patrols, through the countryside, and safely into the lands of Topacio. If they succeed, they can continue resisting Diamonte's conquest well into the next year. If they fail, Marcus and his legion will be alone in enemy territory without support and without a home to return to. Amatista has ...

Marshal Sturm has been given the seemingly impossible task of claiming the earldom of Fortaleza from the hands of a pretender who has had control of the territory for nearly a year. To have any hope of success, he needs an army trained in the musket doctrine he used to hold Steil Pass and conquer the city of Hekt. But where does a peer of the realm recruit an army when his fief is already in enemy hands? If you’re Marshal Sturm, you return to Eisenland, the territory you grew up in. But not everyone in his homeland is happy to see a local boy elevated to the top of the peerage. And old ...

Jewel’s days as a fugitive are over. She wakes from cold sleep, captive on an Armenite warship with her past rapidly catching up to her. Her parents are arriving soon to force her to marry Kole Delling, the Armenite man she fled into the Fringe to escape. And if that fate isn’t bad enough, some of the Armenites want to execute her and her surviving crew members for their legitimate salvage operations in the Valkyrie system. The walls are closing in, but Jewel isn’t ready to give up. It’s time for the galaxy to learn just how difficult it is to keep a Cartelite Princess prisoner.

Surrounded by enemies, Prefect Marcus Venandus launches a bold stroke to eliminate one opponent in the coming war. The key to his plan is the fortified border town of Centinela - the Sentinel of Southern Morganita. Its fortified walls are strong enough to delay conventional forces for weeks, giving the other enemy city-states plenty of time to invade Amatista from the east. Can he take advantage and neutralize Centinela? Or will his risky gambit cost Marcus and his allies the war?

Long before Prefect Marcus Venandus directed the defense of the Jeweled Hills, Green Vigil Marcus led his first command into the treacherous jungles of Ekángá. As if the jungle itself wasn’t deadly enough, native warriors and shamans strike from its shadows with magic, spears, and darts, while the forcibly transplanted Graeci population seethes with unrest in the supposedly civilized regions of the province.

The long-feared war has erupted and Prefect Marcus Venandus and his newly raised legion are on the front lines of the fighting. After the successful conquest of a fortified border town, Marcus leads his men deep into Morganitan territory, part of a daring plan to secure Amatista’s rear by eliminating its major northern opponent before its other foes can join in the fighting.

The war seems to be going well for Marcus, but he has forgotten the most important rule of the Jeweled Cities—alliances are made to be broken. In a world where even the ethnic peoples of the north—Gota, Gente and Qing—cannot remain united against the other peoples, how can Marcus convince them to remain true to their commitments to an outsider like him? And yet his honor is not so malleable as that of many of his new neighbors. He will stay the course and defend his dead brother’s home—even if the only things he can depend on are the swords and spears of his legionnaires.