Showing results by author "J. W. Elliot" in All Categories

Kell Crawford lives alone with his mother, who has a bizarre fascination with light. When she is murdered by a mysterious stranger, Kell goes on the run to escape the murderer and find the father who abandoned him as a baby. Chasing his mother’s last cryptic message, Kell finds his way into an underground tomb, which transports him to a strange temple where skeletal priests worship the Light and think he is their Promised One.

Redmond knows three things about the woman who has imprisoned his archers: She is beautiful. She is cunning. And she cares nothing for their lives. When she drugs his men in preparation for enslavement in the deadly salt mines, Redmond embarks on an audacious and impossible plan: steal the castle from her and sell it to the highest bidder.

Hunted by the Bragamahr and distrusted by the Anarwyn, Cam must find his way through a land haunted by a tragic past. The memory of the dead pursues him as he finds himself drawn ever more powerfully to the Bragamahr. The magics would have him choose, but maybe he can’t. The fate of Anwyn rests on his choice. Can he revive the undead king before the magics tear him apart? Must he embrace the evil within to succeed? If he does, what will become of his friends?

The heathland is in turmoil. In these four original stories from the heathland, you’ll meet new characters in the ongoing chronicles of the heathland and discover their personal sagas of loss and failure, of loyalty and triumph, born in the struggle for the heart and soul of the heathland. This volume contains three short stories and one novella. It is not a single novel and can be read or listened to at any time during the series.

Brion never meant to start a war. But when they murdered his parents and enslaved his sister and his sweetheart, they left him no choice. Brion of Wexford is the son of a crippled trapper living a quiet life on the edge of the vast and unruly heathland. But when Salassani raiders destroy his world, he must venture into the heathland to attempt the impossible task of finding the girls, rescuing them, and conveying them safely home across hundreds of miles of enemy territory. Now Brion finds himself pursued by men bent on his destruction....

The secretive Order of the Rook bursts from the shadows, sweeping over the land, assassinating royal families, and seizing control of armies and cities. Those who dare resist are hunted to extinction. Now Brion races to save Brigid, Emyr, and their new child from the assassins sent to destroy them. But this time, it isn’t just about the lives of those he loves. The freedom of all lands rests in his hands and those of the friends he left behind in Morcia.

For 2,000 years, the Order of the Varaná has nurtured and protected the Anarwyn, a sentient magic that has developed a symbiotic relationship with humans. The Order has kept the land free of the ageless evil called the Bragamahr that once controlled the destiny of humankind. Over the long years, the secrets of the magic have been lost, and the Varaná have dwindled until only one remains. Then, from the shadows come the Mahrowaiths of the Bragamahr, ancient creatures of evil who attempt to hunt the remaining heirs of Anarwyn to extinction.

Everyone has a score to settle as the battle for the heathland begins. While Brion has discovered his true identity and survived the plots to kill him, his Carpentini mother he thought long dead has been driven into hiding and Brion and Finola venture into the heathland to find her. When they discover that the Dunkeldi king has outlawed the Carpentini and Salassani and is hunting them to extinction, Brion and Finola race to find his mother before it is too late.

Bernie LeBaron is already a scrawny 13-year-old magnet for misfortune. But when his father pawns him off on relatives after his mother dies and he accidentally takes a picture of a man carrying a dead body through the woods, Bernie’s life becomes truly miserable. Now he must discover who the murderer is while staying out of trouble so that his father doesn’t take him away. Will the fates decide to salvage the miserable life of Bernie LeBaron?

Brion is trapped in a hopeless search for his mentor and friend Redmond, who has disappeared in a kingdom on the brink of civil war. When he falls afoul of the regent Lady Adelaide, Brion finds himself beyond the bounds of the law, pursued by assassins, and accused of kidnapping the boy-king of Morcia. Now, he must pluck Redmond out of a thousand square miles of enemy territory while evading clashing armies and keeping his friends alive.

One crack and the walls will shatter. When you’re the new white kid in an Oklahoma town hemorrhaging with racial and class divisions, accidentally taking the wallet from a dead black man isn’t a simple matter. James embarks on a tortuous journey to navigate tensions in the town while trying to correct the mistake he never should have made. His efforts are hampered by his inability to understand racial prejudice and by those who refuse to let him cross entrenched racial and class barriers.

Brion of Wexford is drawn into the war he helped to create, but never wanted to fight. When he seeks to unravel Weyland’s secrets and the truth about his own identity, Brion finds himself betrayed at every turn. Now the only way to survive and keep the Kingdom of Coll from falling to the invading Dunkeldi army is to find the lost prince and put him on the throne before it is too late.

A rogue Duke, a beautiful woman, and a deadly mission. Weyland, the best archer in the king’s army, wants revenge for the slaughter of his family. But when he stumbles across a murdered man with a secret and he saves a duke’s life in battle, he finds himself entangled in noble intrigues of the worst kind. A copper coin, a princess, and a beautiful tavern girl push Weyland’s skill and loyalty to the limit. Now Weyland has to survive long enough to fulfill his promise to the Duke without getting so deeply ensnared in noble intrigues that he cannot escape.

Who will inherit the dying earth? The Ark Project is the epic story of a desperate attempt to redefine what it means to be human in a world perched on the edge of destruction with the technology to engineer humans capable of living in space. When one scientist takes it upon herself to make the hard decision of who gets to live and who must die, Kaiden, a courageous security officer plagued with memories from a past he did not live and a family he never had, sets out to stop her.

Sophia Keegan is 14 years old in 1930s Massachusetts. She likes the dark, and she craves adventure and freedom from social constraints. But when she meets a ghostly child on a beach and stumbles onto a dangerous bootlegging gang, it isn't long before she's fighting to save her family and her sanity. Now Sophia must protect her family from the deadly gang of rum runners who will stop at nothing to silence her. And she must uncover the riddle of the ghostly child who haunts her dreams and invades her thoughts before it is too late.

The magic is broken. Cam is trapped between the need to secure his throne, his commitment to support King Gareth as he resists a massive invasion, and the renewed threat from the magic he fought to protect. Nature itself is being torn apart as two rival magics wrestle for control. Underneath it all, something very old and very powerful rouses from its lethargy. It hunts for Cam—even as the magic called the Anarwyn grows ever more reckless in its efforts to neutralize him.

Kaiden, a young security officer, flees the Clone Council in an effort to remain free and save what is left of his family. The world has been emptied of natural-born humans in a catastrophic plague planned and executed by his own mother. Billions now lie dead and moldering in silent megacities on a desiccating planet, and his mother still seeks to control him from beyond the grave.

Brune, a 17-year-old fisherman living in an ethnic labor camp called a pod, receives memories from inanimate objects. When he is touched by the Light and his dangerous power is revealed, he is forced to flee for his life, pursued by the Pod Authorities and the Shaetán, faceless Shadows that seek to claim him. Now, he must confront the competing powers within him and face the dark truth that he may be the very thing he hates and fears — the thing he must destroy.

Great kings aren’t born. They’re made. Forged in the fires of adversity. The Anarwyn is frightened. The Bragamahr is ascendant. When Cam, now king of the West Mark, marches out to face Bardon’s armies, he knows that no victory on the battlefield can defeat the power rising in Anwyn. If Lorna, the last of the ancient line of the Varaná, can’t withstand the Bragamahr, how can Cam expect to succeed?

Kell Crawford is faced with the brutal murder of his friend, the archivist and scholar, and the return of the evil that once stalked him in the Temple of Light. Chaos and destruction roam the land as Kell struggles to understand the nature of this new threat and how to defeat it. When Brune and Rhianna discover that ancient blood sacrifices are being performed and the King succumbs to the evil, Kell must race to confront the evil before all of creation is unmade. Win or lose, the final battle can only have one outcome for him.