Good morning, my fellow Threadbound, and I hope it finds you all well. Happy Birthday to me, by the way; born in the witching hour of the 7th day under a waxing crescent moon, I take to horror like a fish takes to swimming. There was a time, though, that my jam was fantasy, and I’m here today to promote my novel of epic fantasy, The Stone Seekers.

Originally titled The Wellstone Chronicles, a title changed because I didn’t feel it properly conveyed the theme of the story, The Stone Seekers is what some have called a “cozy” fantasy because of the small number of characters. It should also be noted that there isn’t an orc, an elf, a dwarf, or a halfling in sight, and not a whiff of Tolkien or Rowling anywhere. So, what’s it about? I’ll quote the blurb:

“The Settlements clung precariously to a hostile shore where the very ground opposed them. The people, fleeing a vicious tyrant, had crossed an ocean to get here, and had nowhere else to go. They bore with them a parting gift from a powerful mage, the Wellstone, an artifact that could locate clean water among the vile poisons their new land offered. When it is stolen in a raid by creatures of the surrounding forest, there is no choice but to go in pursuit. But with who? The entire combined militia of all the towns haven’t the power to overcome the forest denizens, so a skilled tracker and a savage warrior are sent to achieve through stealth what cannot be accomplished by force. What possible chance could two people have?”

A brief excerpt:

“I have heard many tales of the battle at Ventnor. What was it really like?”

“It was the fifth hell come to earth. The night creatures who hate humankind and would feast on our blood encountered in their tunneling an abandoned mine, and apparently organizing their assault before they moved, they poured through in numbers too great to count. My century was garrisoned in Ventnor in order to rest and train and regain our edge. We’d been deployed on the wall for three months, and were pretty worn down. We bore the full brunt of their initial assault. They came in the darkness and were in among our tents before we knew anything was amiss. We never got into a formation of any kind. In twos and threes we defended wagons, crates, cisterns, anything we could get behind.”

Her voice had dropped to a monotone, and her eyes were fixed on a distant place inside her that he could never hope to see.

“By the time a nearby cavalry unit formed up and reached us,” she continued, “we had lost three-quarters of our number, but we held. We held!” she added with intensity, as if the matter needed to be reconfirmed.

“The fight went on all through the night. Units reinforced both sides. Ours were piecemeal, as we were caught unawares, but we were defending our homes, and that is perhaps what gave us the courage to fight on beyond all hope. Finally, a formation of heavy shock troops arrived and took them in their rear. That broke them, and the rest was a mop-up, short but grim. When my century mustered the next morning, we couldn’t fill a twelve, and not one among us was unwounded. I lost my four best friends there, and I buried less than most. But we held. We held!”

The Stone Seekers has been well-received by its vanishingly tiny cast of readers thus far. It lies firmly in the fantasy genre, but there is enough horror there for anyone seeking such in their entertainment. Its 358 action-packed pages are, as they always have been, available on Kindle for 99c. Or $13.15 USD will net you a fat trade paperback for your shelf. The Stone Seekers. Fans of fantasy or horror may find it worth their while.