Showing posts with label Fairy Queens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fairy Queens. Show all posts
Goodreads Giveaway for Of Ice and Snow
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
*Signed copy + Swag*
Enter Giveaway
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Of Ice and Snow
by Amber Argyle
Giveaway ends April 09, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
{New Release} Fairy Queens Books 5-7
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
{Release Day} Fairy Queens Books 5-7
Save $5 off buying by purchasing the Fairy Queens Box Set 5-7. Available everywhere for a limited time.
Description:
A war is brewing between the queens of Winter and Summer. A war that threatens to shatter the lives of two women who are so blinded by bitterness all they can see is hatred. A war that will tear asunder the very fabric of the balance, destroying the entire world in the process.
But there is still hope. For the daughter of one of the queens does not share her mothers' hatred. She has found love and hope, and she is determined to take it. If she can survive, she stands a chance of healing the rift that threatens to break apart the very fabric of the world.
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Amazon Int’l
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First Page:
In the predawn haze, Cinder held her cloak tight to ward off the chill as she hurried down the nearly empty street. Before her, a ragged man whistling an eerie tune pushed a cart filled with piss pots he had collected during the night. Cinder found herself counting the beats of the song, a child’s rhyme she couldn’t place. She held her veil tight over her mouth and breathed shallowly, trying not to notice the liquid sloshing in the pots.
Glad she hadn’t eaten breakfast, she arrived at the tannery twelve steps ahead of the man. But when she opened the door and stepped into the crumbling building, the fetid stench sent her straight back outside. The man with the piss pots chuckled under his breath just before Cinder lifted her veil and vomited bile onto the ground in the alley. A pile of dirty blankets shifted and a drunk squinted at her. He cursed her roundly before turning over, his fleas jumping grumpily at the interruption.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm, then blotted her face to make sure she hadn’t sweated off her dark makeup. So far so good. Counting to ten to calm down, Cinder forced herself to march back to the tannery—past the piss-pot man, who watched her with close-set black eyes above an equally black veil. She entered the dimly lit building with its long row of hides stretched tightly across frames. Men stood scraping off the fur with flint or steel or stone. The early morning breeze flowed through an open door to the back yard, where men and women stirred the huge pots of leather soaking in urine or dye.
Cinder made sure her veil was in place and looked around nervously. The man who’d been pushing the cart leaned against a wall, one skinny leg cocked as he looked at her. Something about him seemed off, like he didn’t belong here. Her gaze lingered on his clothes, and she realized it was because he was so clean.
Before she could dwell on it, a man in black robes approached her. His hands were stained unnaturally dark. “What you want?” he growled.
Three little words, but the answer to his question would take dozens. “A job,” Cinder said simply, keeping her eyes downcast so he couldn’t see the silver of them.
She felt him studying her, no doubt noticing her worn but clean and serviceable robes. “Are you pregnant?” he asked.
She nearly forgot to keep her eyes down. “No, sir.”
“Runaway?”
Pursing her lips in anger, Cinder shook her head.
“Listen, girl, this is no place for someone with other options. Go back to your parents. Or your lover. Or wherever else you came from. Only the truly desperate come here. And you aren’t there yet.”
I'm super excited to have everything completely wrapped up with the Fairy Queen Series. If you've been holding off purchasing it, now would be the time, as it's only going to be available from all the retailers for a couple weeks. Please take a moment to share this post, tweet, or pin. Word of mouth is still the best advertising money can't buy. :D
I'm super excited to have everything completely wrapped up with the Fairy Queen Series. If you've been holding off purchasing it, now would be the time, as it's only going to be available from all the retailers for a couple weeks. Please take a moment to share this post, tweet, or pin. Word of mouth is still the best advertising money can't buy. :D
{New Release} Of Sand and Storm
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
By law, any child born in Idara is free, even if that child is born in a slave brothel. But as Cinder grows into a beauty that surpasses even that of her mother and grandmother, she realizes that freedom is only a word. There are other words too, stronger words. Words like betrayal and prison and death. And there are words even stronger still. Words like courage and family and love.
In the end, if Cinder is to escape the fate of her matriarchs, she'll have to fight for her freedom. Because true freedom is never free.
Purchase links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1ODLLrH
Amazon Int’l: http://authl.it/5cs
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20734705-of-sand-and-storm~
I remember reading an article a while back. It was about a girl taken captive by ISIS. The men and older women in her family were taken outside and shot. She and her female relative were taken to an older building, where men would come and bid on them. The man who ran the slave market hid her when the other men came. She thought he was being kind. He wasn't. He took her as his own.
She was smart and resourceful. They went from house to house (Christian homes, the owners dead or having fled). She pretended not to like one after another until they finally stopped at a house with a balcony off the master bedroom. It was from there that she escaped with another girl.
I read her story and I thought, this is the kind of stuff that happened in medieval times. Not now. Not in a world where people complain about WiFi cutting out on jet planes or that ketchup packets are too small.
But sex trafficking and abuse have never really stopped, have it? We all think we're civilized and past such darkness, but we're only a war away from being dipped back into that kind of evil. The girls ISIS has taken know this. Even here, amidst the strip malls and protest for "social justice", there are girls and boys hidden in the shadows. Used and discarded like trash while people scream about supposed offenses that are really just differing opinions.
When I saw the Abolitionists, I felt helpless. What could I do? How could a mom from the fields of Idaho raise her voice? The answer became clear. I had to write one of these girl's stories. Not a real girl, but a fictional one. Cinder's story was born. The story of a girl fighting a system designed to keep her under the control of people who have long ago lost their morality.
Part of me wants to apologize for this story—for exposing such darkness to the light. But there are people hidden in the shadows of slaver. If no one ever turns to look, help will never come. So I ask that you look. See them—those forced to give up the right to their own bodies. I ask that you be someone’s Darsam. To learn how you can help, visit the Abolitionists, a group who works to free children from sex trafficking: http://ourrescue.org/.
{Cover Reveal} Summer Queen by Amber Argyle
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Summer Queen
By Amber Argyle
Nelay never wanted to be queen.
Poised to become the most powerful priestess in Idara, Nelay doesn’t have time to become a pretty bauble for the king. She’s too busy saving her people from the invading army sweeping across her kingdom.
But in defeat after defeat, Nelay begins to realize a bigger power is at play than that wielded by mere mortals. Only she can stand between the cinders of her once-great nation and the vengeance of a goddess.
As always, Laura Sava did a wonderful job on this cover. I adore her work!
I wrote this book during perhaps one of the hardest times of my life. My son was in and out of hospitals with a noncancerous bone tumor. He had two surgeries and was in a wheelchair and not allowed any type of physical activity for months.
We also moved to another state, I broke my leg, had surgery, and played single mom while my husband was away. Insurance was, and still is, a nightmare (I'm looking at you, Humana).
This book is perhaps the strongest straight-up fantasy novel I've written. One of the themes I explore is leadership. To quote from the book: “To be a true leader, one must not simply be strong. One must also be selfless.”
And I can't mention one of my books without talking about the main characters. Nelay doesn't start off as this weak, timid little thing being oppressed. She's poised to become the most powerful woman in her kingdom. But as with most of those in power, she lacks empathy.
Rycus knows who he is and what he wants, but unlike Nelay, he is also willing to sacrifice for those he loves. And Rycus loves Nelay "as the sun loves the sky."
I also want to announce that I've written a prequel for Summer Queen, entitled, Of Fire and Ash. It's with my editors now and will be published as soon as it's finished. You can find both on Goodreads here and here. I hope you're as excited for the next installment in the Fairy Queen Series as I am.
Feel free to copy and paste this blog post, or snag the elements you want and make your own.
It's my birthday! So naturally, I have a present for you
Thursday, February 7, 2013
The first five pages of Winter Queen.
*feel free to share these pages
1. Clan Mistress
Ilyenna’s horse danced nervously beneath her, the animal’s hooves clicking against the snow-covered stones that coated the land like dragon eggs. Reaching down, she patted her mare’s golden neck. “Easy, Myst. What’s the matter, girl?”
“There.” Her father pointed at the base of a forested hillock not fifty paces beyond the road. Ilyenna saw the shadowed form of a large animal.
Bratton soundlessly pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it. “Bear?” He directed the question at their father.
The word stirred currents of tension in Ilyenna’s body. The cold stung her cheeks and formed a vapor no matter how shallowly she breathed. As she glanced up and down the road, her hand gripped the knife belted around her bulky wool coat.
“I think it’s a horse,” Bratton finally said.
Ilyenna eased her mare forward for a better look. It was a horse—a bay. “Then where is his rider—” The words died in her throat when she spotted a motionless gray lump at the horse’s feet. Without thought, she rammed her heels into her mare’s ribs.
“Stop!” her father cried at the same time Bratton called, “Ilyenna!”
But the healer in her couldn’t be denied. In three of the horse’s strides, she was in the forest. She pressed herself flush against Myst’s muscular neck. Still, larch trees managed to slap her, leaving the sharp scent of their needles in her hair and clothes. Clumps of snow shook loose from their sagging boughs, falling across her horse’s mane and into her face. Yet Ilyenna barely registered the icy shock.
The other horse shied away. Myst tossed her head and balked, but Ilyenna didn’t have time to hesitate. She jumped from the saddle, and her heavy boots sank into drifts up to her thighs. Grateful for her riding leggings, she struggled toward the man, whose face was blue with cold.
Her heavy riding skirt spread around her as she knelt beside him. Strangely, even in this frigid weather, he wore no coat. Beneath him, the white snow was stained crimson. An arrow shaft stuck out of his left side, and his mouth was coated with bloody foam.
A quick assessment revealed the arrow head had passed completely through his chest, but the shaft was still lodged inside him. Ilyenna couldn’t imagine riding in that kind of pain. Each of the horse’s strides would’ve reopened the wound and spilled more blood.
Fear rose in Ilyenna’s gut, and she wondered what had driven this man to ride himself so close to death. The lump rose higher when she recognized the knots in the stranger’s clan belt. “An Argon,” she announced as her brother and her father reined in behind her. Instantly, her mind went to the Argon clan, and her brother’s best friend, Rone.
At the mere thought of the boy from her childhood, a hundred memories came unbidden. Memories she wished to banish forever. But over the last six years, that had proven impossible. She bit the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to concentrate as she pulled her sheepskin-lined mittens from her hands and probed the man for additional wounds.
“You can’t just run off,” her brother growled as he dropped beside her. “What if his attacker was still here?”
Ilyenna kept her expression neutral. Even though she was seventeen, her brother would never see her as anything but a child—one incapable of caring for herself, let alone their clan. Thankfully, the calm sureness that always accompanied her healing steeled her voice. “He’s not breathing well. Get him on your knees.”
Despite his obvious annoyance, Bratton quickly obeyed.
“Why would an Argon appear in Shyle lands with an arrow in his side?” she murmured as she worked to stop the bleeding.
Bratton’s grip tightened around his axe hilt as his gaze probed the forest. “Only Raiders would attack the clans.”
Ilyenna suppressed a shudder at the mention of the Raiders, men who survived by pillaging and enslaving those they conquered.
“Raiders don’t come this far inland,” her father said. He handed his coat to Ilyenna, who draped it over the man. Her father pointed to the arrow that rose and fell with each of the Argon’s labored breaths. “Besides, I saw a Raider’s arrow as a boy. This isn’t one.”
“Then whose arrow is it?” Bratton asked.
Ilyenna eyed her brother carefully. There was something odd about his expression, as if he suspected more than he was saying.
Her father frowned. “It looks clan made.”
Neither Ilyenna nor Bratton had a response for that. It was an impossible thought. The Clans didn’t fight among themselves; they banded together to fight against outsiders. Pressing her ear to the injured man’s chest, she listened to a sound like the gurgling of a gentle stream. She sat back on her heels. “His lungs have filled with blood. He’s drowning.”
Even as she said it, the urge to fight against death pulled at her, though she knew all too well how useless fighting it was. All things served the Balance. Life and death were no different. Though Ilyenna’s calling was to battle for life, without death, there would be no birth.
Her father bent down and gently shook the man’s shoulder. He moaned softly before settling back to his labored breathing. The death rattle. Her father looked at her questioningly. “Should we take him to the clan house?”
She shook her head. “You know he won’t make it.”
With grim determination, her father leaned over the man and shook harder.
Had something happened to the Argons? To Rone? Ilyenna had to know. She applied pressure where the wounded man’s thumb met his palm. His lids fluttered, revealing the whites of his eyes. She pinched harder. His eyes opened wide.
“Who did this to you?” Ilyenna’s father asked.
The Argon’s gaze focused on his face. It was clear he didn’t understand.
Ilyenna brought her face so close she could smell the blood on his breath. She gently brushed his hair from his forehead. “You’re in Shyle lands.”
The man snatched her hand, his icy grip surprisingly strong. “I didn’t fail?”
Ilyenna wasn’t sure what he meant, but she shook her head anyway. “No. You didn’t fail.”
He guided her hand to his pocket. She reached inside and pulled out a piece of rolled vellum. Her hands shaking, she slid off the leather band and unrolled it. The dying man echoed the words she read, “The Tyrans attacked us during the night . . . Clan Chief Seneth sent me to call for aid.” The man seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes from rolling back. “So much dying . . .” The words strangled from his lungs with his last breath.
Death had claimed another. Somewhere, a child filled its lungs for its first squall. Ilyenna handed the vellum to her father, then closed the fallen man’s eyes and rested his hand on his axe hilt. “So passes a warrior,” she said.
“So passes an Argon,” her brother and father replied in unison.
After gently laying the man’s head back on the snow, Bratton leaned toward her father and read the note with him. A plea for aid that was written in Seneth’s own hand. It affirmed the truthfulness of the dead man’s words.
The Tyrans had attacked the Argon clan.
Bratton shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Ilyenna couldn’t understand either. Undon, the Tyran clan chief, might be renowned among the clans as a dangerous man with a short temper, but this was far beyond killing a man in a drunken brawl. This treachery made him and his Tyrans even worse than Raiders.
She studied her father and brother, like twin images in a mirror. The only real difference was their age. Both men had the clan’s typical blond hair and blue eyes. They even had the same braying laugh.
Ilyenna had inherited all of her mother’s foreignness, right down to her dark brown eyes and black hair. Tears pricked the back of her throat. Her mother—the other half of her mirror—was dead, and it was her fault.
Her father gently retrieved his coat, then hauled himself into his saddle. Bratton wasn’t far behind.
“Hurry, Ilyenna. We’re near the border. It’s not safe.”
She heard the warning in her father’s words. If the Argons had been attacked, the Shyle could be next. Even now, the killers could be close. But her eyes stayed fastened to the dead man. One death, one moment, and the peace of decades had been shattered. “We should take his body.”
“We’ll come back if we can,” her father said sternly.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her father was right. But the man had died trying to find help. He deserved better than for the wolves to pick him apart. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed, hoping his ghost would hear and understand, that he wouldn’t come for revenge against her family for this insult.
“Ilyenna!” Bratton snarled.
She turned and shoved her foot into the stirrup, then pulled herself into the saddle. Myst pranced impatiently. Ilyenna leaned low over the mare’s neck to shield herself from the wind that whipped away warmth and breath.
This deep into winter, the only passable path was an ancient, snow-packed road that cut through the heart of the Shyle and led to their village in the center of the valley. They galloped along, only pausing to maneuver through herds of sheep—their dense wool proof of the high mountain’s harsh winters—or to send other men off to warn people living deeper in the canyons and along the mountain bases.
Why had the Tyrans attacked the Argons? Ilyenna thought again. What if Rone was already dead? She’d hardly seen more than a passing glance of him in years, but for some reason she feared his death the most. Other Argon faces flashed in her mind—people she’d met over years of feast days and hunts. A growing sense of fear settled over her like a cold, wet blanket.
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