Seize Your Magic…

 

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Taste of Images: Janat’s Bargain | Rebel Camp | Artist Response: Adria Laycraft | The Escape | The Cost

To hide truth. To flee the past. To redeem love.

 

Unrest is in the land; war is brewing. Ghosts gather, lured by death.

Highborn magiel Rennika Falkyn cannot let herself be drawn into this war, this insidious politics between kings, this heedless exploitation by her sisters. She has created a life with her husband and children in order to hide her shameful past, and she vows to protect it with all her being.

But when Rennika’s rebel sister Meg—deprived of her spellcasting ability—appears in search of help, Rennika fears for the safety of her secrets. Afraid of blackmail, she succumbs to Meg’s plea to track down a mysterious child, and is drawn into a labyrinth of inky caverns and magically-induced glimpses of her future. A future where her husband’s love for her is shaken by the revelation of who Rennika truly is; where Janat must choose between sobriety and the life of her child; and where Meg must come to grips with what it means to live a life as a magiel without magic.

Gathering of Ghosts completes the epic tale of three sisters and their continuing family saga of addictions, survival, revenge, and redemption in an empire where magic is enslaved. Is their family bond strong enough to overcome past deceit and betrayal? To stop a king obsessed with subjugating seven realms in his drive to vanquish his family’s curse? And can Rennika overcome the stigma of her past crimes, and be redeemed at last, by love?

PUBLISHERS LUNCH BUZZ BOOKS 2019 SELECTION

Meet Susan Forest

Susan Forest writes science fiction, fantasy and horror, and is the author of Aurora Award-winning Bursts of Fire (2019) and Flights of Marigold (2020).

Susan’s short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science FictionAnalog Science Fiction and Fact, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and OnSPEC Magazine, among others. Her collection of short fiction, Immunity to Strange Tales, was published by Five Rivers Press, and her nonfiction has appeared in Legacy Magazine, Alberta Views Magazine, and several blogs. Her short stories, “The Only Road,” “Back,” “Turning It Off,” “The Gift,” and “For a Rich Man to Enter” were finalists for the Prix Aurora Award, and her novella, Lucy, won the Galaxy Project, juried by Robert Silverberg, David Drake and Barry Malzburg.

The third novel of her seven-volume Addicted to Heaven series, Gathering of Ghosts, confronts issues of addictions in an epic fantasy world of intrigue and betrayal. She is currently working on Book 4 of the series, Rivers of Ivy, and an Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Calgary Arts Development-funded fantasy thriller, The Shadow Spy’s Daughter.

Susan was the editor for Technicolor Ultramall (Edge Press), a finalist for the Prix Aurora Award in 2013. Strangers Among Us, and The Sum of Us, both from Laksa Media, won the Prix Aurora Award in 2017 and 2018. The third in Laksa Media’s social issues anthology series, Shades Within Us, was released in 2018 and was a finalist for the 2019 Prix Aurora Award. Seasons Between Us  was a finalist for 2022, and Life Beyond Us (also from Laksa Media and the European Astrobiological Association) arrived in 2023. Susan was recently Editor Guest of Honor at Keycon in Winnipeg.

Susan served two terms as Secretary for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (2012-2016). She has judged the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, the Endeavor Award, and the Sunburst Award. She contributes to Calgary’s literary festival, When Words Collide, teaches creative writing in Calgary, and presents at international writing conventions several times each year. Susan loves travel and has been known to dictate novels from the back of her husband’s motorcycle.

Susan is a painter and visual artist whose landscapes have been displayed as part of the Stampede Western Showcase in Calgary, Alberta.

Susan’s work is supported by grants from Calgary Arts Development and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Works In Progress

Rivers of Ivy

Book Four of the Addicted to Heaven Series
Due out in 2024


The Shadow Spy’s Wife

Alberta Foundation for the Arts-funded fantasy thriller set during the Dieppe Raid (1942) during World War Two
Ask about Susan’s research trip to the battlefields of France!


The Shadow Spy’s Daughter

Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Calgary Arts Development-funded fantasy thriller set in Lyon during  1944, in World War Two
Ask about Susan’s research trip to the resistance museums of Lyon!


Unbitten

Alternate history set in 1635 during the triangular slave trade.