NEW RELEASE! CHRYSANTHEMUM SEAL IS OUT!

The files are uploaded, verified and approved. The Chrysanthemum Seal is out now!

It’s the middle of summer in the Year of the Dragon. The hunt for the Crimson Robe may be over, but the adventure continues…

With Bran seemingly gone from Yamato forever, his friends settle in their new lives, their common adventures a distant memory. Sato enrolls in Lord Nariakira’s school of wizardry, while Nagomi joins her father’s medical practice in far-away Nagoya.

But the revolution, once started, cannot be stopped. The foreign threat finally comes to Yamato’s doorstep. A Varyagan submarine drops anchor in Kiyo harbour. A Bataavian warship arrives at Kagoshima, carrying Dylan ab Ifor, Gwen and Wulfhere. In Shimoda, the Black Wings supply fleet brings with it a curious, unwanted guest…

If you haven’t yet read any of the books in “The Year of the Dragon” cycle, you should start from The Shadow of Black Wings:

It is the Sixteenth Year of Queen Victoria. In the powerful empire of Dracaland, Bran, a young dragon rider, joins his father on a military expedition to the mysterious lands of the Orient. In the reclusive Yamato, Sato, a tomboy samurai girl, strives to prove her right to inherit her father’s school of western magic. Nagomi, a timid shrine apprentice, is haunted by the visions of dark future she must keep secret even from her best friend.

They don’t know it yet, but their paths will cross… And when they do, nothing will ever be the same again.

Welcome to The Shadow of Black Wings, a steam-powered romp across the land of dragons, wizards and samurai. It’s big, it’s fast, it’s been compared to Tolkien in terms of world-building, it has strong female characters and lots of carefully researched detail. You will meet the Royal Marines sailing mighty ironclads and Chinese walking machines; mysterious warlords and crazy inventors; you will discover dark prophecies, family secrets and blood-thirsty demons. And all that in just the first volume!

Or if you don’t want to read the books piece-meal, dive straight in and splash out on the bundle of the first four volumes – this will bring you right up to date with the events leading up to the Chrysanthemum Seal!

This is a bundle edition of the first four books of the best-selling historical fantasy saga, containing the entire Crimson Robe arc:

Book 1: The Shadow of Black Wings
Book 2: The Warrior’s Soul
Book 3: The Islands in the Mist
Book 4: The Rising Tide

The deluxe edition contains also a short story “Birkenhead Drill”, a full glossary of foreign words, list of characters, the map of the land of Gwynedd and a chronology of the world.

Nook:

Nook

Paperback:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes&Noble | Book Depository

Oh, and here’s a little something to while away the time when the books download to your respective e-readers:
2048: The Year of the Dragon Edition!

The Paperbacks :)

I got the proof copies of “The Rising Tide” and “The Year of the Dragon” bundle today from CreateSpace. That means the paperbacks are now available on Amazon.

I only really create these paperbacks for the fun of it, and to have physical things as giveaways and gifts. The profits from POD are meagre: a little more than a dollar per copy, despite the price. Still, it’s nice to have a physical object to represent two and a half years of hard work. At 820 pages, the book weighs 3 pounds and is almost 2 inches thick. It’s definitely a THING. I have created a THING.

The Rising Tide paperback looks nice too, of course 🙂 It all grew to a pretty substantial bookshelf, with four small books and one huge one. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m back to writing – time to create some more THINGS 🙂

PS: The Year of the Dragon bundle contains a new map, unavailable in other editions: the Map of Gwynedd.

Yaldā Advent Calendar 2012 – Day 14 – Shadow of Black Wings FREE

Today, last Friday before Yalda, I have the most straight-forward gift to give so far:

A free copy of “The Shadow of Black Wings” – FOR EVERYONE!

That’s right, I’m on the KDP Select bandwagon again. For a while. And there are so many new market opportunities! You can now get my books on Kindle if you’re in Canada, or Brazil, or Japan, or – soon – China. Amazon is almost everywhere these days.

So click on any of the links below, to get the free copy, if you haven’t read it yet – or gift it to someone you know who’d like it 🙂

The Shadow of Black Wings
(The Year of the Dragon #1)

Top 10 Bestseller in Alternate History Amazon US

ebook ISBN: 978-83-935529-0-0 ASIN: B008FS5RPC
Published: June 2012 by Flying Squid
paperback ISBN-13: 978-83-935529-1-7
ISBN-10: 8393552915
Published: July 2012 by Flying Squid

It is the sixteenth year of Queen Victoria’s enlightened rule and the world trembles before the might of her ironclad navy and the dreaded Dragon Corps. The largest ship ever built sails from the Brigstow Harbour on a journey to the mysterious lands of Orient. Its load – a regiment of the Royal Marines and one Bran ap Dylan – freshly graduate in Dracology at the Llambed Academy of Mystic Arts.

In the empire of Yamato, sealed from the rest of the world for the last two centuries, a wizard’s daughter Sato witnesses her father joining an anti-government conspiracy. Her friend Nagomi, training to be a priestess, is haunted by dark visions that she must keep secret. Neither of them is aware that a change is coming to Yamato… on the wings of a dragon.

A detailed and fast-paced historical fantasy based around the turbulent opening of Japan to the West in the middle of the 19th century, “The Shadow of the Black Wings” is the first volume in “The Year of the Dragon” saga.

The Shadow of Black Wings (The Year of the Dragon #1)

The Shadow of Black Wings
(The Year of the Dragon #1)