The Jack of Souls
by Stephen Merlino
Genre:
Fantasy / YA Fantasy
Publisher:
Tortoise Rampant Books
Publication Date: December 12, 2014
Synopsis:
Harric is an
outcast rogue who must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his nineteenth
birthday. To survive, he’ll need more than his usual tricks. He’ll need help.
But on the kingdom’s lawless frontier, his only allies are other
outcasts.
One of these is Caris, a mysterious,
horse-whispering runaway, intent upon becoming the Queen’s first female knight.
The other is Sir Willard—ex-immortal, ex-champion, now addicted to pain-killing
herbs and banished from court.
With their help, Harric might keep his curse at
bay. But for how long?
And his companions bring troubles of their own:
Caris bears the scars of a dark past that still hunts her; Willard is at war
with the Old Ones, an order of insane immortal knights who once enslaved the
kingdom.
Together, they must overcome fanatical armies,
murderous sorcerers, and powerful supernatural foes.
Alone, Harric must face the temptation of
forbidden magic that could break his curse, but cost him the only woman he’s
ever loved.
“The first volume in Stephen Merlino's 'The Unseen Moon'
series, "The Jack of Souls" is a terrific read from beginning to end
and clearly establishes Merlino as a master of the fantasy action/adventure
genre. Highly recommended for community library Science Fiction & Fantasy
collections…” - Midwest Book Review
Author Bio:
Stephen Merlino lives in Seattle, WA, where he
writes, plays, and teaches high school English. He lives with the world's most
talented and desirable woman, two fabulous children, and three attack chickens.
Growing up in Seattle drove Stephen indoors for
eight months of the year. Before the age of video games, that meant he read a
lot. At the age of eleven he discovered the stories of J.R.R. Tolkein and fell
in love with fantasy.
Summers and rare sunny days he spent with friends
in wooded ravines or on the beaches of Puget Sound, building worlds in the
sand, and fighting orcs and wizards with driftwood swords.
About the time a fifth reading of The Lord of the
Rings failed to deliver the old magic, Stephen attended the University of
Washington and fell in love with Chaucer and Shakespeare and all things
English.
Sadly, the closest he got to England back then
was The Unicorn Pub on University Way, which wasn't even run by an Englishman:
it was run by a Scot named Angus. Still, he studied there, and as he sampled
Angus's weird ales, and devoured the Unicorn's steak & kidney pie (with
real offal!), he developed a passion for Scotland, too.
In college, he fell in love with writing, and
when a kindly professor said of a story he'd written, "You should get that
published!" Stephen took the encouragement literally, and spent the next
years trying. The story remains unpublished, but the quest to develop it
introduced Stephen to the world of agents (the story ultimately had two), and
taught him much of craft and the value of what Jay Lake would call,
"psychotic persistence."
Add to that his abiding love of nerds--those who,
as Sarah Vowel defines it, "go too far and care too much about a
subject"--and you have Stephen Merlino in a nutshell.
Stephen is the 2014 PNWA winner for Fantasy.
He is also the 2014 SWW winner for Fantasy.
His novel, The Jack of Souls is in its fourth
month in the top ten on Amazon’s Children’s Fantasy Sword & Sorcery Best
Seller list, and among the top three in Coming-of-Age.
Twitter: (@stephenmerlino)
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