Welcome to Peacewrites, everyone! From April 21 until May 2 2014 I am promoting the latest book in my Artesans series. The Challenge is the fourth Artesans book, and it is also the first book of the Circle of Conspiracy trilogy. 

Read on for the back cover copy, and don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY

 at the bottom of this post!

Friend against friend, lover against lover, ally against ally. Conflict is coming …

Nine months have passed since Brynne Sullyan helped forge an alliance between the realms of Albia and Andaryon. A fragile peace reigns as both sides recover from the events of the previous year. Then mysterious raiders strike Andaryon villages. Attempts are made on the life of Albia’s High King. As Sullyan scrambles to find those responsible, unseen enemies threaten to pull apart everything she has worked for, including her marriage.

The alliance begins to crumble, and Sullyan finds herself caught between two monarchs: the king she’s sworn allegiance to, and the man she loves as a father. To betray either one would break her heart, but if conflict is inevitable, she must make a choice …

Now read what acclaimed fantasy, sci-fi, and non-fiction author Janet Morris has to say about the Artesans of Albia series:

Cas Peace's Artesans of Albia trilogy immediately sweeps you away:  the drama starts with King's Envoy, continues unabated in King's Champion, and climaxes in King's Artesan, yet each volume is complete, satisfying.  The Artesan series  propels you into a world so deftly written that you see, feel, touch, and even smell each twist and turn. These nesting novels are evocative, hauntingly real.  Smart.  Powerful.  Compelling.  The trilogy teems with finely drawn characters, heroes and villains and societies worth knowing; with stories so organic and yet iconic you know you've found another home—in Albia.

Now there's a fourth book on Albia's horizon:  The Challenge, also Book One in Peace's forthcoming sub-series, the Circle of Conspiracy trilogy, proof of more Albian tales on the way.  So start reading now.  I, for one, can't wait to find out what will happen next.

Janet Morris: The Sacred Band of Stepsons; the Dream Dancer series; I, the Sun; Outpassage.

    

            

 

Here’s where to find all four Artesan books:

US Print:

King’s Envoy: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Envoy-Artesans-Albia-1/dp/1939993253/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331115&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+envoy

King’s Champion: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Champion-Artesans-Albia-Volume/dp/1939993261/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

King’s Artesan: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Artesan-Artesans-Albia-3/dp/193999327X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331281&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+artesan+cas+peace

The Challenge: http://www.amazon.com/The-Challenge-Circle-Conspiracy-Volume/dp/1939993318/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331356&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=the+challenge+cas+peace

US Kindle:

King’s Envoy: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Envoy-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXRW4I/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331410&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+envoy+cas+peace

King’s Champion: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Champion-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXS472/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331456&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+champion+cas+peace

King’s Artesan: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Artesan-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXSB0M/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398333891&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+artesan+cas+peace

The Challenge: http://www.amazon.com/Challenge-Artesans-Circle-Conspiracy-trilogy-ebook/dp/B00JSTEBX6/ref=sr_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331501&sr=1-2&keywords=the+challenge+cas+peace

UK Print:

King’s Envoy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Envoy-1-Artesans-Albia/dp/1939993253/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331556&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+envoy+cas+peace

King’s Champion: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Champion-2-Artesans-Albia/dp/1939993261/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1398331629&sr=1-1

King’s Artesan: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Artesan-3-Artesans-Albia/dp/193999327X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

The Challenge: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Challenge-1-Circle-Conspiracy/dp/1939993318/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331752&sr=1-1&keywords=the+challenge+cas+peace

UK Kindle:

King’s Envoy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Envoy-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXRW4I/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331556&sr=1-1&keywords=kings+envoy+cas+peace

King’s Champion: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Champion-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXS472/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1398331629&sr=1-1

King’s Artesan: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Artesan-Artesans-Albia-Peace-ebook/dp/B00FLXSB0M/ref=pd_sim_kinc_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=08DBFMSGRWK6K5V668H6

The Challenge: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Challenge-Artesans-Circle-Conspiracy-trilogy-ebook/dp/B00JSTEBX6/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398331784&sr=1-2&keywords=the+challenge+cas+peace

Now Enter The Challenge Giveaway to win some way cool Prizes! There will be one

 FIRST PRIZE WINNER, and TWO RUNNERS-UP!

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WordPress users please copy and paste this link:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/f0acc33/

I'm very excited today to have author Janet Morris on my blog talking about the events in her life that enabled her to get inside the hearts and minds of her heroes. Janet and Chris Morris contributed the short story "Black Sword" to the Nine Heroes anthology recently published by Stencil Press. I was privileged to be copy-editor on this work and so I know how brilliant the collection is.
Read Janet's post and then follow the link below to get your copy of Nine Heroes!

In the anthology Nine Heroes, Chris Morris and I introduce our hero, Rhesos of Thrace, who was killed by Diomedes at Troy and resurrected by his mother, the Muse Kalliope.  When we meet Rhesos, he’s hazy about the circumstances surrounding his death and resurrection, but he knows what he is:  a hero of mythological proportions.  And so he begins a journey to reclaim his memories, his past, and revenge some wrongs done him.

To write heroic fiction, fantasy, or mythic tales, you must feel the hero in your blood, hear the call in your heart.  These were the moments that started me on the hero’s journey:

I was three years old, and female, playing with three or four older children, all boys, on our street.  The fattest, biggest boy punched me in the stomach, and he and his friends dragged me into a garage and locked me in a closet there.  I screamed until, somehow, my parent’s handyman heard and rescued me.  I can still remember those big black arms, enfolding me, picking me up, and my head against his shoulder, looking back at the horrified boys.  My parents questioned me, and did the rest.  I never knew what happened, beyond the fact that those four boys never troubled me again.

I was four years old, playing in a mud puddle, and the dalmation who lived down at the end of our street charged me and bit me.  The family story goes that I threw myself on his back and bit him in the neck.

I was six years old, in the first grade, and was made teacher’s helped because I could already read and write.  I was assigned to help a slow-witted boy learn how to write his name but instead of listening, he crumpled up his paper, grabbed the crayon from my hand, and ate it.  I called him “stupid” aloud, and I was then taken to the principal’s office for telling the truth.

I was nine years old, and had been saving for two years to buy a horse by writing book reports, for which I received 25 cents per report – if my mother approved each report as proving I had actually read the subject book.  When I had saved $175.00, we found a horse for me.  He ran away with me every day, whenever I turned his head back toward the barn.  I couldn’t tell my parents, or they would have taken him away from me.  Finally the old man who ran the barn, tired of seeing that horse run me into the barn at hell’s own page, told me:  “Swing your leg over, as if you want to dismount, honey.  He’s a cow horse.  He’ll stop.”  So I learned to face a danger no words can express, and to take even more dangerous action for a desired result.  I’d swing my right leg over, hanging on for dear life, and my horses would stop – every time.

I was ten years old, and my parents came to the barn and insisted that my fifty-pound, seven year old sister be allowed to ride my horse.  I knew what was going to happen, as soon as she turned the corner in the paddock that led toward the barn.  Sure enough, my horse Koko broke into a run, my sister bounced precariously, my mother screamed, and I stepped out in front of my horse, arms and legs spread wide.  He stopped; my sister wasn’t killed, and my father said I could still keep the horse, since I had warned them not to let her ride him and risked my life to save my sister.

At ten in the paddock with both my parents watching, I heard the hero’s call to duty on that day.  Later I would realize that among humankind is a caretaker class, who will do what is needed, despite the risk, and that I was among that class.  Then, I knew from all my reading of mythology books that I was indomitable, and from horse books that no horse would ever hurt me and that, to a horse, a girl is just as good, as brave, as strong as a boy, and so I found my way down that path through life, from challenge to challenge.  Even by that age, the heroic model from mythology was so much a part of me that never again, after that first awful day, would a gang of boys lock me in a closet so that I had to find another to rescue me.  I would be that other, the hero, not the victim – as often as I could manage it.

http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Heroes-Tales-Heroic-Fantasy-ebook/dp/B00IMPCYQ8/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395545221&sr=1-4&keywords=Walter+Rhein