“How could our love ever exist in this dystopia?” asked Lilypad, her voice quivering. Are those tears she’s choking on, or the Sorcerer’s betrayal? How could she ever think that she could reunite the 23 realms like her ancestors did all those centuries ago without losing all those she loved – and a piece of herself along the way?

“In you, I found my utopia,” muttered Naan, with his final breath.

…

The first book of the Coldbringer Chronicles, The Sky Cries Darkness, is a gripping tale detailing the coming-of-age of a young hero who tries to unite the continent against the armies of a mysterious sorcerer. Set against a brutal civil war in the land of New Garagedor, angsty teen Lilypad aims to eliminate the oppressive tyrant who killed her father. What she doesn’t know is that the sorcerer who helps her on her path will soon betray her due to his allegiance to the Dark Lord, Chorizord. She also doesn’t know that Mpalevelo the Magic is the man who betrayed her father, and is also her real father, having passed his magical abilities on to his daughter, unbeknownst to her.

Young Lilypad, a scavenger and smuggler from the mining community in the hills of Darkland who was orphaned at the age of four when her father, the King of the 23 Districts, was murdered in front of her by a member of his own Large Council, is a brave and adventurous protagonist in the mould of Bilbo Baggins, half of George R. R. Martin’s Stark family, and Ron Weasley, who pursued Hermione despite his obvious shortcoming, being a ginger.

Author M.M.O. Arpeeji, the veteran fantasy/sci-fi writer who brought us such classics as Afternoon and Wolves Do Cry, shocks and stuns with an incredible return to form after his epic flop, The Famine Fights. The debut novel in the Coldbringer Chronicles is an incredible tour de force which navigates difficult and uncommon themes such as companionship, love, and interspecies racism. Arpeeji draws inspiration from Germanic mythology and folklore, injecting a fresh new take into the classic fantasy genre.

“Never before has mythology played such a role in fantasy,” wrote Cannon book critic I. Kant-Reed in their critique of the novel.

Pick up the first book of the Coldbringer Chronicles this week at your local bookstore in the fantasy aisle, or download it on your tablet today!

May the infinite light of Kwayzahr’s three-and-a-half suns warm your soul and light your path, wayward adventurer.