Beyond The Burning Lands

Includes excerpt from the author's The Sword of the Spirits.

After his father's death Luke lives with the Seers in the Sanctuary waiting for the time he will be able to take his rightful place as Prince of Winchester. Sequel to The Prince in Waiting.

In a hidden desert sanctuary, the sorcerer-priest of a reborn faith uncovers dark truths about his world and its masters in the first book of Victoria Strauss’s fantasy masterwork, the Way of Ârata A realm long held in the iron grasp of godless tyrants, Arsace is finally free to worship its beloved, once-outlawed deity, Ârata. But decades of cruelty and oppression have left their mark—evidenced not only by the desecrated Âratist temples throughout the holy city of Baushpar but by the widespread mistrust and suspicion that has lately fallen on the Shapers, the powerful mages whose magic is beholden to no religious or government institution. Both a Shaper and a deeply devout priest, Gyalo Amdo Samchen has embarked on a great mission into the sacred Burning Land to rescue the renegades who, years before, fled into the desert to escape the city’s madness—among them the Dreamer Axane, who dares not reveal her forbidden visions of a world beyond. But shocking truths await Gyalo in the hidden sanctuary of Refuge—and what he learns there of his quest, his land, its leaders, and its faith will cause him to question everything he fervently believes while providing the terrible spark that could ignite the war to end all wars. In a magnificent feat of world building, Victoria Strauss has created a unique, vividly imagined land, society, and religious culture while spinning a riveting tale of duty, revelation, destiny, and magic that places her in the top ranks of contemporary fantasists.

When in the winter of 1692, accusations of witchcraft surface in her small New England village, twelve-year-old Mary Chase fights to save her mother from execution.

A thirteen-year-old’s expectations of royalty give way to adventure in the first book in the post-apocalyptic Sword of the Spirits trilogy from the author of The Tripods series. In Winchester, roles are clearly defined. Warriors fight battles every spring. Dwarfs make the swords and the shields. Grotesque mutants are the servant class. Seers interpret the wishes and predictions of the spirits. And the Prince is the ruler of the city. Thirteen-year-old Luke has no reason to suspect that any of this will change. It’s been this way for centuries...at least since the year 2000. But things are not what they seem, and soon Luke is thrown into a story of ambition and adventure in the primitive world of the future, expertly crafted by critically acclaimed Tripods author John Christopher.

That land out there has been burning me as long as I can remember. All these years I've been getting ready for this moment. I'm going out there to take hold of it ... Raised by struggling Scottish immigrants in the sparsely inhabited mountains of the Port Phillip District, Matthew Curtis dreams of the vast unexplored spaces of inland Australia. Defying his stern foster-father, he leaves home — and the warm, grey eyes of Catriona Simmons — at sixteen. His journey takes him first to the brawling life of the goldfields with the beautiful Janice Honeyman, then north into the burning wilderness of the unexplored outback. An engrossing historical saga in the tradition of Evan Green and Wilbur Smith, The Burning Land bursts with life and the passion and daring of Australia's pioneers.