GHOST IN THE ASHES now available
I am very pleased to report that GHOST IN THE ASHES is now available at Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, and Smashwords.
It’s also available in trade paperback here, if you prefer print books.
Click here to read the first chapter.
What’s the book about? It continues the adventures of Caina Amalas, a nightfighter of the Ghosts, meaning she is essentially a spy and an agent of the Emperor of Nighmar. This is the seventh book, which means Caina has lots of old enemies now – but there’s always the opportunity to acquire new ones.
The official book description:
Caina Amalas is a Ghost nightfighter, one of the elite agents of the Emperor of Nighmar, and she has defeated both corrupt lords and mighty sorcerers.
As the Padishah of Istarinmul prepares to make peace with the Emperor, the Ghosts must keep the Padishah’s ambassador safe from assassins.
But when an escaped slave begs for Caina’s help, she finds dark plots stirring in the shadows.
Plots that threaten to devour the Empire and unleash terrible horrors.
-JM
UPDATE: Note that the comment thread for this post will contain SPOILERS.
Bought, read, and liked the book. I did have a couple of questions about some potential plot holes (and one or two typos that I noticed) but I am unsure where and if I should ask them. Is it all right to ask them in one of these posts or would I need some massive spoiler alert indications?
Sure, ask ’em here – I’ll mark the comment as spoilers.
All right.
I noticed 2 typos and a sentence without a direct object but overall the formatting was great. Unfortunately I only remember one of them.
Page 622, “It really improved the look of the rom.” Unless a rom is a type of room, I’m assuming that was a tiny typo.
All right, spoilers ahead.
Question 1:
Alchemists can evidently detect magic. This is evidenced in Chapter 14 when Sinan thinks that Caina is a sorceress as she possesses one of the blood compasses. Assuming that Sinan made the blood compasses for the Kindred to track Mahdriva, is he unable to detect his own magic? It niggled at me a little bit, but it can be explained away if a magic user (or just Sinan) can’t recognize the spell-caster who created a magical item.
Question 2:
Did the Padishah really want peace or did he want war? Supposedly the Bostaji were sent after Tanzir by the Padishah in order for him to die and the war to continue. Yet, after Tanzir gets back he gives Tanzer the use of the Immortals to apprehend the rest of his family. I can understand this if he realized it didn’t help him at all if Tanzir was killed after he returned but here is another problem. Why send Tanzir and not someone who would willingly die in order to further Istarinmul?
And reading through it yet again, I realize I am retarded. The Padishah didn’t send the Bostaji the Shahenshah did…sorry about that.
Question 1:
Sinan did detect his own spell, which made him realize that Mahdriva was likely in the Lord Ambassador’s residence. At that moment he decided to sacrifice both the Bostaji and the Kindred to distract the Ghosts, and then use the Immortals under his control to storm the mansion and take Mahdriva by force. The “Caina is a sorceress” thing was merely the first excuse that came to mind to allow him to abandon his confrontation with Halfdan and put his new plan into motion. Sinan thought about forcing the issue then and there, but decided it was too risky.
Question 2:
It is kind of a complicated chain of logic, but it went like this:
1.) The Padishah of Istarinmul wants peace, and he knows Tanzir is sort of a pushover. So he sends Tanzir to negotiate peace with the Emperor.
2.) Tanzir’s mother Ashria wants the war to continue to discomfort her noble rivals.
3.) Ashria is related to the Shahenshah of Anshan, and the Shahenshah wants the war to continue, so the Shahenshah loans his personal assassins, the Bostaji, to Ashria.
4.) Ashria sends her trusted ally Sinan to make sure Tanzir is killed in Malarae and the blame passed to the Emperor.
5.) Nalazar fails to capture Mahdriva in Istarinmul, and Mahdriva flees north with her father. Sinan makes the blood compass from the blood of Mahdriva’s sisters, and realizes that Mahdriva has gone to Malarae.
6.) Sinan goes to Malarae with the embassy, fulling intending to kill Tanzir, but much more interested in taking Mahdriva alive.
I do admit that the fact that the Padishah of Istarinmul and the Shahenshah of Anshan have similar-sounding titles is unfortunate. I based Anshan off Sassasnid Persia, and “Shahenshah” was one of the titles the old Sassasnid kings claimed. Likewise, “Padishah” was another of those titles, and Istarinmul sees itself as a rival to Anshan, so the ruler of Istarinmul calls himself the Padishah in imitation of the Shahenshah.
Hope that clears things up! 🙂
-JM
For some reason, I am not seeing a reply button below your post…
Thanks for clearing that up, I figured that Sinan wanted to disengage but I was picking up that he genuinely thought that there was a hostile magic user nearby.
As for question two, that clears up my questions perfectly. I apologize as well, I didn’t realize that the Padishah and the Shahenshah were from Istarinmul and Anshan respectively. I thought that they were both high ranking leaders in Istarinmul.
“As for question two, that clears up my questions perfectly. I apologize as well”
Oh, no worries. THE GHOSTS has developed a complicated setting, and I have GOT to draw a map one of these days. 🙂
the links seem to point to ghost claws rather then ghost in the ashes.
Fixed. Thanks for catching that!
That a you working on now
I am working on the rough draft of FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT.