Happy New Year and GHOST IN THE RING preview

Happy New Year!

To celebrate the New Year, I’ve got two preview scenes from GHOST IN THE RING, the first book of the new GHOST NIGHT series, which will come out in mid-2017.

The first scene:

He had heard the rumors about Caina Amalas, of course, the stories about the Balarigar and the Umbarians and Istarinmul, but he knew such stories were always exaggerated in the telling.

So he was not sure what to expect when he met the woman in the flesh.

Perhaps she would be a scowling broad-shouldered ox of a woman, the sort of woman who would be mistaken for a man at the first or even third glance. Certainly, that fit some of the tales about the terrible bloodthirsty Balarigar. Or maybe she would be a woman of stunning beauty, capable of beguiling the men around her into doing whatever she wished.

To his mild surprise, she was neither.

Caina Amalas was a young woman of average height and lean build. She was pretty, certainly, but her mouth was too thin and her features too sharp for her to be exceptionally beautiful. Frankly, he could not decide if she looked like a Szaldic peasant girl or a Nighmarian noblewoman, but certainly, she had the eyes of a noblewoman. They were large and blue and very, very cold, and did not blink as she met his gaze.

That was the first indication that there might be something odd about her. Few people could meet his gaze any longer. Most of his own men could no longer do it.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“How old were you,” said Caina in High Nighmarian at last, “when you killed your father?”

He blinked in surprise, a little flicker of alarm going through him.

Perhaps some of those rumors were true.

The second scene:

“This is not your country. These are not your people. You have no business here.” The nobleman leaned forward, a glimmer of yellow fire in his eyes. “Go home with your lives while I still permit it, and never return.”

Caina stared at him without blinking, and for a first time, a glimmer of doubt went over his face.

“You’re right,” she said. “This is not my country, and these are not my people. But I promise you one thing. If you lay a finger upon that girl, I shall give to you what I do best.”

The nobleman sneered. “And what is that?”

Caina smiled. “Ruin.”

Finally, I quoted this bit from MASK OF DRAGONS at the start of 2016, and it certainly was an excellent preview of the year!