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Here’s a sneak peak of Shadow and Thorn, book four of The Andari Chronicles:

Prologue

Darkness was her world. Darkness and silence.

There was nothing and no one to break the silence, for she was alone, and when she was alone, she had neither ears nor voice.

So deep was the darkness, that she had begun to wonder if there had ever been anything else.

From time to time a whisper would find her from outside her formless cocoon, but the whispers could neither break her nor free her, so she slipped further and further into the void, further and further from memory and thought and caring.

At last, she slept, and she forgot that sleep was another word for danger. Even if she had remembered, the memory would have done her no good, for she fell ever deeper into oblivion—so deep that, had she been alive, she might have been said to be dying.

It was the light that woke her. Called to her. Read More

Here’s a sneak peak of Pirouette, book three of The Andari Chronicles:

Prologue

Princess Ilani Rohin Adayan could not sit still.

She was distracted during breakfast, and barely touched her favorite fried flatcakes. She fidgeted through being dressed, and had to be scolded when her dancing sashes kept coming unpinned. She squirmed while her hair was brushed and braided, and nearly spilled the tray of pearls waiting to be woven into her silky dark locks. She bounced impatiently in her seat while her shoes were being put on and broke three of the gauzy golden ribbons that wrapped around her ankles.

Panya fussed, Mazri scolded, and Ilani paid no attention whatsoever. It was the day she had been looking forward to for months—her birthday. She was seven years old. She was her father’s seventh daughter. And today she was to dance for him.

She had danced since she was old enough to toddle unevenly across the pavilion and cry disconsolately for music. Her sisters, all twelve of them, had done the same. Old Panya, who had wet-nursed the eldest, and had been there for each of the princesses’ births, claimed that Varinda had danced before she walked, and that Dariya had three times danced in her sleep. Ilani believed her. They were Caelani and therefore they danced. Read More

Here’s a sneak peak of Goldheart, book two of The Andari Chronicles:

Prologue

Torbert Melling was a man who knew how to get what he wanted.  And, since before he was old enough to speak in sentences, he had never failed to do so.  Whether by asking, or simply by taking, he satisfied his own desires and built a magnificent kingdom out of money and ambition until it matched the size and scope of his dreams.  And then, when he finally met the woman who fit the picture he had painted for himself, he bought her, body and soul, and enthroned her in the house he had designed with her beauty in mind.

She reigned there, the acknowledged queen of Lansbridge society, for nearly thirty years.  And though she was as cold and remote as her icy beauty might suggest, she gave him the son that her duty required and accompanied him in public whenever he demanded it.

And he, in turn, worshipped her, for Torbert Melling was a banker, and knew better than anyone the value of treasure.  So he kept her well and he brought her tribute and did not understand when she told him, one late summer day, that she was dying. Read More

Here’s a sneak peak of Traitor’s Masque, book one of The Andari Chronicles:

Prologue

No expense was spared, at least not where anyone could see. Black velvet shrouded the gold-inlaid casket, cloaked the silent forms of the pallbearers, and muffled the hooves of the matched sable cobs that drew the funeral caisson. Despite the cold of winter, crimson roses fell in a blanket over the coffin’s lid, strewed the cobblestones with their petals, and nestled fashionably in the arms of the grieving family.

The wake had been lavish and well attended, more out of curiosity and avarice than fond memory. Lord Percival Colbourne had begun with money and ended with more, well on the way to realizing his dream of building a merchant empire. Though his fortunes had suffered of late from the political climate, he had remained both a prominent figure in commerce and a notably doting father until the last moments of his regrettably shortened life. But when the usually hale Lord Percival succumbed suddenly to ague, he left behind far more of interest to the world than he took from it. Four unprotected women were his legacy, women now in mourning, but all with a potential share in the wealth and prospects of a rich and influential man. Read More