Something Wicked Presents: The Bow of Hart Saga

Hi, Gang. My Story Empire compatriots are taking our show on the road this week. We try to bring you useful information throughout the year to help with your own writing and publishing efforts.

We write books, too, and sometimes need to do a bit of promo. During this lead up to Halloween, please join us on the Something Wicked tour. You’re sure to find something for your Halloween reading.

It’s my pleasure to open this tour up with P. H. Solomon. He’s here to tell us about his Bow of Hart Saga:

Magic is an ongoing part of The Bow of Hart Saga and Corgren’s part is almost always through the use of spells. At the beginning, it’s revealed how much he’s been shadowing Athson and much more that extends throughout the series and into the third book, The White Arrow. But when the book begins, Corgren is revealed disguised by magic which makes for a good subject for Halloween since he’s essentially in costume. Let’s take a look:

 

Darkness groped across the western sky, covering the forest city of Auguron. Domikyas paused while closing his shop doors and listened as the evening breeze caressed the towering trees that sheltered the city.

He clenched a fist. They had robbed him of Lucinda.

The portly Rokan merchant barred the windows, sighed, and waddled through the store. Domikyas passed between aisles of Rokan weapons, furs, cloth, and trinkets, his many wares displayed on counters, and entered his office. He stood by his desk, arranged in neat order and set with carved Rokan relief. The merchant shut the door. “Sa vuss tai nomish.”

Domikyas’ short body grew. His pot-belly thinned. The pudgy, clean-shaven face narrowed and lengthened, sprouting a trimmed, black beard at his chin. Bulging eyes sank above a flat nose that pushed forward into a hook, leaving him with a perpetual sneer. His yellow merchant’s smock of fine-cut Rokan weave lengthened and narrowed to fit the taller frame and transformed into blue velvet.

He opened the door to the warehouse, grasped his oil lamp and found, as expected, two men remaining in the building from among his dismissed followers. Luthan stood snuffing through his crooked nose, his brow furrowed at the stinking slave stooping beside him. The latter man wore a cloth tied over ruined eyes while another rag gagged him.

“Is he ready, Luthan?” The Rokan merchant swept past the hulking guard. The blind man’s nostrils flared with his labored breathing.

“He is, Master Corgren.” Luthan yanked the shackles binding the blind man’s hands.

“Bring him.” Corgren stalked away.

“Come, slave.” The guard dragged the cringing figure by the manacles and followed his master.

The blind man shuffled after the guard. Corgren ignored the reluctant step of the slave. A useful ingredient for what was to come, but worthless elsewise. His lips curled. Disgusting creature.

Corgren lifted the trapdoor leading to the cellar. Muted light from a guttering candle threatened to plunge the basement into darkness. The wizard descended the steps, his lantern shedding light on the clutter of boxes containing prized possessions.

 

 

Find out more about The Bow of Destiny:

 

Haunted by his past. Hunted in the present. Uncertain what is real.

Athson suffered hallucinations ever since he was orphaned, including a dog no one else sees. The will in his possession, bestowed in a dream, can’t be real. But the trolls now hunting him are. A destiny, both inconvenient and unavoidable, drags Athson into an unwanted quest that challenges all his assumptions. Can he trust anyone? Sworn to secrecy by his dead father about the bow, Athson wants nothing to do with it. A dragon and a wizard want the bow – and Athson dead. Running from the quest and his destiny are tempting options. Then he finds something unexpected. Will his discovery destroy him before he recovers the bow?

 

Find The Bow of Destiny on Amazon in e-book, audio and print.

Also in this series:

An Arrow Against the Wind

The White Arrow

 

About the author

 

P. H. Solomon loves reading and writing fantasy of all kinds, especially epic fantasy. If a book has dragons, elves, dwarves, wizards, magic or mythical creatures, it’s in his reading zone. He lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. His first novel, The Bow of Destiny was named 2016 Book of the Year by Fantasia Reviews and is the first book of The Bow of Hart Saga. The sequel novel, An Arrow Against the Wind, was released in April of 2017. The third book of the series, The White Arrow, was released during October of 2017. P. H. Solomon also authored the award-winning short story, The Black Bag, which won best published short story at SCWC 2012. P. H. is also a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

 

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Find P. H. Solomon at the following locations

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SFWA Member  Contributing Author, Story Empire

The Bow of Hart Saga

I’m thrilled to have P. H. Solomon over today. He’s been here before, but it’s been a long while. I thoroughly enjoyed The Bow of Destiny, and I’ll bet you would too. I’ll let P. H. tell you about his works and what offers he has this week.

Hello to everyone and thanks to Craig for hosting me today. I’m P. H. Solomon and I’m a fantasy author, living in greater Birmingham, AL. It’s great to be a part of Story Empire and be on the Roadshow this week. I hope you’ll enjoy all the stops and authors this week and look at our books. To see our schedule and information about our prizes, please click to our Roadshow page and see where we are making appearances each day. This week I’m giving away a $10 Amazon Gift Card to the most active commenter.

As I mentioned yesterday, The Bow of Hart Saga is the culmination of several decades of development through several different versions. One of the main points of that development was that the original book was named An Arrow Against the Wind which is now actually the second book due out later this month. When I rebooted this series several years ago, I decided several things about the original one needed heavy revision which meant that the book needed to be split into two books. That meant re-developing the book into two separate books that birthed The Bow of Destiny.

One of the other decisions I made meant facing the quality of my previous effort. It was at best out of date with current style for fantasy and, therefore, not very good writing. I faced this squarely and started learning better ways to develop and write the series. Because of that, I landed on using deep point-of-view and dialogue in context of character actions. But more than that, I had to learn to improve the characterization.

The result was The Bow of Destiny which was been pretty well-received to this point. It has sold in the thousands and was chosen as the 2016 Book of the Year by the fantasy review site, Fantasia Reviews. It’s also garnered some other attention that has started opening more doors for the series and other projects – but these are still in the works so I can’t detail them just yet.

However, as several of my recent commentary posts (commentary part 1 & part 2) have discussed, the book opens with a rather difficult character in a confusing situation. How I landed on this opening took a long time but ended up being rather daring because I’m asking the reader to get very close to Athson very quickly – so close that you get rather confused along with him. That’s something with which some readers have struggled but to which many others have responded very favorably. So I came up with a challenging character in a challenging situation and worked to get him moving into the adventure in ways that continually grind on him to the very end. It became a very deeply personal tale for Athson and I hope it’s one that takes readers down his path of struggle. The blurb states the premise of the book very well:

Haunted by his past. Hunted in the present. Uncertain what is real.

Athson has seen things that aren’t there and suffered fits since being tragically orphaned as a child at the hands of trolls and Corgren the wizard. When a strange will mentioning a mysterious bow comes into his possession, he’s not sure it’s real. But the trolls that soon pursue him are all too real and dangerous. And what’s worse, these raiders serve Corgren and his master, the hidden dragon, Magdronu, who are responsible for the destruction of his childhood home. Athson is drawn into a quest for the concealed Bow of Hart by the mystic Withling, Hastra, but Athson isn’t always sure what’s real and who his enemies are. With Corgren and Magdronu involved, Athson must face not only frequent danger but his grasp on reality and the reasons behind his tragic past.

The rest of the series twists along the opening theme toward an epic fantasy ending. Look for An Arrow Against the Wind to take Athson through even more personal challenges as he seeks to resolve the myriad situations in which he finds himself as he seek the Bow of Hart. But I’ll share some of that tomorrow.

Do you like discovering new indie authors? Do you like to wait to read an author until you see more reviews? Thanks for reading this post today and be sure to check out our schedule. While you’re here, feel free to have a look at my current book, The Bow of Destiny and the upcoming release of An Arrow Against the Wind.

You can click on my bio banner below to pay me a visit at my website and learn more about me and the rest of The Bow of Hart Saga. Please follow me all week as I share more about my writing each day.

Here are some of the places where you can catch up with me on social media:

Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Pinterest | Google + Wattpad | Amazon Author

 

Here are some free novellas that relate to The Bow of Hart Saga:

Trading Knives – Kobo, iBooks & Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and on Amazon

What Is Needed – Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Smashwords & Amazon

 

The Bow of Destiny, on Lisa Burton Radio

 

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Burton Radio. Now broadcasting at one point twenty-one jigawatts across all the known galaxy, alternate realms, and into the future and past. I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl.

Our guest today is Limbreth, a young woman, on a quest to recover a stolen book and find the Bow of Hart.

“Welcome to the show, Limbreth.”

“Greetings from the Forest of Auguron, Lisa Burton.”

“My bio says you’ve joined this quest with a Withling named Hastra. Who’s leading this quest, you or her?”

“Hastra’s in charge but gets a lot of advice from Gweld, an elven ranger and these two dauntless dwarves, Tordug and Makwi. Hastra knows the most about our foe and the Bow of Hart. But these feckless Rokans stole her book, back in the City of Auguron using this magical creature she calls a Bane.”

“Dwarves! I love dwarves. We had a bunch of them at the writing cabin for a while.”

“Yes, Dwarves! We could use a few more of us on this trip, Limbreth. The more to teach you a thing or two about what it means to be an axe-maiden who’s been blessed with the death-grip.

“And who might you be, sir?”

“Name’s Tordug. Me and Makwi only showed up for the fun of finishing up what Limbreth started when she charged, wounded – can you believe that, Lisa? – into a pack of trolls to save Athson. It’s worthy of a song! Really, Lisa, you should have seen her glowing silver in the moonlight. We couldn’t pry one of her swords from her hand afterward (we call that the death-grip). Those trolls were right scarred before we got there. Why–

“Yeah, honey, maybe we can interview you next time. Assuming you survive this adventure.”

“Sorry, Tordug and Makwi made me an honorary member of their society and I’m not sure yet what to make of that.”

“Now Limbreth, it seems to me this book is important, but the Bow of Hart is important too. Our listeners want to know, which one is the bigger deal?”

“Well as far as I can understand, The Bow of Hart is supposed to be used on Magdronu, the dragon. He’s trying to stop us from getting the bow. We expect one of his wizardly servants named Corgren might have it so we’re going to the fallen dwarven kingdom, Chokkra, to find it. Corgren’s got trolls who attacked us and Rokan spies that have Hastra’s book too. Magdronu had Corgren and his trolls ransack Athson’s village years ago so somehow he’s mixed up in the bow – at least that’s what Hastra says. Athson knows some of it but he doesn’t understand his connection to it all.”

“So I’m getting the sense that the bow is more important to you. While Athson is a little bit messed up, you think he can take care of Cogren and Magdronu if he gets this bow.

“I’m clear on that much, but I want to know what’s in it for you?”

“Well, I fell in with Hastra after I left home to show my father, um, well, I mean I’m here for the adventure and… Well, anyway, Athson can handle himself even if he does see things like that dog. But he’s not seeing dead people from his past anymore since he got that sword. I just wish he and I could spend more time, um, scouting for the group like we did before Marston’s Station. Right now we’re riding with a bunch of elven rangers as far as their forts near the Troll Heaths and we don’t get that much time together, um, for scouting. But we’ll get him to the bow. I’ve got his back. He’ll do what he needs to. He doesn’t miss with a bow, just throwing knives sometimes…”

“It sounds like quite the predicament. How are you holding up to life on the trail? It can’t be easy with all those men around.”

“Well, there’s Hastra to keep me company. And really, everyone in our group’s experienced. It’s an incredible adventure and my father will, um, he’ll see… Anyway, I like being around other warriors. But, to be honest I’m a little worried how my feet will hold up when we start walking. I’m more used to riding horses and these boots the dwarves got me back at Marston’s Station are a bit uncomfortable. But I’ll make it.”

“I’m into fashion, and I have to know, what do you wear out on the trail? Is it long dresses, or pants and pirate boots? Maybe you have some cool custom battle armor.”

“Dresses? Seriously? Maybe back at cour-, uh, home but not here. I wear this white dueling armor made of leather and tough leggings that match. Other than that I keep my hair in a braid so I can reach either sword strapped to my back. Why? What do you wear on an adventure?”

“I tend to wear short skirts that let me move freely. I also carry the B.A.G.; that stands for big assed gun. It’s kind of like magic. It’s computer coded to my hands so only I can shoot it.”

“Girls, we have to break this up. Time to get back in the saddle.”

“Yes, Tordug. Many thanks for having me on your show today.”

“Thanks for talking with us today, Limbreth. Don’t pick up any rubber tomahawks, Tordug, and duck when you see dragon fire.”

“The sponsor of today’s show is The Bow of Destiny by P. H. Solomon. I’ll include all the links on the website. For Lisa Burton Radio, I’m Lisa Burton.”

***

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

Contact

 

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Haunted by his past. Hunted in the present. Uncertain what is real.

Athson has seen things that aren’t there and suffered fits since being tragically orphaned as a child at the hands of trolls and Corgren the wizard. When a strange will mentioning a mysterious bow comes into his possession, he’s not sure it’s real. But the trolls that soon pursue him are all too real and dangerous. And what’s worse, these raiders serve Corgren and his master, the hidden dragon, Magdronu, who are responsible for the destruction of his childhood home. Athson is drawn into a quest for the concealed Bow of Hart by the mystic Withling, Hastra, but Athson isn’t always sure what’s real and who his enemies are. With Corgren and Magdronu involved, Athson must face not only frequent danger but his grasp on reality and the reasons behind his tragic past.

 

Book 1 of The Bow of Hart Saga: The Bow of Destiny can be found at these online retailers: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Amazon – Kindle & Smashwords. See the book trailer.

Coming soon