DRAGON AWARD–NOMINATED SERIES. New entry in the Witchy War series, blending alternate history, Appalachian Folklore, and epic fantasy.

Sarah Calhoun has taken her father’s throne and ascended into her goddess’s presence in Unfallen Eden as her father never did.

And Sarah Calhoun is dying.

Her uncle Thomas Penn isn’t done with her. Armed with new powers conferred upon him by the Necromancer and with new allies won via his impending marriage, Penn aims to remove Sarah from her throne—and from the world of the living. In the meantime, Sarah has fallen out with one of her best allies. Against Sarah’s advice, her brother Nathaniel heads into Imperial Philadelphia with the reckless and likely impossible aim of healing the Emperor Thomas.

On the shores of the northern seas, agents of Franklin’s Conventicle with an unlikely connection to the Emperor struggle to win allies among the pole-dwelling giants, who are torn between seizing land covertly from the Firstborn of the Ohio and entering the war openly on the side of Simon Sword. In the west, the Heron King rides an explosive storm into war, crushing the mortal kingdoms in his path and bearing down on Sarah’s Cahokia.

To survive—and to gain the strength she needs to fight this impossible war—Sarah must unite the Moundbuilder kings to enact an ancient rite that will propel her beyond mortality. To do so, she must not only win over doubters among the Firstborn kings, but she must also beat back a rebellion among the Handmaids of her goddess—for there are some of the goddess’s priestesses who long for the dark days of human sacrifice, and who are willing to throw Sarah herself upon the altar.

A STUNNING BAEN BOOKS DEBUT. A brilliant Americana flintlock fantasy novel set in a world of Appalachian magic that works.

Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen‑year‑old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee’s military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye, and all she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders.

But Sarah’s world gets turned on its head at the Nashville Tobacco Fair when a Yankee wizard‑priest tries to kidnap her. Sarah fights back with the aid of a mysterious monk named Thalanes, who is one of the not‑quite‑human Firstborn, the Moundbuilders of the Ohio. It is Thalanes who reveals to Sarah a secret heritage she never dreamed could be hers.

Now on a desperate quest with Thalanes to claim this heritage, she is hunted by the Emperor’s bodyguard of elite dragoons, as well as by darker things—shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars, and behind them a power more sinister still. If Sarah cannot claim her heritage, it may mean the end to her, her family—and to the world where she is just beginning to find her place.

A STUNNING BAEN BOOKS DEBUT. A brilliant Americana flintlock fantasy novel set in a world of Appalachian magic that works.

Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen‑year‑old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee’s military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye, and all she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders.

But Sarah’s world gets turned on its head at the Nashville Tobacco Fair when a Yankee wizard‑priest tries to kidnap her. Sarah fights back with the aid of a mysterious monk named Thalanes, who is one of the not‑quite‑human Firstborn, the Moundbuilders of the Ohio. It is Thalanes who reveals to Sarah a secret heritage she never dreamed could be hers.

Now on a desperate quest with Thalanes to claim this heritage, she is hunted by the Emperor’s bodyguard of elite dragoons, as well as by darker things—shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars, and behind them a power more sinister still. If Sarah cannot claim her heritage, it may mean the end to her, her family—and to the world where she is just beginning to find her place.

DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED SERIES. Both previous entries in the Witchy War series, Witchy Eye and Witchy Winter, were nominated for best alternate history novel at the Dragon Awards.

An encounter with her father’s goddess has not turned out to be the end for Sarah Elytharias Penn. Now, with the Imperial fist tightened around her city of Cahokia and the beastkind of the Heron King ravaging across the river, she must find a way to access the power of the Serpent Throne itself—a feat, she has learned, that her father never accomplished. To complicate her efforts, Cahokia’s Metropolitan, a beloved and charismatic priest who despises the goddess as a demon, returns from a long pilgrimage and attempts to finalize the Wisdom-eradicating reform that dogged Sarah’s father when he was king.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s brother Nathaniel and her brilliant but erratic servant Jacob Hop find their steps dogged by the Emperor’s Machiavel, Temple Franklin, as they hunt in New Amsterdam for the third Elytharias sibling. Isaiah Wilkes, having failed to awaken the Emperor by reminding him of his esoteric obligations, now travels north in disguise to seek other allies to stand against the destroying storm of the reign of Simon Sword. Chigozie Ukwu, the Shepherd of the Still Waters, finds his peaceful flock threatened and pressed into a dangerous mission in the service of Cahokia’s wild sister city Zomas, while his brother, the Vodun houngan Etienne Ukwu, pushes toward a final showdown with the mameluke assassins of the Chevalier of New Orleans.

SEQUEL TO WITCHY EYE. Next in series, which debuted with the stunningly reviewed Witchy Eye. Butler delivers another brilliant Americana flintlock fantasy novel.

TOIL AND TROUBLE

Sarah Calhoun paid a hard price for her entry onto the stage of the Empire’s politics, but she survived. Now she rides north into the Ohio and her father’s kingdom, Cahokia. To win the Serpent Throne, she’ll have to defeat seven other candidates, win over the kingdom’s regent, and learn the will of a hidden goddess—while mastering her people’s inscrutable ways and watching her own back.

In New Orleans, a new and unorthodox priest arises to plague the chevalier and embody the curse of the murdered Bishop Ukwu. He battles the chevalier’s ordinary forces as well as a troop of Old World mamelukes for control of the city and the mouth of the great Mississippi River. Dodging between these rival titans, a crew of Catalan pirates—whose captain was once a close associate of Mad Hannah Penn—grapples with the chevalier over the fate of one of their mates.

Meanwhile, a failed ceremony and a sick infant send the Anishinaabe hunter Ma’iingan on a journey across the Empire to Cavalier Johnsland, to a troubled foster child named Nathaniel. Ma’iingan is promised that Nathaniel is a mighty healer and can save his imperiled baby, but first Nathaniel—a pale young man with a twisted ear who hears the voices of unseen beings—must himself be rescued, from oppression, imprisonment, and madness.