About the Author.  

Caroline Peace is married, with three step-children, two dogs, and a narrowboat. She is a qualified riding instructor, but her time is now split between book-keeping for her husband’s consultancy business and her writing. Her hobbies, when she has time for them, include riding, carriage-driving, folk music, stained-glass, reading, and dog-training. She currently lives in Hampshire, U.K. 

Her debut fantasy novel, ‘King’s Envoy’, which is the first in the ‘Artesans of Albia’ series, was begun in December 2001. The other eight novels in the series were completed over the following three years. 

Her first foray into short story writing has proved successful, with the fantasy story ‘Ware, man’ being accepted for publication by SciFantastic magazine in their August/September 2005 issue. She is currently working on a non-fiction project.

‘Artesans of Albia’ is a towering, nine-novel fantasy series, a series charting the attempts of a fanatical Albian Baron to rid his realm of the despised Artesan craft. Throughout the course of the series, he will stop at nothing to achieve his aim; setting friend against friend, lover against lover, and ally against ally. His machinations set the very realms at war. He overcomes exile and survives dreadful disfigurement, all by the strength of his hatred.
    But he is opposed at every turn by the gifted Brynne Sullivan, his sworn and implacable enemy. She will use her love, her loyalty, and her selfless service, as well as her powerful Artesan skills to defeat him. But at the very last, at the cataclysmic end, and in order to save the ones she loves, even she will be faced with a stark and fateful choice – whether or not to make that most fundamental of loving sacrifices . . .

Synopsis of Book One: ‘King’s Envoy.’

Taran Elijah is wrestling with a frustrating situation. Born with the potential to develop an Artesan’s power, he has received just enough instruction to understand how glorious its mastery would be. But the death of his father has snatched that vital guidance away and, desperate to further his knowledge, Taran crosses into the realm of Andaryon in the hopes of finding a teacher. Unfortunately, his foolish actions plunge him straight into a three-way power-struggle for the Andaryan throne. Trapped and alone, Taran is attacked by a young noble wielding a strange and terrible weapon, and in order to escape with his life, he is forced to kill the young man. Panicked, he inadvertently takes the weapon – known as the staff – back to Albia with him. Vicious raids into Albia ensue, and Taran is convinced that his actions are to blame. He is left with no option but to approach the Albian military forces, admit to his folly, and beg for their help. In his shame, he expects to receive harsh words and humiliation, but instead he finds sympathy and understanding. For the man he has been recommended to see, a Major Sullivan, turns out to be not only a remarkable young woman – and the only woman ever to serve in the fighting forces of Albia’s High King, Elias – but also a Master-Artesan. Her quiet sympathy, confident handling of skills Taran can only dream of, and delicate tawny beauty, all conspire to overwhelm his senses, and he falls helplessly in love.

But unbeknown to any of them, the raids into Albia are the opening moves of a major offensive by a treacherous and fanatical Albian Baron; a man determined to eradicate the Artesan craft from his realm. He is the instigator of an invasion by Andaryan troops, and Major Sullivan is sent on an ambassadorial mission to confer with an Andaryan ally. But the ally, Count Marik, is tricked by his overlord into betraying Sullivan, and she becomes the captive of the aristocratic but brutal Lord Rykan, Duke of Kymer. Also a Master-Artesan, Rykan has agreed to kill her on the Baron’s orders, but intends first to satisfy his own dark plans. For it is he who is behind the challenge for the Andaryan throne, and he means to strip Sullivan’s vast powers from her.

    Meanwhile, Taran is fighting the invasion with the rest of the major’s company and when Sullivan fails to report, her captain, Robin Tamsen – helped by Taran as well as Sullivan’s faithful aide, Bulldog – mounts a rescue. Shamed by his betrayal, Count Marik turns double traitor, and together they free Sullivan from Rykan’s dungeons. She is safe, although far too damaged to return to Albia. Still unaware of the Baron’s machinations, Sullivan vows to spend her remaining strength in thwarting Rykan’s challenge for the throne.
  

 

The End.






 

Synopsis of Book Two: ‘King’s Champion.’

Having rescued Sullivan from the dungeons of Rykan’s palace, her friends manage to elude the patrols sent to find them. They take shelter in an old drover’s hut, where they learn the bitter truth: that Rykan’s abuse of Sullivan will ultimately be the cause of her death. The poison of his seed within her will slowly destroy her soul, and has already rendered her incapable of ever crossing the Veils again. And so she takes the one option now left open to her; to seek vengeance by denying Rykan the Andaryan throne. Still unaware of the Baron’s treacherous plans, she sends her friends back to Albia and safety, while she, Robin, and Count Marik journey to the Hierarch’s Citadel, where she informs his generals of Rykan’s plans. The Hierarch himself accepts her word, but his generals are suspicious of her motives. In order to convince them of her sincerity, she takes on a rough company of brigands and forms them into a successful fighting unit, harrying Rykan’s forces and preventing them from besieging the Citadel. So impressed are the generals with her tactical skills that she eventually wins her desire: the right to challenge Rykan to Single Combat as the Hierarch’s Champion.

The Hierarch is aware that Sullivan’s only hope of survival is to convince Rykan to undo the damage his rape has done to her body. But Sullivan’s only thought is for vengeance, for she knows that Rykan will never agree to redeem her of his own free will. Nevertheless, she has one hope: that she can turn the tables on Rykan and trick him into surrendering his powers. With his life-force in her possession, there is an outside chance that she can use it to cleanse her soul. But what she doesn’t know is that Rykan does not possess the full complement of his power, having given some of it up to create a weapon – the staff – with which he had intended to defeat the Hierarch, but which now lies buried in the cellar of Taran’s home.

    Rykan’s troops are fought to a stalemate by the Hierarch’s forces, and Rykan is challenged to Single Combat. He and Sullivan engage in the duel, but she has been weakened by the abuse he inflicted on her and so he defeats her by the sword. All hope seems lost. But Marik distracts Rykan before Sullivan gives her formal surrender, and she ensnares his mind with hers. Defeated and defenceless, Rykan gives up his powers, and Sullivan kills him. However, her triumph is short-lived when she realizes that the majority of his life-force has gone. Meanwhile, Taran and his Apprentice, Ric, who have disobeyed Sullivan’s orders and come to witness the duel, are abducted by Rykan’s general, Lord Sonten, who is desperate to regain Rykan’s priceless weapon.

Synopsis of Book Three: ‘King’s Artesan.’

When Sullivan recovers from the duel, she learns of Taran’s and Ric’s abduction. Aided by Robin and the fiercely loyal brigands of her company, she sets out to find her friends. Together, they track Sonten’s party and succeed in rescuing Taran. However, Sonten manages to escape into Albia, taking Ric with him. Unable to cross the Veils herself, Sullivan sends Robin and the brigands after him. But Sonten has laid his plans well and besieges Taran’s village before Robin can stop him. He forces Ric to reveal the location of the staff, and is escaping with it even as Robin attacks his men. The staff is only recovered by the heroic self-sacrifice of one of Sullivan’s friends – formerly a bitter enemy – and Sonten is killed.

When Sullivan and the Hierarch examine the staff, they immediately understand the significance of its construction and components. They suspect the existence of a highly-ranked renegade Artesan, and also realize that Rykan must have had powerful – and probably Albian – allies. Sullivan manages to use the staff, as well as Rykan’s missing life-force which is contained within it, to cleanse her soul of the poison, and she destroys the terrible thing in the process. She returns to her life in Albia.

    When King Elias visits the Manor to reward both Sullivan and Robin for their service in ridding the realms of Rykan’s threat, she informs him of their suspicions. But a certain Baron Reen has accompanied the King in his role as the Queen’s advisor, and little do any of them realize that the traitor is now in their midst.

  The events in ‘Artesans of Albia’ are continued in the sequel trilogy ‘Secrets of the Circle,’ in which the enemy of all Artesans, the Baron, having revived his ruined plans after the destruction of the irreplaceable staff, finally reveals his hand. His treacherous machinations cast suspicion even upon Sullivan herself, and his feigned abduction of High King Elias’s heir forces the distraught monarch to declare war on his innocent allies. Horrified by this turn of events yet powerless to dissuade the dangerously-unstable Elias, Sullivan refuses to lead his forces. Enraged at her betrayal, Elias casts her out.
    Cut off from the life she loves, struggling with the reality of a seemingly-impossible pregnancy, and estranged from her lifemate, Robin, Sullivan follows her only possible course – to expose the Baron and his ally, Elias’s faithless Queen, and restore the baby Prince to his father.

Full synopsis of ‘Secrets of the Circle’ and sample chapters available.


‘Master of Malice.’

    Three years after the events detailed in ‘Secrets of the Circle’, the exiled Baron is back. Hideously transformed by a terrible accident, he was spared a dreadful death only by the enforced emergence of his despised and long-denied Artesan gift. Faking his own suicide, the vengeful Baron escapes his island prison and returns to plot the destruction of those who cast him down. Finding succour in the arms of his disgraced former ally, Queen Sofira, the Baron sets his traps, picking off his victims one by one. Unaware of his perverted powers and the horrific uses to which he can put them, Sullivan is helpless to prevent the attacks. But then the Baron seizes his ultimate prize – Sullivan’s beloved lifemate, Robin – and he reaves Robin of his Artesan gift even as he takes the young man’s life. Thus empowered, he is ready to confront his greatest enemy, Elite Master-Artesan Brynne Sullivan.
    This trilogy chronicles Sullivan’s most challenging ordeal yet, and her struggles to overcome her enemy culminate in a cataclysmic battle. She is then faced with the impossible task of saving the lives of her friends, but this can only be achieved by her making the ultimate loving sacrifice.


    Full synopsis of ‘Master of Malice’ and sample chapters available.
 

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