A living spiral galaxy. An invasion of lifeless Greyness. A colourful web of alliance. A love like no other. A myth for our time.
A lifeless Greyness is threatening the living galaxy Anddemar, unsettling Nature, dimming stars, fuelling tyranny, and disrupting the Great Dance of the ‘Heavens’. In response, a colourful alliance - including an exiled Shapemage, wormholes that channel music, the Grail, and a marooned band of Earth scientists - helps to repel this enemy of Anddemar’s enduring marriage of dark and light. And weaving through it all is the exquisite love between ‘the foremost of Anddemar’s knights’ and the Vidar Quain of the Dreaming . . . .
Excerpt
How exacting had been their orbit of shared distance and entwinement. When at times one extreme or the other prevailed, a counteracting tension would emerge and an unseen core of gravity would release itself again to the tireless rhythm of joining and sundering they shared. The patient nurturing of so fused a love had forged a meticulous dance that embraced every delicate and ecstatic variation of release, of passion, as well, that reached beyond the confines of them both. If his own heritage of temperament became at times a downward spiralling vortex of concern for Anddemar, her own unravelled outwardly as she yielded to the demanding serenity of her fate.
He wanted to plunge deep into the night with her, before the threads of dawn came creeping like strange insects to the sky. He made his way back to her, past unfolding ferns, past bowers wreathed with silvered leaves and subtle shapes of shadow. The huge, waning orb of Avernian was sailing above the distant mountains, its faint streaks of silver-blue like a smudging of lunar tears, its pallid gold poured as if in benediction across the mountain snow.
Coming into the Castle and thence into their chamber, Sir Jaide lit some candles, but the night breeze blew them out. The pearl-white radiance of Pendagon streamed disturbing and mysterious through the uncovered window. Starwing, draped lightly with a silken cover, lay like a moon half hid in cloud. And when he came to lie with her she spoke his name and reached for him, half waking, and the dark became once more conjoined, aflame and soothing, releasing them at last through the subsiding gates of sleep into their separate paths to dawn.
Professional Reviews
Readers' Favorite
. . . a soaring epic that reads like a myth newly dreamed into being. With its sprawling canvas and lyrical prose, this fantasy offers a fully immersive journey . . . Fans of richly layered storytelling, elevated prose, and visionary world-building will find themselves utterly transported. Author Maureen B. Roberts doesn’t just build a world in which to set this epic story; rather, she composes it with a uniquely poetic voice that transforms the traditional fantasy form into something vivid and evocative. An Era in Anddemar is highly recommended to fans of high fantasy for the heart and soul, with its ambitious, tender, and unforgettable narrative voice.
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The ancient kings of Whitehawk were all too aware of the temptation of magic. They could feel its threat, a presence in their courts, a serpent slithering at their feet, even entering into their beds.
To de
