The Apex Mage
Talisha Eldridge, mercenary mage of the Concordance School. For over twenty years she earned her living through fighting in the Central Lands, watching humanity's best attempts to destroy itself after the extinction of its Elmothran overlords. Tired now, Talisha longed to put away her armor and spell shards and find the comfort of a home. A peaceful place, where war need not touch her. A place big enough to bring her dearest dream to life and found a mage school.
When the approaching winter ended the year's fighting, Talisha yielded to an impulse and rode north for the first time in her adult life. Curious about the Highland region since childhood, she had the chance to investigate it, and the money to hold her over the cold season. Besides, she'd heard rumors of trouble, hints of a conflict brewing. Conflict, in her world, meant the certainty of employment come spring.
Talisha never expected to find her heart's desire up in the frigid Highlands. Much less did she expect a dark mage, holding a terrifying and impossible power, to snatch it away from her again.
But who better than a lifelong mercenary to take on an ancient evil in a struggle where the fate of the world hangs in the balance? And perhaps more important, Talisha's chance for a home and family.
Who ever said retirement would be easy?
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Eternal
Kai and Jericho. Two exiles from the Eternal Empire. Their paths cross in a nondescript Borderland moonbase, far from Imperial civilization. On the surface, it's an ideal situation. Kai needs a bodyguard, Jericho has all the necessary skills and then some, and they get along well in their initial meeting.
But then reality intrudes. Because Kai is a hunted man, pursued throughout the Borderlands by mercenaries and assassins. And Jericho is held captive and docile by a vicious restraining collar, sold into slavery years ago by his own father and exiled for a crime committed against a free man. So it's a cash transaction, not friendship, that brings the two young men together.
A close relationship springs up almost instantly between them, deepened and cemented by the adventures they share. Bounty hunters, pirates, and renegades keep the two exiles stepping lively about the Borderlands. The slave collar makes certain neither man does anything about the growing attraction between them.
Then Kai's mysterious past catches up to him in a way he just can't ignore. Because the Imperial Legions are out in force, hell-bent on catching the elusive exile for reasons of their own. And then he makes a decision which might just destroy everything.
Welcome to a world in which the Rome never fell. Instead, it conquered its home planet and grew into the interstellar Eternal Empire, a vast civilization powered by magic and slavery, where life can be mighty good for some citizens. Meet dragons, demons, and necromancers. See the repercussions of Kai and Jericho's actions. And above all, hold on, because it's going to be a wild ride.
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Firestorm
Life is fire. The fire of passion and the fire of loss. Beautiful fire... and ugly fire. The fire of shame burning through a soul gone astray. And the fire wielded by the hand of a mage.
Kai and Jericho have controlled the Eternal Empire for several years, now. For Jericho, life couldn't be better. He has a home, and he has the constant companionship of the man he loves. But Kai wants more. He longs for the excitement of adventure, the challenge of making a difference.
Nobody saw the firestorm on the horizon. From stability, insanity. Powerful change is coming fast. Can Kai and Jericho survive it?
Firestorm is the sequel to Eternal.
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With Honor
Over four hundred years ago, civilization fell in a cataclysm of nuclear fire. Nature itself changed, shifted, wounded by ancient wars, still struggling to find a new balance. The human survivors exist with no laws, no government, barely any degree of civilization, in a world altered beyond recognition. All knowledge is kept locked away in the University for the benefit of a select few. The limited technology relies heavily on steam power, where it exists at all. Even the weather is enough to kill the unprotected at times.
In this world, where people struggle to survive one day to the next, two young men cross paths in the dark of night. Ari, raised in the near-paradise of the mountains with their clean air and safe water, ran afoul of a man with a big gun and an ultimatum. No longer welcome in his homeland, he wandered the world, searching for a new life. Grief, born in the black sand desert to a people universally known and hated as the Reavers, was the sole survivor of a vicious massacre and has been haunting the edges of the desert ever since, balanced on the knife edge of survival.
One thing keeps him alive: hope that somehow, someday, the world will be a better place. And when he meets up with Ari and finds an unexpected connection, suddenly his hope--his Dream--becomes more than just a wishful thought.
It's a simple plan, after all. Just take over the world. Two young men, alone, against an entire world of anarchic chaos. Their assets? Brains, fighting skills, and horses. Never consider the cost of failure. Never think about the impossible odds. And most especially, Grief must never, ever let Ari know the hidden truth within his heart, or the world might just end all over again.
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Luminous
Necessity forces Prince Telion of Amrontil to enter into an alliance marriage with Prince Farven of Vinge. Normal in Vinge, such a thing was completely unheard of in stuffy Amrontil. But Farven brings a cadre of powerful mages with him, and the promise to train any with mage ability to fight against the unstoppable armies of Un. Little does Telion know, his Prince also brings love and adventure...
Book One of The Hidden Game
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God's War
Farven and Telion return in this sequel to Luminous. Transformed from Princes into fugitives by the unbelievable events of a single chaotic night, the two decide to take their followers to the mysterious city of Prime, capitol of Vinge, the land once protected by the magical Barrier. But the aggressive Un warriors have no intention of letting the humans rest and regroup. Neither do the demons...
Book Two of The Hidden Game
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Dawnfire
Farven and Telion return in the conclusion to the Hidden Game series. Humanity is given a fresh start on the beautiful, unspoiled world known as Dawnfire, but the two Princes must leave the lovely world behind on a journey through the worst hell of all to rescue God's partner, a Divine held captive in the Obsidian Heartbreak for six hundred years.
Book Three of The Hidden Game
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The Hidden Game
This omnibus edition contains all three novels in the Hidden Game series: Luminous, God's War, and Dawnfire.
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About Me, The Author-Artist-Whatever
I go my own way...
yep, it's the same old author bio you can find anywhere online. and keep in mind, if you look at it on Amazon, it has a mini-rant about someone ESLSE's books showing up under MY NAME, because Amazon is silly and doesn't let authors remove crap from their own pages.
"Marie Brown has lived in many locations across the United States, but spends most of her time exploring the realms of imagination. Currently located in Colorado, her brief moments of free time are spent in front of her computer, frequently covered in cats."
Blah.
Yeah, okay, that's all true. But I'm tired of hiding behind a bland, third-person pseudo-bio, utterly lacking in personality. Hi! I'm Marie Brown, and I write a lot. I self-publish through Smashwords and Amazon because I got tired of getting "well-written, but not our thing" rejection letters. Because, you see, most of my fiction tends to include characters that are either bi or just plain homosexual, and despite increasing acceptance of human sexuality and its many variations across the world, heroes and heroines are still supposed to be straight. Well, mine aren't. So if you're brave, and you don't mind that the main character of a story either isn't interested in sex at all, or is quite likely to hop in bed with someone of the same gender, then give my writings a chance. Come explore my fantasy worlds, or my science fiction worlds, or even spend some time with an occasional random love story set on Earth.
And by the way, just this once, I wrote this entire blurb without a cat on my keyboard.