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a dark fantasy romance with paranormal and epic elements set in 1660s Europe
Bound by Fate and Blood
The Merna Annals (Book 1)
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Everything comes with a price.
Scottish merchant Baron Christian “Ian” Sinclair longs for solid ground after sailing the Atlantic under King Charles II of England’s banner. When he returns home six months late, he didn’t plan on being captured, finding his family dead, or witnessing the aftermath of a burned estate.
Nephtyri, the last of two full-blooded vampires and the great-granddaughter of Pharaohs, dreams of Ian long before he docks in London and offers to avenge his murdered family. In exchange, she reveals their hidden ties to the secretive Hunters’ Guild—slayers and slavers intent on destroying all immortals and magic.
If the Guild seizes Ian, they will either enslave him against England or enthrone him as their Imperial Lord Hunter. His choices will then save or shatter Nephtyri, his found family, magic, and the Arsinoëphorus Alliance in the process.
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Meet Nephtyri
She's the great-granddaughter of Pharaoh Arsinoë, who escaped being murdered by her sister, Cleopatra, and became the mother of all vampires. (Yes, THAT Cleopatra!) However, the biggest difference between them other than two generations of immortal queens? Nephtyri sits in exile in London, 1665--not Ptolemaic Egypt. She's also outrunning extinction at the hands of the Hunters' Guild, the final representation of Marc Antony's army on Earth. These slayers and enslavers view her as the top prize in their bounty system, but they're hiding all these secrets from their heir.
Meet Ian
Born in the human world as Baron Christian Silas Alexander Sinclair, Ian is unaware of what goes on at home when he is at sea. Running a merchant fleet with The Caribbean calling him away for swaths of time, he finds himself longing for something much more--and not just a wife and family of his own. This time, though, arriving home hurts and costs him his human life and his favorite sibling to reveal the lies their father,
Silas the Slayer, took to the grave.
They might be from different worlds... but their souls are Fated to be mated. Even if it means ending the Hunters' Guild, their war against Merna, and the magic these immortal beings wield for good.
What happened to magic and all of its immortal warriors according to human history? The Merna Annals contain the secrets lost to time. Can they change Nephtyri's legacy? Can Fate be stopped?
This tale continues in Book 2: Bound by Oath and Heart.
Bound by Oath and Heart
The Merna Annals (Book 2)
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The Hunters’ Guild may have won the battle, but the tide has Turned.
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Fractured by Abraxas’s betrayal at Sancta Terra, merna scatter to the winds. The five remaining Elders split Ian and Nephtyri without realizing their sunwalker has a new secret. Though the budding couple can visit one another in dreams, a life apart tests their bond. A quest to find Ian a weapon to match his powers binds him to his bloodbound siblings. Their quests reveal not all mythical creatures are lost, and celestials play foul.
Rochelle adapts to a lesser role as Shifei of all vampires under the pressure of Bjorn’s presence in his halls at Amaranth. With the help of Aryeh and others near and afar, they plot with Ian and his siblings to save the Alliance without their new Uran Shifei-ra.
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Suspicious of their allegiances in her ranks as the new merna queen, Nephtyri heightens the search to free her lost grandmother from the Hunters’ captivity. The dead walk and the living fight to thrive, but newly found joy lies on the horizon.
Meet Rochelle
Formerly a Norse noblewoman in a time when Vikings walked across what is now French soil, she is the first to accept Nephtyri's vein as a Turnling. Despite the few hundred years separating them in age, Rochelle rose quickly to the challenge of what it meant to be a First Turnling. Not only is she very much the eldest daughter Nephtyri didn't think she could conceive, but Rochelle is also the first female to earn wearing Arsinoë's tiara as Uran Shifei. No other female gained the role purely through merit in a time when exiling their princess and her progenitor meant preservation for all merna--and not just vampires. In the past, she courted Bjorn. When she accepted the weight of the tiara and its duties, it ripped them apart.​
Meet Bjorn
Raised in Sweden, he and his human sister, Iliada, Turned at the hand of the former lycan Elder--who he rose to replace in his sister's stride. Meeting Rochelle, Iliada's eventual best friend, the night he learned about immortals being more than myth brought his little vampire's song into his life. Without either female, he withers and refuses to work with his fellow Elders easily to buck Rochelle's reign as Uran Shifei. Unafraid and broody on the outside, he feels lost when exile hits his friends and beloveds hardest. Jealous of Nephtyri, he accepts change and a role as Ian's mentor in magic at the end of Book 1: Bound by Fate and Blood.
Bjorn once made an oath to protect Rochelle until his dying breath. He didn't intend to break her heart to do it. The dark epic paranormal fantasy romance continues! Can immortals save magic, or will humans end them to steal divine power? For good?
This tale continues in Book 3: Bound by Vengeance and Mind.
Bound by Vengeance and Mind
The Merna Annals (Book 3)
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Balance dictates the price of happiness.
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Reunited under Nephtyri’s command, the Arsinoëphorus Alliance reorganizes against the Hunters’ Guild. Empowered by the Goddess Nephthys, she leads an attack on Ephesus with a great price. In England and France, Ian tests the strength of his new blade, but he fears one possibility: Ronan lives as the Imperial Lord Heir. Consumed with his new siblings’ needs and Aryeh’s distractions over missing memoirs, the merna king faces vengeance or capture.
Frey frets over Lee’s captivity in Hunter hands, and he struggles with a higher role in the Alliance’s military. Torn between self-medication and redemption, he learns old debts seldom disappear when accepting a fallen angel’s aid. Saving his beloved catkin binds him to his siblings, old and new—and in time to share their anguish.
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Meet Lee
Born in what is now Korea, Lee traveled the Silk Roads through various means to stay alive. She always knew as a human male that she was different, and not just because she's a catshifter. Meeting Frey and Nephtyri in Paris one night many years ago changed her life in ways she never planned. Accepting her merna lineage came with accepting her true identity--new clothes and all. Every since their first walk on the river bank together, though, Frey's consistent love and flirtation forces her to face her greatest enemy: commitment to self and others. His adoptive mother might be Lee's familiar and their queen, and the Hunters will not keep her captive for long.
​Meet Frey
Unaware of his skills and abilities as a realmwalker, Frey doesn't take orders well. Nephtyri might be his Mah-ren, his adoptive mother and more, but she cannot save him from his own self-sabotage. When the Hunters capture Lee during Bound by Oath and Heart's tales, Frey disappears for, as he says, "six weeks but three years." He's forever changed and figuring out the ways to break the ties to a contract he holds with Ezekiel. A contract that cannot be fulfilled under specific, love-lost being resolved reasons.
Frey loves Lee to the point of bettering himself, but can she bring herself to commit to him and the dying council of immortals one, last time? The dark epic paranormal fantasy romance continues! Can immortals save magic, or will humans end them to steal divine power? For good?
This tale continues in Book 4: Bound by Hope and Spirit.
Bound by Hope and Spirit
The Merna Annals (Book 4)
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The Arsinoëphorus Alliance is dead.
Its ghosts and power linger.
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Ian sacrificed everything by joining the Hunters’ Guild as Imperial Lord Hunter, and so the Alliance shatters as prophesized. Rumors and betrayal coalesce into anarchy. Disbanded factions realign their loyalties. Elders and others plea fruitlessly to allies in a futile search for Nephtyri. Paranoia spellbinds them, yet her Turnlings refuse to give up. Every sunset wasted tips the hourglass one sunrise closer toward baby Elias’s birth.
Five years pass.
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Vouvry leaves hope behind and banishes himself into exile instead of becoming the new dracokin Elder. Maria’s amnesia condemns her to isolation. In Polish territory, they convert an abandoned monastery into a shelter for misfits and orphans. He desires a new life with her, but her rebuff is stubborn. At his weakest, the enemy sends a temptress to lure his pure spirit—until the advent of Christmas.
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Meet Maria
Growing up in Castilian Spain as a minor noble wasn't as long as she had hoped. Being forced into a nunnery at the age of five, she doesn't recall why--nor why she lost her sight, other than something about waking up outside of a burning barn. As Abraxas' Turnling, she isn't often aware of how her allegiance to his heart has been misused for well over a century and to the point she ignores advice from her friends and found family. After going missing as Lee was being found, Maria returns to the Alliance as a shell of her former self, and Vouvry's anger over Abraxas' dealings reached their climactic ceiling. Not only does her memory falter, but so does magic. Trading her vows for a life of fangs tests her faith, and Vouvry gives her hope at last.​
Meet Vouvry
As a former Swiss Pontifical Guard, Vouvry thought coming into his life as a dracokin would be another type of spiritual adventure he didn't foresee coming. After all, reclaiming a new birthday on Christmas had its lasting effect. He understands Nephtyri's appreciation for power while also never wanting to wield it. Watching his siblings--Ian, Frey, and Harumi--blossom their romances into something worth fighting for tightened the barbed wires around Vouvry's spirit. All the while, he would repair Abraxas' damage to Maria, even if she can't yet bring herself to realize the soulmate standing before her loses himself the more she loses her memories.Vouvry goes to great lengths to heal his and Maria's past. Even to the point of disappearing as the Alliance falls apart.
The dark epic paranormal fantasy romance continues! Can immortals save magic, or will humans end them to steal divine power? For good?
This tale continues in Book 5: Bound by Lyric and Time.
Bound by Lyric and Time
The Merna Annals (Book 4)
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Balance is not always just nor fair.
Nephtyri’s goals are simple: free her husband and soulmate, end the war, and leave for the Caribbean with any merna and human allies wishing to flee Europe. With most of their allies dead, the reclaimed tomes lost to the ages, and their ties to magic fading, mernakind die and thrive with their forsaken queen and blessed prince. Ian recovers his memories with an increasing desire to return home yet rules the Hunters’ Guild with an iron fist under Abraxas’ control.
When news of Harumi’s pregnancy reaches the Underdark, he destroys magic further to protect his family. He’ll end the war, even if it kills him and Nephtyri to end magic and protect all merna. Harumi, on the other hand, will either find her siren song or destroy her heart and soul. Trapped between duties and desire, she’ll accept or silence her infatuation with GorGor at last.
The ending of a war is the beginning of a new battle.
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Meet Harumi
She's the newest and youngest of Nephtyri's familiars. Unlike her queen and Lee, Harumi is the quiet rogue meant to sing her way through slashes and bashes for victory. While she and Lee have many similarities in their past, Harumi has yet to appreciate herself in the same ways as a masterpiece. On the other hand, with bloodbound brothers like Frey, Vouvry, and Ian, she learns quickly how important she is among a group. Her heart doesn't trust taking a risk on her own future, and while Murakawa and GorGor have fought for her hand and attention, only one of the two males proved he cared about her well-being above all.​
Meet GorGor
Torn between the duties of his heart and his vow to protect Aryeh, the king of all faeries, GorGor proves he is that male. From the moment he first met Harumi, he wanted nothing more than to forsake both of their vows to crowns and the Alliance for starting their own lives as a traditional, typical couple. When they are forced to face their choices versus their desires, he considers paying the ultimate price to keep the one he loves most alive.
GorGor and Harumi travel across the realms to help Nephtyri and Ian reunite all merna for the sake of the future. Vampires, werewolves, faeries, dracokin, catshifters, humans, demons, angels, and earth will feel the final battle of Season 1 throughout history.
The dark epic paranormal fantasy romance concludes here for Season 1. Is there a Season 2? Only time and magic will tell.