Showing results by author "J.P. Reedman" in All Categories

Samhain, the Celtic New Year, the Night of the Day of the Dead, when the Walls between the Worlds grow thin, and the barrows open to release the ancient dead and the faerie people... Four haunting stories from prehistoric Ireland, based on original myths but told anew with a nod to actual archaeological finds and folk memory. Crom Cruach, the Bowed One of the Mound, asks for his tribute of corn, milk and children...till St Patrick comes. But are the Old Ways really dead and gone? Aillen the Burner, one of the beautiful yet amoral Tuatha de Danann, arrives each Samhain to burn down the ...

Edmund is the second son of Richard, Duke of York. Whisked away to Ireland as a child in troubled times, his best friend is his brother Edward, a year older, with whom his shares a special bond. Later, the family returns to England and the boys begin knightly training at Ludlow Castle, where they encounter bullying and intrigue as they grow from children to young men of royal blood and high destiny. Their father strives for peace but his motives are always questioned, and his enemy, Edmund Beaufort, fills the sickly King Henry VI's ears with slander and lies. Peace will not last. St Alban's...

She is a great heiress; he is the wickedest man in Normandy. Known to men far and wide as 'The Devil,' Robert de Belleme terrorises France alongside his equally fearsome mother, Mabel the Poisoner. But even a Devil needs an heir, and Mabel chooses the wealthy heiress Agnes of Ponthieu to be her son's bride.. The marriage is unhappy, though the longed-for son and heir is eventually born...but when Robert is away on one of his military campaigns, Agnes flees back to her father's castle. She is not safe; her young son William is not safe. The Devil will seek to claim his own. BOOK 13 IN THE ...

1964. Workmen digging on a bombsite in London uncover a hidden vault containing a lead coffin. The coffin is almost reburied in a mass grave in a local churchyard, but an old retired policeman, examining the sarcophagus in the police station where the find has been taken, notices a plaque attached to the leaden lid. What he reads, stuns him--this is not an unknown medieval nun or noblewoman. The coffin's occupant is a child--a Princess, Anne Mowbray, wife of Richard of Shrewsbury, one of the infamous Princes in the Tower, who disappeared in 1483... 1470's. Elizabeth is the Dowager Duchess ...

A dark, Gothic tale based on Edgar Allan Poe's haunting poem, Annabel Lee Trysten of Seagarth is a farm lad crippled in the Great Withering, an outbreak of polio. Feared, ignored and bullied by the locals and by his family, he seeks solace in the little travelled backroads of Seagarth's wild coast. One day, he meets a mysterious girl in the ruins of the old manor house of Rosemead.. Annabel Lee. She shows him a terrible secret in an old sepulchre lying forlorn by the edge of the sea. He runs from her in fear, but there is a bond between them that he cannot deny. Cannot break. Like a moth to...

Melior the Wisewoman lives in the woods near the Vale of Rollendri. When her companion and mentor, Old Agg, dies, she is approached by the denizens of the Faerie kingdom, who tell her that she is in great danger--that a barbaric King called Gorangon is on his way hence with an army to claim the entire shire as part of his kingdom. Melior is uncomfortable and afraid to listen, for Agg told her the Faefolk are amoral and not to be trusted...but the King with his warband and iron sword is equally fearsome, if not even worse . Reluctantly, she agrees to let the Fae help her against the might of...

Flykra the Frost Maiden, the outcast daughter of the Frost Giant Snoer, faces a chilling fate when a troll shatters a magic mirror and leaves her wounded. Banished from Huldre village because of her wound, she embarks on a treacherous quest for revenge. Along her journey, she encounters the enigmatic half-elven Iseldur and falls into the clutches of the notorious Yronwode robbers. With guidance from the Sami and Finns, Flykra inches closer to her foe, but her true enemies lurk in the shadows. Will she be avenged and forge a new life with Iseldur... or will she discover a deeper, darker ...

‘Small, very talkative, ready enough to do evil, shrewd and jocular, extremely cruel and daring.’ Orderic Vitalis on Mabel de Belleme. Mabel is the daughter of William de Belleme, known as Talvas, the Hard Shield, for his fierceness in battle…and at home. When William murders Mabel’s mother, he is expelled from his castle into exile—but Mabel follows him loyally, despite what he has done. As the Belleme fortunes gradually return, Mabel is married to an upstanding young lord, Roger de Montgomery, a close friend of the new Duke of Normandy—William, who will one day become the ...

Myles Phillipson, the local magistrate, is eager to obtain the lands of Kraster and Dorothy Cook by any means necessary. He frames the couple for theft and sees that they are hanged. But on the scaffold Dorothy curses him. He might build his mansion on the lakeside where the Cooks' house once stood, but he would never know a moment's peace from that moment on. Myles is a practical man, not given to superstition, but when he holds a banquet in his newly built stately pile, he hears noises from upstairs--rolling and bouncing, and then demonic laughter. On the wall, the shadows of two macabre ...

THE STONEHENGE SAGA, epic of prehistoric Britain! Now in a complete edition containing two best-selling novels, previously published in two separate volumes as Stone Lord and Moon Lord. Britain. 1900 BC. Stonehenge stands as a unifying monument and temple to the Britons - proud and protective, a shield against foreign invaders wishing to plunder the tin and flint from the land, and intrude on the sacred chalk lands of the Great Plain, home to the Ancestors. Out of the West comes a leader, Ardhu a young chieftain, tutored by the wise Shaman known as The Merlin. Endowed with totems of power ...

Isabella Lawrence's world shifts when an ordinary photo shoot in a decaying London theatre plunges her into the tumultuous life of Victorian actress Arabella Lorne. Caught in a web of secrets and a marriage of convenience to the enigmatic Sir Augustus Stannion, Isabella faces a choice: fight against a lurking, malevolent force or return to her own time. As love grows amidst shadows and whispers, she must decide whether to abandon her heart for the safety of home or confront the darkness that threatens them both. Will she choose love or survival? A tale of time slips, gothic mansions, and ...

The spell-bound crown of Cumbria comes to Dunmail after his father Owain is slain at Brunanburh, but he soon learns the Saxon, King Edmund, covets it for himself and has paid a wicked sorcerer who dwells in a cavern in Gilsland Forest, guarded by three white demon-wolves, to manipulate the spells so that Edmund can claim the powerful talisman of kingship. Dunmail must find the sorcerer and destroy him, battling his fearsome wolves...but is the King too late? Battle looms amidst the fells. Briton fights Saxon invader on the blood-stained slopes while the tarn below waits--the only vault that...

October 1470. King Edward IV is forced into exile when Warwick the Kingmaker decides to unmake the king he helped put on the throne and reinstall old, sickly Henry VI as a puppet. He flees over the sea to Burgundy; with him, is his loyal younger brother, Richard of Gloucester. However, Richard’s ship is blown into Holland by a storm—the eighteen-year-old youth, penniless owing to the haste of his departure from England, must find his way through an unknown country and reunite with his brother, the King. But finding each other is not enough—together the two sons of York must now ...

“The arrow swift to wound is already drawn from the quiver ; soon will the blow be struck ...” In "The Hood Game," a young peasant, Robyn of Locksley faces a deadly twist during the village ritual known as 'The Hood Game' when his foster father is arrested for crimes he didn’t commit. With a Norman lord killed by Robyn's own hand and a price now placed on his head, Robin must flee across the moors of Derbyshire with his fierce companions—his cousin Scarlet, the gigantic Little John, and the wild Irish bard Alan o' the Dale. As they seek refuge in Sherwood, the Bright Forest, dark ...

In the days coming up to Christmas, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later to be Richard III) seeks shelter in York from a snowstorm that has blocked the roads into Middleham. As usual, he stays with the Austin Friars at the Lendal, with their massive library of precious books. Normally, he would enjoy his visit with the Friars, but this time, he is worried that he will not make it home in time for the Christmas Feast with his wife Anne, his small son Edward, and his friends, Francis and Nan Lovell. He prays for a miracle--and soon the skies begin to clear and the snow melts. Anticipating an ...

All Hallows Eve comes to the town of Middleham in a swirl of autumnal leaves and bonfire smoke. Young Edward, the son of Duke Richard of Gloucester, wants to join in with the traditional festivities--the turnip lanterns, the Soul Caking, the storytelling in the churchyard. Richard agrees, despite the reluctance of his wife, Duchess Anne, and the frail little boy and his half-sister, Katherine, go to join the festivities. Old Gatty tells traditional, haunting tales of the Yorkshire dales--the man-eating Water Horse of the Ure, the witch of the hazelnut tree, the evil giant of Penhill with ...

SACRED KING, a historical fantasy novella about King Richard III, the battle of Bosworth, and its aftermath. In August, 1485, King Richard III rides on the hunt in Bestwood Park, near Nottingham, and sees a disturbing vision, a man being killed in ritualistic manner, his blood given to the hungry Land. Riding into Leicester with his army several days later, eager to face the invading Henry Tudor and defend his crown, he encounters yet more disturbing omens…the old woman Agnes Black upon Bow Bridge, who prophecies his head will strike the stone upon his return from the field. On the day of...

The vampire Mircea had become discarnate through the treachery of his brother Gaspar. He retakes a mortal form in the dark woods of Rumania, his ancient homeland, and is taken in by two other vampires, Mihail and Ruxandra, who dwell in a remote ruined fortress. All three have sworn never to drink blood again, their need for sustenance being replenished by a magical relic known as the Bloodstone. But when the Bloodstone is stolen and Mihail and Ruxandra are taken prisoner by the Witch of the Iron Woods and her son, the monstrous Radu, Mircea must strike out to save them--with the aid of a ...

ANCESTORS. Maire Kennedy has never felt comfortable in her own skin; she feels the tug of the past, of distant ancestors whose blood runs through her veins, drawing her from the the New World back to the Old. Ireland is her goal, and she has the DNA results to prove her worthy place in the land of her distant forebears. One of her aims is to explore a particular prehistoric cairn, glowering on the the hilltop above a remote village, since the DNA company she used has told her she has a match to a burial archaeologists found within...but when she arrives on the hilltop, it all begins to go ...

Feast of the Innocents : A Christmas Tale of Richard III and his Son - It is Bleak Midwinter, and a snowstorm engulfs Middleham Castle. Young Edward finds himself spirited away by a mysterious old woman. What could she possibly want with the young heir of the Duke of Gloucester? A short Winter story, featuring a heart warming tale of father & son, and a woman's grief for her long dead child from the best-selling author of I,RICHARD PLANTAGENET. Approximately 45 pages