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RAVEN UNVEILED
Author: Grace Draven
Series: Fallen Empire #3
Source: ARC from Publisher
Publisher: Ace
Publication Date: November 8, 2022
Summary:
A woman with the gift to speak to the dead—and the assassin pursuing her—may be the only chance a crumbling empire has of holding back true evil, in this electrifying fantasy romance from the USA Today bestselling author of Radiance.
Siora has been on the run for longer than she cares to remember, from her past and her gift. Born with the ability to see and speak to ghosts, she has heard their desperate pleas as an otherworldly predator stalks the dead amid the fertile killing fields of the collapsing Krael Empire. The creature’s power and reach are growing with every soul it consumes, but Siora is preoccupied with her own troubles: namely an assassin who has sworn an oath of vengeance against her.
Gharek of Cabast was once the right-hand man of the reviled empress but is now a wanted fugitive. Although his reasons for hunting Siora are viscerally personal, what Gharek can’t anticipate is that when he finally does find her, she will hold the key to saving his world, or what’s left of it. To make good on old debts and protect the vulnerable dead from a malevolent force, Gharek and Siora will both need to make an ally out of an enemy—and trust that will be enough to save each other.
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Describe RAVEN UNVEILED in 240 characters or less.
Grace Draven: RAVEN UNVEILED is a story about a woman possessing necromantic magic and an assassin with a bounty on his head who must team up together to conquer the dangers of a collapsing empire and stop an otherworldly menace from consume the living and the dead.
What have you learned while writing THE FALLEN EMPIRE series? If you could go back and rewrite pieces of PHOENIX UNBOUND, what would you change?
Grace Draven: I've learned about the strength and fallibility of the human spirit while writing this series. While we refer to our main characters as heroes and heroines, I still try to write them as people who deal with the consequences of their successes and their failures. I've learned I can write a character whose actions I may not personally agree with but who makes me think and wonder what I might do if I were in their shoes.
As for PHOENIX UNBOUND, I don't think I'd rewrite any of it at this point. At the time I wrote it, I was in a different head-space than I am now. That can be said for any book I've written. I think it's better to move on and write something new, employing what you learned from the previous books to make the current and future ones better.
Which of your characters did you find easiest to write?
Grace Draven: For PHOENIX UNBOUND, I found Azarion easier to write than Gilene. His focus and goals were more straightforward than hers. For DRAGON UNLEASHED, it was easier to write Malachus but more fun to write Halani. Again, his motivations were more straightforward. I felt Halani was a more complex character. For RAVEN UNVEILED, that's a 505/50 toss-up between Gharek and Siora. They were both complicated to write, and I enjoyed unpacking their enormous respective baggage.
What is your favourite romantic moment between Gilene and Azarion throughout the series?
Grace Draven: Favorite romantic moment between Gilene and Azarion – at one point in the story, they part ways. She reaches out to him and he stops her, telling her if she does, he won't let her go.
What is the most interesting part of writing fantasy novels?
Grace Draven: I love world-building, so that is always the most interesting part of writing any novel in any genre (but especially fantasy) in my opinion.
What has been the best book you've read in the past six months?
Grace Draven: Best book I've read in the past six months – that's a difficult question. That all depends on the mood I'm in at the time I'm reading. Right now I'm reading a horror/psychological thriller called HIDDEN COMPANY by Sarah England. It has time loop elements, a Victorian woman trapped in an asylum, a 21st century woman who's a psych nurse and reluctant medium, and some very nightmarish and sinister fae creatures. It takes place in the Welsh countryside. Atmospheric and perfect for Halloween.
What can we expect from you next?
Grace Draven: I have a heavy schedule for the remainder of this year and throughout 2023. I'm finishing a Wraith Kings novella called BLACK HELLEBORE, working on another novella called THE HANDMAIDEN, submitting two proposals to my agent, and working on the 4th novel in the Wraith Kings series titled THE NOMAS KING with the goal of releasing that one sometime next year. So very, very busy.
Gharek held a small lamp aloft to illuminate the path ahead. He didn't worry that the fragile light might be seen in the distance and alert someone. His mount's hooves crushing sticks and brittle deadfall would accomplish the task long before the light did.
The music of insects and bird calls had been loud just before he crossed the tree line, a cacophony of whistles, rustles, and chirps. Those sounds died away the closer he rode to the ruins of the dead city until the silence itself held its breath and only the gloom shrouding the trees breathed. His amiable mare stopped suddenly then pranced backward, tossing her head and snorting. Gharek tapped his heels against her sides to coax her forward. She'd have none of it, fighting the bit in her mouth as she pivoted on her hooves to trot back the way they'd come.
Gharek reined her to a halt, considering whether it was wise to continue his scouting in another direction or make camp nearby and wait until morning to resume his hunt. He'd lose time with camping but trying to find anyone in this darkness while riding a spooked horse was an exercise in futility. Besides, he could make up the time in daylight. Siora was on foot, he on horseback. He'd cover far more ground in less time than she would, and the chance she'd outrun him if he spotted her was nonexistent.
He guided the mare to retrace her steps, and this time she readily obeyed the command, eager to put distance between them and the city that squatted like a pustule on the landscape. But she'd taken no more than a pair of steps when something wrapped icy fingers around Gharek's spine and wrenched him backward. He flew off the saddle as if lassoed from behind and landed on his back. The ground beneath him vibrated from the beat of his mare's hooves as she bolted past him into the labyrinth of trees.
He lay there for a moment, stunned and winded. The ice shard wedged against his backbone remained, though whatever had ripped him from horseback didn't press him into the dirt. A few more breaths and he lurched to his feet, unsettled by his unusual clumsiness, alarmed by the violence of an invisible force that had so thoroughly unhorsed him. There'd been no trip rope to clothesline him, nor had he been riding fast when he fell. The lamp he held had fallen when he did, lost somewhere in the underbrush when its flickering light had guttered. Darkness hung thick enough to scoop with a spoon.
His muttered curses sounded loud to his ears as he peered into the sepulchral black, hoping he might spot the mare standing nearby or at least find a partially cleared path that led back to open pasture. He took a step only to suffer a hard clamp on his backbone, as if the icicle there had suddenly transformed into a shackle locked around his middle. Invisible tethers seized his arms and legs and he was jerked to one side and then the other as if by a drunken puppeteer with their hands on the strings.
Gharek staggered, struggling to keep his feet, struggling to free himself from the bonds that held him in an unbreakable grip that both dragged and yanked him in the direction of Midrigar's walls. He careened through the dark, along a jagged path that propelled him into tree trunks before spinning him away to tear through the underbrush. He tried planting his feet in the dirt to no avail, his boots carving skid marks as he was pulled along like a cur on a leash. His palms left bloody smears on the bark of those trees he tried to grip for purchase and was wrenched away with little effort.
The iciness slithering down his spine spread in creeper tendrils throughout his body, wrapping around his lungs and heart, his liver, even his tongue so that his curses and snarls slowly ebbed away and his struggles waned. Speaking was an impossibility, breathing a challenge, and he was reduced to nothing more than a grunting, shambling mute driven inexorably toward an ancient city of the damned and a fate he could not know but feared with every part of his soul.
Excerpted from Raven Unveiled by Grace Draven Copyright © 2022 by Grace Draven. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.
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