New Cover for The Voyage of the Minotaur

The Voyage of the MinotaurThe Voyage of the Minotaur has a new cover, using the same fonts and design esthetic as the new The Price of Magic.  Eventually all the Senta and the Steel Dragon covers will be redesigned to match.

The Price of Magic: Philo Moscow

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so we’re looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

 

Philo Mostow is a character appearing for the first time in The Price of Magic.  He has a relatively small but important part to play in the story.  Philo is a young man, tall and thin.  He’s a part of the “in crowd” of Port Dechantange youth, dating Questa Hardt and calling on Iolana Staff.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons. It is available now for preorder wherever fine ebooks are sold.

The Price of Magic: Questa Hardt

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so we’re looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Questa Hardt is a girl a little older than Iolana Dechantagne, who first appeared in Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers.  She was a friend of Sherree Glieberman (Iolana’s mean girl bully), but they had a falling out when she discovered just how horrible Sherree is.  She then became friends with Iolana.

Questa is the daughter of a very proper Brech father and a Mirsannan mother.  This is a little unusual, in that Mirsanna and Brechalon are traditional enemies, rather like France and England in our own history, but there is a great deal of cultural interaction.  The Dechantagne family originated in Mirsanna by way of Boronia.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.  It is available now for preorder wherever fine ebooks are sold.

The Price of Magic: Tiber Stephenson

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

The Stephenson family lives nearest to the Dechantagnes and Staffs.  They are also probably closest to them in status, being old money.  Claude and Julian Stephenson have made several brief appearances in Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land and Book 3: The Drache Girl.  They are mentioned a few other times, being the closest friends of Augie Dechantagne.  Their older brother Tiber makes his first appearance in The Price of Magic, and he plays a fairly important role in several chapters.

The Price of Magic: Didrika and Ernst Goose

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta booksSpoiler Alert.

Didrika and Ernst Goose are Senta’s cousins.  We first saw them in Book 0: Brechalon and in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur as babies.  In The Price of Magic we get to meet them as young women.  They are, in fact, two of the most popular young women in Birmisia.

The Price of Magic: Geert and Honor McCoort

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Geert is Senta’s cousin.  We first meet him in Book 0: Brechalon, where he is selling apples to earn money for the family.  We see him again in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur, but they are separated when Granny, their guardian, dies.  Geert shows up again in Book 5: The Two Dragons, when he and his brother arrive in Birmisia to start a printing business.  At last, Senta has nearby family.

Honor McCoort, nee Hertling, is an important citizen of Port Dechantagne since its founding.  We find her in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur, a pillar of the community and city council member.  She is present in Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land, Book 3: The Drache Girl, and Book 4: The Young Sorceress, as she raises her two siblings, Senta’s friends Hero and Hertzal.  She meets young Geert in Book 5: The Two Dragons, where she plays a big part in Yuah’s story, but suffers a horrible accident.  We learn in Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers that the two have married, and we see them again in The Price of Magic.

The Price of Magic: Tait and Bertice Vishmornan

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Bernice is Senta’s cousin, the oldest of the bunch.  We see her briefly in Book 0: Brechalon, and Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur, where we learn that she is marrying Tait Vishmornan, after Granny’s death.  He was a supervisor at the shirtwaist factory where she worked, and they adopted Ernst and Didrika, two other cousins, but had no room apparently for Senta.

In Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, we learn second hand that the couple and their children have relocated to Birmisia, but we don’t actually see them.  But in The Price of Magic, we at last see Bertice again, and her husband for the first time.

The Price of Magic: Gyula and Melis Kearn

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book. Most have appeared in previous books. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Gyula Kearn first appeared in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur.  He was a cook at Cafe Carlo, who made a sandwich for Senta.  He arrived in Port Dechantagne in Book 5: The Two Dragons to become a cook for Alwijn Finkler, having survived the torpedoing of his ship by Freedonians.

Melis is Gyula’s new bride, a MIrsannan girl.  Like most Mirsannans, she has brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes.  Also like most Mirsannan women, she is prone to wearing scandalous (by Brech standards) clothing and a gold ring in her pierced nose.

The Price of Magic: Kieran Baxter

The Price of Magic - NewThe Price of Magic is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s time to start looking at the many characters in the book.  Most have appeared in previous books.  I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

We first met Kieran Baxter as one of the officers on the H.M.S. Minotaur in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur.  We don’t run in to him again until Book 4: The Young Sorceress, when he is marooned on a deserted island.  We know he’s there for years, because he’s only just been rescued when he meets Senta again at the end of Book 5: The Two Dragons.  In Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, he is one of the aforementioned lovers, traveling around the world with Senta.

Baxter is one of the most important characters in The Price of Magic.  Only one other character is a greater player in this story, and I know what you’re thinking– it’s not Senta.

Preorder The Price of Magic for Kindle here.

The Price of Magic : On Its Way

The Price of Magic - NewIt’s two and a half weeks until Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 7: The Price of Magic arrives on ebook.  I am doing the final proofreading, searching out any typos.  I’m kind of surprised that any could have survived this long.  The book has undergone many revision steps with the help of my writers group.

Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 7: The Price of Magic is available now for preorder at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks, and will be available December 4th wherever fine ebooks are sold.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.