#OwlQueensCourt

The Puzzle

Autumn has always been my favourite time of year.

I reckon those of us who love stories are drawn to spring and autumn, the seasons of change, and let’s face it – when it comes to stories, nothing breeds interest better than the prospect of death. And nothing does death better than autumn. The final screams of the trees through their fiery colours, the sudden temperature drop, taking us far, far away from the safety of summer, the boisterous winds undressing the trees…

The winds are my favourite part of the season. Get caught in a good autumnal breeze, and those winds take over. For a brief spate of time, those winds become all there is.

Those winds…

I’d like to think if anything was brewing in the forests of the world – or perhaps in the forests of worlds just beyond our own – those autumn winds would be the first to warn us that change was afoot.

Who knows what the autumn winds might carry through the letterboxes of the world, if something trusty sinister was coming…

Benedict

#owlqueenscourt

The Pieces

• The letter in the Inn
• Fletcher finds a funny thing
• A piece found by Laura
• Mark Lawrence joins the hunt
• Kitty G takes the search to YouTube
• The wind reaches Timandra Whitecastle
• A fragment from Fantasy Book Review
• Dyrk Ashton and the not-king’s letter
• Fantasy Book Critic unearth a son’s plea
• A segment from Jonathan French
• The witch and the gentleman fox
• Josiah Bancroft and the Storyteller

The Story

If you value your life, stay out of the forest.

As a captive of the Owl Queen’s Court, Nascha’s life has always been one knife’s edge away from disaster. But when she is threatened for nothing more than the colour of her hair, Nascha attempts the unthinkable: escape through the dreaded Magpie King’s forest.

Hunted by sharp toothed and sharper witted foxfolk, and hated by all for being a witch, Nascha fears herself doomed until she joins forces with a mysterious young man. With him she finds a glimmer of hope, even as her own unpredictable powers flicker into existence.

But hope is fleeting.

The forces arrayed against her are insurmountable, and Nascha soon comes to realize that pursuit of her own freedom will come at a greater cost to the forest. As the darkness closes in around them, Nascha is forced to ask:

At what price is she willing to purchase her life?

How dearly is she willing to sell it?

From the Shadows of the Owl Queen’s Court is the fourth standalone book in Benedict Patrick’s Yarnsworld series, returning for the first time to the setting of the #1 bestseller They Mostly Come Out At Night.