Patrick Vala-Haynes
"No girl should live in fear. I do not disregard the lessons of observation and study, but manner and temperament are not shaped when the risks are small. Neither is innocence a trustworthy ally."
"I spent 3 days last week working to untie a knot in an old piece of rope. When I gave up and pulled out my knife I still wasn’t sure what was right: the 3 days of effort or making the cut."
The Henchman
“There are innocents in the world,” my father said, “but you are not one. I wish you were, but am proud you are not. Every fight is a lesson, Morgan. You either learn and you adapt, or you do not fight again. If you fought only by the book, I would never have given you a sword.”
Dirt. A little girl leading a steer to slaughter. A piano. A man in thrall to the headstrong grace of old horses, the power of a woman’s desires, and boys growing into men.
Cully is a pit bull of a man. He’ll take out that stump, blow a hole in that party keg, put a dying animal out of its misery. Yet he’ll struggle to accept redemptive love. He’ll fuss over the details of his work—killing and butchering animals for a living—while his son imagines life as a concert pianist. Nobility and honor are more than simple conceits to this man. They’re demands that bring heartache and frustration. Cully’s son, Alex, is about to leave the womb of a rural childhood, and Cully is terrified. He fears that college and a life in music will erase every trace of him in the son he loves. What does a butcher say to Mozart? Though Cully has only a short time left in which to leave his imprint, he complicates even that by taking on an abused neighbor boy as his apprentice.
He’ll fight a rabid dog but can’t find the courage to kiss his son. It’s the modern West.
Leading as much with her heart as with her sword, a blacksmith’s daughter joins her sword‑wielding aunts to avenge her mother's murder. The year is 1643. England is splintered by civil war, and in the North a ruthless cardinal plots for the crown. In a clash fueled by the competing desires of blood, family, love and power, he meets his equal in a girl of 17.
Morgan is not confined by the expectations of her times. She finds comfort at a blacksmith’s forge and purpose with a sword in her hand. She is drawn to the crafts of her father by circumstance—her mother’s murder—and a child’s curiosity. Though Morgan aspires to be a printer, she is more adept at the subtleties of the hammer. Her fights are personal, her duels intimate conversations. She battles more for revenge than love, until the bonds of blood and romance bring her face–to–face with both: a would-be lover and the cardinal who is her mother’s murderer.
Forsaking the refuge of her aunts’ home in the North of England, Morgan sets out on a cross-country journey to establish a printshop in Oxford. Her willfulness and naivety cannot protect her from the brutalities of a country embroiled in civil war.
She is only two days on the road before the desperate cries of a young girl interrupt her adventure. Morgan uncovers a tale of abduction and murder that will follow her all the way to Oxford. Her dreams of independence as a printer will be challenged by the dangers of protecting those she rescues.
The stirrings of a new romance leave her vulnerable as the enemies of her recent past gather to avenge their defeats. A season of plague approaches. The Church fights for its place. In such a fractured world, ruthless men see great possibilities. Cardinal Redstoke has been at work. Once she hunted him. Once she spared him. Now he shadows her, inflicting wounds and orchestrating plots against those she loves. Her mercy becomes regret.