The Shattered Moon
Many years in the making, the Shattered Moon series finally saw the light of day in February 2023. Subsequent volumes have followed at six-monthly intervals, and Book Four will be here in August 2024.
And it won't end there…
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A distant future. A world transformed.
Remnants of a shattered moon patrol the skies, memorials to an ancient and nearly-forgotten conflict. In an isolated northern land, civilisation's slow recovery is overseen by the reclusive, all-female, Guild of Dawnsingers, which holds a monopoly on advanced learning. Life seems peaceful and well-ordered, but are the Dawnsingers as benevolent as they seem? What secrets are they hiding? And what really lies beyond the mountains in the East?
Orphan Jerya finds a new home in the Dawnsingers' Guild, but her new life turns sour. Soon she finds herself struggling to reconcile the exhilaration of learning with growing doubts about the very basis of the Guild's rule. Ultimately she faces an agonising choice which could utterly change her life, and those of her two most trusted friends.
Award-winning outdoor writer Jon Sparks turns his talent and experience to speculative fiction in the first book of The Shattered Moon series.
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To read a free short story set in the world of The Shattered Moon, click here. For more insights and news, along with other giveaways, please join my mailing list.
Volumes already complete or fully drafted span twenty years in the lives of the main characters and their world. Projected books will take us further, and see responsibility passing to a new generation.
Book 1: Three Kinds of North
Available now.
A distant future. A world transformed.
Remnants of a shattered moon traverse the skies, memorials to an ancient and nearly-forgotten conflict. In an isolated northern land, society is overseen by the reclusive, all-female, Guild of Dawnsingers, which holds a monopoly on advanced learning. Life seems peaceful and well-ordered; but are the Dawnsingers as benevolent as they seem? What secrets are they hiding?
And what really lies beyond the mountains in the East?
Orphan Jerya unexpectedly finds a home in the Dawnsingers' Guild, but her new life turns sour. Soon she finds herself struggling to reconcile the exhilaration of learning with her growing doubts about the very basis of the Guild's rule. Ultimately she faces an agonising choice which could utterly change her life, and the lives of her two most trusted friends.
Award-winning outdoor writer Jon Sparks turns to speculative fiction in the first book of the genre-stretching Shattered Moon series.
Read the first chapter here.
Get the e-book here. For a fuller list of outlets, including for printed books, click here.
Note: with the best will in the world, it's impossible to completely avoid spoilers, especially in the description of later volumes. I have concluded I overdid the giveaways in the first version of this page, so I've tried to rein it in, but still it might tell you more than you want to know. Read on, or not, accordingly!
Book Two: The Sundering Wall - Now Available!
A new journey of discovery begins.
Having finally broken with the Guild of Dawnsingers, Jerya and Railu are joined by Rodal as they strike out into the mountains. None of them have any idea what lies beyond the borders of the map, or if there are feasible passes through the high peaks.
Tensions mount under the strain of the hazardous journey, and thoughts return to their former lives and friends left behind, but Jerya’s determination drives them on. Each will be tested in different ways as they draw closer to unravelling the ultimate mystery of the Unsung Lands.
Book Three: Vows and Watersheds - Now Available.!
New prospects and new challenges.
Ten years on from Three Kinds of North and The Sundering Wall, Jerya's life feels settled, until a new acquaintance raises fresh prospects, but only if she is prepared to align herself with the owner-class. Then news of a planned expedition across the mountains prompts a fateful decision.
Jerya returns to the Sung Lands intending to deliver a warning, but will the Guild of Dawnsingers and Perriad, her old nemesis, see it in that light?
Jerya finds herself risking everything she has come to hold dear.
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Book Four: The Skilthorn Congress - Now Available for pre-order.
Lands and lives in question
When a young fugitive, Mavrys, comes to Skilthorn seeking sanctuary, it’s a complication the newly-ennobled Countess Jerya could well do without. She’s already challenging assumptions and managing radical changes to the great estate, and now Skilthorn is about to play host to an unprecedented meeting between leaders from the Sung Lands and the Five Principalities.
Jerya’s oldest friend, Railu, also glimpses the prospect of a new beginning; but is Skelber all that he seems? And can Mavrys stay out of trouble?
The future of the Known Lands may be in play, but for some of the people at Skilthorn it’s their own lives which are thrown into question.
Three Kinds of Now. To be published Feb 2025
Not another instalment in the novel series, Three Kinds of Now instead comprises three linked novellas. Each one considers how Jerya's life might have turned out if things had gone differently at a crucial moment.
'The Woman of Delven' explores the possibility that , at their crucial meeting early in Three Kinds of North, Perriad could have turned her away.
'The Dawnsinger' envisages that Jerya never quite took the drastic step, at the close of Three Kinds of North, of leaving the Guild and the Sung Lands.
'The Slave' imagines what might have happened if it had been Railu, not Jerya, who was freed early in their time in the Sung Lands.
Book Five: Scheduled for publication August 2025
Jerya makes one more, and potentially final, return trip to the Sung Lands. In prospect are meetings with old friends, but also another confrontation with her old adversary Perriad. ​
Accompanying her are Railu's step-daughter Sumyra and Jerya's former pupil Embrel. Both will make shocking, even shattering, discoveries about who they really are.