The third installment in the Realm Rift Saga, download The Northern Wastes from your favourite ebook retailer now!
Katharine is pregnant with Thomas Rymour’s child. But Tom has foreseen Katharine’s death, and his foresights always come to pass. If he wants his daughter to live, he’ll have to change an unchangeable fate. His only hope is an impossible quest.
There are magical relics in the uncharted north that could save her. But he’ll be hunted and harried by the creatures of Faerie, immortal creatures that can’t be killed. If he can’t kill them, he’ll have to barter for survival. But some are prices too high.
Will Tom be willing to sacrifice everything? Or will he falter at the final step?
★★★★★ “A great tale with many characters and a smooth flowing tale with twists and turns which were unexpected.” – Amazon Review
★★★★ “Kelly’s world building continues to be superb, creating a setting in which you feel completely immersed, with a history and lore you get to learn as the story progresses.” – Amazon Review
★★★★★ “Hard to put down” – Amazon Review
Of all my novels, this is the most personal.
I hadn’t intended it this way, but I ended up writing this part of the story just as I became a father. Suddenly, I was going through many of the same hopes and fears as the protagonist, Thomas Rymour.
Could I shoulder the responsibilities and expectations being heaped on me? Could I be what everyone was telling me to be? Could I be a good father?
This is all pretty hefty stuff. And Tom has a lot more than that to contend with too. Because he's uncovered the plots of Faerie and they're not happy about that. So they're chasing him through the frozen mountains of the north as he tries to hunt down magical artefacts that even the legendary King Emyr and his sorcerer Ambrose couldn't find.
It’s also got zombie dwarfs, Faerie monsters, a steam engine, and a bunch of magic shenanigans.
Because you gotta balance the serious stuff with zombie dwarfs, right?
It was the book I wanted to read. Now others can.
Chapter 1
The maelstrom of magic was worse than being inside the monoliths. It felt to Thomas Rymour that the whirling magics were scratching and tearing at everyone’s very thoughts, pooling them, blending them to the point where it was hard to tell whose thought was whose. Who felt that this would be the end of them, that he had killed them all? Perhaps that was Six. All Tom knew was that this would have been easy if his sprite wasn’t trapped in a jar. No, that wasn’t his thought, it was Dank’s. Dank who strained against the world, trying to take them all to Faerie without his link to the fay.
But Tom knew, without a doubt, that it was he that marvelled at the beautiful little life he had discovered: the little girl that Katharine carried inside her. The how and when didn’t seem important. Just the marvel of it. He quested towards the child, swimming through the pool of thoughts and fears to her alone.
She was panicking, a nameless, wordless, formless fear of the chaos around her. Shush, he told her. Shush. It will be okay.
She wrapped her feelings around that thought so hard Tom thought he might cry out. So tiny. So helpless. It unmanned him in a moment, filling him with a terror he’d never felt before. Someone needed to keep this little life safe from sickness, hurtful words, cruel looks, from every man who would look her way. And who was he? Just Thomas Rymour. He couldn’t be enough for her.
