Jordan Haverford has three names and a target on his head. Suffering from a dead Angel's torture, split between crime and magic, and faced with his worst job yet, the last thing he needs is a blood debt. - The light season has arrived in Nictaven, and with it the city of Shadow's Reach is rebuilding after the ravages of the past season. But the threat of war hangs heavy over the new peace as the High Lord Harkenn recovers from an assassination attempt, and it doesn't look as though the Angels are finished. Despite the tense political atmosphere, Jordan's time with the assassins' guild has only increased, and creeping ever closer is the job its leader has forced on him, the one thing he vowed he'd never do - murder. Add to that the threat of retribution for the Angel he helped kill - and who left him with scars he's not sure he will ever recover from - and the fact that he can't seem to get along with his sister Grace anymore no matter how hard he tries, the light season has not brought him the salvation he had hoped. It's about to get a whole lot worse. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © S E Harrison/giveitameaning 2022 Cover Photo by Duncan Sanchez on Unsplash

Jordan Haverford is stuck between hunting demons, committing crime, and trying not to die from either. All he wants is to go home, but his chances look bleaker than ever. ***** Balancing his education in magic and demon-hunting with an apprenticeship to the assassin Arlen Blackheart is hard enough. Keeping his sister safe and avoiding assassination by Arlen's fanatic ex-student at the same time is pushing Jordan to breaking point. As he is drawn deeper into the life of an Unspoken and the knife-edge politics of the assassins' guild, shedding his old self - and his aspirations of escape - might be the only way to stay sane. Darker things are stirring at Nictaven's borders - the Whispering Wall is showing signs of strain, and sickness haunts the outer settlements, creeping closer to Shadow's Reach with each passing day. Within the city, the dead grow restless. Wonderful cover by Acacia Heather - Caysaaaa on Wattpad! Book Two of the Whispering Wall series ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © giveitameaning/S E Harrison 2020 (this story is currently only authorised to be on Wattpad.com under this account - if you are reading it elsewhere it is an illegal copy or mirror site where you may be at risk of malware)

************************************************************************************** An outcast rogue must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his nineteenth birthday. To survive, he'll need the sword of a maiden, the aid of an immortal, and the power of forbidden magic that could cost him the only girl he ever loved. ************************************************************************************ *** THE JACK OF SOULS won a Silver IPPY this year! *** THE JACK OF SOULS won 1st place in the PNWA Competition in Fantasy! * *** THE JACK OF SOULS won 1st place in the Southwest Writers competition! * *** A "Featured Book" on Wattpad! * *** Now a "Staff Pick" on Kickstarter! * *** Available on Amazon in paper, hardback, and ebook ! * *** My contract with Kindle Select won't allow me to post more than 3 chapters here, but... *** Sign up for my newsletter on stephenmerlino.com for alerts when it's free on Amazon! * MY INSPIRATION I wrote this out of pure love of trickster rogues; I love the wit over brawn motif -- Odysseus over Achilles, Raven over Eagle -- so I like to play with it in my stories. In JOS I set the rogue and con-artist Harric against a foil of warriors in a land threatened by magic and civil war. Whenever possible I turn familiar tropes on their heads: instead of a handsome young Lancelot, I cast a broken-down ex-champion addicted to pain-killing herbs; instead of a dashing Squire Brian, the old knight reluctantly takes an ambitious young woman as squire. Similarly, I re-imagine the standard medieval milieu by infusing aspects of two of my favorite historical periods, Elizabethan England, and The American Frontier. Both eras boast a kind of nationalistic arrogance that borders on hubris, and a magnificent spirit of resourcefulness and re-invention that is fun to play with. SERIES The Jack of Souls is first in a series. I am posting parts of the sequel here now (The Knave of Souls), to help me refine the story.

The Awakening changed the face of reality itself. A cataclysm of dimensional proportions, the event unleashed all manner of demonic beasts upon the world of man and left humanity's scattered survivors trapped in an endless battle for survival. That's a battle Council Academy all-star Seth Wright learned the hard way, barely surviving his first encounter with demonic entities. Now aware of the peril mankind faces, he's desperate to learn what he must to defeat them - but the only person willing to help him is veteran demon hunter Astral Daamon, and only so she can pursue her own investigation into corruption within the walls of the Council Academy. But what they uncover together is far more terrifying than mere conspiracy - challenging everything Seth thought he knew about fighting demons. Beneath the foundations of the academy itself, an ancient and malevolent evil is stirring from its slumber - and unless Seth is willing to sacrifice what he believes could protect humanity from annihilation, this demon will rise and devour everyone he cares about. Seth is being forced to weigh the lives of his classmates against the fate of humanity. When the moment comes, will he make the right decision?

|Book One of The Soul-Bound Chronicles| Classic J-RPG and anime elements collide with the Young Adult fiction writing style in this modern fantasy book following Josh Davidson, a teenage boy whose life flips upside down when he becomes soul-bound to a dragon ✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Magic, heroes, dragons. Josh Davidson has seen it all-in video games and movies, of course, because they would never be anything but fiction. Yet his dreams are slipping into reality, he is experiencing sudden energy surges, and a persistent voice is taking residency in his head. All of the insanity explodes when his bully goes on a murderous rampage, and the only one who can stop him is a beautiful girl wielding a bow and shooting magical ice arrows. The experience leads Josh to the truth: he's a Paladin, someone soul-bound to a dragon. Not only does he now have a dragon reaching into his thoughts, but the new status comes with magical powers meant to help him in his fight against the forces of darkness. Josh is more than eager to hone his new skills and help the Paladins in their fight, but the darkness they face is rising from its slumber, intent on destroying the Paladins and everything they stand for. Josh will have to learn fast, because the most important decisions are those he cannot escape. Decisions that risk not only the war which the Paladins fight, but the very people he holds dear. ➢ Word Count: 130,000 - 135,000 ➢ Amazing cover made by Dayisdemigod ➢ Featured in Fantasy account's Young Adult Fantasy Reading List ➢ Featured in YASciFantasy account's Quests & Queens - Fantasy Adventure Reading List ➢ The Fiction Awards 2019 Best Fantasy Winner ➢ Editor's Pick Featured January 2021

Fear the dark. Bar the doors. Don't breathe a word. Wait for the Hooded Men to save you. The people of Nictaven live in fear of the night; governed by magic no one save a few can control, in a land plagued by demons and cannibal tribes, and isolated from all other worlds for centuries, they're right to. Only the Unspoken, a secretive guild of warriors linked with the land and its magic, provide any safety when darkness falls. For centuries, it has stayed like this. But in an abandoned crypt worlds away, Jordan Haverford is about to change that. It wasn't quite the holiday he had been hoping for. Plunged into a world where who you are and what you believe can kill you, a world of demons and knives in the dark and wars fought from behind the doors of the rich, Jordan's gentle Oxford upbringing isn't quite sufficient preparation. Instantly a pawn in a deadly game, separated from his sister and watched from the shadows by an assassin with a vendetta, he finds himself in the company of an Unspoken who has an uncanny knack for finding the Gifted - and Jordan can't seem to get rid of him. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © SEHarrison/Elinor Harrison *This book has previously been partly stolen and published on Amazon without my permission. I only post my work on Wattpad - please notify me if you find it anywhere else! Thank you.* The gorgeous cover is by Acacia H. - Caysaaaa on Wattpad!

**ON HOLD INDEFINITELY** It's been two years since the great battle in the shrine. However, as Perinus strives to recover from its losses, shadows continue to grow throughout the land... A dangerous sickness is spreading throughout the country--one that ravages minds and turns friend against friend. One that reeks of Death itself. With the help of unlikely allies in unlikely places, it's up to Constantine to seek the root of this sickness and stop it. But first, Constantine will have to master her abilities. She will have to recover her legacy and stand for everything good. She must make a final choice: fire or shadows? Only one side can emerge dominant, while the other will consume her whole. ****** Sequel to 'Constantine' cover by @seventhstar

Religion rules Constantine's world...and she has been condemned as the Spawn of the Devil. She is a Champion, a human being blessed with superhuman abilities by the deities of her world. However, her patron happens to be the Lord of War and Strategy - and women were never supposed to be Champions of War. In order to survive in a world that would rip her apart, she disguises as a boy, training to fulfil her supposed destiny. But fate has other things in store for her. An ancient evil is rising - and only Constantine may have the power needed to fight it. Along with a brash warrior and a too-perceptive scholar, Constantine begins to unravel secrets of a prophecy foretelling the end of the world. Now, she must learn how to fight evil with nothing but a magical knife as well as powers she knows next-to-nothing of. The real problem though? She may have been the one to call the great evil in the first place. ************ Now a Wattpad Featured story! Highest ranking: #1 in Fantasy Cover by @seventhstar Previous cover by @TrafficCop Original cover sketch by @MissBookNut, colours by @AFlyingPug

Aya Du-Mara knew that life on the steppes was dangerous, but life on the steppes after being banished from clan and family? Well, that was deadly. What was she supposed to do now? And if she had to be cursed, couldn't there be some kind of consolation? Of course not, in fact, her only reward was a power she didn't want, one that was going to get her killed. And hunted. Her only refuge is to trust the very people she had been raised to fear. Victims of the curse...the damned, if legend can be believed. But, unfortunately, they have their own problems. Big ones. Someone was going to have to sort that out. Why did she have a feeling that someone was going to have to be her?