BooksChatter: ☀☄ The Challenge: The Dragon's Dove Chronicles [2.5]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Challenge, a Historical Fantasy Romance by Kim Iverson Headlee (11 July 2015, Pendragon Cove Press, 22 pages).

This short story is part of The Dragon's Dove Chronicles series, and it is also available in German.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below, as well as details of the other titles in the series.
The Challenge is FREE to download on 27 and 28 October 2015, and on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.
Read an extended excerpt with Amazon Look Inside.

Also download The Color of Vengeance FREE, and watch out for the two full length novels on sale for ONLY 99 pence / cents!

Author Kim Iverson Headlee will be awarding an autographed print copy of DAWNFLIGHT to a randomly drawn winner (US Only) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀) and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | Teaser | Review | The Series | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

The gauntlet is thrown. One must die. Refusal is not an option.

Arthur the High King of Breatein has fallen captive of a longtime enemy, the Saxon warrior-princess Camilla, who lusts to avenge the death of her betrothed at Gyan’s hands and will stop at nothing, even the black arts, to achieve her goal. Because Gyan and Arthur have grown estranged, she fears that Arthur may side with Camilla and make her his new queen.

Now Gyan must face all her demons—public as well as private.

Teaser: Excerpt

     Upon reaching Gyan’s side, Angusel thrust a scroll into her hand, his gaze softening. Her stomach knotted. It took all her strength of will to keep her hands from trembling as she broke the seal and unrolled the parchment to read its contents.
     She had expected word of Arthur’s condition, couched in threats. Not this.
     Camilla had issued a personal challenge to end the impasse by single combat in front of Gyan’s troops. If Gyan declined the challenge, violated the terms, or lost the fight, her crown would be declared forfeit.
     Gyan crushed the parchment in her fist.

Excerpt from the graphic novel of The Challenge by Kim Iverson Headlee, forthcoming in
full colour Kindle and paperback editions. Art and storyboard copyright 2015 by Wendy Carey..

The Challenge
Download it FREE on 27 & 28 October 2015!

UK:

US:

The Series: The Dragon's Dove Chronicles

Dawnflight | The Color of Vengeance | Morning's Journey |

The Dragon's Dove Chronicles will comprise of eight books.

Books one and two are currently available for only 99 pence / cents.

Watch out for the forthcoming graphic novel version of The Challenge (see excerpt above).

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Dawnflight [1]

Gyanhumara “Gyan” nic Hymar is a Caledonian chieftainess by birth, a warrior and leader of warriors by training, and she is betrothed to Urien map Dumarec, a son of her clan’s deadliest enemy, by right of Arthur the Pendragon’s conquest of her people. For the sake of peace, Gyan is willing to sacrifice everything...perhaps even her very life, if her foreboding about Urien proves true.

Arthur map Uther is the bastard son of two worlds, Roman by his father and Brytoni by his mother. Denied hereditary rulership by the elders of Chieftainess Ygraine’s clan, Arthur has followed Uther’s path to become Dux Britanniarum, the Pendragon: supreme commander of the northern Brytoni army. The Caledonians, Scots, Saxons, and Angles keep him too busy to dwell upon his loneliness...most of the time.

When Gyan and Arthur meet, each recognize within the other their soul’s mate. The treaty has preserved Gyan’s ancient right to marry any man, providing he is a Brytoni nobleman—but Arthur does not qualify. And the ambitious Urien, Arthur’s greatest political rival, shall not be so easily denied. If Gyan and Arthur cannot prevent Urien from plunging the Caledonians and Brytons back into war, their love will be doomed to remain unfulfilled forever.

[First published 1 October 1999. Second Edition published 25 February 2013, 415 pages]

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The Color of Vengeance [1.5]

**FREE download** Also available in German and Spanish.
Excerpted from Morning's Journey, THE COLOR OF VENGEANCE tells the story of Dwras map Gwyn, a farmer who loses his wife, his son, his village, his very livelihood during a cattle raid. His only recourse is to report the carnage to his liege lord ... and pray that he might one day take revenge upon those who took everything else from him on that fateful night.

[First published 10 August 2013. Second edition published 18 March 2015, 22 pages]

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Morning's Journey [2]

In a violent age when enemies besiege Brydein and alliances shift as swiftly as the wind, stand two remarkable leaders: the Caledonian warrior-queen Gyanhumara and her consort, Arthur the Pendragon. Their fiery love is tempered only by their conviction to forge unity between their disparate peoples. Arthur and Gyan must create an impenetrable front to protect Brydein and Caledonia from land-lusting Saxons and the marauding Angli raiders who may be massing forces in the east, near Arthur’s sister and those he has sworn to protect.

But their biggest threat is an enemy within: Urien, Arthur’s rival and the man Gyan was treaty-bound to marry until she broke that promise for Arthur’s love. When Urien becomes chieftain of his clan, his increase in wealth and power is matched only by the magnitude of his hatred of Arthur and Gyan—and his threat to their infant son.

Morning’s Journey, sequel to the critically acclaimed Dawnflight, propels the reader from the heights of triumph to the depths of despair, through the struggles of some of the most fascinating characters in all of Arthurian literature. Those struggles are exacerbated by the characters’ own flawed choices. Gyan and Arthur must learn that while extending forgiveness to others may be difficult, forgiveness of self is the most excruciating—yet ultimately the most healing—step of the entire journey.

[First Published 11 June 2013. Second edition published 16 December 2014, 439 pages]

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About the Author

Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, Great Pyrenees goat guards, and assorted wildlife. People and creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins—the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-twentieth century—seem to be sticking around for a while yet.

Kim is a Seattle native and a direct descendent of twentieth-century Russian nobility. Her grandmother was a childhood friend of the doomed Grand Duchess Anastasia, and the romantic yet tragic story of how Babushka escaped Communist Russia with the aid of her American husband will most certainly one day fuel one of Kim’s novels. Another novel in the queue will involve her husband’s ancestor, the seventh-century proto-Viking king of the Swedish colony in Russia.

For the time being, however, Kim has plenty of work to do in creating her projected 8-book Arthurian series, The Dragon’s Dove Chronicles, and other novels clamoring for attention. She has been a published novelist since 1999, beginning with the original editions of Dawnflight (Sonnet Books, Simon & Schuster) and Liberty (writing as Kimberly Iverson, HQN Books, Harlequin).

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