Paw

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-Finalist

“Beware the rising of the full moon.” They were Vitalia's final words.
Tomas Falkenhayn returned from Europe’s religious wars a bruised, battered, broken man. Disgraced, stripped of wealth and having lost his way, Tomas now drinks and fights his way along Balkan back roads in the company of reluctant hosts: a Gypsy caravan—they prefer to be called Roma. Tomas’ friend Django leads the Roma caravan, ensuring their survival in a hostile world through hard work, quick wit and natural wile.
Tomas' unexpected encounter with Vitalia, a beautiful baroness who gives birth to her children deep in a forest thicket, forces Tomas to set aside self-recrimination and swear a reluctant oath to escort Vitalia’s newborn infants safely to their distant Wallachian homeland. Rediscovering an officer’s code of conduct nearly forgotten, Tomas embarks on a journey that will reunite him with his long lost love, the reluctant Lady Lorelei. It’s an odyssey that might offer Tomas a chance at redemption.
Markus and Lothar, also veterans of the religious wars, command mercenary soldiers in the employ of Duke Friedrich, Lorelei’s crazed father. The Duke has vowed to hunt down the demonic man-wolves who killed his cattle. The beasts’ trail leads the mercenaries to Vitalia and the children. Friedrich wants Lorelei back so he can profit from his daughter’s arranged marriage to elderly Count Ferdinand. The Duke wants Tomas and the children dead.
Trying to stay one step ahead of the Duke’s men, Tomas and Lorelei must negotiate the Danube River’s dangerous Iron Gate; make their way past an exotic smuggler’s grotto; cross the treacherous, secretive Roman Bridge; and penetrate the mystical Wallachian hollows accompanied by the superstitious Roma and a growing band of foreign allies. Tomas and Lorelei must also protect the innocent, rapidly changing children, ever mindful of Baroness Vitalia’s warning.

ABNA Expert Reviewer: "The strongest aspect of this excerpt is the intense action, colorful use of language and exciting flow in which the author has created his action scenes. I found that I could not read fast enough to see what's going to happen next... I enjoyed this excerpt very much! It is exciting, full of animation and details. I felt like I was watching this unfold right in front of me. The author has a strong vocabulary and uses it in a way that is exciting, gripping and also very descriptive."

ABNA Expert Reviewer: "I felt that the strongest part of this excerpt is the idea of the wolves imprinting of a human. It is clever and it is a novel idea. I read a lot and have never heard of anything like this. The excerpt was engaging and I didn't want it to end, it had dialogue that was interesting and believable for the time period. This is a book I would consider buying because the author really has some interesting things happening. It was a smooth read that left me looking forward to more. The time period and characters are quite interesting. I feel that this was a very well written piece."

ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer: "In this engaging, well-paced tale that blends history and fantasy, disgraced knight Tomas stumbles into the woods after a wolf hunt to discover a critically wounded noblewoman lying on the forest floor in the throes of labor. He is astonished when she gives birth to a litter of five babies, and all the more so when they are consigned to his care. As he travels with a Gypsy caravan in a quest to deliver the strange, fast-growing children to their surviving relatives, he encounters Landsknecht knights and burly Scotsmen, tavern folk and the beautiful Lorelei, his longtime love who skips out on her wedding to an aging noble to assist Tomas with the babies' care. Agile prose and pitch-perfect dialogue enliven the story's climactic scenes of fights, kidnappings, and dangerous crossings; the author deftly handles the tropes of the genre with imaginative detail and delightful humor..."