Vassal of El

He tried to forget his past, but it wouldn’t forget him

At sixteen, Torren was violently torn from his family and his people and left for dead, a cripple in more ways than one. For the next few years, he traveled alone, making few friends.

Then, one night, a terrified young woman fleeing for her life stumbles into his camp, and his life once again takes new direction. As he reluctantly takes responsibility for getting her to safety, his past comes back to haunt him in a way that is painfully ironic. Against both his will and his better judgment, he must return to the place he had thought lost to him forever if he is to make good on his promise to keep his charge safe from harm.

Riders of the Purple Sage

Riders of the Purple Sage is a Western novel by Zane Grey. Considered by many critics to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been called “the most popular western novel of all time.”

Riders of the Purple Sage tells the story of Jane Withersteen and her battle to overcome her persecution by members of the polygamous Mormon Church, a leader of which, Elder Tull, wants to marry her. Withersteen is supported by a number of Gentile friends, including Bern Venters and Lassiter, a famous gunman and killer of Mormons. Throughout most of the novel she struggles with her “blindness” in seeing the evil nature of her church and its leaders, trying to keep both Venters and Lassiter from killing her adversaries, who are slowly ruining her.

Through the adoption of a child, Fay, she abandons her false beliefs and discovers her true love. A second plot strand tells of Venters and his escape to the wilderness with a girl named Bess, “the rustler’s girl,” whom he has accidentally shot. While caring for her, Venters falls in love with the girl, and together they escape to the East, while Lassiter, Fay, and Jane, are pursued by both Mormons and rustlers.

Original cover background image by Larry Lamsa.

Daughter of Darkness

Four years after being drugged and tricked into marriage with fourteen-year old Willow Givanchy, the unwanted daughter of his deadliest enemy and a reputed witch, Gerard Lytton returns home from America to find his wife and family changed. His mother is dead and his child bride has become a beautiful and capable woman, who has taken her place as mistress of the estate. His father is ill and close to death.

Brought up in Ireland by a male tutor, Willow excels in the manly arts of fencing and shooting. She has become well-loved within the Lytton family circle, and has lost none of her fiery independence, even while she longs to take her place by her husband’s side and become a “proper” wife to him.

But although nobly born, Willow cannot deny her mother’s dark reputation, or her father’s dishonour . . . and neither can Gerard forget it. Willow’s past becomes a problem to them both even while they fall in love. When Willow’s mother appears, it coincides with that of a raven. A series of mysterious events unfold and they cause an obstacle that threatens to tear Gerard and Willow apart for ever.

Cover background image: JW Waterhouse, “Miranda-The Tempest”

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Vassal of El

Riders of the Purple Sage

Daughter of Darkness