Category: Brightmoon world

Rereading The Magic Mines of Asharim

Rereading The Magic Mines of Asharim

Well, that was interesting. After three books that felt like little parochial squabbles, this one has a touch of the epic about it. It sprawls across the whole of the northern plains, from the Sky Mountains in the west to Hurk Hranda and Mesanthia in the east, meandering through the neglected canal system along the way. And there are the peculiar magic slugs, called Flickers, which were meant to be thoroughly creepy and turned out to be quite cute. There’s also history, in the shape of a once-great Empire with the ambition to restore its former glory and several different cultures duking it out over the water supply. There are also some key components of later books. Allandra, the new Keeper of Mesanthia, and possible future Empress, plays a key role in later books. The prophecies that drive Findo Gask came from the Spirit that speaks through Allandra. Those dragon […]


Post 5: Thoughts on maps

Post 5: Thoughts on maps

My cunning plan to reread all nine of the published Brightmoon books got bogged down in the pesky business of releasing a new Regency romance, so I’m a little behind schedule with the reading, but in the meantime, I’ve been thinking a little bit about maps. Every self-respecting fantasy has maps, right? Well, mine didn’t, partly because the early books were fairly localised, so there wasn’t really much need for one, so it was quite a long time before I started doodling on bits of paper to try to pull together the various places. But largely, I confess, it was because I didn’t know anyone who would make one for me and I didn’t have the skills to do it. Not an insuperable problem, probably, but somehow I never got round to making a full map of the Brightmoon world, beyond those doodles. But then along came The Second God, […]


Post 4: Brightmoon origins

Post 4: Brightmoon origins

‘The hour bells sounded, reverberating through the tower, then faded to silence. Mia and both her husbands were on time. Tella, her co-wife and sister, was late. ‘Hands folded in her lap, Mia sat perfectly still. ‘Across the table, Hurst tapped his fingers on the polished wood. Jonnor rose, paced twice round the room, pausing to look through the tower window at the everyday life of the Karning below, then took his seat again. Although they were cousins, the two men were not alike. Hurst’s rough features and plain brown jacket made him look like an ordinary Skirmisher, rather than a Karningholder. Beside him, Jonnor looked like a prince from the old stories, his blue woollen coat enhancing his figure. Mia forced herself to take her eyes off him. She smoothed away a crease in her russet tunic, then stilled her hands.’ So begins the first chapter of the first […]


Post 3: reread of The Mages of Bennamore

Post 3: reread of The Mages of Bennamore

Well, hello Tella. My most enduring character, who dies in chapter 1 of book 1 and then pops up repeatedly throughout the series. She has a relatively small part in this book, but henchman Kestimar has a more significant role. Another book I tore through in a couple of days, and with one of my favourite heroes, Mal, the flirtatious Bennamorian mage guard who lightens up my tightly-wound heroine, Fen. I’m a sucker for warrior types (see also Garrett of The Dragon’s Egg, and Arran of The Fire Mages’ Daughter). I’d forgotten that this book follows on more or less directly from The Fire Mages. In that book, the over-powered mage Drei used his magic to subdue Bennamore’s peaceful allies, the coastal Port Holdings, before getting himself killed. Now the Bennamorians don’t quite know what to do with their new dominion, but they’re following through on the promise to send […]


Post 2: Reread of The Fire Mages

Post 2: Reread of The Fire Mages

Part of the job of compiling my series bible is to reread all the existing books, to get all the multitude of details straight in my mind and documented, and to avoid conflicts with the new book. The Plains of Kallanash, the first book, is a mammoth tome of 220K words (which any half-sensible person would have turned into a trilogy), inspired by the idea of multi-couple marriages. That led me into some very strange places, and things got extremely complicated. I decided to start my reread with something simpler, The Fire Mages, a more traditional fantasy trope of the humble no-account person who turns out to have amazing powers. Not quite the farmboy turned heir to the kingdom, but something along those lines. As with all my books, I had no clue initially where the story would end up. All I had was the first line (‘I was fourteen […]


Post 1: Getting started

So here’s my first report on progress, a little earlier than scheduled. In future, I’m going to try to post something every Sunday, so we’ll see how that works out. First task was to go public with my intentions, as part of the accountability thing. That meant an explanatory post on this website, followed by an email to those on my mailing list. Well… if you leave these things to languish untouched for years, there are bound to be a few cobwebs in dusty corners and technological weirdness. It’s almost three years since I last posted here, or even looked at the site. Everything was out of date, so I set out to update a few plugins. Three mouseclicks later, the site vanished. Poof. Gone. No error message, just a blank screen. Oh boy. It took me about an hour to find a way to get it back (by renaming […]


So whatever happened to The Return of the Mages?

So whatever happened to The Return of the Mages?

Good question! The 9th book in the Brightmoon series, The Dragon Caller, was published on 13th December 2017. And the 10th book, The Return of the Mages, is… still in my head. I always intended to write it. I even had the cover made for it, as you can see. Pretty, isn’t it? Yes, that is a volcano erupting. So now you know what chapter 1 is about. But books 7, 8 and 9 in the series didn’t sell very well, and in the meantime, I’d got distracted by a shiny new genre – Regency romance – which DID sell, and so gradually the impetus died away. Book 10 was always going to be the difficult, pulling-everything-together book, and it meant rereading all the previous 9 and somehow, I never quite worked up the energy. So here we are, several years later and still no book 10. But every once […]


New Brightmoon covers! And a box set too…

New Brightmoon covers! And a box set too…

Big changes are afoot in the Brightmoon world – my lovely covers by Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics will soon be replaced. Why change? Because Glendon gave me exactly what I asked him for – a series of striking fantasy romance covers. And it’s taken me a long time to realise that I don’t write fantasy romance! Most of my books do have some kind of romance in them, but that doesn’t make them romance books. So, I’ve decided to start again with a clean slate and a new designer, Deranged Doctor Designs, and this time I’ve told them to make the covers epic fantasy through and through. I’m thrilled to show you what they’ve come up with. I’ll be introducing these one by one from 15th March, so if you’re a fan of the old covers and you want to complete your collection, now’s the time to do it. […]

Posted March 6, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Brightmoon world, News / 2 Comments

Brightmoon end of year quiz – answers!

I hope you had fun with the quiz. Here are all the answers. Any comments, objections, mistakes, etc – please feel free to post a comment or to email me. 1) The Plains of Kallanash Question 1: What was Dethin’s job when Mia first met him? A) Blacksmith B) Commander of First Section C) Eastern Warlord D) Skirmisher Answer: C) Dethin was the Eastern Warlord, with power of command over several individual sections. Bulraney was the deeply unpleasant character who was Commander of First Section when Mia first arrived there. Hurst and his companions were Skirmishers.

Posted January 8, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Brightmoon world / 0 Comments

End of year Brightmoon quiz

End of year Brightmoon quiz

It’s that time of year again, when the newspapers are full of quizzes and best-of articles and giant crosswords to while away the empty hours until we can all go back to work again. Or something. Anyway, here’s my contribution to the mountain of such trivia – a quiz set in the Brightmoon world. How much do you remember of the books? Three questions for each book, plus a bonus question. Answers in the New Year. 1) The Plains of Kallanash Question 1: What was Dethin’s job when Mia first met him? A) Blacksmith B) Commander of First Section C) Eastern Warlord D) Skirmisher Question 2: When Mia and Hurst climbed to the top of the tower in the lake at the Ring, what did they find there? (Bonus points if you can name everything they found along the way) A) The Silent Guards B) The Nine Gods C) Mages […]

Posted December 31, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Brightmoon world / 0 Comments