Monthly Archives: November 2017

Now Available: The Acolyte

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THE ACOLYTE

SCIENCE FICTION

CLINT WESTGARD

After crossing the universes to join with Toma Osahi’s group of renegades in their battle for control of the Church of Regents, Laila Johar finds herself in a precarious position. While they both share the same goal—wresting control of the Church from the Grand Regent—Osahi doesn’t know who Laila really is. What will he do if he finds out?

While Laila struggles to keep her identity secret, Osahi and his people pull her deeper and deeper into a search for her missing friend Ana that promises to shed light on the dark secrets of the Watchers’ Order and the Acolytes. Before she can find those answers though, Laila will have to face what lies within.

Crossing the universes has unsettled the already shaky equilibrium in her mind. If she wants to return herself to her own body, she will have to act fast, for the consequences of what Acolytes did to her are still reverberating. And Aeida hides somewhere, waiting for his time to come.

The thrilling third volume of the Sojourners Cycle continues Laila’s incredible journey across multiple universes and against incredible odds, all in a desperate search for herself.

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the-acolyte

Now Available: Hart’s Crossing

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HART’S CROSSING

HISTORICAL FANTASY

CLINT WESTGARD

Alice arrives to Hart’s Crossing, in the wild foothills of turn of the century Alberta, a girl of no more than fourteen, to live with her aunt following her father’s untimely death. There she will find love and heartbreak, and come to understand the darkness that lies in the hearts of others.

For all is not as it seems at Hart’s Crossing. There is the stern and forbidding Andrew Hart, whose countenance strikes fear in Alice and who is hiding something terrible. But even Aunt Muriel and Jack, her love, are keeping their own secrets.

When they are revealed it is Alice who will pay the price. For she will find it is impossible to leave Hart’s Crossing.

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Excerpt: The Acolyte

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In advance of the publication of The Acolyte on November 30, here is a short excerpt:

It is some time after the channel vanishes—the ferry and the tiny room where Morris Loverne has just been overwhelmed gone with it —before I can find it in myself to move again. I feel adrift. Events have conspired again to leave me alone, with no one I can turn to.

Though I can no longer trust Morris—he is a creature of the Seeker and a Society agent, after all—his familiarity, our shared history, was a comfort to me. There was something like trust there, no matter how illusory it might have been. He was a friend once, however false he proved to be. Those are the only kind I have.

How pitiful it all seems now. The illusion of trust. That is all I have—illusions and lies. Even my body is not my own. My mind seems less and less so with each passing day.

Especially now, as I am reeling from the aftereffects of the transfer. My hands are shaking and my legs are trembling. It takes all my effort to keep my feet under me. I have to close my eyes against the sun, painfully vivid against the cloudless blue sky. My head aches. Everything hurts, actually, and, as I take a first tentative step, I collapse onto the rocks.

A swirl of thoughts and colors assaults me. I try to blink them back, to no avail. Somewhere, lurking behind this internal cacophony, lies Aeida, waiting for his chance to take control. He is still so dangerous. No matter that he is not what he was, this is still his body.

A terrible coughing fit assaults me, bruising my lungs. I don’t know if I can survive another crossing, not in my current state. It was never like this before. But I was never like this before either. This remade mind, stolen and tamped, was not intended to be sent across the channels. It was supposed to stay lost in a universe known only to the Watchers’ Order and myself.

If I am to restore myself to my body, I will have to attempt another crossing, especially now that I am here in another lost universe. It is inevitable. The thought terrifies me. Will entropy work further upon me each time, until there is nothing left of me and Aeida but a twitching mass of limbs?

That thought is almost as disturbing as those I have about what has become of my body. I imagine it, hidden somewhere in the endless universes, suffering under whatever tortures Molijc can devise. He will not win, I tell myself, as I work to steady my breathing and still my body. I will not allow it.

The Seeker has asked me to become his agent for the Society, or whatever faction of the Travelers he serves, and foment revolt within the ranks of the Regents. I have no doubt I will have to account for my failure to do so someday, but hopefully when I next stand before him, it will by my own eyes that meet his terrible ones.

I do not have the luxury of worrying about him. My time is short; I can see that clearly now. It is only a matter of time before Aeida gains command or this constructed mind collapses in on itself and neither of us survives in any form. I must restore myself before that happens. I must destroy Molijc and end the tyranny of his faith before that comes to pass.

My urgency brings me to my feet. There is no time to linger. As I rise, the colors grow brighter and brighter, at their center a pulsating orb that penetrates deep into my brain, lancing it like some doctor removing a tumor. Darkness is ascendant, and I feel my legs go from beneath me again. Continue reading →

Excerpt: Hart’s Crossing

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In advance of the publication of Hart’s Crossing on November 23, here is a short excerpt:

I don’t recall the exact details of my return to Hart’s Crossing. It was after the accident, that much is certain, but beyond that nothing is. My memory is troubled, whether from that incident, or some other that followed. This uncertainty worries me, on the occasions when my thoughts drift to those days, though I try not to allow them to. That is a futile struggle when I find myself unable to leave Hart’s Crossing. So much of the past is still alive for me in this place, for it cannot die.

Hart’s Crossing was once my home, a place where I loved and was loved in return, but no longer. Now it is my prison, a place where it seems I am doomed to remain for all the time that is left to me, embittered against my captors and hated and feared by them in equal measure. Such a cruel twist of fate that it should come to this end, after such a beautiful beginning. I cannot account for it, but then my memory, since the accident, is not what it was.

My days now are spent hiding from those I once welcomed with laughter and delight. I lurk in the bedrooms when everyone else is downstairs taking their meals, or whiling away an evening at cards. Only at night, when they are asleep, do I dare to descend, stalking the parlor and the kitchen like a cat after a mouse. Sometimes the floors creak at my passage, or I brush against some book sending it to the floor, announcing my presence for all to hear. In those moments I flee to the cellar or the attic, if I am able, and remain until they leave me in peace.

But there can be little solace here for me. No longer. Why do I remain then? It is hard for me to explain, but I shall try. Continue reading →