Cover Reveal: THE HEROES WE NEVER WERE (A TALE OF FOOLS AND LEGENDS #1) by Thomas Howard Riley

Blurb

An aging drunk former knight who cannot escape the wreckage of his warlike past, and his lord’s headstrong magick-wielding young daughter with a pet dog named Horse discover there may be an assassin among the guests visiting their castle. But when those guests are made up of their House’s most ruthless enemies, it is more difficult than it seems to narrow down to just one. 

War is the only thing Everan Caid was ever good at, and he yearns to return to his old ways. Long ago stripped of his knighthood and all but exiled from the castle of Oldmeadow, he is drunker by dawn than most men can manage all day. Peace, with the lack of killing that it brings, never sat right with him, especially since he fought on the losing side of the last civil war over Olbaran’s distant throne and has been forced to watch for years as his bitter enemies prospered at his expense. Yet even in the ruin after the war, his loyalty is unwavering to House Kederan and the Knights of Oldmeadow he fought beside, but with the castle suddenly full of visitors who support the usurper king he spent half his life fighting against, the limits of Everan’s oath of peace may soon be reached.

Sera Kederan, on the other hand, rarely finds time for serious things between climbing trees and running about the castle with her favorite bearhounds. Her father may be Lord Kederan, but Sera has little patience for the politics of distant courts…at least until suspicious visitors from those courts arrive at her doorstep. And when she discovers she might have a connection to certain arcane powers, she suddenly feels like she is being hunted in her own home.

With everyone hiding secrets, and a traitor in their midst, the race is on to stop a deadly plot and save their family from a looming war. Yet the deeper they both dig, the more it seems they have uncovered something far worse than they ever could have imagined.

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About the Author

Thomas Howard Riley currently resides in a secluded grotto in the wasteland metropolis, where he reads ancient books, plays ancient games, watches ancient movies, jams on ancient guitars, and writes furiously day and night. He sometimes appears on clear nights when the moon is gibbous, and he has often been seen in the presence of cats.

He always wanted to make up his own worlds, tell his own stories, invent his own people, honor the truths of life, and explore both the light and the darkness of human nature. With a few swords thrown in for good measure.

And some magick. Awesome magick.

He was content to write just for himself, not really trying to see any work in the public sphere, putting out proto-novels here and there, not thinking anyone would care. But then something changed. Now he sees it as his duty to make sure these stories get into the hands of as many of the people who might want to see them as possible. And now here we are. The journey begins.

He was raised on a steady diet of books, movies, comics, anime, and 8-bit Nintendo games. He was reading Tolkein and Asimov for fun instead of practicing his cursive handwriting. He read the chronological timelines at the end of Return of the King at least a hundred times more often than he read the actual book. He was, as they say, an odd child. He still is. (both odd, and a child) And he owns it, loves it, cherishes it. If you aren’t weird, you aren’t really worth knowing.

Somewhere along the way he developed an obsession with drawing maps of imaginary places, creating family trees of royal house that never existed, and dreaming up entire histories of cultures that never actually happened. If there was no proper word in the dictionary to express what he was thinking, he would make it up himself, and never offer an apology for it.

He wants to tell stories that are beautiful and ugly, funny and sad, horrifying and amazing, tragic and beautiful. And he wants you to be a part of it.

WELCOME TO THE WEBSITE OF EPIC FANTASY AUTHOR THOMAS HOWARD RILEY – Thomas Howard Riley