On August 15, 2022, Candlemark & Gleam will release Jo Graham’s riveting Warlady, the second work in the unfolding space opera linked-stories series The Calpurnian Wars after Sounding Dark. The series illuminates conflicts of human cultures flung among the stars that awaken potent mythic avatars of advanced technology that have become indistinguishable from magic. With echoes from the cultures of Minoans, Celts, Romans and Alexander’s epigonoi, Warlady is equal parts National Treasure and X-Men: seamlessly fusing far past and far future, it cries out for the attention of someone with the talent and flair of Kathryn Bigelow or Denis Villeneuve.

Warlady received high praise from Publishers Weekly, genre legend Melissa Scott, Hugo nominee Paul Weimer, and best-selling authors E.K. Johnston and K.V. Johansen; and it boasts a cover by Eleni Tsami, as stunning as all her works. The digital version is available for pre-order at Amazon, B&N and Kobo; and if all goes as it should, the paperback pre-order should also go live by the end of this week or beginning of next week. Here’s its synopsis to whet appetites:

The Warlady of Morrigan has been assassinated, and it’s up to her military attaché, Sandrine Dal-Vesta, to find the killer. For Sandrine and her former secret lover, the electromancer Jauffre Castal-Edo, it’s a race against time with control of the planet hanging in the balance. From the snow-scoured peaks of the north to the imaginary deserts of virtuality, from the lost tomb of the Warlord Khreesos to the battlestations of tidally-locked Morrigan’s space fleet, Sandrine and Jauffre must trust in each other and the dangerous gift of electromancy. But the ruthless killer isn’t the only threat to Sandrine’s world. The Calpurnian Navy has been waiting for a moment of weakness to strike Morrigan with all the power at their command!

Jo Graham is the author of twenty-five books and two online games. Best known for her historical fantasy novels Black Ships and Stealing Fire, and her tie-in novels for MGM’s popular Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: SG-1 series, she has been a Locus Award finalist, an Amazon Top Choice, a Spectrum Award finalist, a Romantic Times Top Pick in historical fiction and a Lambda Literary Award and Rainbow Award nominee for bisexual fiction. With Melissa Scott, she is the author of five books in the Order of the Air series, a historical fantasy series set in the 1920s and 30s. She is also the author of two pagan spirituality books.

Because GoodReads giveaways are no longer free and our coffers are of the usual size for indie micro-presses, we will be doing a direct giveaway for Warlady. You can enter it by leaving a comment to this post or by sending an email (with subject line “Warlady Giveaway”) to our website address. Please rest assured that your email will only be visible to the site admin.

The giveaway will run from July 18 to midnight of August 14, and random winners will be picked to receive copies of the novel. For up to 50 requests, there will be one award copy. For up to 100 requests, two copies; and beyond that, three copies. Because the pandemic and the USPS slowdown have caused significant shipping problems, the giveaway will only award digital copies (it will include the PDF that contains all the print flourishes).

We can hardly wait to share this remarkable work and its linked siblings with the world. Check star charts and scan all frequencies!

Note added on August 15: the giveaway is now closed.  We’ll pick winners and contact them within a week.