Candlemark & Gleam is known for finding exciting new voices. Yet an equally integral part of our vision is to give shuttles to bold experienced astrogators.

I first became aware of Jo Graham when I read Black Ships, an absorbing take on the Aenead with a young sibyl as its narrator. Since then, Jo has gone on to create twenty-seven speculative fiction novels (including the historical fantasy series The Order of the Air with Melissa Scott and tie-ins for Stargate series), three books on pagan spirituality, and three online games; and has garnered a slew of SFF and Romance awards.

So I was thrilled when Jo chose Candlemark as the launch pad for her mythic space opera series The Calpurnian Wars, a conflict of human cultures flung between the stars that awakens powerful mythic avatars of advanced technology that have become indistinguishable from magic. With echoes of Minoans, Spartans, Alexander’s Epigonoi, Celts, and Romans—and unique, deeply imagined planets and cultures—the first two works got glowing reviews in Publishers Weekly. Sounding Dark appeared in 2021, Warlady in 2022, and Fortune’s Favor is preparing for lift-off in 2023. Here’s the latter’s appetite-whetting synopsis:

When a Calpurnian faction leader kidnaps the young son of the Guardian of the city of Beira on Menaechmi, it’s up to his gaura, the intrepid Caralys, to find a way to rescue the boy. Getting a child off a Calpurnian warship in orbit safely seems impossible, but Caralys has an ace up her sleeve, a freelance agent named Bister. Bister wants Menaechmi’s support to repeal the Isolation that keeps her people imprisoned on Inanna, and what better way to get it than to have the Guardian owe her a favor? With the help of Boral, a young Morriganian electromancer on Menaechmi for his first port call, Bister lays her plans to trick the Calpurnians out of their prize. But when the Calpurnians threaten the unarmed cities of Menaechmi, the stakes get higher than one boy’s life. The fate of Menaechmi is in play, and Caralys must roll the Golden Lady’s dice to save her family and her world.

You will agree that such a riveting work calls for a cover artist of equally potent talent. Today I get to share the evocative cover of Warlady, created by Eleni Tsami. Eleni’s stunning, painterly work has graced many previous Candlemark efforts, including Melissa Scott’s Finders and Water Horse, and Jo Graham’s Sounding Dark and Warlady. As with its older sibling, the back of the cover for Fortune’s Favor shows the mighty Lady of the Void—but equally beguiling are the magnificent depictions of double-sun Menaechmi’s stormy skies, and the sea-girt city of Beira.

Warlady will launch on October 9. Keep this frequency open, fingers on engine buttons, and meanwhile visit Sounding Dark, Warlady and Fortune’s Favor at GoodReads!