Halo of Ashes: Book One of The Grimknot Chronicles

Four hundred years ago, the world ended.

The Great Fall didn't just break civilization. It broke the rules. Some things that should have died didn't. Some powers that should have been buried kept moving through the dark, passed from hand to hand, waiting.

The city of Magran has outlawed ignorance, hoarded what remains of the old world's knowledge, and kept those who would take it at bay through gunpowder and nerve. But when the Grimknots march from the East – armored, coordinated, and unlike anything the Western settlements have faced – the city's survival will depend on a lawman chasing a ghost, an archer who has already lost everything, a stranger with no memory of who he was, and something ancient living inside him. Something that burns.

Halo of Ashes is a dark fantasy epic that blends post-apocalyptic worldbuilding with grimdark military fiction and the psychological depth of literary fantasy. A world where bullets are currency, Burt is a prophet, and the things buried underground are worth more than the living who walk above them.

The city is burning. The past is waking. The stranger in the ground knows more than he remembers. And somewhere to the east, someone has been waiting a very long time for exactly this moment.

Contains: brutal large-scale battle sequences, unflinching violence, psychological complexity, and a magic system rooted in emotion and consequence.

For fans of: The First Law, The Stormlight Archive, Prince of Thorns, and The Name of the Wind.