"The Thirteen Kingdoms of Kevin Pettway's Misplaced Mercenaries universe create what a standard fantasy world might look like if you pantsed it, set it on fire, and kicked it into a pigpen full of switchblade-armed rattlesnakes.
Mercenaries, sorcerers, and royals butt heads and stab backs in their pursuit of empire and control, or just a simple tankard of ale in a quiet tavern.
Full of snark, fun, and laughs, this book series will keep you entertained and leave you happier for having read it."
I'm excited and honored to collaborate with Cursed Dragon Ship Publishing and Kevin Pettway, as well as several other fantastic authors to write novels in the Misplaced Mercenaries universe.
Below you'll find information on my series The Kin, as well as books by other authors in this universe.
THE KIN SERIES (MAY 21, 2024)
The Kin series is a fantasy adventure love story about faith, truth, and people getting shivved.
BOOK 1: ALL HAIL THE KIN
Once a year, Tyrac asks Leila to marry him.
Once a year, she answers, “No.”
She has no choice. She and Tyrac are Kin, and the Kin have rules.
Rules written by the gods themselves.
As a priestess, Leila has dedicated her entire life to the reclusive Kin and the forgotten gods they worship. Even if it means enforcing their brutal dictates. Even if it means she can’t be with the man she loves. Despite his fractured faith in the gods, there’s little Tyrac won’t do for Leila. But after years of compliance for Leila’s sake, Tyrac finds himself unable to turn a blind eye to her violent deeds.
As their relationship crumbles, the two are selected to undertake a quest few have taken, and even fewer have survived. They must leave the safety of their home and travel across the treacherous expanse of Andos in search of a hidden, underground city in a far-off realm. Along with an elegant warrior princess, a temple librarian, a newly converted outsider, and two bratty teenagers, Leila and Tyrac find themselves far from home and pursued across unfamiliar land by ex-Kin intent on subverting their mission at any cost.
The journey will test Leila and Tyrac like never before, forcing them to confront the countless dangers of the outside world, the truth of the Kin, and the devastating reality of how far they are willing to go for what they believe, and for each other.
MISPLACED ADVENTURES STORIES BY OTHER AUTHORS
With stories by Kevin Pettway, Kevin J. Anderson, Jody Lynn Nye, Todd Fahnestock, Jessica Raney, Jen Bair, William LJ Galaini, Ethan A. Cooper, and C.M. McGuire.
Years ago, a fiery-tempered runecrafter painted an imp named Ild onto a playing card to tell the future for her and be her companion. But the future-telling thing never really worked out, and after some smoldering resentments on both sides led to unkind words, Ild found himself discarded in a desk drawer, while his creator went and got herself murdered.
Enraged over her abandonment of him, Ild the imp is out for revenge.
With the aid of Atli, a battle-scarred veteran troll, Ild is mystically collecting heroes from across the universes to find the one capable of recovering his creator from the Undergates, so that he can kill her properly and send her back there himself.
Or people who consider themselves heroes, anyway. No magic spell is perfect.
The “heroes” converge on the Jolly Chicken tavern to tell their stories. Those judged worthy will be sent to hell, while the unworthy will be killed.
Unless someone can change the rules of the Last Night at the Jolly Chicken.
A hilarious collection of short stories introducing the six new series of the Misplaced Adventures, a funny and irreverent shared fantasy universe based on the world of the Misplaced Mercenaries books. It all starts here!
This anthology, originally part of a successful Kickstarter Campaign, features my short story Local Cuisine. It's about priestess Leila and her protector Tyrac, their illicit journey into the Wood of Night Sins, and their fateful encounter with [CENSORED]. It's got everything you want. Adventure. Romance. Humor. Impalings.
THE HETTIE STORMHEART SERIES
Taking over an island nation of pirates should be easy for Hettie Stormheart, First Daughter of the merciless Island Witch, but leading her coven of twenty-seven siblings who can’t agree on anything is like herding drunken cliff pigs.
When a foreign diplomat warns of an invading lord threatening their way of life, Hettie’s got to whip her sisters into fighting shape to defend their home, only the invading army is unlike anything they’ve ever seen: beast-like men and amphibious assassins who can swim circles around them.
To make matters worse, Hettie’s only hope of victory is a cursed magical artifact: Deryl, a sentient eyeball who hates magic-wielders and is more annoying than all her siblings combined. But as Hettie struggles to keep her ragtag group of defenders together, a new adversary emerges. One more ruthless and unexpected than even the shadow beasts that hunt them in the dark.
With Deryl’s help, Hettie must overcome the invading army and protect her home from those who seek to destroy it. The true cost of victory may be higher than she ever imagined, and the fate of the island nation—and the Daughters’ Coven—hangs in the balance.
THE HUNTRESS AND HARVESTER SERIES
The seeds of a legend grow in tales told around campfires and in whispers in dark corners of taverns. Magdalena Verran is a legend, a hunter who never misses her mark or loses a bounty. But now that legend is about to come to an end. For over three-hundred years, she’s harvested souls as an indentured servant to a pair of bickering gods. With her team of horses and an impressive magical blue scythe for a hand, Mags is poised to deliver the last soul she owes, then her debt will be settled and the gods can go pick on someone else for a change.
But life—even one centuries old—is never that simple and reaping leaves behind scars on the families and the harvester. Before she can turn in her scythe, Mags’s past transgressions catch up to her in the form of a trio of young criminal wannabes. Saving them just might be a way to balance her sins. But between the involvement of the gods and the trio's own recklessness, Magdalena finds her skills—and patience—tested.
Somehow Mags must find a way to avoid angering the gods further, complete her new bounty without adding more blackmarks to her soul, and save the trio of young adventurers who seem determined to wind up dead. Pulled in multiple directions, Mags’s legendary skills are put to the test. One misstep and she endangers the lives of her young companions and her own soul.
THE WRONG WAY SERIES
Brave and clever young Masika, the daughter of a diplomat and niece of an emperor, has discovered a pair of ex-gods in a secret dungeon below the Fell Citadel. She promises to return them home, only to be thwarted by the king of the gods himself—High King Oldam of the Alir.
So Masika takes matters into her own hands and sets off to find a way to bring her new friends to their home despite the high king’s wishes. But a deal with a very questionable imp painted on a playing card in a seedy tavern, sets the trio on a desperate adventure for help to the Alir’s constant and deadly enemy, the gods of the Darrish empire.
Can Masika, no matter how resourceful, hope to overcome the will of two sets of deities to keep her promise?
Hostile armies, ancient sorcerers, and primordial monsters bar the way, but none is so formidable as … Masika’s most elegant and proper older sister, Meritities.
THE INVASION OF THE CHROMIUM SERIES
Orphaned and alone in the world, Arvin heads to the only place desperate enough to take him: the camp of a war chief. Though the elders in charge of assignments aren’t impressed with Arvin, the war chief himself, Evrick, finds his alchemy skills and unique way of solving problems interesting—and possibly useful.
With the help of his brilliant wife Visteria—who has goals of her own—Evrick plans to raise Vastard from its humble standings into a legitimate Fourteenth Kingdom, equal to Greenshade and Tyrrane in power. He sets Arvin to solve a mystery locked below the sand in an ancient underground ruin, a source of power unlike anything any of them have ever seen.
When Arvin and Visteria make a breakthrough, their celebration is cut violently short by the arrival of a vicious, unkillable race of beings that quickly ravage the human army: the Chromium. Now Arvin and Visteria must use all of their skills to thwart the rise of the Chromium or the Fourteenth Kingdom will fade before it ever has a chance to shine. And the chromium will spread across the Thirteen Kingdoms destroying all in their wake, and possibly beyond.
Their time is running out.
THE PICK'S POCKET SERIES
Welcome to the Pick's Pocket, where the spirits are high, but the stakes are higher.
In the depths of the Sedrian swamp, Pickett, the accidental swamp witch, spins tales to keep her ramshackle bar afloat. Only her loyal sidekick, Edie, knows the enchanting act is just a clever ruse. Yet, Pickett harbors more than magical secrets; a looming loan threatens to snatch the very bar they call home from beneath their feet.
As if unpaid debts weren't enough, the undead decide to crash the party, sending patrons fleeing and Pick's Pocket into peril. With a loan shark demanding more than magic tricks, Pickett finds herself juggling not just spirits, but the haunting threat of financial ruin.