The Great Contagion: A Merliss Tale
Fantasy/Novel
Plagues kill in more ways than one and Merliss soon discovers she has far more to fear than a disease.
Merliss is no ordinary cat. She’s a young girl’s spirit trapped in a cat’s body. While the magic that banished her has snatched away her human speech, it has given her a life spanning millennia. For centuries she has lived with the cunning folk, assisting their efforts to heal the sick and ward off malevolent creatures. Now a bleeding sickness has thrown the community into chaos.
The cunning man and his apprentice are in danger from the disease. The life Merliss has worked so long to build is in jeopardy. Before she entered the cat, she had trained to be a shaman. Do her centuries of experience hold a secret to a cure? But disease isn’t her only nemesis.
A pair of malevolent creatures move into the neighborhood threatening more havoc. With disease and monsters ravaging the land, Merliss is up to her whiskers in trouble. It couldn’t be worse, until a mob looking for a scapegoat turns its wrath on Merliss.
The Great Contagion is the gripping first novel in the dark fantasy Merliss Tales series. If you like strong and dynamic characters, rich description, magic and intrigue, then you’ll love Jeff Chapman’s imaginative Merliss Tales.
Grab The Great Contagion today to watch Merliss use her wits and magic to rescue her friends and herself.
Cat Sidhe: Into the Witch Lands I
Fantasy/Novel
A human spirit banished to the body of a cat.
Merliss has seen centuries of change, centuries of trouble.
Something nasty has come through one of the ley gates. It walks upright. It talks. And it looks like an oversized cat, but as Merliss can attest, it doesn’t smell like a cat.
It’s a cat sidhe on the hunt for slaves, anyone with opposable thumbs. Merliss travels to unknown territories to rescue a friend and encounters more trouble making her way home. The situation on the moors is far more dire than Merliss and her friends could have imagined.
Cat Sidhe is the first in a fantasy trilogy. Join Merliss on her prowls through dangerous lands.
“The Water Wight” in Strange Paths to Wonder
Fantasy/Short Stories
Is a vampire without fangs harmless? Do trolls really live under bridges? What’s a squonk and why does it weep? Where do water wights come from? How do you return a stolen jewel to a ghost?
Those are only a few of the questions the stories in this volume consider. There are varied paths in the fantasy genre and these stories travel many of them. The tales range from weird westerns to fairy tales to classic fantasy with a cat as the protagonist. Some feature magic, others none at all. Some are wondrous, some are woeful.
Strange Paths to Wonder has something for everyone, so dive into a feast of stories certain to satisfy your fantasy hunger.
Contains the Merliss tale “The Water Wight.” When a drowned girl changes her mind about suicide, Merliss and her associates face a fearsome, preternatural creature.
The Breath of the Sea: A Merliss Tale
Fantasy/Novel
What is a mermaid to a fisherman?
A young woman’s spirit trapped in a cat’s body, Merliss has lived more lifetimes than she can remember. When an unlucky fisherman happens on an injured mermaid and carries the creature home, Merliss takes an interest in the mermaid’s plight. Merliss fears for the community. She knows they will face retribution from the old gods if anyone kills the mermaid, assuming the old gods still have any power.
The mermaid soon comes under attack from multiple sources. One wants to kill her for revenge. One wants to convert the creature’s parts into medicine and money. The fisherman wants to use the mermaid to save his ailing daughter. A stranger wants to steal the mermaid’s magical power. Only the fisherman’s daughter seems to believe the mermaid has a soul, that she is more than a bizarre fish to exploit. Merliss becomes entangled in the mermaid’s plight and soon finds herself in more danger than the mermaid.
The latest novel in The Merliss Tales series, The Breath of the Sea weaves together multiple stories into an exciting fantasy tale replete with magic, treachery, sacrifice, and amazing creatures.