The Books
SONGS FROM THE SEASHELL ARCHIVES SERIES
My first series starting in 1981 through 1985 or so. Very well received. People have named their kids after the characters in these books.
Song of Sorcery
ISBN-13: 978075928730 E-READS
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Song of Sorcery is another light-hearted contemporary fantasy adventure which will please the author's many fans. Colin Songsmith sings a song to an old witch who takes an unlikely revenge. The witch's granddaughter rescues him from the dire threat of being eaten alive by the cat. She hears the song, which happens to concern her recently married sister and a gypsy. Convinced that she has to save her sister, she takes the minstrel, the cat and her magical resources to Rowan Castle. The story is rich with descriptive details of setting and encounters with magical and fantastic creatures such as a talking cat, a lovesick dragon, and a bear prince. The characters speak in contemporary slang which plays nicely against the traditional fantastic settings.
Available as E-book and Print on Demand
The Unicorn Creed
ISBN-13: 9781452466262 Gypsy Shadow Publishing and author
In Song of Sorcery, Book 1 of Songs from the Seashell Archives, hearthwitch Maggie Brown met minstrel Colin Songsmith and a unicorn named Moonshine while saving both her sister and the kingdom. All in a quest’s work for a girl who can magically do anything she can convince her power is housework. To reward Maggie, the king makes her a princess, and therefore a good catch for the local noble bachelors. Only problem is, she doesn’t want to get married. She wants to be with Moonshine, whose Unicorn Creed, as he understands it, forbids him to consort with anyone except a chaste maiden. It’s rather a touchy situation, and so Princess Maggie abandons her crown and with Moonshine, she and Colin set out to see if they can find a loophole in Moonshine’s creed. Of course, in the process they have to try to save the land of Argonia again, this time from a were-man, a revolutionary nymph, a town’s worth of zombies, an ice worm and an evil wizard.
Available as E-book
Bronwyn's Bane
ISBN-13: 9781452448329 Gypsy Shadow Publishing and author
Sleeping Beauty had it easy. Her curse only made her take a nap when she turned 16. As if it wasn’t bad enough already that because of her frost giant heritage from her father the king’s side of the family she was 6 feet tall when she was only 12 years old, poor Princess Bronwyn (the Bold) of Argonia was cursed at birth to tell nothing but lies. With her father away at war and her mother heavily pregnant, Bronwyn is even more in the way than usual, so she gets packed off to Wormroost, her aunt’s place in the glaciers, and en route she meets her musician/magician cousin Carole , a not-so-brave gypsy lad, and a princess-turned-swan. The lot of them encounter monsters, sorcerers, sea serpents, mercenary mages and sirens—many of whom are related to them. Without quite intending to, they embark on a quest to end the war, heal a battle-ravaged land, end a ban on magic and lift Bronwyn’s Bane. L. Sprague de Camp said, “I found BRONWYN’S BANE delightful reading. I wish I had her fertility of imagination in thinking up amusing twists, turns and business of plot.”
Available as E-Book
The Christening Quest
ISBN-13: 9781452470269 Gypsy Shadow Publishing and author
Going on a quest with a handsome prince might sound like a dream, but Prince Rupert’s cousin Carole comes to feel that it isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Carole agrees to accompany her hunky cousin to Miragenia to christen his baby niece. But it’s really hard to even explain the situation to anyone: how the little Princess was stolen from her mother’s side by Miragenians who demand fifteen years of the first-born’s life in exchange for a bit of help during wartime. Or how the baby was taken before magical christening gifts could be bestowed upon her for her protection and character development. The ladies surrounding Rupert (also known as Rowan the Romantic and Rowan the Rake) don’t care about some baby and don’t hear anything about the mission because they’re too busy sighing over him. Crowd control is an obvious problem, as is extricating Rupert from more than one involuntary engagement. When at last the two, with the help of dubious questing companions including a love-stricken pink and purple dragon, arrive at the theocracy of Gorequartz where the baby has been fostered out to a queen, they find themselves in trouble of a completely different complexion. Their most deadly nemesis is none other than a giant crystal “god” seemingly created in Rupert’s own image!
Available as E-Book
The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad
ISBN-10: 1619502526 ISBN-13: 978-1619502529 Gypsy Shadow Publishing Company and Author
The Songs from the Seashell Archives continue in a new book of the Brown witches and Rowan royals in the age of steam and dragon!
Steampunk in the Frozen North:
Progress has transformed Queenston, capital city of Argonia. Once the land of witches, wizards, fairies, and other magical people and animals, the country has changed since the Great War. Queenston, particularly, is now the city of contraptions and conveyances, including a modern international railroad.
During the war Argonia's dragons allied with the armies to push back an invasion. For their assistance, the beasts shared what food remained as the country rebuilt itself. But with the war won, the allies came to "rebuild" the war-torn country, bringing with them new ideas and inventions, most of which only needed a supply of iron and a reliable source of heat for their boilers. The dragons were again recruited, tamed, altered and virtually enslaved to power Progress.
Verity Brown is a modern girl. The magic of her witchy foremothers has become, if not actually illegal, highly unfashionable. The only magic that matters to Verity is her own curse, forcing her to know and tell the truth regardless convenience.
On Verity's 16th birthday, her father is lost in a hot-air balloon crash. The balloon's dragon and wrangler rescue Verity, but are blamed and sentenced to be put to death. Her honorable quest to save them and find her father's murderer takes her straight into the den of the wild and ferocious Dragon Vitia.
Available as E-Book