Rast is available.

My high fantasy “Rast” was released on the last day of February. I’ve been busy sending out notes everywhere but here, but that will cease. I have a Virtual Book Tour booked for April and will post the online locations where you can find me here, as well as where free e-book copies of the novel can be won. (I don’t know yet as nothing is decided.)

Later in the year the POD paperback version of “Rast” should be available and I will post the info where to find it for those who still prefer to squeeze the pages between thumb and forefinger. Actually, an e-book reader is easier to hold.

At the moment “Rast” is only available at the publisher’s site – http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=55&category_id=64&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

What is “Rast”? Take a read here –
“When the magic revolts to destroy the reigning Drogar, unleashing old enemies against Rast, a new danger lands upon the coast. An adventurer who scoffs at the thought of magic, Commander Antar, comes to pillage Rast for the burning stone that can fuel his iron furnaces, and to conquer the magic kingdom.

Prince Egon must tame his father’s deadly magic before he can withstand these assaults. His sweetheart Jady must ride alone to thwart the evil Deepning’s ascendance, released by the weakened Drogar. She also rides to confront the princess who must displace her; while Egon becomes Antar’s prisoner and the invaders’ guide through the mountains. Can the young peoples’ courage and magic repel the materialists from the sea?”

Don’t forget to visit http://www.christopherhoare.ca/ to read about all my work and perhaps download the free novella “Gisel Matah and the Slave Ship” my promo of the Iskander series.

Rast will be available soon.

If the planned release is on schedule, Rast will be published in a little over two weeks. I guess it’s time for me to make sure that this blog site – switched to Rast matters – begins to look like that.

I already have one potential reviewer anxiously awaiting the novel. I have several others who have reviewed my Iskander novels waiting in reserve. I haven’t actually contacted them yet, I’d better wait until I have the published file to hand, but I expect most of them to agree to give Rast a read. Then there are the reviewers in Lea’s long list at MuseItUp. Other writers say that reviews are not as good promotion as word of mouth recommendations, but they are on the route to getting those.

I’m one of thousands of novelists in a catch 22. People hesitate to buy my work because they don’t recognise my name: they don’t recognise my name because they’ve not read my work.

Next I’ll paste in my latest promotional blurb for Rast – do you think it will draw readers?


In Rast, magic is not a convenient parlour trick, it’s a deadly force that takes no prisoners. Those who must wield it are doomed, for it never ceases to work within the mind and nerves until it destroys its master.

And now, the time of the interregnum is here; the reigning sorcerer king, the Drogar of Rast, is struggling for a last grasp on magic power while his heir, Prince Egon, must take up the deadly mantle. Egon is fearful but courageous in his duty. Not one peril threatens Rast, but many.

While he struggles to tame the magic to his command the mechanistic Offrang adventurers arrive to seize the land for their empire. The Offrangs don’t just disbelieve in magic, they treat any attempt to discuss it with withering scorn. Then, when the Drogar falters, the North Folk sweep out in their multitudes to cover the land of Rast at the behest of their depraved Casket of Scrolls. Deepning too, a creature of earth magic in its mountain pools, stirs to gain power enough to conquer Rast.

The Prince’s sweetheart Jady does her best to support him, but she is not strong enough in the power of the lineage to bear him a magic wielding heir. She sets out to meet the caravansi of the cousin princess who is sent to be his consort with duty and anger both warring in her mind. The crisis will reveal surprising enemies, surprising friends, and as the Drogar tells Jady, “Even a Drogar may not see a future not yet determined.” While Egon goes west to spy on the Offrangs and Jady makes her way east, the oracle provided by the Pythian that lives in a cavern beneath the palace reveals, “You have no high point to see the scattered threads but must trust to those who grasp them.”

Everyone has a part to play in the preservation of Rast.