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Winter's Reach

Revanche Cycle #1 / 4
by Craig Schaefer
Winter's Reach (Revanche Cycle #1) by Craig Schaefer
Unrated

Pope Benignus is dying, and the man who takes his throne will hold the reins of an empire. Conspiracies swirl like shadows around Livia, the pope's daughter, who refuses to be anyone's pawn: chasing the whispers of a deadly coup, she vows to expose the truth and save her church from disaster. Livia has secrets of her own, though, and one wrong move could cost her life and her soul.

Felix is the scion of a dying merchant house, a man with just one chance to save his family and the woman he loves. His last hope lies in the snowbound hell of Winter's Reach, a former prison colony turned "free city" under a brutal tyrant's reign.

Livia and Felix have never crossed paths, but they've both been snared in a far greater web than they can imagine. They - along with a pair of veteran bounty hunters, an exiled politician, and a sadistic coven of witches - are cogs in one man's apocalyptic plan for revenge. A plan which, if it succeeds, will leave an entire nation in flames.

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Fantasy
Release date: November 2014

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Craig Schaefer

Craig Schaefer writes where the lines between crime and sorcery blur, and where every bargain comes with a cost. Under that name, Heather Schaefer has built an interconnected body of work that threads through the neon alleys of Las Vegas, the halls of occult conspiracies, and worlds shaped by betrayal, devotion, and blood-stained magic.

Her breakthrough came with The Long Way Down in 2014, the first Daniel Faust novel. What began as the tale of a streetwise magician hustling through Vegas’s underbelly grew into a sprawling series praised for its relentless pacing and razor-edged mix of noir and urban fantasy. Schaefer expanded the universe with Harmony Black, turning the camera on a covert government team tasked with confronting supernatural threats, and with The Revanche Cycle, a Renaissance-tinged epic of politics and power. Though distinct in setting, these works share a gravitational pull toward moral ambiguity: damaged survivors, corrupt institutions, and the fragile bonds that can either redeem or destroy.

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Schaefer’s stories often carry the texture of lived history. Before writing full time, she immersed herself in folklore, crime reporting, and the ways myth bleeds into daily life. Those influences surface in her prose, lyrical when a moment demands wonder and unflinching when violence breaks through. She does not shy away from flawed heroes or hard questions, instead building narratives that sit at the uneasy crossroads of loyalty and betrayal, hope and ruin.

Now based in North Carolina, she continues to weave tales set in what she calls the First Story, a shared continuity linking her major works. A decade on from her first publication, her novels have been translated into multiple languages, drawing international readers into her haunted worlds.

Whether following Daniel Faust’s crooked path through casinos and covens, Harmony Black’s battles with monsters in the dark, or the political intrigue of The Revanche Cycle, readers come to Schaefer’s work expecting more than just magic. They come for the tension of lives balanced on the edge, where every choice carries a shadow.

Revanche Cycle

A world away from Daniel Faust and Harmony Black - though perhaps not as far as you might think - awaits the intrigue and danger of The Revanche Cycle. As Pope Benignus lies in his deathbed and an empire awaits his successor, a madman puts his apocalyptic plan for revenge into motion. His web of conspiracy will snare an unlikely gathering of souls, from a barmaid and her lover, to a pair of low-rent bounty hunters, to the pope's iron-willed daughter, their roads converging in a broken, war-ravaged land.

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This is a realm of intrigue, betrayal, and all-consuming corruption. A realm where politics can be as deadly as poison - and more often than not, the two go hand-in-hand.


Revanche Cycle consists of four books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

Winter's Reach (Revanche Cycle #1)
Unrated
The Instruments of Control (Revanche Cycle #2)
Unrated
Terms of Surrender (Revanche Cycle #3)
Unrated
Queen of the Night (Revanche Cycle #4)
Unrated


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