The Ninth Rain

British Fantasy Award 2018 (the Robert Holdstock Award).

Jen Williams, author of the highly-acclaimed Copper Cat trilogy featuring THE COPPER PROMISE, THE IRON GHOST and THE SILVER TIDE, returns with the first in a blistering new trilogy. 'An original new voice in heroic fantasy' Adrian Tchaikovsky

The great wall of Ebora is crumbling. Wolves walk streets that once shone with gold, and Ebora's people - diseased and inhuman - are fading into nothing.

Tormalin the Oathless, last son of Ebora, has had enough. Better to enjoy the pleasures of wine and coin, the pursuit of men and women, than to waste away under the blind gaze of a long-dead god. Talk about a guilt trip. When the eccentric explorer Lady de Grazon offers him employment, he foresees an easy life escorting a rich old woman from one side of Sarn to the other. Even when they are joined by a fugitive witch with a tendency to set things on fire, the prospect of facing down monsters and retrieving ancient artifacts is still preferable to the abomination he left behind.

But not everyone is willing to let the Eboran empire fall. And Tormalin is soon drawn into a conspiracy of magic and war, whilst a horror from the depths of history threatens to make even his people look reasonable.

The Jure'lia are coming, and the Ninth Rain will fall...