Day 10 of the Days of #Fantasy for #Christmas!! #FantasyforChristmas @mmcshanewrites #GuestPost #booklovers #WIN

Melissa McShane for

Days of Fantasy for Christmas

Voyager of the Crown

(The Crown of Temontane #4)

By Melissa McShane

Fantasy

Paperback & ebook, 312 Pages

September 7th 2018 by Night Harbor Publishing

Zara North, Queen of Tremontane, has the ability to unconsciously heal herself—a magic that also keeps her from aging. Faced with the reality that public knowledge of her magic could destroy her family’s dynasty and cost them the Crown, she faked her own death and set out to make a new life for herself, far from the capital and the family she loved. Never settling anywhere for long, Zara became an exile in her own country.

Now, sixty years after her “death,” Zara’s ageless face forces her to leave her home yet again. Wanting something different from the quiet life she led for decades, she sets sail for the distant continent of Dineh-Karit, reclusive and alien. When unexpected catastrophe strikes, it strands Zara and a handful of her fellow voyagers in the jungles of Dineh-Karit. Far from civilization, their only guide a reluctant Tremontanan expatriate who has his own reasons for being there, the castaways struggle for survival and to return home.

But Zara, entrusted with a secret by a dying man, finds herself caught between the woman she has become and the Queen she used to be. As an implacable enemy bent on retrieving the secret—a mysterious magical object—draws ever closer, Zara realizes her companions’ survival depends on Zara’s ability to lead them as she once did a nation. With an identity and a magical secret she still cannot reveal, Zara discovers depths in herself she thought were long gone—and gains a future she never expected.

Book Four in The Crown of Tremontane series about extraordinary women facing extraordinary challenges, Voyager of the Crown can be read as a standalone novel or as part of the series.

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Guest Post: Voyager of the Crown by Melissa McShane

The Crown of Tremontane series began as a bedtime story I told myself that grew over time: the story of princess/spy Telaine, of the beautiful but bookishly shy Alison, of tough warrior Imogen. But I have no memory of how Zara North, heroine of Voyager of the Crown, came to be. Because I wrote the series back to front, starting with book three (Agent of the Crown), Zara’s character developed in a sideways manner. I always knew she had the magical ability to unconsciously heal herself, and I knew that would be a devastating ability for a queen to have—because it meant healing the damage of aging so she would never grow old or die, and that kind of eternal reign struck me as potentially terrible for a kingdom. She fascinated me from the beginning, even though she was a side character, great-aunt to Princess Telaine North Hunter whose story Agent was.

But in Agent, Zara was already long past the time when she had been queen, and she had been in hiding for forty-plus years. It took writing the first book, Servant of the Crown, to discover who she’d been before she learned about her magic: a tough, take-no-prisoners lady who stole every scene she was in (she is not the main character in Servant, but she provides an essential backbone for the novel). And in the bonus short story attached to Servant, “Long Live the Queen,” I finally got to tell a story from Zara’s perspective and set her free to discover who she was meant to be.

That short story intrigued me enough that I wanted to write a whole book with her as the main character. Unfortunately, the story eluded me for years. At one point, I wrote a sequence of short stories about Zara’s life after faking her death and going into hiding, and those were fun, but I despaired of ever discovering what her happily ever after was. And yet I couldn’t bear to think of her going on for another century or more, unable to settle down permanently, always alone.

It was the “alone” part that finally gave shape to Voyager of the Crown. Zara, in setting off to make yet another new life for herself, is shipwrecked with a handful of other passengers in a distant land—and suddenly she’s not alone as she and her chance-met friends struggle to survive. Add a handsome stranger named Ransom—tetchy, sarcastic, and every bit as smart as Zara—a mysterious magical artifact, and pirates, and I had the novel I’d given up on ever writing.

Voyager of the Crown can be read by itself or as the culmination of the Crown of Tremontane series, but it’s richer if it’s read as part of Zara North’s character arc. I love how it turned out, and that Zara finds both true love and the sense of self she thought she’d left behind a lifetime ago.

Other Books in the Series

About the Author

Melissa McShane is the author of twenty fantasy novels, including Servant of the Crown, Burning Bright, and The Book of Secrets. She lives in the shelter of the mountains out West with her husband, four children, and a niece, and two very needy cats. She wrote reviews and critical essays for many years before turning to fiction, which is much more fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have. You can visit her at her website www.melissamcshanewrites.com for information on other books and upcoming releases.

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Tour Schedule

(Links won't work until the posts go live.)

December 1st: Launch

December 2nd: Gillian Bronte Adams - The Songkeeper Chronicles

December 3rd: Morgan L. Busse - Mark of the Raven

December 4th: Evangeline Denmark - Curio

December 5th: Kate Avery Ellison - A Gift of Poison

December 6th: J.M. Hackman - Spark

December 7th: Ronie Kendig - Embers

December 8th: C.E. Laureano - Oath of the Brotherhood

December 9th: Belle Malory - The Twelfth Keeper

December 10th: Melissa McShane - Voyager of the Crown

December 11th: J. Ellen Ross - The Remembered Queen

December 12th: Jennifer Silverwood - Silver Hollow

December 13th: Melissa Wright - Blood & Brute & Ginger Root

December 14th: Morgan Wylie - The Age of Alandria Series

December 15th: Grand Finale

Tour Giveaway

Grand Prize #1: Winner will receive a FIRE HD 8 TABLET along with the following ebooks (open to those who are eligible for the Fire Tablet in their area can receive Kindle gifted copies of ebooks):

- CURIO, MARK OF BLOOD and ALCHEMY (The Curio Prequel), and THE ICE CHILD (a holiday novelette) by Evangeline Denmark

- A GIFT OF POISON by Kate Avery Ellison

- THE TWELFTH KEEPER by Belle Malory

- SERVANT O THE CROWN or VOYAGER OF THE CROWN (winner's choice) by Melissa McShane

- THE REMEMBERED QUEEN by J. Ellen Ross

- SILVER HOLLOW by Jennifer Silverwood

- THE FREY SAGA (Books 1-3) ebook box set by Melissa Wright

Grand Prize #2: Winner will receive the following print books (open to continental US residents):

- ORPHAN'S SONG by Gillian Bronte Adams

- MARK OF THE RAVEN by Morgan L. Busse

- SPARK by J.M. Hackman

- ABIASSA'S FIRE 3-book collection by Ronie Kendig