Category Archives: BOOKS

The Honor of Outcasts, Book One

 

Historical Romance

Date Published: 04-06-2023

Publisher: Sunset Petals Press, LLC

 

 

A man who finds his power in the blade of a sword.

A King and Queen who find their peace in each other.

And the cruel woman who twists their fates in her wicked hands.

 

Hayden is exiled to the castle of Engleside.  As the bastard son of
the King, he hates his rich and powerful father for not saving his beloved
mother.  And he is hated by the Queen, who sees him as a threat to her
son’s throne.  Hayden’s only companion is Mal, a
fast-talking troublemaker, and his only salvation is his love of wielding a
sword.

Magnus and Solveig are the much loved King and Queen of Gurnhaven.  In
warmth and laughter, they raise their children and rule their kingdom.
But their peace is threatened when soldiers from Engleside ride into one of
their villages, forcing Magnus to try and avoid a war while Solveig warns
that it’s inevitable.

Hayden knows if a war breaks out, the Queen will send him, hoping he
doesn’t return.  But he isn’t the only one who has to
navigate the twisted plans of the calculating Queen.  She has entire
kingdoms in her grasp.

 

An epic of kingdoms at war, woven with the intimate love stories of those
fighting to control their own futures, The Honor of Outcasts series shows
how some passions burn so strongly, they can bring empires to the ground.

 

Excerpt

 

Dear Hayden,

          You are more than battles
and blood.  Your hands have taken countless lives, yet they have been
placed so gently, so delicately upon me, and caressed me so tenderly and
deeply into love that I was, for moments, no longer bound within my
skin.  And there you would meet me, outside of our bodies, where we
entwined the parts of us that exist much deeper than our sweating flesh and
rushing blood.

          Your hands, who drop
their weapons to draw me closer, let me have them.  I will care for
them.  I will give them a new purpose.  I will take your hands and
dig them into the earth until the soil releases its bounty for us to feast
upon.  And when we fill our stomachs, they shall rise together in
laughter, for joy is the bounty of freedom earned.  We will laugh, and
while your lips curve like the crescent moon, I will teach you peace.

          The weight of war has
beared so heavily upon your shoulders that they now have the strength to
carry the foundations of a nation.  One not so cold as an empire, but
one where fires burn for comfort and warmth.  For while kings have used
you to destroy, they have given your arms the power to heave these stones
and trees and build a haven, where hearts touch, sun warms, trees sway.

          Be not haunted by the
scars you bear or the skill you wield, they will see us protected.  And
in my arms, you will see the beauty in what you’ve become, and find
the peace you have long been fighting for.

With All My
Love

 

          The battle waged around
him, and Hayden thought of plants, green, soft, and sun-warmed, growing up
from the ground like soldiers who were born and died in peacetime.  The
tomatoes they bore were a fluorescent red, the opposite shade of the blood
that covered him.  One red was the color of death, and the other was
life.

          They were her plants,
tended and kept by her soft, loving hands because she was peace and he was
war, and it didn’t take him long to feel which one was stronger.

          She was the world around
him, and everywhere he looked he saw her.  The forest was her eyes, a
place where you could look deeper and deeper for eternity.  Her hair
flowed like a river.  Her skin was warm as the sun, and when she spoke
it was moonlight, the only thing to grasp in the darkness.

          He remembered the feeling
of her face against his hand, the softness of her neck, how she would move
her body in his hands so he could touch all of her and she could feel him
everywhere.  He wanted nothing but those moments, but violence took him
anyway.

          He carried her letter
with him, he couldn’t feel it against his skin, but he knew it was
there, written in a time when there was no fighting, and instead, they had
futures, full of warm, ripening tomatoes, growing serene and safe on their
vines.

 

 

About the Author

Dahlia Red lives in the United States and gives her time to books.
She is excited to share The Honor of Outcasts series with you.  You can
find her on instagram and facebook @dahliaredwrites.

 

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