FITZMARBURY WITCHES: Baratanac (Complete Trilogy)

★In the fifth century B.C., a child is born in the moonlit pools of the last great Egyptian oasis before Libya. She is of prized blood. Shielded from sight, she is raised in a brothel close to the Oracle of Amun where pilgrims seek holy wisdom. A dark and corrupt cult awaits her in a foreign city, far across the shimmering sands. ★In 1666, the year of the beast, the vast seething metropolis of London burns to the ground, shocking Europe. The fire is said to have flared from a Pudding Lane bakery. Among the ashes, some claim to have sighted a foul creature, aflame, dancing across the doomed rooftops. ★In 2016, unexplained disappearances continue to confound Scotland Yard, in what some people are calling “London's Bermuda Triangle”. Why do more people go missing in Fitzrovia, Marylebone, and Bloomsbury than anywhere else in England?★In 2017, the Royal Barbados Police sift through the wrecked interior of an isolated island rental property. A computer is discovered in what is clearly a crime scene. Its hard drive contains a number of poems, mysterious draft books, and a letter of warning . . .Discover how these dark deeds and many other incidents are connected across distance and time. The Baratanac Trilogy of Fitzmarbury Witches series reveals all…Don't miss this No. 1 AMAZON BESTSELLER series of Dark Fantasy Horror, Occult Horror, Action Adventure Fantasy, Low Fantasy, and Women's Historical Fiction.◆Buy each book of the Baratanac Trilogy as an individual paperback. ◆★★★★★ PRAISE FOR FITZMARBURY WITCHES:What a debut novel! Hollywood this is your new dark historical fantasy and horror franchise!OK I’m shook, I think I just graduated from Harry Potter . . . Game of Thrones meets The Witcher . . . Totally amazing writing.A NEW DARKNESS AT THE WORLD'S EDGE: A ruthless priestess of Baal sails from the imperial African city of Carthage, to breach new frontiers at the edge of the world in tribal Britain. Sixty years have passed since the fall of Sparta's King Leonidas and his 300. She is a hardened warrior, wrenched from the only love she ever knew and raised in merciless service to Baal. Her iron heart holds the secrets of a young girl trafficked across the Sahara from the decaying Egyptian city of Sekht-Am (Siwa). Ever threatened by the scandal of her origins, she proves herself by embarking on a series of perilous and violent missions. The African coast fades. The greatest fleet on earth steers into the fathomless Unknown Ocean . . .EVEN THE PUREST EVIL HAS A HISTORY: In 2017, an author flees the accursed London streets of Fitzmarbury, terrified and fearing for his life. In an isolated Barbados redoubt – on wild Atlantic shores – the author's mind and writings are haunted. Cruel voices speak horrifying revelations. A vast storm approaches as another visitor to Bathsheba – a presence – stalks him in the darkness. In the heart of a doomed empire a web of predatory evil is unveiled. Enjoyed The Last Kingdom, Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, and The Witcher? Buy FITZMARBURY WITCHES now! It’s no small wonder that D. J. Swales shares the same name as Count Dracula's first Whitby victim. His books weave fact and fiction. They burst with ancient cults, dark entities, twisted romance, and remorseless terror. ✓ Also discover D. J. Swales Gothic and Other Tales, a ★TOP 10★ ApplePodcasts audio drama podcast in more than 12 countries. Available on all major platforms. (Chartable Weekly Rankings

From the Inside Flap

Of all dead empires, Carthage is the one we are most left to imagine. Its archaeological record is sparse, its glory actively erased. Baratanac (Book One of Fitzmarbury Witches) transports us to the pomp and underbelly of the simmering imperial city - a North African maritime metropolis of vast tentacled colonial influence, refinement and cruelty. A host of gods and richly robed cults serve the ambitions of its citizens, migrants, mercenaries and slaves - the orders of the Phoenician god Baal and his consort Tanit supreme among them. This book imagines events at the zenith of the Carthaginian empire, six decades after Persia crushed the 300 of Sparta. Privilege and injustice reign, spoils are split by the courageous and the corrupt. Purity of blood defines the city's ruling elite, supported by ruthless mercenaries. The poor and the destitute are crushed underfoot while the capital's walls, temples and institutions stand invincible and impervious - spearheading the empire's cultural and territorial expansion over large swathes of the Western Mediterranean. The trade routes of Carthage are zealously protected by its unrivalled navy, some extending beyond the boundaries of civilization - to the cold and savage frontier to the north, where druids chant, cannibals hunger, and the painted people of myriad tribes melt into the endless smothering forests. The enemies of Carthage covet the riches buried in the deep damp earth of the barbarians - riches monopolised by the empire. In 146 BC, Carthage was extinguished in a genocidal orgy of blood and flames - the grotesque culmination of more than one hundred years of wars with Rome - with the city's few survivors shipped away as slaves. Legend holds that Rome - an envious and vicious nemesis - sowed salt over the charred rubble and splintered bones so that life could never return. Aside from a few excavated ruins, such as those in Tunisia and Sardinia, only oblique traces of its former cultural glory remain. Scraps of Roman propaganda and anecdotal Greek accounts provide a pitifully limited lens, especially when compared to what was lost: the scrolls and manuscripts of Carthage's libraries hauled away as plunder by Numidian kings who had allied with Rome. The pathetic few documents that survived this devastation can only hint at the sophistication and accumulated knowledge of a thousand years that disappeared into the mountains and deserts - never to be seen again.Enter a lost world of spirits and superstitions. When the value of a life was measured in many ways . . . and sorcery wound its own path.- D. J. Swales

From the Back Cover

A NEW DARKNESS AT THE WORLD'S EDGE: A ruthless priestess of Baal sails from the imperial African city of Carthage, to breach new frontiers at the edge of the world in tribal Britain. Sixty years have passed since the fall of King Leonidas and the Spartan 300. She is a hardened warrior, wrenched from the only love she ever knew and raised in merciless service to Baal. Her iron heart holds the secrets of a young girl trafficked across the Sahara from the decaying Egyptian city of Sekht-Am (Siwa). Ever threatened by the scandal of her origins, she proves herself by embarking on a series of perilous and violent missions. The African coast fades. The greatest fleet on earth steers into the fathomless Unknown Ocean . . .EVEN THE PUREST EVIL HAS A HISTORY: In 2017, an author flees the accursed London streets of Fitzmarbury, terrified and fearing for his life. In an isolated Barbados redoubt - on wild Atlantic shores - the author's mind and writings are haunted. Cruel voices speak horrifying revelations. A vast storm approaches as another visitor to Bathsheba - a presence - stalks him in the darkness.

About the Author

Author, poet and mixed media artist D. J. Swales was born in West Belfast, during the civil war of "The Troubles". Dangers forced him and his teenage mother into exile. He grew up in Germany, Cyprus and England - and moved to Amarillo and Singapore before his 20th birthday. This early transience cemented DJ's fate as a 'third culture' tumbleweed - living in 12 countries and 3 American states. He has worked in jobs and locales as varied as factory lines, Las Vegas casinos, Namdaemun, Fortnum & Masons, gem trading, Changi airport, construction labouring, Wall Street, Paris Fashion Week, and collecting windblown trash at a city dump. All while finding time to paint and write.

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