THE PATH OF REDEMPTION
by
Tom Haward
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Alternate History
Publisher: Cinnabar Moth Publishing, LLC.
Publication Date: August 5, 2025
Page count: 292 pages
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SYNOPSIS:
With
Grand Protector Faust missing and Caesar dead, Senator Frigus is trying to hold
the fraying threads of the Empire together by keeping this information secret.
The Empire is already fragile, and if the truth spills onto the streets of Rome
and beyond, the Empire could crumble.
Faust
is prisoner of the giant Bjorn Askå and his cellmate is the rebel leader,
Boatman King. Abducted by Askå, they’re now part of his grand plan to rule the
entire world, with the Empire his next target. Can Faust and Boatman forge an
alliance or are their own ambitions stronger than any desire for a truce?
A
continent away, Bella, Maverick and the other rebels have escaped to the RIA
where they lick their wounds from the disaster of Faust and Askå’s attack on
their underground headquarters. They believe they have covered their tracks and
hope the 35, leaders of the RIA, will equip them to take the fight to Rome
again, this time with the advantage of surprise.
Olivia
King, though, she is tired of the fight. Traumatised from being tortured at the
hands of Maximus Nero and conflicted about her husband’s relentless desire to
crush Rome, she is unsure whether she has the energy to keep fighting those who
have caused her so much pain.
With
the world and its people in turmoil, one thing is for certain: chaos remains in
a world needing redemption.
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ENJOY AN EXCERPT:
Southwark
London 2030
Marcus flipped
his eyepiece up and walked away from the vantage point he’d found for spying on
what Maximus was doing. There were other crosses lining London Bridge, but in
the cold January night, the bodies nailed to those crosses were quiet. If any
were still alive, they were conserving energy, swapping between trying to
breathe and trying to push themselves up on their nailed feet so their lungs
were able to intake some life-saving oxygen. The orange glow of streetlights
showed the odd misty puff of breath feebly forming and then dispersing, like
death swatting away the attempt at clinging on to life.
Indeed, the
early morning, just before the arrival of dawn, was quiet. Quiet didn’t mean
calm and he was feeling the pulse of adrenaline rushing through him. All the
soldiers around him were because if they were guarding the son of Caesar then
there was a good chance rebels would be appearing. It wasn’t guaranteed, but
Maximus wanted to make a show of crucifying someone, and he believed twenty-five
soldiers as his protection was a necessary element to that.
When Marcus and
his comrades were called up to be ready to go immediately, a few soldiers
pulled out their phones and texted their loved ones saying they were going on a
dangerous shift and to be prepared. Marcus scoffed at their fear and told them
so. The response was that Marcus was new to this city, and he should prepare
himself for encountering Boatman King or The Beast, because that encounter
would likely be his last on this earth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Haward was born in Essex and at 4 months old he and his identical twin were adopted
into an oyster farming family. Tom now runs the business as generation eight of
Haward oyster farmers. He has a fiancée,
baby daughter and a cockapoo.
Tom
has an MA in Creative Writing and has loved telling stories since he was a
child, whether verbally or through prose.
The
Path of Chaos was his debut novel. He is also working on a six-episode comedy
screenplay and tweets passionately about his family’s industry and the
challenges it faces.
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GUEST POST:
Please welcome Tom Haward, the author of our featured book, to the blog today!
Things
that inspire me and why
by Tom Haward
The nuances of humanity are my main inspiration. That might sound like I have just walked out of a philosophy class, but my psyche is piqued by the little things that people do. I find I am best able to write (and write well) when I am somewhere where there is lot of human interaction going on. And that usually happens for me in one of my local pubs. The rambunctious laughter in my local pub from a table (like I am hearing as I write this), or the hushed words of someone sharing a secret in public. I love those very human behaviours which have people at their most exposed. We can all wear masks in certain social situations, but I find a British pub, that’s busy with punters will be a place where you see the most genuine aspect of humanity. And being in that inspires me to write.
I can’t write in complete silence. I find it unnerving and unnatural. For many years I romanticised about taking a retreat somewhere secluded, by a lake and writing a novel with no distractions and just the natural flow of nature propelling my word count. I didn’t go on a retreat but took some time in random, quiet spots, in the middle of nowhere and found my word count usually amounted to zero. My books, like The Path of Redemption, are dialogue heavy; dialogue has always been the strongest aspect to my writing and in order to write genuine dialogue I realised I needed to hear people chatting as I was writing. Being in solitude meant it made it harder for me to imagine a normal conversation. Being in a busy pub meant (and means) I can draw from the natural conversations happening around me and ensure the dialogue I craft is as natural as possible and not forced or wooden.
People chatting nonsense on a night out are my inspiration because they help me craft encounters which flow and aren’t stunted and robotic.
If you are an aspiring writer, I would always recommend sitting somewhere public and letting the conversations around you inspire the words you put on paper.
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
Tom
Haward will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
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Thank you so much for featuring THE PATH OF REDEMPTION today.
ReplyDeleteIm looking forward to checking this book out. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great read.
ReplyDelete