Sometimes a series evolves in unexpected ways.
I wrote The Hall of the Wood in 2010. I meant it as book one of a trilogy featuring patroller Jerrick Bur and his odd assortment of companions. They might have adventures within the Simmaron's boundaries, or they might venture beyond it, exploring my world as needed to right wrongs, unravel mysteries, and generally do what characters in my books do. Then other projects — and my day job — got in the way. That next book never happened, and The Hall of the Wood sat in standalone limbo for fifteen years.
Then, last winter, between novels in another series, I wanted to write something different. Winter approached. A winter story seemed fitting, so why not set it in the Simmaron? Better still, why not tie it to the events of The Hall of the Wood? That story became The Midwinter Ward, which picks up four years after the first book.
And this year, I wrote The Druid Stones, which opens shortly after The Hall of the Wood leaves off and slots into place as book two.
Three books, and just like that, a proper trilogy.
Introducing Tales of the Simmaron Woods
The King's Patrollers of the Hall of the Wood have guarded the frontier since before the Fall of the Old Gods, sworn to protect against all threats by an oath of oak and iron. But when the patrollers vanish and the Simmaron Hall stands silent, when the goblins of Greth mass beneath their goblin lord's banner, and when ancient wards begin to fail, the folk of Homewood find themselves alone at the edge of a darkness the forest can no longer hold back.
With ancient magic stirring and darkness spreading through root and hollow, the fate of the Simmaron will rest with those brave or foolish enough to answer the Call of the Woods.
Tales of the Simmaron Woods includes:
Book One — The Hall of the Wood
A call for heroes. A forest in peril. A patroller forced to face his past.
An old friend's plea drags Jerrick Bur, former King's Patroller, back to the Simmaron. The Hall of the Wood has gone silent. Jerrick investigates alongside a cryptic sorcerer, a headstrong knight, and a bard whose songs foretell horrors — and finds something beneath the forest's roots far worse than goblins.
More about The Hall of the Wood →
Book Two — The Druid Stones
A grieving half-dryad. A dead god's power. A priest who wants the world to rot.
The witch is dead and the Well of Darkness stands empty, yet Aliah Starbough walks a dying grove every morning, certain something remains wrong. She's right. The corruption didn't vanish when the witch fell — it changed hands. To end it, Aliah must carry the darkness home to the Cavern of the Well, and a priest five centuries dead intends to stop her.
More about The Druid Stones →
Book Three — The Midwinter Ward
A ghost bound by duty. A shaman fleeing his own kind. A wardkeeper who will sacrifice everything.
On Yuletide Eve, Wardkeeper Elara Millwright stands alone at the Cavern of the Well as the wards protecting it fail. A wounded goblin shaman staggers out of the storm. A long-dead patroller rises. The three of them have until dawn.
More about The Midwinter Ward →
Read them together
The box set collects all three novels in reading order as a single ebook, with an author's note on how this trilogy came to be. Prefer paper, or prefer to be read to? Each book is also available on its own in paperback, hardcover, and audiobook — the individual book pages above list every format and every retailer.
Tales of the Simmaron Woods: Box Set (Books 1-3) →
Each book stands on its own. Read The Midwinter Ward first on a cold night if you like — it was written so you could. But the three of them in order give you the whole arc of what woke beneath the Simmaron and what it cost to put it back.
🎧 Or listen free
All three novels are narrated in full on my YouTube channel, free, no account required. I've gathered them into a single playlist in reading order, so you can start at the beginning of the Simmaron and let it run.
🎧 Listen to the whole trilogy →
If you enjoy them, a like and a subscribe helps me grow my channel and is greatly appreciated.
What's next
Tales of the Simmaron Woods is more than a trilogy. It's a continuing series about the people who live, work, and survive in the Simmaron — patrollers, wardkeepers, and stranger things. As with another series of mine, the one featuring a certain assassin, the possibilities run as far as I care to take them.
If you partake of the trilogy, please leave a rating or a review. For an independent author, a handful of honest reviews does more than any ad I could buy.
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