The Dramatic Concept (Inside-Cover Flap)

Would you like to hear what it's about? Well, come on over, dear reader, and let me weave the outline of a grand tale for you:

In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,

And the earth was devastated and laid waste to…

This is the story of those who lived before Adam and Eve, and their downfall, an advanced people that ended up on Earth… before being judged and utterly obliterated by God.

Set in a war spanning thousands of years, The Chronicles of Lorixia tells the story of the Lorixians and their empire of light engaged in a death struggle with the Elite, a shadow culture deeply absorbed in the worship of self. Beginning in the final era of this civilization, Book One tells the tale of Prince Killop lor Exousia, last of his priestly line, propelled into power as King by a brutal assassination plot.

However, Killop is more than he seems. As one of the only survivors of the Defender Project, Killop represents the height of Lorixian technology and training, and with frightening abilities as proof.

But, against an enemy bent on obtaining a state of complete Perfection and with both empires currently stalemated in The War, he knows that his abilities alone will not be enough. Killop must find a Council for his rule, a new inner strength to conquer challenges more personal than even he had prepared for, and come face to face with a young woman sent to kill him in cold blood. Known as Rashella, this tortured assassin once answered to dark new forces within the leadership of the Elite.

Set in a time thousands of years before the Fall of Man, Blood and Beginnings shows the end of one king’s reign and the start of another’s as a young hero must face himself, recruit hardened prodigies into his Palace and manage first the possibility of peace… and then the increasing likelihood of all-out war.

But who can he trust within all of this: is it his fellow Defender Mikal? Or the dark Maek, kingpin of the Lorixian underworld? Or Chara, the powerful physician who can bring men back from their very audiences with the Eternal? Can he do all of this while managing what remains of his destroyed family? The pinnacles of success embodied in his sisters have always represented a backbone for Lorixia, but at what cost?

Join Killop and his Council as they try to begin a rule among treacherous spies and practiced killers, as they try to unravel the secrets of the long-since dead Defender project, and as they come face to face with the Elite for the first time, against whom not a single thing is as it appears.

This is a story of friends.

This is a story of family.

This is a story of the closest bonds being tested in blood.

If their can be a future of light, Killop knows it will be at a heavy price.

Possibly, one not worth paying.

The First Novel in a Series by

Judah Johansen

Image: "Cropped in Blues" by Judah Johansen, 2010