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Fantasy & Forensics #6
Assault in the Wizard Degree
C.S. Lewis continues to meet CSI...when Amazon Bestselling author Michael Angel presents the sixth installment of 'Fantasy & Forensics'.
Dame Chrissie's life isn't getting any easier. Dayna's heroics during the throne-room battle with the Noctua seem to have been forgotten. King Fitzwilliam's pressuring her to select a knight to represent her at the Spring Tournament. And to make matters worse, the Master Seer of the Soothsayer's Guild prophesizes imminent doom and disaster for the entire Kingdom!
A plea for help comes from the Centaur Realm. Just as these dark omens are brought to light, a message scroll arrives from King Angbor of the Centaurs. One of his best warriors stands accused of sacrilege, and only Dayna's talents can decide their guilt or innocence.
Dark events begin to spiral out of control. Strange lights and shadows are seen in the centaur Hinter Lands. Whispers of ancient demons arise in the farthest wastes. And Dayna's investigation into Grayson Archer's consulting firm runs into a snag that's right out of her worst nightmares!
Dayna Chrissie must weather the storm as the Creatures of the Dark finally push Andeluvia into open war!
Books in the 'Fantasy & Forensics' Series:
Centaur of the Crime
The Deer Prince's Murder
Grand Theft Griffin
A Perjury of Owls
Forgery of the Phoenix
Assault in the Wizard Degree
Trafficking in Demons
A Warrant of Wyverns
The Conspiracy of Unicorns
Dragon with a Deadly Weapon (Autumn 2018)
Included with this story are preview chapters of the seventh novel in the 'Fantasy & Forensics' series, Trafficking in Demons.
Reviews of 'Fantasy & Forensics':
"Angel manages the nearly impossible...creating memorable characters in the midst of an intriguing mystery, action, humor and heart."
-- JC Andrijeski, USA Today Bestselling Author of the Quentin Black mystery series
"This clever, humorous fantasy springs to life from page one..."
-- Publisher's Weekly
"Fast-paced action and sly wit make Angel's writing irresistible fun."
-- Rebecca Moesta, NYT Bestselling co-author of Young Jedi Knights
Dame Chrissie's life isn't getting any easier. Dayna's heroics during the throne-room battle with the Noctua seem to have been forgotten. King Fitzwilliam's pressuring her to select a knight to represent her at the Spring Tournament. And to make matters worse, the Master Seer of the Soothsayer's Guild prophesizes imminent doom and disaster for the entire Kingdom!
A plea for help comes from the Centaur Realm. Just as these dark omens are brought to light, a message scroll arrives from King Angbor of the Centaurs. One of his best warriors stands accused of sacrilege, and only Dayna's talents can decide their guilt or innocence.
Dark events begin to spiral out of control. Strange lights and shadows are seen in the centaur Hinter Lands. Whispers of ancient demons arise in the farthest wastes. And Dayna's investigation into Grayson Archer's consulting firm runs into a snag that's right out of her worst nightmares!
Dayna Chrissie must weather the storm as the Creatures of the Dark finally push Andeluvia into open war!
Books in the 'Fantasy & Forensics' Series:
Centaur of the Crime
The Deer Prince's Murder
Grand Theft Griffin
A Perjury of Owls
Forgery of the Phoenix
Assault in the Wizard Degree
Trafficking in Demons
A Warrant of Wyverns
The Conspiracy of Unicorns
Dragon with a Deadly Weapon (Autumn 2018)
Included with this story are preview chapters of the seventh novel in the 'Fantasy & Forensics' series, Trafficking in Demons.
Reviews of 'Fantasy & Forensics':
"Angel manages the nearly impossible...creating memorable characters in the midst of an intriguing mystery, action, humor and heart."
-- JC Andrijeski, USA Today Bestselling Author of the Quentin Black mystery series
"This clever, humorous fantasy springs to life from page one..."
-- Publisher's Weekly
"Fast-paced action and sly wit make Angel's writing irresistible fun."
-- Rebecca Moesta, NYT Bestselling co-author of Young Jedi Knights
- GenresFantasy
300 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2016
29 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Michael Angel
116 books52 followersMichael Angel's fictional worlds range from the former Soviet province of Ozrabek to the magic-filled realm of Andeluvia.
His eBooks, audio books, and paperbacks populate shelves in 12 different languages. However, despite keeping a keen eye out for globe-trotting epidemiologists, unicorns, or galactic marshals, none have yet put in an appearance on Hollywood Boulevard.
THE PLAGUE WALKER PANDEMIC MEDICAL THRILLERS~
The Devil's Noose
The Reaper's Scythe
The Blood Zone
The Wildfire Pathogen
The Plague Walker (A Leigh Austen Short Thriller)
FANTASY & FORENSICS ~
Centaur of the Crime
The Deer Prince's Murder
Grand Theft Griffin
A Perjury of Owls
Forgery of the Phoenix
Assault in the Wizard Degree
Trafficking in Demons
A Warrant of Wyverns
The Conspiracy of Unicorns
Dragon with a Deadly Weapon
Forensics and Dragon Fire (Fantasy & Forensics Novella)
APOCALYPSE WITH A SIDE OF GRILLED SPAM ~
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Season One Compilation
STANDALONE SF/F NOVELS~
The Detective & The Unicorn
The Wizard, The Warlord, and The Hidden Woman
I Married the Third Horseman
THE AMANDA LOVE UNIVERSE ~
A Shovelful of Stars
Pay To Pray
Dogfight
A Planet Torn
Fringe Space Tales (Amanda Love Compilation)
COLLECTIONS & SHORTS~
Never Mind the Princess, Save the *Dragon*
Treasure of the Silver Star
Sylph
Gatekeeper and Goddess
So a Dragon, a Muse, and an Alien Walk Into a Bar...
Predators and Prey
Deepest Fears
Three Acts of Courage
Strange Powers, Stranger Places
Crisis Points
Love's Origins
Cyber Son
Cantaloupes and Wild Shoshone
Vala Staffwielder
Little Girl Lost
Love's Labors and Lies
The Haute Couture Time Traveler
Blood, Sweat, and Fears (an 18-story compendium)
Michael Angel's welcome mat is out at MichaelAngelWriter.weebly.com. Or, feel free to stop by and say 'hello' to the kind folks who publish his material at BantyHenPublishing.com.
His eBooks, audio books, and paperbacks populate shelves in 12 different languages. However, despite keeping a keen eye out for globe-trotting epidemiologists, unicorns, or galactic marshals, none have yet put in an appearance on Hollywood Boulevard.
THE PLAGUE WALKER PANDEMIC MEDICAL THRILLERS~
The Devil's Noose
The Reaper's Scythe
The Blood Zone
The Wildfire Pathogen
The Plague Walker (A Leigh Austen Short Thriller)
FANTASY & FORENSICS ~
Centaur of the Crime
The Deer Prince's Murder
Grand Theft Griffin
A Perjury of Owls
Forgery of the Phoenix
Assault in the Wizard Degree
Trafficking in Demons
A Warrant of Wyverns
The Conspiracy of Unicorns
Dragon with a Deadly Weapon
Forensics and Dragon Fire (Fantasy & Forensics Novella)
APOCALYPSE WITH A SIDE OF GRILLED SPAM ~
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Season One Compilation
STANDALONE SF/F NOVELS~
The Detective & The Unicorn
The Wizard, The Warlord, and The Hidden Woman
I Married the Third Horseman
THE AMANDA LOVE UNIVERSE ~
A Shovelful of Stars
Pay To Pray
Dogfight
A Planet Torn
Fringe Space Tales (Amanda Love Compilation)
COLLECTIONS & SHORTS~
Never Mind the Princess, Save the *Dragon*
Treasure of the Silver Star
Sylph
Gatekeeper and Goddess
So a Dragon, a Muse, and an Alien Walk Into a Bar...
Predators and Prey
Deepest Fears
Three Acts of Courage
Strange Powers, Stranger Places
Crisis Points
Love's Origins
Cyber Son
Cantaloupes and Wild Shoshone
Vala Staffwielder
Little Girl Lost
Love's Labors and Lies
The Haute Couture Time Traveler
Blood, Sweat, and Fears (an 18-story compendium)
Michael Angel's welcome mat is out at MichaelAngelWriter.weebly.com. Or, feel free to stop by and say 'hello' to the kind folks who publish his material at BantyHenPublishing.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 9, 2016
The War is Heating UP! Are you ready for Wizardry? “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” ― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
“To love is to be vulnerable.”― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Pull out your “Happy Dance” ladies and gents! Assault in the Wizard Degree is printed!! The Fantasy and Forensics series has expanded to book six, and six is definitely a magic number.
Poor Dayna. The more she busts her backside to save the world on Andeluvia, the more it twists itself into a bloody mess . . . and guess who gets the job of straightening everything out each and every time? Yep. You got it. What is a Forensic Scientist stuck in an epic fantasy land supposed to do? Well, if you are Dame Chrissie, you dust off your hiking boots, gather your tools, and do your best to save the day. Again.
“Salvation shall come to Dame Chrissie only when she stands in the shadow of all that she has achieved.”
Well, salvation is something, at least. A bit of hope, after the court Soothsayer invades the throne room of the King bearing tidings of doom and death.
“I dreamt a dream of utmost import . . . that if not heeded, shall mean the downfall of this kingdom and the ruin of all Andeluvia!”
And this time, he might just be right. Dayna’s life in Los Angeles is hard enough as the evil attempting to take over Andeluvia bleeds over into her birth world. Now, an evil long thought buried and gone is awakening. Death and despair, war and horror are looming on the horizon, and Dayna’s small group will be tested beyond anything they have ever faced before.
It begins, as do so many things, with a request for Dayna’s help. The centaurs, you see, have a problem.
“A centaur that has committed an act of sacrilege regarding the ‘Ceremony of Equilux’.”
It should be a simple case – use her forensic skills to discover who committed a crime. But what she finds is so much more. The Creatures of the Dark have made deeper inroads than anyone expects (well, anyone other than Dayna and her friends) and even the densest and most purposefully ignorant will no longer be able to deny the truth.
There are, of course, the light moments Michael’s writing is so well known for. Characters are well written and believable, the landscape of the world of Andeluvia is sharply drawn, and the storyline holds perfect continuity throughout the series. If you haven’t read the rest of the series, I would highly recommend you do so before reading this installment. I am not saying you couldn’t understand or enjoy this book as a standalone, but it is such a wonderful series it would be a shame to miss the run-up to this pivotal point in the series.
This is a Wonderful series, and I cannot recommend it highly enough!! Of course, full disclosure, I work with Michael on his books – but that doesn’t mean I don’t adore each and every one.
“To love is to be vulnerable.”― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Pull out your “Happy Dance” ladies and gents! Assault in the Wizard Degree is printed!! The Fantasy and Forensics series has expanded to book six, and six is definitely a magic number.
Poor Dayna. The more she busts her backside to save the world on Andeluvia, the more it twists itself into a bloody mess . . . and guess who gets the job of straightening everything out each and every time? Yep. You got it. What is a Forensic Scientist stuck in an epic fantasy land supposed to do? Well, if you are Dame Chrissie, you dust off your hiking boots, gather your tools, and do your best to save the day. Again.
“Salvation shall come to Dame Chrissie only when she stands in the shadow of all that she has achieved.”
Well, salvation is something, at least. A bit of hope, after the court Soothsayer invades the throne room of the King bearing tidings of doom and death.
“I dreamt a dream of utmost import . . . that if not heeded, shall mean the downfall of this kingdom and the ruin of all Andeluvia!”
And this time, he might just be right. Dayna’s life in Los Angeles is hard enough as the evil attempting to take over Andeluvia bleeds over into her birth world. Now, an evil long thought buried and gone is awakening. Death and despair, war and horror are looming on the horizon, and Dayna’s small group will be tested beyond anything they have ever faced before.
It begins, as do so many things, with a request for Dayna’s help. The centaurs, you see, have a problem.
“A centaur that has committed an act of sacrilege regarding the ‘Ceremony of Equilux’.”
It should be a simple case – use her forensic skills to discover who committed a crime. But what she finds is so much more. The Creatures of the Dark have made deeper inroads than anyone expects (well, anyone other than Dayna and her friends) and even the densest and most purposefully ignorant will no longer be able to deny the truth.
There are, of course, the light moments Michael’s writing is so well known for. Characters are well written and believable, the landscape of the world of Andeluvia is sharply drawn, and the storyline holds perfect continuity throughout the series. If you haven’t read the rest of the series, I would highly recommend you do so before reading this installment. I am not saying you couldn’t understand or enjoy this book as a standalone, but it is such a wonderful series it would be a shame to miss the run-up to this pivotal point in the series.
This is a Wonderful series, and I cannot recommend it highly enough!! Of course, full disclosure, I work with Michael on his books – but that doesn’t mean I don’t adore each and every one.
August 11, 2018
Zenos has yet another round of troubling predictions. Dayna's inclined to trust him, since everything he's said has come true, in a roundabout way. But before she can delve too deeply into his words, she's summoned to the land of the centaurs to solve a mystery. Someone desecrated a ceremony, and what at first appears to be a straightforward request starts unraveling into a more serious concern . . .
I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I really like how prophecy is treated throughout this series. Zenos in the first book comes across almost more for laughs---the crazy prophet spouting doom and gloom. Except he's right, and Dayna's figured out that you ignore him at your own peril.
And this question takes centerpoint in the book. Whether it's the hilarious tapestry (aka medieval comic book) depicting the battle against the Nocta or the question of who ate the sacred honey cake, and why, the story portrays some of how and why truth gets discarded. Truth may be opaque, or uncomfortable, or a lie has more to gain. Or as with Rikka's inability to read, the truth was unknown on Andeluvia.
But if that sounds too serious, rest assured this book is also PACKED with the kind of cultural misunderstandings that left me laughing out loud. Like the coffee scene, where Galen says "I believe that its purpose is to allow the humans to weed out the weak." (Shaw, of course, is in favor. Which is not a compliment.)
Dayna's been with a centaur this whole time, but she really doesn't understand much about their culture. Galen is something of an outlier within his own species, as he prefers magic, which his father forbade, over the strength of arms most centaurs consider paramount. I like the Viking/Western feel to the centaur's town, and how their code is more complex than it first appears.
Rikka is so much fun. We finally get to see Galen's family, and his sister evokes unexpected parallels with Hollyhock for Dayna. And Dayna is determined not to let another Hollyhock situation unfold in front of her. I love how real all of these characters are: strong, yet broken, with the kinds of quirks that make them instantly recognizable.
On the home front, things are heating up in the unofficial war between Dayna and Bob McClatchy. He's hired a security company to protect him---and they are very much not Dayna's friends. They're willing to make this about more than just her, which Bob for all his faults never did.
Overall this is another excellent book in the series. The stakes keep ramping up, but unlike book 3 there's more of a happy ending. At least in Andeluvia. I rate this book Highly Recommended.
See my reviews and more at https://offtheshelfreviews.wordpress....
I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I really like how prophecy is treated throughout this series. Zenos in the first book comes across almost more for laughs---the crazy prophet spouting doom and gloom. Except he's right, and Dayna's figured out that you ignore him at your own peril.
Zenos sighed. “What we soothsayers say is always listened to with a jaundiced ear. No one will pay you for the truth, you know. People only pay to hear what they want to hear. It’s why so many members of my profession are considered frauds.”
And this question takes centerpoint in the book. Whether it's the hilarious tapestry (aka medieval comic book) depicting the battle against the Nocta or the question of who ate the sacred honey cake, and why, the story portrays some of how and why truth gets discarded. Truth may be opaque, or uncomfortable, or a lie has more to gain. Or as with Rikka's inability to read, the truth was unknown on Andeluvia.
But if that sounds too serious, rest assured this book is also PACKED with the kind of cultural misunderstandings that left me laughing out loud. Like the coffee scene, where Galen says "I believe that its purpose is to allow the humans to weed out the weak." (Shaw, of course, is in favor. Which is not a compliment.)
Dayna's been with a centaur this whole time, but she really doesn't understand much about their culture. Galen is something of an outlier within his own species, as he prefers magic, which his father forbade, over the strength of arms most centaurs consider paramount. I like the Viking/Western feel to the centaur's town, and how their code is more complex than it first appears.
Rikka is so much fun. We finally get to see Galen's family, and his sister evokes unexpected parallels with Hollyhock for Dayna. And Dayna is determined not to let another Hollyhock situation unfold in front of her. I love how real all of these characters are: strong, yet broken, with the kinds of quirks that make them instantly recognizable.
On the home front, things are heating up in the unofficial war between Dayna and Bob McClatchy. He's hired a security company to protect him---and they are very much not Dayna's friends. They're willing to make this about more than just her, which Bob for all his faults never did.
Overall this is another excellent book in the series. The stakes keep ramping up, but unlike book 3 there's more of a happy ending. At least in Andeluvia. I rate this book Highly Recommended.
See my reviews and more at https://offtheshelfreviews.wordpress....
July 13, 2020
Enjoyable
I enjoyed this book. It was intense, just like the last one. Although, one thing that I have been wondering more and more lately is whether Dayna should just leave Los Angeles completely and stay in Andeluvia. Especially after the eyeball incident. And I liked the way Magnus was portrayed in this book.
I enjoyed this book. It was intense, just like the last one. Although, one thing that I have been wondering more and more lately is whether Dayna should just leave Los Angeles completely and stay in Andeluvia. Especially after the eyeball incident. And I liked the way Magnus was portrayed in this book.
April 23, 2023
it’s a very interesting story, it moves the overall plot forward but it has its nasty and unpleasant bits,
i must admit that other than her boyfriend i have trouble understanding why Dayna would keep returning to our world…. she could import some coffee plants and then just let her house go.
big battle’s and twist’s keeps this from becoming mundane
i must admit that other than her boyfriend i have trouble understanding why Dayna would keep returning to our world…. she could import some coffee plants and then just let her house go.
big battle’s and twist’s keeps this from becoming mundane
April 7, 2019
Still intriguing
I'm still enjoying this series, though it is getting darker.
Dayna Chrissie is sent to help the centaurs this time and we get a look at how their society works and that is very interesting.
I'm still enjoying this series, though it is getting darker.
Dayna Chrissie is sent to help the centaurs this time and we get a look at how their society works and that is very interesting.
February 22, 2021
Amazing adventure
Not one’s usual run of characters, but they certainly take on a life of their own. I’ve managed to grow quite fond of them; enough so that I plan to finish this whole series.
Not one’s usual run of characters, but they certainly take on a life of their own. I’ve managed to grow quite fond of them; enough so that I plan to finish this whole series.
April 27, 2023
exciting
February 20, 2017
Writing this even though I have no words
Is it time for book 7 yet? I love this series! I haven't been this hooked on a series in YEARS! So many characters come back, lords from the Centaur Realm I remember liking from book 1. And my favorite Doomsday soothsayer :)
Dayna grew a lot and faced even more of a lot in this book. With just enough hinting at connections between worlds to make me cone up with various scenarios. I cannot wait to learn more about Crossbow Consulting in the coming book(s)...
Is it time for book 7 yet? I love this series! I haven't been this hooked on a series in YEARS! So many characters come back, lords from the Centaur Realm I remember liking from book 1. And my favorite Doomsday soothsayer :)
Dayna grew a lot and faced even more of a lot in this book. With just enough hinting at connections between worlds to make me cone up with various scenarios. I cannot wait to learn more about Crossbow Consulting in the coming book(s)...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews