The General's Bride

The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy #2

by M.F. Sullivan

On her escape from home, General Dominia di Mephitoli has discovered many strange things, but nothing could be stranger than an interdimensional Void populated by an infamous mystic and a fictional saint of death. Nothing, perhaps, except finding the Hierophant there, too--the parent she can't escape, and the cult leader she can't shake, back to threaten her again.

But she should have expected that. With the diamond of her wife's compressed cremains wrenched from her grasp and far too many friends turning out to be enemies in disguise, the Hierophant seems a better father all the time. Only memories of THE GENERAL'S BRIDE can keep her on track to Cairo, where Dominia must meet the Lady heading the infamous Red Market cabal of prostitutes and reclaim the stolen diamond. Stalked at every turn by a vile fiend in her dead wife's form, the General struggles to avoid temptation and cut a clear path to reality. Of course, as she stumbles across a strange Kingdom settled in the event horizon of a black hole, she's forced to wonder if "reality" even exists.

Maybe Saint Valentinian will tell her, once he proves he's not a figment of her imagination.

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBT

292 pages, Hardcover

Published August 14, 2019

About the author

An Ohio native who attended college in Virginia before moving by train to Arizona, MF Sullivan is an author and playwright currently living in Southern Oregon. Sullivan is the author of DELILAH, MY WOMAN (2015) and THE LIGHTNING STENOGRAPHY DEVICE (2018), as well as the forthcoming DISGRACED MARTYR TRILOGY (2019-2020). All her work is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Painted Blind Publishing's Aer.io store, and your local indie bookseller.

The release schedule of THE DISGRACED MARTYR TRILOGY is as follows:

THE HIEROPHANT'S DAUGHTER: May 19th, 2019

THE GENERAL'S BRIDE: August 14th, 2019

THE LADY'S CHAMPION: January 9th, 2020

THE DISGRACED MARTYR TRILOGY - OMNIBUS EDITION: October 31st, 2020

Keep up with news, essays from MF Sullivan, and info about her other forthcoming works at paintedblindpublishing.com!

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just incredible....what a ride this book is! This series is far beyond any other dystopian I've read, I'm almost speechless. It has a real psychological sci-fi feel to it, with themes that are so relevant to what is in the news today, it comes across as being more real than it should be.

I highly recommend reading this book as soon as you finish book 1, it will make the opening 100 pages or so that much more trippy. Dominia starts off in a kind of alternate reality, possibly a kind of purgatory. As she travels through this reality she has regular discussions with the Hierophant that will make your mind spin but they all start to make sense as the story continues. Once Dominia arrives back on earth the pace of the book picks up. One of the best things about the writing is the reader knows exactly as much as Dominia, She shares your shock when something gets revealed. And as for the build up during the last 50 pages, if I was a dog my tail would have been wagging, you can tell how things were going to play out and as various characters and plot threads get in to place you are given a cracking ending to the book.

Highlights of this book for me are; the female characters are so strong, something I quite often find books and especially TV series lacking in, it's like a breath of fresh air to find so many strong ladies here. The comparisons between the Hierophant's reign and the America of today continue, it is scary how easily what happens today could fit into a future that is 2000 years away. Finally Cicero has a magnificent speech, so full of passion, it could easily have been written by Shakespeare....if he were still alive today that is.

This series is a cult classic in the making so make sure you get on board early on so you can claim to be as cool as me.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019...

[William Bitner Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The General’s Bride (The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy, Book 2)
By M.F. Sullivan

Genre - Fiction
Subgenre - Speculative Fiction/Science Fiction/Fantasy/LGBT
Pages - 292
Publication Information - Painted Blind Publishing, August 14, 2019
Format - Print ARC
Reviewed by William C. Bitner, Jr. (https://booksinmylibraryblog.wordpres...)
Rating - 📙📙📙📙📙


Just when I think I’ve read it all, along comes “The General’s Bride (The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy, Book 2)” by MF Sullivan. Ms. Sullivan continues to blow my mind with her unique, thought provoking and exciting writing style. She goes beyond the limits and borders of any one genre and intricately and masterfully spins one of the most beautiful and mystifying tales that I’ve come across in some time. World building on many different levels and dimensions is once again skillfully achieved. You will find yourself, if you allow yourself to be, lost in and wondering around these worlds of consciousness and unconsciousness. The sexual/gender fluidity of the characters is quite interesting. General Dominia di Mephitoli is described as a lesbian but she is certainly not defined by her sexuality. She is a very strong, complicated, and somewhat tortured character looking for a way to be reunited with her dead wife. Is it possible to have a physical life after death, is saying I forgive you enough to heal a physical or psychological flaw, is forgiveness the answer to redemption? You will be asking yourself a lot of questions as you read this brilliant piece of literature. Is it all a dream or is all a hoax, lie, or deception on a grand scale? “”No matter how well you tell a lie,” said the magician, “it can never be the truth.” “I know.” Miserable, she turned from that ugly thing founded on beautiful memory.” I am so looking forward to the next installment of The Disgraced Mrtyr Trilogy…

From the back cover: Fight through the surreal dreamscape in this second entry of the darkest sci-fi trilogy to come about in years. Would you take the easy way out?

On her escape from home, General Dominia di Mephitoli has discovered many strange things, but nothing could be stranger than an interdimensional Void populated by an infamous mystic and a fictional saint of death. Nothing, perhaps, except finding the Hierophant there, too--the parent she can't escape, and the cult leader she can't shake, back to threaten her again.

But she should have expected that. With the diamond of her wife's compressed cremains wrenched from her grasp and far too many friends turning out to be enemies in disguise, the Hierophant seems a better father all the time. Only memories of THE GENERAL'S BRIDE can keep her on track to Cairo, where Dominia must meet the Lady heading the infamous Red Market cabal of prostitutes and reclaim the stolen diamond. Stalked at every turn by a vile fiend in her dead wife's form, the General struggles to avoid temptation and cut a clear path to reality. Of course, as she stumbles across a strange Kingdom settled in the event horizon of a black hole, she's forced to wonder if "reality" even exists.

Maybe Saint Valentinian will tell her once he proves he's not a figment of her imagination.

The second in an LGBTQ+ cyberpunk/horror trilogy like there's never been before, THE GENERAL'S BRIDE is a slow burn dream which blurs the line between sci-fi and fantasy into a brutal psychedelic adventure. To discover how the journey of General di Mephitoli reaches its conclusion, read THE LADY'S CHAMPION, coming January 9th, 2020!

About the Author: An Ohio native who attended college in Virginia before moving by train to Arizona, MF Sullivan is an author and playwright currently living in Southern Oregon.

Other books by MF Sullivan: The Lightning Stenography Device: A Psychedelic Odyssey, Delilah, My Woman: A Dark Transgressive Romance and The Hierophant's Daughter (The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy, Book 1).

[Julie Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the debacle in Jerusalem, Dominia finds herself in a place between worlds, walking with Lazarus and Valentinian to Cairo. As if that isn’t strange enough, every night, she finds and enters her father’s study and converses with the Hierophant as if that were the most natural thing in the world to do. However, there is an unnatural element at work here, a chimera that is coming to resemble Dominia’s late wife Cassandra more and more, to Dominia’s dismay. Is she upset because this creature is an insult to Cassandra’s memory, or is that she fears she won’t be able to resist the temptation of well-remembered flesh should she come to resemble Cassandra more strongly than she can bear?

Every morning, a knock comes on the Hierophant’s study door as Valentinian comes to retrieve Dominia. He returns her to the journey she is on with him and Lazarus. Sometimes she just looks at him, unable to believe he and Basil are one and the same. Dominia’s conversations with her father are both confusing and enlightening. Although she doesn’t entirely trust him, she doesn’t entirely distrust him either. And he’s oddly more forthcoming on many subjects than her enigmatic traveling companions. Sometimes she thinks Lazarus couldn’t give her a straight answer if his life depended on it. Her father warns her that her desire to resurrect Cassandra is not practical and that she is being lied to, and sometimes she just doesn’t know which way to turn – except away from the creature which seems to resemble her late wife more and more.

Dominia isn’t sure who to believe or who to trust—everyone has their own agenda, including her. She wants to get to Cairo to retrieve Cassandra’s diamond from Miki Soto. Lazarus and Valentinian claim they want to save mankind by sending the martyrs to the far away planet of Acetia. But how can it be right to condemn an entire people for the actions of a few? Did the Hierophant come from there? There is evil on both sides, but which is the true evil?

Dominia’s journey to Cairo will be a long one, and certainly not straightforward as she finds herself in strange places, among strange people and begins to doubt everyone and everything she knows. If they are her friends, why aren’t they with her, to save her? Why does it sometimes seem as though her Father has her best interests at heart? It seems as though Dominia can only rely on herself, but will she be enough to see her through what is to come?

The General’s Bride is every bit as riveting as The Hierophant’s Daughter as Dominia continues her journey to Cairo to retrieve the remains of her wife, held in a diamond which was stolen by Miki Soto. This is indeed a mindblowing story of people and worlds and forces beyond the ken of most of us, forces that defy and shape the very laws of physics and reality. Dominia has choices to make, most of them not easy ones, and she learns that her own wishes aren’t necessarily in her own best interest and aren’t necessarily the right path to take. People aren’t necessarily what she thought they were, and there is indeed a blurred line betwixt good and evil. Even the Hierophant straddles that line, and it’s impossible to hate him as unequivocally as she thought she did for sometimes he says the most remarkable things.

Although I love Dominia, my favorite character is still the Hierophant, so I rejoiced every time he appeared. M.F. Sullivan’s writing voice is superb. She blows your mind with descriptions of metaphysical worlds and ideas, asking questions which make you truly think about what you know or think you know. Her characters are so well-drawn that you feel as if you’ve known them forever as she sucks you into the trajectory of their lives. I wish this journey could go on forever, but I know there’s only one more book, and I’m fearful that it will contain the death of the Hierophant. Nonetheless, I look forward to it and I’ll hope for the best until something else happens.

This book is every bit as good as the first one. I highly recommend it.

[Mark Martinico · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great strengths of this book’s predecessor, “The Hierophant’s Daughter”, was the promise created by its engaging plot and truly unique world. And I am happy to say that not only does “The General’s Bride” live up to that promise, it more than exceeds it.
The story expands in unexpected directions, building upon the bigger saga, while also extending our understanding of the events of the earlier book. It also lays the groundwork for what promises to be an excellent third and final book.
In my review of the first book, I was one of many reviewers who expressed wonder at the author’s ability to build such a fully fleshed out, unique world to set this story in. Yet in a later blog post, the author actually specified that no such “world building” took place, per se. Per the blog, the story and the world in which it is set, came to life as the book was written, then were perfected during rewrites. However the means, it’s an admirably unique world, a wholly original tale, and the sign of a truly gifted author.
As you read it, this book will never go in the direction you anticipate, yet will also never disappoint in its choice of direction. Whatever expectations you have after the cliffhanger ending of the first book, this one will exceed them. You will be left like me, anxiously awaiting book three.
I was provided with an advanced copy of this book from the author, in exchange for an honest review. This is that review

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading the first book, I expected the second to be similar, but it took me on tangents I never expected while giving me so many new things to think about! The first book is dark, but this one comes in a kaleidoscope of the shades of night. There are sci-fi (and sci-fact!) elements mixed together with dystopian fantasy and mythology. It's a mix that not many authors could pull off, but Sullivan makes it seem easy. There are nymphs, vampires, and saints along with the Mandelbrot set, space travel, and black holes all blended together into a thought-provoking book that touches on topics relevant to us all.

This book, like the first, isn't a fluff book, so if you're looking for something to read that will let you concentrate on other things, don't bother cracking the spine. If, however, you want something dark and deep, then you've come to the right place.

[Chelsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mainly wanted to write this review for more people like myself. I enjoyed the story and continuing the series. It’s worth mentioning that there was a 9 month lapse since I read the first book. I enjoy the story so far, and I enjoy the characters in this book! I look forward to finishing the story, and the third book has already been delivered in the mail to me! It’s sitting a foot from me right now. Sometimes I had to really force myself to push through some of the passages because I had NO IDEA what was being described. Some of the descriptions seemed overly technical that made 0 sense to me. I’d read over a passage a few times, ultimately giving up and hoping it wouldn’t be a problem for understanding the story later. As it turns out, not understanding the technical stuff doesn’t effect understanding the story! So if you’re struggling, it’s alright. So did I. It makes you wonder how important these descriptions were in the first place, though. I even had my husband read it (who is the smart one and also writes himself) and he had the same conclusion as I did. Despite the hang-ups, it’s a story worth reading and experiencing.