Two series, one shattered universe:
an ancient war that forged magic,
and the modern invasion that it made possible.
Mother of Trees
Thaumatropic Roots Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Epic Fantasy
A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn’t exist.
Elliah has spent her entire life being told what she is—bereft, wrong, a mistake the world would prefer to correct. Drifting from town to town with a mother who won’t explain why they keep running, she has no magic, no place, and no future. Then a single misstep draws the attention of those who’ve been looking for her, and everything her mother was hiding comes apart.
She isn’t ready for what she learns. But ready was never an option.
Mother of Trees is the thrilling first book in the Thaumatropic Roots epic fantasy series. Enter a world of dangerous magic, ancient powers, and one impossible girl who refuses to stay down.
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Elliah ~ 1
My mother told me many times that all adolescents feel like they don’t belong, but… I really didn’t. So I spent my free time away from other elves, on my own but for the animals… they didn’t understand how broken I was. And I was quite pleased with my current find, so I snarled when a noise behind me scared away the drakeling that had settled in my hands. Black with a pattern of red scales along its spine, its body the thickness of my finger, it took flight with a flurry of thin leathery wings and disappeared behind a massive brown trunk.
“The real ones are much more intimidating,” said an unfamiliar voice.
Time slowed as I tensed to run, shocked that I’d let my guard down so much that anyone had gotten that close. How many lurked behind me? On the outskirts of town, in the thick of the woods near the river, I had expected solitude.
“Stay, Bereft. I am not afraid,” said the voice. His words provoked me.
“No one’s afraid of me,” I blurted. Bitterness stained my words as surely as the pollen of the bloodcups had stained my ragged clothes.
I turned away from the vanished drakeling to focus on the intruder who’d scared it away. A man. No, I corrected myself, someone my age. Someone not quite old enough for adults to consider one of their own, but too old to call a child.
But not Bereft. No other elf shared that with me.
The newcomer was slightly taller than me with a thin frame, his light hair hanging long, wild, and tangled. He was new to the village—I would have noticed an elf with skin so light. I’d heard whispers of him at school. Kethryllia had called him Salt-kissed, and I’d wondered what that meant, but his light skin answered that question. He’d undoubtedly caught whispers about me, heard of my… condition. Bereft. Yet at that moment, I thought only of the hours of coaxing I’d spent to draw the little drakeling into my grasp, and that the stupid elf had scared it away. I wanted to punch him.
“Maybe they should be,” he said, taking a step back, though it would have taken me two leaps to get to him, and he’d have me pinned in one, if he had any skill with magic at all. But I’d prepared a leap already, only not in his direction. As I sprung away, he continued, raising his voice, “And you’re right, they’re not afraid of you.”
I landed with a tree between us. His magic wouldn’t be able to snag me there. Unless he was very good at it.
“They’re afraid of what you represent.”
Continue the Thaumatropic Roots Series
Magic is as natural as breathing in Elliah’s world — except to her. Born without a single spark in a war that runs on it, she has nothing but her will and her refusal to accept the limits everyone else has already decided for her. This is what happens when the world writes you out of the story, and you refuse to leave.
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The Guardian of the Palace
The Guardian League Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Magic isn’t real.
Red Hernandez is very sure of that.
She wants a quiet life after Special Forces—just a steady security job at a half-finished Manhattan skyscraper.
But then a sister tower implodes in a way physics can’t explain.
Witnesses report creatures in the smoke.
And something hunts her in the tunnels beneath.
Red wants answers. What she gets instead is an elf with a sword, a troll with a wry sense of humor, and a dwarf who believes every battle requires an audience. They insist an ancient enemy has crossed into our world—and Red becomes an accidental gatekeeper simply because she’s standing on the fault line when it cracks open.
As a hidden war erupts in the shadows of New York City, Red must decide: run from the past that nearly destroyed her… or fight for a world she’s only just beginning to believe in.
A veteran with nothing left to lose.
A threat born of magic and shadow.
A team she never saw coming.
The Guardian of the Palace launches the action-packed Guardian League series—perfect for fans of urban fantasy, modern-world magic, found family, and heroines who refuse to back down.
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Prologue
Corpses patterned the ground as far as my eye could see, a patchwork quilt of death.
I stood atop a skeletal tower, overlooking the broken ruins of an ancient civilization, so very far from home. I envisioned the beauty that the soaring arches once held, the bridges between the constructs reaching out with broken arms, buildings leaning against one another like ancient lovers in a final embrace. Crumbled remains powdered the bases of former statues, and, everywhere, all of it was littered with the dead.
Like a phoenix, I stood, bathed in fire. An Angel of Death. Not the Angel of Death—he was an ass.
A part of me wanted to go down and see for myself. Maybe just to make sure… to make sure I had done my job… and killed everyone that used to inhabit that world. The magic I was wielding should have destroyed them all—something inside of me could feel that it had—but I wanted to see it.
Yet I knew that was unrealistic. I didn’t have the time. There were other worlds that needed my infection, and Earth was on my shortlist.
Chapter 1
Red – Day 20, Sunday, the day after the attack
“Ms. Hernandez?” a muffled voice called from a distance, accompanied by a gentle rapping on a door. My consciousness registered the interruption as a nuisance and pulled me back under.
What seemed like seconds later, the rapping came again, more insistent. “Ms. Hernandez.”
Ms. Hernandez was my mom… why were they bothering me?
Then a scraping sound, and an alarmed voice. “Ms. Hernandez! Are you okay?”
Some scrambling, some grunts, more scraping… shit, I was going to have to wake up. Why couldn’t they just let me sleep?
I tried to answer, but my throat was dry and nothing came out. Coughing, I attempted to sit up, not wholly returned from my trip to dreamland. “I’m here. I’m okay.” Was I though? I wasn’t sure.
I was in my flat. Not the desert. My door was partway open, and a slightly overweight man had paused in the act of pushing his way in. I recognized him, but his name escaped me. Swinging my legs off my cot, I did a quick modesty check. I was fully dressed, though rather tragically, in some semblance of civilian fatigues—muddied, disheveled, and a little bloody.
The reason came screaming back to me. There had been creatures, unearthly monsters, in The Palace. They’d done things I could not explain by any of the rules I knew. And they’d beaten the hell out of me and then patched me back up in a matter of seconds. I’d blown the head clean off of one of them and fled the scene.
Not my smartest move
Continue The Guardian League Series!
Earth, through its technological advances, supports nearly eight billion souls; from a cosmic perspective, that makes it ripe for the picking. ‘Red’ Hernandez, trying to put a questionable military life behind her, finds herself caught in the middle of stopping an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. But to do that, she has to figure out who the good guys are, and how she can combat forces in which she does not believe.
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Steven J. Morris writes fantasy where magic runs deep and the consequences run deeper. By day he’s an engineer and father of three in Austin, Texas. He’s the author of eight novels across two completed series — the epic Thaumatropic Roots and the urban Guardian League — both set in the shared Fractured Arcana universe. Find him at sjmorriswrites.com.
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How an Engineer Became a Fantasy Author
By day, I’m an engineer. By night—and during lunch breaks, weekends, vacations, and any other stretch of time I can protect—I write fantasy novels.
I didn’t grow up expecting to become an author. I always loved stories, particularly speculative fiction, but writing a novel felt like something other people did. Eventually, though, the ideas in my head became too persistent to ignore. I had characters, fragments of scenes, pieces of a world, and questions I wanted to explore. At some point, thinking about the story was no longer enough. I had to find out whether I could actually write it.
My engineering background follows me into my fiction. I enjoy understanding how things work, and that includes imaginary things. If a world contains magic, I want to know what magic costs, who controls it, what assumptions people have built around it, and what happens when those assumptions turn out to be wrong. I like stories in which the world feels larger than the page and where history, religion, politics, and personal relationships are all pressing against one another.
Becoming an author was less a single moment than a long series of decisions: hire a writing coach, finish the chapter, then finish the draft, then revise it, then let someone else read it, then publish it and begin again. Even now, with multiple books behind me, I’m not sure the feeling of “becoming” an author ever entirely ends. Every book asks you to learn how to write it. Every book (at least for me) has a wall to break through, and each one is quite different.
I’m also a husband and the father of three daughters, so writing has always had to coexist with a full life. I don’t wait for the perfect silent morning or an empty calendar. I write when I can, keep returning to the story, and trust that a book can be built a few pages at a time.
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Kickoff at Silver Dagger Book Tours
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FUONLYKNEW – GUEST POST
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Ellwyn’s Blog – GUEST POST
Sybrina’s Book Blog – GUEST POST
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Tina Donahue Books – Heat with Heart
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Wibell’s Worlds – GUEST POST
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Book Reviews by the Reluctant Retiree
Aug 21
Books all things paranormal and romance
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WMC Book Corner – YouTube channel
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Inside the Insanity – GUEST POST
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K.M. Jenkin’s Book Nook – GUEST POST
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Book Bites….with a side of coffee
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@delightfully.brittany – REVIEW
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Stormy Nights, Books and Blogging
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These sounds super interesting and I like the covers too.
Sounds like a series I will want to read.
Sounds like a good read. I love the covers and the excerpt.
love the covers
What inspired the author to blend classic fantasy figures with New York City?!
Looks very exciting