Author Bio

Joanna Fay was born on Christmas Island during the annual crab migration and grew up between Perth and Hobart, at the far ends of Australia. A keen reader of fantasy and science fiction, she began dreaming and writing her own fantasy world during her teens. Her world, Siaris, continued to quietly take shape and unfold its dramas while she studied art history, worked as a tapestry weaver, and moved back and forth between Melbourne and London.

When writing finally got the lion’s share of her attention, Daughter of Hope, first novel in The Siaris Quartet, took shape quickly and found a home in the USA with Musa Publishing. Joanna is now working on the fourth and final book, but sees sequels on the horizon. She has had numerous shorts stories and poems published and awarded in Australia and internationally, including three stories set in the Siaris storyworld.

Joanna currently lives in the Perth hills, Western Australia, with her son and a menagerie of small pets. When not writing, she consults as a natural therapist, watches magnificent sunsets, meditates and keeps an eye on the sky for the movements of celestial bodies and low-flying unidentified objects.

Reunion: Book Two of The Siaris Quartet (released February 8, 2013, Musa Publishing)

Immortal love was never meant to be broken, but the road to restoring it is beyond imagining.

Blurb

The world of Siaris has been thrown into chaos.  Xereth, still reeling from the loss of his children, has bided his time and waited years for the perfect time to exact revenge.  That time is drawing near.  Little does Xereth know, he’ll have unsolicited help along the way.

Long-dormant prejudices have surfaced among the humans and elden of Siaris, and they are turning their hate toward their Guardian protectors. Neither visions nor spell-craft can predict the mutiny being prepared in their protectorate, and when a human and Guardian fall in love the rule banning their marriage only ignites the drive to retaliate.

In the world Riana and her Guardian family protect, war has broken out, led by the man who once loved her, now Lord of the Shadow Realm. The old rules are crumbling, the spells engraved in the Guardians’ bones are breaking down.  Will Siaris and its Guardians survive the changes?

Excerpt

Strength coursed through Riana’s body as if a river had been unleashed, driving her into a sprint. She hurtled down the dark hallway, swiveling an image of the fortress around in her mind’s vision. Locking onto her position, she took an ascending passage.

She ran hard. Mottled folds of cloth whipped around her ankles. The fortress’s black walls pressed in close, dank and smothering. Her footsteps were muffled, all sounds eaten in the gloom. Her bare feet stung where they met the fierce cold of the floor. She veered around a twist in the corridor and rocked back on her heels. Eyes gleamed in front of her, colder than the stone beneath her feet.

“Riana.”

The voice slid like ice through her head. No mercy lit Maegren’s features, no hint of the knowledge she’d seen. Torchlight licked at the hem of his cloak, sent a chill line down his black feathers.

Riana forced down panic. “Maegren, let me go.”

She held herself still, but a betraying tremor touched her words. He laughed. Backing away, Riana spun about and slipped into a narrow opening to her left. She fled down a pitted slope into deeper blackness lit only by her fractured halo.

She ran until the breath caught in her lungs, until her feet began to slow. The strength she’d built was sapping from her limbs, draining from fractures in her spellsheen.

I can’t escape.

Every turn and kink in the line of the path was drawing her further into the fortress. The dark communal will at its centre closed in fast, tightening the noose. The soft mutters of the gods gnawed at the edges of her mind. Ancient decay cloyed in her nostrils. She lurched to a halt.

Impossibly, Maegren stood before her again. A vindictive smile curled his lips as he swept a low bow. The black hair framing his face swung in glittering sheets. Catching a faint blue glow at the periphery of her vision, terror knifed through Riana and sent pinpricks though her limbs. She glanced back over her shoulder, searching the darkness. In the corner of her eye, an indigo form closed in on her with predator stealth.

“Xereth,” she whispered.

Her cousin’s blue eyes narrowed, transfixing her.

Trapped.

Run to ground like a wild thing.

Sensing something else, unbelieving, she looked down. Low in her belly a point of light welled. New cells sparkled where an egg snuggled in the wall of her womb. She gasped and put a trembling hand to her body. Maegren’s suppressed sound of shock caught her ear. Reacting to Xereth’s presence, she shielded her sudden awareness with all the power she could muster. The white glow in Maegren’s eyes dulled. Weakness crept up Riana’s legs as a picture formed in front of her. She sank to her knees, oblivious to the icy bite of the floor beneath her hand. Before her stood a little boy, quite calm, his eyes shining. He held a hand out to her, one cheek dimpling.

“Mother, it will be all right.”

Daughter of Hope: Book One of The Siaris Quartet  (released June 8, 2012, Musa Publishing)

Blurb

The fate of an entire world will be decided by the actions of one young girl.

The Guardians of Siaris have been warring for thousands of years, torn apart by betrayal and lost loves. Xereth waits patiently for his chance at revenge. The only thing standing in his way is one of his own offspring.

As Xereth’s daughter, Revetia’s destiny is to help him destroy Siaris and those who wronged him, but Revetia’s will is strong. With hope and help, she might be able to break free from Xereth’s tight and treacherous grasp, but at what cost?

Sier has always tried to stay out of affairs that threaten his family’s safety. When Revetia asks him for help, she forces him into a position that could cost his family, the elden, and humans their lives. Is he prepared to put those he loves and protects in jeopardy?

With the fate of Siaris resting on Revetia’s shoulders, will her actions trigger a war between gods, slaves, and Guardians?

Excerpt

The baby blinked, trying to clear her eyes. The dim space around her lay in a chilled hush.  A strip of light filtered across the torn covers surrounding her, over an expanse of pale skin flecked with red. A long growl sounded from outside the room’s curved walls.

Wind, the baby named it.

She’d heard it – and other things – from inside her mother’s belly. Now it sounded much louder, and unfriendly. She wanted to reach for the expanse of flesh beside her, but couldn’t yet control her limbs. Her mother didn’t move. The silence of the room, the gale’s rush at the chamber, grew frightening. She shivered, a naked bundle of feverish heat and ice. She began to cry. The wind fought her voice, but she needed someone to come. Anyone.

Time dragged. The light around her stuttered and grew dull. Her hearing picked up a new sound, cautious steps husking along the hall outside the turret-room, until they came to a halt. A seamed face peered through a rectangle of darkness. Fingers clutched at the edge of a wooden frame, then jerked back as if they’d been stung. The fingers fluttered down over a worn tunic, shaking. The sound of rough breathing met the baby as a woman stepped into the room and edged closer to her.

The woman’s face shrivelled into deeper lines, her gaze roving across the bed. The picture in her mind reflected into the baby’s vision in all its blood-soaked destruction.  An elden woman lying on the shredded velvet cover, the ragged vestiges of beauty still visible through the contortion of her features. Smoke coiling in wisps from her hips and thighs, hanging thick on the air. The baby saw herself curled in a pool of light. Already, despite being so tiny, the sheen of power that had killed her mother during birth glowed out across the bed.

The baby noted her own skin was different to her mother’s. Blue. She felt the word fit itself to her…that this was her natural shade. But even so, couldn’t the bent figure creeping closer see her shock, the crisis gripping her body with shudders?

The intruder’s breath hissed. Her stare now settled on the glittering wings that rustled against the baby’s back, the downy feathers catching in the rumpled bedcover. The baby studied her, and saw that she was elden too, but diminished, improperly aged. The silence grew longer, the gale’s voice harsh. The baby huddled desperately, and fought to focus her mind on this person who still hadn’t come to her side.

She formed a question in her head, and forced it to cross the gap. Who are you?

“My name is Amya.” The woman’s voice sounded strangled, as if her throat had jammed shut.

Are you my – the baby searched for the word – nurse?

Amya didn’t reply. Her damp gaze had shifted back to the body on the bed.

Daughter of Hope Cover