The Sword in His Hand (The Darcentaria Duology #1)

By J J. Fischer

Description:

“One is an opportunity. Two is a threat. Three is an invasion.”

For hundreds of years, strange things have been washing up on the shores of Darcentaria. But when a young foreign woman named El is found unconscious on the beach amidst the burning wreckage of a strange metal craft, the villagers of Odessa are immediately suspicious—is she an agent of the Dalriadan Empire, their cruel oppressors for as long as they can remember? Or does she come from the Outside, the vast and legendary lands beyond their borders from which no man or woman alive has ever returned?

Torsten Eiselher, a talented young swordsman, has spent the last nine years of his life wrongfully imprisoned by his uncle, the Empire’s ruler. Betrayed and deceived at every turn, Torsten has survived by keeping a firm grip on his sword—and by staying well away from anything to do with the Outside. But when his young sister is murdered, Torsten finds himself irrevocably drawn to El despite her Outsider heritage—and he begins to question everything he has been told about her world.

Intrigued by the existence of a powerful and dangerously advanced world within his reach, the Empire’s ruler, Jurien Arminius, launches a hunt for El and the two Outsiders that arrived with her—the ones who could help him win his war against Torsten and the rebellion that threatens to topple his Empire.

Suddenly, Torsten is forced to choose between defeating his long-term enemy or saving the woman he has come to love . . .

Why the author wrote this book:

I think the best stories are the ones that change us. The ones where we close the book and walk away, but we cannot help but be irrevocably changed—transformed, even. I’ve read hundreds of books—maybe thousands—but I continually come back to the stories that provoke deep emotion from me. The stories that frustrate and inspire and challenge and encourage me; that maybe even rock the foundations of my comfortable world.


Perhaps it’s too ambitious a goal, but I really hope that every one of my stories impacts my reader in some way. As I’ve said before, my faith is the cornerstone of my life—without it, I would not be the person I am today—and so faith is really what colours my stories. Many books indelibly imprint on the mind—and fewer still make their mark on the heart—but I also want to write fiction that feeds the soul. My books celebrate hope, courage, love, and perseverance in the midst of suffering, violence, oppression, and hatred. They feature characters who seek to triumph in the midst of adversity and struggle.


It has recently become fashionable to have a “life verse”—a Bible verse that informs every part of one's life. In all honesty, my “life verse” has to be Psalm 42:7: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." As a character in my second book muses—inspired by this very verse—the deep in us is only an echo of the depth of God. I could write my entire life and not uncover even a little corner of the richness of the Author of life. But to reflect that depth is my calling, and it is my honest delight to honour it.