Resistance rumbles. Rebellion erupts. War sweeps across the continents as Rhynn and Este fight to free their people. Seth leads an army of unlikely allies into battle. As he chases the Butcher of Bloody Bend toward Jorendon, his darkest secret follows him, daring him to face a truth that could cost him all he loves. Malatchee Mico confronts Tobias about betraying his trust. Determined to free his sister's son from captivity, Malatchee gives Tobias one chance to restore the balance or else leave Tallu forever. They will go to war in Philippeon together and drive the Laradian snakes into the sea. But with war comes sacrifice. Who will pay the price? Mouse gets a name and meets her Reader. Dara struggles with the horror of his crime. Deighton faces an accounting for his deceit. Puppeteers incite mass panic, and the kazera venture out of hiding. The Rootstock Saga characters you know so well are in a race against time. The water is rising, and the Watchers are coming for the harvest. Even as war distracts them from the paths the Patterns demand they follow, when the Witch of Lurago awakens a mindgift like no other, the chalyns and their destinies begin to converge.

Gifted or cursed? Isobel is a healer, and the Hawks who accepted her, broken and different as she was, need her help. But she must hide the truth behind her healing power. She is an empath. John Deighton, The Prophet, is back in Innis and stoking the embers of bigotry and superstition, scouring the realm and imprisoning mindgifted Aurels. When he corners Isobel, will she fight back or succumb to her old fears and lingering scars from the Beast of Monaughty? Will she answer the call of a healer if it costs her everything she loves? Far across the sea, Tobias Buchanan is racing against time to build New Rhynn as a haven for his clan. As the noose of oppression squeezes tighter in Innis, the Hawks may soon be forced to choose between their homeland and their way of life. Can he earn a place for his Hawks amongst the Este of Tallu? Can he prove Rhynns are worthy of their trust? Meanwhile, the Este are discovering their own place in the Awakening and the Joining. Spirit runners grow more powerful by the year, and the Mists hover closer over Tallu. But will it be enough when the water rises? Will they be ready before the cycle ends? Path of the Spirit Runner is the enthralling continuation of the Rootstock Saga. Evolution and oppression. Magical mindgifts and dragon science. The characters you loved in Legend of the Storm Hawks come of age and weave their own threads in the Patterns.

The rebellion is won. Rhynn belongs to Rhynns again, and the rose is set to bloom. But rebuilding is proving harder than conquering. “Confounding, isn’t it?” said Nigel. “How much easier it is to take a thing apart than to put it back together?” “I expected no less. I tore down a kingdom." Seth tugged off his gloves. “I can walk away after securing a better one in its place.” For Seth, that means setting the crown on someone else's head, and building walls to hide the secret no Rhynn could forgive. But his walls keep out more than he intended. After everything he fought for is stripped away, he realizes the will to choose is all that’s left. In Tallu, the Este are settling into a wary peace. Tobias is haunted by the hollow-eyed ghosts of the lost. Gone, but not forgotten. He embarks on a daring journey to the islands, and his search opens the door to the a shadowy world where every name matters. Can he find and release the caged storm before it's too late? "Second chances are starker than the first. We know going in what losing will cost us." --Seth Nigel travels to Tallu to honor Brynmohr's dying wish. Against all odds and despite his arrogance, when he counts all the children and grandchildren scattered from Rhynn to Tallu, Nigel finds himself the surrogate patriarch to what is likely the largest family any nene has ever known. He faces his past, questions his choices, and vows to make amends to those he wronged. But then, discovering the Dawnguard's darkest secret draws him back to Rhynn. Nigel is no sooner gone than a couple of runaway Rhynns show up in Tallu. Ava and Rory find a new mentor for their mindgifts. Ava picks up where the story left off, while Lamochatee searches for the missing Ayohotulee. Will an unlikely bond bring a legend to life? Mouse haunts the archives in La Gracia, waiting for her Reader to return. They try to convince her he is dead. Father says she is chasing a delusion. But it's hard to lie to a truthtaster. Meanwhile, in Camran, a rogue mindrider is devouring embers to feed her powerful mindgift. Unrestrained by conscience or sanity, her twisted plan to survive the cycle's end draws the chalyns together for the final battle. "We are two sides of a coin, a chalyn of war and peace." --Seth The toughest challenge they face? Finding the enemy amidst the hollow monsters and wolves of straw. "What we call life is not the only form life knows." --Amadeo All the storylines woven through the Rootstock Saga come together in this fourth and final novel of the series.

Someday soon, your world will end. Ending is not as final as it sounds. Our world has ended before. When it does, be patient. Those of your time will linger and watch new cycles unfold. Some will walk this spinning blue rock again. A few will shape its destiny. Get lost in the story. The richly detailed fantasy adventure you've been looking for is here. Stunning world-building. Sweeping cast of unforgettable characters. A riveting saga of the magic evolving in us all. Perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Brent Weeks, and Brandon Sanderson. Legend of the Storm Hawks introduces the Rootstock Saga, four novels all due to release in 2020. Not a light read, this is serious fantasy for serious fantasy fans. Set on a future Earth, our own history echoes from the shadows. Adversity awakens gifts in this tale of evolution and survival. Science meets fantasy in a burgeoning of psychic and psionic power, and the mindgifted struggle with bigotry, abuse, theocracy, gender roles, climate change, and the temptations of power and privilege. Intricately interwoven POV voices and plots converge in a long, rewarding end game. A master player convinces the pawn the move is its own. Nigel has been at the game longer than most, but lately the pawns keep turning into rogue knights. It’s damned inconvenient of them, considering the world is about to end again. The Watchers will soon declare this cycle over, as they have so many cycles before, shrugging off yet another rise and fall of humankind, and giving the dragons another turn at dominion. Brynmohr is King of the Firstborn, and Twelvestones is the last bastion of a once-mighty nene dynasty. As the first people to walk the earth, the Firstborn consider it their birthright to rule over mankind. Half-breeds between their kinds are always sterile, but the daughters born of Brynmohr’s irrational affection for a woman are defying the Patterns. Sethlyan and Isobel are unaware they’re expendable pawns in an increasingly complex game. Seth is the second son of the Second of Aleron. He’s tired of hearing rumors he and his friends are the prophesied Storm Hawks, destined to free Rhynn from centuries of oppression. He knows better. So does the Other, the voice only he can hear. Isobel survived the Beast of Monaughty. Her father is dead, but his brutality haunts her. When her brother, the Rhi’Iverach, forges an alliance with the Hawks of Aleron, Isobel finds herself promised to a stranger named Sethlyan. Her trust is hard to earn. His is hard to give. A deadly attack leaves them with a telepathic bond neither wants, and awakens mindgifts they struggle to accept. When rebellion brings Nigel and his charges to the precipice of war, they must choose between hiding their secrets or wielding their mindgifts, fighting their oppressors or sacrificing freedom for peace.

Winner, 2012 Book Award, Society for the Study of Early Modern WomenHonorable Mention, Literature, 2012 PROSE Awards, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers In her award-winning, critically acclaimed Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650, Virginia Cox chronicles the history of women writers in early modern Italy—who they were, what they wrote, where they fit in society, and how their status changed during this period. In this book, Cox examines more closely one particular moment in this history, in many ways the most remarkable for the richness and range of women’s literary output. A widespread critical notion sees Italian women’s writing as a phenomenon specific to the peculiar literary environment of the mid-sixteenth century, and most scholars assume that a reactionary movement such as the Counter-Reformation was unlikely to spur its development. Cox argues otherwise, showing that women’s writing flourished in the period following 1560, reaching beyond the customary "feminine" genres of lyric, poetry, and letters to experiment with pastoral drama, chivalric romance, tragedy, and epic. There were few widely practiced genres in this eclectic phase of Italian literature to which women did not turn their hand. Organized by genre, and including translations of all excerpts from primary texts, this comprehensive and engaging volume provides students and scholars with an invaluable resource as interest in these exceptional writers grows. In addition to familiar, secular works by authors such as Isabella Andreini, Moderata Fonte, and Lucrezia Marinella, Cox also discusses important writings that have largely escaped critical interest, including Fonte’s and Marinella’s vivid religious narratives, an unfinished Amazonian epic by Maddalena Salvetti, and the startlingly fresh autobiographical lyrics of Francesca Turina Bufalini. Juxtaposing religious and secular writings by women and tracing their relationship to the male-authored literature of the period, often surprisingly affirmative in its attitudes toward women, Cox reveals a new and provocative vision of the Italian Counter-Reformation as a period far less uniformly repressive of women than is commonly assumed.