The Ancient Shrine

by Ashley Abbiss

Overview

“Oh no,” the goddess cried. “Mother! Mother!” ‎
Ten years ago, the world changed. The enmity between the Cult of the Earth Mother and ‎the other religions of the world was resolved, Maras, chief of the gods, was reconciled with his ‎wife, and their daughter Warin left her life as a human and went back to being a goddess. The ‎world has had ten years of peace, and Niari, Carlitha and their friends are busy getting on with ‎their lives. ‎
But suddenly things are going wrong. Destinies are going awry, and as goddess of destiny ‎it’s up to Warin to fix the problem before something drastic happens down below and the ‎course of history is derailed. ‎
Meantime, in Entroth, a new religion has arisen, and as it spreads like wildfire through the ‎nations it becomes apparent that one of its major aims is to kill Niari and Carlitha and their ‎friend Mennia. But just who is this new goddess, the Queen of All, and why does she want ‎Niari and Carlitha, and Mennia, of all people, dead? And who is her prophetess, the woman ‎known as Iltara, who is said to be a sorceress? There aren’t more than a dozen sorceresses in ‎the world. Niari and Carlitha know them all by reputation, if not personally, and they’ve never ‎heard of Iltara. Is she someone new, or one of others under a different name? Or is she an ‎impostor? The answer is rather crucial if they’re to stop her. ‎
Niari and Carlitha’s brother, King Aanek, places his sisters in protective custody and ‎mobilises the Nebrethian intelligence service to find the answers. ‎
Meanwhile, Warin is labouring to unravel the snarled threads of destiny and find out what’s ‎gone wrong so she can work out how to fix it. ‎
But can they all find their various answers before something really catastrophic happens? ‎
The Ancient Shrine is an epic fantasy adventure in the best tradition of sword and sorcery. ‎Join Niari, Carlitha and their friends as they fight the forces of evil in a world where magic is ‎real, where humans can speak to animals, and where the gods are a lot closer than you might ‎think. This is the fourth novel in the Daughters of Destiny series, but can be read as a ‎standalone novel if desired. ‎

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153700755
Publisher:	Ashley Abbiss
Publication date:	10/28/2016
Series:	Daughters of Destiny
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	880 KB

About the Author

Hello there. I’m Ashley Abbiss. ‎

I live and write in beautiful New Zealand, where I live with one large dog, who looks nothing ‎like Friend from my Daughters of Destiny books. She is, however, almost as intelligent and definitely as ‎opinionated, and if she can’t quite speak in the way Friend does to Niari, that doesn’t really ‎hold her back much!‎

I write fantasy, mostly of the epic variety. Let me say right up front that if you’re looking for a quick read, you’re in the wrong place. But if you like a substantial, ‎satisfying story that you can really get your teeth into, stick with me. I may have something ‎you’ll enjoy. There’s no graphic sex in my books. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to look ‎elsewhere. There is violence, and there is swearing, though mostly of the ‘s/he swore’ variety, ‎nothing overly graphic or offensive. I also write about strong, independent female characters, ‎so if your taste runs to something more macho, or something more frilly and helpless, this may ‎not be the place for you. ‎

I’ve always loved wandering in different worlds, be they fantasy or science fiction, although ‎lately I tend to prefer fantasy. The only proviso is that they have to be believable worlds, ‎worlds that feel real, that have depth and scope – and they must, absolutely must be fun to ‎visit. I read for escape and entertainment, and I don’t really want to escape from this world ‎into one even grimmer. Trouble, tension, and danger I can deal with, what sort of story would ‎there be without them? Where would Pern be without Thread, Frodo without Sauron, Harry ‎Potter without Voldemort? But there has to be hope, and there has to be a light touch. Happy ‎ever after does have a lot going for it, even if initially it’s only a very small light at the end of ‎a long, dark tunnel. My personal favourites include Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, Anne ‎McCaffrey’s Pern series, and the fantasies of David Eddings, and lately, they’ve been joined ‎by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and a few others. Of those, David Eddings was probably my ‎greatest inspiration.‎

I began to wonder if I could create my own world, one just as believable and multi-layered as ‎theirs. Could I create a world with its own history, geography, social structure, deities, and all ‎the rest? One that hung together? That a reader could believe in? It became a challenge, one I ‎really wanted to see if I could meet. So I dusted off my writing skills, learned a few more, ‎cranked up the imagination, and got busy. I’d always been good at creative writing, but ‎though I’d made a few attempts to write after I left school, none of them came to anything. ‎That was until I started writing fantasy. Suddenly, I knew I’d come home. ‎

I quickly discovered that I’m not the sort of writer who can plan a book (or a world!) before I ‎start. I just can’t do it. But I can create characters, and suddenly the characters took on a ‎reality of their own and took over the stories, often to the extent that they actually surprised ‎me. And the stories worked. Their world worked. Sometimes I had to go back and fix the ‎odd contradiction, but mostly it worked and was very natural and organic. Even though my ‎first attempts were pitiful, I knew I’d found where I belong. I persevered, I learned, I wrote. ‎I discovered that the characters are key for me. Once I get them right, they tell their own ‎story. I was away. There were dark days during which my stories became my refuge, my ‎characters my friends. And I kept writing. There were happy times when I didn’t need a ‎refuge, but my characters were still my friends, and they drew me inexorably back. I kept ‎writing. ‎

And now, I hope my characters may become your friends too, my worlds ones where you also ‎like to walk; perhaps even your refuge from dark days. Come join me in a world where magic ‎is real and the gods are near, where beasts talk and men and women achieve things they never ‎dreamed they could. But most of all, come and have fun! ‎
Happy reading.‎
Ash.‎