Bloodwarm Rhapsody
Famous pianist Byron Llewellyn is about to die, and there's nothing he can do about it.To tell the truth, his diagnosis was a relief. But when the aristocrat father he never knew dies under unusual circumstances, Byron is thrust into a life he never wanted. He becomes a Lord Lieutenant of the Darwin Isles, a position whose privileges seem to be drastically overshadowed by its challenges as he is forced to face down a megalomaniacal magnate, a disturbed princess, and a cult of religious extremists who attempt to twist the social order in their favor.As Byron uses music to reconcile his relationship with the father he spited all his life, he falls down a rabbit hole of intrigue and danger. He is forced to place trust in less-than-trustworthy people-a double-agent of the state intelligence service who spearheads the nation's most misunderstood criminal syndicate; his fiercest opponent's assistant (an illicit love interest); and a bodyguard whose motives are not as pure as they seem. Byron struggles to defend the city that he loves from devious forces before the world as he knows it quite literally comes to an end in a hail of fire, a serendipitous conclusion that could only be designed by some sort of sick deity."Dark and moving.""An emotional work that follows protagonist Byron on a journey from apathy to adulthood to an untimely but inevitable demise. "Its structure, inspired by the namesake one-movement musical composition, is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, and replete with contrast and color.""Its unraveling narrative parallels the political and social issues of the late 19th Century with those we encounter today."…