Legacy of the Fallen - Book Tour and Giveaway

A dangerous quest risks the return of an ancient evil.Legacy of The Fallen is a thrilling fantasy adventure for fans of Empire of Sand, The City of Brass, and This Woven Kingdom. 

Legacy of the Fallen
The Fallen Mages Book 1
by Jane Shand
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy Adventure

A dangerous quest risks the return of an ancient evil.

Afshaneh spends her life looking over her shoulder, waiting for her grandparents to send someone to take them back. She might have grown up in luxury, but it was a prison. Now she and her mother live a simple life in the eastern slums of Mahariz. She hides her identity and her forbidden magic. But when she takes on a dangerous quest, will her secrets be revealed?

Her close band of friends know she can be reckless and impulsive, so they are not surprised when she agrees to reclaim a lost artefact for a stranger. She could not refuse; he offered enough money to keep her and her mother safe forever.

However, she soon learns that this artefact and the one who seeks it could be the most dangerous things in the land. Her quest will take her to the ominous ruins of a castle once occupied by evil mages: The Fallen. She will begin to understand their legacy and will be faced with a choice.

Should she destroy the artefact – become the heroine everyone believes she can be – and so attract the wrath of an evil mage, or should she claim the reward and risk the return of The Fallen?

Legacy of The Fallen is a thrilling fantasy adventure for fans of Empire of Sand, The City of Brass, and This Woven Kingdom. If you enjoy vivid worlds, complex characters, and tales of reluctant heroines/chosen ones then join Afshaneh on her quest and discover which choice she makes…


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​ However impetuous her behaviour in the past, this trip to the mage ruins was the first time she had openly defied her mother. Afshaneh’s face flushed in shame at the way she had spoken to her mother. Ignoring her warnings, her threats, and her pleas, she had grabbed food, spare clothes, and a knife, and simply set off. She had even slammed the door behind her.
Afshaneh could still recall the defiant sense of freedom that had washed through her as she marched towards the city gates. She had possessed enough common sense to purchase more supplies on the way – she had not grabbed enough from home to last her the eight day round-trip – with coin she had saved over the last few weeks. However, once she stepped through the city exit she quailed. The land was wide and she was alone. It was almost four days of travel to reach the plateau. Afshaneh’s breath hitched and her heart beat loud in her ears. What did she think she was doing? She was no explorer!
She turned back to the gate. She would return home and apologise to her mother and forget this madness.
A tug at her core had her facing north once more. She frowned as she stared into the distance. She could not see the plateau upon which the ruins sat; yet it was as if they called to her…
Without conscious effort, she found her feet moving, leading her away from Mahariz and to whatever awaited her at Yehtkala, the ‘Castle of Sorcery’.
The trip had been gruelling and if it were not for that insistent tugging at her soul, she would have turned back. At night she huddled in her blankets, eyes flying open at every tiny sound. Luckily, nothing approached her.
Afshaneh did not let her mind linger on the hours she spent crying in the rocky maze that blocked her path after enduring more than two days of hiking. She had been certain she would die in there, lost forever. Would anyone ever find her bones?
But at last she had reached the cliff and refilled her sadly depleted water skin. Afshaneh stared upwards. She scrubbed her face and scowled. Why did everything on this journey have to be so difficult? The path switch backed up the steep cliffside and was overgrown and covered in loose soil and pebbles. Perhaps there was another way up.
Afshaneh searched for two hours before she gave up and returned to the base of the cliff, defeated. If there was another way, she could spend days looking for it.
Resolutely she pivoted so that her back was to the climb. She ate a meagre meal and sat with her arms tight around her knees. She could not do this. It was too much. She peered over her shoulder and let out a sighing breath. She had already come this far, she could not return to her mother now. She had caused her mother grief and she needed to have something to show for it. She firmed her lips, settled her pack more comfortably and started climbing.
Pebbles rolled out from beneath her feet, threatening to fling her to her death. Bushes snagged at her trousers and she had to carefully unhook them. They could not afford material to repair any tears.
By the time she struggled over the top she was crying with exhaustion and rested for a while, drinking in the sight of the once majestic fortress. Now it was rubble, partial walls, and the occasional dome or tower. Whatever catastrophe had befallen this place had been thorough.
The trip through the dark interior was not something Afshaneh wished to remember, either. The only thing that kept her moving, leading her onwards, was the sensation that something important awaited her here. The pull of it had only increased as she crept through a gap in the outer wall and stared at mosaics and friezes of fearsome mages.
It drew her down corridors and over rubble and then up a staircase she found in a corner. It led her up one of the remaining towers. The stairs wound up and up and her thigh muscles protested after her long journey.
At last she reached a tiny landing at the top with two doors. Both stood open, listing on their rusted hinges. But she had eyes for only one. She darted through the doorway and halted, scanning the room. Mouldy carpet, faded tapestries, remains of wooden furniture. A half-collapsed bed sagged against the far wall. Something was underneath it. Before she could think about what she was doing, she had thrown down her pack and was squeezing into the gap beneath the base. There! Something gleamed iridescent in the darkness and called to her. She reached out her hand and snatched it up. A sensation akin to satisfaction washed through her and she wriggled out again.
Ignoring the dust and cobwebs adorning her clothes and face, Afshaneh slowly opened her fist to inspect what she had discovered. In the centre of her palm lay a gem. It flashed in every colour of the rainbow, was egg shaped, and fit neatly into her hand. Afshaneh grinned gleefully. It was all hers! A precious jewel that she could sell for a fortune and she and her mother might finally be safe.

**Coming Soon in August!**

Curse of the Fallen
The Fallen Mages Book 2
PreOrder HERE!

Jane Shand has always been an avid reader of fantasy and mystery and is an author of YA Fantasy.

She got hooked on fantasy after reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ at a young age and was determined to write books full of magic and adventure.

Her books always have magic, adventure, and some mystery. They are full of friendship and co-operation as well as danger and enemies. There will be a happy/satisfactory ending and some clean romance. Her books are all set in the same ‘world’ though on different continents and there is a thread/item that ties all the books together.

She lives in Hampshire, England with her family and two cheeky cats who would love to help her write.


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Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?

I am a quiet introvert and I guess the job of being an author suits me. I am perfectly happy spending lots of time on my own and in my own head with a cast of fictional people! I always loved reading and writing and even when I played with toys, they were acting out a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
As soon as I discovered fantasy I was hooked – I think I always secretly wished I could be an elf in Middle Earth! I loved magic and swords and archery. Pure escapism.
I began trying to write novels at about sixteen, but it was all for me, I never really considered becoming an author at that point. I sent off my very first manuscript at twenty-two – it was nowhere near good enough and naturally received nothing but rejections!
It wasn’t until 2017, after I had my children and things had settled a bit, that I seriously thought about trying again to write a novel and get it published. I sent queries to two small presses for the first novel I finished after that, but was already writing another one when I got some rejections. They came with constructive criticism that was encouraging. But that novel has never been published. One day I would like to. I have an idea of how I could make it part of the world I have now created.
I joined a novel writing course with the next book I was working on, and when it was completed I chose to go the self-published route. I wanted to be in charge of the whole process and not have to wait eighteen months for a book to be published by a traditional publisher. It is a decision I do not regret. By the end of this year I will have published my ninth book in four years. And I can choose to swap genres, to take a break, publish wherever I want. I enjoy the freedom and control self-publishing gives me.


How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book? And what can we expect from you in the future?

The idea for a girl who had a special Crystal came to me while writing the previous series (The Crystal Mages Trilogy). Then I had an idea for ominous ruins of a once magnificent fortress that would play a huge part in the plot, and I had to decide who had lived there and what had happened to them.
The ideas were coming to me as I wrote the previous series and the girl and the Fallen mages who lived in the fortress are referenced in those books. Then I began fleshing out the story a little more and creating the main characters. I decided on how many of them there would be, chose names for them, and then began working on their rough characteristics. What happened to them to make them who they are today. Other characters came to me as I went along. Once I had the main characters, the setting and a basic concept – a girl with a special Crystal against evil mages returning to the ruins of their once-great fortress – I began filling in the rest of the plot. I also had to decide on how many books the series was going to be so that I could work out the final ending and all the things that had to happen in between. This is a four book series and I am about a third of the way through writing book 4. I hope to release the first three books this year, with the final installment in 2025.

I have plans for another series set on the same continent as both The Crystal Mages and The Fallen Mages (Escarnia). It will be set in Virin Asra, a land that is mentioned in both series. I am considering a land with a Mayan influence here. I am also going to take a slight detour into a new genre – Cosy Fantasy. I have actually begun the novel and have an outline for a second book. This series is set on a different continent (but same world) – Thalian. This is where my Darkling Duology is set. Then I have an idea for another series which could either be Cosy Fantasy or YA Fantasy. We will have to see how it all goes!


What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?

I usually start with a basic setting and create a rough map. So, Legacy of the Fallen takes place on a continent called Escarnia that I created when I wrote the previous series, The Crystal Mages Trilogy. The land for those books was a kind of Celtic/Scottish setting so it needed to be at a particular latitude – and that dictated what the other countries of the continent would be like. You might ask why I do that in a fictional world – but the laws of climate, weather, geology, etc. need to be understandable and seem ‘real’, or you need to have a very good reason why they aren’t. I am asking people to believe in magic and mythical creatures, I don’t want them struggling with a world that doesn’t make sense.

So then I find a country on Earth that is at a similar latitude and research its climate, flora, and fauna. Legacy of the Fallen is set in a land called Methisti and of all the countries at the right latitude I chose ancient Persia to be the place that influenced the setting. It is quite fun finding names of places and then putting a new slant on them, looking up people’s names and choosing some for my characters, finding what plants and animals you might find there. I also look to see what sort of religion the place might have, but I always make it a brand new religion. Methisti will have a definite flavour of Persia, but it isn’t Persia.

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