The Unfettered Mage Books
How deep is a mother’s love? Will determination and honor carry you among the stars? A story of loss and discovery, We Are Not Prey, balances the darkness of despair and the joy of new beginnings. This science fiction adventure blends magic and technology with the adventures of Ruth, a normal human, pushed into extraordinary situations. Ruth’s transformation takes her from Earth to worlds and situations of which she never dreamed.
When your world changes around you, do you fight it or adapt? Almost everything has changed in Ruth's world. Ripped from the loving arms around her and carried into space, she has survived slavery and a transformation that would have broken many others. Faced with insurmountable challenges, she has countered darkness with light and despair with love. Will this be enough to earn her some peace? Or will it be her spirit and heart that are broken?
What does a woman have to do to get a break? Ruth Cavanaugh has survived slavers and a traumatic transformation into a Mage. Now she finds herself on an alien planet, connected to one of the high nobles. It was a pretty slick trick for a woman who never believed in magic, aliens, or many of the things that she has now seen. The new Mage needs quiet time and a chance to make sense of the battles she has been through. The damage from her trauma is not healed, and it hampers her at every step of the way. But she keeps pushing forward. As new enemies circle around her, attacks both political and physical increase. The Mage is trying to learn how to control her magic as quickly as she can, but the difference between the violent battlefield and a society that is more concerned with niceties leaves her vulnerable and hurting. She has her Anchor but also needs to find her own feet. Preferably without the flashbacks. So what can this woman do to make sense out of her new life and prosper? Ruth knows that when times are tough you need to dig deeper and just go. If you are the Unfettered Mage, that means shopping.
Even while struggling with her own adjustments to a new life, Ruth is aware of both her son and grandson having their own difficulties. The wistful yearning for a familiar celebration leads Ruth to make one of those promises that parents and grandparents make to their children that backfire on them spectacularly. What started out as a small promise grows into a huge event, one that will forever change celebration on Arkken. Can anyone predict how the rest of Ruth’s transplanted holidays will go? And even more, is this a trick or treat?
Not all combat is conducted with blades and projectiles. The change from endangered slave to a powerful Mage living in a world of aristocracy and Machiavellian strategies has been a challenge that sometimes feels overwhelming to Ruth Cavanaugh. The alteration in her life is straining her abilities in every dimension. Working on her mental and physical healing from her abduction and harrowing loss, Ruth continues to settle into her relationship with Pawlik, a powerful nobleman of the Alliance world of Arkken. Struggling to grow into the power of her new abilities, the woman who is mother, grandmother, mate, and Mage is learning as fast as she can. When attacks come from many directions, Ruth has to depend on her inner stubbornness and the strength that she developed growing up on what everyone in her new world thinks of as a backwater planet and primitive culture. A planet called Earth. While sometimes attacks and ambushes are delivered with polite smiles and smooth words, Ruth would prefer to fight with honest steel and magic. Unfortunately, the Unfettered Mage does not always get to choose. She will just have to keep learning enough to survive. Too bad there are only 28 hours in a day.
In her persona as Archmage, the Mage juggles potential Ambassadors and trade deals against building the foundation that she needs to manage the worlds that now look to her. It is difficult, but she and her Anchor, Lord Pawlik of Borachland, are making impressive headway. Unfortunately, Ruth is having problems integrating with the Arkken aristocracy. Although she has several friends among the group, the remainder of the people that Pawlik calls peers greet her with automatic dislike or condescending. Part of it is that they do not believe in Magic. They think the woman from Earth is somehow scamming or deluding Lord Pawlik. Up to this point, their attitude was just an annoyance to Ruth. She has so many other things to accomplish that the opinions of a social group of conceited and xenophobic people do not even make her top five list of things to address! Every time she looks at her son and her grandson, the Mage is reminded by the shadows in their eyes on much they miss the rest of her family, so she still is working on reaching Earth. Even though she no longer has anything back on the planet, Ruth would like one last chance to say goodbye to the place of her birth. Now, if the smug nobles of Arkken do something as simple as ignoring her, the Archmage could get her tasks done! Otherwise, Ruth cannot reassure anyone that she will hold her temper, even knowing that it could escalate the oh so proper social combat of the current situation into a major social conflict. Perhaps, the upcoming Founders Day celebrations will provide some clarity and room to breathe. Maybe not.