John Jarrold

Kareem is the Health and Fitness manager at a health centre in Lincolnshire. He is also the administrator of the Fantasy Writers Bar group on Facebook and a member of The Fantasy Hive team (http://fantasy-hive.co.uk/) . He is on Twitter at: @OfWolfandMouse

His debut fantasy novel, first in a series titled Bonds of Blood, is Death’s Wake. What would you do if you burned alive and were reborn immune to fire’s touch? Or drowned and reawakened able to breathe under water? In Colnarmak death is not always the end, but that power comes at a price. Since the Wars of Balance, the Orphans have sent Guardians to hunt these godless men and women—these ‘Survivors’—with one purpose in mind: to deliver instant and irreversible death. As a small boy, Cole was forced to watch his mother’s brutal murder at the hands of a Survivor; after becoming a Guardian he committed his life to killing his way through his grief. For years he thought his pain was just that, pain. But there are worse things in the world than Survivors . . .

Death’s Wake is a story of revenge and redemption featuring multiple points of view. The novel explores themes of self-destructive human coping mechanisms, which can have dire and adverse effects on those closest to you.

This series sits somewhere between John Gwynne’s The Faithful and the Fallen series and Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy. Epic in scope, it is very much character driven, has strong grimdark elements, and plenty of dark humour. Recent comparison could be made with Godblind by Anna Stephens.