Cheyanne Monkman

The Bloodstone Blade (querying)

Adult Fantasy - 110,000 words

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     After Saia and her brother, Fatain, are abandoned as children, she promises to work as an assassin for the god of death if he saves Fatain’s life. They eke out a living in the shattered ruins of the undercity, but when Fatain announces that he wants to join the city guard—a job that would jeopardize Saia’s work—they have to face the prospect of a future without each other. 

 

     Several years have passed, and now adults, they’ve reached an uneasy peace by never speaking about each other’s work. But when her brother is assigned to protect one of her marks, Saia is forced to face more than just their competing interests—the mark is the uncle that convinced their mother to abandon them. Though her brother begs her to forgive and try to forge a relationship with their family, Saia is intent on revenge, and will ultimately have to choose: refuse the contract and suffer the god’s wrath or get her revenge and find her brother at the other end of her knife.
 

Words of the Gods (in revision)

Epic Fantasy - ~200,000 words

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     Intermarriage between Podan groups is expressly forbidden by the Gods, but villages along the Eastern Coast of Tegudan have been home to the Ekki, people of mixed Rai and Retah heritage, for time immemorial. When the Eri Kingdom—who had hitherto taken taxes in exchange for protection—razes the Ekki village of Taeh, events are set into motion that will forever change the continent of Tegudan. 

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     After escaping Taeh with her life and successfully warning the rest of the Ekki villages, Keia sets out to sabotage the Eri army. When she finds herself captured and tortured for information, she fully expects to face the long dark. Saved by an errant solider who urges her to find help for her people, Keia must step into the upper class world of Podan women—where education and politics reign supreme. But as a dancer, Keia hardly has the background in oration necessary to make a case in front of the council. Unsure of what to do, she turns to a young student at the Library of the Rai and a disgraced former delegate, hoping that they can give her a fighting chance. But with her companion keeping secrets and the Eri Kingdom hot on her heels and calling for blood, Keia must face all of her fears if she's to find her voice. 

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     After a plot to put the Eri army off course and give the remainder of her people a chance to escape goes wrong, Kal—a talented but outcast hunter—is forced to step into the shoes of her father and lead her people. As Kal struggles to settle into a leadership role, she’s forced to deal with more pressing concerns: quickly dwindling supplies and the threat of an army. After they make a break into Retah territory, where the Eri can’t have a standing army, Kal and her people are faced with finding a new, safe home. One where they won’t have to pay taxes in hopes of protection from another kingdom. They set their sights on the far North, an unforgiving tundra. But with an army at their heels, and little experience surviving in the harsh winter of the North, Kal must choose what she's willing to give up to protect everything she holds dear.

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     Words of the Gods is the tale of two legendary Ekki women, who stood against a continent when all hope was lost and their harrowing fight to gain rights and establish the Ekki Empire. 

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Erut's Choice (shelved)

Adult Fantasy - 126,000 words

 

     Kalina stopped believing the fantastical tales her father told her of Litan's pre-colonial past and her Indigenous ancestors a long time ago. But after a fight with her mom prompts Kalina to run away from home, she finds herself kidnapped and stranded in a time where magic is real and gods walk among mortals. Desperate to make amends to her family, Kalina prepares for the harrowing journey home—making allies, securing supplies and finding a way back to her time.

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     But her planning comes to a halt when she learns that it was her future-self that trapped her in the past. Unable to accept that, Kalina runs from her allies, only to find herself face-to-face with Erut—the trickster god of time. Within his mirrors, he shows her a glimpse of her sister—also trapped in the past, and in the clutches of a man Kalina knows to be violent. Erut offers a deal: if Kalina delivers a message for him, he’ll manipulate the timeline and make it so that neither she nor her sister ever end up in the past. But Kalina grew up fearing his tricks—she can’t predict who in her life she might lose in exchange for her sister.

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     She’ll have to choose: trust the trickster and reap the potentially world-altering consequences, or attempt to save her sister on her own and risk losing her forever.

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