See Cover, Larger Size

On A Dark God Laughing, the first book in the series:

A Dark God Laughing is the intriguing debut volume of Fiona McGavin's A Dream and a Lie trilogy, offering readers a vividly imagined world filled with violent religious strife, gender-shifting characters and an engaging hint of decadence. I look forward to reading more as the story continues to unfold!

– Jacqueline Carey
Author,
Kushiel's Legacy

A Brief History

Long ago, the world of the Dream and Lie trilogy belonged to the enteri. They lived eternally in forests that spread from the northern tips of the world to the marshes in the south. They believed that the world and everything in it was theirs to command.

Then strangers came from across the seas. Westermen came from forgotten lands far over the north western seas, and from the south Draels fled from war and famine to the southern marshlands. Both brought their own culture and religion, and there was no place in their beliefs for the immortal enteri.

War broke out – Westermen fought Draels and enteri for land, wealth and power. The Westermen strove to gain dominion over the enteri and to impose their beliefs on all peoples. They began to cut down the forests and to build cities of their own. They built cathedrals and factories and eyed the enteri's wealth greedily and their eternal youth enviously. And the enteri could not understand – their nature was to remain static, to live as they had always lived, while the Westermen’s was to change and to evolve, to bend the world to their ways.

In the meantime, the Draels formed a fragile peace with the enteri who lived in the Marsh. They worshipped a cruel and blood-thirsty god and some Draels even believed that the enteri were angels.

When Hansara, the last of the great enteri cities fell, the enteri fled in fear and confusion. Some ran south to the Draels in the Marsh, others fled to hide in the smoke-stained alleyways and slums of the Westermen cities, others simply disappeared, lost forever in the Wilderness where the forests had once grown.

But now, aided by an enteri lord, the Draels’ dark god is beginning to stretch its long arms across the Wilderness towards the Westermen’s polluted cities and the enteri are gathering again, and everything is set to change.

- Fiona McCavin