C. L. Polk wrote her first story in grade school and still hasn’t learned any better. After spending years in strange occupations and wandering western Canada, she settled in southern Alberta and is here to stay. She has a fondness for knitting, bicycles, and single estate coffee. C. L. has had short stories published in Baen’s UNIVERSE and Gothic.net, and contributed to the web serial Shadow Unit. She spends too much time on twitter at @clpolk.
Witchmark by C.L. Polk
C.L. Polk’s debut novel, Witchmark (2018), book one in THE KINGSTON CYCLE, was a delight to read. It’s a second-world fantasy set in country a lot like Britain at a time a lot like the end of World War I, with seriously traumatized soldiers returning to Aeland after the end of the nation’s successful war with Laneer. There are some important differences. Aeland’s war was purely one of conquest, and Aeland’s world has magic.
Miles Singer was a soldier and a doctor in the war, and now he practices psychiatry at a soldiers’ hospital. He is trying to discover the root cause of a violent, horrifying delusion too many returning soldiers have, one that makes them commit violent acts against the people they love. In the opening chapter, Miles tries to save a dying man who says he was poisoned, but to Miles’s horror, the man calls Miles “star... Read More
