Count Scar

 "Count Scar" is back in print!

 

Okay, let's back up a bit.  Have you ever tried to write something jointly with someone else? My husband and I did. The book was "Count Scar" (and we followed it up with a sequel, "Heretic Wind."). How you ask did we do it without straining our marriage?

Actually it worked well.  We each wrote one of the book's two main characters, alternating viewpoints. We had to consult of course on what was going to happen next, and had to go back sometimes to make sure the continuity worked, but overall each person's chapter belonged to that person (including sometimes setting up a surprise twist at chapter's end for the other person to deal with).

The two characters are Galoran, a scarred soldier who unexpectedly inherits a county and a castle when a distant cousin dies under mysterious circumstances, and Melchior, a priest trained in the highly dangerous magical arts, who has dark family secrets to hide.  It's set in an alternate version of southern France at the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the era of the Albigensian Crusade.  The two characters don't entirely understand or trust each other, but they have to work together when it becomes clear that heretics, far from being defeated in the Crusade, are planning an assault on the castle in the opening salvo of a magical attack that could destroy everyone.

In spite of the magic, the book is fairly close to being set in an accurate version of the real Middle Ages.  Interestingly, "Count Scar" (and its sequel) and the three retellings of medieval tales which I've published all take place in something I'd recognize as the real social world of the Middle Ages.  (The medieval tales-retold are "Ashes of Heaven," "The Sign of the Rose," and "The Knight of the Short Nose."). None are historical fiction because none of the characters are real figures, but the settings are about as real as I can get.

"Count Scar" was originally published in mass-market paperback some thirty years ago and has long been out of print, though it's been available as an ebook on all major ebook platforms and as part of a print omnibus along with the sequel.  But we decided to bring it out again as a free-standing paperback, new cover but same content, for everyone who likes holding a book in their hands but is tired of  dog-eared pages falling out of an old paperback.  And also for those who've never read it but would enjoy it!

Here's the listing on Amazon.  It is also available to be ordered through any bookstore, or will be shortly.  Happy reading!

© C. Dale Brittain 2026