Spotlights

Saturday Spotlight for Merchants of Knowledge and Magic

Spotlights7 months ago3 min readAdd comment

Welcome to our Saturday Spotlight feature where we at Read Indie Fantasy will be hosting a new spotlight every Saturday to showcase the incredible talent of self-published fantasy authors!

So please welcome Erika McCorkle and their unique fantasy full of portals and strange new worlds, Merchants of Knowledge and Magic.

On one of the many planes of the Pentagonal Dominion, priestess Calinthe trades in information, collecting valuable secrets for her demonic employer. Calinthe has a secret of her own: she’s intersex, making her a target for the matriarchal slavers of the Ophidian Plane whose territory she must cross in her search for hidden knowledge. But thanks to her friend Zakuro’s illusions, Calinthe presents as a woman- a comfortable, if furtive, existence in a world determined to bring her to heel.

But when, instead of a mere secret, the priestess uncovers an incalculably powerful artifact, Calinthe finds herself in a high-stakes negotiation with the same matriarchs who sought to enslave her. On the table: Calinthe’s discovery, a charm powerful enough to transform a mortal into a god… against a secret so deadly it could quell all life on every plane of the dominion. If Calinthe plays her cards perfectly, she and Zakuro could escape Ophidia wealthier than either of them ever dreamed possible.

But if she plays them wrong…

…she’ll learn slavery in her pursuers’ hands is a fate far worse than death.

Merchants of Knowledge and Magic by Erika McCorkle is the first book in The Pentagonal Dominion series published by Shadow Spark Publishing. These books are epic dark fantasy but not as you know them! They feature unique races, gods, and worlds spread across various planes of existence.

You can also read the sequel, Merchants of Light and Bone.

About the Author

Erika McCorkle is an avid world-builder and consumer of all things fantasy, whether that be books, video games, or anime. She has been developing the Pentagonal Dominion for over two decades and is publishing novels that take place in that fantastic world. She has a Bachelors of Science in Biology and works as a laboratory technician on the graveyard shift at her local blood bank, which qualifies her as a vampire.