The Dawn of Unions

By JP Corwyn

When he is given a desperate battlefield promotion, he may face a grisly end … or a dark new beginning.

Kaith knows he’s been luckier than most. Born to a blacksmith, he’s grateful that hard work and good fortune have granted him a position as a man–at–arms in the Countess’s service. But when he accompanies her entourage to a joyful annual festival, the young man is shocked to find the village besieged, the people cursed, and Her Excellency’s knights slaughtered.

Forced to shelter in the now–helpless town, Kaith and his fellow armsmen are charged with repelling the demonic enemy. But when the force that returns is an army of familiar faces twisted with lifeless malice, he fears his tiny contingent will soon join their ranks. Facing rampant terror with little hope, can Kaith prevent darkness from claiming anyone left standing?

The Dawn of Unions is the first book in the sweeping Cycle of Bones, a dark military fantasy series. If you enjoy unlikely heroes, realistic battles, and fighting for survival, then you’ll love JP Corwyn’s gritty novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
• Release date: Oct 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781644509999

JP Corwyn

How could you be so blind? You haven’t heard of JP Corwyn? Haven’t seen him live? Haven’t heard his music? How embarrassing for you! It’s okay. You’re in the right place. For JP, the rationale for the blind jokes is, well, reasonable. He is legally blind. Born with a degenerative eye condition; his genre tags of Blind Indie Rock, and now Blind Indie Prose make more sense. Otherwise, he’d just be sort of pretentious and snarky, but not in the fun depraved sitcom way. Corwyn’s vocal-driven indie rock style is infectious, described as “Shinedown and Angie Aparo on a tour bus … with Stevie Wonder driving!” On vocals and acoustic guitar, Corwyn has helmed an EP, four full-length albums, and numerous single releases thus far in his career. He has taken a raw, and unplugged show from Tampa, up the east coast to New York, overseas to the UK, EU, and Asia, and back again. But Corwyn’s harbored a dark, secret obsession throughout his musical career: his other driving force – writing fiction. Corwyn started work on “The Cycle of Bones” in early 2019. This epic multi-book series burned its way onto the literary scene with the novella “The Dawn of Unions” (November 2019). It has continued with the novels “The Drums of Unrest;” (November 2020), and “The Eaters of Time;” (September 2022). Combining his passions, JP has recorded soundtracks for the first two books, including an original cinematic score and songs appearing in the pages of the novels. Yep, he’s blind. But he’s hardly unaware. So why should you be?

Reviews for The Dawn of Unions

[ragwaine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My best advice about reading this book is, "If you're confused, keep reading." The story jumps around a lot with no notice. So it starts with a kind of calm setting and then suddenly your in the middle of horrific events, and then your back again, and then it's after that battle, and then back to the battle again. I've seen this kind of thing done before, but there are usually tags like "48 hours earlier" or dates, that let the reader know where they are in the timeline. If you start a chapter and you're confused, after a paragraph or two things will probably start to make sense.This is an independently published first novel and it has some of what you would expect, some grammar problems that the editors didn't catch, some strange similes, and some "overwriting". Overall the plot was pretty original and I like where it's heading.One more thing is that the mass battle scenes are written with a lot of detail, so if you're into "shield walls" and the nomenclature of medieval battlefield tactics you'll definitely enjoy this.