Description Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn
As a young wilderness girl, Pistol Rose knows nothing of the advanced Strelkie City or the mad king Ward Harrol who sits behind its walls. She doesn't understand why the Strelkie forbid marriage. When the king forces the surrounding countryside to change their traditional culture to match his vision, the Punimin resist, and Rose learns everything about how to kill Strelkie and get away with it. But throwing her own secret wedding without being caught... is another matter entirely.
Buy Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn
Pistol Rose Guest Post
To keep my head upon my shoulders, we shall say my name is Filnoy.
The rest is true.
I was a Strelkie soldier in the final years of the Fifth Age, and I had a brush with Pistol Rose herself. An interview which, I am satisfied to say, did NOT find its way into the circulated first book of her adventures, and was not known to my superiors (hence my continued survival). Though it very much did happen.
She must’ve been not seventeen, beautiful I admit despite her being Punimin, and I didn’t know who she was at the time. My responsibilities that day were solitary, in surveying Punimin territory for a road our wise Strelkie chair-lords had decreed needed to be laid. I found Rose, alone, digging a grave for the dead body at her side.
FILNOY Hello, there.
ROSE Oh! Hello.
She looks terrified that I, a mightily be-medaled Strelkie man, more than an hour’s walk from the nearest outpost, have crept upon her during this post-murderous task of hiding her slain.
FILNOY What have you got there?
ROSE A body, sir. He was killed by a misfortunate event.
FILNOY Is that a Strelkie man?
ROSE Indeed it is. Which is why it’s so misfortunate. The Strelkie deserve better.
FILNOY Funny talk for a Punimin.
ROSE I know my place, sir.
FILNOY You know then it’s a crime for Punimin cud to twist funerals with Strelkie.
ROSE I’m not doing the funeral. Just the burial. I plan to report this to my District Emissary once it’s safe.
FILNOY Safe for whom?
ROSE It would be better if you moved along, sir. It would be safer for you in that case.
I draw my sword and quickly find her pinned against a tree with my blade to her throat. Thinking back now, it is odd how easily she became fastened to that place. I think this was a quick-thought trap.
FILNOY Look here, scrapper claw. I’m a Strelkie soldier and I’m going to have my interview of you now. You’ve obviously done a crime here, a treasonistic one, and I shall know the knows.
ROSE Yes, sir. Of course, sir.
FILNOY I’ll have your name.
ROSE Iron Lilly. Of the Punimin Wilderness.
FILNOY I know you’re of the Punimin Wilderness. We’re in the Punimin Wilderness. Tell me of your family.
ROSE I have a large family, sir. Most of them adopted, of course.
FILNOY Of course.
ROSE The Line has been good to us in that way. We’re something of an army, we Irons.
FILNOY Is that a threat?
ROSE Do you feel threatened? I am under your blade, my good sir. I should be the one threatened.
FILNOY Yes, you should be. I’m going to test you now for lies.
I put my hand on her wrist to feel her pulse. I’m good with lies and tells.
FILNOY The truth, now. What do Punimin love most?
ROSE I suppose that would be clocks. Some of us love guns, but cobbling clocks and calendars and whatever machines we can is what most of us truly love. If we can steal advanced machines from you despicable Strelkie, and melt down the parts into more practical applications, that’s best.
FILNOY And now tell me a lie.
ROSE My name is Iron Lilly.
FILNOY Very good. Now I know the truth from the spit. Did you kill this Strelkie man, here?
ROSE I did my part, to be sure. I wasn’t alone.
FILNOY And where is your accomplice? Tell me or I’ll have your entire family hanged and gutted in the city’s public square.
ROSE Do you remember what I said about it not being safe here?
FILNOY I do. You made a threat.
ROSE So you understand me.
I look down and notice that she has stuck a knife against my belly. In that brief moment where my eyes leave hers, she slaps my sword away from her throat and slides it against mine—a shallow cut—and she jams that dagger deep into my stomach. I fall shaking. She has rendered me useless, and rested the blade of my own sword against the top of my ear, like a knife ready to peel.
ROSE I’m not the one you need to worry about, you dagglehyde plick. You’re bleeding. And there are wilderuckers sniffing nearby.
FILNOY Are you lying?
ROSE You tell me. How long is the walk back to your nearest Strelkie outpost?
FILNOY One hour.
She slices the back of my leg to hobble me a bit.
ROSE And now?
FILNOY Two hours.
ROSE Are you satisfied with your interview?
FILNOY I am, thank you.
ROSE Will you report this to anyone?
FILNOY Absolutely not.
ROSE Then get out of here as fast as you can and pray the wilderuckers don’t eat you. If you’re still within sight when my uncle returns, he’ll stick you to your spot and see that those beasts don’t go hungry tonight. Fly without a word, now.
I keep my ear. And I leave. I never see my sword again.
I haven’t spoken of this until now. It is a strange thing, to be raised to hate the Punimin but to have been spared by the most revered—or was it infamous—among them. My life is owed to that woman. Everything that I am, I am because of her. What a strange thing.
© Michael Ryan Hahn
Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn
Guest Review by Laura
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
That must be what the titular character of this novel, Pistol Rose thinks when she decides to ask her town's emissary for permission to marry the love of her life.
Rose has seen this go badly before, when her cousin, Ann asked for permission for her own marriage ten years earlier. Ann was denied and ultimately ended up committing suicide later that night.
Understandably, this experience has always haunted Rose, so when it comes time to ask for her own marriage, she expects to be denied. And when she receives this denial, she expects to ignore it.
See, Rose does what Rose wants. It's the way of her people, the Punimin, who have lived for a century under the rule of a dictator king who treats them like scum (when he's not ignoring them entirely).
In contrast, the upper-class people, the Strelkie, are given everything that they could ever want or desire as well as all of the technological advancements that their world has to offer. Of course, because of this, the Strelkie love and respect the king, and the Punimin hate him. But it's possible that no one hates him more than Pistol Rose's family, a hard-fighting bunch of gun makers who have been simmering for a revolution for many years.
In order to marry the man that she loves, Rose knows that she will have to let her family fight for her against the Strelkie and face the consequences of their possible loss. But nothing is more important to Rose than the love of family.
This was a five-star book for me, and one that totally caught me off guard. Not many authors can create such an immersive and colorful world from scratch the way Hahn has done here.
I would put this book up there with some of my favorite fantasy novels of all time!
Giveaway Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn
This giveaway is for 2 copies. The winners will have the choice of print or ebook. This giveaway is open worldwide and on November 23, 2023 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.
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