Product Description
The medical officer for the 163rd Regiment, Helen is secretly in love with her commanding officer, Colonel Jackson Orlando. She goes on a holiday visit to the Andros farm, where she encounters Lord Justin Atlas, a second cousin and a half-breed.
A political crisis threatens when a state hostage becomes gravely ill. Lord James Mordecai, the Lord Protector, dispatches Orlando to fetch Helen to treat the hostage. While she manages to save his life, the Lord Protector reviews her service record. Seeing an image of Helen wearing the green stone, Lord James suspects she is his daughter. He gave that very same stone long ago to his secret love, Miriam Andros.
Agents of the Lord Chancellor catch Helen unprotected inside Azgard's capital. A half-breed born in a foreign land, she is put on trial and sentenced to die.
The investigation into Helen's background yields a letter from Miriam naming Lord James as Helen's father. His decision to acknowledge her publicly to save her life touches off a political firestorm. To shore up Lord James' battered political standing, the wily Consort cajoles Prince Enoch, Lord Justin's father, into proposing marriage between his son and Helen.
Helen is not safe now that the powerful Temple knows about her. Nor is she happy. Maguari the Mist-Weaver helps Judith Altair, best friend of Helen's mother and advisor to the powerful, to call Miriam to her in spirit. During this healing meditation, Judith learns about the vision of destruction and hope that impelled Miriam to bear a half-breed, and witnesses the green stone's power.
From the Publisher
These ground-breaking novels interweave timeless, compelling tales of romantic love, action and adventure, and just a dash of mysticism with an unblinking take on equally enduring issues of race, gender, religion, power, and even reality itself.
Such is the Green Stone of Healing(R) epic fantasy series. Set in a mythical island nation called Azgard, this saga chronicles what happens when politics and piety collide.
Unlike most works of its genre, this series features four generations of strong female characters. The triumphs and tragedies, hopes and heartbreaks of these fictional women play out on a male-dominated stage, where a theocratic oligarchy bent on total world domination instead serves up its own self-destruction.
The series' protagonists own or inherit a mysterious green gem that mends broken bones and broken hearts, shields against missiles, and can render its wearer invisible. All of them try to offer a healing, inclusive alternative to the priests who discriminate against anyone who does not look like or share the religious views of Azgard's ruling elites.
Readers who become fond of the characters will be delighted that many of them reincarnate and their stories continue, affirming that not even death can forever divide loved ones--or enemies.
