C. Dale Brittain

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About C. Dale Brittain

I'm both a fantasy writer and a professor of medieval history, having loved fantasy since I discovered Tolkien in ninth grade. That and a long trip to Europe with my family in high school--including lots of climbing around castles--got me interested in real medieval history. The two different facets work together surprisingly well--including that both are tough ways to make a living! For one thing, real medieval history can come up with much better plots than anything I could create.

Real medieval people were rather grim by our standards: ruthless, violent, always thinking about death, and with no religious tolerance--and those were the good guys! My own fantasy tends to be lighter, though it always ends up being about sacrifice, mortality, redemption, and similarly knee-slapping topics.

The characters and situations for my first published novel, "A Bad Spell in Yurt," came to me literally in a dream. I'd been trying intermittently for over 20 years to get a novel published, but this one worked! And it became a national "top 10" best-seller in the fantasy/science fiction genre. (Ought to have more dreams like that...)

The "Yurt" series is six novels long; they can be enjoyed in any order, but there is still an overall story arc. The books in the series are (in order) "A Bad Spell in Yurt," "The Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint," "Mage Quest," "The Witch and the Cathedral," "Daughter of Magic," and "Is this Apocalypse Necessary?" The first three are available in an omnibus (both print and ebook) as "My First Kingdom." The next two are available in a print omnibus, "The Witch and Her Daughter." So for those who have 25-year-old paperbacks now falling apart, new versions are available!

My first Yurt novella, "The Lost Girls and the Kobold," falls chronologically between "Wood Nymph" and "Mage Quest." The second novella, "Below the Wizards' Tower," happens between "Mage Quest" and "The Witch and the Cathedral." The most recent novella, "A Long Way 'Til November," takes place between "Daughter of Magic" and "Is This Apocalypse Necessary?" (all three novellas are available as an omnibus in one volume, called "Third Time's a Charm"). The overall story of the series is now wrapped up, but I've started a new series, "Yurt, the Next Generation," with a first book called "The Starlight Raven," and the sequel, "An Autumn Haunting."

Of my other novels, "Count Scar" is the closest I've gotten to real medieval history. It's set in a thinly-disguised version of southern France in the thirteenth century. My husband, Robert Bouchard, and I co-wrote it. We have just published the sequel as an ebook, called "Heretic Windd." Both "Count Scar" and "Heretic Wind" are available together in one big paperback called "Galoran and Melchior." "The Sign of the Rose" is a retelling of a story originally written around 1200, in medieval France; it has romance elements but also has real medieval social history. "Ashes of Heaven" is also a retelling of a medieval story, this one the legend of Tristan and Isolde. "Voima" was my chance to revel in the Nordic myths I've always loved, while making up new myths of my own (no Odin or Siegfried here). I've recently given it a new cover and a new title, "Shadow of the Wanderers." For some reason "Yurt" fans have never taken to it, but it may be my favorite book. My most recent book is "How I Survived Junior High," a historical novel set in the 1960s in the US, appropriate for young teens and for anyone who remembers (or hasn't been able to forget) what it was like to be 13. I swear it's not autobiographical.

More information about my novels is available on my website, www.Daimbert.com. Recently I've made all my out-of-print books available in print once again as well as in ebook format. I like a physical book in my hands myself, but for everyone who enjoys the convenience of reading onscreen, enjoy!

Christopher Nuttall

Rachel Aaron

Emma Khoury

Anne McCaffrey

Dave Duncan

Piers Anthony

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Author Updates

Books By C. Dale Brittain

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How I Survived Junior High May 22, 2020

by C. Dale Brittain

( 1 )

$3.99

Back before cell phones, before computers or streaming video, even before they called it "middle school," life was easier, right? Wrong!
It's the early 1960s. Shelley, shy and twelve years old, leaves a small elementary school for a big junior high. Her experiences are both painful and very funny. Will she be able to make friends? Will the kids in the popular clique even notice her? Which is more obnoxious, her little brother or the school principal? Why is her body changing like this, and will she ever get a date?

Other Formats: Paperback

My First Kingdom (The Royal Wizard of Yurt) Apr 2, 2013

by C. Dale Brittain

( 4 )

$9.99

This is an omnibus edition of the first three Yurt novels, "A Bad Spell in Yurt," "The Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint," and "Mage Quest," totaling the equivalent of 970 pages in print.
Daimbert isn't a very good wizard. But Yurt isn't a very big kingdom. It seems like the perfect place for someone who barely graduated from the wizards' school after all that embarrassment with the frogs. Yet as Daimbert settles into his new kingdom, he realizes that the challenges he shall face will require all the magic he didn't learn properly in the first place, plus darker magic that never even made it into the curriculum ....

Other Formats: Paperback

The Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 2) Mar 13, 2011

by C. Dale Brittain

( 21 )

$4.99

Caught between renegade magic and cranky religion, what's a poor wizard supposed to do? When the king of Yurt goes on vacation, leaving his Royal Wizard Daimbert in charge, he is faced with the escalating crises of the cranky saint of the shrine of the Holy Toe, an all-too-beguiling wood nymph, bizarre horned rabbits, a scandalous duchess, the royal nephew's mid-life crisis, and a monstrous creature made with spells they never taught at the wizards' school. Daimbert had hoped--he thought--for a little more excitement and adventure, but at this rate the king won't have a kingdom to come home to.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

Daughter of Magic (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 5) Jun 16, 2011

by C. Dale Brittain

( 9 )

$5.99

She's the daughter of a witch and a wizard, with the talents of both--the world had better watch out!
Daimbert the wizard just wants to spend some quality time with his daughter Antonia. He loves his peaceful kingdom of Yurt, but he and those around him are increasingly finding themselves hampered by their society's strictures and silent rules: the king doesn't want to marry any of the princesses offered to him, the duchess's twin daughters want to be respectively a knight and a priest, options closed to women, and Daimbert himself is forbidden by the norms of wizardry from a liaison with a witch--much less having a daughter.
And then the peaceful kingdom is suddenly not so peaceful, between the arrival of an exotic Eastern princess and her elephant, a ravening wolf, an army of undead warriors, a bogus miracle worker, and an old enemy seeking vengeance.
Can Antonia save the day? She already knows how to turn someone into a frog. But she is after all only five years old. And the bogus miracle worker has a strange power over children....

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Mass Market Paperback

Mage Quest (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 3) Apr 6, 2011

by C. Dale Brittain

( 16 )

$4.99

Western wizardry meets the mages of the exotic East. Neither will ever be the same.
Daimbert the wizard is on the road to adventure with five guys from Yurt. Their search for a missing lord soon becomes a quest for a fabled blue rose and for an unthinkably powerful magical artifact from the time of Solomon. Along the way they face intrigue, treachery, black magic, and a big green djinn. Only Daimbert may be able to save their lives--and their souls--as the line grows thin between a fatal curse and finding one's heart's desire.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Mass Market Paperback

Is This Apocalypse Necessary? (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 6) Jan 14, 2014

by C. Dale Brittain

( 20 )

$7.99

Way back when they were in wizards' school together, Elerius was the best student the teachers had ever seen, but Daimbert barely managed to get out with a diploma after all that embarrassment with the frogs.
Now the old Master of the school is dying, and Elerius is ready to succeed. If his plans go well, he'll not just be in charge of institutionalized wizardry, but of all western castles, cities, farms, even churches. Once messy individual initiative is eliminated, everything will be run perfectly.
Only Daimbert can make the world safe for mediocrity--but how can he oppose the best wizard of his, or any, generation? He will have to find a solution somewhere, even it takes him through Hell...
This is the final volume of the Royal Wizard of Yurt series, by far the longest, now available as an ebook for the first time. You can buy the print edition and the ebook from Amazon together for a special discount price.

Other Formats: Paperback

An Autumn Haunting (The Starlight Raven Book 2) Apr 6, 2017

by C. Dale Brittain

( 8 )

$4.99

For two years Antonia has managed to balance women's magic, learning with the witches, and men's magic, studying at the wizards' school. The long-delayed arrival of a second girl at the school should improve matters, she hopes, but when a terrifying haunting appears, some of the teachers suspect malevolent female influence. Sudden and unwanted attentions from too many of the male students add to Antonia's problems, and then she discovers hints of even darker concerns, including a plot to overthrow the school's very structure. Can the wizards' school youngest student manage to save it when some ask if she should even be there?

Other Formats: Paperback

A Bad Spell in Yurt (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 1) Mar 13, 2011

by C. Dale Brittain

( 106 )

$4.99

The ebook version of "A Bad Spell in Yurt" is the special twentieth-anniversary edition of this cult classic.
The tiny kingdom of Yurt is the perfect place--or so it seems--for someone who barely managed to graduate from the wizards' school, especially after all that embarrassment with the frogs. But Daimbert, newly hired Royal Wizard of Yurt, senses an evil spell at work. But who could be responsible? The beautiful young queen? Her flighty aunt? The dour chaplain? The old, retired Royal Wizard, who seems to know more than he's saying? Or someone from out of the castle's past? Daimbert quickly realizes that finding out and saving his kingdom may take all the magic he never learned properly in the first place, with his life the price of failure--good thing he knows how to improvise!

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

The Starlight Raven Apr 4, 2015

by C. Dale Brittain

( 21 )

$4.99

From the author of the beloved Royal Wizard of Yurt series, the first book in a brand-new series.
Antonia is the daughter of the head of institutionalized wizardry, and she wants nothing more—or so she thinks at fourteen—than to grow up to be a wizard too: the first woman wizard. But then she discovers that her mother has all sorts of unexpected female cousins who intend her to come be a witch with them, at the same time as she realizes that a lot of the male wizards are highly opposed to letting a mere girl learn their arcane secrets…
As she tries to find her own way, she hears the legend of the Starlight Raven, a bird rejected by its own kind because it does not fit in anywhere, whose appearance is a marker either of doom or of unexpected triumph.

Other Formats: Paperback

The Witch and the Cathedral (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 4) May 13, 2011

by C. Dale Brittain

( 18 )

$5.99

Love and wizardry don't mix--and neither do magic and the church. When the wizard Daimbert discovers the woman he loves is going to marry someone else, he flees to the nearby city of Caelrhon. Even though strange creatures of wild magic have been spotted in the city, no one wants him there, not the bishop of the cathedral, not the crown prince, not the city council, not even the masters of institutionalized wizardry. But Daimbert senses sinister forces at work, and besides, he's just met a very intriguing witch....

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

Ashes of Heaven Apr 16, 2017

by C. Dale Brittain

( 4 )

$5.99

Mark, young king of Cornwall, faces heavy demands from Eire for tribute, and then his beloved sister runs away to Brittany with a hot-headed knight. When, years later, their son Tristan returns unexpectedly to Cornwall, Mark hopes finally to oppose the outrageous Irish demands for tribute. Perhaps a royal marriage with Isolde, crown princess of Eire? But passion leads not to heavenly joy but only to betrayal and deception. If Mark is ever to find true love, it must be where he least expects it.

Other Formats: Paperback

Third Time's a Charm: Three Novellas of Yurt (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 10) Nov 17, 2015

by C. Dale Brittain

( 9 )

$5.99

This is an omnibus edition of three Yurt novellas, "The Lost Girls and the Kobold," "Below the Wizards' Tower," and "A Long Way 'Til November." It is here offered as a special "3 for the price of 2."
You would think that life as Royal Wizard of the tiny kingdom of Yurt would be easy, but somehow it never works out that way. Daimbert the wizard always thinks it should be simple: finding a girl lost in the mountains, visiting old friends at the wizards' school, or taking a trip in a gypsy caravan. But then he discovers the mountains are more than they seem, a doppelgänger threatens the school, and his pleasant trip turns ugly with suspicion and hatred. Good thing he knows how to improvise!

Other Formats: Paperback

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