Paul E. Horsman

Paul E. Horsman (1952) is a Dutch and International Fantasy Author. Born in the sleepy garden village of Bussum, The Netherlands, he now lives in Roosendaal, a town on the Dutch/Belgian border.

He has been a soldier, salesman, scoutmaster and from 1995 a teacher of Dutch As A Second Language to refugees from all over the globe.

Since 2012, he is a full-time writer of epic light fantasy adventures for both Y.A. and over. His works have been both trade published in The Netherlands, and self-published internationally.

His available titles are:
* The Shadow of the Revenaunt (Rhidauna, Zihaen, Ordelanden) trilogy
* The Shardheld Saga (Shardfall, Runemaster, Shardheld) series & trilogy
* Lioness of Kell, standalone

Shardfall: The Shardheld Saga, Book One

Non-gritty Epic Adventure Fantasy

Muus is only a thrall, a chattel without rights, but he knows the small, blue shard he picked up belongs to him alone.

Kjelle, heir to a rich mininghold, is strong, and covetous of his thrall's tantalizing find.

The one's greed causes an avalanche that leaves both young men marooned on an icy mountain slope. The other's commonsense saves their lives from cold and starvation.

Now the two are bound together on a danger-laden journey to a burning land, where Muus needs to connect the skyshard to the Kalmanir, the standing stone that is the world’s fount of all magic. The Kalmanir's time is almost up and it urgently needs to be replenished before the magic of Gods and men runs out. The two young men have to learn to trust each other, for all around them, enemies abound. Even more imminent is Muus' danger, for it comes from nearby, from the shard itself. Muus is the only one person in the world who can wield the powerful skyshard. Will he succeed, helped by Kjelle and by Birthe, the tough young wisewoman and hunter, to reach the standing stone before the world's magic dies?

Sample Shardfall

Rhidauna: The Shadow of the Revenaunt Book 1

YA Fantasy

It was to have been a simple boar hunt. But Fate and the friends own inexperience turn it into disaster.

With one of them badly hurt, Ghyll Denhalf and his friends return to their castle - to find it burned by a band of monstrous firebirds and black-clad golems.

Now, hunted by dark necromancers of an obscure, long-forgotten organization, they travel through the kingdom of Rhidauna on an epic journey of revenge and discovery, magic and desperate sword fights, bitter enmity and warm friendship.

Runemaster: The Shardheld Saga Book Two

Epic Fantasy YA

Muus, Kjelle and Tuuri; three young men, separated by allegiance but intertwined by Fate. Birthe and Moirra; two young women with their own goals.

Muus found the mysterious blue stone that crashed down near his home. Now he is both a Runemaster, learning the terrible power of the runes, and the Shardheld, on whose shoulders rests the fate of the world's magic. He is desperately trying to resist the pull of the skyshard before it takes over his mind. Step by step, Fate brings him nearer to Falrom, the Burning Land, and the standing stone that waits for the skyshard.

Kjelle is the dispossessed Lord, whose disgruntled men are the Norden's line of defense against hordes of Fynni barbarians plundering the lands. He has to stop the Fynni from reaching their goal, the return of the Old Gods and with them, all the horrors from the distant past.

Tuuri, follower of the powerful warlord bent on conquering the north. Troubled by doubts, hatred of his Fynni heritage, hunted by both sides of the conflict, he hurries south to a choice he doesn't yet know he has to make.

Birthe, widow and mother at sixteen, both Völva - mistress of the magic of the Nords - and huntmaster, accompanies Kjelle in the hope of finding a new purpose now everyone she loved, is dead.

Moirra, the Un-a-Dach druidess, small, doughty and wise, joins Muus on his journey to Falrom, the Burning Land. But she has secrets in her past, and a purpose she doesn’t speak of.

And there are others, like the far too clever boy Hraab, the young Prince Ottil, the fearsome bear berserker Ajkell and the Lady Paladin Valiantrude. Join them on their journeys through danger in the lands of Brytanna, Gaul and Lotharn, for theirs is high adventure in a world filled with rebels, Vikings and idolaters of false Gods.

Follow their gripping story in Runemaster, the second book of The Shardheld Saga. An epic tale of magic, sword fighting, love and betrayal.

Sample Runemaster

Zihaen: The Shadow of the Revenaunt Book 2

Fantasy, YA Fantasy

How did his parents and brothers die? Where their deaths really accidents, or were they killed? These questions young Ghyll Hardingraud must answer before he can ascend Rhidauna's throne.

His search for the truth leads him and his Companions on a journey back to the past, as he slowly unravels a dark conspiracy.

Once crowned, the young King Ghyll still has to finish the mission his uncle imposed on him. The journey takes him and his trusted friends through inhospitable lands and dangerous swamps to the endless steppes of Zihaen, looking for the Voice from the West. But he isn't the only one. His vindictive enemy pursues him, aided by undead forces.

This second part brings the reader new landscapes and peoples from the world of Rhidauna. As the danger grows, the tension mounts in an adventure that not all Companions will survive.

Sample Zihaen

Ordelanden: The Shadow of the Revenaunt Book 3

Fantasy, YA Fantasy

The woes are piling up for the brand new King Ghyll. Giant wolves and monstrous birds terrorize the outer provinces of his kingdom and the local authorities dump these problems in their ruler’s lap.

The King of the Nhael suspects Ghyll to hold Prince Torril prisoner and sends a delegation to demand to see the prince. But Ghyll can’t produce Torril, as his friend has disappeared. This could mean war!

While Ghyll’s secret service is searching for the lost Nhael prince, other problems beset him from outside Rhidauna.

Qaunshun, a nearby city-state in the Desert of Jewels, sends Ghyll a cry for help he can’t ignore.

In Stipeth, somebody murdered the Landscommander of the fiercest of the three Ordelanden. If Ghyll fails to calm down the furious order knights, a bloody fratricidal war will embroil all.

And what is the dark secret that Zethir, Ghyll’s personal spy, is carrying with him?

Meanwhile at home, Ghyll’s young wife Kerianna is about to give birth and the King has on his love promised to be present.

Much travail awaits our King and his band of true Companions. Follow them in the third book of the Shadow of the Revenaunt series.

New Version Coming Soon

Sample Ordelanden

Shardheld: The Shardheld Saga, Book Three

Epic Adventure Fantasy, YA Fantasy

Muus decides to slip away from his friends and finish his fateful journey alone. In the dead of night, he leaves the Imperial palace for the fast naval galley that will bring him across the sea to Gaul. From there he plans to cross the Barrier Alps into Falrom and seek for the Kalmanir stone he must revitalize.

Neither his friends, nor the Gods who sent him on this quest, agree with his decision. The druidess Moirra has sworn to stay with him till the end. She, by now wise to Muus’s ways, follows him secretly on board the Imperial galley just before she sails. Hraab and Prince Ottil, shocked from their sleep by the angry God Iowynh, manage to lie their way into the next galley to Gaul and follow them.

Meanwhile from the North, Kjelle and Birthe travel toward the Barrier Alps. Kjelle wants to aid his former slave as best as he can and the Gods have given Birthe her own task in the whole undertaking.

Tuuri, finally free of his oath to the false Jarl Rannar, goes south as well, intend on warning the Shardheld of his former master’s plans.

Finally Rannar himself, with the Fynni high shaman Rev, slaughter their own way to the Barrier. They want the skyshard and feed its magic to their own Old Gods.

The final race is on. To Falrom! Will the Shardheld win, and restore the world’s magic? Or will foul Rev succeed, and bring back the cruel primordial Age of the Gods Before?

Follow Muus’s final chance to save all in this third, gripping book to its moving completion in faraway, burning Falrom.

Sample Shardheld

Lioness of Kell

fantasy adventure

The lioness Maud is at eighteen already a black powerhouse of brawn. When she is ordered to fetch a young thief from a pirate town, she thinks it an easy task. Until she and Jurgis the thief find themselves running for their lives.

Young warlock Basil sees his life threatened by a summons from the Warlockry Council, to prove his beauty. He knows his lame foot will betray him and escapes on the first ship out of town. On board he meets Yarwan, a handsome midshipman, who awakens feelings he never knew existed.

When the four young people meet, Basil learns of a spell that could repair his foot. Only the spell’s creator, the infamous Black Warlock, disappeared nearly a century ago. As the four decide to go looking for him, they start on a path leading to an old war and unsolved mysteries that will change their world. Or kill them.

Sample Lioness Of Kell

The Shardheld Saga - The Complete Trilogy

Epic YA/Adult Light Fantasy

When the young slave Muus picked up the blue shard, he couldn’t know it would change his life. Becoming the Shardheld finally freed him from his hated serfdom, but it bound him to a goal as awesome as it was dire.

Hunted by false Jarl Rannar’s murderous soldiers, he started on a perilous journey through the snowy forests of the Norden to far away Falrom, the lost Burning Lands, where the mighty Kalmanir stone waited for him and the magic of the shard.

Not only Muus was affected by the shard’s implacable will. His former master Kjelle, youthful heir to a rich mining estate; Birthe, teen widow, wisewoman and mighty huntress; little Hraab with his strange, unworldly wisdom; deposed boy prince Ottil, and many others followed him south.

Afraid for the lives of his friends, Muus escaped all but the girl who loved him, and together the two traveled to fiery Falrom, seeking the Kalmanir before the enemy found them. Should Jarl Rannar gain possession of the shard, it would mean the return of the cruelly insane Gods Before and their world of primordial horror, and Muus was resigned to die to prevent that from happening.

Meanwhile, his friends weren’t prepared to give up, either, and so the race was on. To Falrom!

Sample The Shardheld Saga