JD Stanley

ALLi Author Member

Location: Canada

Genres: Fantasy/SciFi/Speculative, Horror, Historical Fiction

Skills: Self-publishing Workshop/Training, Performance/Spoken Word

JD Stanley is an award winning historical speculative fantasy author and solitary Bardic Druid. JD honed voice and audio editing chops in the 80s as a radio announcer and studio engineer before embracing a lifelong guy-behind-the-curtain freelance career as a commercial and content copywriter, voiceover artist, proofreader, ghostwriter and script doctor. Landed Entertainment director Junga Song once called JD “the greatest writer nobody’s ever heard of”.

The fictional worlds of Mary Stewart, Colleen McCullough, Tolkien, Heinlein, Cervantes and Shakespeare bent JD’s world perception into a magical place of unlikely heroes, quests, the interconnectedness of past and future and that though bad things happen to regular folks, a dollop of wit can make it bearable. Unapologising mythology and ancient history junkie, sorcery of science lover, and student of human interaction, JD’s combined passions weave rich speculative explorations into traditional concepts of good and evil where flawed heroes most often struggle to get out of their own way to do the right thing.

JD enjoys long, meditative walks through graveyards, reading encyclopaedias, and accepts that guinea pigs do, in fact, take over your entire life. JD’s spirit animal is a cranky unicorn.

JD Stanley's books

The Seer

In the spirit of Arthurian legend, it’s been thirteen long years since an internal threat instigated a desperate, magical plan with King Manfred’s most trusted friend, his Druid advisor, Bronan, when their kindly sovereign’s apparent death left the people of Edenshire vulnerable and an orphaned Princess Brigit as the Druid’s ward. Childhood schooling for her now done, Bronan keeps deliberate distance as Brigit chafes at lessons in ladyship and longs to pick up the sword put into her hand in secret by her uncle in heart, Sir William, Captain of the king’s guard. Brigit is coming of age and while uselessly lovestruck by their celebrated seer, must keep focus on defending herself.

Against Manfred’s younger brother, her real uncle, King Barry.

Brigit may never sit on the throne despite Bronan and the knights of the old honour guard protecting her. They would all die for her. And will if Barry has his way. A despot reputed for his appetites with his secret gaol the venue for his unholy feasts, over a decade of Barry’s slaughter makes enemies of Manfred’s allies and the people perish for blood sport. The Goddess looks to Bronan, protector of the Land she is, for justice.

Faltering in the face of evil while his heart betrays him over the woman, no longer the child, he vowed to protect, Bronan can’t see past the flames in the divining water of his gazing bowl predicting he’ll undo the same kingdom he’s sworn to protect. The weight of an old secret that broke his honour tells him why, but time is passing and Barry wants the seer dead. The Land cries for vengeance. 4th century Christendom sweeps earthy gods into myth around them while the poet-warriors of lore, the power of the Elementals and the Goddess all wait on Bronan to shake off the unconscious bounds he placed upon himself.

As Barry descends into bloody madness, can Bronan regain his honour in time to keep his promise to Manfred and save them?

Blood Runner

★Book Excellence Award 2017 Fantasy Finalist★

In 3213 BCE Sumer, the Great Mountain, Enlil, banishes his sister, Ninlil, to the Netherworld for taking her temple priest as consort. But her Kurshram fights a life-sacrificing way through the flaming palace to trade his soul to free her. A thousand years later, a dark deed wakes his dead, empty flesh...

Richard can't die. And he's a monster. Maybe.

Sullen, and sarcastic, he's a soul divided. A healer by trade, a conflicting blood-stealing curse drives him slowly mad while people keep showing up for help. Mostly? He wants to be left alone. And that’s just not working out.

In eighteenth century Britain, injured, conscience-stirring Maggie falls across his threshold to challenge everything he believes is true. Until vicious pirate captain, Billy the Blackdeath, with a secret as old as his own, tangles them up in an inhuman vendetta that puts his unkempt scruples to the test.

In the solitude of a remote Canadian forest in the present day, to his undying exasperation he learns everyone is looking for him--the living and the undead--while fate seems determined to serve him up existence in unexplainable harmony with people he doesn't know. When the truth comes out, it smacks of supernal collusion and though Richard protests he’s nobody’s hero, a manic, all-consuming need to protect human and not-so-human explodes into a fiery five-thousand-year-old destiny of epic, mythological proportion.

Loading...