Book Heaven Wednesday presents The Last Forest by @libraryoferana #darkfantasy #books

Title The Last Forest

Author A.L Butcher

Genre Dark Fantasy

Book Blurb

When humans come to fell the last forest, they are in for a nasty surprise.

A short dark fantasy tale of the wrath of nature.

Excerpt:

The monkeys who walked on two feet cared not when in the lands of ice, the glaciers shrunk, and the water mourned for its loss as tides rose. They heeded not the message when the winds wove together in typhon and storm, battering the houses, nor the waves when they pounded the shore and brought the floods. They cursed and blamed their gods. The gods remained silent, for they had turned their sight away.

The monkeys knew best, they were the masters of the land and took from it more than they needed. The wind had tried, the water had tried, even the Lord of the Sky – the sun – had tried with his heat and his relentlessness. The monkeys did not listen.

Perhaps they could not.

The East Wind crept into the forest, bringing the smell of the sea – and a promise, ‘You are not alone.’ Her ethereal fingers had touched the settlements of the monkeys, now from coast to coast and horizon to horizon and she told the beast and the plants of their ways.

‘The fishes are gone, and the Great Woodland to the East has fallen, the rivers run poisoned.’

The sound in the leaves stopped, as one the trees digested this news. They did not know what fishes were, but they mourned their passing, and the loss of their forest kin to the East. The rivers brought spring rain, and nutrients from the mountains – how would they drink? How would they hear the roar and the bubble from the water if it died?

‘They are coming! They are coming’ The warning grew, leaping from mighty branch to lowly sapling, and the sound became louder.

The North Wind circled, cold, forbidding. ‘The ice is gone! The ice is gone! The water has risen with us!’

The Great Oak heard the tales, the warnings, and her branches boomed, ‘We shall not die as the rivers have die, we shall not disappear as the fishes have done. The monkeys who walk on two feet come to take us, as they took countless of our sisters, and our progeny. Who will care for the insects, the birds, and small creatures when the last of us is lost? Who will bring the clean air? There are none but we for the Great Woodland to the East is gone. To War! To War!’

Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):

https://books2read.com/TheLastForest

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SKCXJRW

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SKCXJRW

Author Biography

British-born A. L. Butcher is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as ‘evocative’. She writes with a sure and sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but could be.

Alex is the author of the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles and the Tales of Erana lyrical fantasy series. She also has several short stories in the fantasy, fantasy romance genres with occasional forays into gothic style horror, including the Legacy of the Mask series. With a background in politics, classical studies, ancient history and myth, her affinities bring an eclectic and unique flavourin her work, mixing reality and dream in alchemical proportions that bring her characters and worlds to life.

She also curates speculative fiction themed book bundles on BundleRabbit.

Her short novella Outside the Walls, co-written with Diana L. Wicker received a Chill with a Book Reader’s Award in 2017 and The Kitchen Imps won best fantasy for 2018 on NN Light Book Heaven.

Alex is also proud to be a writer for Perseid Press where her work features in Heroika: Dragon Eaters; and Lovers in Hell – part of the acclaimed Heroes in Hell series. http://www.theperseidpress.com/