Ghost Exile Books In Order

Publication Order of Ghost Exile Books

Who doesn’t love a good book? A great character, an engaging story line, an experience that takes you outside yourself and your every day. It’s an escape into a land of the unimaginable and mystical. Real time becomes a meaningless notion as you spend minutes, days, hours, and weeks locked into a world created from nothing but ink and paper. One of the best examples of this that has been written in a long time is in Jonathan Moeller’s Ghost Exile series. The places seem so real you expect to find them on a map and the horrors so great, you’re glad you won’t. The sense of magic, wonder, and dread make it a world hard to step away from when the novel ends. You experience a real sense of loss when the story ends and you find yourself back in the real world. It leaves you always wanting just a little more but at the same time shrinking in fear from what may come next. You get hooked into the life of the characters and find yourself feeling as though your own fate is tied to theirs.

The stories revolve around Caina Amalas, a young woman left lost and alone after tragedy struck in her life. She has lost those she cares about and is now on a journey far from everything she has ever known and loved. When we first meet her she is already in disguise hiding her true self from the world, afraid of what it would mean to be exposed for who she really is and where she has come from on her journey. She is a new person, a broken person, but a person with a mission and a purpose. She lives in a world of darkness, alchemy, horror, and magic where anything is possible and there is danger around every corner. But, the darkness and horrors of her world are nothing compared to the pit she carries inside. She walks a fine line between sanity and madness caused from the depth of her anguish. From the moment we meet her, we see she is struggling with real pain. This is a real pain, a deep soul destroying aguish. She can no more escape than she can escape her own skin. That pain is what will drive her throughout her journey guiding her and influencing how she sees the world around her and the decisions she makes.

It is her burden to bear as she makes her way through a world where evil is the driving and controlling force. She is not your typical 22 year old girl. She’s an assassin and a spy. She knows how to handle a knife and her aim is dead on. When we first meet her, she has just suffered profound loss. Her pain is almost palpable. It has shattered her and yet it has hardened her at the same time. She is now prepared to return to the city of Istarinmul to take on the evil that dwells there in all its forms. Some of the evil is clear to see like the slave trade that takes place so blatantly in the town. Others, like the true depth of the darkness of the Grand Master Callatas isn’t as clear at first glance. Their interactions make for a heart pounding sojourn through a city as dark as Grand Master Callatas intentions. Each story brings the reader further into this land of darkness and despair. No one is what they seem on the surface.

To help protect herself, Caina Amalas is most often in disguise as a man and often a thief. This is the image she most often shows the world and only a few people ever see the real Caina. But this is the simple disguise she wears. She wears a much stronger mask. It is the one that lets her appear pulled together and in control when she really can feel herself falling apart. She has had to learn to hide everything about who she is except her hate and anger at a world that is as wicked as anything you could ever imagine and then worse still. The fate of the world rests in her hands and it’s no small burden to bear upon her small shoulders. She is the Ghost Circlemaster and the leader of the Emperor’s spies which makes her responsible for those within the city. This is a positon she manages to hold while spending a lot of her time holding herself together and hiding from who she was before she suffered so much loss.

Every novel in this series pulls the reader further into the land of Istarinmul and its true darkness. The story grips you so completely that there are times you almost feel the fear of the characters as they battle to save the world from an evil that has been building for centuries. There are times when I half expect to look up and see the city around me instead of my own safe home. Very few books have ever pulled anyone in as completely as the Ghost Exile series does. It leaves you always wanting just a little more and yet at the same time afraid you just might get it.

Jonathan Moeller spins a tale as engaging and powerful as any I have ever had the pleasure to read. The connections he forms not only between the characters in the novels but also the reader leaves you ever locked into the world he creates both loving and hating the power it has over you and the fictional characters within the story. The imagery paints a powerful picture of a time and place where every move may well be your last. It is a place where justice has no meaning and hope is not an understood concept among the people. The end of each book leaves you breathlessly waiting for the beginning of the next. How will it all end? There is a continuous wait with anticipation for every new twist that someone has ever seen .