Now that the giant boxed set of my His Name Was Augustin series is available on retailers as well as my shop, I originally planned to take it off of Amazon literally today. One week at the deep discount of $9.99 seemed long enough.

(This saga took me 5+ years to write the first draft and 2 years to shape it into what it is today. So 7 years of work for $9.99 is a pretty sweet deal. 😎)

Since some of my fellow authors have agreed to share the boxed set with their readers, we've got a little more time to snatch Swanie's entire saga. Today I'm going to share one of my favorite scenes with you, so you can experience some of what Swanie faced when she stepped through the gates of time from the year 2000 into the 11th century.

But first I'm dropping some super random authorly tidbits about His Name Was Augustin. Tidbits no one ever asked to know. But for some reason I feel like announcing weird truths to my readers today, so prepare yourself....

Unusual HNWA Tidbits

I first wrote His Name Was Augustin after I finished earning 2 degrees in history. My writing style at the time reflected this. Not only did the complex sentences and verbiage confuse casual readers, there's been at least one reader who believed...the saga is historically accurate? 😳

(Hiya Paul! If you're here on my newsletter, welcome. Unfortunately Munich didn't exist in the 11th century as far as we know. But maybe Swanie & Augustin wrote the their story out of history at some point in the timeline. I wouldn't put it past them....)

When I first started talking about His Name Was Augustin to my coworkers, several of them asked how many chapters the book was going to be. At the time, I planned for the entire saga to be ONE book. But then I pulled up a Notepad on my ancient WindowsXP laptop and started writing an outline. I listed the chapters one by one with a brief description of what would happen in each one. And I found out something rather jarring....

(178 chapters are a bit too many for just one book. 😬 The final chapter count of the His Name Was Augustin saga is 264 chapters at 880,000 words. Yikes!)

I got fired from the job mentioned above for writing His Name Was Augustin. Yep, you read that right. The job's identity will remain anonymous, but suffice it to say it was somewhat...Christian. And when my boss gave me the boot he asked me if there was really going to be "premarital sex and nudity" in my book. 😱

(If you've been reading Elemental Bloodlines, I'm sure you've noticed there's been A LOT of premarital sex and nudity in the Teutonic Fantasy Realm. Sorry not sorry. It may be a fictional realm, but the situations reflect real life.)

Some readers whose opinions I trust have told me Swanie's an unlikable character because she comes across as arrogant and uncaring about her children. 🥺 Meanwhile other readers whose opinions I also trust say Swanie's their favorite Teuton witch out of all the ones I've created thus far. As you can guess, this makes life as an author...confusing.

(Readers have to remember that the point of the His Name Was Augustin saga is that Swanie ultimately wants to be with Augustin, her chosen mate. Yes, she's obsessed with him starting in Mystic Passage. Yes, she probably comes across as uninterested in her children. But consider, I wrote the saga as though Swanie herself was writing it at some unknown point in the timeline after all of the saga's events took place. The prologues show that by that point, the one constant in Swanie's life is Augustin. Which might be why her saga is about...Augustin. 😉)

Snippet From Mystic Passage

Ready for a quick glance into Swanie's life after she and several of her modern day friends find themselves trapped in medieval Munich? Check out what happened the first time Swanie decided to pay a visit to the city archives in search of info about a blue-fired priest she met at a recent festival. A man who by all accounts should not exist....

I cast my spirit toward the city without further ado. Today I needed to focus on uncovering all that I could about the nonexistent executioner of Muniche. So I set my course for the town hall, a large, imposing building made of gray stone, four stories tall with several massive doors leading inside. I set my spirit atop its roof first to observe the people trickling in and out of its doors. Many of them were Teutons—their spirits called out to me in greater numbers than I had ever before experienced: whirlwind, stone, smoke, fire, mist, yellow fire, earth, dark energy.

I shook myself and closed my eyes, though as a spirit I could still see through their ethereal veils. Okay, Swanie, you have to go inside even though there’s more Teutons here than anywhere in modern times. None of them should see you unless they’re using their elements to improve their vision. I doubt too many people know how to do that aside from priests. Just stay away from anyone in a black robe. I gathered my courage and drifted down toward the main entrance, slipping in behind a peasant woman with a hooked nose.

Beyond the spacious entryway was an even larger atrium with many doors, stairwells, and hallways leading in diverse directions. The floor beneath my feet was of marble, the walls of dark paneled fir. Right beside the doorway to the atrium stood an impressive statue of a nobleman wearing a jeweled crown, his feet firmly planted, his robes and armor imposing, his clean-shaven face appearing both stoic and honorable at the same time. In his right hand, he held a key ring bearing four fine-toothed keys. The base of the statue bore the Latin inscription: Prince Abelard Leopold Gottfried von Bayern, Founder of Muniche, A.D. DCCCXCVI.

That’s 896, I translated in my head after a moment’s thought. I studied the effigy in its entirety, astonished afresh by the knowledge that I stood now in that very city for which he had laid the cornerstones less than one hundred fifty years ago.

I summarily headed toward the atrium and its many doorways, leaving the founder of Muniche behind in my quest for the archives. Prince Otto had said that they were in the basement, so I began searching for a staircase leading down, trying to avoid brushing up against any people. Eventually, I came upon a small wooden door with a brass knob, and above it a sign etched in Latin: Muniche City Records.

A sneaky smile crept across my face, and I passed through the door into a dark, winding staircase lit by a single torch on the wall beside the entrance. I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether I should bring the torch along, since I had never liked the dark. Oh well, hopefully there aren’t any Teuton priests down here that’ll know why a torch is floating, I thought. I lifted it from its place on the wall and cautiously descended the staircase.

When I reached the basement proper, the walls of brick seeming to bend inward toward me, I soon approached another wooden door with a cruder sign posted upon it bearing a warning stenciled in both Latin and Teutonica: Chroniclers and Official Personnel Only. I frowned in annoyance and stretched my spiritual senses outward, trying to discern whether anyone was actually inside the archives. I knew that I would go in, one way or another. If someone caught me, I could return to my body.

I heard no sounds within, but I may have felt the presence of another Teuton in a far corner near the outside wall. I curled my lip but remained resolute. I needed to learn whether records of a third Bayern brother existed here. I could just keep away from that corner.

So I carefully turned the knob and the door opened easily, noiselessly. If the city council really wanted to restrict access to the records, they should have kept the doors locked. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, my spiritual robes peppered with the icy white of caution.

The archives were lit much more brightly than the stairway leading toward them. Another torch burned just inside the doorway, and a rather Gothic-looking chandelier hung from the ceiling at the center of the room. A trace of outside light trickled in from two tiny windows on the far wall, high up by the ceiling. I looked around at the seven-tiered bookshelves stuffed with parchments. Each appeared to be labeled with a parchment sign that gave a short description of its contents.

The chandelier granted sufficient light for my search, so I turned back to the doorway and set my torch onto an empty notch on the gray stone wall, opposite its glowing counterpart. Then I approached the first of the shelves and peered at the paper tacked onto its side. It was written in Teutonica with black ink, the letters a curling Carolingian minuscule: City history, A.D. MX-MXLIII.

My mouth twisted thoughtfully as I craned my neck to see down the length of the shelf. It seemed that this one contained an exposition of what had occurred during the reign of the Keyholder prior to Prince Otto. Maybe I could uncover some documents about Augustin von Bayern on that shelf eventually, but first I wanted to find his birth certificate.

Once I reached the center of the room, I halted under the chandelier, trying to decipher where exactly the birth records might be. The archives as a whole seemed rather disorganized. While I stood thinking with my hands on my hips, I glanced upward toward the chandelier, and I realized that the flames adorning each of its candles were not of a natural yellow or orange. They were blue.

I squinted my eyes at the candles, marveling at their tiny blue flames, wondering how exactly whoever had lit them had accomplished such a thing. At that very moment, a tingling feeling crept up my spine, telling me that the other Teuton in these murky archives had noticed my presence. My spirit froze, my robes shifting into a ghostly white in reaction to my uneasiness.

I lowered my head, taking my eyes off of those intriguing blue flames, and turned myself with exaggerated care toward a shadowy corner of the room, furthest from the exit. And there, standing behind an ornate desk laden with papers and inkwells, a blue-flamed candlestick set atop it, stood a tall, sinister man wearing the garb of the Teuton priest. His long hair was as black as his robes, his irises a boiling blue that matched his candles, his right hand clutching a feather pen.

My heart leapt into my throat as I recognized the executioner of Muniche, Augustin von Bayern, the very man whose birth records I sought. Oh . . . shit.

I tried to think straight, to recall how to condense my spirit back into my body. But he had already seen me, and his stricken expression told me that he knew exactly who had disturbed his work. Before I could order myself to vanish, my opponent had glided around the desk after placing his feather pen carefully upon it, crossing the stone floor in seconds to where I hovered. He glared down at me with a look that seemed to come from the pit of hell.

The heat from his eyes swept through my spirit as he said in a deep voice, “My Lady Swanhilde von Thaden. And what, may I ask, has brought you into my domain?”

***

Ahhhhh, those moments when Augustin was little more than a sinister curiosity whose mere existence challenged what Swanie knew of Teuton history. Want to find out what happens once he realizes she's after his birth certificate? Get the complete His Name Was Augustin series at your favorite retailer for only $9.99:

https://books2read.com/hnwacomplete

Or get it from my book shop and enter the code ELEMENTAL at checkout for an extra 15% off:

https://clcarhart.com/products/his-name-was-augustin-complete-collection-ebook

Direct Store Discounts

Want to support your favorite indie authors directly instead of giving a cut of your hard earned money to a retailer like Amazon or Apple? Check out a big batch of stories and bundles available at authors' direct stores! Each one has a discount you can get only at their shops, so be sure to browse all the options today.

✨ Bookish Discounts ✨

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Hopefully you've found a book or two to keep you occupied, whether you're ready to join Swanie on her wild journey through time or not. If that's you and you read on Kindle, be sure to snag her saga before it vanishes into the ether next week. The complete collection of His Name Was Augustin waits for you at a deep discount for just a little longer, so get it while it's hot!

(And fall in love with a super evil priest of blue fire just like I did. 🔥)

Talk to you soon,

C.L. Carhart

Get His Name Was Augustin:

https://books2read.com/hnwacomplete

C.L. Carhart's book shop:

https://clcarhart.com/

Discounts at indie authors' shops:

https://bf.clcarhart.com/april-romance-all-genres-sales/kgvfanylj3