Cover art for David Chandler's ANCIENT BLADES TRILOGY

Horror author David Wellington is moving into fantasy, adopting the pseudonym David Chandler for his Ancient Blades Trilogy. The three books are being published in rapid succession: Den of Thieves in July, A Thief in the Night in October and Honor Among Thieves in December. The trilogy is also significant as it marks the launch of the UK-based HarperCollins Voyager as a worldwide brand, following in the success of Orbit going global a couple of years ago.

The UK cover artwork is as follows (thanks to Jussi at Westeros.org):


The US cover art is, erm, not quite as good:

"A mix of pulp and high fantasy, at turns funny, suspenseful, and touching, David Chandler’s Ancient Blades trilogy is laden with twists and turns, high adventure, a little romance, and a lot of fun.

Croy is a knight errant, and bearer of an ancient blade with a powerful destiny. He's also kind of, well, dim. He believes in honour. He believes that people are fundamentally good, and will do the right thing if you give them a chance.

Unfortunately, Croy lives in the city of Ness. A thriving medieval city of fifty thousand people, none of whom are fundamentally even decent, and who will gleefully stab you in the back. If you give them a chance.

Ness is also the home to Malden. Malden is a thief. He lives by his wits, disarming cunning traps, sneaking past sleeping guards, and running away very fast whenever people are trying to kill him. Which is often. One time Malden stole a crown. And then he had to steal it back to avoid a civil war. Croy got the credit, of course, because he's a noble knight. Another time the two of them went into the tomb of an ancient warrior race, and Croy accidentally started a barbarian invasion. Guess who had to clean that up?

They probably wouldn't be friends at all if it wasn't for Cythera. Cythera is a witch. A mostly-good witch. And despite herself she can't stop thieves and knights falling in love with her… At the same time."

Voyager seem to be marketing this to the Joe Abercrombie/Scott Lynch crowd. If Chandler is as remotely as good as those guys, it should be good stuff :-)