Interviewed on radio talk show 970 WDAY by Christopher Gabriel, and with WDAY television. October 2014

Interviewed on radio talk show 970 WDAY by Christopher Gabriel, and with WDAY television. October 2014

Magpie Bridge 

By C.S. Hagen

“When forgiveness is not enough, blood must pay”

Artwork by C.S. Hagen

CHICAGO to FARGO – In the not-so-distant future after the collapse of the US federal government, more than warlords, unrest, and religious fanaticism sweep the nation states. From secret societies long hidden to the modern world, an ancient threat, led by fox demon Danni Pan, re-emerges.

Recluse Soren Anderson lost everything, including his own heart, while on assignment in China, and for thirty years he survives in the shadows, with only his soul keeping his body alive.  He comes face to face with his estranged daughter moments before he is forced to flee the city-state of Chicago.  With nowhere to run but home to Norma, North Dakota, together they must find ways to cross factious borders, evade the evil that will stop at nothing to find him, and repair the relationship with his daughter that Soren never thought possible. 

But sometimes, as Soren soon learns, not even he can run fast enough, and he must fight to keep his daughter alive.  For when forgiveness is not enough, blood must pay. 

LINELINE

The Ninth Tail  –  Following soon in 2015

By C.S. Hagen 

“The other side of Magpie Bridge, the long-awaited tale of the fox demon”

Artwork by CS Hagen

Artwork by C.S. Hagen

CITY OF MORNING SONG, ANCIENT CHINA –Danni Pan is young royalty, pampered, the great-granddaughter of the first gods.  Her titles, family, and her lavish lifestyle burn to ash when betrayed by the emperor’s consort, a vengeful fox demon named Su Daji.  Plucked from the death lines to serve a sinister purpose, she is rescued by unlikely brigands only to be sold as a “wild pheasant” whore.  Not only must Danni outfox brigands, toumuk hunters, and slavers, she must compromise her heritage to survive.

In a world rife with civil war and pestilence, a time when the gods began turning their backs on mankind, Danni finds strength through tribulation.  Her mollycoddled youth is forgotten as she sharpens her taste for vengeance.  But when her strength alone is not enough, she turns to the unimaginable, her family’s murderer, for guidance, and takes the first step toward the First Tail.

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Saltwater Girl 

By C.S. Hagen    

“Roundeyes and Boxers, bullets and magic charms, this book has it all” 

SWGIRLcover 3-300

Artwork by C.S. Hagen 

TIENTSIN, CHINA – This first novel by C.S. Hagen is both an unexpected love story in a time and place of great violence and prejudice and a stirring tale of a man running from his past who challenges the British opium monopoly known as the Combination.

Saltwater Girl is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1900), an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China’s commoners clinging to ancient mystic beliefs against a decadent Qing Dynasty and foreign aggression.  Set in colorful strokes against a broad historical canvas, one man – James Innocent – disguised as a Lutheran reverend and AWOL from the US First Marine Corps, delves deeply into the opium trade in an attempt to destroy the Combination’s powerful consortium.

From inside the port city Tientsin (Tianjin) where foreigners and Celestials (locals) are divided into two parts, two wars emerge: the war against opium, and the war against aggression.  The reverend not only finds his own life in danger, but struggles against falling for a saltwater girl, or a river prostitute, who he believes may be the only person he can trust.  Filled with sensual imagery amidst breathtaking devastation and beauty, Saltwater Girl is a rare look into colonial and Chinese history, the clash of cultures, and the ravages the opium trade brought to the Asian masses.

 

 

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