The Califia Sagas begin with The Bear Rebellion of Califia, a complete novella that introduces the reader to Barlowe, an alchemist and spy-for-hire, and the magical world of Califia.

It’s 1845 and Captain John Barlowe is under a death warrant, has an alcoholic pixie for a partner, and on a mission to a magical island in the Far West.

Oh, and his name isn’t John Barlowe. 

And he isn’t a Captain.

That isn’t his biggest secret.

Excerpt:

I woke up in a sweat.

The sheets were twisted around my body like I’d been wrestling with banshees throughout the night. Perhaps I had. Moonlight shone through the window, and I could dimly see an Apothecary sign hanging outside. My room was in the front of the building above the workroom, overlooking the street. My partner Calamity’s room was on the same floor but by the back stairs. She liked the privacy of being able to come and go at all hours of the night. 

Usually coming and going from bars, if truth be told.

It had been a month since we’d bought this Apothecary in the town of Yerba Buena, and we’d settled in like old hands. Found some side employment from a nice chap, Scrimshaw, who ran the shadier side of town. Business was good, with the wealthy citizens of Yerba Buena that visited us for their powders and elixirs. All in all, a month well spent. So why was I waking up in a sweat?

Keeping my secrets from Calamity was gnawing at me. At some point, I would have to share my secret mission in Yerba Buena. At some point, I’d have to divulge what I really did in the Texas Republic, embedded in the United States Army. What we did to magic creatures like Calamity. And, at some point, maybe even tell her my real name.

In this thrilling second volume of the Bear Rebellion trilogy, spy-for-hire John Barlowe must unite the ancient magical peoples of the Isla de Califia to stop the tyrannical Major Fremont from destroying all magic folk. As Barlowe leads a desperate resistance from Mount Shastice alongside his pixie partner Calamity Jayne and the mysterious Merri Nighdottir, he discovers that his own powers may be the key to saving the Isla - or ensuring its destruction.

Excerpt:

The night sky over Lake Da’aw was a patchwork of stars and constellations, forming and reforming into shapes I conjured out of my imagination. A bear. A flying horse. A dog sleeping on the ground.

The last image shook me out of my reverie. A sleeping dog? What the hell constellation is that? I looked up at the group of stars that I had been pondering moments before. No, not so much a sleeping dog but a badger, crouching, ready to leap. Yes, much better, I thought, stretching out my aching knees and standing up. Enough of this sitting around “sleeping” nonsense. Time to badger-up, as my Uncle Nick would say.

Actually, I very much doubt that my Uncle would say that at all. An extremely learned man, a graduate of Oxford like myself, he would certainly know all about badgers. And he was a man of action, a spy-for-hire who had served in some of Europe’s elite fighting forces and then invited me to join the same secret society that had trained him in the martial and alchemical arts. But he was too much of a gentleman to say anything as droll as “badger up.” His loss, I thought as I walked back from the shore of the lake to my tent.