I’m very pleased today to welcome the Cover Reveal for the third entry in Michael Michel’s Dreams of Dust and Steel— series: Banners of Wrath to this patch o’ cyberspace this morning! It’ll be the third book in an expected five-book series and will be on sale in January 2026. Which is too far away for my taste, but it’ll be worth the wait (based on the quality of the first two in the series). Before the main event, let’s learn a little bit about the book and author, shall we? It’ll just take a moment, and then we can all take a peak at the cover.
About the Book
This is where I’d normally give a blurb for the book, and I don’t have one for this. So let’s set the stage with this description of the first book, The Price of Power:
Loss. Redemption. Grief. And the dangers of belief.
Prince Barodane could not hold back the darkness. Not even in himself. He laid an innocent city in its grave and then died a hero.
In his absence, war whispers across the land.
Power-hungry Highborn dispatch spies and assassins to the shadows as they maneuver for the throne, while an even greater threat rises in the South. Monsters and cultists flock to the banners of a mad prophet determined to control reality…and then shatter it.
Destiny stalks three to the brink of oblivion.
A dead prince that isn’t actually dead. Barodane buried his shameful past in a stupor of drugs, drink, and crime, and now, he’d rather watch the world fall apart than wear a crown again.
An orphan with hero’s blood who is forced to make a harrowing choice: betray her country or sacrifice her first love.
And a powerful seer who has no choice at all–her grandson must die.
If any of them fails to pay the price…
The cost will be the world’s complete annihilation.
Let that simmer for 1,000+ pages. While it simmers throw in some intrigue, rebellion, murder, scheming, some tragic deaths, some less-than-tragic deaths, a lot of bravery and acts of courage, and more “What the–?!?” moments than you’d expect. And that’s basically where you’ll be at the beginning of Banners of Wrath.
I have a few choice excerpts to share with you from the book.
“Tyrants oft arrive in velvet slippers, but they always leave in iron-shod boots.”
In the face of death, gratitude filled him. There were worse places to be. Worse people to be with at the end. It wasn’t ideal, but so few things in life were. For as long as he could remember, he’d been trying to force that truth to be different, stepping over a passing moment of joy to hunt the great mythical beast of happiness.
And missing it. Missing it every time.
Regret, he decided, was the greatest curse of man and the cruelest gift of the gods.
and lest you worry that this will be thinking, musing, and political maxims…
Slicing and scraping and the press of bodies. The air so suddenly oppressive with cloying heat and bitter breath. Axes rising scarlet then snapping down. She caught a handle on her weapon—hacked off the fingers holding it. Elbowed another man in the teeth. Split another Scoth’s nose with her hatchet blade, his eyes crossing to center on what killed him as sundered brain juice poured from his nostrils.
Anthera yanked her weapon free as an ax swung down at her—overextended. The handle bashed her collarbone and drove her to her knees. Before he could manage a second blow, the man’s face burst in a shower of crimson.
Grunting exertion and the blur of motion. Death devolving into a carousal. So much movement and color, if it were a painting, she’d think it sublime.
But it wasn’t that. It was a machine of threshing sharp edges, and if she stopped for a second, it would chew her to pieces.
About the Author
Michel lives in Bend, Oregon with the love of his life and their two children. When he isn’t obsessively writing, editing, or doing publishing work, he can be found exercising, coaching leaders in the corporate world, and dancing his butt off at amazing festivals like Burning Man. His favorite shows are Dark, The Wire, Arcane, and Norsemen. He loves nature and deep conversations. Few things bring him more joy than a couple of hours playing table tennis.
Website ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Goodreads
and now…
The Cover
Don’t those look great? The Cover Art is by Christopher Cant and the design is by Rachel St. Clair. They did a bang-up job if you ask me. Look at the series thus far:
I can’t wait to see wait Cant and St. Clair have in store for the next two.
Shannon Knight is a fantasy, science fiction, and horror author living in the Pacific Northwest. She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in English. Her horror titles include Domestication and Catamorphosis. Sign up for her newsletter at https://shannonknight.net.
