J M Ney-Grimm

Troll-magic J M Ney-Grimm

North-land spellcasters who wield excessive power transform into trolls - potent, twisted, and hungry for dominance.

Prince Kellor, cursed by a troll-witch to live as a north-bear, wrestles with the challenges of a beast's form. He sees his childhood friend Elle as the key to his escape.

But charming Elle will be no easy task. Traversing that delicate passage between adolescence and adulthood, she struggles to balance family loyalty against her passion for music.

In this epic adventure across a stunning landscape, from cool pine forests to an icy pinnacle of basalt so real it leaves you shivering, Elle and Kellor must summon essential wisdom and grit to prevail against a troll-witch's malice in a lethal battle of wills.

Fighting against a nightmare pales beside fighting for a dream.


Praise for Troll-magic

"...Troll-magic has a certain poetic style I've yet to come across elsewhere. Descriptions are...evocative, characters are natural and complex..." - Goodreads review

"This is the kind of book that you keep thinking about... All through the day you will find yourself hoping for just a few minutes to pick it up again. Loosely based on a familiar folk tale, the world depicted is magical, but the people are very real." - Smashwords review

"Troll-magic was a fun read... This story mixes adventure, romance, life lessons and, of course, magic. J. M. Ney-Grimm has created a fascinating new world. Her detailed descriptions and colourful writing style bring the world of Silmaren and the Norse-lands right off the page and into life." - Amazon review

"I really liked this book. Anyone who is familiar with the fairy tale this book is based on will recognize the basic plot, but there are some intriguing twists added. The concept of troll-magic is well done... I am looking forward to reading other [stories] by this author." - Goodreads review

"Her work compares favorably with Robin McKinley and Patricia McKillip... if you're looking for an intelligent, fun and interesting read, I highly recommend this book." - Amazon review


Excerpt from Troll-magic

In darkness he touched his nose, felt his ears. Oh Sias! They were larger. More deformed. Horror shook his fingertips. What should he do? What could he do?

Chaotic memory gripped him. Stabbing tangerine light and agonizing pain. His body taken by unfathomable force and twisted, reshaped.

What was this? Where was this? None of it made sense. And the absolute blackness didn't help. He took a deep breath. And another. There. He was steadier now. Some sort of solution existed. He could sense it, just out of reach. Closing his eyes against the dark, he stretched his mind. He'd done . . . something . . . last . . . night? It didn't matter when. What was it he'd done? He tried again to call it to mind, pressing against the blankness in his thoughts. Breathing was part of it; patterned breathing. Which reminded him that holding his breath wouldn't help. Someone . . . a teacher, had told him that tension inhibited . . . something. He sighed. Patterned breathing. Fine, he would do some. He breathed out to a slow count of three, then in for the same.

And then he had it. Patterned breathing and patterning. He was a pattern-master. Or, at least, an apprentice one. And he'd done . . . not patterning, last night, but a forbidden version of it. Something other.


About the Author

J. M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands.