After Ceriana Hartfield, the conceited daughter of one of the most powerful families in the Duchy of Tenaren, discovers a strange stone washed up on the beach, she begins to suffer a disturbing metamorphosis. Her body intermittently glows an eerie translucent red and her nights are haunted by nightmarish visions. Ceriana's discovery heralds the awakening of an ancient and terrifying power, a power that has the ability to turn the tide in the bloody, hopeless war that has long laid waste to her country. An extraordinary epic that contains all the ingredients of the classic fantasy—brutal battles and tender love stories, headstrong elves and ambition-crazed warriors, thrilling landscapes and perilous journeys—delivered with unusual hard-headed realism and dry, bitter humour. The result is a gripping, searing tale about the dangers of power and the ugliness of war that speaks unnervingly to our age.

Former guitarist and founder member of The Third Sex, the greatest band that no one has ever heard of and who never played live, Howard Sargent was a civil servant for 20 years before leaving to care full-time for his wife, who has Parkinson's disease. Howard lives in Cardiff and The Forgotten War was originally written in serial form for his wife.