Of Wind and Wolves: 1 (The Steppe Saga)

You don’t yet know what you are. What you truly love or hate. What you’ll kill or die for. Not until you’ve been out there.

When Anaiti reluctantly agrees to marry the aging king of the Skythian nomads to forge an alliance, she never expects the price of peace will be an enemy’s scalp—or that she’ll have to take it with her own hands.

Trained since youth in riding and archery, her education was cut short, and she's never faced true combat. Though she has no taste for bloodshed, her desire to remain free outweighs her fear. Thrown into the lawless wilderness, she joins a ruthless warband whose loyalties and suspicions are as fierce as the unforgiving steppe. There, her skills and courage are tested to the edge, and she forms an intense bond with their commander—a formidable warrior who believes Anaiti possesses a rare gift. Determined to evade her fate, Anaiti devises a daring plan to stay with the warband. But as her defiance threatens the pact between kingdoms, she must decide if her longing for freedom is worth the cost—of countless lives, perhaps her own.

Of Wind and Wolves is the first volume in The Steppe Saga, a haunting and subversive retelling of events recorded by Herodotus. Set against a backdrop of astonishing beauty and brutality, it reveals the lost wisdom, traditions, and beliefs of the Scythian people, whose powerful women once inspired Greek myths of the Amazons.

J. M. Elliott lives on a Hudson Valley farm, far from the hustle of modern life. She prefers hiking boots to heels, work gloves to manicures, and humble stories to showy prose. When she's not lost in the pages of historical fiction, you might spot her astride a horse, unearthing the mysteries of archaeological sites, or trekking into the wilds where phone signals can't reach. To learn more, visit jmelliott.org.