PingHeng

PINGHENG (Book One) He was the funny one. The coward. The "Statue of Fear." Then he woke up on a slave ship with no memory, no name, and a soldier's body that knew how to kill. Patrick Lyons grew up rich, sharp-tongued, and gutless in a dying town called Danesville, the kind of kid who talked his way out of every fight he was too scared to throw. So he did the least logical thing imaginable to prove he was more than a punchline: he joined the Army. A grenade in the dark took his memory. Slavers took the rest. Washed up on a Chinese beach with nothing but dog tags and a desire he can't explain, to protect people, to be brave, to bring balance to a world run by the wicked, Patrick is taken in by a sword master who forges him into something new. Something lethal. Something the world will come to call Pingheng. But a weapon built to save people doesn't always save the right ones. And when Patrick finally comes home, the line between the beacon of hope he wants to be and the monster he's become gets very, very thin. Told in Patrick's own foul-mouthed, fourth-wall-breaking voice, Pingheng is a brutal, funny, and heartbreaking origin story about fear, redemption, and the cost of finally becoming dangerous. For readers of dark fantasy anti-heroes and military fantasy who like their heroes flawed, their action bloody, and their narrators talking straight to them. Balance always has a price.