Shaman Rises

Joanne Walker has two choices:

Defeat the enemy…or lose her soul trying.

For over a year, Joanne has been fighting the Master—the world’s most abiding evil entity. She’s sacrificed family, friendships, even watched potential futures fade away…and now the Master is bringing the final battle to Joanne’s beloved Seattle.

Lives will be lost as the repercussions of all Joanne’s final transformation into her full Shamanic abilities come to her doorstep. Before the end, she’ll mourn, rejoice—and surrender everything for the hope of the world’s survival. She’ll be a warrior and a healer. Because she is finally a Shaman Rising.

“The twists and turns will have readers shaking their heads while devouring the next page.”

—USA TODAY on Raven Calls

Praise for C.E. Murphy

Urban Shaman

“A swift pace, a good mystery, a likeable protagonist,

magic, danger—Urban Shaman has them in spades.” —Jim Butcher, bestselling author of The Dresden Files series

Thunderbird Falls

“Fans of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels

and the works of urban fantasists Charles de Lint and Tanya Huff should enjoy this fantasy/mystery’s cosmic elements. A good choice.” —Library Journal

Coyote Dreams

“Tightly written and paced, [Coyote Dreams] has a compelling,

interesting protagonist, whose struggles and successes will captivate new and old readers alike.” —RT Book Reviews

Walking Dead

“Murphy’s fourth Walker Papers offering is another gripping,

well-written tale of what must be the world’s most reluctant— and stubborn—shaman.” —RT Book Reviews

Demon Hunts

“Murphy carefully crafts her scenes and I felt every gust of wind

through the crispy frosted trees…. I am heartily looking forward to further volumes.” —The Discriminating Fangirl

Spirit Dances

“An original and addictive urban fantasy!”

—Romancing the Dark Side

Raven Calls

“The twists and turns will have readers shaking their heads

while devouring the next page.” —USA TODAY

Mountain Echoes

“Shaman Joanne Walker can’t seem to catch a break in the

penultimate chapter of Murphy’s outstanding and long-running series.… Her past and present collide in this emotionally charged novel that illustrates Joanne’s unique evolution.” —RT Book Reviews on Mountain Echoes

Also available from C.E. Murphy and Mira LUNA

The Walker Papers

URBAN SHAMAN

WINTER MOON “Banshee Cries” THUNDERBIRD FALLS COYOTE DREAMS WALKING DEAD DEMON HUNTS SPIRIT DANCES RAVEN CALLS MOUNTAIN ECHOES

The Negotiator

HEART OF STONE

HOUSE OF CARDS HANDS OF FLAME

Shaman Rises

C.E. Murphy

www.mirabooks.co.uk

…honestly, this one’s for me.

Author’s Note

Back in Y2K when I wrote Urban Shaman, I thought the Walker Papers would be a seven-book series. They grew to nine with the sale of the first “trilogy”—people kept referring to Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams that way—and very quickly I began to see the story structure as three trilogies, with Joanne going through certain steps of growing up in each of those trilogies.

I did not, frankly, ever expect it to span a total of eleven books, if you include Winter Moon’s “Banshee Cries” as a book (and I do!), or the independent collection of Walker Paper stories, No Dominion, as part of the series (and I certainly do!).

Eleven books is a lot, and while I know there are a fair number of dedicated readers who reread the whole series when a new book comes out, I thought I might offer up a quick, rather wildly inaccurate in detail but reasonably spot-on in spirit, recap for you. A jaunt—with all due apologies to a couple of boys—down the road so far:

Urban Shaman: Former police mechanic and now beat cop Joanne Walker is dragged into a world she doesn’t want to know exists when a coyote spirit gives her the choice between death or life as a shaman, after she’s skewered by Cernunnos, god of the Wild Hunt. She chooses life (look, nobody said it was a good choice, just a choice) and races to save a young woman named Suzanne Quinley from becoming a pawn in a game between Cernunnos and his son Herne.

Winter Moon—“Banshee Cries”: Joanne’s boss and love inter—no, no, no, he’s just the boss—pulls Jo on to a case of ritual murders, already trusting her magic more than she does. But Joanne’s not the only one on the case—her mother is back from the dead to protect Joanne from the banshee she hunts and from the banshee’s master, whose dark magic is more than Joanne is ready to handle.

Thunderbird Falls: Despite two mystical adventures, Joanne’s still got her head stuck firmly in the sand—if she ignores her shamanic powers, maybe they’ll go away. They don’t, of course, but there are ramifications to her ignorance: her beloved cab-driving friend Gary Muldoon is witched into having a heart attack; relative innocent Colin Johannsen and behind-the-scenes manipulator Faye Kirkland die trying to bring Joanne’s increasingly dangerous enemy, the Master, onto the earthly physical plane; and Seattle’s landscape is rearranged, creating a new waterfall on Lake Washington. It is not Joanne’s finest hour.