WRITING AS YANCY BALL
Book One: While the Gods Slumber
You cannot escape your ancestry.
While the Gods Slumber is an erotic swords & sorcery adventure, set in an Afro-fantasy world.
Zhura is a simple medicine woman, an orphan of unknown origin, in a land where ancestry determines who you are and who you can become. A seductive and mysterious encounter launches Zhura on a journey to unveil her past. In this lusty beginning to her adventures, Zhura – and her dearest companions, Amina and Kaj – will learn uncomfortable truths and achieve what she never imagined.
Will she embrace her ancestry? Or will she try to escape it?
While the Gods Slumber is available for free on Smashwords!
Book Two: Blossom
Be careful what you search for. You just might find it.
Blossom is a tale of mystery, courage, and unbridled lust that takes place within the world of While the Gods Slumber.
Keya Oko is the first daughter of one of the Great Houses in the fabled city of Namu. She is a scholar and priestess, living a cloistered life, protected even from the sun that would damage her albino skin. Then her brother disappears while on a quest to destroy a demonic cult. With the help of her fierce handmaid Jinai, Keya ventures into the mangrove swamps to rescue him.
What she finds there will spark her hidden passions, forcing her to question everything she has worked for. Even if she saves her brother, will she lose herself?
Book Three: Tales of the Fabulous Namu
Zhura discovers treachery, greed and wanton lust in the coastal city of Namu.
Zhura and her companions have settled in the fabled city of Namu, where she continues her quest for clues about her origins. The Great House of San seeks knowledge of demons. For a time, their interests seem a perfect match. But the desires of nobility are not easily satisfied. The demands of House San soon threaten the home of Zhura’s companions.
Zhura’s plan to buy off the nobles soon finds her allied with workers in a brothel trying to throw off the yoke of a vicious gang of thieves. The lusty herb-witch does what she does best, rutting and battling her way through a host of unsavory characters, from sandy beaches to the crowded streets of the city’s slums. Can Zhura appease House San while still protecting those she loves?
Book Four: Descent
Fresh from her triumph in the Ijon River swamp, life is good for Keya Oko. She has taken her handmaid as a lover, and Namu scholars are eager to learn the secrets of her latest findings. But her deepest secret is the demon Blossom, and that is a secret she cannot hide forever.
A proposal of collaboration from the rival House San sets a chain of events in motion, and soon Keya feels more and more caged by her status. Keya discovers allies, new and old, that can help her. But as the walls of her golden prison begin to close in, she realizes that her only chance at freedom is through her connection to the demon she craves and its dark power. But summoning Blossom always comes with a price. This time, that price is the betrayal of her family and her dearest friend, and the end of her life as she knows it.
Will she pay the price?
Book Five: Night of the Forgotten
It’s the holy day in Namu – that one where the forsaken dead haunt the city, taking souls to the Underworld. This time, the dead want Zhura and Keya’s souls. The two might have a chance to survive… if they can trust each other.
Night of the Forgotten is a short story about Zhura and Keya’s first adventure together – the fifth book in the series, While the Gods Slumber.
This book includes a sample of Book 6 of the series, the novella The Bitter Fruit of Home.
Book Six: The Bitter Fruit of Home
Keya Oko joins Zhura and her companions as their chronicler on an arduous journey through the wetlands and savannas of Ikanje to the border and freedom.
The more Keya helps Zhura to uncover about her mysterious legacy, the closer the two young women grow. But Zhura’s dearest friends do not trust Keya – or Keya’s demon, Blossom – and for good reason.
The remote woods on the edge of the savanna hold their own dark secrets. When disaster strikes the travelers, Keya is forced to choose where her faith lies, and a budding love will be put to the test. Because no weapon wounds quite as deeply as betrayal.
Book Seven: Convergence
Morore is the city of Zhura’s birth. Along with her trusted companions, she has come home. Unfortunately, all of Zhura’s troubles have come with her.
All is not well in the city where Zhura’s father is king. A rival clan plots his overthrow. Ntoza’s powerful coven of Thandi witches yearn for the days when demons ruled over human kingdoms. Zhura’s old friend Ranthaman San’s motives are anyone’s guess, but he has brought Keya’s very lethal (and very jilted) former lover with him.
To make matters worse, Zhura is plagued by visions of her mother’s life. As Zhura takes up arms in defense of her father, she wonders: is her mother’s doomed victory the best end she can hope for?
Convergence is Book Seven, the sizzling conclusion to the While the Gods Slumber series!
STANDALONE STORIES
Legacy
Nandi has a second chance to build a future with her lover. But to take it, she will have to risk everything.
Nandi is a gentle young widow whose only joys are teaching and being with her lover, Dumisane. Their torrid affair is a flower that blooms only twice a year, during the few days that he visits her town with the cattle herd he tends.
Nandi is also a witch. She is one of an ancient clan of witches who has lived her life under the heel of its matriarch, Lulathe. As rumors of war brew around their kingdom, Dumisane proposes marriage. But in order to accept, Nandi must face her terrible past and the loss of her husband and sons. If she and her lover are to create their own legacy, they must defy Lulathe, and the murderous demons that do the matriarch’s bidding.
Legacy is a tale of passion and unyielding courage that takes place within the world of While the Gods Slumber.
Legacy is available on Kindle Unlimited!
Sisterhood of the Brass Mask
When Suwarya gets that itch she just can’t scratch, she doesn’t always make the wisest choices. A tryst with her lover goes sour, but ends up in a mind-blowing encounter with a mysterious creature. Unfortunately, Suwa can’t cover up her cheating this time, and her attempts to hold on to her new lover only make it worse. Soon a sex cult is growing out of hand in the slums of the city of Namu.
Will Suwa make things right? Will she go back to her husband? Or will her attempts to do so land her in even more raunchy trouble?
Sisterhood of the Brass Mask is a lusty, standalone romp that takes place in the world of While the Gods Slumber, following the events of Tales of Fabulous Namu.