Help promote our local artists, culture and community
No amount is too small and will help showcase Davis and Yolo county’s unique people, places and events. Thank you!
Avid Reader is thrilled to host UC Davis alumnus, R.D. Pires to celebrate the release of his latest book, Design of Darkness on October 5th at 6:30 PM.
About the Author
RD Pires has found there’s always a story to tell, and so he spends his time writing them down. A project is always on his mind, even when there aren’t enough hours in a day to work on them. His blend of literary writing with genre elements is influenced by his favorite authors, such as David Mitchell, Brandon Sanderson, Madeline Miller, and Stephen King. His works include Design of Darkness, the first book in the ongoing The Tides That Reign series, A Vast, Untethered Ocean, the novella In Death Do Flowers Grow, and the collection of short fiction A Sky Littered With Stories. He lives in California with his husband and daughter.
About the Book
The shadow of the great usurper, King Fogosombre, has kept the East in darkness for twelve long years. Made paranoid by a foretelling of his downfall, the king’s indiscriminate violence reaches a new zenith, leaving twins Arsenio and Mariana orphaned and homeless, their village burnt to the ground.
Now, as the dying embers of their rebellion fade into the night, the twins make a promise to find aide for their people in foreign lands. To get out from under the king’s reach, they must venture across the Great Ocean into a world they had only dreamt about through travelers’ stories. From their perilous quest arises a tale of emperors and queens, marauders and mysticism, fortitude and forbidden love.
Meanwhile, King Fogosombre conducts profane rituals driven by his lust for indomitability. Toiling with malign magic that may yield dire consequences for all the known world, he seeks a pact with the shadows, a plan to cement his reign indefinitely: a design of darkness.