The Hidden Market Opens

Having vanquished demons and halted invasions of devious creatures from the Spirit Realms, Asako Sekken and Agasha no Isao Ryōtora are finally going to be married. But when a note from their old ally Sayashi arrives unexpectedly, the samurai find themselves dragged into another supernatural mystery.

Their investigation leads them to Crane lands and an ancient market ruled by a mysterious being. Now Sekken and Ryōtora must use all their wit and charm to save Sayashi from a hundred-year bargain before they find themselves embroiled in a conflict with a forgotten deity of unimaginable power.

Two samurai risk everything to rescue an old friend from the clutches of a shadowy trickster in The Market of 100 Fortunes, on sale now in the US wherever good books are sold, as well as digitally as a global ebook! This third book in Marie Brennan’s trilogy picks up where The Game of 100 Candles left off and concludes the story begun in The Night Parade of 100 Demons. You can read the first chapter of The Market of 100 Fortunes as a downloadable PDF here.

We caught up with author Marie Brennan to ask her about the development of The Market of 100 Fortunes, including its challenges and rewards.

With any series, you have to figure out how to keep things fresh, while also maintaining the elements readers enjoyed in earlier installments.

I set The Night Parade of 100 Demons in a rural village in Dragon lands, an environment Ryōtora finds comfortably familiar and Sekken finds unspeakably alien. For the sequel, The Game of 100 Candles, naturally I moved the action to Phoenix lands and winter court, where Sekken could enjoy being in his native element and Ryōtora would be utterly adrift. But for the third book? Where should they go?

The answer was to send them off into terrain foreign to them both: Crane lands, and a heavily mercantile city they each find disorienting in their own way. At this point in their story, they’ve admitted their feelings for each other, but they’re still trying to figure out the dynamics of what their future together will look like. It felt right to have them do that while in surroundings that don’t favor either one of them over the other, where all they can rely on is each other — and, just maybe, some of the questionable allies around them.

Oh yeah. I had a lot of fun writing the Scorpion they’re saddled with.

I hope the mystery they confront and the emotional journey they go on will satisfy my readers, while also showing them something new!

Visit the Aconyte Books product page for The Market of 100 Fortunes and order a copy today from your preferred retailer, or stop in to your favorite local bookshop! The audiobook edition is also available globally now. Fans in the UK can pre-order their copy in advance of the April 25 release date.