In the tradition of Justin Cronin, prize-winning author Michael Sala has created a breathtaking new fantasy series with an absorbing cast of flawed heroes and heroines. With its propulsive narrative, and its epic world-building, THE WAR OF THE SHROUD is set to become a publishing sensation.
SHADOW OF THE LOOM
(The War of the Shroud, Book One)
by Michael Sala
Text Publishing, June 2026
The world is fractured. Every night, the Shroud rises from the cracks, a dread mist that devours souls…Or transforms them.
Isa was always viewed with suspicion in her village. Partly because her mother was a foreigner, partly because Isa fell into the Shroud as a child and survived. This animosity has smouldered away, fanned by the village Seer. And when Isa’s father can no longer protect her, she has only the forest for refuge.
Dio’s family is poor, but she knows that when the time comes she will be chosen, elevated to the Weaver caste and trained for mighty deeds. But when her father sells her to a city crime lord to pay his gambling debts, Dio will have only two options: kill or die.
Kyron is destined for greatness. As a Second of the Hyrarchs, he will eventually take his place among the half-dozen most powerful people in the world. Until an act of shocking violence destroys his innate powers, and his life is upended. Now he has to decide who he will betray in order to survive.
These three people, living in different places and times, have never met. But a time of crisis is coming for their world. Between them, they hold its future in their hands.
“The story is a huge feat of imagination, the narrative drags you in powerfully, and the characters are subtly drawn but heroic. It hits all the right notes and just the right amount of new ones – everyone here who’s read any fantasy thinks it is up there with best in class.” (Mandy Brett, senior editor)
Michael Sala is a prize-winning Australian author, whose earlier works have been praised by many, including Raimond Gaita and Hannah Kent. He was born in the Netherlands in 1975 to a Greek father and a Dutch mother, and first came to Australia in the 1980s. His critically acclaimed debut, The Last Thread, won the 2013 NSW Premier’s Award for New Writing and was the regional winner (Pacific) of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.
In the farm fields surrounding Sault Ste. Marie, a border town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, time seems to stand still. Summer, the sun scalds the local boys’ necks as they bale hay for cash. Winter, the girls bundle up against the cold and jostle through the high school halls like trailered sheep.