About The Prophet’s Brand (Elias Shaw Series Book 1):
Seven years ago, Elias Shaw should have died.The sacred brand seared into his chest was meant to kill him. Like it killed every other man who dared bear the mark. But Shaw survived. And the cross with its serpent still burns with the intensity of that first moment.Now he’s a bounty hunter in the lawless American Southwest. Running from a past he doesn’t understand. Hunting men for money instead of facing the truth about what he’s become.But the truth has a way of catching up.When Shaw takes a job tracking a mysterious outlaw through the desert territories, he discovers more than just another criminal. He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches back to his own branding. A secret society that believes he’s the key to an ancient prophecy.The only person who might have answers is Clara Vale.She’s intelligent. Deadly. And she’s been keeping secrets about that night seven years ago. Secrets that could destroy everything between them. Or save his soul.Because Shaw isn’t just a survivor.He’s the prophet they’ve been waiting for.And in the unforgiving Southwest, where water is scarce and justice is scarcer, some destinies can’t be outrun.
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Author Bio:
Michael James is not the author you’d expect to write a supernatural Western thriller.
He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, hated reading as a kid, and spent the better part of his childhood being bribed by his parents to finish a book. He went into sales, then finance, and figured that was that.
Then he saw The Da Vinci Code in theaters and walked out needing to know what happened next. He found the Dan Brown novels, read every one, and something shifted. The same thing happened years later with the Reacher series on Amazon — he started the Lee Child books and couldn’t stop. What he responded to in both was the same thing: tight chapters, relentless pacing, deep research worn lightly, and the pull of always needing to know what comes next. That’s the kind of writer he set out to become.
The Prophet’s Brand has been a year and a half in the making, built on serious research into the post-Civil War American Southwest — a place and era he finds endlessly compelling. Simple in some ways. Strange in others. Full of the kind of history that doesn’t make it into textbooks.
He is also developing a series of children’s novels inspired by his own kids — a project that started as a birthday gift for his son and grew into something bigger.
Michael James lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and three children. He is currently writing the second book in the Elias Shaw Series.