Paranormal Road Trip: Destination Maradaine with Marshall Ryan Maresca

Come on boys and ghouls!  It's time to hop on Route 666 for a spooktacular Paranormal Road Trip.

This week's stop is Maradaine and our special guide is Marshall Ryan Maresca the author of the Maradaine urban fantasy series, including his new release A MURDER OF MAGES.

Marshall's Top 5 Spooky Places in Maradaine

Maradaine is a grand and lush city, filled with commerce, magic, intrigue, politics and mystery.  And like any city with that much scope, there are places that are steeped with fear and dark history that some people would just as soon forget.

1.  Oscana Park - Once a vibrant center of natural beauty in the middle of the Dentonhill neighborhood, Oscana Park has been all but abandoned to the effitte dealers, ruffians, derelicts and vagrants.  Now overgrown with half-dead trees, not even the constabulary go in there if they can help it.  Anyone who does venture in is likely to get a knife in their belly.

2.  Quarrygate Prison/Quarry Landfill - At the southwest edge of the city, the source of the white stone bricks that many Maradaine buildings were built with is now the home to everything undesirable.  The prison looms over the deep pits of decades worth of refuse.  Some say the prison is far more humane than public executions, but the scent alone in the part of the city could be considered torture.

3.  Downing & Jewel - Three years ago, several Mage Circles fought each other in the streets of Inemar, and the worst of these Mage Rows was at the corner of Downing and Jewel, in front of the Chapterhouse for the Circle of Light and Stone.  Several innocent people were injured, even killed, in the crossfire.  Despite that, almost no mages were arrested.  And they wonder why normal folk don’t trust them….

4.  The City Tunnels - The city of Maradaine is ancient, standing for centuries before the first Druth king was crowned.  Sewers, catacombs, secret passages and hidden caverns where dug out, abandoned, rediscovered and forgotten more times than anyone could keep track of.  How many tunnels are beneath the city?  No one really knows.  Is anyone—or anything—down in there?  If so, what are they doing down there?

5.  Talon Circle - Talon Circle, on the north side of the city in the Welling neighborhood, is home to the Talon Club, a favored establishment for Maradaine’s wealthy elite and politically powerful.  But it is also the home to a stern reminder of darker times: the empty plinth in the center of the fountain in the middle of the plaza.  In the eleventh century, when King Maradaine X was overthrown by the figure simply called “The Black Mage”, the statue in the plaza was destroyed and the king’s body was placed on the plinth for all to see.  When the Black Mage was routed and the Maradaine line restored to the throne, the plinth was kept empty to honor the murdered king.

Thank you Marshall for giving us such a haunting tour of Maradaine!  

To learn more about Marshall Ryan Maresca and his books, please visit his website.  You can add the Maradaine series here on Goodreads.

What did you think of Marshall's picks for spooky places?

Last week on Paranormal Road Trip we visited London with Brooklyn Ann.  Next week we'll be traveling to Los Angeles, CA with Kate Danley.

Join us for another spine-tingling Paranormal Road Trip...
if you dare!