Amazon & Kindle Exclusive

Revenge Runs Red.

Betrayal began it.  ◈  Vengeance will end it.

A broken soldier wants to disappear. A girl in his path gives him one last reason not to.

◈ Releases ◈
September 2026
Kindle eBook · Audiobook  ·  Paperback follows
Scroll — Enter the story

A kingdom built on lies. A man built from grief. A secret powerful men will kill to keep buried.

A fantasy world, told with the pace of a thriller.

Narrated · Free · Live Now

Hear The Exile
before the kingdom does.

Chapter One of Revenge Runs Red, read aloud by Michael Haj. Forty minutes. The full chapter, end to end — for anyone who wants to know in advance whether this is their kind of dark.

Chapter I · Read by Michael Haj ~35:05
The Exile — Chapter One.
0:00 / 35:05
Press play

If The Exile kept you in your seat, you'll want the email the day the rest of it lands.

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◈ A debt is coming due ◈
I / V
◈ The Fire
They took his name.

Darius was the greatest general in the south. One night burned his world to ash. Wife and child butchered. The royal family slaughtered. The kingdom he bled for branded him traitor and put a price on his head.

Hold to linger. The rest is the show.
  1. ◈ The Fire They took his name.

    Darius was the greatest general in the south. One night burned his world to ash. Wife and child butchered. The royal family slaughtered. The kingdom he bled for branded him traitor and put a price on his head.

  2. ◈ The Exile A blade for hire. A man already dead.

    Hunted across the kingdoms, he survives as a sword for whoever pays. Grief drowned in violence and shadow. The general is gone. What remains is a man waiting for the world to finish what it started.

  3. ◈ The Rumour A girl the kingdom buried.

    Then word reaches the gutter. A royal heir, long thought dead, is alive and running. She runs from men who have no name. Her blood is the proof of a throne. The price on her head.

  4. ◈ The Council A hand at the back of the throne.

    Behind the crown, something older moves. A hidden council of blood and whispers. Priests with holy symbols and innocent blood on their hands. Mercenaries who fight not for gold, but for ruin.

  5. ◈ The Choice Vengeance is easy. Hope is not.

    He never asked to come back. But the girl is in his path, and he cannot pretend not to see her. The choice is not between his vengeance and his peace. It is between vengeance and something far more dangerous.

Before vengeance, there is grief.

Read the moment
everything turns.

Veyland’s high lords had finally sniffed him out. The same bastards who had branded him traitor. The same bastards he held responsible for what happened to his wife and daughter, the fire, the screaming, the silence after. And now they wanted him to know they were coming, wanted him to run, or cower, or beg. Their mistake.

From the opening pages

Damien Waugh
Revenge
Runs
Red
A novel · Damien Waugh
  Cover reveal coming soon  
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15 June 2026 World Feudal Fantasy: Worlds Built on Broken Oaths Feudal fantasy isn't castles and banners. It's a world run on oaths, where loyalty is the only currency and the deepest cut comes from a sworn friend. 25 May 2026 Craft Fantasy Without a Mentor: Why I Cut the Wise Old Guide From Revenge Runs Red Fantasy without a mentor: why I cut the Gandalf/Hagrid wise-guide from Revenge Runs Red, what it cost the exposition, and what the reader got back. 19 May 2026 World What Is Revenge Runs Red? A Reader's Primer What is Revenge Runs Red? A spoiler-safe reader's primer to the grimdark debut: the story, the world of Aelysia, the comps, and when you can read it.
◈ Before you start ◈

Questions readers ask first.

Is Revenge Runs Red grimdark or dark fantasy?

Grimdark. Character-first, morally grey, and built on consequence rather than gore for its own sake. For the longer version, I wrote a piece on where the line between grimdark and dark fantasy actually falls.

What books is Revenge Runs Red like?

It's written for readers of Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and Glen Cook: morally grey leads, real cost, no tidy answers. If those shelves are yours, here are eleven books to read if you loved The First Law.

When does it release, and where can I read it?

September 2026, exclusively on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited at launch, with a paperback three months later. Join The Sworn and you'll get one email the day the presale link goes live.

Is there an audiobook or a sample I can try?

Chapter One, The Exile, is already live: narrated by Michael Haj, free, start to finish. Press play and you'll know inside forty minutes whether this is your kind of dark.

Who is Damien Waugh?

An Australian author writing grimdark out of a thin local shelf. The short version of who I am, and why I write this way, lives on the about page.