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Blood and Flowers by Penny Blubaugh

Today I’m excited to share an excerpt from Penny Blubaugh’s fantasy novel, Blood and Flowers. 

Three years ago, Persia ran away from her drug-addict parents and found a home with the Outlaws, an underground theater troupe. This motley band of mortals and fey,puppeteers and actors, becomes the loving family Persia never had, and soon Persia not only discovers a passion for theater but also falls in love with Nicholas, one of the other Outlaws. Life could not be more perfect.

Until an enemy with a grudge makes an unfair accusation against the group and forces them to flee the mortal world and hide in the neighboring realm of Faerie. But in Faerie, all is not flowers and rainbows—with blood thirsty trolls, a hostile monarchy, and a dangerous code of magic, the fey world is not quite the safe haven the Outlaws had hoped for. And they must decide what’s more important: protecting their right to perform or protecting themselves.

Download Blood and Flowers on Amazon.

Excerpt

“In case you don’t know, you use a thin paste of the flour water to stick the poster down.  Put them on boards, telephone poles, newspaper boxes – whatever.  The paste dries hard but clear, and it’s a bitch to get off.”

I slapped one of our flyers on the wood covering the broken window of Clem’s Furniture Store (furniture long, long gone) and demoed to Lucia.  Then I handed her the paste tub.  “Your turn.”

Lucia worked carefully, setting her flyer next to mine.  The double whammy.  The manicured nails on her scarred hands were perfect, cream with ebony tips.  Her hands were graceful and when they moved, her scars flared in the just turning on streetlights.  She finished and looked over at me.  “How’s that?”

I had to make myself stop watching her and look at the side-by-side flyers.  I don’t know what it is about Lucia.  She always makes me wish that we weren’t the same sex, or that I was attracted to women.

Our flyers said:

Outlaw Puppet Troupe

presents

The Bastard and the Beauty

A play of love, dislike, and anti-corruption

Place: You’ll know it when you find it

Date: Now and them

Time: Eight o’clock, usually.  At night.  But things can always change.

Read the rest of Blood and Flowers on Amazon.

Find more from Penny on her website.

The YA Fantasy Book Club Guide

Would you like book recommendations for you book club, with hundreds of questions about bestselling young adult series?

Download The YA Fantasy Book Club Guide today for $0.99!

• Get book recommendations
• Connect with friends
• Fall in love with a new book boyfriend!
• Read the young adult books your favorite movies are based on
• Vote for which young adult book you’d like to be made into a movie
• Start discussions about things that really matter to you
• Share favorite quotes and passages
• Laugh until your sides hurt

This will help you if…

• You’re in a book club at your school, university, or online… and you’d really like something else to discuss besides whether you “liked” the book or not. You’ll find every book has 10 thought-provoking discussion questions aimed at young adults.
• You love Young Adult books… even though you’re not a teen. You might even be (gasp) a mom. So what? True love is forever young! In addition to the 10 basic questions, there are 5 more sophisticated “adult” questions that dig deeper.
• You write reviews on a book blog or make video reviews of books, and you’d love to have an easy template to get you started to really make your reviews stand out.
• You’re a student in need of a study guide to help you come up with meaty book report topics.
• You’re a parent or teacher who wants to read and discuss the books that are at the top of the Young Adult charts. The questions here are probing yet non-judgmental.

Click here to get The YA Fantasy Book Club Guide for your Kindle!

Bestselling Young Adult Fantasy Books Recommended:

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
MockingJay – Suzanne Collins
Divergent – Veronica Roth
Insurgent – Veronica Roth
Incarnate – Jodi Meadows
For Darkness Shows the Stars – Diana Peterfreund
Legend – Marie Lu
Prodigy – Marie Lu
Graceling – Kristin Cashore
Fire – Kristin Cashore
Initiate – Tara Maya
Taboo – Tara Maya
Sacrifice – by Tara Maya
Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas
Falling Kingdoms – Morgan Rhodes
Poison Study – Maria V. Snyder
Magic Study – Maria V. Snyder
Fire Study – Maria V. Snyder
Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
Team Human – Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan
City of Bones – Cassandra Clare
City of Ashes – Cassandra Clare
City of Glass – Cassandra Clare
City of Fallen Angels – Cassandra Clare
The Iron King – Julie Kagawa
The Iron Daughter – Julie Kagawa
The Iron Queen – Julie Kagawa
The Iron Knight – Julie Kagawa
Beautiful Creatures – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Beautiful Darkness – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Beautiful Chaos – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Beautiful Redemption – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Pivot Point – Kasie West
15 Minutes – Jill Cooper
Mind Games – Kierstan White
My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century – Rachel Harris
Waterfall – Lisa Bergen
The Emperor’s Edge – Lindsay Buroker
Dark Currents – Lindsay Buroker
Deadly Games – Lindsay Buroker
Clockwork Angel – Cassandra Clare
Clockwork Prince – Cassandra Clare
Clockwork Princess – Cassandra Clare
The Girl in the Steel Corset – Kady Cross
Lady of Devices – Shelley Adina
Soulless – Gail Carriger

Download The YA Fantasy Book Club Guide for only $0.99!

Son of a Mermaid by Katie O’Sullivan

Check out this young adult fantasy novel from Katie O’Sullivan, Son of a Mermaid. The sequel is coming this May!

Shea MacNamara’s life just got complicated.

After a freak tornado devastates his Oklahoma farm, the fifteen-year-old orphan is whisked away to Cape Cod. Struggling to make sense of his new surroundings, he’s trying hard to deal with feelings of abandonment… and the emotions stirred by a girl he meets along the shore.

Kae belongs to an undersea world hidden from drylanders. The daughter of royal servants, she knows the planned marriage of her Princess to the foreign King should put an end to the war between the clans. But two things stand in the way of lasting peace: the ambitions of the foreign King’s regent, and rumors of the Princess’s bastard child.

Sparks fly when she meets Shea, but could the cute drylander really be the Son of a Mermaid?

Download Son of a Mermaid from Amazon.

Excerpt

The blue-green coolness swirled around him as his body tumbled down through the water, arms and legs flailing as he struggled to hold his breath. Millions of tiny bubbles of precious air traced the path of his descent, escaping from his clothing and through his nose.

Eyes wide even as the water rushed past, he watched a huge school of shimmering minnows part down the middle as they swam around him, surrounding him like a silvery box. Turning his face upward to the surface, he could see the blue sky receding further and further as he sank deeper into the water’s depths.

His throat and lungs burned from the effort of holding his breath. Darkness pressed hard against his eyes, and swirls of strange colors danced in front of him as his whole body strained against the lack of oxygen.

I need to breathe, he thought wildly, his whole body feeling like it was on fire. I can’t hold out much longer. His feet finally hit the mucky bottom with a thud, coming to a stop as the mud swirled around his legs.

There, hovering before him in the water, swam a beautiful woman with flowing golden hair…and a green fish tail that sparkled with golden flecks among the scales.

A mermaid.

Her big green eyes looked so familiar, like the ones he saw in the mirror every morning. She smiled at him, reaching out to take his hand. His head pounded as searing pain ripped through his throat, as if his entire body would tear apart any second from the effort of holding his breath.

The mermaid squeezed his hand and nodded. The pain receded as Shea stared into her eyes, lost in their green depths. As she nodded to him again, he opened his mouth to exhale the stale air that pounded like a jackhammer in his lungs. Large bubbles rushed to the surface as he struggled to breathe, but there was no air to be had. Only salty ocean water rushing in to fill his mouth, his lungs, his body…

Shea woke with a start, clawing at the sheets and disoriented for a full minute before remembering where he was. At the Hansen’s house. Because his own home – the farm where he’d lived and worked all his life – was gone, swept away and crushed by the freak tornado.

 

Download Son of a Mermaid from Amazon to find out what happens next.

Find more from Katie on her blog or her website, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

Interview with Fantasy Romance Author L. Blankenship

As part of L. Blankeship’s blog tour for the Disciple Half-Omnibus I’m delighted to feature an interview with her!

1. What is your favorite place to write?

I write best at home, at my desk, surrounded by my sound system, with an adult beverage at hand. Oh, and my shoes off. Not sure why, but my shoes need to be off.

Music is a must when I’m writing. I organize my iTunes library into playlists with particular flavors — rough, fast stuff for action scenes, quiet background music for when I need to hear my characters’ voices clearly. Every writing project gets its own customized playlist too.

2. Tell us a little about your writing process.

I’m a plotter, not a pantser, so I plan out my nightly writing shift extensively. Every story has its master outline, and each scene within the story has its own sketch before I sit down to write. Since I have a daily Butt-In-Chair habit, I also have a daily habit of preparing to write before that. Going into my writing shift cold is difficult for me.

I love world-building and developing characters, so I generate copious notes on background details. I love research too, needless to say, and I consume a lot of non-fiction.

But I try to leave room for spontaneity in all of this. When the characters disagree with me or make suggestions, I listen. They’re usually right, I’ve found!

3. If you could be any fictional character, who would you be?

Because of my voyeuristic side, I think I’d be Mr. Universe from Serenity. Seeing all, knowing all, having all the stories at my fingertips…

Yes, I’m a Joss Whedon fan. But it’s dangerous to be a character in one of his stories!

4. What is the best writing advice you’ve been given?

The best advice I’ve gotten wasn’t exactly writing advice. It was said to me by a painter, actually.

“The universe will give you what you need for your art.”

This is true, IMO. Ideas cross my path all the time. I just need to be open-minded and look at them in the context of how they can help me with a WIP or a story that I’m developing. Not every idea will work, of course, but the mental goose it gives me can get me looking at a story problem from a different perspective and from there I can take the plot in an interesting direction.

It’s good practice at thinking outside the box, in other words — and no artist should be thinking inside the box.

Thanks for hosting my blog tour, Tara!

 

The Disciple Half-Omnibus collects the first three parts of Disciple, a gritty fantasy romance series.

War is coming. Kate Carpenter is only a peasant girl, but she’s determined to help defend the kingdom and its bound saints against the invading empire. Her healing magic earned her a coveted apprenticeship with the master healer; now she must prove herself ready to stand in the front lines and save lives.

She’s not ready for the attentions of a ne’er-do-well knight and the kingdom’s only prince, though. This is no time to be distracted by romance — the empire’s monstrous army will tear through anyone standing between them and the kingdom’s magical founts. All disciples must put aside their tangled feelings and stand in the homeland’s defense.

Available at all major retailers

Samples at my book blog: Part I • Part II • Part III

Disciple, Part IV arrives in March!

Get a reminder by joining L’s mailing list!

Or try out PART I for free! 

FREE at Smashwords • AllRomance
and sometimes at Amazon — working on that…

 

The Unseen by J.L. Bryan

If you like a darker fantasy novel, check out J.L. Bryan’s The Unseen.

Cassidy is a young tattoo artist living in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. She’s always suffered terrible nightmares, and sometimes the hideous creatures seem to follow her out of her dreams and into her waking life, though she’s the only one who can see them. Drugs and alcohol can blot them out, but never entirely chase them away.

When a demonic cult begins to take control of the people in her life, including her younger brother, Cassidy discovers that the unseen world of monsters is very real. She can no longer avoid it. To protect those she loves, she must accept her own hidden supernatural talents and face the forces of evil before the sinister cult achieves its twisted goals and casts the world into darkness.

You can download The Unseen on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Sony, Kobo and Smashwords.

 

Excerpt

 

“Come on, Tami.  It’ll be fun.  Please?” Cassidy resorted to a begging tone, locking eyes with Tamila.  What she wanted to say was: I am desperately trying to make you part of the group here, so please stop acting like such a tromboner tonight. “As a favor to me?”

“It does work better with four people,” Barb added.

Tamila sighed, looked at the board, and reluctantly left her chair to sit next to Cassidy, while offering a shaky, frightened smile to no one in particular.

“Okay.  Let’s get it over with,” Tamila whispered.  She placed her trembling fingers on the base of the upside-down wine glass. “We should say a prayer first.”

Barb and Reese found this hilarious, and Tamila frowned at their peals of drunken laughter.

“Let’s go,” Barb said.  She closed her eyes. “Are there any spirits—”

“Come talk to us, spirits!” Reese interrupted, closing her eyes and also swaying from side to side.  In her best drama-club voice, she projected, “Speak to us, give us messages from the world of the dead…”

The glass trembled under their fingers, and Cassidy gasped.  Everybody leaned in for a closer look, but the glass became still again.

“You should say only good spirits,” Tamila whispered. “Or we could end up talking to demons, or evil ghosts, or dead murderers…”

“Calling all demons, evil ghosts, and dead murderers!” Reese cried out in a slurred voice, then doubled forward, laughing.

“Be serious, Reese,” Barb said.  In a louder, more formal voice, she asked, “Are there any messages from the Other Side?  Like from our spirit guides or totem animals?”

“Totem animals,” Reese snickered.

“We all have one.  Mine’s a frog,” Barb told her, and Reese laughed and shook her head, tossing her blond hair.

“You look like a frog!” Reese said.

“Sh!  It’s moving,” Cassidy told them.

The wine glass shuddered again, and this time it began to slide over the poster board, the lip scraping and smearing a few of the still-wet letters, gathering glowing paint around its rim.

The glass moved across the alphabet to the word YES in the upper left corner of the poster, scraping up glue and glitter from a sparkly red pentagram along the way.

“Who’s doing that?  Are you doing that?” Reese asked Tamila, who shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on the board.

“Hello?  Are you a spirit?” Barb asked.

The glass slid half an inch, then right back into place.  YES again.

“Who are you?” Barb asked. “I mean, to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?”

The wineglass lay still for a moment, then vibrated and hummed as if someone had plinked it with a fingernail.  The glass slid over the alphabet.

Cassidy felt her heart racing.  She hadn’t expected it to work at all, and it was starting to freak her out.  She wished they hadn’t turned off the lights.

The wine glass smeared its way across the board, its entire rim glowing green now.  It stopped at the letter N, and didn’t move again until Barb said the letter aloud.  It stopped again on the I.

“N…I…” Barb said.

“Nipple?” Reese suggested.

The glass continued on to the B, then H…A…and then it stopped on Z.

“N-I-B-H-A-Z,” Barb said.

“It’s just nonsense,” Cassidy said.

The wineglass jerked under their fingers, then flew to the word NO, dragging their fingers with it.

“Who’s doing that?” Reese asked. “Is it you, Cassidy?  Barb?  It’s you, isn’t it, Barb?  You big Goth girl.”

“Sh,” Barb said. “Nib…haz?  Is that right?”

The wineglass zipped over to YES.

“What does that mean?” Cassidy asked.

The wineglass spelled out N…A…M…E.

“Your name is Nibhaz?”

YES.

“Sounds like a demon’s name to me,” Tamila said in a soft voice.

“Pfft, shut up,” Reese told her. “Like you would know.”

“Do you have a message for someone here, Nibhaz?” Barb asked.

YES.

“For who?” Barb asked.

C…A…S…S…

Cassidy felt her blood turn cold.

“Oh, shit, for Cassidy?” Reese asked.

YES.

“Nibhaz, what is your message for Cassidy?” Barb asked.

The four girls watched as the glass crept back and forth along the top row of text.  D…I…E…

“Die?  It’s telling her to die?” Tamila gasped.

“Sh, it’s not done yet,” Barb told her.

“Yeah, it’s not done yet,” Reese echoed, her eyes fixated on the glass.

Cassidy shivered, trying to think of any non-scary word that started with “die.”

“Diesel?” Cassidy asked in a shaky voice.  She expected someone to laugh at her, but nobody did.

The glass moved back to the letter D.

“Died,” Barb said. “He’s saying he died, I think.  He’s a ghost.”

The glass whipped over to the word NO, then returned to the letter D.

D…I…E…

D…I…E…

D…I…E…

 

To read the rest of the story, download The Unseen from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Sony, Kobo and Smashwords.

To find more from J.L. Bryan, visit his website, Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

Tara’s February Update

Update on Mask

I have good news and bad news.

Awhile ago, I finished the draft of Mask, Book 7 in The Unfinished Song series. That’s the good news….

The bad news is that I loathed it.

Now, most writers hate the book they are working on by the time they finish it. This is a perfectly natural stage of writing, so I set it aside, to get some distance from it. This week, I re-read it, hoping that when I came to it with fresh eyes, I’d realize it was not so bad.

No such luck.

The draft has serious flaws, my friend. It’s not so much that what it includes is bad, as that it doesn’t include enough FANTASTIC. As you know, I never want to publish a book that is merely, “meh.” Okay, I realize tastes differ, and even if you love all the books in the series so far, you have your favorites, and that’s fine. But for me, as the author, I must love my book and genuinely believe it is absolutely awesome before I will put it out there. My rule is this: No book can be the Perfect and Best Book Ever, compared to all other possible books in the universe… having that kind of standard means a book will never be finished, never mind published.

All I ask is that each book be the best that book can be. Be the best version of itself. Fulfill the promise of its reason for existing.

And I’m sorry, but Mask isn’t there yet. IT CAN BE BETTER.

There were a lot of fun scenes that were meant to go into Mask, and somehow, they didn’t get included. Instead, some merely “blah” scenes were there, hogging all the wordcount. Not acceptable! Those boring scenes need to step aside, so the sizzling scenes can step into the spotlight where they belong. Sure, I could let you read Mask now, but would you really want to slog through a bunch of yawnage? Nah. You deserve better than that. Dindi and Kavio deserve better than that too.

I am working on revisions now. So if you are wondering, “When is Book 7 going to be published?” the answer is still, “As soon as possible!”

Update on the rest of The Unfinished Song series

While I was letting the draft of Mask cool off so I could re-evaluate it, I did move forward on three other projects. Actually, one of those projects was just an extension of my work on Mask, i.e. planning and doing detailed outlining on Mirror and Maze, which will be books 8 and 9, and are part of the same trilogy as Mask. Just as there are flaws in Mask, there are flaws in the outlines for these books. I hope that when I fix Mask, I can fix those flaws as well.

By the way, the detailed outline for the final trilogy is also complete, everything except the actual blow by blow accounts of the final battle in Book 12. (I need to consult my military adviser to block those out on the map before I know exactly what will go into that). And, hot damn, I CANNOT WAIT to write the final trilogy! (Every time you get mad at me for making you wait on the next book, just realize that I feel the same way! I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t read the book until I write it either!)

The final trilogy is going to take the series to a darker place than any of the previous books, so I hope you’re okay with that, but there’s a rainbow at the end of the night…. I can’t tell you any more than that without spoilers, but if you could see me now, I’m jumping up and down with excitement.

Update on Other Projects

The second project is my upcoming Urban Fantasy series, The Daughters of Little Red Riding Hood. I am only on the world-building stage of that series. I also worked a bit on beat sheets, but have not yet completed full outlines. I also wrote a few seed scenes, though they probably won’t appear in any of the published books, just to get a feel for the voice of the main character. It’s going to be fun. First person, cynical and sarcastic, saucy and sexy… quite a different main character than Dindi, I think, but I hope you’ll like her too.

The third project I worked on was a Paranormal Romance series that I’ll be working on with a co-author (I will reveal who later on), probably to be called: Tarot Temptations. So far, it’s going really well, although it’s early stages yet. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do a series based on Tarot Cards and this is my chance. There are potentially 78 novels we could write! It’s intimidating, but the way we’re going to tackle it is to divide the deck (grin) and create individual series within our larger “Tarot world.” So the first series will be a modest quartet, based upon the Royal House of Cups.

Princess of Cups

Prince of Cups

Queen of Cups

King of Cups

Each of those books will be related to one another, but completely stand-alone, with their own Heroine and Hero and HEA. Yes, this will be a bit departure for me, with my love of Cliff-hanger endings. None of that here, Tara! Behave yourself! Heh.

All of this is still In The Works, so series names and book title might change, everything might change… but that’s where things are headed for now.

Reading

To get in shape for my new series and also to help me spice up the romance in Mask-Mirror-Maze, I’ve been reading great examples of the Paranormal Romance genre. I read about 20 novels a month, and this month, it’s been almost all Paranormal Romance or Urban Fantasy. I only started two new epic fantasies, Garden of Stones last month and The Iron Elves this month. (Both great as well!) Last year, I read a ton of Young Adult, including a lot of the books featured on this blog, but so far 2014 has been all adult fantasy. I also haven’t read much non-fiction lately. Usually, I read non-fiction to research new books, and I do have a few such books on my To Be Read list, but I haven’t gotten around to them yet. Basically, I have a budget for books and I ran out of money! Not to mention, it DOES take me longer to read nonfiction than fiction, and, as you may have noticed, I’ve been pretty busy. So many books, so little time! But there’s always next month….  🙂

Some of these books might make you scratch your head. What?! You’ve never read that before, Tara?!  Nope, every one of these is a First Time Read for me, even those I should have read a long time ago. Unless otherwise noted, I read kindle version on my beloved Paperwhite. Here’s my January reading list:

Urban Fantasy

1. Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander
2. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
3. Guilty Pleasures by Laurel Hamilton
4. Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison
5. The Iron Hunt by Marjorie M. Liu (paperback)
6. Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
7. Priceless by Shannon Mayer
8. Beahrly Breathing by Elizabeth A. Reeves
9. Dead Spots by Melissa F. Olson
10. Trail of Dead by Melissa F. Olson
11. What’s a Ghoul to Do by Victoria Laurie
12. Realm Walker by Kathleen Collins
13. Crimes Against Magic by Steve McHugh

Paranormal Romance

1. Prophecy: Child of Light by Felicity Heaton
2. Night Pleasures by Sherrilyn Kenyon
3. Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison
4. Knight After Night by Jackie Ivie
5. Dark Wolf Rising by Rhyannon Byrd
6. Once Upon a Tiger by Kat Simons
7. Wolf Protector by Milly Taiden
8. Deal With A Demon by Celeste Easton
9. The Scribe by Elizabeth Hunter

Epic Fantasy

1. Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes

Ebooks: 22

Print: 1

Total

23 books

 

 

 

Mother’s Curse by Thaddeus Nowak

Discover Thaddeus Nowak’s fantasy series, Heirs of Cothel. The first two in the series, Mother’s Curse and Daughter’s Justice, are out now, with the third novel, Daughter’s Revenge, coming soon.

The Heirs of Cothel series is about Stephenie, a young woman, whose father and brother are fighting in a war two countries away.  Stuck at home in the castle with her mother, the Queen, Stephenie realizes her mother is plotting something and must to try to escape if she is to save her father and brother.

Born a witch, Stephenie’s powers are believed to be a curse against her mother for sins that were committed against the gods.  It is a curse that would fall upon her mother if Stephenie were to die.

Always fearful of discovery and execution by fire, Stephenie has concealed her powers her whole life.  However, in order to disrupt her mother’s plans and save her father and brother, she may be forced to learn what she truly is and make use of the powers everyone believes comes from the Demon god, Elrin.

With the help of some soldiers and an unlikely friend, Stephenie sets out on a personal quest that even if successful, could lead to her destruction.

Daughter’s Justice, the second book in the series, resumes the story and deals with the aftermath that is left in the wake of her mother’s plots.  With the revelation to the world that she is a witch, she has to find a way to survive, keep her family’s control of the throne, and avoid tearing apart the country in a civil war.

Download Mother’s Curse from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iTunes. Download Daughter’s Justice from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.The much anticipated Daughter’s Revenge is scheduled to be released before the end of March 2014.

 

Excerpt from Mother’s Curse

It was dark and Stephenie ached all over. Her arms burned with what felt like hundreds of little cuts and scrapes. Her knees and ankles were throbbing as much as her head. She tried to look around, but there was absolutely no light. She smelled a pungent combination of urine, blood, and oil.

Below her was something cold and somewhat squishy. Slowly she tried to sit up and had to toss off several pieces of wood. As memories of what happened returned, she realized she was laying on top of a dead soldier. Scrambling away from the body, she stumbled over the debris of the walkway that had given out beneath their weight.

“Hello,” she called out and heard her trembling voice echo back to her. Fear of being caught was pushed away by the fear of being trapped alone in the dark forever. “Hello!” she called again much louder.

After several moments, she neither heard, saw, or sensed anything around her. Shivering from fear as much as the chill that had settled into her body, she searched with her hands in all directions to see what was around her. She felt a wall to one side, but nothing on the other sides.

“Damn it. I need light.”

She sighed. Feeling disoriented, she crouched down, uncertain if perhaps she was on a ledge, and taking a step in any direction would lead to her tumbling away into more darkness. After a few moments to build her confidence, she felt further around her immediate area.

Among the remains of the rotten walkway, she felt a sticky substance. Bringing her fingers to her nose, she identified it as lamp oil. “So, no light. Thanks for nothing Elrin.”

She knew the dead soldier was close by. Since she wasn’t wet with urine, it was likely that the soldier had soiled himself when he died. “Unless I happened to land in a waste pit,” she added ruefully.

Carefully, she searched around, hoping to find the dagger she had lost in the fall. She found the broken remains of the lamp, but not the weapon. She also realized the floor was mostly level with mortar joints. “So I won’t be falling off a cliff? Unless this is just the ledge they use to push people to their deaths.” Slowly she expanded her search, but did not find the dagger.

Eventually, apprehension of touching the dead man lost out to the apprehension of being alone in the dark with no weapons. After a brief moment, when she realized she had become disoriented in her prior searching, she found the body of the soldier. She found another dagger and removed it. His sword had become bent when he landed on it and she could not draw it from the scabbard. “Elrin, you really want to play with me before I die.”

 

To read the rest of Mother’s Curse, download it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

To find more from Thaddeus, visit his website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Google+.

Everville: The Rise of Mallory by Roy Huff

Check out Roy Huff’s latest release, Book 3 of his Everville series, The Rise of Mallory. 

As the epic journey continues, a victorious Owen Sage stands undefeated against his enemies. His last battle in Everville gave rise to a new insidious evil, Mallory; whose determination to defeat him opens an unexplored Pandora’s box. Owen’s search for truth will unveil the mystery and surprising insights surrounding himself and his friends at Easton Falls University. New creatures will be uncovered and the true value of friendship will be tested, as Owen embarks on yet another battle in Everville.

Download Everville: The Rise of Mallory on Amazon.

Excerpt

Amelia sat down next to Owen and started watching the movie with him, but not before she purposely messed up his light brown hair with her hand after sitting down.

“Hey! Quit that,” Owen said with an irritated expression on his face.

Owen then reached over and did the same thing to her. She chuckled, turning her attention to the television screen.

‘You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’

Owen lost himself in the screen, as he often did when watching something he was interested in. He imagined himself as Ebenezer Scrooge looking upon Marley’s ghostly face. Marley’s face morphed into the image of Owen’s father, the same image
that was the face of The Second Pillar.

Owen shook it off and got up to go grab some leftover turkey from the refrigerator. He reached in and pulled out a leg and some moist dark meat with a bit of gravy and stuffing. He popped the plate of food into the microwave for a minute and then returned to the comfort of the couch.

 

Visit Amazon to download the rest of  Everville: The Rise of Mallory.

Find more from Roy on his website, Twitter and Facebook.

Times of Old by Jennifer K. Marsh

Today I’m excited to share Jennifer K. Marsh’s Times of Old, the first part of the Ilimoskus fantasy series.

“Times of old are leaving, my friends; know that soon it will be the end”

Living amongst the humans of Earth is a race of beings unbeknown to them; they are Ilimoskus, the elemental folk: beings of fire, earth, air and water. They are a most peaceful race who lead uneventful lives in harmony with nature, but one fateful autumn, the Flamikus (fire folk) feel the ground tremble beneath them in tension they have never before endured, and troubling concern starts to linger.

Throughout this ever-growing tension, Fii’dezrhu Reotum – a rebellious Flamikus – discovers a momentous secret he then acts upon by venturing to the forbidden human lands; while there, he inadvertently reveals the Ilimoskus’ existence to one young girl. Little does he know that this sets in motion the beginnings of an earthquake so great, it will result in gruelling searches, confounding ambiguities, painstaking truths and heart-wrenching decisions. In time, both humans and Ilimoskus will watch the world they once knew crumble around them.

You can download Times of Old from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iTunes.

Excerpt

Excitement roused within himself and he wanted to share his discovery with Nax. And he would have, had he not suddenly heard Gnotsu’s words echo inside his mind:

 

‘But if your urge for misbehaviour is too strong and you cannot resist it, Fii’dezrhu, I strongly suggest that you leave Nax’pala none the wiser to your plans. If anyone should be avoiding trouble right now, it is he.’

 

This sudden recollection of Gnotsu’s words crushed Fii’dezrhu’s spirits, for he shared everything with Nax, good and bad alike. But, despite this, he obeyed Gnotsu’s words. It hurt him to do so, for he was keeping a massive secret from Nax. A dangerous secret. A secret that could cause catastrophe for him if anyone else knew what he was doing, what he was planning. Perhaps, then, it was for the best, for enlightening Nax on such a monumental discovery would surely make him want to participate, and he could not possibly in his current confused and fragile state. Fii’dezrhu knew this.

“…You don’t know that,” said Fii’dezrhu, subdued, after a long pause for thought.

Nax did not answer, just simply looked at Fii’dezrhu. This time it was he who was examining the other’s expression.

“You know,” Fii’dezrhu said, “if Kaidoyrr Allo does grant you permission, which he will, you are unable to refuse if it’s in your bloodline.”

“I know…” Nax mumbled quietly. “I can’t help but feel so guilty and awful for feeling the way I do about being Dook. You have no idea what it’s like, Rhu. There’s all this pressure on you before you even understand why, everyone looks and treats you differently because ‘you’re the Dook’s son’. Everyone knowing who you are, everyone expecting you to be someone you can’t be!” He covered his face with his hands, hiding from the world.

Fii’dezrhu wore sad eyes while looking at his friend; much distress radiated from him. Nax was right, he did not understand, but then Nax did not understand what it was like to be him, either. “You’d be surprised how many long for your life,” he said gently.

Nax separated his fingers so that only his eyes could be seen for a time, but he then moved both his hands away from his face completely. He wore a soft, yet remorseful expression, taking his time before speaking. “We come from different worlds, you and I, yet we aren’t really all that different.” When Fii’dezrhu met his eyes, he smiled kindly.

Fii’dezrhu smirked to himself. “I’m the leogesso, triuvo’so scum of the holid while you’re the son of a Dook. Different worlds indeed.”

“Your destiny was cruel by taking away your parents.”

“Just as yours is cruel by trapping you somewhere you don’t want to be.”

 

To read the rest of the story, download Times of Old from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iTunes.

You can find more from Jennifer on her website, Twitter and Facebook.

Shadow Blues by Tricia Zoeller

Today I’m excited to share an excerpt from Shadow Blues, the first novelette in The Darkling Chronicles from Tricia Zoeller.

At the age of four, Patrick Benjamin Solomon becomes Anka Rehmling’s human charge. By eight, he can SEE her. At thirteen, he breaks her heart, and by eighteen, she finds herself fighting for his life.

As a darkling shadowcaster, Anka casts shadows in the human world, harnessing some of the earth’s UV light to bring back to Montenai—a world full of darklings, nymphs, satyrs, phantoms, and dragon lords. Her job is crucial to preserving the vitality and balance in her town of Shadowland. However, Anka has trouble following the strict rules set by the Shadowland Council, a ruling body comprised of three dragon lords.

The lords’ decree states all shadowcasters will abide by the rules or face the penalty of harsh punishment, banishment, or death. Torn between her world and his, Anka must choose to defy the Council or turn her back on love.

Download Shadow Blues on Amazon.

Excerpt

Nana stopped the cart by the side of the Wishing Tree. A nonshadowcaster stood as a door attendant in front of the double doors. He wore a uniform of dark pants, boots, and a red jacket with the dragon lords’ symbol on the pocket.

The same symbol hung above the two doors. The gold shield showed a dragon looking down at his shadow. Pops said it reminded us that we were a team, dragon lords and shadowcasters. We’d been a team for a hundred years.

The attendant opened the doors to the Wishing Tree, and Bianca gasped as a black cloud of bats launched into the air from the upper branches, making a chorus of chirpy squeaks. She leaned against the darkling, as if she wanted him to save her. He held Bianca’s shoulder to steady her.

His face changed then. “This one is strong.”

Nana nodded to him before shooing us through the doorway.

Bianca slipped her sweaty hand into mine and squeezed. Nana walked behind us, a hand at each of our backs.

My shoes pinched my toes. A smell I remembered from when I was four hit me suddenly. The dragon lords smelled like…cedar, pine, cinnamon, burnt apple cider, and smoke.

It was hard to see, at first. Fancy lights hung on the walls, but still it was so much darker than the bright, sunny day outside.

We heard deep voices coming closer. Then eyes glowed in the air, gold, blue, and green from the dark tunnel below. Nana clutched the back of our dresses. I didn’t dare tell her she’d pinched some of my skin.

Lord Akton appeared before us. “I told you. Not in the Rotunda. We’ll talk to them in the Council Room.”

Bianca and I stood with our heads tilted back and our mouths wide open. I felt like screaming.

“Coooool,” Bianca said. Then, “Yipe.” I was pretty sure Nana had pinched her.

One golden eye stared at us. Where there should have been another eye, Lord Akton instead had several wrinkled lines through darkling skin mixed with red scales.

My heart beat so fast, I thought I might just die.

“Hello, Rehmlings. Thank you for bringing them here, Violet.”

“Of course, Lord Akton.”

Inside the Council Room, they told us to sit at a large marble table. I remembered tracing the squiggles in the marble of the Rotunda floor when I was four. Now, I did not want to touch the marble. I wanted to disappear from the room, play invisible girl.

Nana sat next to the youngest dragon lord across from Bianca and me. We faced the doorway where Lord Akton stood on one side and Leasith on the other. Were they guarding the door?

Bianca kept staring at the red-scaled lord across the room. Nana kept whispering for her to stop. I couldn’t take my eyes off Lord Bulosk. His blue scales were the prettiest color I’d ever seen. I’d never seen that kind of blue in my life.

“Hello, little shadowcasters. I’m Bulosk. I’ll be your tour guide for today.”

Bianca giggled. Nana hushed her.

“What? He’s funny,” Bianca said.

Lord Akton growled. It vibrated my chair and tickled my whole body. Lord Bulosk rolled his green eyes up into his head, like, “don’t mind my grumpy brother.”

My breathing got faster, and, suddenly, I hiccupped loudly. Nana’s lips mashed together, and she gave me her mean look.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

The Lord opened a leather case and pulled out some paper. He set a piece in front of Nana, Bianca, and me. “You are all aware of shadowcaster rules. I’m placing them in front of you in a contractual form. This is standard procedure when a human discovers you as an Imaginary Friend. Please review.”

I followed along as he read aloud. I understood most of the words:

By Decree of the Shadowland Council: Lords Akton, Leasith, & Bulosk

Each shadowcaster under the dominion of the Council will abide by the following rules as they pertain to the human world or face the penalty of harsh punishment, banishment, or death.

Shadowcasting Rules

1. Always cast true to form.

2. Never talk to the human.

3. Never give the human your name.

4. Never touch the human other than to use him/her as a portal.

Exceptions and Addendums as it pertains to Imaginary Friendships

1. If a human child shall see you as an imaginary friend, you may play with him/her, but never converse. Please do not encourage the child. Touching is allowed as it pertains to playing games, but keep affection to a minimum.

2. Imaginary friendship shall be terminated by the age of thirteen. This is the maximum age and is extended as a courtesy to shadowcasters who may have charges who have special needs or are terminally ill. There are no exceptions to this age limit.

 

When he finished, he tapped a claw on the paper. He hadn’t had a claw out before. “Now, we just need your blood bond there on the “X” then my handsome brother will give you a short history lesson and you can be on your way.”

I watched Nana’s mouth fall into a frown, and her eyebrows drew together. She pushed back from the table and turned on the biggest lord. “Standard procedure, you say? I’ve never heard of this.”

Lord Akton left the wall. “I assure you, it is required of certain shadowcasters, if they’ve broken rules.”

“She is just a baby.”

“Well, if you don’t have them sign the decree, we can think of other ways for them to make amends for little Anka’s mistakes.”

Nana gasped. “Don’t work your hocus-pocus on me.” She spun around and sat back down at the table. She sat with her body so rigid, I thought she’d get a spasm. Her blond hair flowed in the air a bit. It only did that when she was angry.

“It will be okay.” Lord Bulosk smiled at Nana then us. He stood up and went to Bianca’s side. Suddenly, I saw a flash of all the claws on his right hand.

I screamed.

 

 

To read the rest of Shadow Blues, download it on Amazon.

Find more from Tricia on her blog, Twitter and Facebook.