Tara Maya
Author Archives: Tara Maya
Shark River
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Dindi is kidnapped to be the bride of a shark... To escape she must untangle a terrible curse caused by a love and magic gone wrong.
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This stand-alone novella is set in Faearth, the world of The Unfinished Song. Available here ONLY.
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The Unfinished Song - This Young Adult Epic Fantasy series has sold over 70,000 copies and has 1,072 Five Star Ratings on Goodreads.
Tara Maya
September 10, 2013
- in Uncategorized by Tara Maya
10. The Accusation
The Unfinished Song: Initiate
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| “Single beam” by Paulo Cammeli |
“Kavio committed the most serious crime of which a Zavaedi dancer is capable. He concocted his own Pattern, a dance unknown to our ancestors. He cannot name the teacher that taught it to him, nor the society who held its secret. That is hexcraft.
“That in itself would be reason to discipline him. But on top of that, he used this Pattern for the vilest of purposes, to harm the community that bore him and to deprive his neighbors of their very livelihood.”
Kavio glanced involuntarily at Mother. He had never seen her so ashen. Though a part of him wanted to spit in Father’s face, the knowledge that he had disappointed Mother burned like chili pepper in his mouth. But no matter what happened, he’d be cursed before he’d show how he felt in front of this assemblage of vultures and jackals. Or in front of his father.
He lifted his chin and faced his accuser with his most insolent smile.
As he’d known it would, his smile infuriated Auntie Ugly. She jabbed a bony finger at him.
“Three days ago, Kavio, you went into a room here in the Laby- rinth and performed a hex that diverted a part of the river upstream from the Valley of the Aelfae. By doing so, you have lowered the water level in the fields, making it possible that not enough silt will be deposited by planting season.
“As witness, I call my own son, Zumo the Cloud Dancer.”
Kavio’s cousin, a young man of similar age, build, and height, stood. He removed his mask of blue shells. While Kavio seethed inside, Zumo repeated the lies that had led to this trial in the first place. Not that anything Zumo testified was false; his deception lay in what he didn’t say.
After Zumo, a second witness repeated the story of having found Kavio dancing alone in a kiva in the Labyrinth.
“Thank you both,” Auntie Ugly said smugly after the second wit- ness sat down again. “Kavio, do you deny these charges?”
“I don’t deny what I did,” he said. “I deny that I invented the Pattern, I deny that it was hexcraft, and I deny that it was intended to harm our people.”
When Auntie Ugly sneered at him, the anger that had been pum- meling his belly these last days bettered his sense, and he added sarcastically, “I do not deny that there are times I wish I had let you all drown.”
He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. The masked Tav- aedies and Zavaedies hissed and shouted.
“Zavaedi Kavio’s guilt is plain,” said Auntie Ugly. “I cast my stone with justice. I call for Kavio’s death!”
She glided to the pottery jar and pulled out a smooth, gray stone, then tossed it on the black mat.
Big surprise there, thought Kavio. You’ve always hated me, you old toad. I never even understood why.…
TO BE CONTINUED
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Author’s Comments
Paulo Cammeli contributed the art today. I really love his paintings. I should note, however, that there are actually no iron chains in Faearth. Their technology is neolithic. No books, no chain-mail, no swords, no saddles — although some of them do ride horses, it’s rare, and they use a hoop, not a bridle.
September 10, 2013
- in Uncategorized by Tara Maya
The Unicorn Girl by M.L. LeGette
A Fairy Tale, Coming of Age Fantasy
Leah Vindral is suffocating—trapped in her own skin.
In a land where magic is feared, magic saved her from death … but it came with a terrible price. Marked forever, she is shunned and isolated by those she loves most.
Brimming with bitter rage at those who abandoned her, Leah flees from her childhood home only to be swept into an impending war: Mora, a wicked witch, has been imprisoned for years, waiting like a spider in the folds of her web for the chance to regain the powers once stripped from her. It is there, while she waits, that she learns of a strange young girl … a girl who can speak to unicorns.
Now Leah must save the country that shuns her, for if Mora returns to power, all will be lost. But can Leah, who is so frightened and confused herself, find the strength to save them all?
Buy The Unicorn Girl on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Excerpt
Ten minutes later Ian opened the door to his room, on the second floor of a decrepit looking inn, and I sank onto a squeaky bed with a slight shiver.
“So,” Ian persisted. “Why were some bloody knights chasin’ you?”
I stared at my feet in response.
“Oh no,” said Ian, as he shut the door with a snap. “We’re not playin’ that game again.” He walked over to a chair, dragged it in front of me and turned it around backwards. He leaned on it for a minute and said abruptly, “I’ll make tea.”
I sat numbly on the bed and watched him boil water. My mind was horribly blank.
“There,” he pushed a mug of tea into my hands and sat down, wrapping his arms around the back of the chair and staring at me expectantly. “So?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I got time.”
I glared at him. I could lie, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had been running for so long, and suddenly, I couldn’t take another step. Before I had even tried to consider what might happen if I told him the truth, words spilled from my mouth.
He sat in silence, nodding occasionally as I told him everything. Flashes of the ball, Lavena, Father, King Rowan’s plan, the sickness, the recovery, the elves, the monsters with red eyes, and Mora all sped through my brain and out of my mouth. His eyes darkened at the mention of Mora and his mouth tightened, but he didn’t stop my narrative.
“And I just saw Sir William Shanklin tell King Rowan what he learned from Mora and now he’s looking for me. He’ll use me to find them, I’m sure of it—that is if Mora doesn’t get to me first. But I don’t know where the unicorns are and I’m tired of running!”
Ian rose from his chair and walked to a grimy window with his back to me.
“We’ll just have to find them then, won’t we,” he said finally.
“What?”
He turned to me, his face set.
“The unicorns. We’ve got to find them. You’re the only one who can talk to them, so you’re the only one who can warn them. We’ll have to leave now though. I’m sure King Rowan will have the whole city searched by mornin’.”
“Yes, but what’s with all this we business?”
“What? Didn’t you know? I’m coming with you.” Ian grabbed a sack, walked to the door, opened it and headed down the hall as I followed him.
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
I glared at him.
“My dear Leah, I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting my stubborn side,” he said with a smile as he started down the stairs.
“But—but what about your future and all that?” I asked desperately as I hurried to catch up with him.
“My mother gave me one piece of advice as I left our humble home,” Ian said conversationally, “She said, ‘Don’t you follow anything mysterious!’ And you, Leah, are the most mysterious thing I’ve ever met.”“But your mother told you not to!”
We were outside once again and mounting our horses.
“Yes, and you might also need to know that I always do the exact opposite of what my mother wants,” Ian said, and with that he started off at a gallop, with Iris and I following in his wake.
Find more from M.L. LeGette on her blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest.
September 9, 2013
- in Uncategorized by Tara Maya
TORCH (a Take It Off novel) by Cambria Hebert
If you can’t take the heat… stay away from the flame.
Katie Parks has been on her own since the age of fifteen. All she’s ever wanted is a place to call her own—a life that is wholly hers that no one can take away. She thought she finally had it, but with the strike of a single match, everything she worked so hard for is reduced to a pile of smoking ash. And she almost is too.
Now she’s being stalked by someone who’s decided it’s her time to die. The only thing standing in the path of her blazing death is sexy firefighter Holt Arkain.
Katie’s body might be safe with Holt… but her heart is another story.
As the danger heats up, sparks fly and the only thing Katie knows for sure is that her whole life is about to go up in flames.
***This is a new adult contemporary novel and contains sexual content and graphic language. It is not intended for young adult readers.***
Download Torch on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
September 9, 2013
- in Uncategorized by Tara Maya
9. The Casting of Stones
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| “Hunk” by Carnivora88 |
… secret societies. From the squeeze of costumed bodies, it looked as though every dancer in the Labyrinth was in attendance. All were masked. Many of the masks sprouted huge fans of woven cane, feather tufts, or carved wooden animal faces. Others sported horns, manes, or false beards. Still others displayed abstract shapes, ovals or diamonds, or a cascade of beaded fringes. It wasn’t easy for so many masked dancers to fit in the tiers. Feathered and beaded shoulder blankets, necklaces coiled as thick as snakes, and full corn- husk skirts took up space.
Only his mother, indifferent as ever to convention, wore no mask, just a simple white beaded dress. She sat stiffly on the lowest tier, face-to-face with Kavio. Even at her age, she was the most beautiful woman in the room. She was also the only one in the tiers who had no closely-pressed neighbors. No one quite dared sit next to her.
Opposite her, behind Kavio, rose an adobe platform taller than any of the tiered seats. He had to twist his head to look up the seven steps to the top of the platform to see the man who stood there in full regalia, holding a rain stick. Paint divided the man’s already severe features into an interlocked pattern of sharp edges and boxes. Colorful matching mazes were woven into his shoulder blanket and outlined in beads of obsidian and pearl. His massive headdress con- sisted of numerous coiled cords, horned and feathered and shelled. Beaded hoops rested around his neck, as did a gold coiled torque. The pin that held his shoulder blanket in place had also been beaten from gold, into the shape of a stylized wild horse.
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| “Chief” by Chris Rosewarne |
The man pounded his rain stick on the platform. He had a voice of gravel and stone.
“Let it be remembered on the Memory Stick, that in This Year, yet to be named, I, the War Chief of the Rainbow Labyrinth and head of the Society of Societies in the absence of a Vaedi, have called all of the secret dancing societies together to sit in judgment at the trial of Kavio . . .”
He paused to make the ponderous trip down the seven steps to the floor of the assembly room. Even so, because Kavio had been forced to his knees, the other man had to look down to glower at him.
“. . . Kavio, my own son.” Even though he’d expected it, his father’s contempt stung. “Who will cast the first stone?” asked Father.
The men and women in the tiers shuffled, whispered. Most of them removed their masks from their sweat-drenched heads, and a few went so far as to fan themselves.
A woman in amber necklaces removed an orange eagle-feathered mask before she rose to her feet. She was an elder from Father’s gen- eration, his brother’s wife and Father’s bitterest political rival. As a child, Kavio had nicknamed her “Auntie Ugly.”
“I will cast the first stone…
TO BE CONTINUED
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September 8, 2013
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8. This post is missing
September 7, 2013
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7. “You never have to go back”
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| “My Secret Garden” by AlleyCatz |
Dindi
…see her play with the fae.
The swarm of whirling faery dancers moved up the mountain, without ever missing a step. Dindi moved with them, keeping up easily with their improvised patterns of skips, turns, kicks and leaps. Soon they emerged onto a patch of flat heath with a view of the whole valley below. The sky seemed to pull back to give them more room.
She spread her arms and drew in a drought of the fresh air. Then she closed her eyes and envisioned again the shinning swirls of light patterns created by the Taevaedis on Barter Day. In her mind, she recreated the role of every single dancer. What steps had each player in the pattern made? One by one, she danced each person’s role as best she could remember it. First, she played the ‘human’ parts. Then, saving and savoring them for the end, she played the Aelfae parts.But when she came to the finale, when the last Aelfae in the dance was to fall and die, she decided to change the ending. Instead, she leaped up again, spread her imaginary wings behind her and vaulted across the field in a full twisting double back leap.
The fae laughed in glee. They much preferred her new dance to the dance of the Tavaedies. Satisfied now that she had run through all the steps of all the dancers in yesterday’s dance, Dindi finally abandoned herself to free-form dancing. That delighted the fae even more.
The low hum of faerie voices, the sparkle of pixie wings and her own pounding blood wrapped Dindi in a trance of pure feeling. Movement inside her itched to spill out.
A pixie curled a small hand around Dindi’s ear, whispering, “You never have to go back, Dindi. You could dance with us forever and ever…”
Their voices hummed hypnotically, enticing her forward step by step. The lullaby lure of the faery ring shimmered all around her, a mixture of light and song. The fae clasped hands together, closing the circle about her. A chain of pixies undulated in the air, the sprites linked up, and then, in the last gap in the circle, a heron-winged kinnara soared toward the dancers to close the circle.
“Come dance with us, Dindi. Come dance with us forever…”
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“Without you” by brandrificus
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“Nice try, but I’m not yours yet!” Regret tinged her amusement, but her resolve was firm, as it always was when the fae played this game with her. Dindi somersaulted through the air with an aerobic leap that catapulted her right out of the gap. She rolled away on the moss, laughing.
“You can’t catch me in a faery ring that easily,” she teased them. The fae responded in delight.
“Again, again!” they urged her.
“My family needs me. Oh, mercy!” She clapped her hands over her face. “Soaproot and blueberries! I haven’t had time…”
A pixie waved his little scarlet arms in an expansive gesture. “Fear not, friend Dindi! We have taken care of all that…
September 6, 2013
- in Uncategorized by Tara Maya
6. Faery Ring
The Unfinished Song: Initiate
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| “Fine tunes of magic” by Maria van Bruggen |
Dindi
… giggled. “She just can can’t express herself because she’s so overwhelmed with joy that with her chores out of the way she is now free to dance with us.”
Dindi frowned. “Are you sick, Dindi?” asked the orange. “We won’t do your chores for you anymore if you stop dancing with us,” blustered the yellow sprite.
“Soon, I might not be dancing with you anymore at all. If I fail the test to become a Tavaedi, I must stop dancing.”
The fae were stunned silent for a moment. Then they all began to shout at Dindi at once.
“Enough!” cried Dindi, making the Dispel hand-sign in earnest this time. The clouds of willawisps scattered, the pixies were flung away as if by gusts of heavy wind, and the sprites all went rolling like tumbling stones. Corn stalks were flattened around Dindi in a perfect circle three yards out.
From the perimeter of the circle of dispellation, the fae peered at her with hurt expressions.
“I’m sorry,” Dindi said. “You know I don’t want to abandon you.”
The fae crept back towards her until at last they huddled as close as before, murmuring her name.
“Uhm.” She was abashed. “Could you help me fix the corn?”
“Hurrah! She will dance with us!” squealed the purple pixie.
What harm would it do to share one more teensy weensy dance with her friends? After all, who knew when Initiation might come? She might never have another chance. She would sip one last taste of wild faerie magic. She shrugged away the basket and let Puddlepaws down in the grass. Dindi let the fae lead her into their circle.
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| “Dancing in the circle” by Maria van Bruggen |
The pixies began to fly in circles over the ruined crops. The cob- sized corn sprites whose stalks she’d knocked over joined in next. Willawisps were drawn to all the activity. They all began to twirl and shuffle and skip and jump in a ring around and around, Dindi dancing right along with them. As the corn stalks began to right themselves, the dancers changed the pattern and started to weave in and out of the stalks. Wild swirls of color trailed in the wake of all the fae dancers, strange and marvelous.
Dindi laughed with exhilaration despite herself, abandoning herself to whatever moves her body wanted to make. The corn was upright again. If anything, it was greener and more fragrant than before. Dindi slowed down, signaling the fae to stop too. They refused to take the hint. They kept whirling.
She danced alongside them, but she knew it was their magic at work. If she didn’t stop them from getting carried away, they would continue dancing and possibly start to do more damage than good. She had seen them summon storms, uproot trees, start geysers from bare rocks. It was one reason she normally only danced with them out on the heath, far past the cultivated fields. Mama had warned her never to let other humans…
TO BE CONTINUED
Author’s Notes
The artwork — isn’t it adorable? — was kindly provided by Maria van Bruggen. Do visit her deviant-Art site and say hello!
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| “Autumn cat-tackle” by Maria van Bruggen |
September 6, 2013
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Cover Reveal for Space Jockey
In the future, we will need to travel. We will need to fight. We will need to deliver food to the famished. We will need to go to other planets in tacky tourist shirts and take pictures with our embedded borg eyes. We will need to do all these important things in spaceships. And those spaceships will need pilots. Not just any pilots, either, but the best of the best.
Space jockeys!
Or maybe not. In which case, the alternative might be just as interesting.
These tales aren’t really about spaceships, but about people: The starship pilots, space navy aces, and explorers of the future. Where they go, how they get there, and what price they pay.
As you can see, we have some AWESOME contributors. About half the stories have been printed before (including two classics that I bet you haven’t read, but totally should). Half the stories are brand new.
I’m thrilled, to say the least, to have been honored by some top-selling authors with their stories. I’m equally proud to say this will be the first publication for a couple of these authors… but I doubt it will be the last.
I wanted to feature a mix of established and up-and-coming authors, because I think the short story format is still hugely important in the field of science fiction.
In the upcoming weeks, look for some interviews with the contributing authors, excerpts from their other published works, and teasers from the anthology.
Also, if you want to review this anthology (free copy!) or buy it for just $0.99 as soon as it comes out (that price will go up the next day!) drop me a note … tara @ taramayastales (dot) com … or sign up Tara’s Tribe to receive the monthly newsletter, where it will be announced first.
September 6, 2013
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The Carnelian Legacy by Cheryl Koevoet
Marisa MacCallum always believed that the man of her dreams was out there somewhere. The problem is—he’s in another dimension.
After the death of her father, eighteen-year-old Marisa’s life is on the verge of imploding. She seeks comfort on her daily ride through the woods of Gold Hill, but when a mysterious lightning storm strikes, she is hurled into the ancient, alternate dimension of Carnelia where she is discovered by the arrogant but attractive nobleman, Ambassador Darian Fiore.
Stranded in a world teeming with monsters, maniacs and medieval knights, Marisa is forced to join Darian on a dangerous mission to negotiate peace with his archenemy, Savino da Roca. Along the way, she sees his softer side and quickly falls in love. But when she learns that Darian is locked into an arranged marriage, her heart shatters.
When Darian’s cousin Savino falls for her charms and demands her hand in exchange for peace, Marisa is faced with an impossible choice: marry the enemy of the man she loves or betray them both and become the catalyst for a bloody war.
For more from Cheryl Koevoet, visit her website, Twitter and Facebook.
September 5, 2013
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5. A Purple Pixie Pesters Cousin Hadi
The Unfinished Song: Initiate
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| “Purple Faery” by Arwen Robertson |
Dindi
… the laces to his legwals. While Dindi tried to guess what the fae was up to, the pixie untied two pairs of laces on either of Hadi’s legs, then retied the wrong strings together. Meanwhile, another pixie buzzed around his ear to distract him. Though Hadi couldn’t see the fae, and couldn’t make out the words, he could hear the hum of pixie voices.
“You little fiends!” Hadi waved his spear. “I know you’re here somewhere! I’ll get you!”
“Hadi, don’t…!”
When Hadi tried to lunge, he tripped because his calves were tied together. He fell face first into the moist soil.
“You mucky faeries!” He pounded the mud where he’d fallen. The pixies cheered and jumped up and down on his back while congratulating each other on their victory over the foe.
Puddlepaws pounced on the pixie. Very proud of himself, he held the pixie by the back of its little tunic and brought it to Dindi.
“Bad kitty! Bad kitty!” cried the pixie.
Dindi scooped up the kitten, freed the pixie, and shouted back over her shoulder, as she took off down the row of maize, “I’ll just go on ahead.”
“Dindi! You are not to leave my sight!” He squirmed in the mud but only managed to dig himself into a shallow trench. “Dindi! Dindi, get back here this instant! I’m in charge of you!”
She just laughed. The empty basket bounced on her back as she ran. The fae followed Dindi in a cloud.
“Come dance with us! Come dance with us!” they urged in a babble of flute voices.
“I can’t this afternoon, friends,” Dindi apologized. “I have to gather soap roots, tallow and ash to make soap and pick and juice blueberries, all by middle meal.”
A purple pixie fragile as a butterfly, landed on Dindi’s shoulder. She twined her tiny lavender hands in Dindi’s black hair.
“Chores are boring, Dindi,” she said. “That’s why they call them chores.” “Don’t let those humans tire you out, Dindi,” chided a green pixie. He landed on Dindi’s other shoulder. A red shoved him off and claimed the shoulder for his own. That enraged the purple, who raced over Dindi’s nose to attack the red pixie. All this activity excited Puddlepaws, who squirmed in Dindi’s arms. She kept her grip firm on the furry pixie-hunting predator.
“Do you mind?” Dindi said. “It’s very difficult to walk when you’re using me as a battleground.”
“Then come dance with us!”
“Yes, yes!” agreed a yellow dandelion sprite. He parted the corn stalks to skip at Dindi’s feet. “You dance with us and in exchange, we’ll do your chores for you.”
“Mm. Just like you milked the bull for me and winnowed the sugar out of the gravel for me, and wove a sitting mat I was to give to Uncle Lubo out of prickly pear thorns?”
“Friends,” the green pixie said to the others, “anyone would think she wasn’t grateful for all our help.”
“Impossible.” The purple one…
TO BE CONTINUED
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