Tag: Fantasy

Bleizgeist!

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Today I am over the moon excited to share a new book release with you. Bleizgeist, by the wonderful Hazel Butler, debuts today and I am beside myself with excitement. Hazel is a great friend, a wonderful author, and a talented artist, and I am so, so happy for her.

 Be sure to check out the Rafflecopter at the end – there’s a giveaway happening that you won’t want to miss!

Bleizgeist
Hazel Butler
Published by: Astrid Press
Publication date: December 15th 2015
Genres: Dark Fantasy, New Adult
Ingary is a harsh land. Cursed by a perpetual winter, the isolated little town has all but forget why they worship the wolf.

Marked by magic she cannot control, Marishka is an outcast. Alone and starving she is plagued by geiste, the unconscious minds of the people of Ingary, roaming the wilderness as they sleep. Attracted to the gramarye in Marishka’s blood, the geiste give her no rest. Losing herself to madness, she is saved when she chances to fall in love. But when her affair is discovered, all hope is taken from her.

Beaten and lovelorn, she resigns herself to death.

And then the wolf walks through her door, and Marishka recalls the meaning of Bleizgeist—the spirit of the wolf.

Goodreads / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Paperback

EXCERPT:

Eventually, I thought, death will come for me.

It was a comforting notion, and…

Bound!

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A while back, I had the good fortune to participate in a book launch for fellow Iowa author Stormy Smith. Today she’s back to tell us more about herself and her books.

Hi, Stormy! What can you tell us about yourself?

Stormy-Bio-Pic-200x300I am 33 and live in a suburb of Des Moines with my husband and two cats. I met my husband three months into our freshman year of college and we have been together for fifteen years this year! I work a day job and am currently pursuing my Masters degree from Drake University.

I love hot tea, dark chocolate and all things salty! I have a marketing background, have always read fantasy and wish every day that Iowa was on a coast.

At times like this, I wish it was on a southern coast. 🙂 And the Bound series?  What’s it all about?

The Bound series is all about finding yourself and becoming the person you were meant to be. I intentionally chose to write in the new adult age range because I feel like that 18-22 timeframe is when you experience freedom (both the good and the bad of it) for the first time. I wanted to remind my older readers what that time was like, and give true YA a preview of what was to come. I wanted to provide an outlet that showed them you could still make some wrong choices and come out on the other side if you leaned on your family and friends to help get you through.

The story itself focuses on Amelia Bradbury, a girl who knows she has magic but has always been told she has to control it and keep it in check. She’s given a brief few years to go to college and live her own life before she’s supposed to fulfill her end of a betrothal. During that time she finds her first best friend, a sassy southern girl named Bethany, and her first crush – Aidan. Her magic also starts to grow and become something out of her control. As Amelia learns more about the truth of her power and who she’s meant to be, she has to decide if she’ll follow her heart or fulfill her duty to her people.

What about Bound by Prophecy?

Bound_by_Phrophecy_1400x2100_px_300dpi_F-copy-683x1024Bound by Prophecy is book three in the Bound series. This first trilogy in the series is a complete story arc, but I’ve left doors open to continue to world. In this book you will learn the true origin of the Immortals and see the culmination of my characters’ growth. I put a lot into my secondary characters and they are just as crucial to the storylines as Amelia and Aidan.

Who or what inspired you to write it?

This series was inspired by…

My Southern Exposure

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With me today is a poet of some renown, the inimitable Tallis Steelyard, to talk a bit about poetry and adventure. 🙂

Cover A much arranged marriageI am, of course, a poet. None the less I am not biased and recognise that there are other fields of artistic endeavour which might even be considered legitimate. That being said I have always had my doubts about novelists.

This reminisce was brought on by reading the obituary of old ‘Truly’ Gicken in last nights ‘Port Naain Intelligencer’. I honestly never knew his given name, everybody called him Truly, even his wife, because of the habit he had of starting his sentences with that word.

But I remember him in his prime. He was the younger brother of Ardwok Gicken, who ran Gicken’s Printers. Ardwok didn’t have an imaginative bone in his body, but no finer printer ever drew breath. Truly was almost the opposite, but in his own way he was touched by genius. It was he who came up with the idea of ‘The Port Naain Annual Poetry Yearbook.’

What he did was canvas all the poets, potential poets, would-be poets and ‘thought they could be poets if only they’d had the chance’ in Port Naain. For a not insignificant sum he would include their poem in the yearbook. Well for me five vintenars is a not insignificant sum, even now. My lady wife and I can still live well for a day on that sort of money. But of course he was selling them a piece of the dream, he was promising them ‘exposure’, making it possible for their genius to be recognised, and of course they fell for it.

Where he showed real genius was that he…

Look at the pretty Goldenfire!

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Yesterday was the official cover reveal for Goldenfire, the second book in A.F.E. Smith’s wonderful Darkhaven series. It will be released by Harper Voyager on January 14, 2016, but if you want to read it sooner, you can enter the giveaway below for your chance to win an advance ebook copy!

Goldenfire coverIn Darkhaven, peace doesn’t last long.

Ayla Nightshade has ruled Darkhaven for three years. With the help of Tomas Caraway, her Captain of the Helm, she has overcome her father’s legacy to find new confidence in herself and her unusual shapeshifting abilities.

Yet three years ago, a discovery was made that could have profound consequences for the Nightshade line: a weapon exists that can harm even the powerful creatures they turn into. And now, that knowledge has fallen into the wrong hands.

An assassin is coming for Ayla, and will stop at nothing to see her dead.

Doesn’t that sound amazing? I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for January! 🙂

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The Seventh Question

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Today was definitely a Monday.  Luckily, the good outweighed the bad, and on balance, I’d have to say today was a good day, despite the rocky start this morning.  I got to celebrate my niece’s birthday with pizza and brownies, and when I got home tonight, I found a package of pogs waiting for me in my mailbox, and I was featured on Simon Goodson’s blog! Pretty fantastico, don’t you think? 🙂

Simon has a new interview feature called The Seventh Question, and I’m thrilled to have been asked to take part.  Head on over and check it out, and then catch up on the rest of the series to learn more about Mark R. Hunter and Joleene Naylor.  You’ll be glad you did. 🙂

(c) 2015.  All rights reserved.

Secretary Daydreams

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Today’s challenge was to recreate a day – or, more challenging yet, an hour – in the life of, well, anyone, I suppose. I took the opportunity to write another short story. Below you’ll find an hour in the life of Abby Dunleavy, bored secretary. I hope it’s entertaining. 🙂wind

Skiing is great fun, if you know what you’re doing. I, of course, had no idea what I was doing, and was positive that the bunny hill I was careening wildly down was really a black diamond.

“Snowplow! Snowplow!” my best friend Janey yelled.

My head snapped left, then right, then dead ahead. “Where?!”

The bottom of the hill was rapidly approaching, as was the parking lot.

But the phone rang before I could crash into a parked car. I snatched the receiver out of the cradle before the first ring had finished and sighed. “Arnold Rowan and Scates, this is Abby. May I help you?”

I half listened as…

Bound by Prophecy now available!

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Today I’m excited to share the book release of a fellow Iowan!  Read on to get the scoop on Bound by Prophecy, available now on Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, and Goodreads!

About Bound by Prophecy

Amelia Bradbury is finally free from Queen Julia and Cresthaven, but she isn’t safe yet. The Keeper power runs rampant inside her and it will take an ultimate act of selflessness to contain the darkness that threatens Amelia’s sanity and the future of the Immortal race.

Aidan Montgomery refuses to give up on Amelia. Once she’s rescued from the Keeper’s hold, he intends to prove his love is more than a side effect of the prophecy, even if doing so leads him away from his pack and on a journey that will irrevocably change them both.

When the past and the present collide…

Time to write like there’s no tomorrow!

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Happy November!

Yes, it’s November, otherwise known as Time-To-Write-Like-There’s-No-Tomorrow-Month!  And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing, too.  I may not be participating in NaNoWriMo this year (though I thought about doing my own unofficial version), but I did sign up for NanoPoblano and a couple of Blogging U. courses, plus I’m revising a short story and rewriting the last little bit of The Lokana Chronicles.

TPMTLCAccording to Facebook, I’ve been working on The Lokana Chronicles for a decade now.  That’s simultaneously scary, impressive, and depressing.  When I started writing it, I had a different husband, a different name, and three less kids.  So much about my life has changed since I started writing this book, including the book itself.  What started off as one book has now become two books, and what started life as a sequel has now become the third book in a trilogy.  I never dreamed that, after ten years of work, I’d still be polishing the first book (hence the depressing aspect), but I’m not giving up.  I’m gonna finish this book and then the next and then the next, and then when I’m done, I’m gonna move on to something new (that will hopefully take a lot less time to finish).

In the meantime, I’ve been exiled to deep space.  I’m hoping to survive any alien encounters and have some time to write, and if you’d like to read more about my deep space adventures, then head on over to my friend Sophie’s blog and check it out.  She’s launched quite a few people into deep space over the last several months, and everyone’s had a pretty fantastic time drifting through the final frontier.

And now I think I’ll scamper off to bed.  I really enjoyed that extra hour of sleep I got last night, but boy am I ever tired now!

(c) 2015.  All rights reserved.

Grudging: Birth of Saints

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On Thursday, a brand new novel had a fantastic cover reveal, and I signed up with Rockstar Book Tours to help spread the word.  But Thursday was a rough day, and Friday was no better, and yesterday was just wild.  So today, I’m stealing five minutes to tell you about a new book from Michelle Hauck called Grudging:

GrudgingA world of chivalry and witchcraft…and the invaders who would destroy everything.

The North has invaded, bringing a cruel religion and no mercy. The ciudades-estados who have stood in their way have been razed to nothing, and now the horde is before the gates of Colina Hermosa…demanding blood.

On a mission of desperation, a small group escapes the besieged city in search of the one thing that might stem the tide of Northerners: the witches of the southern swamps.

The Women of the Song.

But when tragedy strikes their negotiations, all that is left is a…