Day: July 14, 2021

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Book Blitz: The Iron Crown + Giveaway

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The Iron Crown

The Iron Crown
by L.L. MacRae
Published: May 28, 2021
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 592
CW: Swearing
Possible Ultimate Tour Experience Tickets: Represent, It’s All About The Journey, The More The Merrier, The Wings Of Change, Here Be Dragons, Bring On The Magic, Gate To Another World

Fenn’s first and only memory is finding himself in the middle of a forest, face to face with a dragon spirit mocking him, all knowledge gone apart from his own name.

Lost and confused, his only hope for answers is Calidra—a woman living on the edge of the world with her partner. Forced to return home when her father dies, Calidra has put off facing her estranged mother for seven years, and she begrudgingly helps Fenn, forging papers for him so he can avoid the Queen’s Inquisitors.

But her mother is the least of her worries when they discover an ancient enemy is rising again. It should be impossible with the Iron Crown in power—and Fenn is terrified he might unwittingly be playing a part in the war’s resurgence.

Surrounded by vengeful spirits and powerful magic, Fenn’s desperate attempt to find his way home might well alter the fate of Tassar, and every power in it.

A new high fantasy series bursts into life with the DRAGON SPIRITS who reign supreme in the magic-drenched world of Tassar.

Goodreads / Ebook / Paperback

Author Info:

Lauren is a fantasy author of character-driven stories and epic adventure. Her books usually contain dragons, rarely feature romance, and are typically fun and hopeful. She lives in a tiny village in the UK, has a degree in Psychology, and was a professional copywriter before going full-time as an author (it’s just more fun to write about dragons than corporate copy!) She has previously published under the name L.L. McNeil.

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Giveaway:

Prize: One (1) of three (3) signed copies of The Iron Crown by L.L. MacRae – International!
Starts: July 14th, 2021 at 12:00am EST
Ends: July 18th, 2021 at 11:59pm EST

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Direct link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e832e98890/?

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Spotlight: Song of All Songs & Excerpt

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By Donna Dechen Birdwell

Publisher: Wide World Home
Pages: 375
Genre: Science Fiction

BOOK BLURB:

Long after the apocalypse, Earth has repeopled itself. Twice.

Despised by her mother’s people and demeaned by her absent father’s legacy, Meridia has one friend—Damon, an eccentric photologist. When Damon shows Meridia a stone he discovered in an old photo bag purchased from a vagrant peddler, she is transfixed. There’s a woman, she says, a dancing woman. And a song. Can a rock hold a song? Can a song contain worlds? Oblivious of mounting political turmoil, the two set out to find the old peddler, to find out what he knows about the stone, the woman, and the song. But marauding zealots attack and take Damon captive, leaving Meridia alone. Desolate. Terrified. Yet determined to carry on, to pursue the stone’s extraordinary song, even as it lures her into a journey that will transform her world.

 

 

 

The old man picks his way through the darkened hallway of
the columbarium. A scent of burnt wood stains the stale air as he listens for
the chirps and hums and breathy purrs. The three stones in his pocket pulse
warm against his hand, indicating that he’s drawing near to another of their
kind. He passes his hand along the seal of the niche and opens it, smiling at
the bright turquoise that winks at him from among the ashes inside the urn. He
cradles the stone in his hand, relishing the notes it sends coursing through
his body, the longing for home and family. But this isn’t the stone Abél is
looking for. He puts it back into the urn and replaces the urn in its chamber.
With a single syllable, he re-seals the niche.

 

Humming softly in harmony with some of the stones, in
counterpoint to others, Abél moves on. Day is coming and he knows he must get
well away from the temple grounds before the sun rises. He’s been accused of
theft before. He knows he’s not the thief. A sigh of regret sifts through his
head as he turns toward the space outlined in sepia light. The way out.

A sudden buzzing between his brows draws him up short. The
stones in his pocket quiver and squeal, directing his attention to a chamber to
his left. A purple glow emanates from within it. This one is newly sealed and
easy to open. The urn inside is particularly elaborate—unusual for these
austere days. Is that real gold outlining the figure on its lid? The figure looks
like a tree in flames.

Abél looks back at the cover stone he removed from the niche
and squints hard at the writing on it, trying to make sense of the letters. A
name comes into focus.

“So it’s you,” he mutters. “And this is how they try to own
you?” The little stones resound to the silken clarity of his voice. He lifts
the lid from the urn and is overwhelmed by a steady brilliance. The purple
stone fills the palm of his hand. It’s warm to his touch and resonates with
more colors deep in its core.

He knows this stone. Not long ago, it was his own.

But something is wrong. He places the stone in his pocket
and reaches back inside the urn, digging into the ashes. He digs deeper and
lets the ashes run through his fingers. And then he knows. These are wood ashes.
There are no remains here.

“This one has continued,” Abél whispers. The space between
his eyes pulses and his throat constricts around the unvoiced words. This one
is still among us. 

 

 

 

 

 

When Donna Dechen Birdwell was about ten years old, she became obsessed with the idea that if she was thinking with her brain, she ought to be able to think how it works! She’s been trying to wrap her mind around reality (and how humans experience it) ever since. She made a career out of anthropology—that utterly boundless science of humankind and how we got here—and then sidestepped into Buddhist philosophy and then art and photography and writing stories that tend to fall somewhere in the neighborhood of speculative and/or science fiction. She’s a big fan of Ursula LeGuin and N.K. Jemisin.

In her EarthCycles series, Donna imagines a far, far future world in which pockets of survivors of a global apocalypse have evolved new ways of being human. “Not altogether new,” she says. “More like rearrangements of certain aspects of our inherent human potential.” The first volume of EarthCycles, Song of All Songs, received the 2020 silver medal from Self Publishing Review. The book introduces a mixed-race main character making her unique way through a deeply conflicted world. The second book in the series, Book of All Time, is set for release in August of 2021.

Donna’s first trilogy (Recall Chronicles) is set in a hauntingly familiar 22nd-century world in which nobody grows old, an achievement that turns out to be not nearly so utopian as one might expect. Each volume tells the story of a different character’s experience of that world, but the stories are intertwined and some of the same characters turn up in all the books.

A stand-alone contemporary fiction book, Not Knowing, explores intergenerational PTSD in the life of an archaeologist working in Belize. Donna worked as an ethnologist in Belize for many years, so there’s a lot of her heart in this one.

Before anthropology, Donna worked as a newspaper reporter, and beyond anthropology she studied Buddhist philosophy (and practice) and then became an artist and photographer. Her paintings are done in acrylics on handmade Nepali lokta paper. Her primary photographic interest is in Miksang contemplative photography.

Donna earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and previously taught at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

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Book Blitz & Excerpt: Of Gilded Flesh + Giveaway

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Of Gilded Flesh
by Gordon Gravley
Publication date: June 22nd 2021
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Clockmaker Josef Kronecker makes more than just clocks.

In his study in Salzburg, he crafts lifesaving clockwork appendages for clients, including a famous pianist, a count who loves to dance, and his very own assistant, Anna, who suffered a harrowing attack before coming to work at Kronecker’s Timepieces.

When Josef meets Klara, a beautiful party attendee, he’s entranced and soon becomes unknowingly entrapped in a web of lies. His infatuation positions him as the victim of a royal bully, who presents an impossible challenge and requests an unthinkable sacrifice should Josef run out of time.

While Josef falls for Klara and is held to a deadline he can’t possibly make, Anna keeps the shop afloat as she faces her past trauma, proving that the number of limbs does not make a person whole, but rather the will to live.

Sustaining life is Josef’s calling, but now it’s his life on the line. As the clock ticks down, he realizes that while infatuation is a powerful thing, love is deeper and sometimes goes unseen, and it seems adopting Anna’s unwavering will to live is the way to survive.

Honest, inventive, and both heartbreaking and heartwarming, OF GILDED FLESH is a captivating story about resilience and how much we have to live for.

Goodreads / Amazon

Of Gilded Flesh

EXCERPT:

The clinking of tools and the orange light of candles trail from the workroom in the back of the shop. Anna enters the space through the open curtain. Expecting to see Josef hovering over Duke Brunner’s artificial heart, she’s surprised to find the clockmaker tinkering with the mechanical boy, Joop, instead. Josef inserts the Rainbow Moonstone-and-marble balls into its vacant eye sockets.

The clockmaker leans back and moves a burning candle from one side of Joop’s head to the other. “Come see,” he says.

Anna moves to Josef’s side—close to him, but not too close.

“They catch the light with such brilliance,” he says. “Thank you, Anna.”

He reaches for her hand, yet she finds herself pulling away. Piano music comes from the other side of the shop and hovers between the two of them. Josef gives a curious look.

“Pascal is here already?”

“He came by last night…and never left.”

Josef turns to her, taking in the warmth she emits like a gently burning hearth. “I see.” He turns away and disappears into the darkness of the shop.

Anna moves closer to Joop and rests her left hand beside him. She lowers herself to a stool.

“Oh, Joop. What have I done?”

The boy stares vacantly back as a tear rolls down her cheek.

“I killed a man. He was so very horrible—a demon—but who am I to pass judgement and execution? My vengeance has made me no better.”

Another tear falls.

“I’m worse, even. For I’ve gone and lain myself with a man I do not love.”

Joop’s hands slips from his lap and rests upon hers. The comforting, humanlike gesture from the unhuman boy sparks a faint grin to her lips and then a flood of tears.

“And worse still…I want to again.”

Author Bio:

Gordon Gravley has been making up stories all his life. As a child, they would take the shape of rudimentary comic books, and Super-8 movies. As he was drawn to stage-acting in high school his stories became one-act plays, and then feature-length screenplays – none of which ever saw the light of the big screen.

It wasn’t until his thirties that he finally decided to take the plunge, and like a real writer he made his stories into, well…stories. And just like a real writer, his efforts garnished multiple rejection letters. Twenty years later, those efforts would culminate into his first self-published novel, Gospel for the Damned.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Gordon moved around – California; Colorado; Alaska; Northern Arizona – before eventually settling in Seattle, Washington. Having called the Northwest his home since 1998, he doesn’t expect to be moving elsewhere anytime soon. There, he continues to make up stories, write novels, and live with his wife and son.

Subscribe to the author’s monthly newsletter, “from…Another Writer”, via his website www.gordongravley.com.

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