BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: The Art of Keeping Dangerous Books by R.J. Blain

The Art of Keeping Dangerous Books
R.J. Blain
(The Apothecary’s Secret, #1)
Publication date: July 6th 2027
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy

To master the art of keeping dangerous books, one must learn the golden rule: some knowledge should never be shared.

Bookshop owner by day, restorer of rare and dangerous books by night, Kita James is thrilled to acquire a new poisonous book from the Victorian era. From the swirling patterns on the cover to its unusual leather binding, IN SEARCH OF LIFE is truly a unique find. However, testing of the vibrant tome reveals its darker nature: the leather is that of a human along with an extinct animal from the ice age. To further complicate matters, a new radioactive element is discovered lurking within its pages.

The deeper she delves into the toxic text, the less she likes about what she learns. From the dawn of humanity, people had searched for the secrets of eternal life and resurrection. And if Lugalbanda-Alad, the author of the mysterious volume, was to be believed, he had found it.

Joining forces with Dav, a rather vocal book in her collection, Kita works to unveil the apothecary’s secret. With the right magic and a strong enough will, the forbidden lore might be able to set Dav free along with the other sentient books confined within her shelves.

But all knowledge comes at a price: if IN SEARCH OF LIFE were to fall into the wrong hands, it could usher in the destruction of all Kita holds dear and the enslavement of all mankind.

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EXCERPT:

Copper, when mixed with arsenite or its equally toxic cousin acetoarsenite, created a vibrant green. Some dubbed it Paris green. Some preferred the name emerald green. No matter what one called the pigment, it remained a silent killer of those foolish enough to handle it for long.

It had come as no surprise to me, when I first began learning the art of keeping dangerous books, that nobody knew for certain how many had died to the beautifully lethal covers and the pages they contained. One confirmed mortality from the pigment had involved a floral arranger specialized in artificial blooms by the name of Matilda Scheure, and she had breathed in the substance on a daily basis while going about her work.

The Victorians had adored brilliant shades, and they had unwittingly sickened themselves with color. Mercury, in the form of the vibrant vermilion pigment, could bring about madness among other things. Lead, offering shades from pristine white to fiery reds and oranges, sickened in a myriad of ways. Then there was cadmium red, which had limited toxicity unless handled often.

I marveled over how the Victorians had managed to discover so many shades of toxic pigmentation.

Within the walls of my personal library, tucked behind a secret door in the back of my bookshop, I owned books of every hue from every era I could get my greedy hands on. I’d outgrown my single shelf of emerald hue years ago, and the toxic volumes now consumed an entire wall. Each color of the rainbow offered some new and interesting way for someone to perish should they fail to handle my collection with care.

To the few who knew of my art, I offered a glimpse into a dark past decorated with a glorious veneer, one willing and able to kill at a single mistake.

I charged a reasonable amount for access to specific volumes of my archive, making use of a different room on the other side of the bookstore for those sessions. I required waivers, and I even had an agreement with an insurance company so I held no liabilities should they be sickened from the inappropriate handling of any one of my pieces.

The waivers eliminated my personal risk, as I refused to hold responsibility for the stupidity of others.

But the colors I held in safekeeping were not, by far, the most dangerous of the volumes.

Knowledge had become power, and I safeguarded all from the deepest of darkness and the brightest of light, for both, when used inappropriate and to their extreme, caused equal harm.

A little after midnight, after closing my cash, locking the doors, cleaning up the self-serve coffee machine, and otherwise preparing for yet another grind in the morning, I retreated to my sanctuary. Most of my work—and all of the magic—took place in the ten by ten closet with a ventilation fan installed, which piped through a series of specialty filters to keep any fumes or residue from making it outside. Those filters would cost me my sanity one day.

They needed to be cleaned or replaced every three weeks, and failure to do so ran the risk of making me the next victim of my collection.

The latest tome to be tamed waited within a glass box on my desk, and it was a marvel of toxicity, magic, and lore, most of which society would deem forbidden if they knew it existed. Thus far, nobody had unlocked the secrets of raising the dead, but the author of the volume had gotten uncomfortably close.

With the right materials, skills, and incantations, the dead could walk again, puppets for the book’s owner to control.

On the outside, it seemed harmless enough for those who lacked knowledge of dangerous books. Swirls of bright reds, oranges, and white decorated the spine with stamps of vibrant emerald green declaring the book to be titled In Search of Life. Everything within had been penned with a careful hand, and a date on the first page declared it to have been from the year 1725, over a hundred years before the popularization of the toxic tomes made famous in the Victorian era.

In 1725, magic had not yet been acknowledged, although society had always told tales of witches and arcane arts in hushed whispers.

In Search of Life, should I be able to authenticate it, would once again change the timeline on humanity’s introduction into practical magics and the role of superstitions in protecting from malevolent incantations. But as was the nature of my work, if all went well, only I would know.

The knowledge held within the pages, which defied time and refused to turn brittle, was best kept a secret.

Author Bio:

RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.

In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until satisfied.

AI is never used in the creation of RJ’s novels.

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BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: Torment Becomes Them by Warwick Gleeson

Torment Becomes Them
Warwick Gleeson
(The American Oz Maker, #1)
Publication date: May 6th 2026
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical, Science Fiction

The War for Utopia Begins

Inspired by a mad vision of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, a centuries-old time war is being fought to determine the destiny of the human race. As the conflict rages between the early 18th century and the battlefields of World War I, Czarina Sorceress Catherine Romanova joins forces with her younger self, Princess Von Anhalt, magician Zolo Bold, and World Maker Niccolo Paganini, to face a gamut of powerful and implacable foes. The most dangerous and ruthlessly brilliant of them all, the immortal E. G. Godfellow–once known to ancient Greece as the “Scourge of the Gods”–intends to stop Catherine and her allies from rewriting the history of the 20th century.

Their bold plan, to prevent the 80 million deaths of WW II and inaugurate a new utopian vision for humankind in the 21st century, interferes with Godfellow’s plan to maintain the status quo and thereby usher in his own utopian vision of “One Earth—One Master.” Only one vision will dominate, and either way, the cost will be terrible.

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EXCERPT:

AS SHE KNELT AT THE CATHEDRAL ALTAR in the year 1762 for her royal coronation as Czarina of All the Russias, Catherine Romanova felt like starting a new war. She’d already endured two hours of a five-hour ceremony while wearing twenty pounds of silk and nine pounds of Imperial Crown; and to increase the burden even further, the droning excess of pomp and boredom had drained her of patience, not to mention goodness.

Wishing to distract herself from the seemingly endless prattle of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch as he recited Old Testament scripture, as well as the oven of suffocating heat created by a hoop dress big enough to hide twenty dwarves, Catherine lifted the curtain on theater. She replayed to herself Earth’s most important war to date—the ultimate conflict to define the fate of human nature itself. Her old violin-playing mentor, Niccolo Paganini, had dubbed it “The Utopia War.”

While the aged Patriarch stumbled over a droll reading of Malachi, her musing inevitably took her back to the time just before the war, to another world at age fifteen when she lived in the Castle Bärenthoren and had been known to all of Europe as the famous and unruly Princess Fredericke von Anhalt (aka “Freddie”)—the name born by her proudly until her terribly boring coronation now underway.

Dear God, help me survive this day. My destiny is Catherine, but my soul is Fredericke.

Even though her every breath and eye blink was being carefully watched and measured by the gaseous Moscow nobles who filled the pews of Assumption Cathedral, her first memory began with a sound. A barely audible titter, like distant footsteps on decayed leaves. She’d considered the scraping sound of a mouse to be the origin, or some other invading creature, for every now and then a cat bird or a dove flew into the study and fell to the floor, finally tiring itself out with fearful flutters.

So truly, it could have been any number of things.

Nonetheless, Freddie vowed to ignore the disturbance and return to her prior task: recreating the Greek mathematics of Eratosthenes to determine Earth’s circumference while imagining herself the gallant Sir Francis Drake sailing the Azores in search of Spanish gold.

Putting quill to paper, she sketched the hull of Drake’s ship, The Golden Hind, before jotting down a few notes on the logic of Eratosthenes, and just as she measured the miles between the two cities in his equation, Syene and Alexandria, the strange tittering repeated. But louder this time. Enough to make her hand slip, the point of quill jaggedly defacing her work.

What in Beelzebub’s name? she asked herself.

The disturbance had become too curious to allow any further progress on the circumference of Earth, and though Freddie hated breaking personal vows, she rose from her writing desk, determined to learn the truth.


Author Bio:

Warwick Gleeson has lived in both LA, NYC, and D.C. He has worked many different jobs, everything from brick mason to Federal bureaucrat to small business owner. His agent is currently shopping a futuristic thriller to New York, and a screenplay or two are making the Hollywood rounds. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in many journals such as North American Review, Conjunctions, and Quarterly West. He has two grown children in their forties and is married to a most wonderful woman who is an author of historical murder mysteries and a former writer for National Lampoon magazine.

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BOOK BLITZ: Freedom’s End by SE Estes

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

Date Published: May 5, 2026

Publisher: Manhattan Book Group

 

Freedom’s End is a mythic sci‑fi/fantasy saga about a reincarnating
rebel fighting to break cycles of oppression across lifetimes. Born a slave in
the mines of Septra, Paintr rises again and again—across bodies, eras,
and worlds—to confront a necromancer who seeks to enslave every sentient
mind. Blending science fiction, dark fantasy, and supernatural western
elements, the story explores identity, liberation, trauma, and the cost of
reclaiming one’s soul. With its emotional depth, genre fusion, and
expansive worldbuilding, Freedom’s End speaks to readers who love
character‑driven epics, mythic resonance, and stories about resilience in the
face of impossible odds.

 

About the Author

SE Estes is a sci‑fi and fantasy author whose work blends mythic
symbolism, emotional depth, and genre fusion. A multicultural military‑brat
upbringing and early career in computing shaped SE’s fascination with
identity, technology, and transformation. Now based in Indianapolis, SE writes
expansive, character‑driven universes—including Freedom’s End, the
first book in a multi‑volume saga about liberation and the soul’s long
journey across lifetimes.

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KICKSTARTER BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: The Sea Queen’s Key by R.S. Kellogg

The Sea Queen’s Key
R.S. Kellogg
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

At eighteen, Mira is one of the last humans in Breadcove Bay with formal training in Fire and Heat magic outside the faculty of Borealis University. Masitro has already lost a string of talented fire‑workers to failed confrontations with Shora, the Ice Queen, whose sightings creep closer to the city every month.

Mira just wants to get home for winter break.

The politics of a rogue ice queen and a missing mermaid queen get in the way.

Visit the Kickstarter NOW!

If you enjoy:

• Cozy fantasy with higher stakes
• Fairytale retellings with no romance, but all the emotions!
• Stories where asking the right questions matters more than force…

Then Welcome to the Sea Queen’s Key!


Author Bio:

R.S. Kellogg writes the Everyday Goddess Stories, the Mermaid Magic Tales, and fiction in the story realms of Breadcove Bay and Agratica, among other places.

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REVEAL: The Hollow Crown by Martina Boone

The Hollow Crown
Martina Boone
(The Five Crowns, #2)
Publication date: March 9th 2027
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Every night, magic makes him forget her. Every day, she makes him fall for her again.

Flora Domhnall survived the Hunt, claimed the Crown of Moonlight, and woke a magic unseen in Alba Scoria for over four hundred years. But her coronation didn’t end the war. The Highlands are still burning, and the immortal warrior Flora needs at her side is still bound by oaths that see her as a threat. Chyr loves her as fiercely as she loves him—but if he remembers who she is, the oaths carved into his flesh will force him to kill her.

Each morning, he wakes wary, lost to her, and dangerous. Each day, he is drawn back by echoes of a love he cannot name. By evening, tenderness returns, desire returns, and with them come glimpses of the man who chose Flora over a crown, a kingdom, and the oaths that keep him chained.

Then she has to let him go again.

The Raven Queen is still waging her war across Alba Scoria. She turns hunger, grief, and fear into weapons, leaving poisoned wells, starving villages, and broken clans in her wake. To save her people, Flora must become more than a symbol, more than a queen. She must become the healer of a wounded land—even if that means trusting the man whose love may be the most dangerous thing about him.

The war needs them both. But if Flora cannot break the oaths carved into Chyr’s flesh, the love that saves him each day may become the wound neither of them survives.

The Hollow Crown is the second book in The Five Crowns, a sweeping Celtic romantic fantasy series of forbidden magic, impossible oaths, ancient queens, Highland war, and a love story fierce enough to defy the gods. For the full emotional impact, begin with The Crown of Moonlight.

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Author Bio:

Martina Boone is the award-winning author of romantic fiction set in magical places. Her books blend lush writing, strong heroines, wounded heroes, atmospheric landscapes, history, folklore, family secrets, and magic woven through the ordinary world. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found traveling, reading, studying history and folklore, wrangling wildflower meadows, or playing with Shetland Sheepdogs and tuxedo cats.

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BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: The Ice Queen’s Shoes by R.S. Kellogg

The Ice Queen’s Shoes
R.S. Kellogg
(Breadcove Bay)
Publication date: August 7th 2021
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

When missing your train could change everything…

Freshly graduated from Borealis University and reeling from a failed apprenticeship, Della only wants to get home. But a minor injury changes her route in magical ways and opens unexpected possibilities.

If you love atmospheric fantasy, subtle magic, and stories where a single moment can change a life, discover The Ice Queen’s Shoes today.

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The Ice Queen’s Shoes is a FREE prequel story setting up the novel the Sea Queen’s Key, which will be releasing on Kickstarter soon. Follow the campaign at the link below to be notified when it goes live!

EXCERPT:

“It is my holiday,” the man sitting across from Della on the train said. “A short one. Two days. So, I suppose it’s going a little bit differently than how I’d envisioned.”

Della watched him carefully. Who had a holiday that lasted only two days? And, for that matter, what kind of a person had a holiday now? Her university had reached the end of its term, but most of the city wouldn’t go on holiday for another three weeks, and then the whole city basically would take a month off.

The old man must have read something in her questioning expression. “I’ve been working on a project,” he said. He looked a bit stressed as he said it, but there was also something a bit impish about him—Della liked him despite her natural distrust of strangers. He seemed avuncular, and she could tell by the unique worn smooth brown cloth of his clothing that he was one of the North Men, rarely sighted in the city of Breadcove Bay.

She was a little flattered by the focus of his attention.

It was going to take some time to get to where she was going, so she may as well spend the time in interesting conversation.

“Tell me about your project,” she said.

He grinned. It was all the encouragement he needed.

“Me and my men have been tracking something across the northern plains,” he said, with the flair of a natural storyteller. “And a week ago, it just got a little bit more interesting. But three days ago, the trail went cold, fast. So, me and the men, we decided a break was in order. We’d each take a two-day vacation, and start at it fresh again.”

“If you’re tracking something,” Della interjected, “Wouldn’t taking a break mean you’d risk the trail going cold?”

The man shook his head.

He looked smug, Della thought. Smug with the air of a man who has supreme confidence in his craft.

“It’s not a beast I’m tracking,” he said. “Not that kind of a being at all. The way tracking of this nature goes, first the trail goes cold, then, we take a break, and if we’re lucky, as we soften our approach to it, the perfect information will naturally show up.”

Curiosity piqued, Della tilted her head. “Naturally show up when you are nowhere near the trail of your prey? I ask you, what on earth are you tracking?”

She’d heard, of course, the legends: that North Men tracked animals, found lost humans, located lost camps and lost objects, and sometimes . . . rumor had it . . . tracked supernatural beings.

She wondered whether she’d happened upon a North Man in the middle of a fairy tale, feeling a bit like an explorer who has stumbled into a strange new environment, where the people might do something completely unexpected at any moment.

Staring at him as though she were watching a polar bear in the governor’s private animal enclosure, where she had been a guest at the winter party one year, she waited as he seemed to debate within himself whether to share with her any part of his tracking tale—and if so, how much.

“I’m tracking a lady,” he finally said, and Della roared with laughter.

The man jolted, clearly knocked off kilter by Della’s hearty response.

She didn’t have a delicate laugh. It was more like the way a man would laugh when he had bested everyone at a game of cards. And it would come out of nowhere.

She cocked an eyebrow at him, folding her arms. She didn’t care a twig how people responded to her laugh. They could take her or leave her.

Just as she could take or leave anyone who came across her path.

And at the moment, this was a person who was entertaining her.

“You’re tracking a woman?” she asked him. “Did she wander out into the north and get lost? Or are you trying to find a romance?”

She snorted and shook her head.

He looked wounded but still doggedly eager to pursue the conversation.

“I’m tracking a Sky Woman,” he said, and Della leaned forward intently, her smile instantly gone.

A Sky Woman.

That would be more akin to a goddess.

“Why are you tracking a Sky Woman?” she asked him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s complicated,” he said. “But it’s part of the job of my family, and my men, to keep the balance between the Sky people of the north and the boundaries of the city. We have to make sure that neither side encroaches on the side of the other.”

She sighed. “That sounds like a big project.”

He nodded.

“How do you even begin to do something like that?” Della asked.


Author Bio:

R.S. Kellogg writes the Everyday Goddess Stories, the Mermaid Magic Tales, and fiction in the story realms of Breadcove Bay and Agratica, among other places.

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BOOK TOUR: Maiden Tomb by Cynthia Sally Haggard

Maiden Tomb

Twelve Cursed Maidens Series
Book One
Cynthia Sally Haggard

Genre: Fairytale Retelling, Fantasy
ASIN: ‎ B0DNWVFZ81
Publisher: ‎Cynthia Sally Haggard Press
Publication Date: ‎ February 4, 2025

Tagline: Would you marry a stranger to free your sisters from imprisonment?

Book Description: 

In this retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sixteen-year-old Justice wants to release her sisters from the maw of Father’s imprisonment. But what can she do? The easiest way would be to find suitors for them.

However, that is not so easy, for Justice’s elder sisters are strange. What with All-Gifted’s madness, Protectress’s hair writhing with snakes, Death-Bringer’s grief (not to mention her strange name), Shining’s too-overt sexuality, Maiden’s tart tongue, Shadow’s crippling shyness, no sensible man would want her sisters as wives. Which leaves Justice, the seventh daughter, the one who possesses a quiet authority.

Justice has already acquired an admirer in the shape of Lord Nobody, who proclaims his undying love for her. But what does he really want? And doesn’t he have a wife already?

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ExcerptP r o l o g u e ~ The Twelve Mysterious Daughters

Playful speaks

In the past week or so since we’ve arrived, life has taken on a predictable rhythm. I spend the mornings entertaining the ladies of the castle, with the lyre, my singing, playing knucklebones, and listening to their gossip. Truth to tell, nothing they say is particularly interesting as high-born ladies spend their time inside. When they are not diverting themselves with such pastimes as I provide, they are spinning, weaving, running the household, and caring for their children. They talk incessantly about their children. They know little of the outside world.

I escape after the midday meal, taking advantage of the ladies’ habit of resting as the sun’s chariot crests at the highest point of the day. While they sleep, I head out into the scorching countryside looking for Father.

We sit together in the shade, while Father does some task, usually repairing something, while I tell him everything I’ve learned the evening before. It is not that hard. Because I am small, and people are now familiar with my face, no one pays me any mind as I take my seat at the bench that runs along the side of the huge table where all the working folk of the castle eat their meals.

Father has told me never to be inquisitive, but I am dying to know more about the twelve mysterious ladies locked up in the castle tower, the ones people whisper about behind their hands when they think no-one is noticing.

As the light of the sun drains from the sky, as the king’s men sink lower onto wooden benches eating dish after dish, quail, pheasant, peacock, duck, eggs, bread, olive oil, wine, and olives, the noise of seven hundred men sharing jokes, laughing, and swilling wine reverberates around the hall.

Finally, I can take it no more.”Is it true what they say about the King’s daughters?”

The grizzled stranger on the bench next to me wipes the grease off his mouth with the back of a hand and spits out an olive pit.

“Where’ve you popped up from? You shouldn’t be here. You’re only a young lad.”

I am used to these remarks. After I left home I took a ship that was blown off course, taking me west to the land of the Italoi. I had to beg for money in the streets and in the taverns and it was not long before I heard news of Father, who was sailing to the west of this land.

And so I made my way across steep mountains before coming down to a lush plain. Playing my lyre to entertain strangers I followed their directions to the sea, to a wide bay within sight of a simmering, high, conical-shaped mountain.

And there, in a tavern, I met Father.

Now we are traveling home together. But Father is not here on the bench beside me, as he should be, but outside at a nearby farm pretending to be a stable hand.

This is one of Father’s clever strategies. He is a master at extracting information. He calls his strategy “divide and conquer” and it means that I have to use my lyre to find a berth for the night in some local chieftain’s house. This is not usually difficult, especially if there are ladies around because for some reason they always want to pet me.

Meanwhile, Father finds work on the outside as a shepherd, farmhand, or stable boy. By concealing his origins and pretending to be dumb, drunk, or both, Father is able to overhear a great many things. We have a plan to meet every day at noon, I escaping the blandishments of the ladies to visit the local farm for milk, cheese, eggs where I could happen upon the new stable boy, farmhand, or shepherd.

The only fly in the ointment is my age. I am only twelve years old and to my great annoyance, I look it. So Father made me memorize some phrases to offer when this issue arises.

“Father is here with me, but is suffering with an ache to his belly.”

One sentence is usually enough for most people. Father has instructed me never to offer explanations that are not asked for as it only makes people more curious.

But the fellow is staring at me, waiting for more.

I turn my eyes down. “Father told me to eat supper and then berth with him in the stable yard.”

“He’s the new stable hand, is he?”

I nod.

“Much good he’ll be with a bellyache.”

I look up. “Do you have a remedy for that good sir?”

Father always stresses the importance of asking for advice when a conversation turns sour, as it flatters the vanity.

The fellow hawks and spits, rising from his seat. “You’ll have to go to the kitchens for that, son.” He ambles off.

I return to my meal, hoping the others will forget about me and the conversation I’ve just had. Fortunately, it is that time of the meal when men turn tipsy. Pretty soon they are laughing, singing, and telling dirty jokes. One song goes like this:

 “There once was a king with twelve daughters—”

                        —”Twelve bee-yoo-tiful daughters,” sing the others in an out-of-tune chorus.

“But he refused to marry them off—”

                        —”Twelve bee-yoo-tiful daughters!”

“And why did he refuse to marry them off?”

                        —”Twelve bee-yoo-tiful daughters!

“Because they would make unsuitable wives—”

                        —”Twelve bee-yoo-tiful daughters!”

“The eldest is mad.

The second is bad.

The third is sad.

The fourth too bold.

The fifth too shrill.

The sixth too shy.

The seventh too just.

While the eighth loves her father too much—Ha! Ha!

The eighth loves her father too much!

The ninth is a boy.

The tenth a mermaid.

The eleventh a goddess.

While the twelfth has only five years, five years,

The twelfth daughter has only five years.”

“Do not touch!” yells someone to guffawing laughter.

The men pick up their song again:

“But the one you need to watch for is number four, number four,

The one you need to watch for is number four.

For the fourth daughter is a very naughty girl,

With large bold eyes and a nearly naked form—”

This goes on for some time. The fourth daughter seems to fascinate the men. I chew thoughtfully. Somehow, I must find a way of meeting her.

I turn to another man. “Is it true he locked all twelve of his daughters up in a high tower?”

The man nods.

“Why are they going on about the fourth daughter? I thought it was the eldest who dishonored the family name—”

“Keep your voice down,” hisses the fellow. He looks around and then stares back at me from under bushy brows. “Your information is quite good, boy. Most of what you say is true.”

“Which part is false?”

The fellow rises to his feet. “If you’ll take my advice, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Folk pay with their lives by asking too many questions.” He glances around and draws his forefinger across his throat.

“But—” I gesture to the men singing lustily.

“They’re drunk.”

“But—” I say again. But the man vanishes into the press of sweaty male bodies.

Outside, it is a lovely evening with a couple more hours to run before the sun dips below the trees. The castle tower stands up like a finger, a beckoning, a warning, that people can see for miles around. If their eyesight is good, they will see a window set high in the tower, just underneath the tiled roof. On a fine day, the window unlatched, the wind carries the sound of voices, the high sound of girls’ voices gossiping, chattering, giggling. Now, on this late summer evening, someone closes that high window shut. I catch a glimpse of a heart-shaped face with deep-set dark-grey eyes, and light-brown hair drawn back into a braid. Which daughter could she be? Not number four, for she is dressed modestly in a light woolen robe dyed a soft grey to match her eyes.

I lift my head to the moon, a thin fingernail of a crescent. A shiver runs up my spine. Something is going to happen within the month, I can feel it. This place hums with suppressed tensions.

Father will be so interested when I see him tomorrow.

About the Author:

Cynthia Sally Haggard was born and reared in Surrey, England.

About 40 years ago, she surfaced in the United States, inhabiting the Mid-Atlantic region as she wound her way through four careers: violinist, cognitive scientist, medical writer, and novelist.

Her first novel, Thwarted Queen, a saga set in 1400s England with a Game of Thrones vibe, won the 2021 Gold Medal IPPY Award for Audiobook. Her second novel, Farewell My Life, a dark historical about a hidden murderer, won the 2021 Independent Press Award for Women’s Fiction and was a 2019 Distinguished Favorite for the New York City Big Book Award. (Farewell is now a set of four novellas that make up the Grace Miller series.)

Maiden Tomb, the first of four projected novellas that will form the Twelve Cursed Maidens series, was a 2026 Distinguished Favorite for the Independent Press Award. Cynthia graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge MA, in June 2015.

When she’s not annoying everyone by insisting her fictional characters are more real than they are, Cynthia likes to go for long walks, knit something glamorous, cook in her wonderful kitchen, and play the piano.

You can visit her at:

Twitter ~ https://x.com/cynthiasallys
Blog ~ https://cynthiasallyhaggard.com/blog/
Website ~ https://www.cynthiasallyhaggard.com
Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.haggard
Instagram ~ https://www.instagram.com/cynthiasallyhaggardauthor/
Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/cynthiasallyhaggardnovelist

BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: Nocturne by Tricia D. Wagner

Nocturne
Tricia D. Wagner
Publication date: April 14th 2026
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

In NOCTURNE, sixteen-year-old Livi learns the truth of who she is—a Siren, her people known only to legends. She must learn to master her powers of influence, strength, and destruction to stop a warmongering Admiral from drafting her best friends, capturing and killing her people, and decimating her homeland of Nocturne.

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EXCERPT:

Livi stood before the tavern’s bleak threshold, its heavy door cobbled of wrecked ships.

She peered through its ragged window, quieting the wiser part of her, an inner voice calling for her to turn back. And truly, she was stunned that she’d mustered the daring to try this.

There were dozens of men here—sailors all brooding over their flagons, many looking to be harboring grudges.

The tavern’s splintery walls were studded with trophies—toothy payaras, dry in their death throes, tacked beneath golden portraits of infamous Korps Mariner ships and their dread captains.

The men frequenting this sand-dusted, fish-pongy tavern—The Orphic, were the sun-beaten sailors and damaged soldiers of Merritaine, mercenaries and relieved fighters who’d reached the shore of old age still breathing.

No one dared step a toe in The Orphic unless he bore epic tales—bloody acts of acclaim on the baleful blue seas.

Many here had killed. Some for honorable causes in noble wars, yes. But they’d killed.

For all their savagery, though, they were brave.

Livi had heard enough stories to understand them as uniformly dauntless and skilled. If anyone could help her skip Merritaine’s coast and reach Nocturne, he’d be drinking here.

Through the brume of pipe smoke, she measured each face for hints of affability. Or at least for traces of good humor—signs that someone might consider her offer. If she could just single out one sailor more approachable than not, perhaps she could move to him unnoticed.

But that wouldn’t happen. Women scarcely set foot here, and sixteen-year-old girls certainly didn’t.

A few of the sailors came across as jovial—but even they harbored an undercurrent of trouble in their looks, their ease striking like a gusty southerly bathing the seaside, forecasting a typhoon’s assault.

The afternoon seemed all at once to grow late, a shaft of misted sunlight sluicing through the windows and casting the place in watery relief.

In fixing on that panorama of ocean, Livi could almost see Nocturne’s peaks in the deep west, its moonstone shores marbled with the shadowy ash given by its volcanic chain.

Those heights, she had to reach. For it was said that Nocturne’s high places were hived with sea caves—chambers shining with waters rumored to have healing properties.

Some believed those springs could stave off even death.

Livi eased from her jacket a small jar of pearls, each perfect, as plump as a blueberry—these a mere sampling of the trove she’d collected. They ought to be more than enough to buy passage to Nocturne from someone here bearing the skill, and the gall, and the ship, and the time to set sail for the Isles, along with some assurance that he could ferry her through storms, over waters where lurked sharks and killer whales and squids that tore up boats, and finally beyond the dread Maelstroms.

Livi had imagined this moment many times—making her bold approach in The Orphic, striking a deal. She’d imagined that arriving at this brink would feel like the onset of her escape.

But in finally standing here, readying to approach men alleged to be the most barbarous in Merritaine, the idea seemed beyond reckless.

Célian, her best friend—maybe more—would be sick at the thought of her here. And truly, in darkening this threshold, she felt she was skimming the rim of the Maelstroms, those great whirlpools unceasing in their churning, twisting what strayed near straight down in a tempest, claiming ships and seafarers alike as a part of themselves.

The bright Merrow Ocean glinting in, though, delivered some steadfastness. For at the sight of its rolling, Livi could gather a sense of what it might feel like, teaming with someone here, cruising on his scabrous ship to the treacherous west.

A man seated at the tavern’s back corner stood out a touch.

He looked a decade younger than the rest, and he had all his limbs, which was saying something. He seemed not resentful, or affable, or angry—just somber. His solemnity made it clear that he wanted to be left to himself.

But it also lent an impression of patience. Maybe he’d listen.

She edged open the tavern’s door and crept in. She eased behind a column in the entryway and held still.

She’d have to get to the somber man quick. If she drew too much attention, the barkeep—a tall man, his eyes sharp to check all the action, his manner busy and swift with his bottles—would cast her out before she could lay down one word of her offer.

Or worse—he’d let the men handle the disruption.

Livi stepped from the shade, into the amber light of the tavern.

Author Bio:

As a young reader, writers were like gods and goddesses to now author Tricia D. Wagner. She never could have imagined weaving tales like her favorite storytellers, until a fateful April dinner conversation with her husband about a lecture he attended got her mind whirling. By the end of that summer, she’d written 400,000 words: a speculative fiction trilogy. Wagner felt as if she’d emerged from a cocoon as some new sort of creature. She was hooked.

It was important to Tricia to sharpen her skills, and she immersed herself in workshops, guides, and writing communities, learning from editors how to hone her craft. She did this for years, and the result is her newly released novella The Strider and the Regulus, two independently published novelettes, four soon-to-be published novellas, and five as yet unpublished novels. She found writing to be a method for becoming the person she felt she was born to be. Wagner finds that writing inspires her to be a better person, truer to herself.

The ideas and substance of Tricia’s writing comes from a very deep place that is strongly stimulated by setting. Often, when she has completed a story, she feels as if she’s been to her story world, whether it’s on the map or not. She likes to believe all the places she writes about exist somewhere, somehow.

In writing her stories, Wagner was surprised and delighted to discover how real the characters become to an author; that for many writers, their characters end up as their most treasured friends. She loves to delve into them to mine their natures, secrets, and desires—to tell their stories with the legitimacy they deserve. In studying her characters, she finds she has the opportunity to shape herself, inching closer to the person she wants to become.

Wagner believes revision is magical in its power to make a good book great, and early drafts are only the beginning of a story’s journey. Any idea can wind up a good story, but with reflection and time and improvement, it can become art. Once Wagner completes a revision project, it feels miraculous how many fresh approaches have manifested and how much truer the story feels.

Wagner hopes her readers feel enchanted when they read her stories; that after completing one, it seems they’re drifting out from under a spell. This is exactly how she feels when she finishes writing a story. She hopes to that her writing might expand their minds, spirits, and worlds a bit, and she hope they fall in love with her characters and are moved by her artistry of language.

When she isn’t writing poignant works of literary fiction, Wagner is a Director of Adult Education – ESL Programs at a community college, a job and staff that she loves. In her spare time she enjoys refining her writing craft to discover new angles and landscapes that might enrich her writing palette. One such example is a recent course she took in learning to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, something that’s sure to end up in a story at some point. Wagner lives in Rockford, Illinois, with her husband and three darling cats.

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BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: To Hell and Back by Bill Blume

To Hell and Back
Bill Blume
Publication date: January 20th 2026
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

For one pair of swordfighters, their marriage is worth going to Hell and back.

Ty and Dani are a modern-day, swordfighting husband-and-wife duo who help with exorcisms until a demon kills Dani’s mother and all of their fellow exorcists. Now, they’re on a quest for revenge through the realms of Hell, and killing the demon is just the start of the journey. To keep the demon from reviving, Dani and Ty must escape Hell within seven days and cast the demon’s head and heart into an Eternal Flame. To get back to the mortal realm in time, they rely on their small terrier Wicket to lead them past the demon’s army and thousands of other horrors.

To Hell and Back takes readers on an epic journey perfect for those who believe love can overcome any challenge and that a devoted dog makes the perfect guide no matter where you need to go.

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EXCERPT:

They didn’t drive far, parking on a cobblestone street next to the café, sitting on a street corner. The entire front wall of the café was made up of tall doors that were all turned open to take advantage of the pleasant spring weather. Ty sucked down his coffee. It tasted stronger than what he preferred, but as tired as he was, he considered that a good thing.

“I imagine you have a lot of questions.” Maria sat at one of the tables closest to the sidewalk with people dressed in business suits and hospital scrubs walking by. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, draping her arm over the back of it.

“I’m told you work for the church?” He decided against gambling on whether it was the Catholic or Episcopal Church.

“Heard that, did you?” She cracked an amused grin, as if she’d been privy to his conversation with Barry. “That’s only partially true. We’re funded by the Church of England, but we don’t answer to them.”

Taking a chug of his coffee, Ty then asked, “And who is we?”

“A fair question, and I’ll get to that soon enough.” She paused for her own sip of coffee. When she continued, she stared out at the street as cars rumbled across the cobblestones. “I’d like to talk about you a bit first. I notice you’ve started the transition.”

“The what?”

“Oh, you’re trying to find a way to make a living off that sword arm of yours that doesn’t require a nine-to-five job typing on a keyboard or some other nonsense. You’re going the usual route: giving lessons to wannabes drunk on fantasies of medieval knights or Star Wars. You know. The usual stuff.” She looked at him with a smirk that assured him she already knew the answer to her next question. “You enjoying all that?”

He cleared his throat and sniffed. His sinuses were still killing him.

“I’m paying my bills.” He shrugged, trying to mimic her nonchalance by turning his focus out onto the street and the passersby. Didn’t keep him from seeing her amused reaction to his answer, that she knew he was full of shit.

Yeah, he’d taken to giving part-time lessons at a local fencing club that included saber fighting. Most of the job seemed more about punishing clients into the realization that they weren’t going to turn into Inigo Montoya overnight and that fighting with a sword required both finesse and brutality. Being good with a sword required a killer instinct. Forcing others with limited skills to realize they didn’t have that certain something was taking a toll on him.

“Look, Mr. Faison.” She leaned forward, crossing her arms on the table. “For some people that’s enough, and that’s fine.” The way she said “fine” left little doubt it was anything but that. “But someone like you…” She shook her head.

He tried to bluff, acting amused and disinterested, but his acting skills failed him again. “You think so?”

The way her expression hardened, that single eye narrowing on him, forced his full focus on her. “I think you’re the kind of person who’s only ever whole when he’s got a sword in his hand and a real fight in front of him.”

She leaned back in her chair again, with all the satisfaction of a wildcat dining on a fresh kill. The silence offered him a chance to respond, but she’d left him speechless. No one had ever peeled him down to his bones like this—not even his parents—not this fast or with such ease.

After giving him his chance to answer and seeing he wasn’t able to, Maria sipped her coffee and then continued. “You’re twenty-six. You used to finish in the top three at most competitions you entered but you haven’t in more than a year. It’s not that your skills or body are fading, and it’s not because you’re distracted by the side work that pays the bills. No, it’s because even the competitions are starting to bore you. Those fights aren’t real anymore, because all that’s at stake there is pride.”

“And what? You’re offering me a ‘real fight’? What is this? Some kind of underground sword fight club, where the loser dies, and the first rule is to not talk about it?”

She shook her head, grinning at his attempt at wit. “This is no game or club. Underground? Somewhat. But what you’ll be doing will make a real difference in people’s lives. I’m offering you a chance to reclaim that fire that ignited the moment you first touched a sword.

“I’m giving you a chance to find your heart.”

Author Bio:

Bill Blume discovered his love for the written word while in high school and has been writing ever since. His latest novel, West of Apocalypse, is now available from Time Killer Publishing. His short stories have been published in many fantasy anthologies and various ezines.

Like the father figure in his “Gidion Keep, Vampire Hunter” novels, Bill works as a 911 dispatcher for Henrico County Police and has done so for more than two decades. He served as the 2013 chair for James River Writers, which produces one of the nation’s best annual conferences for educating and connecting writers.

He graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Broadcast Journalism in 1995. In the years after, he worked as a TV news producer, first in Columbus, Georgia, and then in Richmond, Virginia, which has become home for Bill & his family.

You can learn more about Bill at his website: http://www.billblume.net.

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BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: Forrest House by E.M. Hamill

Forrest House
E.M. Hamill
Publication date: January 11th 2026
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

Ander Forrest renounced blood magic to become a nurse-healer in his rural hometown, far from the drama of wizardry and espionage his sister Kate craved. When Kate goes missing in action, Ander finds himself the legal guardian of her gifted twins and receives a cryptic warning from Kate’s husband to protect them before he, too, disappears.

Six months later, his former lover crash lands in the kids’ bedroom via a spell only Ander’s sister could have cast. Druid Cai Piper doesn’t remember how he got there, but he knows he never stopped loving Ander, and that he was sent to protect him and the twins. Cai is strangely drawn to Forrest House and the land it stands upon.

With the secrets of a clandestine wizards’ order hanging between them, Cai and Ander must remember how to trust each other as sinister forces move against the Forrest family—magical terrorists who want to exploit their rare sorcery and bring the world to its knees.

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EXCERPT:

Cai cleared his throat. “You said I’m in America?”

“Yeah.”

“And if I was sent by a bloodspell, does that mean Remy and Raven are here?”

“Well, of course.” Ander blinked as Cai closed his eyes and sighed. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or defeat. “You didn’t know,” he said.

“No. Edwyn kept it a secret, even from me.” His fingers touched the blood-matted knot at the back of his head in tentative exploration. “I must have been out. I would never have let him send me otherwise. He was bleeding badly.” His hand tapped an area high and to the outside on his left leg. “Shot in the thigh.”

Ander thought of all the major blood vessels there and breathed a plea to the Goddess that none were severed. “I didn’t think the Fellowship used bullets.”

“We don’t. We were on a joint mission with intelligence agents. Someone started lobbing spells at us and our allies turned and shot each other. He was hit in the crossfire.”

“A Judas spell?” Ander frowned.

“I think so.”

“Were you working with British intelligence?”

Cai opened his mouth to answer, then flinched and rubbed both sides of his head. “Some of my memories are missing. It’s painful to think about.”

“I think you might have a concussion.”

“Maybe. But this feels more like it was blocked by a spell.”

“By Edwyn?”

“I don’t think he would have had time. Not surrounded by guns and magic.” His breath became uneven again, and he sat unsteadily on the bed. “The harder I try to think about it, the more it hurts.”

“Don’t try right now.” Ander came closer and put his fingers under Cai’s jaw, forcing him to look up so he could peer into his eyes. Still no signs of a more serious head injury, but he wasn’t satisfied until he ran his fingers under Cai’s clotted hair to cradle the bruised lump beneath his palm, his senses open for new bleeding. He didn’t discover any.

Cai stared at him as he pulled away, his face inches from Ander’s. They both became aware at the same time of how close he was standing, his hands gentle on the back of Cai’s head as if he were going to draw him into a kiss. Ander slowly stepped back.

“I have to find a way to get back to…” Cai frowned. “To…damn it! They took that, too. I don’t know where we were.” He looked to Ander with a desolate gaze. “I don’t even know if Edwyn’s alive.”

“You can’t ask the Fellowship?”

He stiffened. “No, I can’t.”

“I’d feel better if I could get you to a hospital.”

“I’ll be fine. I think it’s clear I’m meant to protect you and the twins.”

“Protect us from what?” He sat on the bed next to him. “What’s going on, Cai? Why wouldn’t Ed tell you where the kids were?”

He didn’t answer, his gaze slipping sideways.

Ander had not missed this infuriating silence. Kate had pushed Ander away with it, Edwyn maintained it, and Cai had used it to shut down questions when they were together.

He’d left Wales and come home because the people he loved most in the world could barely talk to him unless he was inducted into the Fellowship.

Fury rose in scarlet floods with Cai’s refusal to speak. Ander let it crest. “That’s fantastic. Of course you can’t say anything. Then tell me how to protect them and get the fuck out.”

“You don’t—”

“They’re all I have left of Kate! I need to know how to protect them!”

“If you’re going to shout at me, then I will take that paracetamol now.” His voice was soft, defeated. A crease furrowed the skin between his brows, and the tight lines of his body spoke of more pain than a headache. Ander didn’t have to imagine the grief of not knowing if his brother was dead or alive. He knew only too well.

“I’m sorry.” Ander exhaled, forcing himself to calm. “We aren’t done,” he said in a less strident tone. “You will tell me what’s going on. Fuck the Fellowship and your code of secrecy! Those kids are my priority now. They’ve already lost their mother, and now maybe their father. No more.”

To his surprise, Cai nodded. “I promise I will tell you what I know.”

Disconcerted by his unexpected victory, Ander reluctantly let his anger drain away.

“Are you hungry? I’m making dinner.”

“Starving. I can’t recall when I last ate anything.”

“It’ll be ready in half an hour. Make sure you drink the rest of that water.” He turned to go.

“Ander.” Cai’s expression was gentle as Ander looked back over his shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”


Author Bio:

E.M. (Elisabeth) Hamill writes adult science fiction and fantasy somewhere in the wilds of eastern suburban Kansas. A nurse by day, wordsmith by night, she is happy to give her geeky imagination free rein and has sworn never to grow up and get boring.

She lives with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.

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Forrest House Blitz