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Review: Spellbound by Allie Therin (2019)
“Besides, what’s your rush for me to pair up again?” he called after her, as she went through the open pocket doors and into the adjoining parlor to answer the phone. “You didn’t even like Lord Fine.”
“You didn’t even like Lord Fine.”
Arthur made a face, but she wasn’t wrong.
– Spellbound, Allie TherinRating: ★★★★½
Genre: Historical Romance, Paranormal
Categories: M/M, magicDescription: Set in prohibition-era New York, Rory Brodigan has the magical gift to “read” the past of items that he touches. He keeps to himself and hides his abilities until the tall, dark and rich Arthur Kenzie steps into his life. The two get involved in a plot to save the city from other magic-users trying to seek out and abuse the powers of magical relics—which of course involves getting very involved with each other.
Being with Arthur is dangerous, but Rory’s ever-growing attraction to him begins to make him brave. And as Arthur coaxes him out of seclusion, a magical and emotional bond begins to form. One that proves impossible to break—even when Arthur sacrifices himself to keep Rory safe and Rory must risk everything to save him.
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Empty Vessels & Cybernetic Tea Shop – Now Available in Paperback
Meredith’s 2019 Halloween Interactive Fiction is now complete! Thank you so much to everyone who read and participated—it was a lot of fun. Now that it’s done, you can read through the whole thing here, or ask any questions or give feedback here at the Q&A post!
Two of Meredith’s books, Empty Vessels and The Cybernetic Tea Shop, are now available in paperback (Tea Shop for the very first time!)
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End of September Updates
Big news all around! First up, the final re-release from Meredith’s backlist: Hair to the Throne (Pandemonium #3): F/F (cis/trans) friends-to-lovers. A hairdresser is reunited with her long-lost best friend after they’re captured by a many-eyed demon prince and need to scheme their way to freedom.
And with that, we’re all caught up! All of Meredith’s books are now available — check them out and see if there’s something you might want to pick up! (We especially suggest Empty Vessels or Only Human for halloween-appropriate reads).
As well…
¡Nuevo libro! SEÑALES DE HUMO. Un romance gay enmarcado en el género de fantasía urbana. Un agente de atención al cliente tiene que ayudar a un atractivo y multimillonario dragón cambiaformas. Reserva ahora y léelo el 1 de octubre.
Which is to say, Smoke Signals has a Spanish translation available releasing tomorrow, October 1! If you speak Spanish and fancy a human/dragon m/m urban fantasy, check it out! And, of course, if you’d rather just read that in English, you can do that over here.
Other big October news? It’s time for my yearly queer halloween Interactive Fiction! Every day in October, I’ll post a section of the story, and your comments will help determine how it goes for the next day! Go here to get started, or check out what we did in previous years. This year is going to be f/f, a lil spooky, and a lil cozy! Let’s just say there will be some soft cryptids involved.
Speaking of soft cryptids, our last bit of news isn’t book-related at all. Meet the new addition to our family, Jester!
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Review: This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (2019)
“There should not be a sheet of cream-colored paper, clean save a single line in a long, trailing hand: Burn before reading.
Red likes to feel. It is a fetish. Now she feels fear. And eagerness.
She was right.”
– This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: ★★★★
Genre: Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic
Categories: F/F, time travelDescription: A post-apocalyptic time travel novel written in a swapping-point-of-view style, featuring letters between the protagonists. Red and Blue are operatives from different factions of time travelling organizations trying to manipulate the worlds and their timelines to their own ends. They’re both the best at what they do, and recognize each other’s skill—leading to them starting to secretly, covertly exchange letters, and slowly start to care about each other. Obviously, that has consequences.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. And thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Except discovery of their bond would be death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?
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Halloween I.F – “A Little Night Magic” – Author’s Notes / Story Q&A
[Author’s Notes / Story Q&A]
Thank you so much, everyone, for coming along with me for A Little Night Magic, whether you joined in or just read. It was enormous fun to write, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as well.
The final length of this story was 53,200 words (around 125 pages in gdocs)! Once again, we managed to pull off NaNo in October! If and when you want to reread it, you’ll be able to find this story linked from my Interactive Fiction page. Feel free to check out some older interactive stories there too!
If you enjoyed the story and are looking for ways to support me and my work, you can learn more about and pick up my books over here. Read some already? Leaving a good rating or review on Goodreads or Amazon can make all the difference. I’ve also got a tip jar over at Ko-Fi if you’d like to buy me a drink! And please, feel free to follow me on social media to see what I’m up to: Personal Twitter and Book Twitter.
Okay, business aside—let’s do a story Q&A! Feel free to ask me anything you want about the story, whether it’s about what my writing process was, how I got the idea for certain events or characters, things people may have suspected but not had confirmed, other ‘routes’, etc. Wonder what would have happened if you’d done X instead of Y? Ask it here! (Lurkers are totally allowed to ask too, you don’t need to have participated to ask!).
Here’s some starting information: I got the initial idea for this after moving into a new apartment. In the elevator room in the lowest basement, I kept finding dead moths, and at one point I had a conversation with the (perfectly lovely and not-possessed) janitor, who didn’t seem to notice she was mopping up dead bugs instead of leaves. After that, when a moth got into our apartment and got hunted by one of our cats, I kept thinking, what if.
Thank you once again… and happy Halloween!
[Ask Me Some Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies]
[Completed parts: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue]