Magna's Plea by Cherie Reich

My friend and fellow Untethered Realms member Cherie Reich has a new YA Epic Fantasy short story out and it's free! That's right, FREE.

Here's a great excerpt from the story along with info on how to get your copy:

An excerpt of Magna’s Plea by Cherie Reich

Amora

12-13 Days of Luquiry

Year 1717 AUC

Tendrils of smoke swirled heavenward. The smoldering stench reached Princess Magna at the top of the palace’s northern tower. She wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant odor, yet it still smelled better than the filth plaguing the besieged seven-hilled city.

She’d vowed to protect Amora. Her heart shattered a little more each day at the devastation afflicting her kingdom.

The once grassy and flower-filled plain sprouted dust plumes from the trampling feet. As the sun neared the western horizon, a bloody hue washed over the battlefield. Tiny, metallic dins and men’s shouts rang out. Magical bursts flashed in the sky like Thean’s lightning, beautiful and deadly. A wooden catapult hurled a human-sized stone slab into the city’s wall. Magna jerked away from the opened window she stood before, as if the object had struck her instead. Rock crumbled from the impact, but the barrier held.

When the reddish orb sank lower, the fighting ceased. War’s chaos parted into two orderly sides, and soldiers crossed the field to gather their dead.

She brushed a shaky hand over her cheeks. Tears dampened her face, and she struggled to turn away from the battle before her. Almost two months had passed since the Apenthans had begun their attack Amora. How much longer could the Amorans—she—stay safe behind their impenetrable wall?

Book Description: A princess will rise and challenge Fate.

While her father, brothers, and people fight against the Kingdom of Apentha, tenacious eighteen-year-old Princess Magna can only watch the destruction of Amora, her besieged city and kingdom. Her mother, Queen Vyvian, has refused to allow her heir to join the fray.

But Magna won't take no for an answer. She seeks out an end of the war from Prince Cyrun of Apentha, their prisoner. If she can't persuade him toward peace, then Amora may fall.

This short story prequel includes a sneak peek of Reborn, Book One of The Fate Challenges, forthcoming May 2014.

YA Epic Fantasy
The Fate Challenges #0.5
A 5500-word Short Story

To download this short story for free: Amazon / Nook / iTunes / Kobo / Smashwords / Goodreads

Read online at Wattpad

Add to Goodreads

About the Author: A self-proclaimed bookworm, Cherie Reich is a speculative fiction writer, freelance editor, book blogger, and library assistant living in Virginia. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and her books include the horror series Nightmare, a space fantasy novella trilogy titled Gravity, and the fantasy series The Foxwick Chronicles. She is Vice President of Valley Writers and a member of the Virginia Writers Club and Untethered Realms.

Her debut YA Epic Fantasy novel Reborn, book one in The Fate Challenges, will be released on May 23, 2014.

Website / Blog / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads / Wattpad

Ghost Stories: The City of Columbus

The City of Columbus Shipwreck (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

After taking a break thanks to my jury duty obligations, I'm returning to featuring ghost stories as I count down to the December release of my novel The Ghosts of Aquinnah.

The City of Columbus steamer ran aground off the coast of Aquinnah in January, 1884 and began to take on water, ultimately sinking into the frigid sea. More than 100 people lost their lives and in its day the Columbus was considered one of the worst sea disasters in history. Headlines of the time proclaimed it as "One of the Worst Horrors Ever Known in New England."

This wreck is the starting point for The Ghosts of Aquinnah and one of my main characters is a fictional survivor named Christopher Casey, so I was intrigued when I learned about some unusual occurrences related to items salvaged from the ship after they washed ashore.

One of these items was a red upholstered parlor chair from the ill-fated ship, whose cabins had been decorated in the style of the Gilded Age. A woman on Martha's Vineyard inherited the chair from her father and placed it in the sun room of her cottage.

According to the story in Holly Mascott Nadler's Vineyard Supernatural: True Ghost Stories From America's Most Haunted Island, the woman placed the chair in her sun room on a warm summer night in July. She went to sleep and woke up freezing, as if she had suddenly been transported to the dead of winter. As she shivered, she saw a white misty cloud moving through her room. When the cloud passed through the door and left her room the cold departed with it. The same thing happened each night for a week, with the cloud occasionally accompanied by the rattling sound of silverware. Ultimately the sufficiently chilled woman decided to remove the chair from her home and donate it to the island's historical society.

I wondered if perhaps one of the ship's doomed passengers was clutching this chair as the ship sank around him or her. Or maybe the horror of that freezing cold night was simply attached to what remained of the ship. Of course, it's also possible that, knowing the history of the chair, the woman merely imagined the cold and noise she thought she experienced.

Whatever the explanation, I couldn't help but imagine my own character Christopher holding onto this chair before the waves sucked it down into the sea.

Do you believe in the possibility of psychic imprints, or residual emotion and energy left on an object? 

In other news, today is the October edition of W4WS and this month belongs to Alex J. Cavanaugh and Isis Rushdan. Check out their sites for tweets and Facebook statuses to share.

Finally, Polar Night and its evil antagonist Aleksei were featured on Ruth Silver's Write Away Bliss blog yesterday as part of her month-long Paranormal Palooza. Ruth is featuring several authors and books a day and there are tons of giveaways to enter as part of the celebration, including my October contest. Visit Ruth's site or check the rafflecopter form below to enter to win an ebook copy of Polar Night and a $10 Amazon gift card.

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Talking to Crickets with M.Pax, a One Word Interview with Tyrean Martinson, and Friday Celebrations

M. Pax is here today as part of her blog tour to promote Beyond The Edge, the latest installment of her spectacular series The Backworlds. I'm excited to welcome Mary as she is a friend as well as a terrific writer and a fellow member of Untethered Realms. Thanks for being here, Mary!

I'm also excited to be on Tyrean Martinson's site as part of her One Word Interview series. Thanks for having me, Tyrean! You can find my interview here.

But now back to The Backworlds and M. Pax. 

Talking to Crickets

If you’re out there publishing, you probably get what I mean by crickets. We scream, we shout, we stand on our heads with flags on our butts [OK, maybe not that], trying to be heard, trying to be seen and noticed.

It’s not easy. Is it? No.

I’ve spent month after month talking to an empty room, so it seemed. Fortunately, I’m extremely stubborn. So I never gave up.

Don’t you give up. It has nothing to do with talent. There’s a heck of a lot of noise out there. You never know when someone might hear you, though. That’s why you can’t quit. Not ever.

I lucked out with Bookbub noticing me in June. They gave me a free ad. That sure was fun. Loved the sales that resulted from that. Thank you Bookbub!

A month later, an editor contacted me and asked me to consider putting Semper Audacia in their anthology, Space Jockey. After some negotiation, I agreed. They paid me. It came out recently and is better than I expected. It gains me exposure.

I published Semper Audacia exactly two years ago. It sells 10+ a month on average. Yeah, so a lot of crickets until something happened.

I hope I’m paying attention to myself here, because I released The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear a year ago. The crickets for that one are deafening. It’s a different audience than my space opera. Obviously, I’m still struggling with how to connect with that audience.

The Backworlds connects, and when I compare what I did for it versus what I did for Hetty, I can see what worked. I offered Backworlds #1 as a perma free and released the second in the series shortly after — a recipe I will repeat for any new series.

However, it seems what works and what doesn’t differs from author to author and from book to book. This formula may not work for my next. That’s what makes this game baffling.

I likened book marketing to pushing a boulder up a hill. My friend, Vella Munn, likens it to pushing water up a hill. Yup, she’s more right than I am, and she’s written a heckuva lot more books than I have.

Don’t be discouraged! Stay out there! Keep yapping! Someone will eventually hear you and things will start to happen. You won’t know when and you won’t know when. Which is why you shouldn’t stop.

Luck is what happens after a lot of work, a lot of work that on first glance seems to be getting you nowhere. 

About Beyond The Edge

Some truths are better left unfound.

 

For two years Craze’s dear friend, Lepsi, has been missing. The murmurings of a haunted spaceship might be a message and may mean his old pal isn’t dead. The possibility spurs Craze and Captain Talos to travel to uncharted worlds, searching. Out there, in an unfamiliar region of the galaxy beyond the Backworlds, they stumble upon a terrible truth.

 

Meanwhile, Rainly remains on Pardeep Station as acting planetlord, dealing with the discovery of her lover’s dark and brutal past. Alone and questioning her judgment, her introspection unlocks more than heartache. Latent protocols in her cybernetics activate, forcing her to face a sinister secret of her own.

 

In the far future, humanity settles the stars, bioengineering its descendents to survive in a harsh universe. This is the fourth book in the science fiction series, The Backworlds. A space opera adventure.

Amazon / AmazonUK / Nook / Smashwords / Kobo / Other Outlets

M. Pax-- Inspiring the words she writes, she spends her summers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregon where she lives with the Husband Unit and two demanding cats. She writes science fiction and fantasy mostly. You can find out more by visiting her at:

Website / FB / Twitter / Goodreads / Pinterest / Wattpad

 

Thanks again to Mary for being here!

Today is also the day for Vikki's Celebrate the Small Things hop. I am celebrating that I am finished with jury duty! I actually got dismissed a few days early and it's been great to be able to get back to a normal routine.

I didn't have a bad experience but I'm still glad to have that behind me. I didn't end up on a case but did get as far as the jury box before the prosecutor decided to dismiss me. I have no clue why he did but I didn't complain!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway

Today is the start of the big Fall Fantasy Giveaway, hosted by Ash Krafton. The event runs from now until the end of the month.

More than 50 authors, including yours truly, are participating and there will be tons of ebooks and swag baskets given away. Visit Ash's site here to enter and join in on the fun! You can also enter through the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

Check out the book box below for just some of the books up for grabs. I think you'll recognize at least one in this group. ;)

Polar Night

At noon the sun awakens as rural Dalton highway is painted on the arctic, Alaskan horizon. Silhouetted against the burning haze, a haunted asylum pierces the never-ending sky.

A woman screams.

A silken voice and a powerful grip to the throat persuades her silence. His classic Russian features, not unlike the minted image of Czar Nicolas II, remain frozen in time. “Please do not disappoint me like the others, my darling.”

The doorbell chimes. He releases his hold and caresses her cheek. “Natasha,” escapes his lips as he ascends the creaky wooden stairs. A calm hand opens the door. The glistening snow on the front porch pales against Aleksei’s skin and charming smile.

The callused hand of a detective, Danny Fitzpatrick, flashes a search warrant. His puffy, bloodshot eyes lock onto Aleksei’s ...

The young woman cries out, but only Aleksei hears. They will never find you my dear. This beaten and hung over man does not have a clue.

Hours later, the detective crosses the threshold and shudders as if encased in a block of ice. The sun drops to sleep and an eerie shadow creeps alongside him. He shakes his head.

Aleksei watches from the peephole. You feel my immortal essence ... do you not? A forceful hand bolts the door. Aleksei probes his elongating eye teeth.

It is time for a new plan ...

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Cover Reveal and Bloghop for Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc

Today is the day to book a time trip with the Butterman Time Travel agency, courtesy of PK Hrezo. But before we get to that excitement, the big news to share is PK's cover for the Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc. book. Isn't it gorgeous?

Congratulations to PK! I just love this cover. I also love time travel stories, so this book definitely has my attention. Here is the info from PK herself:

Welcome to Butterman Travel, Incorporated

We are a full service agency designed to meet all your exclusive time travel needs. Family-owned and operated, we offer clients one hundred years of time travel experience. A place where you can rest assured, safety and reliability always come first. 

Anxious to attend a special event from the past? Or for a glimpse of what the future holds? 

You’ve come to the right place. We’re a fully accredited operation, offering an array of services; including, but not limited to: customized travel plans, professionally piloted operations, and personal trip guides. *Terms and conditions do apply

Conference us directly from our Website. Our frontline reservation specialist, Bianca Butterman, will handle all your inquiries in a professional and efficient manner, offering a tentative itinerary and free fare quote, so you can make the most of your time trip.

We look forward to serving you at Butterman Travel, Inc., where time is always in your hands.  

 

Now for the blog hop. Where would I go if I could book a time trip with Butterman? I am cheating a little and giving the same answer I did for the Wormhole Day Hop back in March. I realized when thinking about PK's hop that my answer hasn't changed. This is what I wrote then:

I'd go back in time to 1930s Cincinnati so that I could meet my maternal grandfather. He died in 1946 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease, and I've always been sorry I never got to meet him. Based on what I've heard about him from my mom, he was a kind and decent man who enjoyed life and loved his family. I think he would have been a very fun grandfather to have. So I'd like to go back to the '30s before he became ill and spend some time with him. It would also be fun to see my maternal grandmother when she was young. I was only 9 years old when she died, and I've always regretted not having more time with her than I did.

My mom's family was 100% German, and they loved their beer. I think it would be fun to go back and spend a day with them when they were all in the prime of their lives. It might be a little weird though to be around my mom when she was a little girl. Maybe I could arrange this Wormhole trip for a time when she was out visiting her friends. :D

 Where would you go if you could book a trip with Butterman?

Butterman's release is scheduled for a perfectly chosen date: 11-12-13! Be sure to mark your calendars for PK's big day. 

PK Hrezo is a native Floridian whose life could easily be a Jimmy Buffet song. She shares her home with her firefighter husband and their two children. When not creating characters and their worlds, PK can be found at her other job of rearranging passenger’s itineraries for a major international airline. The only hobbies she loves more than traveling, are reading, writing, and music, and when the four are combined she exists in total bliss.   

She blogs regularly at PK HREZO: Fearless Fiction http://pk-hrezo.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PKHrezo  @pkhrezo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorpkhrezo

 

Website http://down-the-rabbithole.com/