Saturday, April 30, 2016

Bright's Passion



About the Book
Title: Bright’s Passion
Author: E.B. Black
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Bright wishes he wasn't the god of the suns.

Every day is the same: he makes the suns rise and then they set. He looks down at humanity's corruption. He watches wars, people starving, and thieves stealing.

He can't help. Every time he tries, the humans take something from him. They've destroyed his family and he has no doubt that they'd like to destroy him, too.

Adonya is a raven-haired witch with powers that make her as close to a goddess as a human can be. He's wondered what it was like to be with a woman, but all the goddesses are dead.

He can feel it when he touches her--she's as dangerous as all the rest of the humans. Can the power of love join their races together? Or will one of them wind up dead in the end?



Author Bio
E.B. Black is the annoying author who lives in the head of a nerdy housewife named Elizabeth. Elizabeth tries to live out her days by walking her dog, spending time with her husband, doing housework, and watching television, but E.B. Black makes her drop everything to type out weird fantasy stories. Elizabeth is asking anyone who read this to please send help.

Links

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Witch's Cursed Cabin


Witch’s Cursed Cabin
Coon Hollow Coven Tales
Book Two
Marsha A. Moore

Genre: Paranormal romance

Date of Publication: 4-27-16

Number of pages: 380
Word Count: 111,000

Cover Artist: Marsha A. Moore

Book Description:

Eager to be on her own away from home, twenty-year-old Aggie Anders accepts a relative’s invitation to live in Coon Hollow Coven. Although she’s a witch from a different coven, what locals say about the Hollow confuses her. How can witchcraft there live and breathe through souls of the dead?

Aggie’s new residence in this strange southern Indiana world is a deserted homestead cabin. The property’s carriage house serves as the coven’s haunted Halloween fundraiser. It’s a great opportunity for her to make new friends, especially with the coven’s sexy new High Priest Logan.

But living in the homestead also brings Aggie enemies. Outsiders aren’t welcome. A cantankerous, old neighbor tries to frighten her off by warning her that the homestead is cursed. Local witches who practice black magic attempt to use their evil to drive Aggie away and rid their coven of her unusual powers as a sun witch.
Determined to stay and fit in, Aggie discovers not only that the cabin is cursed, but she alone is destined to break the curse before moonrise on Samhain. If she fails, neither the living nor the dead will be safe.







About the Coon Hollow Coven Tales Series

The series is about a coven of witches in a fictitious southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington, the neck of the woods where I spent my favorite childhood years surrounded by the love of a big family. The books are rich with a warm Hoosier down-home feel. There are interesting interactions between coven members and locals from the nearby small town of Bentbone. If magic wasn’t enough of a difference between the two groups, the coven folk adhere to the 1930s lifestyle that existed when the coven formed.

Book One


Excerpt from Chapter One: The Homestead

A shove of my shoulder pried the rusty hinges on the heavy log cabin door loose. I flung my blond braid to my back and peered inside. Beings and critters, alive and furry as well as undead and translucent, flew, crawled, or slithered across dark recesses of the hallway, sitting room, and stairwell.

“You weren’t kidding. This place is haunted.” I shuddered and looked over my shoulder at Cerise. She looked perky as always with her dark bobbed hair and lively brown eyes beneath horn-rimmed eyeglasses. “Were those things relations or varmints?” I took a cautious step over the threshold to escape the blustery weather and unbuttoned my corduroy jacket.
“Oh, both, Aggie. Ghosts of witch kin and their talking animal familiars,” she said and moved past me to lift sheets off the sitting room furniture.

I raised a brow, curious about what talking familiars were but was too afraid to ask. She didn’t seem to think they were bad, and I needed a place to stay.

Cerise dropped the sheets in a pile and wiped her dusty hands on her skirt. “Those sorts of ghosts are in all the homes here in Coon Hollow Coven. Maybe some animal spirits, too, from the surrounding woods. This property has at least fifty acres of forest. The ghosts are harmless, part of the family. At least no neighbors have complained, that I’ve heard.”

Eyeing corners of the parlor and the length of the hall, I wondered if I could ever get used to living with ghosts of people who’d lived here before. In New Wish, Indiana, where I’d spent my entire twenty years, we only had an occasional ghost. Usually lost souls who, for some reason, hadn’t found their peace before death took them. Most times, those folks had been tormented by darkness and experimented with black magic while they’d lived. Or so Mom told me, but I always thought that was just her way of keeping me in line.

I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I wanted a place of my own more than anything else, and not in the tiny town of New Wish where everyone knew me…or thought they did. They all said I was the spitting image of my Aunt Faye, with the same light blond straight hair, deep blue eyes, dark brows, and quiet personality. Everyone thought I’d grow up to be like her with a houseful of kids, seven or more. Fact was, they didn’t know me. I wasn’t sure I even knew myself. There was so much I wanted to learn and do that wouldn’t happen if I stayed at my parents’ home.

Cerise struggled to open the stuck window. “Aggie, can you help me here? Some fresh air might tempt a few spirits outside. This place has been vacant since my mother passed in 2009. We might find just about anything in here after five years.”



About the Author:

Marsha A. Moore loves to write fantasy and paranormal romance. Much of her life feeds the creative flow she uses to weave highly imaginative tales.

The magic of art and nature spark life into her writing, as well as other pursuits of watercolor painting and drawing. She’s been a yoga enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered yoga teacher. Her practice helps weave the mystical into her writing. After a move from Toledo to Tampa in 2008, she’s happily transformed into a Floridian, in love with the outdoors where she’s always on the lookout for portals to other worlds. Marsha is crazy about cycling. She lives with her husband on a large saltwater lagoon, where taking her kayak out is a real treat. She never has enough days spent at the beach, usually scribbling away at stories with toes wiggling in the sand. Every day at the beach is magical!








Goodreads author page  http://www.goodreads.com/marshaamoore

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The Witches' Almanac Coloring Book








The Witches’ Almanac Coloring Book
Edited by Theitic
The Witches’ Almanac has long featured black and white images of beautiful woodcuts, fantastical creatures, tarot cards, astrological features and constellations, as well as line drawing selected from the folklore of our global community. The Witches’ Almanac Coloring Book brings together a larger format of these images presented in past Almanacs (in addition to images that have not been presented) allowing the inner artist to emerge in a mediation of color.
Neatly packed into seven distinct sections, the first fittingly is Woodcuts. When they first appeared in Europe, woodcuts had thick outlines and little shading. A printer inked the block and applied light pressure to transfer the lines to paper. After the ink dried, another craftsperson might color the images by hand. In other words, the process was very much like a coloring book today, except that today you are the colorist.
The six remaining sections are Constellations, The Planets, Creatures, Egyptian, Americas and Tarot. Each provides for the artist the space to meditate on the imagery imbuing each with color. The aspiring Tarot reader should especially enjoy the final section where each of the 22 Major Arcana and the four Aces are provided.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theitic is a prominent member of the New England Witchcraft community. He became editor/publisher of The Witches’ Almanac Ltd. upon the death of founder Elizabeth Pepper in 2005. Theitic lives in Rhode Island.

***If you love all things witchy, you have to check out this coloring book. I spent some time looking this one over and whether you color it or not (and I will) it is a wonderful collection of pics to keep in your collection.

5/5

Buy link: Amazon

Friday, April 22, 2016

The Part the Doesn't Burn


The Part That Doesn’t Burn
Goetia Series
Book One
Sam Poling

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing

Date of Publication: March 23rd, 2016

ISBN: 9781310401916
ASIN: B01BW0Q2Y4

Number of pages: 319
Word Count: 97,000

Cover Artist: Cora Graphics

Book Description:

In an overpopulated city-state where technology and magic are forbidden by the corrupt church, young witch, Mirabel Fairfax, plots the creation of a deadly plague to cull the burdensome rabble.

That is, until she falls in love with the very alchemist she has been deceiving.

Now, with soul-hungry geists flooding the city, the church scrambling for their prey, and her own mind at war with itself, Mirabel must decide what she's fighting for before she loses everything to the evils of Autumnfall.







 Why Authors Like to Write About Witches

I’m Sam Poling, author of the dark fantasy novel THE PART THAT DOESN’T BURN. Perhaps suiting the title, my novel features a fire witch on the run from being burned herself by a corrupt church. She was a natural character to work with, and active as they come. There’s something about witches in fantasy that make them a reliable and powerful trope for writers and readers alike.

But what the heck is a witch anyway? What breathes sustaining life into the witch subject is simply that it has no solid definition. Sure, zombies and vampires can change from franchise to franchise, but far too much stays the same. Witches can encompass everything the vampire and the rest of the undead enjoy, along with endless other facets. The writer is free to define them from the ground up, and the reader is allowed to learn everything about the dark enchanters all over again, in each new story.

Ancient knowledge, demonology, sorcery, necromancy: everything is on the table. With some many ingredients, the writer can bring back everything they (and their audience) loves, which keeping it original and fresh. Go ahead and redefine necromancy, redefine fate, forbidden love, the concept of time, and perhaps even hell itself. You can pick-&-choose the best aspects of the tropes, and fill in the holes with your own variations at every step. It’s having your cake and eating it too.

What does stick to the witch, however, is the flavor of darkness, misconception, mystery, and danger. That spooky, forbidden “taste” of witchcraft oozes from the pages. Turns out, those who enjoy dark fantasy love their forbidden darkness. And writers can use that to weave a tale capable of anything.

Personally, I feel the element of danger is witch’s most attractive aspect. They live in fear of discovery. The fear losing friends and family, of being burned at the stake, of losing control of their own mind and soul. Perhaps, fear of the craft itself. Witchcraft in fiction is often a power struggle between the deadliest of contenders, and a struggle with darkness itself. It is risk versus reward. Conflict. It is the stuff plots are made of. After all, the life of a fiction witch can never be an easy one. Always trouble.

A strong witch character is a beast of ambition. They are and ought to be active characters with clear goals, not a passive breed of do-nothings. Too many novice and beginning writers fall into that trap of passiveness, but a properly deployed witch will never allow that to happen. They scream for power, for schemes, for masteries, and for peril. They drag the writer along with them, whether for good, evil, or both. In this, they make us better storytellers, as the best sort of characters always do.

Review:

I love books about witches and this one grabbed me from the first page. This author has created a world I want to fall into and never come up for air. How wonderful!

Mirabel is a fiesty character filled with spirit and a brave heart-I am turning the pages fast enough to finish this one in the next day or so. 

5/5


Excerpt:

Mirabel waited in the darkness.  Each passing second made it exponentially less likely the power would return.
“Mirabel? Did we lose power?” Felix’s voice quivered in the darkness.
“It should return momentarily.”
They waited. Mirabel could practically feel Felix’s demeanor evaporating.
“M-Mirabel?”
“Unbelievable, the singular time I am protecting company on the geistlines, a train dies. We are not coal powered. We are coming to a stop. Perhaps your pessimism rang true. Sour fortune must have followed you from Haugen. We need to leave.”
“L-leave? As in, leave the train, and go out there?”
“Felix, without power the only thing stopping a geist from swooping in here and taking your face off is nothing. One hundred percent nothing. Essentially, we already have the cons of being outside, along with the narrow space of being inside. Not a survivable combination.”
Without hesitation Felix took to gathering his tools, and corralling them into his bags.
“No time for that.”
She tugged him out of their room and through the train car. One side of the car featured the cabins. Asleep and unaware, no one else left their rooms. Windows with their blinds drawn and a faint cyan shimmering through adorned the other side.
“They’re lining both sides of the tracks. How long do we have?” said Felix.
“Geist behavior is a constant mystery, even to me, but eventually some will strike. Even those with eternity run out of patience.”
They reached the door to the next car and Mirabel mashed on the panel. Nothing. No power, no doors. She tried the manual handle, but it wouldn’t budge. If only Miss Perfect-Priestess were here, then the door wouldn’t be able to fly open fast enough.
“Oh bother,” she said.
“Door haunted too?”
“Handle denies me. Seems rusted, and I wonder if they automatically power lock.”
She could barely make out Felix’s nervous wince. “I wouldn’t expect that, Mirabel. Emergency situations would turn fatalities.”
“That is not happening with us.” She put her weight on the lever. It didn’t amount to much, and the lever knew it.
“Let me try.”
Felix consisted of average build and height, if not a tad lanky. Certainly not the strong type. Petite Mirabel stood quite small, a whole head shorter, also not the strong type, but she expected she could generate more strength. The alchemist didn’t have the mind for it.
“Felix, darling, put your hands here.” She directed his hands next to hers. “Press down on three, yes?”
Violet light washed over the handle they gripped before she got to “one.” She didn’t have to turn around to know its source. It traveled up her arms and across the door. If another passenger had opened a blind, the light source wouldn’t be nearing them.
“Three-three-three,” she shouted.
Felix threw down on the handle alongside her. Perhaps he did have the mind for it when terrified. With a shriek the lever punched into the open position, and the partners threw their hands into the crevice at the door’s left.
“Get the blasted thing open. Pull, Felix, do not look back.”
She made a mistake. Everyone looks back when instructed not to. He turned his neck and got an eyeful of something that forced a spate foul language. Such words didn’t suit him. Pulling with whatever force her slender arms could muster, she joined his blunder and looked over her shoulder.
A geist, two-thirds down the corridor, drifted closer. Its face partially lifted from its head, hanging a few inches from where it belonged. The glowing wisp mimicked the body it used to have, but poorly. The translucent skin melted and slid ever downward. She knew the face would contort any moment: the precursor to assault. And it had the gut-wrenching violet hue. Of all the geists to enter first, it had to be a damned giftgeist. She had no hope of generating enough magic to destroy it before it reached them.
The broken door started to grind open. She fit her thin body part way into the opening. Her heels dug into the carpet and her back braced against the door’s narrow edge, with her hands pressing against the wall. “Felix, pull.”
The geist twisted into a monster far fiercer than before; its face warped into elongated grief and its jaw stretched to the side to give a dry, raspy howl. Passengers meandering into the hall heard it. They slung their own screams and ran the opposite way. The worst decision during a geistline incident: running toward the rear of the train. They wouldn’t live long.
She reached above her head and flicked her fingers. “You want electricity, you fromping door? H-have some.” More white flashes fluttered between her fingers with each flick. “Come on, I had this spell mastered yesterday.”
“Mirabel? Mirabel,” yelped Felix. “It’s-it’s coming.”
“Simmer. I am focusing.”
“Focus faster!”
With a final flick, current rushed from the witch’s fingertips up into the door mechanisms. She had no idea what it accomplished, but the lights around the immediate vicinity flashed, including the door panel. Her left hand dropped and swatted it. The door grinded opened halfway before its lights died again. Halfway gave them more than enough space. The partners darted through into the next car. Glancing back, Mirabel saw the geist stop and turn to its side. Another passenger had peeked out of their cabin an arm’s length from the specter. It shot from Mirabel’s view before the rattled cries of a man and woman reached her ears.
Felix stopped as abruptly as the geist had. “It’s attacking someone.”
“Keep moving.”
“Mirabel, you’ve got to do something, there are three cars full of people back there.”
“And we are the only valuable ones.”



About the Author:

Sam Poling has been writing fantasy and science fiction for the thrill of it his entire life, from short stories to screenplays. His love for each of the subgenres led to dedication to writing genre-skirting fiction with all the elements that make up the human condition. He holds a strong enthusiasm for medical studies and currently works as a medical assistant in a large clinic while taking classing for nursing. He also serves on a health and safety committee, including disaster preparedness and infection control. His interest in epidemiology and medical science tends to spill over into his writing endeavors.

Author’s site: www.samuelpoling.com


Twitter: @SamuelPoling