Archive for the ‘fiction’ Category

Legend Unleashed

by M Latimer Ridley

Pretty cover isn’t it? Wait until you read the story!

Tick Tock, Tick Tock. That’s all that Ted hears as he rushes through the deserted streets of Carwick, heading for the Town Hall, where his office is located. He must hurry.

Carwick is a small, quiet town. The kind where people don’t lock their doors. It’s Ted’s job to keep it that way.

He reaches the building and enters his tiny office. It’s more like a broom closet, but hidden in the floor is a stairway down. Down there. Down to a hidden city time has forgotten.

Ted enters the underground city and rushes through the dark streets. Tick Tock, he must reach the old grandfather clock. He can’t let it wind down.

He finally reaches the clock, but it’s stopped ticking. When he dares to opens its door, it’s empty.What was inside is now behind him, it’s hot breath moist on his neck. He couldn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to see what’s coming.

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In the unsuspecting town of Carwick, Christmas is coming. Temperance works with her father Pratchett, decorating their bookstore. The Haven is always the first shop to do it.

Her father has gotten out the spider web decoration for Boris, a ghost spider. Temp thinks it’s a convenient story that he’s a ghost, as only her father can see him.

They banter back and forth as they decorate, her father mentioning that his friend Cyprian has a nephew coming to stay with him. Alastair is right around Temp’s age, a not so subtle hint.

“Anyway, I’ve put the mistletoe over the door in case he comes while you’re in the shop.” Pratchett wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Sometimes I wonder what age you really are,” Temperance sighed.

Her parents are always meddling in her love life, or lack of it, and it adds humor to this story.

It’s almost time for her classes at the university so Temp heads out. When she arrives the doors are still locked so she settles on a bench to wait.

She’s soon joined by a tall, handsome man who introduces himself as Alastair. She quickly learns how he knows her. Her father’s been busy. He gave her picture to Cyprian to pass on to Alastair. She doesn’t want to know what might be written on it.

The doors to the school open and out steps Cyprian followed by an older man with a walking stick. They seem to be arguing and when the older man bangs his stick on the ground, something strange and unnatural happens. But Alastair denies noticing anything.

Soon after, the man leaves and Cyprian comes to join them. He invites Temp to dinner and an evening at his place. At first she’s tempted to refuse, but then she remembers it’s the night of winter solstice.

Her parents were having friends over for a winter solstice gathering. She didn’t think she could face another of her mother’s versions of a Wiccan party. It would be crowded with menopausal women dancing naked around plastic cauldrons on the hill behind their house.

She sighed. “It’s true. I wouldn’t mind missing jangling crystals and saggy bits this year.”

She accepts the invitation, not knowing that life is about to take a dangerous turn. There are many strange things out and about in Carwick, some not human. After this night, people will huddle behind bolted doors in fear of the dark and what’s in it.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSOZxhN4vXU]

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When I started reading Legend Unleashed, I was so engaged, I only stopped reading because my kindle battery died. Got to remember to charge it more often. When I resumed reading, I was held captive to the end. It’s not a long book, and with the mystery, humor and romance, not to mention the creatures, it’s very engaging and easy to follow.

If you like all of the above and reading about witchy, magical, and hairy things, you’ll enjoy Legend Unleashed. I sure did and can’t wait for more in this series.

           Magically Delicious.

Giveaway

Great news. There’s a great tour going on right now for Legend Unleashed with lots of prizes and great posts. Go here to check it out. Keep reading to find out how to enter a giveaway here!

I was too late for the tour but these great ladies have offered 4 e-books to giveaway here on FUONLYKNEW! Thanks so much Karen and Rachel.

Entry is easy. Leave your email address and answer this question, ” What legend do you wish was real?”

Giveaway ends December 22nd.

About the authors

M. Latimer-Ridley

Latimer (Karen) and Ridley (Rachel) are two eccentric best friends with far too many obsessions and a frightening addiction to tea. When they aren’t reading stories filled with magic, passion and adventure, they’re writing them. A writing duo for the last nine years, they’ve always dreamed of sharing their imaginary worlds and quirky characters with others. While they live in Ireland, they would love to spend their lives travelling the world. But for now, they can be found happily wandering the internet.

Website

Goodreads

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Get yours by clicking on the cover! A copy is waiting for you.

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To join in, copy and paste these rules and the above banner into your Fanged Mania post and add your link to this week’s Fanged Mania post at Elisabeth Wheatley’s Blog. Fanged Mania is a Friday meme counting down to the release of Fanged Princess and displaying all things vampire and awesome. Fanged Mania posts can be a review of a vampire book, a quote from the latest Vampire Diaries episode, a showcase of a cool vampire book’s cover, or whatever you like so long as it is vampire related. Don’t forget, participants will be entered in the drawing to win a fanged-abulous prize pack!

The prize pack I mentioned includes Vampire Diaries and Breaking Dawn posters as well as a paperback copy of Erica Steven’s Captured (my review here) and the complete collection of The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter stories by Jennifer Malone Wright, in paperback, too! =D

Oh, and the contest is international. And the more Fanged Mania posts you have, the more entries you get! So what are you waiting for? Hop on the bandwagon!

Today’s post is about the vampire novels I will be reading. To purchase them, just click on the covers.

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother’s bedside. She’s been stricken with something the old-timers call “Milk Sickness.”

“My baby boy…” she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother’s fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, “henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose…” Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

Dear Mom,

I might be a wee bit late for Cousin Missy’s wedding. It’s been a tough week. Turns out, my blind date from hell was literally from hell. Guy bit me. Next thing I know, I’m being chased all over the city by vampire hunters. And did I mention that I got fired, too?

Bright side-I met a man. Thierry de Bennicoeur. How great is that name? Anyway, he’s sexy, six-hundred years old, and a tad suicidal, but no one’s perfect, right? And we have a deal-he’s gonna show me the ropes of the vampire world, and I’m supposed to help him end his existence. Or maybe I’ll just try to convince him life is worth living – no small challenge with the mostly immortal, let me tell you. I’ll admit it’s a complicated relationship. But with any luck, I just might have a date for that wedding after all…

Hugs and Kisses,

Sarah

The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird‘s world, vampyres have always existed.  In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire — that is, if she makes it through the Change.  Not all of those who are chosen do.  It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling.  She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx.  But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers.  When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny–with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

Daniel ‘Jerry’ Jericho is a your average teenager. Outgoing, curious, smart, friendly, likes cars, rock music, movies, drinks, smokes, is moody at times, a few parental issues, girl troubles, has supernatural blood, decapitates monsters in his spare time…you know, the usual.

Its been three months since he found out that vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and pretty much every other horrible thing you’ve ever dreamt about are real. That was around about the same time he decided he was going to protect as many people as he could from them.

Backed by his best friend Goose, his uncle Joe, the vampire vixen sisters, Cass and Claire, the annoyingly mature fourteen year old psychic Rachel and the peaceful super-vamp Sophinia, Jerry is going to school during the day and hunting evil at night all the while desperately searching for answers about his unnatural blood.

When large groups of supernatural creatures that were targeting him start getting massacred without warning, Jerry thinks it’s possible that he may have an ally out there protecting him.

Unbelievably powerful, undeniably intelligent and indescribably beautiful, Aria isn’t just an ally, she’s every teenage guys greatest fantasy. Not to mention the fact that she has a thirty foot wing span. And when she offers Jerry protection and answers to all the questions that have plagued him since this began, he thinks his dreams have come true.

So why are his instincts telling him that this woman is more dangerous than anything any of them have ever seen before?

Most preternatural creatures just want to eat people.

Aria wants to play…and this is a game like no other.

Start playing and start praying.

Let the games begin.

2/8 of the Blood Heavy series.

WARNING: This novel contains strong language and violence throughout.

“Perdu” –the first novella in the science fiction and fantasy series, Redire de Vampyrus…

“I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”

Ruth and Eugene Flowers desired the American dream: two kids, a big house, and a dog. But it wasn’t meant to be–at least not initially. When a surprise package literally fell into their laps, however, the Flowers would finally get their wish (sort of). Soon, it all goes awry, as mysterious deaths followed by a disappearance permanently disrupt their lives. Meanwhile, many years later, a grown-up Valerie Green, a nearby neighbor’s daughter and high-school sweetheart of their son, Zan, hits it huge in the Big Apple, first landing at Columbia University, then at the New York Pioneer, the hottest online periodical in the city. When she is forced to cross the path of hotshot FBI special agent, Dr. Devean Rasr, she doesn’t realize she is also wading much deeper into the biggest, most dangerous, and most challenging killing spree in the history of NYC.

These are just some of the books on my huge list and don’t include the ones I’m already reading.

See anything you like? Click on the cover to get it. Got any new suggestions? Just let me know.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page.
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
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My teaser is from Rapture by Phillip W. Simpson
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Rapture (Rapture Trilogy, #1)
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“No Sam. You will not be taken by the Rapture. The higher order of demons were once angels. They were cast out of Heaven along with their leader, the Father of Lies.  The same blood that runs in their veins also runs in yours. Like them, you are forever denied  entry into Heaven.”
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I’m a sucker for a series and lovin this one so far. I’m sure I’ll be teasing you with the next two books also.
Thanks for visiting FUONLYKNEW!
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Related articles

Time to announce the winners for Shunned: The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy – Book Two, and here they are!

Vanilla Moon

Emma Meade

Congratulations!

I want to thank everyone for their comments. I enjoyed reading all of them and hope you continue to visit FUONLYKNEW.

Huge thanks to Barabara for her wonderful books.

To purchase The Amish Bloodsucker novels, just click on the images below.

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For more books by Barbara Brink click on these images.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. Wishing you the best for the holidays ya’ll!

I wanted to let you know The Mole People Beneath The City is free for everyone  from Dec. 4th thru Dec. 8th! Go here to get yours.

The Mole People Beneath The City

by Evans Light

The Mole People Beneath the City

Late at night in the subway, a little girl and her father wait for a train that runs deep beneath New York City. It will be a ride they never forget.

“The 50th Street Station was practically empty, a rare event in New York City any time of year. It made me uneasy.

I pulled my daughter closer to me. You have to be careful with those you cherish, especially in a city this big.

Sometimes it eats people.”

After he lost his wife, all he has in the world is his Baby Kat. He won’t let anything happen to her.

As they wait for the train, the man observes a group of young people. It looks like they’ve been clubbing and the young men are drunk and rowdy, showing off for the ladies. The only other person there is an old Chinese woman. She waits patiently, clutching some crumpled newspapers in her claw like hands.

This group of people are in for the ride of their lives. They are about to enter…. The Twilight Zone. Sorry I couldn’t resist that!

But really, they will be wishing they were watching the show.

When Evans describes the trains imminent arrival, I swear I felt the cool breeze pushed in front of the train and the rumble of its approach under my feet.

And just as the train arrives…

In the flash of the trains lights Baby Kat sees something.

“I saw them Daddy, I saw them. In the tunnel,” she cried.

“Saw what?”

People, Daddy, there were people in there. I saw them, down in the tunnel on the tracks,” she whimpered. “It’s the mole people coming for us….”

I swear I felt like I was watching the movie. Evans writes classic horror so well, you’ll be reaching for the popcorn.

       

I gave this story Five Stars because Evans writes horror just the way I like it.

I’ve read several of Evans Light’s stories and they were scary good. I love his writing and am currently working my way through more.

If you like classic horror and short stories, you’ll want to get this. I’ve never met a book by Evans that I didn’t like.

  To get your copy just click on the cover image!

For my review of Payback go here .

For more of my reviews of Evan’s books go here .

About the author

Evans Light has lived here and there across the United States, from the mountains to the beaches to the desert, and currently chooses to reside in a warm, southern state where the living is easy.

Frequently drawn to uncommon experiences, Evans has thrown himself headfirst into a wide range of unusual situations, from testing low-level-entry parachutes with British Army Airborne units to travelling the vast reaches of inner space using sensory deprivation tanks. He is the proud father of fine sons and the lucky husband of a beautiful wife.

Evans Light has been in love with the written word from an early age, and works in a wide variety of genres, including horror, thrillers, sci-fi and humor – but stories of the “Weird Tales” variety still remain his favorite. Evans is currently hard at work completing a collection of short stories entitled “Obsessive Deceptions”. Each story from this compilation is being released as a stand-alone title on Amazon as it is finished. The first five have been collected in the anthology “Stories, Inc.”.

Evans is also writing his first full-length novel, which is expected to be released sometime before his death.

Author contacts

Goodreads

Facebook

You can find all of Evans Light’s books here.

Evans Light

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Merry Christmas from FUONLYKNEW!!

I wanted to let you know about Kevin Howard‘s new release, Precipice: The Beginning.

Precipice: The Beginning

Is this cover not amazing!

The End is only the Beginning….
It wasn’t the first time Lieutenant Travis Daniels had been far from his wife and son. Leading an elite team on countless missions, dodging death at every turn-it was what he was trained to do. And returning to his family was always his driving force… but this time might be different. Imprisoned for an unsanctioned intrusion into a hot zone, Travis and his elite team took a deal to assist in the colonization of Mars to evade the death penalty. While stationed there, Travis’ only source of sanity were the brief video conversations he was allowed with his family. When the last transmission received showed choppy images of the city in darkness and blurs of humanoid creatures running through the streets, Travis and his team must decide to either stay on Mars or find a way back to his family-unknowing of the hell that Earth has become.

This sounds so good!

I’m getting ready to read this now. Can’t wait to tell you about it.

I have just read Faithful Shadow by Kevin and loved it. You can go here to enter the giveaway and read my review.

About the author

Kevin Howard lives with his family in Washington.  He worked in Yellowstone National Park for the summer season as part of a family tradition.  Kevin, his wife Melissa, and his two young children enjoy spending summers there.

Contacts

Facebook

Goodreads

Website

  Get your copy by clicking on the cover image.

Soon it will be Christmas Day….

Silver Bells

I spotted this on Amazon while browsing for some Christmas reads. It’s a short story, didn’t take long at all to read it.

You can go here to get it free right now.

I wish it had been longer, as I fell in love with the characters and the whole story was just so ingenious. A new one on me.

Dash works on the old carousel in the South side of Howle. Not the nicer side of the town. He lovingly sands them and removes the graffiti the town kids paint on the animals, restoring them to their former glory for another year.

George, the night watchman, stops in for his daily chat, motioning to the harness and bells hanging quietly. He tells Dash, not for the first time, to get rid of them as the bells are broken, but Dash just shrugs. He could never part with them.

…..Dash knew the sound of those bells. The pure, beautiful chimes that stroked down his back with all the caress of a lover. They were silent now, but they hadn’t always been.

One afternoon, while working on one of the animals the door to his repair barn opens. Turning to see who has entered, he discovers a young woman. She looks down on her luck in her tattered clothes and exposed, reddened hands. It’s really cold outside and Dash sees no harm in letting her stay awhile.

Not wanting to frighten her, Dash turns back to his sanding. He hears a small voice behind him,

“So, what’s your name?”

and a friendship begins with Merry.

When it’s time to call it quits for the night, Dash tells Merry she’s welcome to stay in the barn. When he arrives the next morning, he discovers Merry gentle sanding a reindeer. She seems very adept at it. They sit quietly, working through the day and this becomes the norm.

Noticing that Merry’s cough is getting worse, he persuades her to stay at his house, in the spare room.  Their friendship has started to become something else, something more. But Dash has a secret, one he can’t tell Merry about.

The secret is in the bells. Why are they broken? Why can’t he hear their sweet sound anymore? There is only one way to get answers, and he’s getting them tonight.

Silver Bells is a sweet, romantic Christmas story.

There is a great surprise when you finally learn about the harness and its bells. The author came up with something so original and so cool. I loved the whole idea.

I gave Silver Bells Four Stars because it left me all warm and smiley inside and I loved the whole idea!

     

Silver Bells is FREE right now on Amazon. Get your copy now as I don’t know how long it will be free!

 Just click on the cover image to get it now!

About the author and where to find her

Sadie Hart often teases that, as a kid, she jumped right from the Saddle Club series to romance and never looked back. If only they knew it wasn’t a joke. From romance came fantasy, from fantasy came urban fantasy, and finally things came full circle when she stumbled on paranormal romantic thrillers. By then, she was more than old enough to hold a pen and had been scribbling down stories for years.

Currently, for half of each day she’s held hostage in a library, where she pretends to work as a secretary, but in reality spends most of her time trying not to read the books. As an avid animal lover, she currently owns two overly large mutts and is seriously debating becoming the crazy dog lady.

Sadie writes the Shifter Town Enforcement series, combining her love of all things animals, the paranormal, and an action packed plot, but she doesn’t plan to stop there. From post-apocalyptic worlds to dangerous hostage negotiation with monsters, every book is an action packed paranormal romance with a heavy dose of the things that go bump in the night–both the spooky and the naughty kind.

For all of her books go here .

Goodreads

Twitter

Website

Merry Christmas From FUONLYKNEW!!

In the spirit of the holidays, I am hosting a wonderful giveaway for James Blakley, author of The Steal Deal. Details are following my review.

The Steel Deal

by James Blakley

The Steel Deal

It all started with the horses. Sonny Busco, private eye, aged 55, thought playing the horses would help him make ends meet. Business had dried up and he needed money badly. Living without running water or a telephone was not good for business, or for him.

He figured he’d cash in on the ponies, but as it usually goes, he lost. Enter Gator Grimes, the loan shark.

Sonny borrows $500 and before you know it, it’s $1.500. When he can’t meet the payment deadline, friends of Gator come callin.

Ziggy and Sully don’t get quite the reaction they were expecting from Sonny. He’s more like, can’t we be friends, than scared.

“You’re too chilly,” Sully carped. “You take the fun out of the collection biz.”

Things get worked out and Sonny gets an extension, a costly one. Then, as luck would have it, he gets a client.

Pixy Sage looks like her name. She’s a petite thing with short platinum blonde hair and black, large framed glasses. She looks like a school kid. But her offer is all grown-up.

$2,500 large to retrieve a package and have it in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 24 hours. Doesn’t sound like too big of a deal.

He could pay off Gator and maybe pay for the repairs on his car. The rusty olds still had some life in her, and he didn’t think the sleek black Stealth he was driving was right for spying on people. He kind of stood out from the crowd in it, but when Hub offered to loan it to him, he couldn’t resist.

It brought back memories of Magnum P. I. except Sonny’s a little slower, older and portly.

Sonny retrieves the package easily enough, but before he can even get to his car the men in black appear. And the woman who steps out of his loaner is taking the package even if she has to pry it from his cold dead fingers. What’s a guy to do, he tosses it to her and ducks for cover. The next sound he hears is his car being driven away.

So now he has no car, no package and no idea where they went. The sentient steel in that package must be the real deal.
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Sentient steel makes me think of the cop in Terminator Two.  It’s flexible, lightweight and incredibly strong and it can think and become whatever it chooses.

Now Sonny has a much bigger job and a sleuthing he will go.

I loved this book. The names and expressions the characters use when speaking were reminiscent of the old P.I. shows. I could just see Peter Faulk in Columbo, with his rumpled clothes and cloud of smoke following him, driving that old clunker. His appearance disguised a brilliant deductive mind, just like Sonny’s.

I even liked the bad guys. How could I not. They are so well written. The author makes it hard to guess who is telling the truth and who’s good or bad.  He has you spinning like a hamster in his wheel.

A super mystery in a small package. Steel Deal is a very fast story that you’ll want to read to the end once you start. There’s too much fun and action to pick a stopping point.

Fun from first page to last!

An International Giveaway

Do I have a giveaway for you. James has been very generous, just check out what you can win!

$25.00 Amazon Gift Card

$15.00 Walmart Gift Card

Two signed Paperback copies of Steel Deal.

There will be four winners.

To enter, please leave your email address and answer this question, “What would you use sentient steel for?”

Contest ends December 18th.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Blakley    James Blakley was educated at Missouri Western State College and Washburn University. While at MWSC, he was a local and national award-winning columnist and co-editor of “The Griffon-News”.

Blakley worked 10 1/2 years as a page and as an Assistant Librarian for the River Bluffs Regional Libraries of St. Joseph, MO. He currently lives in Topeka,KS where he worked for The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library before spending several years in clerical and customer support capacities for international computer companies such as EDS and HP.

For those “inquiring minds who want to know”, I’m almost finished with a screenplay version of “The Steel Deal.” And I’m rough-drafting my next novel (due out in late 2013/early 2014).

You can find James Blakley at Goodreads

*I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. My opinions are my own.

To purchase Steel Deal, click on the book cover image below.

This is the fun part.

I get to announce the winner of the brand new release The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski!

And the winner is

Tiffany!

Congratulations!

I want to say thank you to everyone for their comments. I enjoyed reading them and hope you continue to visit FUONLYKNEW.

For all of my giveaways go here .

Let’s get right to it!

The winners of Nobody Has To Know by Frank Nappi are

Lizzy @ Lizzy’s Dark Fiction

Scott Harris

*UPDATE

Scott has already purchased a copy so I am drawing another winner. Thanks Scott.

The new winner is: Emma

Congratulations ya’ll.

I want to thank everyone for their comments. It’s been fun reading them and I hope you continue to visit FUONLYKNEW!

For all of my giveaways go here .