Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned - Excerpt

Finally, another new release! Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned (Magic Morsel, 1) was originally on Kindle Vella (a platform that's been buried six feet under) in episodic form. Now I've rewritten it into a novel!

The ebook is currently only available on Amazon, including Kindle Unlimited. It will be sold at other online retailers later this year. And the paperback version is at Amazon now, plus will be available on the Barnes & Noble website in a couple days.

I love all the crazy characters in this book, and I'm itching to dive into the next title in the series. Hopefully you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it! Here's an excerpt from the novel, dropping you right into the middle of Lila Mandrake's world.

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My apartment door opened, and Tyler slipped out. “Children, keep it down.”

“Marcus is holding my Aura Sniffer hostage.” I crossed my arms under my chest, realizing Ty’s insult fit the bill too well.

Tyler humphed. “Is this official M.E.A. business?”

“Yes.” Marcus peered over his shoulder. “I need to talk to your client, Ash.”

“Uh, that’s not going to happen. He passed out after we hauled him onto Lila’s couch. Kai’s keeping an eye on him for now. Once he’s able to speak, we’ll let you know.”

Though Ty had been at odds with me earlier, his current calm and nonchalant attitude reassured me. Then again, he scorned Marcus -- if faced with a different M.E.A. agent, his approach would have been more cautious.

My ex glared at me. “Then I guess we wait.” He tilted his head, pressed his palm to his temple, and staggered. “Woah. What the heck? What did you do to me?”

I skittered back. “Nothing. Honest!” Sure, I wanted to take credit for whatever was happening to him. I’d dreamed of payback so many times. Gammy’s voice in my head had always stopped me, though.

“Did he drink the ginger ale?” Tyler dodged Marcus, who wobbled and grasped at the air.

“Yeah.” Uh-oh.

Ty cringed. “Magic and mischief, help me. I’ve been experimenting with it.”

Marcus pressed his back to the wall and slid down it. “The room’s spinning.” His words slurred.

“You what?” Tyler loved concocting new potions and improving our drinks. Only a liquor license was required to sell any brews that qualified as alcohol, unlike our emergency potion stash. “And you left it behind the bar?” I always cautioned him about testing his experiments on our customers, though it occasionally fell on deaf ears.

“I told Kai not to use it, and Marcus is the only one who ever drinks the stuff. Didn’t expect him to show up tonight.”

That made both of us. “Well he did, and he drank it. What’s it doing to him, and how are you going to fix this?”

He sighed and extended his hand. “Even?”

Through the years, whenever we’d gotten into a tiff, we squared the odds and then shook on it. Hey, it had worked since grade school.

“I guess.” I accepted the handshake. Now he could no longer hassle me about taking on Ash as a client, but I also wasn’t allowed to give him a hard time about the potion.

“So I manipulated the molecules to equal about six shots of alcohol, while keeping the taste the same.” He rubbed his chin. “Quite a delayed reaction, and the impact of the booze hit him all at once.”

“You mean, he’s drunk?”

Ty nodded. “I call it Insta-Ale.”

I burst into laughter.

“Just had the idea to whip up a countermeasure in case he came calling again. You know, to avoid the situation of you making another mistake.”

The uncontrollable cackling prevented me from responding, only a few wheezes escaping. Maybe I actually owed Ty. Nope, we weren’t even. Best present ever.

Eventually I got a hold of myself. Kind of. “So now we have two drunk guys on our hands?” I giggled. “Once Marcus sobers up he’s going to be furious.”

Tyler glanced at Marcus. “Yeah.”

“What--?” My ex sucked in an unsteady, deep breath. “What iz diz? Tounge’z numb.”

“And that’s not a side effect I expected.” Ty shook his head. “Guess it needs more tweaking.”

I knelt next to Marcus, unable to stop another wave of laughter. “You’re drunk, you idiot. So much for you not drinking while on the job. You better stay here and sober up before you contact your boss, huh?”

He snaked an arm around my neck. “We could zpend da time togeder.” That oh so familiar lust filled his eyes.

I squeaked, snatched the Sniffer from his hand, then wiggled out of his embrace. “Pass.” Hastily backing away to the opposite wall, I wrestled with dialing down my hormones.

“You’re not going to leave him here with me, are you?” Ty planted his hands on his hips and frowned at Marcus. “He’ll be livid if you skip out while he’s in this state.”

I shrugged. “Need to take my opportunities when I can. I’ll deal with the repercussions later. Get him onto a couch in one of the meeting rooms, and make sure he doesn’t have any other adverse side effects.”

Not wanting to start another argument, I hustled down the stairs. I had an elf to track, in between snickering over my drunken ex.

❦

A half-elf walks into a bar...

Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? Lila, owner of the Magic Morsel, agrees. As a tech mage who manages the only neutral ground in the Triopolis area, she’s skilled at brokering deals between humans, fae, elves, and a range of other magically inclined people.

Mourning the passing of her grandmother, she’s determined to maintain Gammy’s track record of no major incidents. Then Ash walks into the bar, a half-elf carrying a mysterious item that calls to her.

Agreeing to his request for her services, the deal slides sideways, and she feels obligated to hunt down the stolen object. Her decision leads her to the edge of the Ruins, a forbidden, fallen city shrouded in a cloud of wild magic.

Unfortunately, Lila risks losing her mind among the crumbling buildings and chaotic lightning.

Pull a stool up to the bar in the spellbinding world of Morthmagica, where you’ll discover magic, quirky characters, snarky humor, and slow burn romance. What’s your potion of choice?

Dead As Dreams - Excerpts

Though it's taken me far longer than I would have preferred... Dead As Dreams (Saga of Souls & Dreams) is finally out in the world! It only took over 18 years from when I penned the first word in the initial draft - lol.

So many feels right now, I don't know exactly what to say. OK, well this novel clocked in over 115k words, the paperback is about 400 pages long, and I seriously need a break from writing epic fantasy after this (plenty of urban fantasy projects begging for my attention, anyhow).

I'd also love to know that people are also reading this novel. So if you do read it, post a comment, send an email/message, leave a review - something, anything! This story is very close to my heart, and I want to share it with as many people as possible.

If you'd like to purchase an ebook copy of Dead As Dreams, you can do so via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Google, and Smashwords. You can also use the Books2Read link for ease in choosing your preferred online retailer. The paperback version will be available later this week on Amazon.

Now that I've given you the links, here's not one, but two excerpts from the novel!

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First a snippet from Aysa, The Shepherd of Dreams:

Water dripped all around, the source of the droplets an enigma. A bulb of water appeared directly over an inky puddle, then fell, followed by another. Each drop hammered the Shepherd’s mind, almost as painful as the cries of the child.

The child that couldn’t be found. Not now, not ever.

She curled tightly into herself, large cold stones and gravel beneath her body, pressing hard against her side and cheek. Water soaked into her now tattered wraps, the feathers in her hair sticking to her face.

Again, the cries pierced the nightmare, echoing from every direction. An unvoiced sob caught in the Shepherd’s throat, and she covered her ears. No more. Please.

Her nightmare was always the same. Different settings, but always the child bawling, pain and loss infusing the cries. And the water that wasn’t water, the color of storm clouds and rust.

In the past, she’d searched for the babe. Only in the beginning, though.

Hard to believe there’d ever been a beginning. She strained to recall a time when the nightmare hadn’t existed.

Time. No sun or clock to keep track, she couldn’t tell how long she spent in dreams – time here was intangible, not following the rules of the waking world.

But there had been a beginning. She’d searched, filled with hope of finding the squalling child, only to ache more when she failed to discover the source of the cries. Always out of reach.

And oh, the misery, losing her child over and over again.

Unlike dreams, she had no power in nightmares. No ability to shift and adjust her surroundings or call the babe to her breast.

Even forcing herself to wake, to flee to reality, remained evasive. Though she never tried hard to do so, as that was a different kind of nightmare. And it would always come on its own before long, anyhow.

No longer wishing to fight against Muska’s will, she’d stopped searching after a while. Now, when thrown into a nightmare, she remained immobile and endured the wailing.

The Shepherd cringed at every cry, and the water numbed her skin. She pleaded to be released. Muska refused to acquiesce.

Her wrists and ankles throbbed, echoes of events long dead in her real life. Unless her present had changed. What was being done to her, where she was – she’d lost track.

She lived for the dreams and ran from the nightmares.

And so the babe cried, the water chilling the Shepherd to the bone, as expected. But this time, a new worry tugged at her mind.

The man haunted her. He shouldn’t have acknowledged her presence. She was a shadow in people’s dreams. No one noticed the outline on the floor.

Yet he had.

He couldn’t be like her, able to hop from dream to dream, manipulating the surroundings. He was an encroacher, not a Mahlani. Could it mean something was wrong in the dream world?

The decay she’d smelled in the Nexus – it had to be connected. A puzzle to piece together.

An emptiness hollowed out her insides, and she scrambled to find the first piece. The cries hammering her ears hindered her and derailed her thoughts.

❦

Now a section from the spirit seeker Lazarus:

Lazarus swiped his staff down, driving its tip into the dirt. A tremor shook the ground, shot up his staff, traveled along his arm, and then burrowed into his chest. He stumbled from the unexpected power. Too many spirits.

Not all souls lingered, but this town had its fair share sticking around. More than one night’s work. He hoped the chief would be generous. If not, perhaps he’d allow a spirit or two to linger.

Lazarus knelt and laid his staff in front of him. He pressed his palms against the dirt and leaned down, until the charm around his neck brushed the earth.

The purple light flared, and when he closed his eyes, violet spots danced behind his lids. The brilliant color reminded him of the glossy feathers of the dream-woman.

He muttered under his breath, angry for allowing his thoughts to drift. Never before had he allowed such a distraction to intrude upon his concentration.

The small whisper shook the nearest gravestone – the dead were listening.

Focusing on the dangling orb, he directed the purple light with his mind. It plunged into the dirt and spread out, like the rays of the sun, or the roads springing from the city of Tyrrnah. The light touched several corpses that still had spirits tarrying in the waking world.

Then the first drop of rain struck the back of Lazarus’s neck.

So entangled in his thoughts, he hadn’t smelled the storm rolling in. The drizzle built to a steady rain, and he was drenched in seconds, his cloak clinging to him.

His power was more volatile during a storm.

At least the crowd outside the graveyard remained silent. If they ran for shelter, the ground would quake. Thankfully their fear contained them.

Lazarus recentered, stabilizing the threads of power weaving through the ground of Hambrea. The number of souls took his breath away. Even if a spirit seeker hadn’t visited here for years, it shouldn’t have reached anywhere near this amount.

The deeper he traveled into the Outskirts, the higher the spirit count. But this time... the quantity had leapt considerably compared to the last town, more than was logical.

So many. How?

Another burying ground. He hadn’t seen signs of a second one. Spirits lingered at the edge of his senses, though, out of reach.

He’d pry the location from the chief tomorrow. Nothing he could do from here, so no use worrying about those souls now.

Lazarus wrapped the tendrils of power and light around as many bodies as he could – not even a third of the lost ones in this graveyard. Then he called to them.

“Come. Seek your bodies where they rest. Come.” Though his voice remained a mere whisper, the ground trembled. “Come. Join the bones you left behind. Come.”

And they came, all faded shadows only he could see. One by one, the restless spirits sank back into the earth and curled up in their rotting bodies. When all the ones he’d called rested in their empty husks, he twined the threads of energy around their necks, anchoring them.

Some struggled, attempting to escape. Their wails reverberated in his head, and shook him to his core. His repulsion over the required violence churned his stomach. Always.

No matter the hope for a peaceful send-off, only pain persisted. Once, he’d tried to be gentle, before he knew better. If his mentor hadn’t been there to fix his mistake, loose, angry souls would have rampaged the town.

Lazarus tightened the threads around the spirits’ necks, choking off their ambition. Lightning flashed overhead, paired with thunder, and the tombstones rattled.

❦

Souls chained to the earth scream for release, and nightmares devour dreams.

Aysa, the Shepherd of Dreams, hides in the dream world from a past she yearns to forget. But when the scent of rotting flowers wafts through the Nexus, and multiplying nightmares nip at her heels, she realizes it’s her responsibility as the goddess Muska’s chosen to protect her realm. And then a dreamer notices her for the first time...

Lazarus hates the power the god Lokahn cursed him with – as a spirit seeker, he’s tasked to wander Bodhira, sending off lingering souls to the unknown. In one town, he stumbles across a mass grave and fails to free the spirits, as they’re bound to the earth by another spirit seeker’s magic. Determined to liberate the souls, he seeks help from an unlikely source. A woman from his dream, with blue eyes and feathers in her hair...

Aysa and Lazarus reluctantly make a pact to restore the balance between dreams and nightmares, as well as life and death.

Do Not Go Gentle - Excerpt

It's release day for Do Not Go Gentle! A dark fantasy with spirits and necromancy, perfect for this time of year.

This short story is a prequel to my upcoming novel, Dead As Dreams, which is slated to release in 2023. Lazarus, our main character in this story, is one of the two main characters in the novel. And the series title at present is Saga of Souls & Dreams.

Currently, you can buy a copy of Do Not Go Gentle from Amazon only. It's available with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, though, too!

I hope you enjoy the excerpt below, and may it tickle your curiosity for my forthcoming novel, Dead As Dreams. Happy reading!

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Lazarus hated the cold creeping in, taking over his body, his life. He hated the endless graveyards, each tombstone etched with the symbol of the god Lokahn, bull’s horns attached to a human skull and a flame underneath. And he hated the curse he’d been born with — the power of a spirit seeker.

But most of all, he hated watching his mentor, Borko, send off the lingering spirits, choking their wills before flinging them into an unknown plane. So painful and cruel.

All of it reminded him of his appalling mishap. Over a year ago, he’d accidentally resurrected his dead sister, Sara.

Lazarus’s mother had cast him out after what he’d done to his sister, and he’d been traveling with Borko ever since. Her rejection still ached beyond words, but he understood, especially after observing Borko’s magic at work on a near nightly basis.

Spirit seekers were monsters, hunting down the souls of the dead who still clung to Bodhira, then banishing them to... Well, no one knew where exactly. According to Borko, it didn’t matter where they ended up, as long as they lost the ability to torment the living.

And even though Lazarus hadn’t sent off any spirits on his own yet, he was the worst of the monsters. Poor, Sara. Borko had never committed such an atrocity as raising the dead.

Lazarus had questioned his mentor about the incident once, and the man had growled and poked him in the chest. “Never. Never try that again.”

Not that anyone needed to admonish him. Sara’s shambling form still haunted his dreams, and he feared it always would.

“Come. Join the bones you left behind. Come.” Borko’s intonation beckoned to the spirits as he knelt in the middle of the burying ground, the brilliant purple orb around his neck brushing the earth. The chief of this town, the silent onlookers, and Lazarus all waited outside the gate.

His mentor’s words conjured the memory of his worst nightmare, one that had preyed upon him on his thirteenth birthday. Their thirteenth birthday, as he and Sara had been twins.

In his dream, his sister had clawed her way out of the grave, true to reality, but instead of heading toward their house as she had a year ago, she turned on him. Curses spewed from her unhinged jaw, and she staggered toward him, head tilted at a sharp angle due to her broken neck.

Lazarus had stood rooted, heart thudding in his breast as she approached. A sliver of fear wormed its way to the surface, but guilt quickly gobbled it up. He’d done this to her, and he deserved all the harsh words she flung at him. Along with whatever punishment she deemed fit.

The nightmare had ended with Sara descending on him, pulling him to the ground, then dragging him back into her grave where she slowly devoured him, stretching out the pain and agony. Her prolonged torture mangled his soul.

❦

To send souls off requires a spirit seeker to choke the ambition out of them...

Lazarus curses the power he was born with. The power of a spirit seeker. And he curses the memories that haunt him – his sister rising from her grave due to his magic.

Now, his mentor tasks him with sending off souls on his own for the first time. But his memories cause him to question why the spirits linger... And why his mentor deals with them so violently.

There has to be a better way, and Lazarus intends to find it.

What Am I Reading? - Libriomancer

It's been a while since I talked about what I'm reading. To be honest, I haven't had tons of time to actually read much lately, and when I do it seems to be in fits and spurts. And many times, I don't get to finish what I start. I blame Youngest. You want someone to interrupt you every five seconds? Well, you can borrow her. Even yesterday I stupidly tried to read a chapter while she was awake and home. What do you think, did I finish that chapter? Nope. And I hate stopping mid-chapter!

Anyway, I digress. I've slowly been plodding through Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines. Slowly only because of the aforementioned Youngest (and the exhaustion that overwhelms me most times by the time she's in bed). I was in the mood for urban fantasy, since lately I really can't seem to immerse myself in epic fantasy. Of course I found the premise intriguing, so I decided to try it. Libriomancy is magic that can be used to reach into a book and pull objects out into reality. I mean, what reader and writer wouldn't think that's an awesome idea?

For the most part, I'm enjoying the book, but it's also impossible to turn the writer part of my brain off. So I started thinking about how some urban fantasy can be very dated by what's in it. It's always a rough road if you're trying to not "date" your urban fantasy. I mean, some of my favorites when I try to read them nowadays, I find it odd that there are no cell phones around. Because in this day and age, almost everyone has a smartphone.

This can of course pull the reader out of the story, when the modern conveniences we take for granted aren't utilized. Some books even age rather terribly, and might turn more into historical fantasy - heh. That doesn't make them any less fun than they used to be, but they are definitely perceived in a different way from when they were originally published. Even some of my own urban fantasy stories are dated, and I totally know it.

Libriomancer was first published in 2012, so it's not too dated, at least not by my standards. But I'm guessing it was in the works years before publication, so some things that have been completely left out and not addressed seem odd to me. Here's my caveat - I may only have noticed this due to who I am, an indie author, and one who mostly works with ebooks.

Can you guess yet what I noticed? The protagonist talks about how they catalog all the books released by publishers, and he's pretty much just talking about hard copies. No mention of ebooks (so far), and no mention of indie publication at all.

I indie published my first short story in 2012, and I know that was the initial big surge for indie publishing. So, I could maybe understand why that wasn't addressed. Though self-publishing has been around for far longer than that. Ebooks, though? I wanted to see an explanation. Does libriomancy work with ebooks like with physical books?

I admit, due to my fits and starts while reading, I could have missed a line explaining this, but it seems like it should be touched on more than once. This isn't by any means a criticism. Again, it made me simply think about how books could be dated even after a short time being published (since traditional publishing has a tendency to take quite long from finished product to publication). Technology is evolving at such a rapid rate that it's hard to keep up.

My writer brain was just left with questions that I would love to see explored (this book is also the first in a series, so for all I know, some of this stuff is touched on in later books). How do the Porters (the organization that polices the use of libriomancy for the most part) keep track of all those indie published titles? There are millions of ebooks on Amazon, thousands published every day. This could lead to some major control issues, in my opinion, and a fascinating novel in itself.

And with the availability of ebooks, would this make things easier or harder for the protagonist if he had an ereader instead a bunch of paperbacks he toted around with him? If it's not possible to use libriomancy that way, why not?

These are all just my humble thoughts about how the future in essence effects the reading of past books (even books not even a decade old!). Libriomancer has still been fun to read so far, and Youngest willing, I hope to finish it this month.

❦

What are you currently reading?

Speaking of ebooks in today's day and age, they've been an absolute necessity for me and my family. I mean, I've been out of shelf space in my house for years.

Not only have we ended up getting Kindle Unlimited (Eldest reads like mad, and I couldn't keep up with her), but I've found Overdrive to be so useful this past year, especially with not wanting to physically go to the library.

Most local libraries have access to an Overdrive collection, so you can check ebooks out for free. That's how I'm reading Libriomancer and Youngest has been plowing through the Magic Tree House and Rainbow Magic series (I love my little interrupting chicken, I do - she may not let me read, but at least she's enjoying reading a lot!).

So, if you're looking to stay safe at home and still grab some new books to read, consider looking into Overdrive through your local library. Libraries rock!