by Leonard & Anne Marie Wilson
October 29, 2020
Genre: Dark Fantasy
"First character crush ever! I just want to say that Keely is my girl!...my FAVORITE character out of this whole book...very cunning and intelligent. The perfect protagonist to Bloody Scarlet." ~ Jordan, book reviewer, editor, author, life-on-the-shelf.com
Bloody Scarlet, the skull collector of the Crimson Forest, is just a cautionary tale to keep children from wandering in and getting lost — isn’t she? Well something’s out there.
In a world dominated by a cruel Inquisition that sees demons and witches everywhere it turns, Keely just wants to make a dishonest living convincing the obscenely wealthy to part with their excess riches through guile and trickery.
When the Inquisition shows up to destroy her life anyway, Keely goes on the offensive rather than scurry back into the shadows. To set it up for a fall she lures the Inquisition into an invented race to find a heretical book of prophecy that may never have existed.
When Keely builds her lies on existing rumors, though, and points the hunt in the direction of the Crimson forest, a new player introduces herself to the high stakes con game as a deadly wild card.
Whether or not the woman in red is the real Bloody Scarlet, the closer Keely gets to the dark, twisted heart of the forest the more quickly things spiral out of control.
Book Trailer:
Lethal Red Riding Hood
Excerpt
“So are you ever going to tell me what this big ‘master plan’ of yours is?” Elissa asked as Keely strolled like a shopper among the astounding assortment of props and costumes, pausing to examine a dress here or run her fingers through a wig there.
“I thought I said,” Keely replied distractedly. “We’re going to find the Grimm Truth.”
“And which of the overwhelming problems with that plan did you want me to point out first?”
“Oh, amuse yourself. Whichever one strikes your fancy.” Keely stopped in front of a full-length mirror to try on a curly brown wig and ponder her reflection. She wrinkled her nose, shook her head, and returned the wig to where she’d found it.
“Okay. What if it doesn’t even exist?” Elissa asked impatiently. “Miraculata Cosima seems pretty convinced it doesn’t.”
“Non-issue. Next objection?”
“In what conceivable world is this a non-issue?!”
Keely gave Elissa an exasperated look. “The one in which I don’t give a fig what’s in it. Don’t let her baby face fool you. That miraculata of yours is a shrewd one—a serious politician. She knows how the game works.”
“And how does the game work?” Elissa asked tersely.
“Like this,” Keely said, pulling a set of three tin cups down from a shelf and laying them out upside down on a dusty tabletop. With a flourish, she produced a small ball, which she held up briefly before sliding it under one of the cups, then she began shuffling the cups quickly back and forth. “Now, which cup is the ball under?” she asked when she’d stopped.
“None of them,” Elissa answered levelly.
“None of them?” Keely asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“You palmed the ball before you started. I saw it in your hand.”
“Really? I could have sworn it was under the middle one.”
“It’s not.” Elissa confidently lifted the middle cup and did a double take. Her brow furrowed as she lifted the other cups. “Okay, it was. But that proves…what?”
“It proves,” Keely said, producing a twin for the ball on the table, “that you thought I was a cheat, so you treated me like a cheat.”
“Well, you gave me reason to.”
“And…?” Keely shrugged expansively. “The point is, it wasn’t truth you reacted to, it was what you believed was true. That’s what people do. Day in, day out, minute by minute, we make our best guesses about what’s true, and we act on them. None of us can ever see the whole truth at once, so in the end, the only thing that makes one truth better than another is how much reality it can hold before it breaks. If a whole lot of us believe the same lie—if an entire kingdom believes the same lie—and the lie is solid enough, that lie can move mountains. So I don’t care whether or not the Grimm Truth exists. I just want to drop a mountain on Jane Carver.”
Excerpt
“So are you ever going to tell me what this big ‘master plan’ of yours is?” Elissa asked as Keely strolled like a shopper among the astounding assortment of props and costumes, pausing to examine a dress here or run her fingers through a wig there.
“I thought I said,” Keely replied distractedly. “We’re going to find the Grimm Truth.”
“And which of the overwhelming problems with that plan did you want me to point out first?”
“Oh, amuse yourself. Whichever one strikes your fancy.” Keely stopped in front of a full-length mirror to try on a curly brown wig and ponder her reflection. She wrinkled her nose, shook her head, and returned the wig to where she’d found it.
“Okay. What if it doesn’t even exist?” Elissa asked impatiently. “Miraculata Cosima seems pretty convinced it doesn’t.”
“Non-issue. Next objection?”
“In what conceivable world is this a non-issue?!”
Keely gave Elissa an exasperated look. “The one in which I don’t give a fig what’s in it. Don’t let her baby face fool you. That miraculata of yours is a shrewd one—a serious politician. She knows how the game works.”
“And how does the game work?” Elissa asked tersely.
“Like this,” Keely said, pulling a set of three tin cups down from a shelf and laying them out upside down on a dusty tabletop. With a flourish, she produced a small ball, which she held up briefly before sliding it under one of the cups, then she began shuffling the cups quickly back and forth. “Now, which cup is the ball under?” she asked when she’d stopped.
“None of them,” Elissa answered levelly.
“None of them?” Keely asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“You palmed the ball before you started. I saw it in your hand.”
“Really? I could have sworn it was under the middle one.”
“It’s not.” Elissa confidently lifted the middle cup and did a double take. Her brow furrowed as she lifted the other cups. “Okay, it was. But that proves…what?”
“It proves,” Keely said, producing a twin for the ball on the table, “that you thought I was a cheat, so you treated me like a cheat.”
“Well, you gave me reason to.”
“And…?” Keely shrugged expansively. “The point is, it wasn’t truth you reacted to, it was what you believed was true. That’s what people do. Day in, day out, minute by minute, we make our best guesses about what’s true, and we act on them. None of us can ever see the whole truth at once, so in the end, the only thing that makes one truth better than another is how much reality it can hold before it breaks. If a whole lot of us believe the same lie—if an entire kingdom believes the same lie—and the lie is solid enough, that lie can move mountains. So I don’t care whether or not the Grimm Truth exists. I just want to drop a mountain on Jane Carver.”
“Beautiful atmosphere with a touch of macabre with an unreliable narrative done magnificently…if you have any love of horror and suspense, add this to your list.” ~ Catherine Bowser, ARC Reader
Hell is a Bakery
Jordan hadn’t wished his stepmother, Eva, dead. A little something involving spiders would have served vengeance quite nicely.
Still, he hadn’t exactly grieved when they said she’d died in the fire. A protective big brother will only forgive so many sins against his sister.
Even if Eva had been alive, though, what business would she have begging for his help now—a year later? And how insane was he to even consider offering help, much less seek out where her voice was coming from on such a miserable dark night?
As heir presumptive to the barony and a soon-to-be knight in training, Jordan refuses to let fear stop him from seeking answers to impossible questions.
But when the questions keep piling up, each darker and more dreadful than the last, only one thing becomes crystal clear: he’ll never look at an oven the same way again.
Book Trailer:
A Dragon Is Forever
Meilani always wanted to be a monster hunter for the Inquisition. She was good at it, too, until the first time she came face-to-face with real monsters. Now she’s alone with her nightmares on the road she paved with all those good intentions.
Then one tiny glimmer of redemption finally offers itself—a chance to safeguard a little girl with a very familiar ambition—only to lead her further down the rabbit hole. The journey leaves them stranded in a tangled web of time with a deadly rogue’s gallery of psychopaths and other monsters.
Hanging over it all, a once comfortingly familiar song exhorts them relentlessly, inescapably to push ever deeper into a night that never ends, even as something at the center of the web stirs restlessly on its gleaming hoard of possibilities. Here, now, and always, there be dragons.
Book Trailer:
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Leonard & Ann Marie Wilson met when she showed up on his doorstep where they quickly bonded over nearly everything, including their shared love of writing. Two years later they were married and collaborating on nearly everything, including writing as freelancers for role-playing games.
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Leonard came to storytelling first through Dungeons & Dragons, then on to other role-playing games. Immediately after earning a degree in writing, he began freelancing, writing adventures for the RPG industry. While he was never a prolific author, the internet still seems to regard a couple of his works as classics of their type ("The Ghost of Mistmoor" in Dungeon magazine, and "The Heart Blade" in Pendragon's Blood and Lust adventure anthology). Coincidentally, those same two adventures are what paid for their wedding rings and honeymoon.
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Leonard came to storytelling first through Dungeons & Dragons, then on to other role-playing games. Immediately after earning a degree in writing, he began freelancing, writing adventures for the RPG industry. While he was never a prolific author, the internet still seems to regard a couple of his works as classics of their type ("The Ghost of Mistmoor" in Dungeon magazine, and "The Heart Blade" in Pendragon's Blood and Lust adventure anthology). Coincidentally, those same two adventures are what paid for their wedding rings and honeymoon.
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Ann was a gamer girl in her own right when they met, and she retains an "old school" pedigree longer than anyone who's ever accused her of being a poser. She wrote stories for fun, but thanks to the careless words of a particularly unfortunate English teacher, never got around to pursuing her ambitions of publishing before she met Leonard. That didn't stop her from finishing her first novel-length manuscript before he finished his.
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They launched their own imprint, Lost in the Wood Press, just in time to have it as a steady project to ride out the COVID lockdown, and are loving the complete creative freedom that comes with self-publishing.
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