Interview: YA Fantasy Author Valerie Storm and her MC Kari + giveaway

VAL: Hi! Valerie Storm here, and so very pleased to be on I Smell Sheep! I’ll happily introduce Kari, my beloved and very often frustrated wolf demon. She’s not much for talking normally, especially to strangers, but we’ll try our best here. Kari. KARI!
KARI: Gods above, I said I didn’t want to talk to anyone!

VAL: Come on, Kari! These nice people just want to get to know you.
KARI: What, some nameless humans? They’re just flaunting their sick curiosity. Ugh! Where is Ari? He’s better at this.

VAL: He IS much less grumpy than you, and would probably be more polite…
KARI: Polite? Polite. Would YOU be polite if someone had written your life the way you’ve written mine?

VAL: I mean—
KARI: No! The things I’ve gone through, the people I’ve lost—it’s all your fault!

VAL: I MEAN TECHNICALLY, but without me, you wouldn’t know who Ari is!
KARI: …

VAL: Annnnyway Kari, wanna tell the readers about THE STORM DARKENS? It’s the third novel in your series! I’ve even given you some really nice downtime, haven’t I?
KARI: I do love spending time with Ari. He’s going to show me how to shoot his bow—no. No, you won’t distract me! What is the catch?!

VAL: Well, we all know how much I love drama…
KARI: Drama?

VAL: Yeah! You know, you’ve got a lot of inner turmoil to work through and I think we should do it together.
KARI: I don’t want any part of your sadistic madness!

VAL: How about this! Tell us the one thing you wish could happen.
KARI: …Why?

VAL: I told you, we’re in the middle of an interview! The readers want to know these things!
KARI: You know what I want. I want peace and quiet. I want to live with Ari, and forget all about everything.

VAL: Like Rav—
KARI: ESPECIALLY her.

VAL: Yup, fair. She’s totally irredeemable.
KARI: Exactly. You could remove her—you’re like our god, if gods existed.

VAL: You’re right! I definitely could.
KARI: …So?

VAL: We’re off-topic here! So, peace. You don’t have any other desires…? Maybe something deep, deeeeep down?
KARI: I know what you’re doing, and no. I refuse to acknowledge that part of me.

VAL: The Catalyst, right? But Kari, without it, you’d probably be dead!
KARI: I don’t care! It’s dangerous, and—you know what, you’re starting to sound like Raven!

VAL: Oh, that’s disturbing…wonder what that says about me. And you, really. You know you’re a deep part of me!
KARI: Please, gods of nalmi or wherever we are, let this end…let me go back home…

VAL: Oh…there she goes. Hmph. Well, you know what they say about lone wolves. Anywho, THE STORM DARKENS, my third book in the Demon Storm series, will see Kari go through quite a few tribulations! She’ll get her lovely time with Ari, but not without a cost…just the way I like it!

Storm and Shadow (Demon Storm Book Two)
by Valerie Storm
11/13/2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Shadow Spark Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-956883-06-0
ASIN: B0BHYWJNKD
Number of pages: 317
Word Count: 88352
Cover Artist: Ginka Jack
The shadows call. Will the lightning answer?

Kari was dead—and then, she wasn't.

But for the wolf-demon with lightning in her fists, resurrection is no reprieve from exile. After old witch Zina revives her, Kari must conceal her true nature better than ever before, lest her slayers find her breathing and put her down for good. And since she can no longer return to what she once knew, Kari finds herself adrift—in search of purpose.

She gets it when Zina entrusts her with the Lapis Anima, a gem imprisoning the soul of wicked woman, Raven. This brings Kari into conflict with Raven herself, who's still very much a threat without her soul…and has devious plans in mind for Kari's destructive abilities.

Will the wolf-demon succumb to Raven's cruel temptations?

Or will Kari turn to an unlikely ally for help—the very man who killed her, one year ago?

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/BEjKE5xr61I

Amazon

Book 1              Book 3

    

Excerpt
Before she could answer, Raven’s words filled her mind. Such needless fear and
indecision. There is nothing wrong with wanting to survive, Kari. The only ones who will blame
you are the ones who deserve to die.

Kari staggered to a stop and ripped the necklace off. She held the gem in a hand, fingers
wrapped so tight the jagged edges cut her palm.

Kari’s vision swam. She recalled the redheaded woman leaning closer, her eyes glowing embers, her smile long and large. I’ve thought of the most wonderful plan.

“You!” Kari shouted.

“Oh,” the Fire Witch said. “And I thought my day would be dull and dreary.”

“You!” Kari yelled again. Her legs were numbly locked in place, but her chest was
aflame. Lightning crackled to life at her fingertips. She mouthed exclamations, insults, but her
voice failed. The woman was here, the one who had ruined everything!

She extended a shaking hand. Zina dropped the gem into her palm, where it flashed as it
touched her skin.

“Since you have taken it of your own will, you and the gem are now Bound.” As she said
the word, the air around Kari stiffened. Magic. “Should you die an unnatural death, the gem will
shatter, destroying the soul within.”

The palm-sized crystal tumbled to the ground and began to bounce. Kari watched, her eyes widening. Dark smoke issued from the gem, curling over the ground, swirling until it took the form of a kneeling woman. Her features coalesced: long, dark hair to match her wintry robes and contrast her ivory skin. The woman lifted her head, looking about with eyes cut from obsidian.

Her pale-pink lips were uplifted in a sneer, betraying little surprise.

The woman spared Kari no attention as she stood to her full height and looked around. She faced the nearest patch of darkness and raised a hand, curling her fingers into a fist. The shadows stretched away from the trees, bending toward the woman in lazy snake-like wisps.
They lifted off the ground and twisted around her fingers.

About the Author:
Blog-FB-Twitter 
Pinterest-Instagram
Valerie Storm was raised in Tucson, Arizona. Growing up, she fell in love with everything fantasy. When she wasn’t playing video games, she was writing. By age ten, she began to write her own stories as a way to escape reality. When these stories became a full-length series, she considered the path to sharing with other children and children-at/heart looking for a place to call home.

Tour Giveaway

5 $5 Amazon Gift Cards

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WIP it Real Good: YA Urban Fantasy Author Lyla Oweds + giveaway

Outside of my fae series (The Garden of Eternal Flowers), I also write mermaids! Both the mountain and sea call to me, and I hope to showcase that in my writings. Here’s a snippet from one of my WIP’s, 

Sea Dreamer from the Ciel et Mer series:

“Come here kitty.” I held my hand out in front of me, if it smelled me, and could sense that I meant it no harm, maybe it would come. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

“Why are you trying to befriend it?” Raphael complained. “It’s probably feral.”

But who cared what he thought, he was being a grump anyway and maybe this would be good for him too. I’d personally seen how the kindness of animals could transform a rough man into someone loving and gentle.

It worked for my brother.

But nothing happened, although the trash shifted closer, and Raphael continued to taint the moment with his whining, “It’s not going to come. There are a million strays around here. It’s just after the food. Leave it and—”

He stopped talking, and I could feel his sudden tenseness even from here, as a small white cat, no bigger than my forearm, poked its head out of from behind a bag.

“Hi there.” I smiled, making sure to keep very still so it wouldn’t be afraid. “Don’t be scared.” It looked at me, golden eyes connecting with mine, and my heart almost burst from pride.

I was doing it; I was taming a wild beast all on my own! At home, this would never be possible.

The creature looked at me, then at my wrist, and it slowly closed the distance between us, lightly touching its small pink nose against my skin.

Then, the strangest thing happened. It opened its tiny little mouth and a small, rough tongue brushed against my hand. The hair on the back of my arm stood up and a shiver shot down my spine.

I’d done it! “Look,” I breathed out slowly, not tearing my eyes from the cat. “It likes me.”

“Because you smell like fish,” Raphael drawled.

Its kisses tickled as the kitten’s shyness evaporated, it had latched itself to my hand, tiny claws pricking at my skin as it began to lick me more urgently. “I think I love it.”

“It’s trying to eat you.” Raphael was ever the pessimist. “Because you’re a fish.”

I finally looked over my shoulder, glaring at him. “You said that already.” But his dark mood couldn’t ruin the moment, and the cat chose that moment to climb in my lap, pressing its little paws against my chest as it began to lick my chin.

My heart melted. “Can I keep it?”

“No!” Raphael threw his arms down at his side, exasperation heavy on his face. “You’re a mermaid. It’s probably going to kill you in your sleep!”

I moved to my feet, snuggling the small animal against my chest as it continued to shower me with kitty kisses, and stared at him. I couldn’t get rid of it now. After a lifetime of being chased away from the trapping games, and not being allowed near the creature training centers, this was the first wild animal I’d ever tamed all on my own. “But I love it.” My eyes watered. I couldn’t imagine being parted from it now. “Midnight belongs with me, we’ve bonded.”

“Midnight!” Raphael scoffed, glancing at the cat with a look of disdain. “That doesn’t even make any sense, it’s fur is completely white.” He glanced back at me, eyes studying my face before he groaned, and his stoic expression fell. “Fine.”

My heart leaped and I squeezed the fuzzy bundle against my chest. “I can keep it?”

He rolled his eyes, “I said yes.”

Shadows of Nightshade (The Garden of Eternal Flowers, #1)
by Lyla Oweds
March 8th 2023
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
I dream of a time where I was warm, safe, and loved.

But my waking reality is starkly different.

Anxiety plagues me and spirits haunt the shadows. No matter how fast I run, I can’t seem to escape my past.

The only solace and steady force in my life is my best friend, Finn.

And now… there’s a ghost haunting me. And I’m not certain if it wants help or if it wants to kill me. There’s only one person who can understand: Finn’s brother, Damen.

However, in reaching out, I’m betraying Finn and setting things into motion that cannot be undone.

But nobody ever said that doing the right thing was easy.

—

The Garden of Eternal Flowers is a re-envisioning of my Grimm Cases series. Eternal Flowers has taken my original vision of Bianca’s story and transformed it into something new and beautiful. Some chapters are similar, and some dialogue is the same, as The Grimm Cases, Origins, but overall, about 75% of the book has been entirely revisioned with new plot points, mystery, and interpersonal relationships. Also, unlike Origins (originally a Wattpad release), there is now a clear beginning, climax, and conclusion in each individual novel, which allows them to be read alone or as part of the ongoing series.

I hope that you will enjoy Shadows of Nightshade as much as I enjoyed writing it. Truly, it is an honor to write about Bianca and her boys, and all of these characters are near and dear to my heart.

Trigger Warning: This series deals with the aftermath of severe childhood trauma.

Goodreads-Amazon-B&N-Kobo

About the Author:

Website-FB-Instagram

Bookbub-Goodreads

Newsletter

Lyla Oweds is a paranormal/urban fantasy author who resides in the beautiful Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania with her husband, children, and animals. While she enjoys all genres of fiction, she has a deep appreciation for fantasy, romance, mystery, crime, and horror. Lyla has a bachelor’s in anthropology and will be completing her master’s in information technology in 2023.

Writing is her moonlighting passion, and she loves having the opportunity to share her perspective as a disabled (profoundly hard-of-hearing) woman. During the daylight hours, Lyla works as a principal/lead design and development specialist focusing on user experience and accessibility. When not working, Lyla is usually indulging in one of her many hobbies such as amusing her children, gardening, crocheting, interior decorating, baking, cooking, or playing video games.

Tour-wide giveaway (INT)

Shadows

Paste this code in your post's HTML to share the grand prize giveaway - ends March 23rd

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 https://xpressobooktours.com/2023/01/31/tour-sign-up-shadows-of-nightshade-by-lyla-oweds/

Excerpt: Love Like a Cephalopod by Cassondra Windwalker

Welcome to the book tour for Love Like a Cephalopod by Cassondra Windwalker. Read on for more details and an excerpt!

Love Like a Cephalopod
by Cassondra Windwalker
February 15th, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Publisher: Bayou Wolf Press
To death and to the dragon born.

Being an executioner for the state is exhausting, but after a lifetime of dispatching the criminal

and the inconvenient, fifty-eight-year-old Grenda finds it does have its compensations. Her cat-

sized dragon Bjartur and the dragon eggs she tends are all the friends and family she needs. Completely cut off from the outside world, she happily accepts the luxuries owed her status – including a pet octopus named Morrigan – without the faintest twinge of conscience or doubt.

All that changes when she encounters the most unexpected nemesis: a young refugee girl whom Grenda is incapable of executing. Against her will, Grenda finds herself shifting from killer to caretaker, risking her life to defy the state she’s never questioned and help young Allora to freedom. Everything Grenda thinks she knows about her world, her life, and even her own identity cascades out of her control—including the dragon-bond she holds dearer than life itself.

Amazon

Excerpt
Her last words, I think, will always haunt me.

“You still don’t understand anything about octopuses, do you?”

It rankled, how calm she sounded, even under these circumstances. The dragon on my wrist, sensing my irritation, drew back his vermilion lips to display the kittenish, needle-sharp teeth, and he huffed his leathern wings slightly. I laid a hand on his ridged back, and he settled down.

To this day, I don’t believe Magenna was guilty of the charges. At least, not as they were stated. Witchcraft has always seemed a nebulous thing to me. Too easy an accusation to lob at anyone who speaks too often to ravens or owls, who lingers too long in moonlight, who possesses too rational an understanding of herbs and flowers and fungi. Even then, I wondered if the danger lay not in access to some mythical magick and more in the alternative it offered to the dictates of the state.

But if belief is a dangerous liability for an executioner, skepticism is even greater. True safety lies only in acceptance for acceptance’s sake.

It doesn’t do for a woman in my position to believe or disbelieve anything too strongly. The sentence must be carried out regardless, and beliefs sour quickly into guilt and regret. It’s better to walk entirely in the grey and trust without exception to the system that hands down the verdict. Let them deal in black and white. My dragon and I, we were creatures of mist. We walked in fog, obscured from all but the walking dead. It was a peculiar irony, that the only people who saw us, who knew us face-to-face, were those who would shortly die at our hands.

I am only truly real here, chatelaine at the gateway to death.

And you, should I have ever met you here, would be more real in this moment with me than you had ever been in all your life. Contrary to how stories like to depict us, executioners aren’t hard-hearted, unfeeling creatures. We can’t be. It’s not enough to kill the body, after all. We have to be sure to send the soul on its way, too. Malingering isn’t good for anyone. And a soul simply can’t go if it hasn’t been seen. My dragon helped the dying shed their skin, and I – I helped them shed their invisibility.

That’s all a ghost wants. They don’t persist to wreak some paltry vengeance only the flesh-bound could imagine as a motivation. They don’t need you to provide justice or peace. All your work is here, on this plane marked by hours and rot, and cannot reach them. They only need to be seen. Once. For who they are. Then they can go on.

So if I did my job right, the condemned were less likely than anyone to stick around. And I was very good at my job.

Some people – maybe even most people – are seen long before they meet death. But the people most likely to cross that bridge with my dragon and me rarely had been. If they’d been seen for who they were, they’d probably never have ended up here with us. It’s not about innocence or guilt. It’s about who sees you, as you are.

I didn’t answer Magenna’s question. She knew the answer already. I looked at her, and she looked at me.

Magenna’s veins ran cold like currents deep in the ocean trenches, her heart fluttering faintly as it met mine. A little fear, only a very little. I wanted to take it from her, but I resisted the urge. She had very few things left to claim as her own, and this last fear was one of them. In her eyes, a hawk rested on a column of air, suspended dauntless above an endless chasm. And under her skin, the octopus stretched and unwound its long limbs, reaching for me.

My breath matched the rhythmic pulsing of the octopus’ gills, and I felt the weight of the water rippling evenly along my body. I shifted as the sea-beast altered its colors and textures to match my own, and suddenly I was confused as to whether it looked like me, or I looked like it. The octopus’ alien, slit-pupiled gaze had become Magenna’s gaze, and I fell further in, seeing colors no woman could see, as if they were grains of sand sifted through my fingers rather than bands of light. A thousand soft mouths sucked at my body, pulling the skin, rearranging the bones into a shape that feared no pressure.

Then all at once, they let go. I was back in the cold, sterile room of death, with its harsh electric light and faint antiseptic smell. My subject lay slumped over her own arms on the table between us, her brown hair curtaining her face from any further trespass. My dragon kittered softly in my ear, his talons clutching my forearm, his dark liquid eyes fixed anxiously on my face. I saw the smear of blood on his white teeth and knew the task was done.

That was totally out of order. Dragons didn’t act on their own volition. Bonded to their keepers from the hatch, they were nonetheless wicked clever, and one drop of their venom could fell an elephant within two seconds. Even a hint of rebellious tendencies resulted in immediate termination, a process that usually occurred within the first few days of their bonding. In the rare cases I’d read about where a dragon was terminated later in the relationship, the executioner invariably went mad.

None of that is exactly common knowledge, but little in an executioner’s library is.

Nonetheless, I had no doubts about Bjartur. I understood that when the octopus had reached through my arms, tasting every inch of my intentions, it had directed Bjartur to complete the execution. I’d been wrong to think fear was Magenna’s last possession. Volition, too, she held fast still. This un-wicked un-witch who lay silent and unbreathing on the table had staged one final insurrection, not submitting to her death but rushing to meet it as boldly as any beserker. Unnerved as I was, I could hardly fault her for it.

I rose to my feet, and Bjartur fluttered from my arm to my shoulder, tucking his emerald head well into my gray corkscrew curls. Time to deal with the ordinary people, those we’d neither execute nor see or engage any more than absolutely necessary. Bjartur wasn’t shy – far from it. The unbonded were invariably fascinated by dragons. Bjartur didn’t mind the attention, exactly. He just considered almost everyone else beneath his notice. He refused to be put on display or used as a symbol of anything for anyone. It’s a common trait among dragons. They’re notoriously catlike in their dignity and their arrogance. I can’t explain how that makes them all the more irresistible, but it does. I adored the pretentious little puffer.

I pushed the button beside the door, and the guard on the other side keyed me out. Cleanup wasn’t part of my responsibilities. The husk of the woman I left behind – her name had been Magenna, but the body needed no name – would be burned, its ashes scattered in the ebullient gardens that ringed the Justice Center. It’s not as callous as it sounds. The part of her that was real was gone, after all.

Upstairs in my windowless office, I typed up the execution report on my typewriter and submitted it. Executioners don’t have to muddle with tiresome machines like computers. Don’t have to, aren’t allowed to, what’s the difference, really? Bjartur settled down between my shoulder blades, his talons resting on the harness there while he buried his head against my neck, under my hair, and snored softly, his sulfurous breath uncomfortably warm on my skin. I was well-used to it, though. That’s another catlike feature of dragons – they are inordinately fond of naps.

Although executions have stepped up significantly in the past few years, it’s still not a nine-to-five job. That’s why in spite of the fact executioners possess more status than almost anyone outside of the president, my office resembled a broom closet more than an executive suite. Besides, windows were a security risk, especially here in the heart of the city. I spent a handful of hours there a month, so the grimness didn’t trouble me.

Most of my actual work was done at home, well outside of city walls. As one of death’s many gatekeepers, I kept the hinges swinging both ways. Ushering people out, and dragons in. A dragon clutch can take upwards of ten years before it’s ready to hatch, and caring for them is a full-time job.

I was reaching for the door, on my way to the garage where my car waited for me, when it swung open and nearly smacked me in the face.

Naturally. My favorite person in the Justice Center.

“Fiske.” I made no effort to imbue his name with the least enthusiasm. Our feelings were mutual and required no subterfuge.

“Grenda.” He nodded, irritation at having been caught off-balance at the door flashing in his eyes. Fiske was a man of little talent and much presence, so he was easily perturbed.

“I’m on my way out, Fiske,” I stated the obvious. “What do you need?”

On paper, Fiske would have appeared to be my boss, but that was only true in as much as he was the one who assigned the executions. As far as I was concerned, that made him more my assistant than my superior, and he knew it.

“It’s going to be a busy week.” He pulled himself up to his full height of over six feet tall, a futile effort to intimidate me. I’d hit my maximum height at the age of eleven and was barely five feet tall. Somebody’s bones being longer than mine never impressed me much.

“Magenna Hassan was my only appointment this week.”

Fiske bared his nicotine-yellowed teeth at me in what I can only assume he thought a patronizing smile. “The Army just notified me they successfully closed down an invaders’ camp near the coast. It’s going to be all hands on deck for at least four days. So be sure you’re back here bright and early in the morning.”

Something uncoiled in my belly, something that felt eerily like the slimy, seeking tentacle of an octopus. I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth and nodded briskly. Fiske’s face contorted as he tried on a few different expressions, all intended as dismissal. I pushed past him without waiting to see which one he landed on. Laughter bubbled in my throat to watch him sway back until he nearly fell over in the effort to avoid any contact with Bjartur.

Silliness, of course. Dragons were perfectly safe. Or rather, my dragon was as safe as I was.

About the Author
Twitter-Bayou Wolf Press
Cassondra Windwalker is the multi-genre author of several novels and award-winning poetry collections. She has lived in the South, the Midwest, and the West, and presently writes full-time from the grim coasts of the Frozen North. Regrettably, she has no dragon of her own, but she keeps company with corvids, anemones, moose, and mycelium. Readers are invited to reach out to her on Twitter @WindwalkerWrite.

Twitter: @WindwalkerWrite @RRBookTours1 #RRBookTours

IG: @rrbooktours #rrbooktours #lovelikeacephalopod #fantasybooks #paranormalbooks

Book Tour Schedule

March 6th

R&R Book Tours (Kick-Off) http://rrbooktours.com

I Love Books & Stuff (Spotlight) https://ilovebooksandstuffblog.wordpress.com

The Faerie Review (Spotlight) http://www.thefaeriereview.com

Cocktails & Fairytales (Spotlight) https://www.facebook.com/CocktailsFairytales

March 7th

@plungeintobooks (Review Out of Tour) https://www.instagram.com/plungeintobooks/

Bunny’s Reviews (Review) https://bookwormbunnyreviews.blogspot.com/

@literarycovenclub (Review) https://www.instagram.com/literarycovenclub_/

@vinamkent_author (Review) https://www.instagram.com/vinamkent_author

March 8th

Liliyana Shadowlyn (Review) https://lshadowlynauthor.com/

Breakeven Books (Spotlight) https://breakevenbooks.com

Books + Coffee = Happiness (Spotlight) https://bookscoffeehappiness.com/

March 9th

@squeakeysundergroundlibrary (Review) https://www.instagram.com/squeakeysundergroundlibrary/

@amber.bunch_author (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/amber.bunch_author/

Rambling Mads (Spotlight) http://ramblingmads.com

March 10th

@jlreadstoperpetuity (Review) https://www.instagram.com/jlreadstoperpetuity/

I Smell Sheep (Spotlight) http://www.ismellsheep.com/

Stine Writing (Spotlight) https://christinebialczak.com/

Book Tour Organized By:

R&R Book Tours

Excerpt: The End of Never (Chronicles of Ithical, #1) by Tamara Grantham + giveaway

The End of Never (Chronicles of Ithical, #1)
by Tamara Grantham
March 7th 2023
Genres: Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction
The riveting sequel to Rone-award winning The 7th Lie.

When her worst fears come true, Sabine Harper must fight to save the only world she calls home.

Six months after Agent Harper stopped a deadly solar flare from destroying Earth, she’s sent back to the world of Ithical, where a mysterious civilization lives hidden under a dome. She’s tasked with finding the person responsible for stealing cerecite—a rare ore with near-magical capabilities. While cerecite can heal and provide energy, Sabine suspects the one stealing it may be using it for more sinister purposes.

After one of the world’s shield generators is destroyed, Sabine travels with Prince Morven to search for the perpetrator. They’re accompanied by the palace gardener, Cade MacDougall, and the princess, Vevina. When they locate the destroyed generator, they make a shocking discovery. The one who demolished the generator has plans to ruin the next three, which would not only devastate their civilization, but completely erase it.

But not all is as it seems. Sabine suspects her employer, Vortech, may not have the best intentions. Worse, the culprit may be closer than she realizes—close enough to kill if she gets too near to the truth. If Sabine and her companions can’t find the culprit in time, they could not only lose their world, but lose everyone they hold dear—including one another.

Goodreads

Amazon-B&N-iBooks-Kobo 

Excerpt:
Crickets chirped a staccato cadence, and far in the distance came the hooting of an owl. Stars twinkled in the satin blackness of the universe. Morven’s gaze went to the sky, where he looked with fascination at the pinpoints of light burning millions of miles away.

“You’re lucky your world isn’t built with a shield. You can see the stars the way they’re meant to be.” He pointed to a bright star on the western horizon. “Venus,” he said. “The Mayans thought of it as the morning star, the sky god and the most powerful deity, as powerful as the moon or sun.”

I eyed him. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re like an encyclopedia.”

“You forget I was stuck in a wheelchair for half my life. What else did I have to do but read every book available? Plus, I like astronomy.” He pointed to another group of stars. “You see the Big Dipper?”

“Yes.”

“It comprises Ursa Major. The story goes that Zeus was smitten by a nymph named Callisto. Zeus’s wife Hera got jealous, as she usually did, and she turned Callisto from a beautiful nymph into a bear. Later, Callisto birthed a son, the baby bear, or Ursa Minor.” I followed his finger to a smaller grouping of stars. “Hera was furious. She tried to kill Callisto and her son. Zeus found out what Hera was up to. To protect them, he placed them in the night sky to live eternally.”

His gaze softened, and his voice struck a chord deep inside me.

“Interestingly enough, Jupiter’s fourth moon is named after Callisto. You can see it there.” He pointed to a star on the western horizon. “Just there, see? It’s a planet, so it doesn’t twinkle the way stars do.”

“I see it.” A chilly breeze gusted inside, and strands of loose hair tickled my nose. Morven drew his fingers along my cheek until he tucked the strands behind my ear. I rubbed my hands over my bare arms for warmth. He pulled me to him. His warmth surrounded me, and I breathed a contented sigh.

My tense shoulders relaxed as I stared out at the stars, at the Big Dipper forming the bear, the little dipper comprising the baby bear. I closed my eyes, and Morven’s story echoed in my head. The mother and son sent to live eternally in the sky—a place Zeus thought they would be safe.

Zeus did it to protect them. But what if that was a life they never wanted?

About the Author:
Website-FB-Twitter

tiktok-Instagram

Goodreads

Tamara Grantham is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books and novellas, including the Olive Kennedy: Fairy World MD series, the Shine novellas, and the Twisted Ever After trilogy. Dreamthief, the first book of her Fairy World MD series, won first place for fantasy in INDIEFAB’S Book of the Year Awards, a RONE award for best New Adult Romance, and is a #1 bestseller on Amazon with over 200 five-star reviews.

Tamara holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Lamar University. She has been a featured speaker at multiple writing conferences, and she has been a panelist at Comic Con Wizard World speaking on the topic of female leads. For her first published project, she collaborated with New York-Times bestselling author, William Bernhardt, in writing the Shine series.

Born and raised in Texas, Tamara now lives with her husband and five children in Wichita, Kansas. She rarely has any free time, but when the stars align and she gets a moment to relax, she enjoys reading fantasy novels, taking nature walks--which fuel her inspiration for creating fantastical worlds--and watching every Star Wars or Star Trek movie ever made. You can find her online at www.TamaraGrantham.com.

GIVEAWAY

Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)a Rafflecopter giveaway

$25 Amazon gift card and two eBooks (Books One and Two of The Chronicles of Ithical.)

Book Review: Backpacking Through Bedlam (InCryptid Book 12) by Seanan McGuire

Backpacking Through Bedlam (InCryptid Book 12)
by Seanan McGuire
March 7, 2023
Publisher: DAW
ASIN: B0B6ZCG4P3 

ISBN: 9780756418571
Genre: urban fanasy
Seanan McGuire's New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the twelfth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us.

Reunion, noun:
1. The state of being united again.

Reconciliation, noun:
1. An act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amiable truce.
2. The process of making consistent or compatible.
3. See also “impossible.”

Alice Price-Healy gave up her life for fifty years to focus completely on the search for her missing husband. The danger of focus like that is that it leaves little room for thinking about what happens after…and now that she’s finally managed to find Thomas, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do next. The fact that he comes with a surrogate daughter who may or may not have some connection to Alice’s recently adopted grandson is just icing on the complicated cake.

So the three of them are heading for the most complicated place in the universe: they’re going home.

But things on Earth have changed while Alice, Thomas, and Sally have been away. The Covenant of St. George, antagonized by Verity’s declaration of war and Sarah’s temporary relocation of an entire college campus, is trying to retake North America from the cryptids and cryptozoologists who’ve been keeping the peace for the past hundred years. And they’re starting in New York.

Alice and company have barely been back for an hour before the Ocean Lady and the Queen of the Routewitches send them to New York. They find themselves embroiled in the politics of dragons, kidnappings, and of course, the most dangerous people of all: family.

Getting “back to normal” may be Alice's hardest task yet.

Amazon

Alice Healey-Price spent 50 years searching for her husband in the last book, Spelunking Through Hell, to get her happy ending. Now that she has found him, the daughter he adopted, and the people that he had been protecting, she has conflicting feelings about him and their life together. Plus the fact their own children have grown up and no longer need their parents. When they return to their dimension once their mission is accomplished, they find troubling things like the Covenant of St. George trying to retake America, starting with New York.

If you like cryptids, Price-worshipping mice, complicated family relationships, true love, snappy dialogue, worldbuilding, and action, this story will give you happy ending in another adventure of the Price family. Ms. McGuire keeps packing in stories that grow better and better with each book.

I gave Backpacking Through Bedlam (InCryptid Book 12) 5 sheep.

Reviewed by Pamela K. Kinney 

About the Author:
website-FB-twitter
Seanan McGuire is a California-based author with a strong penchant for travel and can regularly be found just about any place capable of supporting human life (as well as a few places that probably aren't). Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; Rosemary and Rue, was named one of the Top 20 Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Past Decade; and her novel Feed, written under the name Mira Grant, was named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2010. She also won a Hugo for her podcast, and is the first person to be nominated for five Hugo Awards in a single year.