Tag Archives: urban paranormal

Cover Reveal and Pre-Order: Ghost Is the New Normal

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sk4ecover

Book 4 is a real thing with a real release date: March 21, 2017. It has a pre-order at only 99 cents (this price will only last until March 22!), and it’s all ready to go so I can have copies in hand for Norwescon (Seatac, April 13-16). The audiobook is scheduled for release one week later, on March 28. I’m excited about this one because it has giant mutant cockroaches. And also ghosts and dragons, of course.

Claire has a big problem, Drew has a smaller problem, and Justin gets to have some fun. Iulia causes trouble. Avery is sensible. Enion remains adorable and Tariel is still the only real grownup in the room. If you’re new to this series, check out where it begins with Girls Can’t Be Knights, available in ebook, paperback, and audio!

With this book’s release on the horizon, I can now also officially state for the record that the Spirit Knights series will have a total of 5 books. That’s right, Number Five will be Number Last for the series. But that’s not the last you’ll see of Claire, Drew, Justin, and the rest of the crew. Claire and Justin kind of already aren’t Spirit Knights anymore, you see. I freely admit that this series began with a book I wasn’t expecting to make into a series. It’s gone places I didn’t really foresee. As such, the series title doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense anymore.

Which is why, following book 5 of Spirit Knights, I’m shifting to a different line of attack with this stuff. There will be more stories, some about Claire and some not. They’ll all take place in the same world where Portland is extra-weird. But they won’t all take place in Portland, or even in the PNW. I’m looking forward to spending time with the kind of people affected by [spoiler] [spoiler], and [spoiler].

Cover Reveal: 3 At Once

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DamselECoverThis brilliant new cover for one of my older books comes courtesy of Kirbi Fagan. She did a fantastic job, and I’m pleased to have been able to find a female illustrator for this project.

Despite this not being quite her usual milieu, she did a phenomenal job and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ll have copies with both covers for a little while. Until I run out, I’ll be offering the old ones at a discount. There’s nothing truly wrong with those books, they’ve just got the old cover. If you see me at an event and want the old cover version, ask and I’ll pull one out of the secret stash under the table.

DragonsInPieces

My very first book, Dragons In Pieces, is also getting a facelift. As with Damsel In Distress, the previous cover art was nice, but not right for the book. This one is much more appropriate for its genre. It’s also cool.

Keith Draws handled this one, and he’s also working on Chains and Flight, so more reveals will come soon! I still have copies of the old version of this one too.

SK2ECoverAnd finally, the new book! Backyard Dragons is scheduled for release on March 18th. It’s the sequel to Girls Can’t Be Knights, my young adult urban fantasy story about Claire, the first ever girl to become a Spirit Knight in its two-thousand-year-plus history. Justin, her mentor, is having a rough day. Claire’s isn’t so hot either. But, dragons!

This fun cover was designed by the talented Lia Rees, someone I met through Writerpunk Press.

2016 is shaping up to be an exciting year full of even more changes, appearances, and books than 2017! I’m thrilled to be buckling down for the last edits on Backyard Dragons this week and next, then diving into the fourth book of The Greatest Sin, which will hopefully be out in time to take to GenCon. With luck, the third Spirit Knights book, Ethereal Entanglements, will be hot on its heels.

Thar Be Knights Here #ya #urban #paranormal #book #ebook

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Portland has a ghost problem.

Sixteen-year-old Claire wants her father back. His death left her only memories and an empty locket. After six difficult years in foster care, her vocabulary no longer includes “hope” and “trust”.

Everything changes when Justin rides his magical horse into her path and takes her under his wing. Like the rest of the elite men who serve as Spirit Knights, he hunts restless ghosts that devour the living.

When an evil spirit threatens Claire’s life, she’ll need Justin’s help to survive. And how could she bear the Knights’ mark on her soul? Everybody knows Girls Can’t Be Knights.

I’m pleased to announce that Girls Can’t Be Knights, a YA urban paranormal adventure published by Myrddin Publishing, is now available on Kobo and Amazon for pre-order. It’s set for release on June 12th, though the print book is already available from Amazon. The ebook will be 99 cents through the 18th of June.

Girls Can’t Be Knights Cover Reveal

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You’ve seen the blurb before. This book leaves the stable on June 12th. It’ll be available for pre-order starting June 3rd. Girls Can’t Be Knights is packed full of stuff in a compact, easy-to-devour form. It has ghosts, family, sarcasm, daddy issues, police brutality, callous disregard for authority, sarcasm, and adorable little girls in pink tutus with stuffed unicorns.

Claire likes her socks mismatched and her memories tucked safely out of reach. Justin suffers from an excessive level of sass in his life. Together, they aren’t going to fall in love, but he will teach her what it means to be a Spirit Knight, even if it kills them both.

Chapter by Chapter, a wonderful YA blog, is running a giveaway for this book until June 4th. Good stuff.

Girls Can’t Be Knights: Coming soon #YA

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Portland has a ghost problem.

Sixteen-year-old Claire wants her father back. His death left her only memories and an empty locket. After six difficult years in foster care, her vocabulary no longer includes “hope” and “trust”.

Everything changes when Justin rides his magical horse into her path and takes her under his wing. Like the rest of the elite men who serve as Spirit Knights, he hunts restless ghosts that devour the living.

When an evil spirit threatens Claire’s life, she’ll need Justin’s help to survive. And how could she bear the Knights’ mark on her soul? Everybody knows Girls Can’t Be Knights.

So goes the blurb for my next book, a Young Adult Urban Paranormal Adventure published by Myrddin Publishing. Like many Book 1s, this is an origin story. This is the book I tried to write as Justin’s story and failed because I liked Claire enough to elevate her to main character. But I also liked Justin. So, it’s about both of them. She’s the ingenue, he’s the mentor. They don’t fall in love, because he’s 24 and she’s 16, and that’s gross. Ew.

I chose Portland as the setting because it’s the only place I could think of that meets all the following criteria:

1. I’ve been there.
2. I can go there with relative ease to investigate specific locales.
3. It has lots of trees, and I like green.
4. Everyone knows it’s a weird place.

Lots of places fit 1-3, but only Portland covers all 4. Why did I need a place known for being weird? Justin takes the whole “Knight” thing seriously. He wears armor, wields a sword, and rides a horse. While he could do that anywhere, only in Portland could he do that without attracting a ton of attention.

Cover reveal coming soon!

Book Review: Dead Town by Mike Chinakos

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Dead Town by Mike Chinakos – 4 stars

Every city has a Dead Town… A place where the supernatural creatures of nightmare live side by side with the dregs of humanity.

Misfits abound on the wrong side of the tracks:

A drug addict selling her blood to vampires for her next hit of Voodoo Dust; A zombie longing for release but too terrified of death to give up his undead existence; A bouncer in love with a woman he can never have; Powerful wizards holding the fate of humanity in their hands.

Welcome to Dead Town. Saving the world one misfit at a time.

Point number one: this is an urban paranormal horror novella. Point number two: it’s a little absurd in the good way. The author took three characters who should all be secondary and made them the stars of the show. They certainly shine. My favorite is Doug the zombie, whose existential crisis is overshadowed by his own dumb inability to escape bad luck.

I did find Maggie’s powers to be difficult to comprehend the limits of. At points, it seemed like she could do anything, which made some of the moments of peril seem a tiny bit contrived.

The characters embark on a Save The World quest which seems a tiny bit rushed in a few places, but overall is a wild, quick ride through an entertaining take on the whole undead/shapeshifter thing. It embraces cliches while mercilessly tickling them until they gasp and beg for mercy. However, be warned that it’s not laugh-out-loud funny; I smirked and grinned through much of it.

I recommend this story for folks who like a twist on their undead, and a little humor with their horror.