Thursday, October 8, 2020
Books to curl up with: GOOD THURSDAY ALL
Books to curl up with: GOOD THURSDAY ALL: BOOK BLURB Kanjin hardly view their servants as human. Even less so when they are different. Asagi is diffe...
GOOD THURSDAY ALL
BOOK BLURB
Kanjin hardly view their servants as human. Even less so when they are different.
Asagi is different. Both a man and a
woman.
In the wake of his failure to protect a
boy he saw as a son from their abusive master, Asagi is sold into the house of
a young nobleman, Mahiro, who is the opposite of everything Asagi has ever
known—gentle, kind, and generous.
Mahiro bonds with Asagi and their
friendship blooms into a deep and profound love. But when Asagi is poisoned out
of jealousy, Mahiro reveals himself to be youkai, a demon who feeds on blood,
and he has no choice but to turn Asagi to save his life.
Asagi awakes reborn, strong, and eternally
youthful. But the price for Asagi’s new life is high.
The blood of the innocent.
Just as Asagi’s trust in Mahiro falters,
the boy he failed to protect, now a man, reappears.
New master, same threat.
With both a literal and proverbial monster
at the door, Asagi must decide what it means to be human to protect what he
loves most.
EXCERPT
Kira released a cry of protest as Mahiro
plunged his face into my neck. My sluggish brain struggled to comprehend as he
opened his mouth wide and latched on. Heat started at his lips and radiated
through me. Like the warmth of a fire on a winter’s day, it traveled through my
veins and banished the cold inside. Down my neck, over my shoulders, into my
chest.
It doesn’t hurt. Feels good, even.
Mahiro shifted his hold on me, pulling me tighter against him, and I moaned as a pulling ripped at the very moorings of my soul. A small voice in my head rang out like a warning, but it was drowned out by the pleasure of his lips pressed to my skin and the heat in my veins that flowed both out of him and toward him, filling me and draining me at the same time.
Blood laced with magic.
It filled my heart, my head, my lungs. It
coaxed my tired muscles to motion, and Mahiro pinned my body down with his as I
spasmed beneath him. A moan built in my chest and burst forth unrestrained when
his lips finally released mine. I grasped at his clothes, blinking and
disoriented. I saw him in front of me but felt him inside me, vibrating through
me, an unmistakable yet impossible connection and then…
Blackness, silent and complete. And no pain. It was as if my body had evaporated into a mist and left me formless. Was I dead? As if in answer, my heart pounded a single, heavy beat. Not dead. Different. Reborn.
The sound of scuffling and raised voices came, and I sensed something hot and bright and alive thrown down close to me. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I wanted it, needed it. I opened sightless eyes and clawed at it, balking as a high-pitched cry emanated from it.
Blinking, the thing in front of me a smear
of white light across my vision, I grasped onto it. Something animal and
instinctual rose up in me, and I sank my teeth into the brightest part of it.
It burst open, filling my mouth with a sweet elixir that filled every part of
me until the pain melted into a dark, deep pleasure.
I drank until the vessel was empty. I
moaned again as I let it slip from my hands, blinking and blinking and blinking
until my vision cleared. Mahiro. Beautiful Mahiro. He knelt in front of me, his
hand outstretched, eyes trembling with fear, relief, and a deep, deep sadness.
I reached a hand out to meet his and
stopped short. Blood. Blood everywhere. On my hands, on my face, in my mouth.
The stink of it filled me until I thought I would retch. I screamed and pulled
away from the thing beneath me—the golden vessel broken and drained.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtney Maguire is a University of Texas
graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas. Drawn to Austin by a voracious appetite
for music, she spent most of her young adult life in dark, divey venues nursing
a love for the sublimely weird. A self-proclaimed fangirl with a press pass,
she combined her love of music and writing as the primary contributor for
Japanese music and culture blog, Project: Lixx, interviewing Japanese rock and
roll icons and providing live event coverage for appearances across the
country.
Website:
https://www.courtneymaguirewrites.com/blog
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/CourtneyMaguireWrites/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PretentiousAho
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/courtneymaguirewrites/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Courtney-Maguire/e/B082S34S7W
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Books to curl up with: GOOD TUESDAY EVERYONE
Books to curl up with: GOOD TUESDAY EVERYONE: BOOK BLURB After being erased from history for over 400 years, a historical serial killer returns to terrify ...
GOOD TUESDAY EVERYONE
BOOK BLURB
After being erased from history for over 400 years, a historical serial killer returns to terrify readers. In sixteenth-century France, seventeen-year-old Marie dreams of leaving behind her life at a rural inn for the excitement of Paris. But she grows anxious when her brother vanishes and then a girl from her village disappears. Rumors spread of a dangerous creature lurking near the city. Some say the villain is a crazed man. Most say werewolf. Marie refuses to be cowed by either. Then she is snatched—and discovers true evil. Marie finds herself in the grips of a ruthless monster, and giving up would be easy. Trapped in her brutal captor's deadly game, Marie must stay strong during agonizing brutality before she becomes his next victim. Filled with supernatural twists and characters from nightmares, The Demon Tailor is a chilling horror novella.</p>
Excerpt
I was seventeen years old when the demon tailor captured me.
Of course, he did not go by that name when he carried me away from my home. And his true name has now been erased from all of history. Damnatio Memoriae. His memory damned for all eternity. Except I know it. I know his name. I cannot scour him from my mind or my flesh no matter how hard I’ve tried these past six months.
So I shall tell my story here in hopes of freeing myself from him and the terrible things he did. And, perhaps, it will shine a light on his torturous crimes. Not to glorify or to remember him. No. But so the villagers and citizens will know what to look for should the likes of him ever walk the earth again. Yet I pray with all fervor that will never happen.
His name was Jacques Albinet. He captured me in the woods outside our home on the outskirts of Paris in November 1598.
About Susan:
Susan McCauley is a writer / producer of paranormal, fantasy, and horror films and fiction for adults, young adults, and middle grade audiences and readers. Susan fell in love with writing, theater, and film when she was eight-years-old. That passion inspired her to receive a B.A. in Radio-Television with a minor in Theater from the University of Houston, a M.F.A. in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, and a M.A. in Text & Performance from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and King’s College in London. Susan also studied acting at Playhouse West with Robert Carnegie and Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, Independence Day) in Los Angeles.
While living in Los Angeles, Susan wrote the story for and produced a short film, which later won awards at the Houston International Film Festival and the Seabrook Film Festival. In 2002, she moved to London to further explore professional theater. While in London, her stage adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose” was performed at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art’s George Bernard Shaw Theatre; and, scenes from her play The Prisoner: Princess Elizabeth were performed at HMS Tower of London. She returned home to the U.S. in 2005. In 2007, she was the line producer of the Emmy Award nominated Civil War short film Now & Forever Yours: Letters to an Old Soldier.
Susan has several short stories published, one of which, "The Cask", was made into an award winning short film. "The Cask" was republished in the Camden Park Press anthology Quoth the Raven, which won Best Anthology of 2018 in a readers' poll and was on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards. Susan has two feature length screenplays in development and her second novel will be released in February 2020.
Susan loves travel, animals (especially cats), movies, theatre, taekwondo, and books (of course!)
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Friday, October 2, 2020
Books to curl up with: DR CUSHING'S CHAMBER OF HORRORS
Books to curl up with: DR CUSHING'S CHAMBER OF HORRORS: BOOK BLURB Strange things are happening... The monsters aren’t only in the museum!...
DR CUSHING'S CHAMBER OF HORRORS
BOOK BLURB
Strange things are happening...
The monsters aren’t only in the museum!Despite a lifetime of traveling with their father to collect strange artifacts, twins Topaz and Opal Cushing have never fully believed in monsters or the supernatural. Oh, sure, they share an eerie psychic connection, and their tarot card readings often come true, but… Werewolves? Vampires? Living mummies? None of those could be real. Those legends are just for rubes. Right?
Since the girls’ father has been away, though, strange things have been happening in the family’s little exhibit—and in the waxworks studio that shares their dilapidated Victorian mansion on the outskirts of London. Now, the twins’ dreams of a fun, romantic summer season are turning into a nightmare, and the monsters are running...
EXCERPT
“Hey, look at me! I’m a mummy!” Frank moaned theatrically. He was holding a carved and painted mask from one of the crates in front of his face.
“Frank, don’t!” Topaz scolded.
“Why? I’m not hurting anything?”
And while that may have been technically true, something about the visage of her would-be-beau sporting a red-ochre face and glass eyes sent a stab of pain behind Opal’s eyes. For a moment, she saw Frank wrapped in bandages, and reaching out to her from beyond the grave… Then her vision cleared again.
“Seriously, Frank,” Topaz continued. “That funeral mask is three thousand years old.”
“Yeah, Frank,” Barry agreed. “Quit being a jerk.”
“Frank, please,” Opal added, not quite able to shake her uncanny vision. Had it been some kind of actual premonition, or had she just been unpacking too long?
“Funeral mask?” Frank said, his handsome face going pale. He carefully laid the painted visage back down in the excelsior-filled box from which it had come. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Oh, my!” Vincent exclaimed. “This is really quite remarkable! I think we may have finally reached the core of your new exhibition, my dears.”
Opal, her sister, and the other two teens quickly came to peer into the box he was examining—one of just two remaining unpacked. After an afternoon of un-crating chairs, jars, and other similar items, the youngsters were ready for a break.
Inside lay a beautiful casket, carved and painted in the likeness of a very lovely young woman.
Topaz checked one of the bills of lading and smiled. “This must be Bastiti, one of three mummies our father helped discover and acquired as compensation. Legend has it that she was a queen of Egypt, though details of her dynasty have been lost to the ages.”
“A queen without a kingdom, eh?” Frank mused.
“Good looking, though,” added Barry. “For a girl who’s a couple of millennia old, I mean.”
“Exquisite,” Vincent agreed.
“Father theorized that she was married to King Sethmosis,” Opal said, remembering some of Dr. Cushing’s letters. “But the king wasn’t found in the tomb with her, though several other mummies were.”
“Father thinks one is the royal advisor, Sethotep, and the other a guard who went by the name of Nekure,” Topaz elaborated. “Their names are carved on their coffins.”
“I can read a bit of Egyptian,” Vincent said. “I was quite the art history buff at school. I’ll just clear away some more of this packing and—Ouch!”
A dark flash went off inside Opal’s mind, and for a moment, she saw a mummified hand reaching for her, again.
“What is it?” Topaz asked.
“I just—” Opal began before realizing that her sister wasn’t talking to her.
Vincent Dupris had withdrawn his left hand from the mound of excelsior surrounding the sarcophagus and was sucking on his middle finger. A little blood tricked out the sides of his lips.
“It’s nothing,” he assured the rest. “I just pricked my finger. There must be a rough edge or something on this coffin.”
“I’ll get some mercurochrome,” Topaz offered.
“No need, no need,” Vincent countered. “I’m all right. And, besides, I wouldn’t want to slow down your work. I’m really anxious to see the entirety of this casket—and the sarcophagi of the other two mummies, of course.”
Carefully, the four teenagers removed the rest of the shipping crate and its packing material, until the sarcophagus inside stood revealed in its full glory.
“This really is exquisite,” Vincent said. “Notice the subtlety of the carving… the almost lifelike quality of the face…”
“That’s quite a compliment coming from an artist of your caliber, Mr. Duprix,” said Frank.
“Oh?” Vincent asked. “You’ve seen my work?”
“I’ve been through your wax museum a few times,” Frank replied.
“Me, too,” agreed Barry. “We think your Joan of Arc is quite a dish.”
“Though Barry’s favorite is Lady Godiva,” Frank put in.
Barry blushed.
“Well, thank you, boys. Thank you very much,” Vincent said. “It’s always nice when young people today admire the arts.” He’d bandaged his injured finger in a white handkerchief, now, though a spot of blood had managed to stain all the way through. “My humble efforts are but mere shadows of the genius of these ancient craftsmen. Why, looking at this… this queen depicted here, I almost feel as though she’s still alive, standing right before us.”
“It’s pretty good work, that’s for sure,” Barry agreed.
“Why don’t we open the casket and take a look at her,” Topaz suggested.
Something inside her—maybe the vision of that bandaged hand—made Opal want to say “Stop!”
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y4wjflsh
Barnes&Noble: https://tinyurl.com/y235ejq3
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen D. Sullivan has over sixty published titles to his name and helped create more comics and games than he can either list or remember.
A Scribe award-winner for “Best Novel Adaptation, 2016” with his book Manos: The Hands of Fate, Sullivan lives with his wife in a small town in Wisconsin.You can contact him via Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, or on his website: www.stephendsullivan.com
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Thursday, October 1, 2020
Books to curl up with: GOOD THURSDAY ALL ITS OCTOBER
Books to curl up with: GOOD THURSDAY ALL ITS OCTOBER: Wow where did time go its October 1st already , this year is just flying by . Today I have book 4 in the Mist of Magic and Mayhem series, H...
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