HERE BE NEWS for Monday December 14, 2020

Monday, December 14, 2020 

Welcome to HERE BE NEWS, where each monday we bring you all the latest from the fantasy romance authors at Here Be Magic:

                  

New!

THE ANGEL AT THE TOP OF MY TREE
Contemporary Fantasy Romance 

by Linda Mooney

(Although this is a sweet romance, it contains scenes of violence.)
Word Count: 24.6K
$1.99 e / $6.99 p

After purchasing a beautiful and unique antique angel tree topper, Marq North is excited to gift it to his long-time girlfriend, but he should’ve known she appreciates a bigger price tag more than sentimental value. Why has he wasted years of his life trying to buy her love? When she tells him she’s ending their relationship right before the holidays, he’s almost…relieved.

Ione and her fellow archangels are used to the rise in demonic activity during Samhain, but at Christmas? That is a surprise to them all. Yet it seems more and more people are focusing on the greed and commercialism these days rather than the real reason for the season. And the demons plan to take advantage of mankind’s vulnerability and overtake as many mortals as possible this time of year. It’s up to Ione and Heaven’s best protectors to save every valuable soul.

He’d swear he saw her literally fall from the sky, to find her injured and vulnerable. After Marq rescues her, he discovers she’s the spitting image of the angel doll. She says her name is Ione, and claims to be an archangel. After he offers her a place of safety in order to recover, he finds she’s become jaded through the years, which has him determined to have her see that it’s not greed, but the love of giving that makes this time of year special.

Despite knowing she must return to Heaven, or risk drawing the demons’ wrath to Marq, Ione wants to remain with her rescuer, but she must let him go to save his life as he did hers. After all, a relationship between a mortal and a celestial being would never work.

Or can it?

Warning:  Contains hot cocoa, a flaming sword, a celestial mission, a red sweatshirt, similar names, and discovering that sometimes the best gift on or under the Christmas tree is love.  

Excerpt and Buy Links

Tuesday December 8, 2020: PG Forte takes a trip down memory lane...

December is the Month for Christmas With a Twist!
And you can get all 3 of these ebooks for just 99c each!

TUFFY CLAUS
Contemporary Fantasy Romance
by Linda Mooney
Word Count: 27.8K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p

It’s another night on the job for Deputy Sheriff Barbara Mero, giving chase to a suspect in a stolen vehicle. But when someone beats her to the perp, she’s not sure whether to step in or not. Before she can stop him, a sledgehammer-wielding bearded biker on a red Harley delivers his own punishment, but with his parting words, Babs isn’t so sure he’s another bad guy.

After further investigation, Babs knows this vigilante “Santa” meant well, but there’s no proof he was even there. And after a few more run-ins with the red-cloaked badass, she’s torn between duty and justice, but in her heart she knows he’s the real deal.

You see, there’s a side of the story of Santa that doesn’t get told, and that’s where Dominik comes in. Being the twin to Kris, Dom’s job isn’t near as merry, though still necessary, answering the letters from the kids who want more than just toys. Those who want a better, safer life, food, and shelter. Basic needs a kid shouldn’t have to wish for on Christmas. Although he’s accepted his own lot in life, Dominik still has one regret. It’s a lonely life. 

There’s another side to jolly old Saint Nick, and he ain’t a saint.

Warning! Contains German chocolate cake, a modified red Harley, Sadie, justice served, a child's letter to Santa, a coffee date, and the promise of love when no hope of love had ever existed.

Excerpt and Buy Links

~ ~ ~

Tickle My Candy Cane
Tales of the Blakeney Sisters, Book 2
Humorous Erotic Urban Fantasy Paranormal Romance
by Linda Mooney writing as Carolyn Gregg
Word Count:  18.8K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p / $6.95 a

Once upon a time, there lived a man with five rambunctious daughters. They were an average American farming family except for one minor detail. The man was a warlock, and all of his daughters were witchlets--half witch and half human.

With Christmas only two days away, Tamberly Blakeney has given up hope of finding her heart's call this year. That is, until Jonathan Mauk walks into the market and into her life. With the magical swirl of a candy cane's stripes, she knows he is the man meant to be her lifelong love. But first he has to pass the sex hex test, which she is sure won't be a problem.

What she doesn't realize is that there is something in Jonathan's past that deeply disturbs her father. And until Daddy gets all the answers, there could be hell to pay.

Excerpt and Buy Links

~ ~ ~

SILENT NIGHT, FINAL NIGHT
A Paranormal, Post-Apocalyptic, Christmas Horror Story
by Linda Mooney writing as Gail Smith
Word Count:  20.3K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p

A family on the run, searching for food, shelter, and others not infected.

A plague is wiping out the population, stealing the humanity from people and turning them into monsters. Kem and Armand are willing to do whatever it takes to protect their daughter and survive. Nothing is promised, not life, not their next meal, not even a decent night’s rest.

The quality of life is quickly diminishing. How much is too much? How long until the fight for survival is no longer worth it, and it’s time for a dignified end rather than a slow, painful death?

Excerpt and Buy Links

Bring It Back(list) - December is the Month for Christmas With a Twist!

December is the Month for Christmas With a Twist!
And you can get all 3 of these ebooks for just 99c each!

TUFFY CLAUS
Contemporary Fantasy Romance
by Linda Mooney
Word Count: 27.8K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p

It’s another night on the job for Deputy Sheriff Barbara Mero, giving chase to a suspect in a stolen vehicle. But when someone beats her to the perp, she’s not sure whether to step in or not. Before she can stop him, a sledgehammer-wielding bearded biker on a red Harley delivers his own punishment, but with his parting words, Babs isn’t so sure he’s another bad guy.

After further investigation, Babs knows this vigilante “Santa” meant well, but there’s no proof he was even there. And after a few more run-ins with the red-cloaked badass, she’s torn between duty and justice, but in her heart she knows he’s the real deal.

You see, there’s a side of the story of Santa that doesn’t get told, and that’s where Dominik comes in. Being the twin to Kris, Dom’s job isn’t near as merry, though still necessary, answering the letters from the kids who want more than just toys. Those who want a better, safer life, food, and shelter. Basic needs a kid shouldn’t have to wish for on Christmas. Although he’s accepted his own lot in life, Dominik still has one regret. It’s a lonely life. 

There’s another side to jolly old Saint Nick, and he ain’t a saint.

Warning! Contains German chocolate cake, a modified red Harley, Sadie, justice served, a child's letter to Santa, a coffee date, and the promise of love when no hope of love had ever existed.

Excerpt and Buy Links

~ ~ ~

Tickle My Candy Cane
Tales of the Blakeney Sisters, Book 2
Humorous Erotic Urban Fantasy Paranormal Romance
by Linda Mooney writing as Carolyn Gregg
Word Count:  18.8K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p / $6.95 a

Once upon a time, there lived a man with five rambunctious daughters. They were an average American farming family except for one minor detail. The man was a warlock, and all of his daughters were witchlets--half witch and half human.

With Christmas only two days away, Tamberly Blakeney has given up hope of finding her heart's call this year. That is, until Jonathan Mauk walks into the market and into her life. With the magical swirl of a candy cane's stripes, she knows he is the man meant to be her lifelong love. But first he has to pass the sex hex test, which she is sure won't be a problem.

What she doesn't realize is that there is something in Jonathan's past that deeply disturbs her father. And until Daddy gets all the answers, there could be hell to pay.

Excerpt and Buy Links

~ ~ ~

SILENT NIGHT, FINAL NIGHT
A Paranormal, Post-Apocalyptic, Christmas Horror Story
by Linda Mooney writing as Gail Smith
Word Count:  20.3K
$0.99 e / $6.99 p

A family on the run, searching for food, shelter, and others not infected.

A plague is wiping out the population, stealing the humanity from people and turning them into monsters. Kem and Armand are willing to do whatever it takes to protect their daughter and survive. Nothing is promised, not life, not their next meal, not even a decent night’s rest.

The quality of life is quickly diminishing. How much is too much? How long until the fight for survival is no longer worth it, and it’s time for a dignified end rather than a slow, painful death?

Excerpt and Buy Links

New! THE ANGEL AT THE TOP OF MY TREE, a Contemporary Fantasy Romance by Linda Mooney

New!

THE ANGEL AT THE TOP OF MY TREE
Contemporary Fantasy Romance 

by Linda Mooney

(Although this is a sweet romance, it contains scenes of violence.)
Word Count: 24.6K
$1.99 e / $6.99 p

After purchasing a beautiful and unique antique angel tree topper, Marq North is excited to gift it to his long-time girlfriend, but he should’ve known she appreciates a bigger price tag more than sentimental value. Why has he wasted years of his life trying to buy her love? When she tells him she’s ending their relationship right before the holidays, he’s almost…relieved.

Ione and her fellow archangels are used to the rise in demonic activity during Samhain, but at Christmas? That is a surprise to them all. Yet it seems more and more people are focusing on the greed and commercialism these days rather than the real reason for the season. And the demons plan to take advantage of mankind’s vulnerability and overtake as many mortals as possible this time of year. It’s up to Ione and Heaven’s best protectors to save every valuable soul.

He’d swear he saw her literally fall from the sky, to find her injured and vulnerable. After Marq rescues her, he discovers she’s the spitting image of the angel doll. She says her name is Ione, and claims to be an archangel. After he offers her a place of safety in order to recover, he finds she’s become jaded through the years, which has him determined to have her see that it’s not greed, but the love of giving that makes this time of year special.

Despite knowing she must return to Heaven, or risk drawing the demons’ wrath to Marq, Ione wants to remain with her rescuer, but she must let him go to save his life as he did hers. After all, a relationship between a mortal and a celestial being would never work.

Or can it?

Warning:  Contains hot cocoa, a flaming sword, a celestial mission, a red sweatshirt, similar names, and discovering that sometimes the best gift on or under the Christmas tree is love.  

Excerpt and Buy Links

Memories

 I'm sure you've all heard the joke by now: Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most? Story. Of. My. Life.

See, today is December 8. It's my oldest niece's birthday (and my second-oldest niece's half-birthday...and I have two brother's with birthdays exactly six months apart--two years and six months, but that's not the point, which is that we like order and synchronicity in my clan). It also happens to have been the original release date for In the Dark. 

I'm posting the original cover here, not because I don don't like the new one, but because at the time the book was first released, this is EXACTLY how my niece-whose-birthday-is-today looked. I was a little freaked out the first time this image popped up in my email, to be honest.

But I bring all of this up to say that, I HAD A REASON for scheduling my post for today. Do I remember what that reason was?  No, I do not. Did it have anything to do with this book? Possibly? I dunno. 

It is kind of nice that I'm talking about family, however, since this book, this series, hell MOST of my series, are all to do with families. Which is what led me to come up with my most current author logo: 

All the Friends, All the Families, All the Feels.

But I kinda think that that's not at all what I'd originally planned on writing about today, either. 

So, I guess I need a new topic. And I guess I could do worse than to talk about memories. 

So, speaking of which, I remember when CATS first came out--the first, first time, a gazillion years ago--and that song (Memories--for those of you too young to know what I'm talking about) was playing all the time, everywhere...and even more so since we had the album on repeat. Gluttons for punishment, what can I say? Back then, I prided myself on my good memory, even though it wasn't a patch on my grandmother's. She came to America when she was thirteen years old, seventy years later, she could still remember what they'd served at every meal on the trip across the Atlantic. 

These days, memories are like surprises. They pop up out of nowhere, all shiny and new. It's a little like the scene in my favorite old Star Trek movie, The Voyage Home, where they travel back in time to 1986 San Francisco. They need money, so they have to pawn the only old object they have--a pair of antique glasses that McCocCy had given Kirk. Spock says: "Wasn't that a birthday present?" To which Kirk replies, "Yes. And it will be again. That's the beauty of it."

So I guess the beauty of this post is all the synchronicities. The movie was set in San Francisco in 1986. My niece was born in 1986. My vampires live in San Francisco. Maybe my new, new author logo should simply be:  All the Synchronicities?  

By the way. Another synchronistic memory that just popped up on my FB timeline the day I wrote this post, was this image from one of my old newsletters:

As it happens, of course, this was the very newsletter that announced the release of In the Dark--because OF COURSE it was. I quit publishing newsletters because I could never remember to get them out on time. Surprising? I think not. 

COINCIDENTALLY, I'm just in the process of putting out a new newsletter. If you'd like to subscribe, here's the link: https://www.pgforte.com/newsletter  Thanks for reading, and have a memorable day!

Also, happy birthday to Meredith. 

Looking for FREE holiday reads?  Check out my Free for the Holidays page--only available this month--on my website: https://www.pgforte.com/only-for-the-holidays

HERE BE NEWS for Monday December 7, 2020

  

Monday, December 7, 2020 

Welcome to HERE BE NEWS, where each monday we bring you all the latest from the fantasy romance authors at Here Be Magic:

Thursday December 3, 2020: Author Nicole Luiken explains why she never reads blurbs!

 

Santa Fe, The Republic of New Texacali, 1870 

 Eight years ago, Ophelia Leonides's husband cast her off when he discovered she was not the woman he thought she was. Now destitute after the death of her father, Ophelia is forced to turn to Dario for help raising the child she never told him about. 

 Dario is furious that Ophelia has returned, and refuses to believe Arthur is his son—after all, he thought his wife was barren. But to avoid gossip, he agrees to let them spend the holidays at his villa. While he cannot resist the desire he still feels for Ophelia, Dario despises himself for being hopelessly in love with a woman who can never love him back. 

 But Dario is wrong: Ophelia's emotions are all too human, and she was brokenhearted when he rejected her. Unsure if she can trust the man she desperately loves, she fears for her life, her freedom and her son if anyone else learns of her true nature...

Excerpt:

Later that night, after Arthur had been tucked into bed, Ophelia sat down by the fire to do some mending. She knew her time would likely be better spent in drafting a letter to her husband apprising him of her arrival and explaining what she was doing here—and begging him to meet with her. But thoughts of the inevitable confrontation that loomed between them made it easy to put the task off a little while longer. Surely, it could at least wait until morning. Besides, it really wouldn’t do to allow Arthur to show up at Dario’s door in clothes that were threadbare. 

The faint electromagnetic charge running through her circuitry caused the needle to cling ever-so-slightly to her fingers. It had been the case all her life of course and, as such, was not the kind of thing she tended to notice. Tonight, in this place, it drew her attention. 

Her sewing done, she put her things away then sat for a few moments, just staring at her hand, flexing and straightening her fingers. It looked so normal, so ordinary, so very human. She even had fingerprints. Her father had been particularly proud of that. If only he had not been quite so proud of all his accomplishments, so eager to share his genius with the world. How might her life have been different if that had been the case?

Buy links, and a link to a FREE prequel can be found on my website: 

https://www.pgforte.com/winter-hearts

A BRAND NEW free short sequel will release later this month, but will only be available to members of my Facebook Reader Group, The Crone's Nest. Join here:  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheCronesNest

Bring It Back(list) This Winter Heart by PG Forte

 

Santa Fe, The Republic of New Texacali, 1870 

 Eight years ago, Ophelia Leonides's husband cast her off when he discovered she was not the woman he thought she was. Now destitute after the death of her father, Ophelia is forced to turn to Dario for help raising the child she never told him about. 

 Dario is furious that Ophelia has returned, and refuses to believe Arthur is his son—after all, he thought his wife was barren. But to avoid gossip, he agrees to let them spend the holidays at his villa. While he cannot resist the desire he still feels for Ophelia, Dario despises himself for being hopelessly in love with a woman who can never love him back. 

 But Dario is wrong: Ophelia's emotions are all too human, and she was brokenhearted when he rejected her. Unsure if she can trust the man she desperately loves, she fears for her life, her freedom and her son if anyone else learns of her true nature...

Excerpt:

Later that night, after Arthur had been tucked into bed, Ophelia sat down by the fire to do some mending. She knew her time would likely be better spent in drafting a letter to her husband apprising him of her arrival and explaining what she was doing here—and begging him to meet with her. But thoughts of the inevitable confrontation that loomed between them made it easy to put the task off a little while longer. Surely, it could at least wait until morning. Besides, it really wouldn’t do to allow Arthur to show up at Dario’s door in clothes that were threadbare. 

The faint electromagnetic charge running through her circuitry caused the needle to cling ever-so-slightly to her fingers. It had been the case all her life of course and, as such, was not the kind of thing she tended to notice. Tonight, in this place, it drew her attention. 

Her sewing done, she put her things away then sat for a few moments, just staring at her hand, flexing and straightening her fingers. It looked so normal, so ordinary, so very human. She even had fingerprints. Her father had been particularly proud of that. If only he had not been quite so proud of all his accomplishments, so eager to share his genius with the world. How might her life have been different if that had been the case?

Buy links, and a link to a FREE prequel can be found on my website: 

https://www.pgforte.com/winter-hearts

A BRAND NEW free short sequel will release later this month, but will only be available to members of my Facebook Reader Group, The Crone's Nest. Join here:  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheCronesNest

Why I Don't Read Blurbs

The back-of-book blurb is a necessary tool. It gives you the genre, the characters and the premise of the book. Its goal is to raise enough interest that a potential reader will give the book a try. It is invaluable and important, but for the most part, as a reader, I avoid them. 

Why?

Mostly, it's a personal quirk. I hate spoilers and the book blurb often tells you what's going to happen in the first three chapters of the novel. Even if they try to be coy, there is usually a hint of what the twist will be (for example I am very glad I didn't read the blurb for Consumed by J.R. Ward). I prefer to have the story be revealed to me as I read. And if the writer doesn't have enough skill to hook me on the front page, then its often a sign that no matter how great the premise the book is going to be only mediocre.

I always read the blurb when I was younger. I chose what book to read next based on genre and if the plot sounded interesting. I think this is how the vast majority of readers choose a book. Blurbs, for the most part, work. I still use blurbs to try out the work of authors I've never read before. But what works even better (for me) is choosing a book by author.

Again, as I young reader, I didn't pay that much attention to authors. But once I started writing myself it began more important to me. And I discovered that the most reliable marker of whether or not I was going to love (not like, but love) a book had nothing to do with the plot and everything  to do with the author. I vividly remember reading two Harlequins as a teen that had essentially an identical plot involving the heroine being unjustly convicted of a crime and deciding to get revenge on the prosecuting lawyer years later and yet one of them was a tense read and one was meh. 

When I buy an Ilona Andrews book, I really don't care that much whether it's in their Hidden Legacy series or the Kate Daniels World or an Innkeeper book or something entirely new. I know that it's going to be a great book and all I have to do is buckle in for the ride. 

Blurbs will always be important for finding new authors to read, but if I trust an author because they've consistently delivered a great story, I don't need the blurb. Do you have a favourite author? Try not reading the blurb to their next book.