HERE BE NEWS for January 13, 2020

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Monday, January 6 - 
"HERE BE NEWS" - Short but sweet, our first newsletter of the new year AND a new decade! 

Tuesday, January 7 -
“MY FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2019” -  Need some ideas for what to read next? Author Nicole Luiken read an amazing THREE HUNDRED books last year! Paranormal romance, epic fantasy, sci-fi romance, YA, urban fantasy, historical romance and MORE. See which ones made Nicole’s list of favs. 

Saturday, January 11 -
This week's Bring It Back(list) feature is a twosome: “CUT GLASS: JEWELS”, dark and gritty urban fantasy/paranormal romance ebooks by Linda Mooney. And they're on SALE! Scroll down for all the details.

THE CASE OF THE 
TORMENTED TROLL

Noir Fairy Tales, Book 1
(Based on "Beauty and the Beast")
Paranormal, Fantasy Romance

By Linda Mooney
Word Count: 40.1K
$0.00 KU /$3.99 e / $9.99 p

Beldon Chase and Aura Dagger, of Chase and Dagger Detective Agency, are hired by Estin Ragg, a troll whose brother, Durif, was discovered dead under the 82^nd Street Bridge. The coroner calls it a suicide, but Estin swears it was murder. The cops seem to be sitting on their hands because he’s a troll, and everyone knows how much trolls are castigated and despised in the realm.

Aura and Beldon are partners. He’s an ex-cop who was framed for something he didn’t do and kicked off the force. Soon after hanging out the shingle of his detective agency, he found Aura homeless in the streets after the death of her father. Something about the young woman touched him deep inside, and he took her in and trained her how to be a gumshoe.

They’re in love with each other, but it’s Beldon who’s put the skids on their relationship from becoming anything more than professional. Mostly because he's a Static, a man-beast unable to convert completely into a man or an animal.

As Bel and Aura are digging through clues as to whether or not someone killed Durif Ragg, their relationship comes to a head. Aura wants a commitment from Beldon. He would do anything to give it to her, but his own insecurities are holding him back.

Things eventually reach a breaking point when they discover who is actually behind Ragg’s death, and why. Which culminates in Aura giving Beldon a choice—either they make this a permanent partnership in all ways, or she takes a hike, leaving him and the detective agency.

Warning! Contains an ambush, foot chases, hoofprints, missing evidence, corruption, a slinky gold dress, and a perfect alignment that finally grants the wishes of the heart.

Excerpt and Buy Link

During the month of January,
get both ebooks for 99 cents each!

"CUT GLASS: JEWELS"
Book 1 - Diamond
Book 2 - Ruby 
by Linda Mooney

Forget everything you think you know about mass murderers and crimes of passion, because now you’re going to learn the truth. People don’t decide one day to go out and kill as many people as they can, or wake up one morning, grab the nearest shotgun or axe, and proceed to hack apart their loved ones. They do it because they’re infected with a jewel, a creature of intense beauty and danger. Once the jewel takes over a host’s body, that person dies, leaving the jewel in total control to thrive on fear and horror.

Read the blurbs:  
http://herebemagic.blogspot.com/2020/01/bring-it-backlist-cut-glass-jewels-by.html

Buy links:  https://lindamooney.com/CutGlass_Jewels.htm 

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Bring it Back(list) - CUT GLASS: JEWELS by Linda Mooney

During the month of January, get both ebooks for 99 cents each!
(Available at all vendors below and my website.)

Forget everything you think you know about mass murderers and crimes of passion, because now you’re going to learn the truth. People don’t decide one day to go out and kill as many people as they can, or wake up one morning, grab the nearest shotgun or axe, and proceed to hack apart their loved ones. They do it because they’re infected with a jewel, a creature of intense beauty and danger. Once the jewel takes over a host’s body, that person dies, leaving the jewel in total control to thrive on fear and horror.

CUT GLASS: JEWELS
Book 1 - Diamond
Dark, Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 81.8K
$0.99 e / $15.99 p

Cutler Glass is a lapidary, one of an unknown group of people who’ve dedicated their lives to destroying jewels. But in order to keep the jewels from slaughtering innocent victims, she has to kill the host and then eat the jewel that emerges from the body.

Except this time the jewel she's assigned to go after, a diamond, has infected a very wealthy and influential man who has hired police protection. When Detective David Fellowes clashes with Cutler, it’s going to take more than a simple explanation before he believes her outlandish tale.

Until then, they both have to deal with their growing attraction to each other, and the fiery emotions it ignites.

Warning! Contains creatures of unbelievable horror, a woman facing a future of bitter solitude, a man willing sacrifice everything to be with her, and their burning love that one person is determined will never be allowed to continue or flourish.

CUT GLASS: JEWELS
Book 2 - Ruby
Dark, Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 62.2K
$0.99 e / $9.99 p

Cutler and David are reunited, and this time they will fight anyone who tries to separate them again. But when someone steals shards of defeated jewels, word is that an underground faction is trying to re-grow the deadly entities from those pieces. Cutler and David are assigned to help recover those shards before that can be accomplished. Because if they fail, the number of jewels will increase to where the delicate balance between lapies and demons will be compromised.

After which the wholesale slaughter of mankind will be imminent.

Warning: Contains strenuous hiking, shower sex, a traitor, Strychnine poisoning, a secret apartment, bell jars, emotional torture, ambush in a hospital, a job offer he can't refuse, and the ultimate fight to keep a love alive.

Excerpts and Buy Links

My Favourite Books of 2019

I read 300 books last year, and I thought I’d share some standouts. Some caveats: This NOT a Best Of list because these are books that *I* read last year, not necessarily ones first published last year. (My hardcover budget is limited and I often wait a year for the paperback.)  I also don’t really believe in Best Of lists—not only is it physically impossible to read all the books published even in one genre in one year, but personal tastes are wildly different. I like SFF and romance, especially books that combine them. I favour pacing and plotting over lyrical writing. I love happy endings.

URBAN FANTASY

Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series dominated my reading this year. Between the two series and various related novellas I read 21 of her books. Awesome action sequences, humour, and plenty of steam.

Otherwise I mostly kept up on the latest book in my favourite series: Mercedes Thompson by Patricia Briggs, InCryptid and October Daye by Seanan McGuire. Soulwood and Jane Yellowrock by Faith Hunter. Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovich, Magicfall by Diana Pharaoh Francis. Elemental Assassin by Jennifer Estep.

EPIC FANTASY

1/ Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series. I reread this massive series before reading the final volume Burning White. Great action. So many secrets and reveals and Moments of Awesome!

 2/  The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons. Very impressed by the layered timelines in this novel. 

3/ The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (Book two is on my ereader!) 

4/ City of Brass and Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty. Excellent world-building + a rogue heroine.

5/ The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. Such a new and interesting angle to take with the point of view.

SCIENCE FICTION

1/ The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. Caving, alone, in the dark with monsters. Claustrophobic and outstanding. 

2/ Quantum Magician by Derek Kunsken. Clever heist by a genetically engineered genius and, dear lord, the Puppets were chilling.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE

1/ Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrew. Greatly anticipated new book in their Hidden Legacy series, switching over from Nevada to Catalina POV. Did NOT disappoint. 

2/ American Witch by Thea Harrison. Grabbed me in the first chapter and did not let go. 

3/ Jeaniene Frost. I glommed large portions of her backlist. My favourite was the Vlad Tepes’ Night Prince series.

SFR (SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE)

1/ Polaris Rising and Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik. Polaris opens with an action scene and the pacing is fabulous. Alpha hero.

HISTORICAL ROMANCE

1/ Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare. 

2/ Devil’s Daughter by Lisa Kleypas. Enemies to lovers—at least on Phoebe’s side. 

3&4/ Continued gloms of K.J. Charles and Courtney Milan’s backlists. I’m running out of Milan’s ☹, but still have plenty of K.J. Charles left 😊

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

1/ The Kissing Quotient by Helen Hoang. Autistic heroine and a reverse Pretty Woman plot, both steamy and tender. Just wonderful. 

2/ Fatal series by Marie Force. I get such a kick out of Sam. Great banter.

YOUNG ADULT

1/ Maggie Stiefvatar’s The Raven Cycle. I. Love. This. Series. Great characters: doomed rich-boy Gansey with his obsession for ancient kings, public-school Blue who is the only non-psychic in a family of psychics, abused Adam who works so hard to lift himself out of poverty,  and angry, abrasive, grieving Ronan who can create real things out of dreams. Even the villains are fascinating.  (And yesterday I read Call Down the Hawk, first in the sequel series The Dreamer Trilogy, also awesome.)

2/ Smoke & Iron from the Great Library series by Rachel Caine. The plotting and pacing is so good, it's like a master class on writing.

3/ Court of Fives by Kate Elliott. An athlete heroine. 

4/ Purple Hearts by Michael Grant, final book in his alternate-history What-if-girls-were-drafted-in-WWII? series. 

5/ Deathcaster, final book in the Shattered Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima.

MIDDLE GRADE

1/ Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus. All three of my kids have read these, but I didn’t get around to trying them until this year myself. Great pacing and humour to go with the magic.One book still to go.

2/ Django Wexler’s The Forbidden Library. I read this series to my 11-year-old daughter. Alice is a wonderfully competent heroine and I enjoyed the magic system.

What were your favourites? I'd love some recommendations.

HERE BE NEWS for January 6, 2020

It's a new year and new decade! From all of us at Here Be Magic, we hope 2020 is your very best year ever!

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Monday, December 30 - 
"HERE BE NEWS" - It's been a CRAZY-busy time of year! From pirates to Yule monsters and from new releases to holiday romances, here's a list of our posts from December that you might want to catch up on ...  as soon as you catch your breath!

Saturday, January 4 -
"Sometimes finding what you want is the easy part." 
This week's Bring It Back(list) feature is “FINDERS KEEPERS”, a futuristic MMF romance by PG Forte. Go HERE to read an excerpt or scroll below for all the details.

FINDERS KEEPERS
SFR, Futuristic, 
Erotic, Menage 
by PG FORTE
3.99

Sometimes finding what you want is the easy part.

Caleb is a bionic soldier with little-to-no memory of his past. Aldo's an undercover cop who's searching for the man who got away. Then there's Sally, an ER physician who used to be married to Aldo's late partner, Davis. Sally's just looking for a reason to keep on getting up every day.


This holiday season, chance will bring them together and give them an opportunity to help one another find what they each want most. But every gift comes with a price. And keeping what they've found once they've found it? Yeah, that's gonna be the hard part.

PURCHASE LINKS: 

Amazon -
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K8K8BKX
Apple -
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/finders-keepers/id1445375713?mt=11
B&N -
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1114148929?ean=2940161436196
Kobo -
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/finders-keepers-123

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Bring It Back(list) ~ Finders Keepers by PG Forte

Happy 2020 everyone! I'm old enough that, nowadays, just looking at the date makes me feel like I'm living in the future. I mean, c'mon. We aren't really TWO DECADES into the "new" millennium are we? 

Well, yes, I guess we are. At this rate, Finders Keepers, my near-future, MMF, SFR, holiday romance will end up becoming historical romance before I know it. 

Here's a brief excerpt:

The dull thud of explosions filtered into Aldo’s brain, rousing him from sleep. “Fireworks,” he mumbled, watching the colored embers stream through the starry sky outside his window. They meant something, he supposed. He couldn’t remember what.

“Yeah. They just started,” a soft voice murmured beside him. “Happy New Year.”

New Year’s. Right. Aldo turned his head to find the source of the voice. Kyle was sitting up in bed, reclining against the pillows. Aldo allowed himself a moment to drink in the sight. It was a miracle that Kyle was alive, a miracle that he was sitting here at Aldo’s side. Beyond those simple facts, however, lay a twisted jumble of thoughts and emotions. How the fuck were they ever going to make this work?

The wistful look on Kyle’s face did not inspire Aldo with a lot of confidence in that regard. The rest of the package, all that delectable man flesh, certainly inspired a lot of other things, but confidence, no. “So,” he said, not bothering to sit up himself, not bothering to pull Kyle down into another long kiss the way he wanted to either. A kiss would be nice, but it could lead to either more sex—also nice—or to another argument. That would be significantly less nice and would leave Aldo feeling stupid for having started it. “Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know.” Kyle looked tired. Even his amazing eyes looked worn—especially in the too-young face—and a lot less amazing now that Aldo knew the true cost of them. He felt an urgent need to reach out to Kyle, to touch him, not just to reassure himself that he was really here, but to somehow erase all the damage that had been done to him in the name of science. Yeah, Kyle had changed, all right, but they were all surface changes. They didn’t touch the heart of the man…and Aldo could not decide if that was bad or good. He felt the usual brew of guilt and grief and anger churning inside. He’d failed Kyle. They’d failed each other. And they were probably going to do so again.

FINDERS KEEPERS
SFR, Futuristic, Erotic, Menage
by PG Forte
$3.99

Sometimes finding what you want is the easy part.

Caleb is a bionic soldier with little-to-no memory of his past. Aldo's an undercover cop who's searching for the man who got away. Then there's Sally, an ER physician who used to be married to Aldo's late partner, Davis. Sally's just looking for a reason to keep on getting up every day.

This holiday season, chance will bring them together and give them an opportunity to help one another find what they each want most. But every gift comes with a price. And keeping what they've found once they've found it? Yeah, that's gonna be the hard part.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K8K8BKX

Apple:   https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/finders-keepers/id1445375713?mt=11

B&N:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1114148929?ean=2940161436196

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/finders-keepers-123