Category Archives: Books

Past, Present, or Future? – Jacey Bedford muses on the pros and cons of writing in different time periods.

by Jacey Bedford

I write science fiction and fantasy, but within those parameters I’ve always also written history. Sometimes it’s an identifiable period of our own history, sometimes it’s a history of the future.

What do I mean by history? The dictionary defines it as: the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. Whether it’s past history or future past history depends on your perspective. My Psi-Tech science fiction (space opera) trilogy is set five hundred years in the future, and in setting the scene and building the world/worlds/galaxy. I’ve had to work out the history of Earth to that point, and the history of humankind’s spacefaring. It’s not directly part of the story, but the meteorites that took out most of the USA and China in the twenty second century and almost knocked the rest of Earth’s population back to the stone age, obviously had a huge impact (no pun intended) on how Africa and Europe became the largest power centres. Mankind forged out into the stars, developing colonies in a period which became known as The Great Colony Grab. That’s barely mentioned in the story, but I need to know in order to make everything else follow logically.

My Rowankind Trilogy is set in (mostly) Britain in a real historical period, so though I can add things like magic, shape-changers, Fae and witchcraft, I have to weave them around happenings that are immutable. Napoleon Bonaparte tried to conquer Europe (and almost succeeded). King George III was intermittently bonkers. When he wasn’t bonkers he used to go to Weymouth to be ‘dipped’ in the sea. His bathing machine was painted red, white and blue and had a ten foot flag pole on top, just in case anyone couldn’t guess whose bathing machine it was. Yes, I managed to use that lovely bit of information. Also the fact that William Pitt the Younger resigned as George III’s First Minister in 1802. leaving Henry Addington to negotiate a brief peace with France. All these are included into the story of Ross (Rossalinde) Tremayne, a cross-dressing privateer captain and witch, who, when the trilogy begins, is cruising the seas for prizes of fat French merchant vessels accompanied by a crew of barely reformed pirates and the ghost of her late husband. (I wrote a blog post on what’s truth and what’s fiction in the trilogy here: https://jaceybedford.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/the-truth-in-historical-fantasy/)

Both writing in the past and writing in the future deliver their own particular restrictions and opportunities, but I rarely write in the present. Present and near-future stories offer a particular problem. However much you try to reflect the time period we refer to as now, by the time a book goes to press, it will be out of date both politically and scientifically. Science is outstripping our ability to predict it. (CRISPR, anybody?) And as for politics, all bets are off. Who could have predicted two mop-haired muppets in power on opposite sides of the Atlantic? As I write, we wait to find out who the next UK prime minister will be, and (barring a miracle) it certainly looks as if that will happen. We wait with bated breath to see if our next P.M. will lead the UK straight out of Europe and off a fiscal cliff. And this morning the news arrived via the BBC that the US had called off a military strike against three sites in Iran with 10 minutes to spare. Yikes!) If I’d put that in a book five years ago, any editor would have rejected it for being unrealistic.

So I think I’ll stick to history, set in either the past or the future. In the end stories are about people regardless of the time period in which they are set.

Jacey Bedford is a British writer of both science fiction and fantasy. Her six (so far) novels are published by DAW in the USA. She has two trilogies out and she’s currently working on a standalone historical fantasy set in an analogue of the Baltic States in the seventeenth century.

Her short stories have been published on both sides of the Atlantic in anthologies and magazines, and some have been translated into an odd assortment of languages including Estonian, Galician and Polish. Most recently she’s been a core author in three anthologies by the acclaimed Zombies Need Brains Press.

Jacey’s books:
The Psi-Tech Trilogy: Empire of Dust / Crossways / Nimbus
The Rowankind Trilogy: Winterwood / Silverwolf / Rowankind
You can keep up with Jacey in several different ways:
Web: http://www.jaceybedford.co.uk, which includes a link to her mailing list
Blog: jaceybedford.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacey.bedford.writer
Twitter: @jaceybedford

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Coming Attractions

By Gail Z. Martin

Here’s a mid-year update, in case you’re wondering when the next book in a favorite series will be hitting the shelves. I can tell you that we’re planning on getting these books out as quickly as possible, but I don’t have hard launch dates, so please make sure you join our Shadow Alliance street team and/or our Chronicles newsletter so that you never miss a new release!

Night Moves—a brand new Mark Wojcik Spells Salt and Steel novella from Falstaff Books, kicking off Season 2 with a bang and a big dose of salted holy water!

Cauldron—the first in the Joe Mack series from Falstaff Books. The Joe Mack series is set in the Roaring Twenties, with former steel worker Joe ‘Mack’ Magarac becoming the immortal servant of Krukis, the Slavic god of blacksmiths, with a charge to walk the earth stopping monsters and battling the powers of darkness. The Joe Mack books are a tie-in to John Hartness’s Shadow Council (Quincy Harker) series.

Wasteland Marshals —the first in a near-future post-apocalyptic series (also from Falstaff Books) about the last two US Marshals trying to hold back chaos and supernatural threats after a series of catastrophes end life as we know it.

Inheritance—this will be the fourth Deadly Curiosities novel, and will focus on old secrets and mysteries coming to light linked to the ghost of Cassidy’s Revolutionary War-era privateer ancestor, Dante.

C.H.A.R.O.N—the second Night Vigil novel picks up shortly after Sons of Darkness, as Brent and Travis try to stay one step ahead of a shady secret government organization that wants to conscript Brent and use the monsters they hunt for their own ends.

Spark of Destiny—the long-overdue sequel to Iron & Blood, a brand new Jake Desmet Adventure!

Reckoning—the final book in the Darkhurst series, as Corran and Rigan Valmonde and their allies face their biggest enemy in a battle to define the future of the kingdom, and end the scourge of monsters forever.

Bonus goodies!

Read a copy of my Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy short story Catspaw for free: https://claims.prolificworks.com/free/UAjd6 and check out my epic fantasy Ascendant Kingdoms short story Reconciling Memory here for free: https://claims.prolificworks.com/free/JQorl

Giveaway! Enter for a chance to win a copy of The Splintered Crown and Convicts and Exiles http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04221/?

Join our Shadow Alliance street team so you never miss a new release! Get all the scoop first + giveaways + fun stuff! Also where I get my beta readers and Launch Team! https://www.facebook.com/groups/435812789942761Find me at www.GailZMartin.com , on Twitter @GailZMartin on www.Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms at www.DisquietingVisions.com blog, on www.Pinterest.com/Gzmartin on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/GailZMartin and BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/profile/gail-z-martin I’m also the organizer of the #HoldOnToTheLight campaign www.HoldOnToTheLight.com Never miss out on the news with my newsletter  http://eepurl.com/dd5XLj

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Welcome to the 2018 Days of the Dead Tour

Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve….when better to celebrate books about magic, necromancers, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night?

We’ve got plenty of new ‘treats’ in our Trick-or-Treat lineup this year: Vengeance, Tangled Web, The Dark Road, Salvage Rat, Assassin’s Honor, Sons of Darkness, and Close Encounters. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how the books came about and what the heck we were thinking with the guest blog posts and author Q&As.

Sign up for a chance to win a Kindle prize pack with an ebook of Tangled Web, Salvage Rat, Assassin’s Honor, The Dark Road, and Sons of Darkness!

Check out upcoming posts from

RisingShadow—Heroes in Dark Places
Qwillery—Monsters and Mayhem in the Modern World
I Smell Sheep—Excerpt of Assassin’s Honor
We Geek Girls—Assassins and Salvage Rats (includes a Salvage Rat excerpt)
Beauty in Ruins—Assassins, Honor and Vengeance
SciFi Chick—Epic vs. Urban: Writing Both Sides of Fantasy (includes a Tangled Web excerpt)
Bookloons—Excerpts from Salvage Rat and Assassin’s Honor
Dave Brendon deBurgh—Excerpt and Review of Assassin’s Honor
Fantasy Book Critic—Dangerous Truths
SFF World—Outlaws and Rogues are Always in Style
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist—Space, Spells and Spooks

I Smell Sheep—Somewhere I Wouldn’t Want to Be After Dark
http://www.ismellsheep.com/2018/10/fantasy-author-gail-z-martin-somewhere.html

CatsLuvCoffeez—Review of Tangled Web
https://catsluvcoffeez.blogspot.com/2018/10/review-of-tangled-web.html

CreativelyGreen—Writing and Family
https://creativelygreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/writing-and-family-with-gail-z-martin.html

TSStuff—Author Q&A on Tangled Web
https://www.tsstuff.net/2018/10/tangled-web-by-gail-z-martin.html

TheBookJunkieReads—-Author interview on Tangled Web
https://thebookjunkiereadspromos.blogspot.com/2018/10/spotlight-winterview-tangled-web-deadly.html

Mythical Books—Guest post by Larry N. Martin on Salvage Rat
http://mythicalbooks.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-adventure-begins-salvage-rat-by.html

Celtic Lady Reviews—Interview with Larry N. Martin on Salvage RAt
https://celticladysreviews.blogspot.com/2018/10/salvage-rat-by-larry-n-martin-book.html

Geri Reads—Outlaw Monster Hunter Survival Tips
https://gerireads.com/guest-post-outlaw-monster-hunter-survival-tips-by-gail-z-martin/

The Million Words Blog—Co-Writing Without Homicide
http://themillionwords.net/2018/10/21/gail-z-martins-scourge-and-vengeance-blog-tour/

Anne Barwell—Juggling Worlds (Writing in Multiple Series)
https://annebarwell.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/scourge-and-vengeance-by-gail-z-martin/

Slippery Words—Epic Fantasy without Epic Length
https://www.slipperywords.com/2018/10/can-gail-martin-write-an-epic-fantasy-that-isnt-epic-length/

Momma Says to Read or Not to Read—Making History and Fantasy for Fun
https://mommasaystoreadornottoread.blogspot.com/2018/10/virtual-book-tour-tangled-web-by-gail-z.html

Margaret McGraw—Finding the Writer’s Spark
https://margaretsmcgraw.blogspot.com/2018/10/guest-interview-gail-z-martin-talks.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR3AgYahs-elPxrqvLe7TVmZjCdf1AW8TToVkJzNkvmayfxAtn84E7o1eRM

Enter my Rafflecopter giveaway to win a Kindle Prize Package with a free copy EACH of — Tangled Web, Assassin’s Honor, Salvage Rat, The Dark Road and Sons of Darkness! http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04215/?

Let me give a shout-out for #HoldOnToTheLight 2018, back for more with new authors and fantastic new posts! 150+ genre authors blogging about their personal struggles with depression, PTSD, anxiety, suicide and self-harm, candid posts by some of your favorite authors on how mental health issues have impacted their lives and books. Read the stories, share the stories, change a life. Find out more at www.HoldOnToTheLight.com

Don’t forget Morgan Brice
Morgan Brice is my pen name for writing urban fantasy, male/male paranormal romance, and I’ve got a great short story freebie with 22 authors here:

And you can enter this fun online scavenger hunt for a chance to win free books, a copy of my novel, Witchbane, and a Kindle Fire HD! https://www.nightowlreviews.com/v5/Blog/Articles/Hallowpalooza-2018

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Influences: The Interplay of Books, Games, Films, and Television

by Donald J. Bingle

If you follow Gail at all on social media, you know that, like me, she is a big fan of the television show Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke. My wife and I have followed Supernatural from the very first episode. Why? Because it has hot guys? No, because the first commercial I saw for it reminded me of Chill, a horror roleplaying game from the early 80s that featured a loose collective of individuals (S.A.V.E. agents/hunters) who knew the truth about supernatural creatures and hunted them down at great personal risk. In fact, we have good fun identifying the creatures the boys were up against from our knowledge of Creatures of the Unknown from the old Chill product. Woman in White? Check. Wendigo? Been there, done that. The quality of the research, the writing, the acting, and the importance of family, where family extends beyond kin, also resonated, of course, but the interplay added to the enjoyment of the series.

The company that put out Chill (Pacesetter) also put out a time travel roleplaying game called Timemaster, which we actually acquired the rights to when Pacesetter when bankrupt. So, for a while, I did a lot of reading about time travel and wrote a number of Timemaster adventures where you have to figure out what when wrong with history and go to the right place and time to do what was necessary to put the timeline back to the way it originally happened. Timemaster’s slogan under our ownership (we’ve since sold it) was “I’ve seen the future and I’m here to fix the past.” Not surprisingly, then, we were delighted when Eric Kripke created the recent (and recently cancelled) series Timeless about agents who go to the past to change it back to the way it originally occurred.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Eric stole anything from anybody or anything like that. Ideas are not protectible by the copyright laws—only the manner of expression. Beside, there have been all sorts of good guys fighting monsters dating all the way to mythology and various time corps have been protecting the timeline across dozens and dozens of books. That’s how influence, inspiration, and expansion and revision of tropes work in literature (and, yes, genre fiction is literature). Eric deserves all the credit for putting out some excellent, well-written shows (though I’ve looked at his bio and noted he played rpgs in his younger days and, given his age vs mine, like to think that maybe at some time in the past, maybe at a convention like GenCon, he played a round of Chill I played, too, or maybe a Timemaster adventure I wrote back in the day).

Every author has inspirations from their life and their exposure to books, games, films, and television. Some things they emulate; some things they turn upside down. Not all of these things are plot/story oriented. You learn about suspense, clues, pacing, comic relief, character development, misdirection, flashbacks, character quirks, action set pieces, and more from both real life and fiction. Those are simply tools for the writer to use in their craft.

Most recently, I’ve been writing spy thrillers and I’ve had all sorts of experiences to call upon in writing those stories even though I am not a spy. (Of course, that’s what a spy would say, isn’t it?) Sure, I watched James Bond and Jason Bourne movies and watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Burn Notice, and the early seasons of Alias on television. I’ve also read my share of spy thrillers. And I played a lot of Top Secret (an espionage based roleplaying game put out by TSR long before they were acquired by Wizards of the Coast). I even wrote a Bond spoof screenplay (pre Austin Powers) as an Ace Ventura sequel (Ace is hired to find the Queen’s dognapped pooch) and got it past Jim Carrey’s agent to his manager before the project stalled out. And, since I worked in the field of corporate finance and hostile takeovers, I had some real life experience keeping secrets, using fake names in communications, and keeping travel plans mum in order to keep arbitrageurs and other bidders from finding out was what going on prematurely.

All of those things influenced Wet Work, my most recent Dick Thornby Thriller, along with Net Impact, the first book in the series, just re-released with a spiffy new cover. Some of the influences are reversed—I didn’t want my spy to be a tuxedo-clad Bond rip-off or a loner assassin, like Jason Bourne. Some of the influences are incorporated—I always liked how Michael Westen explained bits of spycraft in the early seasons of Burn Notice, so I used a dynamic where my main character is often teaching spycraft to someone with less experience as they are forced to work the mission together. I also like the message about family from Supernatural, so made my spy a regular guy, with a wife and a kid he loves. Finally, I surf the net from time to time and find all sorts of bizarre and fantastic and sometimes scary things I like to incorporate and occasionally debunk as part of my fiction.

How far afield can influences go? Well, I’ve got an entire exchange in Wet Work inspired by a line from a Meat Loaf song which I always though would be a fitting line for Dean Winchester to say as the boys took on a battle against long odds on Supernatural. I don’t quote the line. I didn’t appropriate the line. I was inspired by it. (We’ll see if Gail can figure it out.)

I am always amused when I see the line “inspired by true events” at the beginning of a movie. Everything, everywhere, is impacted by everything you have ever done, seen, read, or imagined. Everything is inspired by everything else. And that is as it should be.

You can find out more about me on my website at www.donaldjbingle.com or on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads at donaldjbingle. You can find an excerpt from Wet Work: http://www.donaldjbingle.com/single-post/2018/06/20/Excerpt-from-Wet-Work. Finally, you can find my spy thrillers here:

Net Impact, Amazon: http://a.co/beSzrUf
Net Impact, Nook, bn.com: https://read.barnesandnoble.com/book/net-impact-6/coverpage-xhtml#1
Net Impact, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/net-impact-2
Net Impact: PRINT: http://a.co/9cj2JLa
Net Impact, Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Net-Impact-Audiobook/B00CRM1DSW?ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=N65M54J30VGXDYN3TMDZ&

Wet Work, Amazon: http://a.co/1qni4lH
Wet Work, Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wet-work-donald-j-bingle/1128291702?ean=2940159029973
Wet Work, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wet-work-5
Wet Work, PRINT: http://a.co/2il1eWS


Giveaway: Win a 25.00 gift certificate! Contest runs 7/23 thru 8/10. Rafflecopter code is below:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04212/?

Author Bio:
Donald J. Bingle is the author of six books (The Love-Haight Case Files (with Jean Rabe); Wet Work; Net Impact; GREENSWORD; Frame Shop; and Forced Conversion) and about fifty shorter stories in the science fiction, thriller, horror, fantasy, mystery, steampunk, romance, comedy, and memoir genres. He was the world’s top-ranked player of classic role-playing game tournaments for the last fifteen years of the last century. He once received a surprise package in the mail with a lapel pin thanking him for his “contributions to time travel research.” He’ll really have to get around to doing that research some day soon. He is a full member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and Origins Game Fair Library. More on Don and his writing can be found at www.donaldjbingle.com <http://www.donaldjbingle.com/>.

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Filed under Books, Gail Z. Martin, Guest Blogger

Welcome to the Hawthorn Moon 2018!


The annual blog tour began to celebrate the summer solstice, called the Hawthorn Moon in my novel The Summoner (the first book in my Chronicles of the Necromancer series). And for eleven years, we’ve kept on celebrating the solstice with new books, guest blog posts, giveaways and more!  

Here’s what’s in store this year!

Enter for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate in my Hawthorn Moon Blog Tour giveaway! http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04211/?

I’m a guest blogger on the following sites, sharing details about new, upcoming and continuing series, as well as some sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes details you won’t find anywhere else!

WeGeekGirls.com — I talk about indie publishing and why indie or hybrid careers make sense for a growing number of authors

ISmellSheep.com —I spill the beans on the upcoming new dark urban fantasy Sons of Darkness!

JaceyBedford.WordPress.com —Everything you ever wanted to know about writing series and sequels

RisingShadow.net — Behind the scenes with Vengeance, the newest book in the Darkhurst epic fantasy series!

Beauty-In-Ruins.Blogspot.com  — A sneak peek at Tangled Web, the brand new novel in the Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy series.

SFBok.se  — Catch up on The Dark Road and the upcoming Legacy of the Necromancer new series!

qwillery.Blogspot.com  — Monster hunters, demon-hunting ex-priests and agents from the Department of Supernatural Investigations.

bookwraiths.com —New scoop on both what’s next for Jonmarc Vahanian, and the next chapter in the Valmonde brothers’ medieval monster hunting!

Morgan Brice has been busy, too!

As you may know, I’ve started writing urban fantasy MM paranormal romance under the pen name Morgan Brice. Witchbane, the first book in one series, came out in March, and Badlands, the first in another series, comes out at the end of June.

The Witchbane Book Blast coincides with the Hawthorn Moon, and Badlands will kick off its own tour right after the July 4 holiday. Here’s where you can find out more!

Be sure to look for me at a convention near you!

June 29 – July 1  LibertyCon, Chattanooga, TN
July 13 – 15        ConGregate, High Point, NC
July 27-29          Raleigh SuperCon, Raleigh, NC
Aug 1-5              GenCon, Indianapolis, IN
Aug 31 – Sept 3  DragonCon, Atlanta, GA
Oct. 5-7              RomCon, Williamsburg, VA (as Morgan Brice)
Oct. 18 -21         GRL, Portsmouth, VA (as Morgan Brice)
Oct. 26-27          WV Festival of the Book, Charleston, WV

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Filed under Books, Fandom, Gail Z. Martin

Happy Spring!

Awesomecon and Ravencon were wonderful, and now that I’m home, we’re back to getting more books out to satisfy story-hungry readers!

Watch for Tangled Web (Deadly Curiosities novel #3) to come out very soon, in ebook/print and in audiobook! When a malicious weaver-witch awakens the spirit of an ancient Norse seoir warlock and calls to the Wild Hunt, Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren—and all their supernatural allies—will need magic, cunning, and the help of a Viking demi-goddess to survive the battle and keep Charleston—and the whole East Coast—from becoming the prey of the Master of the Hunt.

Vengeance (Darkhurst book #3) is also due later this spring, continuing the adventures of undertaker brothers Corran and Rigan Valmonde and their outlaw friends as they battle the monsters and uncover a conspiracy much larger than they ever imagined.

Also coming soon from Falstaff Books is Deep Trouble, our third Spells, Salt, and Steel Mark Wojcik monster hunter adventure. Mark’s gone up against plenty of big bad creatures and cryptids, but never like this! Mark Wojcik fights a dragon, has a battle of wits with the ghost of Mad Anthony Wayne, and even takes on the infamous Pig People of Radio Tower Hill, but when the angry spirits from a bloody mine disaster come looking for vengeance, Mark knows he’s in deep trouble!

We’re working on plenty of other stuff behind the scenes, so expect plenty of new stuff yet to be revealed—we’ve got your summer reading covered!

Under my Morgan Brice pen name (urban fantasy MM paranormal romance), I’m working on the first book in a new series, Badlands, set in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I hope to have it out in May, so stay tuned to find out more!

Witchbane, the first Morgan Brice release, is racking up 4 and 5 star reviews! The Witchbane blog tour includes excerpts, a Q&A, a post from me on Paths to Publication, and musings about the inspiration for the new series and the addition of a new name and a new sub-genre! Plus a chance to win a $25 gift certificate! Here’s the master page—visit the participating blogs and enter the Rafflecopter drawing from their sites! http://www.ltpromos.com/2018/04/23/morgan-brices-witchbane-tour-and-giveaway-2/

Supernatural fans—I’m going to the #SPNNC convention in Charlotte in August. I’d love to meet up with you there! Here’s the link to the con group I started to help attendees find each other https://www.facebook.com/groups/169524930423807/

Come see me at a convention, follow me on Twitter @GailZMartin (and @MorganBriceBook), join the Shadow Alliance street team or The Worlds of Morgan Brice free Facebook groups, or check out my Pinterest boards www.Pinterest.com/Gzmartin (includes a Morgan Brice board, as well as abandoned buildings, cute animals, nostalgia and Supernatural).

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Filed under Books, Gail Z. Martin

Hawthorn Moon Tour 2017–Monsters, Airships and Smugglers

FC (Scourge)Welcome to my annual Hawthorn Moon blog tour! The name comes from a holiday celebrated on the Solstice in my Chronicles of the Necromancer series, and the idea just stuck. It’s become the season to unveil new cover art, talk about new books and upcoming new releases, and explore ideas in guest blog posts on blogs around the world!

The big news….

Scourge, the first book in my new Darkhurst epic fantasy series, comes out from Solaris Books July 15!

What’s Scourge about? Here’s the short answer: Three undertaker brothers in a medieval trading town battle monsters to protect their family and neighbors, only to discover that the monsters have masters and the stakes are higher than they dreamed.

Here’s the book cover answer: In a city beset by monsters, three brothers must find out who is controlling the abominations and stop the carnage. Corran, Rigan, and Kell Valmonde are Guild Undertakers, left to run their family’s business when guards murdered their father and monsters killed their mother. Their grave magic enables them to help souls pass to the After and banish vengeful spirits. Rigan’s magic is unusually strong and enables him to hear the confessions of the dead, the secrets that would otherwise be taken to the grave. When the toll exacted by monsters and brutal guards hits close to home and ghosts expose the hidden sins of powerful men, Corran, Rigan and Kell become targets in a deadly game and face a choice: obey the Guild, or fight back and risk everything.

And here’s the Hollywood pitch summary: Supernatural meets Game of Thrones.

So there you have it–medieval monster hunters! Be sure to check out the excerpts I’ll be posting with many of the blog tour links!

The Tour

IMG_0158Check back here for updates–I’ll post live links to the blog posts, giveaways and excerpts running on these awesome blogs!

We Geek Girls
Bookwraith
Magical Words
Solaris Books/When Gravity Fails
Risingshadow
Beauty In Ruins
I Smell Sheep
Jacey Bedford
SciFi Chick
SFF World
SF Bokhandlein
Qwillery
Squealing Nerd
Dave Brendon deBurgh
Fantasy Book Critic
MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape
There will also be a Goodreads giveaways, so stay tuned for details!

Other News

IMG_0090We’ve got a trio of new Steampunk stories in the Storm & Fury Adventures (extra episodes in the Iron & Blood world): Ghost Wolf, Ruin Creek and Lagniappe! Werewolf vigilantes, skinwalkers and weird West aliens and the curse of a pirate’s ghost–these stories have it all!

Jonmarc Vahanian fans–his story is now complete! If you’ve been following the serialized journey of everyone’s favorite brigand lord, the tale is now complete with Death Match, Guardian and Smuggler!  These three novellas take the action up to about five years before the beginning of The Summoner! (Will I ever write more smuggling tales? Maybe!)

What’s Coming Up!

IMG_0028Salvage Rat, new space opera series by Larry N. Martin, will debut later this year. If you cross Bonnie and Clyde with V For Vendetta in a Firefly-esque universe, you’re on the money!

Spells, Salt and Steel–Larry and I team up to write this brand new series loosely set in John Hartness’s Bubba the Monster Hunter ‘verse. Mechanic Mike Wojcik and an unlikely group of helpers battle monsters, urban legends and homicidal deer in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania. Coming in October.

A Deadly Curiosities novella tied in with the world of Jeanne Adam’s Haven Harbor witchcraft series in an all-new anthology! Look for it at Halloween!

Hath No Fury, an anthology about kick-ass female characters from Ragnarok Press featuring an origin story for Kestel Falke from my Ascendant Kingdoms Saga.

IMG_0098The Assassins of Landria–If Butch and Sundance were medieval assassins, they would roll like this. An epic fantasy buddy flick series filled with dark magic, betrayal and action. Coming later this year.

A Terrific Tie-In I Can’t Talk about Yet!  Watch for an announcement in late summer about this brand new media tie-in series coming in 2019

The final three Blaine McFadden Adventures–Arctic Prison, Ice Bound and Cold Fury told the story of Blaine’s years as a convict. Watch for three new novellas in early 2019 that recount his years as a colonist!

There’s more, including plans to start writing the seventh Chronicles of the Necromancer book (beginning a new six-book series seventeen years after The Dread), new novels in the Deadly Curiosities and Iron & Blood series, and three more new series I can’t talk about yet! Subscribe to my email update, and you’ll never miss a new release!

Come see us at a Convention!

I’ll be at LibertyCon, then we’ll both be at ConGregate, then I go to GenCon and we’re both at DragonCon and Atomacon. Look for us there–we’ll have a table with books galore (including hard-to-find anthologies and our new indie stuff in print) at several of the cons plus Larry’s awesome hand-thrown pottery shot glasses and mugs!

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Why Fandom is My Family, and Family Don’t End With Blood

I don’t usually write blog posts that are about someone else’s book. BUT–Lynn Zubernis asked for my ‘thinky thoughts’ about her new book, Family Don’t End With Blood, so here I go.

The story so far….Lynn runs the Fangasm Supernatural fan site and is @FangasmSPN on Twitter. She’s very active at SPN conventions and both she and Laurena Aker of the WinchesterFamilyBusiness site are pillars of the Supernatural fandom community. Family Don’t End With Blood is Lynn’s new book about how Supernatural–the show, the characters, the actors and the fandom–changed lives and helped people through depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, grief, physical challenges, self-harm and other issues. It includes interviews with actors, fans and others who are part of the SPNFamily.

IMG_0078I knew I was in trouble when I choked up on the introduction. Trust me when I say I’m not a big crier. I was teary before I was even into the first essay. Not sad tears, but that sense you get when you come home and know it.

I’ve talked candidly about how fandom saved my life when I was 15. And I’ve also talked about why, in these frightening and unstable times, we fans need each other and our fandoms more than ever. And I’ve also shared how Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles’ #AlwaysKeepFighting (#AKF) campaign via the Supernatural fandom inspired me to pull together 100 science fiction/fantasy authors for the #HoldOnToTheLight campaign.

Fandom has been part of my life since I was about 15. Now that I’m an author of epic fantasy, urban fantasy and steampunk, I’m not only a fan, but I’m up on the stage on panels, talking about how we create the worlds readers escape into, as well as other fannish interests. Most of my friends are involved in fandom at some level or another, either as pros or fans–or both. I travel for about 15 sci-fi/fantasy conventions a year all over the U.S. and sometimes Canada. I am writing eight novels this year, plus some short stories and novellas. I spend most of my waking hours surrounded by the characters in my books. So I take fandom very seriously.

I came late to the party on Supernatural, diving into the show during late S11 and got completely caught up on all eleven seasons plus all the tie-in books (and reading more fan fiction than I will admit to sober) by the start of Season 12. I haven’t gone this deep into a fandom since the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977. And gradually, I came to understand why.

I knew about Supernatural because one of my daughters had watched it when the show first came out and she said I would like it. Then last April, all of a sudden it seemed like the right time to start in. I was hooked from the start, and we binge watched a couple of episodes each night. Little did I know that I was also just heading into a storm of personal upsets and set backs that still hasn’t fully worked its way out. I found myself getting immersed in the show–and then the books and the fan fiction–as a way to hang on.IMG_0347

One of the first ways Supernatural changed me happened when I saw how much good came out of the #AlwaysKeepFighting campaign. I was really impressed that Jared and Jensen and Misha would use their platform to do something so personal and important. That got me thinking. Writers aren’t famous like actors, but our books create the worlds that inspire TV shows and movies–we create the genre. I know a lot of writers, and I also knew that we all had our own demons. So I asked 100 of my author friends if they would be willing to write a post on their own blogs about how mental health issues like depression, suicide, PTSD, anxiety, self-harm, etc. had affected them, someone they loved, their characters and their writing. I called it #HoldOnToTheLight, and the goal was to decrease the stigma about mental health issues within fandom, to stand in solidarity with fans, and to encourage readers to seek help. You can find more about #HoldOnToTheLight and the master post of blogs at www.HoldOnToTheLight.com. We also encouraged convention runners to add panels on mental health to con programming or to expand/promote panels they already offered. The list of cons with those panels is growing, and now includes GenCon (approx. 70K attendees) and Dragon*Con (approx 80K attendees).

But Supernatural wouldn’t let me go–and going through a personal rough patch, I dove in deeper. I found my way into online fandom, first by immersing myself in fan fiction, fan videos and art, and then gradually getting involved in the lively, ongoing conversation on Twitter.

That’s how I met Nightsky, and as we chatted–first with tweets, then direct messages, then emails–she asked me to do a guest blog post for Winchester Family Business based on some comments I’d made. Then I was heading to Chicago to a non-SPN convention, and we agreed to meet up between my panels. We ended up spending most of the day together and having a wonderful dinner, and then continuing the conversation via email afterwards. I’ve written another guest blog since then for WFB and might do so again. Along the way, I started to live tweet the new episodes, and met even more fans. Now going out on Twitter is a highlight and social point of my day, responding to conversations, posting photos and memes, and enjoying the SPNFamily’s online companionship. I’m still not through that rough patch, but the SPNFamily is helping me hang on–they mean more to me than I can express, and I hope I can pay the favor forward.

There’s one more reason Supernatural is so special to me, and I didn’t realize it until I was well into season six.

Sam and Dean faced down the specter that dominated my childhood and convinced me that I would never live long enough to become an adult: the Apocalypse.

Now maybe that sounds strange. But I grew up in a church that expected the literal Biblical Apocalypse/Rapture/Armageddon to happen any day. And simultaneously, my parents were involved in the far right’s conspiracy-fueled underground expecting a Communist take-over (a la the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Stalin’s purges) to happen at any time. (Note: I disavowed both these religious and political views decades ago, but they unquestionably warped my childhood and framed my world view as a child/adolescent.)

IMG_0106One of my favorite books as a child and pre-teen was Clarence Larkin’s The Greatest Book of Dispensational Truth. It was–I kid you not–an illustrated, fold-out guide to the Apocalypse that did not consider itself to be fiction. If you wonder where Supernatural got its horsemen, Leviathans, the Witnesses, the Seals, the Whore of Babylon, the Beast, the AntiChrist and so much more–it’s all in there, in pictures. Larkin and John Nelson Darby popularized the Rapture and Armageddon mythos by reading several prophetic books of the Bible (Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation as well as the apocryphal book of Enoch–yes, it’s where Enochian comes from) and interpreting them outside of generally accepted methods of textual criticism and archeological/cultural study. In other words, they in a sense wrote fan fiction of the Bible, and it stuck.

When these frightening images are part of what all the adults around you accept as real and inevitable, it is terrifying to a child–like finding out that the monster under the bed is real. It was too big to handle, and the only advice from adults was just to make sure my soul was ok when it came my time to die.

At the same time, my parents got pulled into a secretive network of conspiracy theorists who believed that Communists had infiltrated the world governments at every level and that–any day now–we were all either going to die or be imprisoned in gulags. One of my earliest memories is my mom coaching me on how to behave when the day came that we would be taken to a prison camp. I think I was around four or five.

My uncle got us into it. He had been in infantry and then tanks in World War II and saw combat in the Battle of the Bulge. I believe he returned with severe PTSD, which went untreated and unacknowledged, and I think it made him vulnerable to the nightmarish scenarios of the conspiracies. My uncle’s friends were also WWII vets. They passed information via short-wave radio (no internet back in the 1970s), through secret get-togethers, and by word of mouth–always wary that ‘They’ were watching.

IMG_0107So I grew up with people who stockpiled ammo and hid guns in the walls of their houses, who had bunkers and safe houses, who talked about keeping a stash of silver coins on hand so that when–not if–the banks collapsed and currency lost its value, we could run and go to ground. I grew up with caches of freeze-dried food–enough to last five years–and survivalist tactics and friends who trained their kids to strip a gun blindfolded. My uncle and his friends saw themselves as the thin gray line of sentries in a war against evil, willing to die for a cause kept secret because others would think it was crazy.

I don’t think John Winchester and Bobby Singer would have shared the political views of my uncle and his friends, but they could have walked into the room and had a drink with them and understood those guys. They were damaged men, trying to do the best they could, protecting the people they loved.

Shedding those two pervasive world views that had shaped my understanding of reality nearly destroyed me as a teenager in my college years. Fandom and my early attempts at writing the novel which would someday become The Summoner kept me alive. Back then, I discovered I could entertain and amuse my friends by writing fan fiction for Star Wars, Star Trek, Space: 1999 and other shows. We passed the typed or hand-written stories around at convention room parties in the early 1980s. For a short time, I even ran a fanzine.

I belonged in fandom the way I didn’t ever belong in my birth family, at my church, at my college or with most of the people I knew growing up. Inside fandom, I was safe. Inside fandom, people understood and liked the same things I did, they got the jokes and the catchphrases. They validated, affirmed and encouraged. We might have been freaks to the outside world, but we were freaks together.

When I started watching Supernatural, I didn’t realize the connection at first. Then one day, it hit me and I was poleaxed. Sam and Dean faced down my personal bogeyman–the Apocalypse–and survived. Scarred, yes, but still standing and stronger than before. True heroes.

So when I read Lynn’s awesome book and the essays by creators, actors and fans alike about the strength and healing of the fandom family, I totally understand. I cherish my time at conventions when I can be with my tribe–although the events at which I’m a panelist are general sci-fi/fantasy cons instead of the SPN cons (which do sound like a lot of fun). I’m so thrilled that because of Supernatural, a much larger group of people have come into fandom and found that refuge. We all find our corner of fandom, whether it’s books, movies, TV shows, cosplay, gaming, LARP, comics, filk music, art or a mix of all of those.

One of the most affirming thing you can hear as an author is that your book and characters got someone through a hard time. I have read books by favorite authors that got me through depression, loneliness, deaths in the family, and stressful circumstances. And my most cherished notes from readers are the ones who tell me that my books kept them company at the bedside of a dying loved one, got them through two tours of duty in Afghanistan, or otherwise helped them survive hard times.

As Lynn shares in her book, that two-way support is taken to a whole new level of special with the Supernatural fandom and its creators and actors. I’ve seen that kind of support in action, and I know how powerful it can be, and how wonderful it is to belong to a community that welcomes you and encourages you to be your real self.

I’ve felt that welcome myself as a newcomer to SPNFamily–take a look at my Twitter feed, It’s turned Twitter into one of my favorite activities. I look forward to seeing what new wonderful comments and photos my SPNFamily is going to share that day, and enjoy trying to return the favor. Getting adopted by this wonderful group of people has meant a lot to me.

So go buy Lynn’s book. Give it to a friend who needs encouragement. But even more importantly, continue being the wonderful fandom and SPNFamily you already are and be there for each other. Because family really doesn’t end with blood–in the end, our true families are the people we choose.

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Necromancy Light and Dark

by Gail Z. Martin

I mostly write about necromancers who are good guys.

Tris Drayke, the main character in my Chronicles of the Necromancer/Fallen Kings Cycle series, struggles to control his power as he rises to be the strongest Summoner of his generation. Tormod Solveig, a secondary character in my Ascendant Kingdoms series, wields his power as a warlord and a necromancer with his sister Rinka, a fearsome warrior, watching his back. Archibald Donnelly, in my Deadly Curiosities dark urban fantasy series, takes the low key approach to necromancy with the misleading demeanor of a laid back archivist. They’re the good guys, wrestling with the temptations of fearsome power to remain on the side of light.

Now let’s go dark side. In the steampunk world of Iron & Blood, which I co-write with my husband, Larry N. Martin, we meet the dark necromancers, the Resurrectionists, Francis Tumblety and Adolph Brunrichter, as well as the Dollmaker, who try to uncover the secrets of clockwork-driven immortality. Scaith, a dark necromancer, also appears in The Sworn and The Dread in my Chronicles/Fallen Kings series, and the devotees of the dark goddess Shanthadura also move into the territory of dark necromancy. In Vendetta, part of my Deadly Curiosities series, Sariel calls on dark magic to control reapers and nephilim who in turn feed on the spirits of the dead.  And in The Shadowed Path, we meet Foor Arontala, a blood mage. He is not an necromancer himself, but he is sworn to freeing the soul of the Obsidian King, a powerful dark necromancer whose soul was imprisoned after he nearly brought the Winter Kingdoms to destruction.

Intent is everything.

I’ve written about hero necromancers because I don’t believe power is intrinsically good or evil; what matters is what you do with the power. And as Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility. What makes the responsible use of great power very difficult is imperfect information and human nature. Without complete information, it’s easy to draw incorrect conclusions, come to bad decisions, and believe you’re using the power to do the right thing when in fact, you’ve been badly misled. Worse, dire circumstances can tempt the best people to wonder if in this particular case, the end justifies the means. And of course, ego, denial, fear, anger, and the need for vengeance can blind us and send us down the road to hell with plenty of good intentions.

Which means that to remain serving the Light, a necromancer must be as vigilant about his/her actions as about the threats from the enemy. More so, perhaps, because self-delusion is easy and comfortable and the consequences of wrong choices affect both the living and the dead.

So the distinction that I draw between good and evil when it comes to necromancy comes down to respect for free will and volition. A necromancer who serves the Light will not force an unwilling spirit into a dead body, nor trap a spirit in a corpse that wants to be free. He or she will not keep a spirit from crossing to its final rest, nor trouble the spirits of the dead for personal gain or selfish reasons.

A good necromancer might call summon the spirits of the dead to learn information that benefits the larger whole. In battle, he/she might make it possible for the willing spirits of dead soldiers to reanimate their corpses or give their ghosts form and substance to fight. It is permitted to bind a spirit that wants to be healed to its dying body long enough for the body to be healed. A Light necromancer would be duty-bound to release spirits held against their will by curses or Dark magic.

So what about Dark necromancy? That gets into ‘evil legions of the undead’ territory. Dark necromancers are willing to use the souls of the dead and their ravaged corpses as shock troops, or to bind the souls of tortured and broken prisoners to their dying bodies and send them first into battle as sword fodder. The darker side of necromancy traps spirits and forces them into servitude, either as revenants or as zombies. Dark necromancy acts for selfish purposes and the aggrandizement of power without regard for agency, free will or self-determination.

Dark necromancy considers the spirits of the dead to be tools, nothing more than means to an end, without respect for them as human beings or immortal souls. A dark necromancer may serve a god or goddess and/or owe a deity a debt for assistance, but the practice of dark necromancy essentially sets the mage outside of and above humanity by meddling with human souls. Dark necromancy, in my worlds, is tied to blood magic, which requires forbidden magic and usually either human or animal sacrifice. Once again, intention is key, since the willingness to sacrifice another living being for the accumulation of power marks and sullies the soul of the practitioner.

In the end, the same choices that make a dark necromancer also make a monstrous human being: the disregard for freedom of choice and the value of human life.

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Cursed Objects and Haunted Relics

by Gail Z. Martin

“Look but don’t touch.”

If you ever find yourself in one of my fictional worlds, that’s good advice.

Personally, I blame my fascination with cursed and haunted objects on a childhood spent being dragged around to antique shows, flea markets, swap meets and used book stores. While my dad explored the cast-off treasures, I passed the time making up stories to amuse myself about the oddities and old items set out on display.

My imagination had plenty of fodder looking at old books in crumbling leather bindings, vintage clothing, antique personal items, even huge, working steam engines. Our house was littered with dad’s finds, from halberd axes and old-time bear traps under the eaves in the attic to big steam-driven engines from saw mills and factories that filled up our yard. It’s never been difficult for me to imagine the people who owned the items, to picture their lives and the circumstances that led them to buy the object or discard it.

It’s no real wonder that cursed and haunted objects turn up frequently in all of my book series. In my Deadly Curiosities dark urban fantasy series, my main character Cassidy Kincaide is a psychometric who can read the history and emotional resonance of objects by touching them. I don’t claim that kind of ability, but I’ve always been able to imagine what it would be like to know something about an object’s ‘experiences’ and previous owners on contact.

And on a darker note, to feel their pain, their loss, their madness and the turbulence of their lives by touching objects that accompanied them on their journey.

In my epic fantasy, I’ve used haunted swords, magical amulets and jewelry, crowns that convey kingship via magic as well as symbolism. Even in the Iron & Blood Steampunk series that I co-write with my husband, everyday objects like dolls, necklaces and other items become supernaturally dangerous either because of intentional spell work, intrinsic evil, or because they have ‘soaked up’ the disquieting experiences of their previous owners.

As I’ve browsed antique stores and yard sales over the years, I can think of instances when I instinctually gravitated toward some unremarkable items, and shied away from others. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but there have been pieces that I wouldn’t touch on a bet, that I did not want to make a connection with. When I browsed through a shop in New Hope/Lambertville that specialized in Victorian memento mori hair jewelry and death photography, I kept my hands clasped in front of me.

When we worked through my father’s collections after he died, there were a number of items that gave me or my husband ‘the creeps’–seriously bad vibes.  A psychic family friend singled out a few objects of dad’s collection he had no way to know even existed and advised us to remove them from the house because of their negative mojo. I can’t prove there was anything substantial to those warnings or my feelings, but I felt better being rid of the items, and I’ve learned to trust my gut.

The idea that the objects that we keep close to us throughout our lives, things we wear next to our skin and over our hearts, items that accompany through the poignant moments in our personal history might soak up some of our emotions doesn’t seem that far-fetched. It’s certainly a concept many other people have had throughout history, and the thought behind the lore of religious relics, sacred objects and protective amulets. Many–if not most–of the objects in my Deadly Curiosities series are based on pieces I inherited–and got rid of–from my dad’s collection. I’ve been up close and personal with the items. That made them a natural to work into my fiction.

So the next time you wander into an out of the way curio store or eye the offerings on a table at a flea market, pause before you reach out to pick up that tempting treasure. You might find that it comes with a dark–and unwelcome–supernatural something extra.

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