Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 66

Off the Bookshelf: THE UNEXPECTED ENLIGHTENMENT OF RACHEL GRIFFIN, by L. Jagi Lamplighter

 

Free middle grade fantasy from Amazon, on Kindle.

Rachel is English nobility, sent to the hidden island of Roanoke in the US to study magic. Yes, it sounds familiar, but the worldbuilding is intense and intricate and the action happens in the first week of school, so ... not what you're thinking!

This is a fun romp with a lot of dark moments. The heroine is smart and blessed/cursed with perfect memory, so she can look back and get details letter perfect every time, no fading. Helpful with studying, and when it comes to dealing with a lot of treachery and downright nastiness in the magical world. Especially when searching her perfect memory helps her see things that were kept hidden under illusion the first time around.

The discussion of the non-magical people of Earth -- Unwary, rather than the M-word -- can be funny at times, especially when so much of our known history and culture either doesn't exist, or is considered fable. The Unwary don't know about the magical world and its inhabitants, and the same battle to shake off the rules and enslave them is going on there, just like in HP's world. 

There is so much history and social structure and general rules of magic to learn, but the author does a wonderful job of avoiding so many "as you know" moments. Then there's the angst of Rachel as she realizes that adults don't know everything, and some can even be unreasonable. Starting with her father, who she believes she is reporting to and helping him do his job of patrolling the magical world and keeping the evil forces at bay.

Fun story, cramming a lot of action and growing up into just the first week of school. Don't worry -- there are more books waiting to be read!

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 The following Monday, she put her Going out of Business sign in the window of Lazy Days Spa, in among the Christmas decorations and day's special signs. No one remarked on it. They were too busy exclaiming over the Christmas tree designs and other fingernail art. They had to get a massage right that moment. Christmas shopping was wearing them down. What were those delicious aromas coming from those amazing candles? Jane didn't know if her extended holiday hours were a blessing or a curse. How much more obliviousness from Fendersburg could she take?

She let out a shriek of utter relief when she retreated to her apartment, and collapsed on her couch, in the dark, to listen to Christmas carols. She had survived her first day of Going out of Business.

Two minutes later, buyer's remorse struck.

If her life was a horror film, or a farce, this was the point where all the bad news would start rolling in. She would find out that Neighborlee had an insane asylum at the north end of town and a federal prison at the south end, and despite the renovations and repairs and the building inspector's certification, her building was prone to gas leaks, stubborn plumbing, ghosts, and had lost six tenants in the last four months.

"No. It's going to work out. I've earned it," she told herself repeatedly.

She certainly couldn't stay in Fendersburg. Even if no one noticed her Going out of Business sign, she couldn't, wouldn't turn back now. Learning to be blind and deaf to the regularly occurring minor catastrophes all around her had been painful. Letting Timmy Higgs suffer for his nastiness and refusing to pick up after irresponsible people was easy enough. Refraining from tripping shoplifters and chasing after runaway baby carriages was not. So she didn't. She could still manage such rescues without anyone guessing.

The fact that the accident and crime rate continued to trickle downwards rather pointed out she wasn't needed after all. She should have quit being the Ghost years ago.

Time to move on.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 

The research into the graduates of Neighborlee Children's Home ran into a roadblock. Only the records of the last ten or so years had been computerized. Everything earlier was waiting to be uploaded, and it wasn’t a priority. Getting physical access to the older records would have to be added to Jane’s list of tasks once she moved to town and became accepted.

"It just strikes me as odd, you know?" she told Katie during a quick dinner visit spent in speculating. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone is hiding the information, protecting it, maybe ...”

"Maybe someone is keeping important information like that from leaving the town boundaries?" Katie suggested.

"Maybe. Who knows?" She looked around her apartment, caught somewhere between packing and unpacking. She had been too optimistic, jumping the gun and packing before all the delays with the building hit. When she needed things for daily living, she had started unpacking. Every time she got a bit of news of progress from the landlord, she started packing again, but when there was another delay, she unpacked a little bit.

Off the Bookshelf: THE LEFT-HANDED BOOKSELLERS OF LONDON, by Garth Nix

 

Audible, Audiobooks

Narrated by Marisa Calin

This is another one of those audiobooks where I made up excuses to go on errands so I could keep listening in the car -- when I wasn't hobbling around the block, getting my morning exercise/self-inflicted torture.

Fascinating, clever interweaving of ancient culture and mythology and concepts of magic with modern-day (granted, set in the 80s) magic and stewardship, where a vast, magically gifted family patrols England keeping track of misbehaving magical creatures and ancient sovereigns and dealing with weird, sometimes dangerous events and activities.

Into this alternate reality London steps Susan, an art student, who comes up to London before her classes begin to get settled, find a job, and do some investigating. Her mother is either unable or unwilling to tell Susan anything worthwhile or useful about her father's identity. Susan is determined to get some answers.

From day one, she is thrust into dangerous encounters, with gangsters and not-quite-Human people, with police who know what she's heading into and advise her to go home (she doesn't listen, of course), and people who should be trustworthy and wise but are pursuing their own agendas. Then there are Merlin and Vivien, brother and sister -- he's left-handed, the warrior, and she's right-handed, the intellectual, keeper of lore and mental gifts. Susan is lucky to have them take her under their wing, because every step closer to finding who and what her father is takes her deeper into danger, where ancient magic and rivalries have targeted her as enemy and tool, weapon and sacrifice. She has to come into her ancient heritage quickly before it's too late for her, her new friends, her mysterious father, and perhaps the booksellers themselves.

Any chance of another story of the adventures of Susan and Merlin, or other booksellers?

When Your Beauty IS the Beast

Releasing May 1 in print and ebook:

Fairytale Anthology Book 1, from Ye Olde Dragon Books.

A marriage counselor who has never been in love...

A missing beauty queen with an oversized ego...

A hunter crippled by his own ambition...

Settlers on their way to a new home in the Rockies in 1848...

A jeweler's obsession...

A hero-tuber and a mystery man trapped in a haunted house...

Infatuation and ego aboard a space ship bound for a new world...

Curses, plants, and shapeshifters in a South American garden...

A gamers' quest with unconventional challenges...

A castle and a beast being strangled by roses --and a curse...

A princess' problematic seventeenth birthday and the curses surrounding it...

And a castle besieged by ice and basilisks!

 

What do all these things have in common? They are all variations on the Beauty and the Beast retelling. Fall in love with an old fairy tale in a whole new way as you enter their worlds and find enchantment!

 

Check out Ye Olde Dragons - Ye New Books  on Facebook and enter the contest NOW. Read each excerpt and post a comment to be entered for a chance to win a print copy.

Or you can go to Goodreads and enter the Giveaway for one of 50 Kindle copies of the book.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 Jane dove into her own research, now that she had taken care of the big, time-consuming tasks like planning how to renovate the inside of her new building, ordering cabinets and display cases, and creating her own sanctum in the apartment on the third floor that was three times larger than her current apartment. She calculated how much more space she would have and researched new items to add to her spa’s inventory. That was the fun part. Then she programmed her computer’s search engine to flag any stories that appeared on the Web dealing with Neighborlee, any police news, TV broadcasts, following up on personalities. Digging further on news in the town and surrounding area kept her busy in the evenings and helped her ignore the constantly fluctuating feelings about the Ghost. Honestly, when was Fendersburg going to accept the fact the Ghost was gone, and nothing they could do or say would bring him back?

She studied the major businesses in Neighborlee, the community leaders, and town stories and legends. Jane learned the Tattler had been bought at Thanksgiving by Sheridan Communications. That necessitated a quick trip to the Sanctum to confer with Demetrius and Beau, resulting in two researchers being assigned to dig into the Sheridan family. The family patriarch had been a graduate of Neighborlee Children’s Home, a lost child. Even more important, he had had several close calls with Demetrius and Beauregard in the past. Whether he was friend or foe was uncertain, but the Hoax family was sure he wasn’t allied with the Rivals. Not like the resident Neighborlee nasties, the Grandstone family.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 Her teachers found some amusement at the vagaries and stupidity of the people of Fendersburg. Jane was touched that they were concerned about her feelings and her progress in getting out of town. The Council finally met. They agreed, the focus had to shift from finding lost and abandoned and unclaimed children, to finding the next generation, the descendants of the lost and abandoned who hadn't displayed powers. People who had married others like them, produced children who might be Gifted, and had helped them hide their Gifts. 

Other members of Hoax got to work doing research. They dug into the few records of Neighborlee Children's Home that had gone public, following up on the lost children who had grown up normal, who had been adopted or who had graduated and gone out into the world. Where they had gone, what they had done with their lives.

Coming New Books -- and pre-release discounts. How can you say NO?

 May 1, I have THREE.

Count them -- THREE -- new releases.

All coming from Ye Olde Dragon Books. So if you want to pause right here and click the link and go investigate, that's okay. Just remember to come back!

Here's the deal:

If you buy paper from Ye Olde Dragon Books, BEFORE release day, you get a $1 discount on the price.

And the listed price for books at Ye Olde Dragon always includes the shipping price. Such a deal!

If you order the ebooks pre-release (from Amazon, B&N, iBooks, etc.), you get them at a savings also. 

Regular price for WHEN YOUR BEAUTY IS THE BEAST anthology: $5.99 -- pre-release price: $3.99

Regular price for BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF: $3.99 -- pre-release price: $1.99

Regular price for TO ETERNITY (and beyond): $2.99 -- pre-release price: $1.99

I'm eventually getting things set up to sell ebooks from the Ye Old Dragon Books site -- the trick is getting the system set up to automatically deliver the ebooks to you as soon as you pay, rather than waiting for me to get the email notification and then sending the book to you. Makes sense, huh?

If you order print books from Ye Olde Dragon, you not only get the pre-release sale price, you get some cool swag if you order multiple books. Nifty things like dragon finger puppets, dragon gliders, unicorn erasers, other cool stuff. Depending (sometimes) on the titles you order.

What's that?  You want MORE deals?  You want a chance to WIN FREE BOOKS?

Okay, here's what you need to do:

1) Check out YE OLDE DRAGON BOOKS on MeWe, and YE OLDE DRAGONS - YE NEW BOOKS on Facebook every day until April 30. 

2) COMMENT on the postings, where my intrepid publishing partner, Deborah, will post nifty artwork and excerpts from each story in the WHEN YOUR BEAUTY IS THE BEAST anthology. Each comment will enter you in a drawing for 1 of 8 total free books -- your choice, print or ebook.

3) Come back to either site on the day specified in the instructions (yeah, this is a test, you need to read and follow the rules) and watch the (hopeful) LIVE VIDEO drawing of names of winners.

Oh, yeah .... there are also two GOODREADS GIVEAWAYS from now until April 28, for WHEN YOUR BEAUTY IS THE BEAST  and for BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF. 

Okay, how does that sound? Sound good? What are you doing still reading? Go sign up and check out the books and place your orders and your entries!

Off the Bookshelf: CHAOS CAN'T, by Allen Arnold

 

The world is in chaos. It's trying to soak into everyone and control them.

The news is filled with stories of people who respond to this chaos with more chaos -- and think they can "fix" what they perceive as wrong with this world by being more chaotic.

Wrong!

Chaos is out to destroy us to keep us from finding the fulfillment and our purpose in life with God as our Creator.

But chaos can't win.

Once again, like in his first book, The Story of With, Allen Arnold takes readers on an incredible journey of  growth and assessment, of identifying the enemy's tactics and learning to free our creativity instead of succumbing to fear and chaos. Healing needs to take place within, rather than using chaos to fight chaos in the outer, physical world.

From the back cover: "God continuously fills the empty, void places in our world -- and in us -- with light, hope, beauty, and order. Which is what our souls need most in these chaotic times. This is your invitation to join the Creator ... and to be astonished."

This is one of those books I will need to reread several times before everything soaks in. I look forward to it.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 As the weeks crawled by and fall turned into winter, the reactions in Fendersburg wavered slowly back and forth. Glad the Ghost was gone, because it meant he wasn't interfering with their lives. Glad the Ghost was letting them grow up and think for themselves. Suddenly, the Ghost showing up to fix or prevent every minor catastrophe was seen as interference with the rights and freedoms of the people of Fendersburg. Then someone would make a mistake, cause an accident, take a stupid risk, essentially thumb their nose at the warnings of people with more common sense, and suddenly everyone was furious again. The Ghost had no right to abandon his responsibilities. The race resumed to blame someone for driving the Ghost away.

There was always someone who spoke with an almost homesick fondness for the days when the Ghost showed up within a few seconds of a call for help or the sound of squealing brakes. Girls who had never been within a hundred yards of the Ghost talked about the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, feeling his arm around them as he carried them away from danger. Jane wondered how many times she could hear such outright lies in her shop before she became physically ill. As time went on, the worst of the airhead liars got into fights with each other over who the Ghost would have dated and eventually married.

She found some amusement in the torments Otis went through, when people remembered the broad hints he had dropped that he was the Ghost. Girls wanted him to prove his secret identity. People wanted him to pay for damage that he, as the Ghost, hadn't prevented.