S.T. Gibson's Blog, page 7
August 1, 2018
Odd Spirits is Available for Pre-Order!
This is to thank ya’ll for being so supportive of my writing, and it benefits me too because pre-order sales give my book a big boost on Amazon! This is the lowest price you’re ever going to see on Odd Spirits so take full advantage before the book launches at its full price on August 10th!
Only read books in print? No sweat, paperback copies of Odd Spirits will be available on August 10th. You can snag your super discounted electronic copy now to go alongside it, or just wait for the print launch!
Don’t have a Kindle? You can read Odd Spirits on your laptop with Amazon’s free web reader, or on your phone through the free kindle app.
Can’t spare the buck for a pre-order but want to support a working artist?Reblogs are much appreciated!
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It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a modern ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.
This diverse paranormal romance novella is perfect for fans of The Raven Cycle and The Haunting of Hill House.
July 31, 2018
Hey Book Lovers!
Anyone out there want a free e-copy of ODD SPIRITS in exchange for an honest review on their blog/social media and Amazon?
It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a modern ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.
Think The Haunting of Hill House meets The Raven Cycle with a multicultural married couple and LGBTQ protags. The book is novella length at just under 100 pages, so it’s a perfect weekend read.
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Comment below or shoot me a message at sarahtaylorgibson@gmail.com if you’re interested and I’ll hook you up, no strings attached! E-copies will be sent out early next week.
Non-book bloggers, make sure to mark Odd Spirits as to-read on Goodreads,and keep your eyes peeled for a super-steal sale on pre-orders coming in just a few days!
July 14, 2018
COVER REVEAL for ODD SPIRITS
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Pleased as punch to reveal this swoonworthy cover! It was designed by the phenomenal Lena Yang, and I absolutely suggest you guys take advantage of her editorial and cover design services. She got this cover almost exactly right on her first swing, and was so patient and persistent through my many nit-picking revisions.
Fans of The Raven Cycle and The Haunting of Hill House will devour this paranormal romance with a diverse cast of characters!
It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a modern ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.
ODD SPIRITS will be available for pre-order on Amazon on August 1st!
Mark it as to-read in your Goodreads! Stay up to date on publishing news by following me on Twitter.
July 13, 2018
Cover Reveal Coming Soon!
Keep your eyes peeled for an ODD SPIRITS cover reveal this weekend! Looking for a paranormal romance featuring hauntings, folk magic, a multicultural married couple, LGBTQ protags, and a secret society? I’ve got you covered.
June 8, 2018
Help Me Choose the Title of My Novella!
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I’m excited to announce that my debut romantic fantasy novella is moving forward towards an August 1st release, and I need your help to name it!
It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.
The story is equal parts spooky, sexy, and poignant, and features a diverse cast of characters. Think Raven Cycle meets Crimson Peak, with a sprinkling of dark humor.
Which title peaks your interest the most? Comment with your pick from the three options above!
As always, thanks for all the support you’ve shown me over the years. If you’re interested in supporting a living indie writer, consider putting a couple dollars in my tip jar over on my kofi. Thanks!
-Sarah
May 8, 2018
Genre Spotlight: ElfPunk
BookRiot recently put out an article that had my little faery-loving loving heart all a-flutter, an introductory reading list in the fantasy subgenre elfpunk. Hallmarks of elfpunk include a modern urban setting, new spins on old folk beliefs about the fae, fast cars, a dollop of teen angst, and lots and lots of rock and roll. Elfpunk tends to skew towards Western European folklore, and never seems to get tried of staging ballads of lost love in hazy nightclubs or pitting roving gangs of sidhe punks against each other in back alleys. I would call it my guilty pleasure but there’s nothing guilty about it; elfpunk shaped me into the writer I am today, and it’s still my favorite genre to read, full stop.
Emma Bull is among the authors on this list, and should be as one of the originators of the genre, and so is Holly Black, an author who remains almost unflaggingly loyal to stories of fae and humans in the modern day. But one huge piece was missing, the sprawling, enchanting originator of the entire genre: The Borderland Series.
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The Borderland series is a collection of short story anthologies and spin-off novels set in the shared universe of Bordertown, a city on the border of Faery and a large American metropolis. Bordertown is a shifting, dangerous place full of buskers and runaway teens and rock bands looking to strike it big in clubs crawling with feuding species. The original anthologies captured the wild dirty color of youth culture in the eighties, and were so successful that a follow-up anthology was published in 2011 featuring writers who had cut their teeth reading Borderlands books as kids, heavy hitters like Catherynne Valente, Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Cassandra Clare, and Charles DeLint.
[image error]I checked the 2011 reboot out from my library three times in high school. Three.
It’s impossible to overemphasize the ripples Bordertown has made in the fantasy world; some people say it kicked off the urban fantasy genre wholesale. It’s inspired in part by Terri Winding’s experience of being a young artist in the mean streets of New York, which is an excited/terrified/starry eyed bouquet of emotion that so many of us can relate to. Everything Windling touches turns to gold, especially her anthologies, but the Bordertown Series is by far the most iconic.
So if you’re looking to get into some anachronistic, enchanted reads, don’t pass up this series. It’s really true what they say: even after all these years, Bordertown is always there waiting for you.
March 24, 2018
Brontë Lovers Rejoice!
It is a good week for Charlotte Brontë fans, as two previously unpublished manuscripts have been rescued from obscurity by the Brontë Society and are slated for publication in autumn of 2018.
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In a very Brontë -esque twist, The 77-line poem and 74-line story were found pressed between the pages of a book belonging to Charlotte’s mother, which was salvaged from a shipwreck off the coast of Devonshire in 1812. The book and its precious contents were passed around from private owner to private owner before coming to rest in the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire in 2015. As you can probably imagine, the book cost a pretty penny. According to an article in The Bookseller, it was “acquired with a £170,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund as well as support from the V&A Museum and the Friends of the National Libraries”.
That’s right folks. Not dollars. Pounds.
This discovery comes on the heels of a controversy regarding the appointment of actress and model Lily Cole as a “creative partner” of the Brontë Society early this year. A member of the society, Nick Holland, quite in a huff and accused the Society of giving in to the pressure to push a younger, sexier brand. What Holland failed to mention, however, is that Lily Cole holds a double first in Art History from Cambridge, has worked on a number of humanitarian campaigns, co-owns a bookstore, and is the founder of a “gift-economy” app that enables people to donate their services. She’s hardly uneducated about the arts, and is certainly not disengaged with the philanthropic world. Some other members of the society cried snobbery, and took to social media to remind their former colleague that the Brontës themselves had been young women struggling to be taken seriously due to their age and sex.
The new manuscripts, including commentary by scholars, a drawing by Charlotte’s brother, and annotations by Charlotte’s mother, will be in stores in time for the Christmas holidays with a limited edition available exclusively to Society members.
March 13, 2018
FICTION REVIEW: The Beloveds
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Title: The Beloveds by Maureen Lindley
Genre: Suspense/Gothic
Rating: ★★ (2/5)
Elizabeth Stash has never really loved anything in her life except Pipits, the cherished ancestral home of her childhood in rural England. Even when her mother’s favoritism for Elizabeth’s despised little sister Gloria reared its head, Pipits was there to enfold Elizabeth into a voice that spoke through creaking wood and rustling curtains. Her obsessive love for the house only grows with time, and when Elizabeth’s mother dies she is certain that she, the eldest daughter, will rightfully inherit Pipits. But when the will specifies that Pipits will pass to beautiful, beloved Gloria, Elizabeth begins to hatch an ugly plan that will soon consume her entirely.
The Beloveds is a book that flirts with the supernatural but for the most part stays staunchly psychological, delving deep into the malice which Elizabeth nurtures and cultivates. Elizabeth is a narcissist who can’t properly empathize with other people, considers herself superior to them, and is constantly convinced she’s been wronged. As far as unreliable, unsympathetic narrators go, Elizabeth held my attention, though some of her diatribes about being betrayed bordered on repetitive.
The tension in this book ratchets wonderfully as the narrator becomes more and more delusional, and as her actions become progressively more criminal and poorly disguised. However, and to my great disappointment, this suspense ultimately comes to nothing. Elizabeth character’s steadily erodes, but the lives of those around her remain largely unchanged, as as the book reaches what I hoped would be a gloriously cacophonous crescendo, it goes out with a whimper rather than a bang.
The Beloveds is an engaging read that cultivates a Gothic atmosphere without pulling in some of the more scenery-chewing tropes of the genre, but ultimately, it falls flat. It felt like one long character sketch, and Elizabeth’s family remained so unbelievably oblivious to her machinations that I supposed there must be some catch, something hidden from the narrator that would be revealed in the big finish. Sadly, there was not, and without any satisfying cherry on the cake of nastiness, The Beloveds is ultimately an unremarkable summer read.
Note: I received a copy of The Beloveds in exchange for an honest review. The Beloveds is set to drop on April 3, 2018.
February 20, 2018
INDIE RADAR: Queering Lent
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After seeing a number of my friends toting around Queering Lent, I decided to pick up the slim volume of devotional poems penned by a nonbinary pansexual Presbyterian pastor. Written as a spiritual practice over the course of last year’s Lent, the highly personal poems touch on interwoven themes of suffering, identity, and empathy burnout, all while employing classical mystical language of God as Lover.
Independent publishing can be a toss-up, so when I find something that shines in the lackluster mire of self-published titles, I’m quick to promote it. Queering Lent gleams despite its unpretentious packaging, and while some of the poems are unremarkable, many have a sort of understated profundity to them that’s hard to forget. In particular, I found the poetic sermon on binaries, the expansiveness of God, and the upside-down kingdom of Heaven in the back of the book to be particularly stirring, and I’ll be returning to it again and again in this Lenten season and beyond.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Slats a number of times, and they’re a truly unique artist and ardent lover of God who has a way of infecting atmospheres with joy. If you’re interested in learning more about the creative process behind Queering Lent, you can check out this feature on Slats over at Sanctified Art. You can buy a copy of Queering Lent on Amazon, and 100% of the proceeds go to organizations committed to supporting queer and trans people in the church.
January 30, 2018
POETRY REVIEW: Ask Baba Yaga
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Title: Ask Baba Yaga by Taisia Kitaiskaia
Genre: Poetry/Self Help
Rating: ★★★ (3/5)
Ask Baba Yaga imagines what it may be like if Baba Yaga, a fearsome and ancient witch from Slavic folklore, got hold of a typewriter and started cryptically answering the pleas for advice piling up on her doorstep. Existential crises, career crossroads, and love woes alike are stabbed at with incisive prose-poem responses juxtaposed with illustrations in stark colors. Sometimes the responses as earthy and pragmatic, other times they are macabre parables; oftentimes they are inscrutable recipes the reader is not yet wise enough to understand.
As an ambitious young woman navigating the briers of a mid-life crises and the tangled road of true love, I’m pretty sure I am Ask Baba Yaga’s target audience. I often felt like I had survived a number of strange woodland trials and had been granted a single boon by Kitaiskaia’s prickly personae, who hacks away at the weeds of mundane life with strange misspellings and turns of phrase. Some of the questions and metaphors felt repetitive by the end of the book, which ran a little long for my tastes in poetry. It’s also possible that older readers might find Baba Yaga’s advice more suitable for a younger set who are still being battered about by self-doubt and new love, but I think that people from all walks of life can glean a little wisdom, and maybe a few spells, from between the pages of Kitaiskaia’s book.
