L.R. Braden's Blog, page 3

New Release: Lies and Illusion!

Lies and Illusion, the seventh book in the award-winning Magicsmith urban fantasy series, is now available!

Early reviewers are calling this book "mind-blowing", "brilliant", "powerful," and a "non-stop action thrill-ride"!

Diplomacy has never been Alex’s strong suit. . .

When the vampire council puts Alex and James on trial for exposing the species’ existence to the world, Alex's freedom and James's life hang in the balance, though Alex suspects James’s new daywalking ability is the real aim of their inquisition.

Any hope of talking their way out of hot water evaporates when one of the council members is found murdered . . . with James standing over the smoldering corpse. With every vampire looking to claim Alex’s power for themselves, she will have to team up with an unlikely ally, push her magic to its limits, and match wits against a powerful new foe if she hopes to come out unscathed.  Order your copy today:
Add it on Goodreads or BookBub

Demon Riding Shotgun is now on Audio!

Calling all audiobook listeners! Book 1 of my Rifter urban fantasy series, Demon Riding Shotgun, is now available in an audio format!

The audiobook was produced by Bryant Street Publishing and read by the talented Maria Liatis, Demon Riding Shotgun went live on Everand on June 18th. The audiobook will be distributed on other platforms as well (they just take a little longer to jump through all the hoops on), but for now you can listen HERE.

Personal Demons, the second book in the Rifter series, should be produced shortly. local_library Start Listening

Pre-order Alert

Lies and Illusion is now available for pre-order! Diplomacy has never been Alex’s strong suit…

When the vampire council puts Alex and James on trial for exposing the species’ existence to the world, Alex's freedom and James's life hang in the balance, though Alex suspects James’s new daywalking ability is the real aim of their inquisition.

Any hope of talking their way out of hot water evaporates when one of the council members is found murdered . . . with James standing over the smoldering corpse. With every vampire looking to claim Alex’s power for themselves, she will have to team up with an unlikely ally, push her magic to its limits, and match wits against a powerful new foe if she hopes to come out unscathed. Grab your copy today!  
What to know what early readers are saying?"This book starts with a bang and really never lets the reader go."

"This has become one of my favorite fantasy series."

"I absolutely must have more and I am very anxiously waiting for the next installment of this mind blowing series!"

"I love the roller coaster that LR Braden takes us for a ride on with all of her books."

"This is an intricately woven tale of hope, betrayal, deceit and love."

"Death's , twisty's, an escape, and a heartbreaking compromise for 2 lives in [the] balance."

Review: Halfway to the Grave

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This paranormal romance leans heavily to the romance side with a solid enemies-to-lovers trope. The main character, Cat, is a half-vampire with a serious chip on her shoulder. She's inherited a deep hatred of vampires (and therefore herself) from her human family, so she hunts vampires to try to make up for the fact that she exists. Enter Bones, a vampire who also hunts other vampires, but he does it for very different reasons.

Forced into close proximity, Cat begins to realize that maybe not all vampires are evil. As she grows closer to Bones, she also starts to cut herself a little more slack. Having another person accept her, even if he is a blood-sucking vampire, helps her accept herself. But, or course, things can't go that smoothly. She still has a vampire-hating mother and a couple of bible-thumping grandparents to contend with.

The plot of this book is secondary to the romance arc, existing more to force the characters into close proximity, conflict, and eventual comradery rather than as the central focus, so if you're looking for a deeply developed story line, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're looking for a romance story with a paranormal plot that adds spice and action, this book is probably right up your alley.

Heat level = Spicy
There is a lot of sex, thinking about sex, dressing sexy, talking dirty, etc. in this book.

Trigger warnings - Rape
There are several instances of rape and near rape in this book.

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Coastal Magic

I'm thrilled to announce that I will be a featured author at the 2025 Coastal Magic Convention!

Coastal Magic is a beachside reader weekend celebrating the magic of stories & storytellers. The convention's goal is to bring authors and readers together for a memorable weekend with friends (old and new) and to build TBR piles! The theme for 2025 is “Reading Is Timeless”.

Join me in in Daytona Beach, FL, Feb 20-23, 2025 for a weekend full of panels, interesting discussions, themed meet & greets, a lunch with the authors, book signings, and other fun activities.

Information about #CMCon25, including this year’s list of Featured Authors and how to register to attend, is on the website,  http://CoastalMagicConvention.com.

You can also get involved and have some bookish fun between now and February by joining the Reading Challenge Facebook group: http://Facebook.com/groups/CMConReadingChallenge

Review: Howl's Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was one of those cases where I watched the movie adaptation before reading the book. I actually didn't even know it was a book at first, but I'm glad to have found out. This was a fun adventure appropriate for all ages. Magic is well-integtated into the world, the characters are endearing, and there are several fun twists.

The main character, Sophie, is cursed to appear as an old woman, which she takes to quite well since she's always felt older than her age regardless. She rather randomly finds herself at the door to Howl's castle, which walks around on mechanical legs fueled by magic, and subsequently makes a deal with a demon.

Most of the story is about Sophie getting to know Howl as an individual rather than a scary legend as she uncovers more facts about his life, history, and personality. It's a magical romantic adventure with a happy ending.

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Shepherd Book Recommendations

Have you heard of Shepherd? It's a website dedicated to book recommendations!

People post lists of recommended books that share a common theme. It could be their genre, their tropes, their mood, etc. Any unifying factor you can think of can be used to create a list of similar books. In my case, since I write and primarily read urban fantasy, I wanted to recommend books that bring magic to the modern world.

Along with the recommendations, the list curator (that's me, in this case) also includes a paragraph about why they recommend the book and their own personal experience reading it. (No recommending books you haven't actually read!)

So, without further ado, I give you MY LIST OF THE BEST URBAN FANTASY BOOKS THAT BRING MAGIC TO THE MODERN WORLD!

I encourage you to take a minute and look through the other list themes as well. There are a lot of great books out there!

The Adventure Continues...

The newest addition to the Magicsmith universe will release on June 28, 2024!Diplomacy has never been Alex’s strong suit…

When the vampire council puts Alex and James on trial for exposing the species’ existence to the world, Alex's freedom and James's life hang in the balance, though Alex suspects James’s new daywalking ability is the real aim of their inquisition.

Any hope of talking their way out of hot water evaporates when one of the council members is found murdered . . . with James standing over the smoldering corpse. With every vampire looking to claim Alex’s power for themselves, she will have to team up with an unlikely ally, push her magic to its limits, and match wits against a powerful new foe if she hopes to come out unscathed. Look for more updates coming soon!

Review: Just Stab Me Now

Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A unique take on the process of writing fiction that made me laugh and groan in equal measure.

This book is written as a framed story, meaning a story written inside another story with multiple layers of narration. I didn't realize that going in, so it took me a little bit to get into the book. At first I was reading it as Rosamund's story (a fairly straightforward fantasy), which started out with a bit of an info-dump. (Lots of names of people and places thrown at the reader all at once.) Then Caroline, Rosamund's author, stepped in to point out that the reader didn't need all that information up front--which I wholeheartedly agreed with--at which point I realized this book was not going to be straightforward at all.

Caroline is the author of Rosamund's story (not to be confused with Jill Bearup, the author of the actual book). As such, Rosamund's story is constantly being interrupted by Caroline as she works through plot and character development issues by hashing them out with the characters involved. In this way, Bearup portrays the muddled inner workings of a "pantser" author--someone who doesn't follow an outline but rather lets the story carry them where it will. As Caroline complains about her characters going off script and tries to figure out how to write the story as she was intending, we get snippets into her "real" life--that of an underappreciated modern-day office worker slash author. As the stories progress, it becomes apparent that Caroline's and Rosamund's lives, while different, are mirrors of each other, though I found myself much more invested in Caroline's narrative than Rosamund's.

While the transitions between narrators and Caroline's interjections were often quite jarring, the rest of the writing was fairly smooth. The world building was believable, though not terribly unique. Both stories are primarily romances. Caroline tells Rosamund her story is an enemies-to-lovers romance, though there wasn't much "enemies" in it. This was another example of Caroline not being able to make her characters behave the way she intended, which was the most charming aspect of the book.

As an author myself, I could relate to some of Caroline's challenges as she tried to weave her story together, but I'm not much of a pantser. I've never just sat at my computer with no idea what I was going to write and seen where the story took me. In that regard, I found the character of Caroline a little frustrating at times. She seemed to just assume her story would work... and it did. Even though I couldn't quite relate, I still found her chaotic process amusing.

Definitely worth a read for those looking for a lighthearted, humerus, romance.

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Review: The Black Unicorn

Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

You know that feeling when you read a book as an adult that you loved as a kid and you notice that the story is quite a bit different than what you remember? That's the experience I had with this book. I remember Black Unicorn being one of my favorite books when I was a kid, so I was thrilled to read it with my own child now as an adult. It was still a fun story, and still well-written, but it didn't have quite the same enchanting quality that I remembered. Maybe I'm just harder to impress now.

The plot was a little too convenient and the characters were a bit flat, but the world was wonderful. I also didn't realize there was so much religious allegory in the story when I first read it, having not been raised Christian. This has a lot of the concept of a woman corrupting the purity of Eden and such in it that had gone over my head when I was little. Still, it remains a good story all-in-all, and my daughter enjoyed it very much. I'm pleased I got to share it with her.

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