Tag: MAGIC

Seanan McGuire “Imaginary Numbers”

Everybody hurts and is hurt, in a grand cycle of being alive. But minimizing the damage . . . that matters.
In math, something is either true or it’s not. Something either works or it doesn’t. If something works and it feels like that shouldn’t be possible, it’s not the math that’s wrong: it’s your model of the universe. Mathematics is the art of refining our understanding of reality itself, like a sculptor trimming down a brick of marble until it frees the beautiful image inside.
How can anyone who truly loves numbers be irredeemable?
Life is complicated. The equations balance, in the end, but they can be so damn cold on the way to getting there.
I could feel the endless loops of recursive numbers trying to intrude on my thoughts, to pull me down into the comforting safety of pure mathematics, where I could be safe and comfortable and—most of all—protected. The numbers would protect me even as the world ate me alive
Five years. I’d lost five years with my family, and no matter how much they’d tried to keep me updated, I’d always known there would be things they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, explain to me until I was feeling well enough to come home. Things like Annie discovering she could pull fire out of the air. Big things. Things that changed everything around them, like any new variable introduced to a formerly stable equation.
The change stung. Elsie and I had never been particularly close—not like Artie and me, or Annie and me; the nerds of our generation, closing ranks against the people who didn’t understand—but she’d never looked at me like I was someone she needed to protect before
Being weird is, like, ninety percent of my day,” said Annie. She raised both hands, palms once again turned upward
He’d been dreaming of real roots, a home he could design and defend, since he was a little boy. After he met Evie and realized it was time to settle down, he’d set about making his dreams a reality. A house, isolated from the nearest human communities, big enough to host not only his immediate family, but every other living relative and maybe a dozen extras. Outbuildings and barns and fences and floodlights. Everything your average small militia needs to feel like they’re not going to be crushed under the heel of “the Man,” only in this case the militia was more like a wildlife conservation convention, and “the Man” was the Covenant of St. George.
You’re family, silly. You don’t thank us for welcoming you home. You thank us for letting you settle in before we put you on the chore rotation.”
Houses designed by eccentric cryptozoologists who grew up with a traveling carnival are rare, and they all have one trait in common: they’re idiosyncratic at best, and seriously weird at worst. The family compound fell into the “seriously weird” category. The front door opened, not on a foyer or stairway or other reasonable architectural choice, but on the mudroom connected to the kitchen, on the theory that the kitchen had a lot of flat, relatively sterile surfaces, and most people would either need hot water or food when they got to the house, depending on how injured they were. And as a theory it wasn’t wrong. It was just strange
Trust the numbers. The numbers don’t lie. Even if everything else in the world is trying to deceive you, the numbers will always, always tell the truth.” —Angela Baker
I would have thought he was handsome no matter what he looked like, because I really was in love with his mind—his weird, sweet, comforting mind—but Artie’s brain knew how to process human faces and I was inside his head and that meant that for right now, I could do the same thing. And he had a nice face, sweet and open and expressive. I spared a moment’s resentment for the fact that I belonged to a species that didn’t get to enjoy faces like his, because we simply didn’t see them. It wasn’t fair.
Then I usually think that no dimension is awful enough to deserve us, and I’m glad to at least be in a world where the Internet exists. Telepaths would never have invented the Internet.
I was broken. I made them keep you away because I was broken, and I was trying to put myself back together without any sort of map or instruction manual, and I knew if you saw me—if you, specifically, saw me—and turned away because I was too broken to care about anymore, I’d give up. I’d stop trying to repair myself.
Some people are good at music. Some people are good at sports. Some people are good at both. People are people, and every person has their own strengths and weaknesses. Biology is just one aspect of the greater whole.” —Jane Harrington-Price
Annie had been icing her knuckles, jaw set in the stubborn thrust that meant she had looked at the world, considered her options, and decided everyone else was in the wrong
Aunt Jane drove the sort of solid, sensible, mid-sized minivan beloved by soccer moms and field biologists the world over. She could pack literally hundreds of pounds of specimens into that thing, concealing them all in brightly colored plastic tubs labeled things like “PTA supplies” and “recycling.” I’ve seen her get pulled over, produce a plate of fresh peppermint brownies seemingly out of thin air, and charm the police into waving her on her way. She calls it her “weaponized white woman” routine, and it’s a calculated ruse she’s taken everywhere from cryptid extraction runs to political protests, where she spends a lot of time putting herself between the authorities and anyone she deems to be more vulnerable. Which is everyone.
My Aunt Jane loves me. I sometimes think she doesn’t want to, but there’s no questioning her affection. I’m part of her family. More importantly, I’m her reclusive son’s best friend. And none of that matters, because she grew up surrounded by people who not only knew what cuckoos were, they knew precisely why we shouldn’t be—couldn’t be—trusted. We’re natural predators who prefer the simplicity of a hunt where everyone involved is sapient. We destroy things for fun. She wasn’t the Price sibling who’d married a cuckoo’s daughter and been forced to admit that maybe there was more to us than a knife in the dark and a mind twisting inward on itself. She could love and fear and hate me all at the same time.
Nobody gets to pick where they’re born or who they’re born to, but everybody gets to pick their family. Make good choices with yours.” —Alice Healy
Life happens. So does death. The trick is putting as much time as possible between the two.”
There’s nothing like a cryptozoologist when there’s something to be taken apart. It’s basically Christmas morning for them, and when they have the opportunity to wallow in it, they really wallow. Evie and Kevin would be joining them once they were sure I was There’s nothing like a cryptozoologist when there’s something to be taken apart. It’s basically Christmas morning for them, and when they have the opportunity to wallow in it, they really wallow. Evie and Kevin would be joining them once they were sure I was safely in for the night. I could hear Kevin thinking distantly of all the tests he wanted to run on the dead cuckoo’s tissues
I think ‘a lot’ may be the most charitable description of this family,” said James, with a dour chuckle. “When Annie informed me that I was being adopted, I thought she was being fanciful. And then she got me back here, and I found myself with a bedroom, a space on the chore chart, and an offer of a new identity if I wanted to actually become a Price, rather than carrying my father’s name around with me all the time. I’m still mulling that last one over. It’s tempting.”
Mom says that when Kevin and Evie got married, Grandma Alice actually tried to break up the wedding. I don’t mean ‘disrupt’—although she did that, too—I mean break. She didn’t like cuckoos, which is understandable. We’re hard to like.” She still didn’t like most cuckoos or trust them as far as she could throw them. As a species, we’re dangerous.
Annie and Verity are way better superheroes than I am. They actually work for what they can do. When we were kids, Verity was never around, because she was always going to another dance lesson. And Annie spent half her time on the balance beam or the trapeze rig. I’m a freak of nature. They’re amazing.”
Never go anywhere unprepared, unarmed, or unaccompanied. The difference between success and suicide is often a matter of prior planning.” —Evelyn Baker
Didn’t think I’d ever have a family. Didn’t think I’d ever want one. It’s funny, how much a person can change without even noticing what’s happening.” —Frances Brown
Math is the underpinning force of the universe. That’s something people don’t always understand when I try to explain it to them, and it’s so basic—so primal and perfect—that I don’t have the words to make it any clearer. How do you explain air to a bird, or water to a fish? There’s no explaining things that simply are. That’s how I feel about math. Math is everywhere. Math is everything. Even the seemingly effortless, uncomplicated things like walking and breathing and, yes, telepathy, they’re all math.The other cuckoo’s mental shields were made of instinctive equations, so tightly knotted together that they seemed like a single continuous piece. They weren’t, though. An equation that large would be clumsy, awkward . . . slow. Her shields were fast and adaptive because they were built like a living thing, with numbers in the place of single cells. Where there’s an equation, there’s an answer. I cocked my head in imitation of her earlier gesture, picking at the wall until it all came into sudden, perfect focus. I wrapped the answer to her equations in a soft shell of my intentions and lobbed it at the shields. They went down all at once, a cascade of falling defenses. The whole process had taken only a few seconds. Back in the real world, outside our minds, the other cuckoo gasped, hand clutching at her swollen belly. The last of the shields fell. I looked at her levelly.
“No matter how much we learn, there’s always something we don’t know. A map labeled ‘here be monsters’ is better than one that reads ‘we have no idea.’” —Thomas Price
According to Mom, cuckoos are biologically more like really big wasps than they are like monkeys—hominids but not primates, in other words. So, yeah, there was probably an evolutionary stage way back in Sarah’s family tree where she would have gone through molts. But I tried not to think about that too hard
When all else fails, orange soda and toast. Even at two in the morning, orange soda and toast. They can cure many ills, and if they can’t fix the problem, at least you won’t be hungry and groggy anymore
Sometimes I hate being right. I walked over and sat down across from her at the table, deciding to skip my toast for now. Toast is for people who don’t feel like they’re about to throw up. “It’s a biology thing. It means the growth stage insects go through between molts. It’s metamorphic—they tend to change shapes and stuff—but I don’t really understand it”
We come from a family of biologists. One way or another, we’ve been exposed to more science lessons than those poor kids on the Magic School Bus. But you know what I’ve never studied voluntarily? Bugs.” Elsie shook her head. “I don’t like bugs. They’re weird and they’re creepy and they have too many legs. They skitter. I am not a skittery person.
Being a Price means spending your life preparing for an emergency you hope won’t ever come. Elsie and I aren’t as physical as our cousins—we can’t be, not when our blood tends to make people fall in love with us—but that doesn’t mean we got out of the basic training. I grabbed clothes and yanked them on before picking up the bug-out bag that leaned against my desk and slinging it over my shoulder. Inside I had medical supplies, rope, a flashlight, batteries, water, a compass—all the low-tech answers to low-tech problems. Well, most of the low-tech answers.
“Friends don’t hold their friends at gunpoint.” “What the fuck is this, an episode of Mr. Rogers? Grab him!”
Thankfully, while we all come from the Spider-Man school of combat—the bad guys can’t hit you if they’re too busy trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about—my parents had always been very clear that there was a time and a place for helping your enemies improve. The middle of combat was neither of those things.
Annie’s smile was more like a snarl. In that moment, it was easy to see why she was Sam’s perfect girl, even if I would have sooner gotten involved with a live wolverine even if we hadn’t been related. She was way too scary for me.
It’s not paranoia when you find an actual cuckoo in your living room.
“Your sister should be done patching up the hole in your dad by now. Oh, and did you know my dad’s bi?” “I did not know that and I did not want to know that and why do you know that?” She shrugged. “He made a pass at your dad when he started bleeding.”
WhEN I WAS A kid, I’d thought everyone had a barn filled with taxidermy and weird, wonderful tools, like a mad scientist’s lab crossed with a veterinarian’s office.
“Yes, because you’re not twice my age, related to me, and capable of making me stupid with lust just by flexing a bicep.” Annie holstered her gun and moved to help Sam strap Heloise down. “Okay, maybe that last one applies, but it’s not creepy because you’re not my uncle.”
even when you’re talking to people you’re probably about to kill. Maybe especially when you’re talking to people you’re probably about to kill. That way they get to the afterlife with an accurate idea of what took them out.”
Her hand moved in a complicated pattern, and she was suddenly holding an actual fireball. It flickered orange and red and blue, looking strangely like a pom-pom from her cheerleading days, if the pom-poms had been actively terrifying.
We’ve never been chill,” she continued, still filing. “Chill doesn’t save anybody. We like saving people. The ones who can be saved, anyway. Some of them were always beyond salvation.” She blew on her nails. “Those ones, we bury in the woods.”
You heard me.” His eyes flashed white again. “Everyone knows about you. The Prices. The Healys. You were the first people to figure out that we existed, and keep knowing that we existed, even when we tried to make you forget. It’s because of you that this world has turned dangerous for us.” He paused to chuckle, darkly. “Well. Because of you, and because of video surveillance. We can change a mind, but we can’t change a camera. Another few years and this whole world is going to be like London. Too filmed to risk. Still, we might have held out a few more decades if it weren’t for you people screwing everything up for us. So I’m asking you, how much do you know? I need to know where to start.”
“People feel smart when they tell you ‘Frankenstein’ was the doctor, not the monster. They’re wrong. Frankenstein—Dr. Frankenstein—was always the monster. That’s the whole point. Sometimes evil is so damn beautiful it hurts.” —Martin Baker
“Everything is math,” he blurted. I blinked. So did everyone else. “That’s what my mother always says,” said Aunt Evie. “She says the universe is numerical in nature, so the better a mathematician someone is, the closer they draw to the divine. It’s why she became an accountant. For her, that was like joining the priesthood.”
Exactly. Everything is math, and everything is made of math, and if you can manipulate the numbers, you can change the world. Literally change the world. You need to know the right equations, or you need the raw power to punch your way to the correct answer without taking the steps in the middle. But if you can accomplish one of those two things, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
Yes,” said Mark again. “But the equations are . . . they’re huge. They’re resource-intensive in a way that almost always results in the death of the person who completes them, and those are the ones we still have. There are pieces of the math missing. Whole sections that were wiped clean when our ancestors were put into exile
We know the original equations were beautiful and subtle and kind,” said Mark. “We know that when our ancestors were exiled, Johrlar survived. We know the equations could be performed over and over and over again.” “Yeah, because they were being performed by a whole bunch of people,” said Elsie. Everyone turned to look at her. She glanced up from her nails and shrugged. “What? You know I’m right. Look, you’re talking about math that’s so big that it kills people. Well, that’s what research teams are for. That’s what think tanks are for. If you have a spell that’s so resource-intensive it uses a sorcerer up, you get a whole bunch of sorcerers to come and cast it. If you have an equation that’s so resource-intensive it melts brains, you get a whole bunch of smart people to think about different pieces of it at the same time, so nobody’s brain gets melted. The equations aren’t meant to be a solo voyage. No big. Why are you telling us all this?”
found another way. A cruder way. It’s like a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel. The equations we have, the ones we’ve developed, require a Queen to resolve them. Once she finishes her final morph and enters her fourth instar, she can do the math. She can find the right answers. And she can rip a hole in the fabric between dimensions, allowing us to move on.”
the ones who oppose us, we’re weird to the ones who stand with us, we’re heroes to the ones who depend on us. But there’s one thing that tends to get left out of the conversation, treated as less important than the need to keep fighting and keep winning until the war is over: We’re scientists. Mom and Uncle Kevin even more than Elsie and me. They’re the direct descendants of Thomas and Alice Price. They were raised to believe that the world can make sense, if they just try hard enough and refuse to stop poking at its soft bits. The cuckoos have been one of the greatest mysteries our family has ever encountered. We’d tried for years to learn more about their biology, without taking apart one of the two cuckoos we considered part of the family. To have one walk into our home and just start talking was, well . . .It was no wonder this was going so slowly. The people who would normally have hurried things along—the people we instinctively still listened to, thanks to their age and our familial relationship—were too enthralled by the potential to learn something to focus on what actually mattered.
If she survives the process, she’s not going to be a god, she’s going to be a Queen,” said Mark. “She’ll have the strength to do the math and put enough power behind it to blow this dimension to pieces. She’s going to smash this world like an eggshell. She’s going to open the way for the cuckoos to go somewhere else. If you don’t stop her, she’s going to destroy everything she’s ever cared about, and she’s going to destroy you in the process.”
There are losses we don’t move past, no matter how hard we try. Some wounds, once inflicted, bleed forever underneath the skin. All we can do is learn to live with them.” —Jonathan Healy
“You know, I gotta say, I’m really impressed with how terrible you people are,” said Mark. “I’ve been listening to Ingrid talk about her daughter the princess, and how she was going to make her a Queen and use her to destroy the world, for years. She never mentioned that the people raising her were genuinely awful. You hate us because we’re the competition, right?” “We hate you because you’re dangerous predators who murder innocent people and make things worse for absolutely everyone, but thanks for playing.”
“Sort of are,” said Elsie. “Sort of turned yourself into one when you decided that a bad haircut and a pair of yoga pants meant you could pretend to be our cousin without getting in trouble for it. Because your friend is right: we’re not good people. We can’t afford to be. We’re one side of a three-sided war, and you’re the enemy.”
My parents are going to kill me,” said Antimony. “Actual murder. Let’s really enjoy this little rescue mission, because it’s the last one I’m ever going to go on.” She was sitting in the middle, one leg slung over Sam’s to make the footwell less crowded. Sam snorted. “Your parents are going to be arguing about how they’re supposed to handle this until the sun comes up. We’ll be home and making waffles by then.”
“I know this is only confusing because I can’t read your mind, but your parents aren’t actually going to kill you, are they?” asked Mark. “If they are, I say again, absolutely terrible people. How you got a reputation for being the good guys, I may never know.” “We have a good propaganda arm,” I said. “You mentioned your parents before. I thought all cuckoos killed their parents when they hit puberty.”
You know how I don’t want to destroy the world and head off to terrorize a fresh dimension with the rest of my merry band of predators? Well, Cici is why. She’s my little sister. Cecilia. She’s a holy terror. Smart and funny and awful. Really, really awful. She might be as terrible as you. It’s hard for me to measure.” 
I woke up in the middle of the night with the knowledge and laws of my entire species filling my head, crowding out everything else, making it almost impossible for me to breathe. I was fifteen. Cici was four. I thought she’d probably scream and wake our parents, so I knew I had to kill her first if I wanted it to be easy. It mattered that it be easy. I didn’t want to upset her. That’s probably when I should have realized something was wrong, when I was thinking ‘I don’t want to upset my sister’ and ‘I’m going to murder her’ at the same time, but I was fifteen and I was being eaten alive by memories that weren’t mine, so I think I did okay, all things considered. I got a knife. I went to her room
I helped Ingrid, who, please remember, is Sarah’s biological mother, lure her away from you. I’m not saying I didn’t. She knows where I live. She knows where my family lives. I have no real desire to be at war with you—you are all terrible, terrifying people—but I wasn’t going to risk Cici’s life because your cousin was somehow more important than she is. She’s not. I did what I was told, I escaped as soon as I could, and now I’m helping you. Be grateful for that part. I could have told Ingrid about the hum. I could have sided with my hive against humanity. I’m not, because I love my sister. Take the fucking win.”
Breathe, baby, breathe. You breathe and you keep on breathing. That’s the only thing I’m going to ask of you today. You just keep on breathing.” —Enid Healy
Or maybe this was like a holodeck in Star Trek, and I could start calling people out of my memories of them, using them for company, for stability, for a way to keep myself from doing what the cuckoos wanted from me. Because if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that doing what the cuckoos wanted wasn’t going to end well. Not for anyone.
Math, though . . . math never changed. Math always meant exactly what it said, no more and no less, and refused to be written for anyone. Math was always math. If I turned myself into numbers, I would be a wholly unique equation, something so much bigger and wilder and harder to define than “Sarah.” I looked at the screen again. I put my fingers on the keys
normally I wouldn’t bother you while you were undermining the fabric of the universe with mathematics, but you do understand that this is bad, right? Numbers shouldn’t be sufficient to change the laws of physics. They should sit quietly and think about what they’ve done until it’s time for someone to figure out the tip
There’s a moment where everything comes together, where the numbers add up and everything is perfect, and nothing hurts. That’s the best moment of them all. A person could spend their whole life chasing after it, and never feel their time was wasted.” —Angela Baker
I had been so foolish. I had been so stupid. This was . . . this was everything. The equation sang to me, bright and beguiling, begging to be completed. Begging to be carried out into the world and allowed to come to sweet fruition. All I had to do was wake up. All I had to do was open my eyes, and the work—the great work, the work that I had been moving toward since the moment of my birth, the work that had always been destined to be mine—would finally begin
When it’s a choice between saving your family and saving the world, I can’t tell you what to decide. I can only tell you that, no matter what you choose, part of you will always know that you were wrong.” —Alexander Healy
You know, sometimes I wonder what our family looks like from the outside.”
Dad both leapt to their feet, Mom’s hands suddenly bristling with knives, Dad producing a handgun from somewhere inside his jacket. I couldn’t see what Elsie was doing, but I had no doubt that it was impressive, possibly involving the weaponization of a grilled cheese panini.
Some prices are far too dear. And yet we pay them anyway.” —Jonathan Healy
Not dying at all would have been better—way better—but I guess I always knew that we couldn’t win forever. That’s not how the universe works. Sooner or later everyone has to lose. Even the good guys.
Annie!” I shouted. “I need you over here!” A gun went off. “Little busy!” she shouted back. “Don’t care!” We had a lot of code phrases for moments like this one, where we needed to communicate without tipping our hands.
No one with a larynx enjoys being punched in the throat. That’s just science.
I might be able to turn the tide from “probably fatal” to “eh, you’ll walk away from it.” Any combat you can walk away from is a good combat, regardless of what’s been done to the other guy.
But that’s what people are, really. We’re equations that have grown large enough and complex enough to have opinions about the world. To want to change it.
When working complex math, there are factors that can be used to cancel things out
any of the professors I’ve ever talked to would roll their eyes and scoff at the idea of explaining things that way, but it works, it works, it takes the weight out of the final figures, and I needed to cancel as much of this world-breaking equation as I possibly could.

No one’s ever really lost. Sometimes we don’t know where they are, exactly, but that just means it’s time for us to go out and find them.” —Alice HealyI didn’t even need to check to know that I was tied in place. There was no other way I could have stayed upright—and family protocols are very clear. When you have someone captive and you want them to stay that way, you damn well tie them up. We were in some kind of classroom. 
FOLLOW THE LADY
I was always voted the least likely of my generation to fall in love or settle down—and that includes my cousin Artie the incubus, who seems destined to die alone in the basement of his parents’ house, thanks to a near-pathological fear of getting close to any girl he’s not related to
Sometimes being a cryptozoologist is even more complicated than it ought to be.
We lost Grandpa. Not to death, which would have been understandable and ordinary and something we might have been able to collectively get over. No, I mean we lost him, through a hole in the wall of the world that swallowed him down in the middle of the night while Grandma Alice was pregnant with my Aunt Jane, whose impending arrival was the only thing that prevented Grandma from immediately jumping into the hole and going after him. As soon as she’d recovered from labor, she’d dumped both her children on our Aunt Laura, yet another in the string of aunts, uncles, and cousins who aren’t actually biologically related to us.
Buckley Township, Michigan, is one of those places that gets talked about in hushed tones whenever there’s a census, a place where people die young and weirdly.
The laws of physics are not invited to a lot of sylph parties, nor would they attend if they were.
The laws of physics are not invited to a lot of sylph parties, nor would they attend if they were.
No one in our family is in poor physical condition. We’ve been lucky when it comes to illnesses and injuries, and all of us, even Alex, have chosen extracurricular activities that keep us in excellent physical shape. And then there is my grandmother. She’s been moving between dimensions for decades, trying to locate her missing husband, doing a lot of God-knows-what to keep her stomach full and her guns loaded during that time—and honestly, I don’t think she puts a priority on food.

Whatever function of her dimensional wanderings kept her young, it also left her occasionally bewildered about her own life and family, unable to keep straight whether something had happened to my sister or her mother. It made our relatively rare family dinners exciting.

Gena Showalter “the darkest king”

I spent a whole five minutes planning your seduction. That’s six minutes longer than usual.” “That means you’re only twenty-four hours behind me
Sunny was born with an innate magic that prevented her from cursing, changing obscenities into flowers. Daisy replaced damn. Argh! D-a-m-n. Hellebore replaced h-e-l-l. Sage replaced s-h-i-t. Bluebell replacedb-a-s-t-a-r-d. and b-i-t-c-h. Aster replaced a-s-s, and freesia replaced f-u-c-k.
This was not a good turn. The unicorns of myth: Watch as I spread happiness across the land. The unicorns of reality: I’mma kill you and dance in your blood
A rejection is never fun, but one day, it might be a blessing. With their actions, people show us who they are. If your father can cut you from his life, he doesn’t deserve you.”
Listeria—a Hell realm named before the bacteria, known for its toxic atmosphere and criminal inhabitants.

[Top]

Fantastic Hope laurell K Hamilton and William McCaskey

I have had the pleasure of getting an advanced reader copy of Fantastic Hope, the new paranormal anthology that was released on April 7, 2020. This arc was provided via Netgalley, the best place for reviewers and avid readers to get and review new books.  This anthology is a great way to be introduced to a wide variety of authors and writing styles.  You may just buy it for one author and find a whole new library to read during this uncertain time.  With a wide variety of bestselling authors this anthology has a lot of bang for your buck.
While I could go crazy with this book review and write pages upon pages and bury you in paper, time is at a premium.  This anthology is a great way to get acquainted with a number of authors and their writing styles.   You may buy it for the latest in one series and end up with a new series to read, to love, and maybe even obsess about.  These authors each have unique backgrounds and those backgrounds inform each story with details that will delight readers,   .  Rather than going through each story and providing spoilers that might make longtime fans and new readers alike angry, I will cede this space to a part of the Foreword and the words of the editors.
“It’s a place where the hero wins, the bad guy is punished, and the monsters are only real while you’re reading the story. You can close the covers and be safe. Unlike the real terrors of the world online and in the news lately…welcome to a collection of stories where you can find hope, happy endings, loyalty, freedom, love, all the positive things that make the best of us. Welcome to thrilling adventures and a modern take on two-fisted adventure stories…Have faith in yourself, in the people who love you, in magic, in religion, in Deity, in science, and in things harder to label with just one word. Believe that there will be smiles after the tears, joy after the pain, and that it will all work out, that good will triumph and evil will not win forever…You’re holding people’s dreams in your hands, dreams made real for you to read and share. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.”   Laurell K Hamilton
“Laurell is a big proponent of people doing their therapy and working through their shit. We sat over lunch and talked about the depressing stories that seemed to be everywhere, in the news and in fiction, and lamented that there weren’t more uplifting stories…  Laurell and I are both survivors and we know that the world is not all unicorns, rainbows, and glitter. but we also know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that the darkness can be pushed back, even if it starts with a spark….I hope that in this book you find a story that speaks to you that reminds you that tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities.” William McCaskey
Believe again.  Dream again.  Know that you have the power to do the impossible and conquer your demons.  Start a new relationship with favorite authors and new voices.  Start here.

#netgalley #LaurellKHamilton #FantasticHope #lkh #AnitaBlake #WilliamMccaskey #vampirehunter #supernatural #JonathanMaberry #Sharonshinn #LarryCorreia #KaceyEzell #griffinBarber #GriffinBarber #KevinJAnderson #JohnGHartness #PatriciaBriggs #RobertEHamilton #LEModesittJR #PatrickMTracy #MCSumner #MichealZWilliamson #JessicaSchlenker #MonaLisaFoster #Zombies #ghosts #necromancers #magic #vampires #witch #JoeLedgerRogueTeam #JoeLedgerRogueTeamInternationalAdventure #TwilightFalls #NotInThisLifetime #MrPositiveTheEternalOptimist #NoGreaterLove #BrokenSon #HeartofClay #Reprise #AsilandTheNotdate #inthedust #Fallen #workingConditions #lastContact #Ronin #skjolmodir #bondsofloveandduty #zombieDearest #donShambleZombiePI #MercyThompson #AlphaandOmega #MonsterHunterInternational #grimnoirchronicles #deadsix #SagaoftheforgottenWarrior #DragonAwardwinner #quincyHarker  #sagaofrecluse #militarythriller #romance #paranormalromance #urbanfantasy #newsfromtheedge #geeks #doctoriteinwhat? #gunsmith #shapeshifter #anthology #shortstory #novella #whattodowhenunderquarantine #Stuckathome #booktoread #lateststory #apocalypse #magic #dreams #hope #sciencefiction #fantasy #horror #betterfuture #betterpresent #happyending #magicalthinking #dragon #dystopian #goodconquersall #heros #villians #impossible 

[Top]

Ok, so I messed up…

Any Kate Daniels fans out there? If so Iron and Magic, which I thought might be interesting just rocketed to one of my top priorities. Food, Air, Sleep and Iron and Magic. Adjustments have been made and priorities are straight, thank goodness for great books!

[Top]

An Unwavering Recommendation…

Usually, I post about the books I read, the friends I find within each story and reconnecting with them.  And right now I am reconnecting with Olivia and Gabriel–and all the mystery and magic of Cainsville.  But I wanted to tell you about something seemingly unconnected and in the process I will explain the thought train that led to this post.

I love reading, as you know all to well.  And I dislike audiobooks because depending on narrator, the book can be enriched through the process of creating an audiobook or it can be ruined by the slightest thing-a name pronounced differently, an accent that is different than what was expected or any other of a million reasons.  When we read a book, we imagine the characters, their accents, and a million other things.  An audiobook can ruin that because it makes the elements written in stone and each of these things can skew the enjoyment of the book.

I have been a long time fan of the Elfquest comic book series.  When I first found them they had been reprinted as a graphic novel and were in color.  When they later rereleased the comics in Black and White, they used a similar explanation–that the coloration of the comics limited the possibilities and locked the characters descriptions in stone.  Printing the comics in black and white allowed for infinite possibilities and for the enjoyment of the stories in a whole new way.

For years I was a physical book reader, and my daughter still is.  For her a book has to have a physical presence in order to be a book.  Ebooks do not work for her-without the pages to flip and the smell of the paper and weight of the book in her hands, they do not seem real to her.  Now, I fully enjoy all the facets of having ebooks- the ability to carry hundreds or thousands of books in the palm of my hand, rather than having to carry an extra suitcase on trips.  I enjoy having multiple copies of the books in multiple places and the ability to transfer from device to device.  I was and am a firm supporter of amazon kindles and have been for a long time.

Anyone who reads ebooks should look into the freeware program Calibre.  It allows you to organize your library by author or series or even by publication date.  It allows you to convert your books from one format to another and that allows you to use multiple devices.  It can also manage your devices.  You can merge files together (using plugins) and a million other things.

So now I have found the best program for my needs to be google play books.  First off, google offers 24-7 tech support on using the play books app for free. In addition to allowing books to be read on multiple devices, with your progress in each book being communicated no matter which device you read the books upon.  Google Play has a read aloud feature-it uses a computer voice of your choice.  Much like the black and white comics, it still allows me to add the details to the story.  It also allows me to speed up the reading so I can keep pace with where I would be approximately without using the read aloud feature.

So, whats the point of this long rambling post?  It’s actually quite simple.  My smartphone has become my reading device of choice.  And protecting that smartphone has become VERY important.  While there are a million choices in the market for cases, tempered glass protectors or plastic film protectors I want to speak with you about my experience with a company called Skinomi.  They produce plastic film phone protectors.  You can buy one just for the front screen, one for coverage of the entire device (front, back and sides), or one for just the front and back.  he plastic film is self healing and the have a lifetime warranty on their products.  They now have lines that can be used to change the look of your phone from wood to tempered steel or even  cool black carbonite looking skin.

They are the best phone protectors out there.  I have used a lot of different ones, but theirs have stood the test of time with each of my phones.  In addition, they have exceptional customer service and replace your screen protector if there is an error in installation or for some other reason you need a new one.  And it is a lifetime replacement on their products and there is a bubble free guarantee.  So protect your phone-get a skinomi protector, they are the best on the market and worth the price!

 

[Top]

How you can Help…

I’m a reader-always have been. What does that mean? It means that from Kindergarten through eighth grade, my favorite day of the month was when the scholastic book order forms came in and then the day the books actually arrived. I always ordered way more than I could possibly read and lugging those boxes of books home was like the eighth night of hannukkah and my birthday all rolled into one…

When my children were younger, it meant reading books sometimes a word at a time, but I always had a book with me and I will admit to great pride that I finished any books at all with my children at toddler age. Now it means always having a book loaded on my phone to play or read every opportunity I get.

For me, books are a necessity. I cannot imagine a world without books. If something was wrong in my life, most times being swallowed into a story would make it better or at the very least put off the problem until I could find a solution. Reading gave me time to assimilate, a place where all my life’s problems could be put on a shelf for a while. I could visit fantastical worlds where magic and all things were possible. I could bear witness to amazing legal battles and see fancy balls from all the ages. I could see love triumph over incredible odds. There was no end to what I might find between the covers of a book.

As I have grown older and my burdens have become heavier, I have found that sometimes books bring me a simple distraction and I have also found that the characters in these books can become friends in a way. I am fully aware that the characters in my favorite books are fictional, but I worry over their lives as I would a friend. And I have found that having these books I love so very much has brought me some true friends along the way. Those friendships start with a conversation when we notice we are reading the same book or author and can develop into deep discussions and speculation.

And that love of books brought me to this blog. In reaching out to my favorite authors I found that they were struggling. Niche Publishing Houses had gone out of business, and the big publishing houses were mismarketing the books{marketing an urban fantasy book as a traditional romance, leaving the consumers of both urban fantasy and traditional romance unhappy)-so that when contract negotiations for more books began, the publisher could point to bad sales. The publishing house has complete control over when the books are released as well–and with a few different authors, they keep announcing dates, then pushing them back with no communication. That led to a number of angered fans, some of whom have sworn off the authors entirely. Also, some of the authors had felt very comfortable with the niche houses and so left broad areas in their contracts because of the level of trust that existed. Now those broad areas are leaving them with little contractual wigggle room, allowing the big houses to do many things without the authors input or consent. Bad pairings were being made between authors and editors which led to bad books and a loss of loyal fans.

A few of those authors told me that the best thing I can do to help is write reviews and generate buzz around their latest releases. This led me to this blog and now I am finding that I need to generate followers in order to get electronic ARC’s so I can create bigger buzz leading up to the release of the books.

So, I need your help. First, find my facebook link at the end of this post and like the page. There is also a twitter account associated with the blog. In order to raise my Search Engine rankings, please search for my website address in whichever search engine you use whenever you have a chance.

If you should decide to buy one of the books or anything else, try using one of my amazon links so I get a small commission. Or leave a donation using the link below-every little bit helps!

I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BestBookLover/

If you want to support the blog and keep getting great content make a donation at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/

[Top]

Review of Grave Ransom by Kalayna Price

Kalayna Price’s Grave Ransom

Let’s take a second and catch up to the storyline when Grave Ransom starts.  Alexis Craft started out as a grave witch at the beginning of the series—one who is able to make “death” and other ghosts visible.  She is the daughter to the governor, but since he is a fae hiding as a human and a member of the “Humans First” Organization which demonizes all things magic witches and fae included, he has distanced himself from her and created a clean identity for her that buries their familial ties.  But as weird cases start cropping up, Alex is slowly revealed to be more than just a Grave witch.  She is actually fae and a plane bender.  This means that she is able to merge realities.  And since there has not been a plane bender in a really long time, all of the fairy courts want her to join them.  The most vehement of these is the Winter Queen, who badly wants Alexis to join her court.    In the first novels it is revealed that the annoying Fae Investigation Bureau agent who has been driving Alex crazy is actually the Winter Knight, but not before Alex and he begin a sexual relationship that quickly develops into true love.  But the Winter Knight is bound to the Queen and must follow her orders in all things.  This has led to a horrible situation for Alex and the Winter Knight.  And , just to complicate things a little more, through the series Alex’s relationship with the soul reaper whom she calls Death has also become a physical and sexual one.

This book was a great addition to the series, but unfortunately ends on a somewhat sour note.  I am trying really hard not to write spoilers in this review, but its’s difficult.  In this book, Alex goes up against a true necromancer who is putting peoples souls in other peoples bodies.  In her quest to find the necromancer, she and Death end up on opposite sides of the issue.

 

I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/

If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/






Grave Ransom Book Cover




Grave Ransom




Alex Craft





Kalayna Price





Penguin




July 4, 2017




384



In the thrilling new novel from USA Today bestselling author Kalayna Price, Alex Craft comes face-to-face with the walking dead.... Grave witch Alex Craft is no stranger to the dead talking. She raises shades, works with ghosts, and is dating Death himself. But the dead walking? That's not supposed to happen. And yet reanimated corpses are committing crimes across Nekros City. Alex's investigation leads her deep into a web of sinister magic. When Briar Darque of the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau gets involved, Alex finds herself with an unexpected ally of sorts. But as the dead continue to rise and wreak havoc on the living, can she get to the soul of the matter in time?

[Top]

Review Of Karen Chance’s Ride the Storm

I have long been a fan of Karen Chance’s body of work.  I am a loyal fan and have remained undaunted in the face of all the machinations of the publisher and publishing machine.  Karen Chance has long kept the faith with her readers.  She often offers free stories that add to her published works to create a more complex, multifaceted and fulfilling world in which all her novels take place.  Readers who only read the novels from the publishing house lose a lot of the details and the joy of seeing the characters in multiple lights.  All that being said, Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer novel Ride the Storm has been one of the most anticipated novels in my memory.  This is not the fault of Karen Chance and that cannot be said firmly enough.  The publishing house has been moving dates on this novel for over a year with little to no explanation.

The previous book, Reap the Wind was judged too long by the publisher when submitted by the author.  This led to a quick rewrite and the split of the book almost in half.  This also left an unfulfilled feeling at the end of Reap the Wind.  Many plotlines were left hanging, which left some readers unhappy and the continuous manipulation by the publishers with moving dates and little communication lost even more of the fan base.  Ride the Storm is the second half of the previous book with a little bit of newer information which furthers the plot of the Cassandra Palmer novels.

I was recently asked by a friend to explain the Cassie Palmer novels and I drew a bit of a blank—how do you explain such a complicated and multifaceted storyline as the one Karen Chance has created?  I told her she just needs to read it and we will talk about it once she has.  To say that all of the Cassie Palmer novels are fast paced is kind of like saying a quadruple shot espresso is a little bit energizing.  These books move along at a frenetic pace and always have plot twists that are unexpected to say the least.  It is impossible to have predicted where the main characters end up at the beginning of this book, let alone at the end of the book.

So much happens in this book to move the plot along that after reading it 3 times, I am still finding new details to enjoy.  This is not a book to start when you have a deadline coming up or really anything planned.  Depending on your reading speed and availability, you should plan to be unavailable until you can finish the book.  This is not one you are going to want to put down as there are no really good stopping places.  My recommendation is to start it on a Friday so you can have the weekend to take a break from reality and a trip into the Cassandra Palmer universe.

This book brings resolution to a lot of the ongoing plot lines that readers have been gnashing their teeth to know.  We find out why MIrcea is so interested in Pythias.  We get to see Pritkin rescued.  We get to see Cassie find her feet and establish her own space independent of all the forces tearing at her. We learn more about Cassie’s parents.  Dorina and Cassie finally meet. We go careening through the story and learn so much along the way that it’s hard to even begin to summarize it so I am not going to even try.   Despite this, there is a seeming resolution to the love triangle between Cassie, Mircea and Pritkin but it is open ended enough that I see it more as an affirmation of the fact that Cassie has complicated emotions and feelings for both men.

This book is a solid addition to the Cassandra Palmer world and yet leaves a lot of storylines open for more exploration.  It is my sincere hope that Karen Chance continues to publish Cassandra Palmer books for a very long time.  In order for that to happen, fans have to not only buy this book, but review it.  Talk about it with friends and build it up so that the publishers contract with Karen Chance for more Cassie Palmer books.

I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/

In the interest of full disclosure, I received an ARC ebook in return for this review.






Ride the Storm Book Cover




Ride the Storm




Cassandra Palmer





Karen Chance





Paranormal




Berkeley




August 1, 2017




606



The New York Times bestselling author of Reap the Wind returns to the “fascinating world”* of Cassie Palmer. Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime's worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It's been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned. But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them...

[Top]

Buy this Special Edition and Support an Awesome Writer!

Hello My friends…This is one of my favorite authors and I hope you will help her out by buying this special edition…
I also have a little secret I’ve been keeping…You might just recognize the character Elizabeth, HMMMM wonder if she could be based on a certain Elizabeth who loves these books as much as I do…
 
From recent newsletter…
News from Shiloh
 
Kit’s Five
 
Blade Song – Special Edition
 
Kit was introduced to the world five years ago.
 
HBA few months ago, a special group of readers helped me introduce Damon’s side of the story. When I started the Patreon platform, the original intent was that the short stories written for my patrons would be specifically for them.
 
However…
 
A few months ago, my life was very much different.
 
Not only has my father moved in with me, but my sister in law and two of her kids have moved in with us.
 
My household has…well, grown exponentially, while my income has dropped. As many of you know, Samhain Publishing and Ellora’s Cave are no longer in business and I’ve yet to sell another trilogy so funds are…tight.
 
I talked things over with the readers who have opted to become patrons, because I started bouncing an idea around.
 
Kit’s five, after all. (And what a mouthy five year old she is…). It should be celebrated.
 
I had this story that other readers would probably enjoy. But it wouldn’t be out without the support of my patrons.
 
My patrons told me, emphatically, to do what I needed to do. So…that’s what I’m doing.
 
Viola. A special edition of Blade Song.
 
The special edition is available at the current price of $2.99 only through the link below.
 
Payloadz
 
The book includes Blade Song, and a snazzy new cover.
 
 
Buy now
 
The book set, as mentioned, will be loaded to other platforms this summer, but the price may be a bit higher as other platforms will, naturally, take their cut.
 
The stories included:
 
A Stroke of Dumb Luck
 
Bladed Magic
 
Damon
 
Blade Song
 
Proceed with Caution
 
Proceed with Caution isn’t a story, per se. It’s a collection of deleted scenes, character POVs and odd snippets that I’ve had tucked into various places. One of the deleted scenes is two chapters long and has never been seen by anybody.
 
Buy now
http://www.writerspacenews.com/t/2921519/9937496/43964/20/
 
[Top]

Vulnerable Volume 1 Book Review

Vulnerable is a great story that is easy to relate with and emotionally resonant. Cory Kirkpatrick is a regular California girl struggling to make it out of her Northern California hometown. She is smart, and works hard to get her Associates degree so she can then transfer to get her Bachelors. Like so many young women, she is afraid of being trapped in her hometown and bitter. She is already a little bit of a rebel, with lots of piercings and a tough girl exterior. She works at the local gas station on the overnight shift, and is determined to make something of herself, no matter what everyone else says. One night, she looks up from studying and her world changes. She discovers that there is a whole other world in the hills where she grew up. One with magic, vampires, wereanimals and every other type of paranormal creature. This sends her on a journey of self-discovery and love. It stars with a vampire and from there she finds herself in a world where sensual and consentual is the rule. This book has graphic sex scenes with more than one partner. She struggles to throw off her old paradigm and accept this new one, in which she too has magic and worth. But an old enemy has come to threaten her new lovers, Lord Green, a high sidhe elf and Adrian, their vampire lover. Before all is said and done, Cory will realize that everyone is Vulnerable.








Vulnerable




Little Goddess





Amy Lane





Paranormal Romance




DSP Publications; 2 edition




e book



The story of Cory, a young woman trying to find her place in her world. In doing so, she meets various supernatural beings, and finds that her place is not necessarily where she thought it was, and home is where you make it

Working graveyards in a gas station seems a small price for Cory to pay to get her degree and get the hell out of her tiny town. She's terrified of disappearing into the aimless masses of the lost and the young who haunt her neck of the woods. Until the night she actually stops looking at her books and looks up. What awaits her is a world she has only read about—one filled with fantastical creatures that she's sure she could never be.

[Top]