Book promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
UPDATE: Yes, I blew a week of chapters on Chapter House. Now caught up with Witch’s Daughter, will catch up with Winter Prince 4 chapters today, come hell or high water. Then back to normal next week. Sorry. Turns out I’m not able to write and keep livestock happy at same time.
FROM ALENE R. LOWRY: Einarr and the Crimson Shroud: A young adult action-adventure Viking fantasy.
More than a Fortune-Teller’s Art
The corruption from the black-blooded monsters has finally been cleansed from the crew of the Vidofnir, but the events of the last several months have left Einarr with a lot on his mind. Ever since his encounter with the Oracle, time and time again circumstances have conspired to prove her right: he needs to learn to read the runes, or his calling will be the death of him. The problems are going to be convincing his father and finding a teacher.
But the mysterious elf, whose aid allowed him to conquer the Tower of Ravens, knows someone. Several someones, really. But they happen to be guarding an ancient secret. If there’s one thing that a Cursebreaker knows how to find, it’s trouble.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Gods and Monsters (Modern Gods Book 4)
Here there be dragons…again, damn it.
Deshayna has her sanity back, and forces older than the gods have granted her a new purpose. Chronos, his freedom restored, fights for his sanity, and with it, a purpose in helping Deshayna—now called Shay—with hers. The gods are starting to pull together more…and it’s about time.
Millennia after the last dragons to threaten human existence have been hunted down, they’ve started to reappear, hinting to the surviving gods that something more sinister appeared first: Tiamat.
Instead of a confrontation, though, the gods—major, minor, and genus loci—are drawn into a frustrating hunt for a predator that flees rather than attempting to strike.
WITH JOHN VAN STRY, RODNEY L. SMITH & MORE, FROM OUR FRIENDS AT RACOUNTEUR PRESS: Moggies In Space.
Since the first feline walked into the first human dwelling and decided they liked the staff, Cats have been going where they want and doing what they do. Whether hunting, lounging or deigning to grace their companions with company, cats will continue to do what cats do.
Which is anything they want.
Join these 11 wonderful authors as they explore how and where cats boldly go.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: A Gift of Koi
Ancient and wise, the grandfather Koi knows at first sight that this human bears a hidden wound. But how can a mere fish, even one as old as himself, be of any aid to a human?
Astronaut Tyler Lanham had come to Grissom City, first and oldest lunar settlement, in search of the medical expertise he couldn’t find on the far side of the Moon. When he sees the scar on the ancient koi’s side, he knows he’s found a kindred spirit.
But an enemy is stalking these lovely gardens. A danger that will change both man and fish.
A short story of the Grissom timeline.
FROM MARY CATELLI: The Witch-Child and the Scarlet Fleet
Caught between pirates who would force him to use wizardry in their aid, and a king who would force him to spy, Alik will need every scrap of wits and wizardry to forge his own path.
FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: An Exile Aboard Ship
ONE MOMENT QUEEN… THE NEXT, OUTCAST
Surela Silin Asaniefa was convinced she could rule the Eldritch people better than her enemy, Liolesa Galare, and for ten whole days following her coup, she made the attempt—and failed. Resigned to her death as a traitor, she was given a choice by the Queen’s newest protege, Reese Eddings: to be executed, or to accept a commuted sentence and attempt to rebuild her life and make amends for her crimes.
To die would have been the act of a dramatic maiden, and as a woman of more sense and years, Surela chooses instead to see what she can make of herself among aliens and mortals. But what begins with cargo runs on an old Terran freighter soon involves pirates and slavers and intergalactic war… and the actions of a traitor might be the salvation of the people she once wronged.
An Exile Aboard Ship kicks off the redemption arc of the villainess from the Her Instruments series. Can Surela earn her wings in the Alliance? Come and see…
FROM MARY HARE: Cloak and Stola
When the Roman legion sweeps through the farmlands of Syria, Sophie loses everything: her home, her family, even her freedom. Procerus is a soldier subject to the marriage ban recently instituted by Caesar Augustus. But after his legion wins a battle, he may have found a way to start a family anyway.
Procerus is looking for a “wife.” Sophie’s looking for a way forward. Neither are looking for love. But will they find it anyway?
Story of ancient Rome inspired by historical evidence of the de facto marriages of Roman legion soldiers.
Novella, approximately 18,000 words.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: SHAKE
According To Hoyt 
“What was all that shaking about?”
“Sarge is trying to knock some sense into a young Titan’s head.”
“I hope he succeeds. Our base couldn’t survive much more of that shaking.”
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“Well, Sarge and Troll are taking that idiot to Venus to continue the job.”
“Great! There’s nothing or anybody to be harmed there.”
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I enjoyed Cloak and Stola a lot.
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Ditto! “Cloak and Stola” was very well written, the historical details rang true, and it left me wanting to read more stories set in that world. Two paws up!
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As did I. Well researched and written.
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“It ill behooves us to shake in our boots,” said Autumn. “We picked up those swords, and with them won a fight in moments.”
Her face was set and hard as she gazed among the trees. After a moment, she pointed. Without a doubt, something white moved among the trees.
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Figured it’d be this setting and I’m surprised yet not she wanted some time in the spotlight!
“Your milkshake, Miss.”
“Domo arigato!”
Aoi Kato grabbed the confection and began slurping it up, only stopping when the inevitable brain freeze hit. She swore in her native tongue, drawing curious looks from the other patrons of the ice cream shop. Even though they were used to eccentric behavior from Yamatai tourists the girl at the table with a notebook full of complex drawings to her side, the latest issue of The Charming Adventures of Magical Ninja Hoshiko (in the original Yamatai of course) in front of her, and a fresh streak of neon blue in her otherwise jet black hair was a bit much even for them.
“Ooh, owie…” she muttered with a sigh as the headache went away, finally able to focus on her manga again.
“Really now, Aoi? How is it that you can remember all the details of a Thane’s engine yet can never remember what happens when you drink a milkshake too quickly?” a refined female voice asked, punctuating the question with an amused chuckle.
“But that milkshake was soooo gooood, Carys!” the engineer whimpered, looking up at the new arrival. “I couldn’t help it!”
“That is why both Professor Llewellyn and General Wellesley worry about you so, Aoi,” the sorceress sighed, taking a seat across from her companion. “You give everything your all even when restraint is called for.”
“Oh come on! I’m resting!” the Yamatai girl pouted. “The Professor would never let me read Hoshiko in the lab! Ooh, this is such a good issue, too! She’s fighting Shadow Mistress Setsuna, her worst enemy after the Dark Warlord Daichiro! Setsuna’s, like, an evil version of Hoshiko so their battles are sooooo epic!”
Carys maintained a serene smile as Aoi squealed and kept going on about the manga she was reading. She never had the same taste for Yamatai entertainment that Aoi did, though she recalled Vincent and Lionel reading a bit of manga a time or two. If only they could have slacked off in class with that instead of that damnable grimoire…
“Ooh! Sorry, Carys!” Aoi muttered sheepishly. “I talk waaay too much! I know!”
“It’s quite all right. It wasn’t you, Aoi,” the sorceress said. “Rather, my mind got to wandering to places where it ought not be.”
“Vinnie and Lionel again?” the Yamatai girl asked, her demeanor turning serious despite the casual way she referred to Vincent. “Y’know, I think he feels bad enough about that, especially since he got cursed.”
“Perhaps.” Carys shrugged, before calling the server over. “A Royal Sundae, if you please.”
“Well, this chat sure became a downer…” Aoi thought with a sigh, finding herself at a loss for words for once.
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Moggies In Space is gonna shake up all my plans for a quiet, pet-free summer.
Long story including sadness when two black kittens died the same day, just a week after we brought them home. We never knew why.
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Aw, man! Sorry to hear that.
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we still don’t know hwy our lovely Helena died after 2 months with us. We have suspicions but no cause. My condolences.
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The music blared out, “Shake your grove thing” .
“So just what is your grove thing?” Barghod the Crystilian asked.
“it’s just kinda like your inner free spirit” fourteen year old Lisa replied.
“My inner free spirit is telling me to pull out my katana and slay you all” Barghod answered.
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LOL :lol:
Especially, if that “music” hurts his ears. :wink:
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“No not that one, the one where you were happy and free” Lisa said.
“I’d be happy and free if I could take out my katana and slay you all” Barghod replied.
“Don’t you guys ever just relax and mellow out” Lisa asked.
“No” Barghod answered.
“Okay how about if you looked at it like a mating dance?” Lisa asked.
“There is no one here I wish to mate with. Besides mating time is a whole decade away” Barghod answered.
“Geez louize, if you only get laid every ten years, no wonder you want to kill everything” Lisa opined.
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She may have a point Barghod thought to himself.
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Grove thing? Ent-omology?
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Yeah, does that mean your ‘inner free spirit’ or ‘inner tree spirit’? :-P
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“Actually sugar rockets have proved quite useful moving small goods here in the satellite” He told his daughter as she prepared the product. “The fuel formula and mixing is simple and easy”
He continued, “I would provide one word of caution thought, Sally, you should stir it, not shake it.”
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Servants, pale and shaking, hurried forward to help, ignored the wild blows he sent their way, and had his broken leg bound up and himself drugged on poppy extract before anyone noticed that Kevin had vanished.
In that commotion, the king closed his eyes for a minute before raising his voice. “Liam showed as much judgment. More, indeed, than I did. I was too angry to think before I spoke. He fled before he faced danger.”
Rosaleen could think of nothing to say. Her own soldiers had, wisely, not held him, if indeed, they had noticed more than anyone else.
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The ship shook violently, rattling James’ teeth in his mouth as he clutched onto the controls. “Status!” he yelled.
“Drive field is crystallizing!” Aofie replied, her fingers dancing across her panel. “We’re caught in a CDP torpedo’s wake!” The shudders slowed down as a high-pitched whine began to come through the deck plates. “I’ve got the capsule drive stabilized but that was far too close!”
James flipped up the protective cover on his control panel and hit the red button under it. “Action stations,” he enunciated. “If we got one CDP torp on us, there could be ano…”
The ship lurched in what felt like three dimensions and the lights went out for a moment.
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“Run!”
The young girl looked up, caught by his words just before she headed out after the fish flopping in the mud out beyond the beach.
“Why? There are all kinds of cool stuff out there!”
“Yes,” he replied. “But, though we don’t know what causes the ground to shake like that, we do know that when it does and the ocean pulls back like it is doing now, that it will come rushing back with an overwhelming violence. Now. We must run for the hills of we want to live.”
He turned and ran without looking back to see if she followed.
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According to the label, the stuff in this pouch was supposed to be a milkshake. Inject water (generated by the fuel cell that powered the rover) and enjoy.
In practice, Shelly found it chalky and the strawberry flavor a little too intense. Then there was the fizziness of water made by the fuel cell, which always had little bubbles of incompletely reacted hydrogen and oxygen dissolved in it. Too bad the people at NASA hadn’t thought to give it a sassafras flavor and label it a root beer float. Maybe then it might actually create the illusion of something she might’ve enjoyed on a hot summer day at the county fair back home in Wisconsin.
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Liked this vignette — I could almost taste that not-quite-right milkshake!
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Okay, space combat, paranoia, comedy, and teenage romance:
Chief Petty Officer Tynan, Finlandia’s ranking survivor, explained that, unlike in popular entertainment, a ship in combat does not shake violently when absorbing a hit, nor was there much noise. “All that happened,” she said, “was the lights went out, then a whole lot of panicked voices on the intercom.”
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The fat guy in the downstairs apartment was gone. Kenneth wondered if the information he gave the Deputy Inspector had anything to do with it. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being morally soiled any more than he could shake the idea that the police had something on him, too.
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Nigel Slim-Howland pressed “play,” starting a raucous Jerry Lee Lewis tune. His guests began to dance, and even his butler Jenkins joined in, with moves that would shame Michael Jackson! Nigel didn’t know who installed the dance module, but old guys dancing, even if they were robot Companions, were fun.
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Max, athletic and graceful, glided effortlessly around the dance floor, leading Cari, who couldn’t stop shaking in her high heels. She felt awkward and clumsy, and maybe a bit jealous of Max’s adroitness. But, she thought with a little smirk, all the other girls in here are jealous of me!
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They howled in rage and circled about him. Glad of the stone at his back, Marcus glanced from side to side, ensuring they could not attack, and marshaled his wits. Not being shaken would not save him. He had to counterattack.
“Tear his throat out!” bellowed the Huntsman, emerging from the trees. It took him several moments to see the hounds trying, and he looked shaken by the discovery.
Marcus raised his hands again. He did not see why his attack would not work like arrows, and he shot the silver light at the Huntsman, aiming as best he could.
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“The king would not learn necromancy,” said Nell, her voice shaking.
“Of course he would not,” said Will. “Kings are knights. They have wizards to learn things. They take the spellcraft to give them powers. If he’s a deathsprung knight, he needs deaths to give him strength for his prowess.”
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“Crap!” Paul whispered to himself when felt the floor shake slightly. The last solid door between the party and the undead had fallen.
The situation was dire. The rifles were empty and the two smart gunners had only about 100 rounds between them. Absent a miracle that would not be enough to stop all the attackers. Living enemies were cautious when facing experienced fighters but the damned undead — literally dammed — just kept coming. Once the smart guns went empty it would come to pistols and then swords.
He had really hoped to make it home for his third daughter’s fifth birthday.
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Slow, tired-sounding footsteps ascended the ancient stairway behind her. It wasn’t too surprising someone had decided to join her in her lonely dim-twilight watch… despite how the Forvestri ultimatum had demanded they all surrender the city by daybreak, or “face the consequences.”
Despite the harried, almost-desperate effort yesterday’s dusk message had set off, among military and magical practitioners alike. (Though, for at least a few like herself, the oracles’ guidance had been… to wait. Only and simply to wait.)
What was surprising, at least a little, was that the man coming slowly up into view in the wan pre-dawn gloaming was… “Grand-Magister Feuergrau?”
“Greetings, High-Priestess Illionari. Perhaps I even have somewhat of good tidings to pass on to you.” His voice fell as weary as his walk.
“Have the Forvest armies retracted their ultimatum? Or at least, made it any later or more clear?” It was almost difficult not to fall into synchrony with the Magister’s ponderously archaic phrasing and deliberate cadences. Almost, even for someone like her.
“Neither, as far as I know. But I have, I am sure, purchased us some few hours of a breathing space.” And he smiled a secret sort of smile, all at once at odds with his fatigue. “If this dawn comes any the later, even the hasty Forvestri would be loath to prove themselves forsworn.”
And a chill that had nothing to do with the morning damp shot through her, from skin past flesh into her very bones. “Arved Feuergrau, what have you done?” He was a man seldom or never to boast… without a right.
And his soft subtle smile chilled her all the more. “Mage strives against mage in battle magics, offensive and defensive both, to a standstill. So goes the short summary of this past night. But there are far older and far more dire magics in the deep records of this old and hallowed city… and I have hunted and found, striven and succeeded. Our world has now paused in its turnings; the astronomers say the stars above have come to rest.”
And it felt as if the blood froze in her veins, even the air in her lungs did as well. “But such titanic magics… I felt no trace.”
Then she remembered a brief moment of something like disorientation, as if the world had tilted; so very subtle, and what she’d put down to fear.
“But the secret is to still all the world together, the land and the air and the waters and everything that lives and grows upon it. So that there is not the least quiver, between any part and any other.” (Briefly, Dessa Illionari pictured a carelessness otherwise… woods and seas and houses and people screaming headlong suddenly at hundreds of miles an hour across a very swiftly stopped landscape.) He smiled, as if in love of beauty.
“There is an old saying, my dearest High Priestess of the Temple of All Blessed Divine Women — ‘Magic triumphs utterly over mere mechanics.’ And I find it impossible to believe these horse-nomads of the Forvestri would have any writings or lore going so far back and deep.”
“Arved, have you accounted for the turning that flees the center?” Even in her utter shock, his old-time speech was contagious.
“I… you mean the force that pulls on even the water in a bucket you whirl about you in a circle? The old spells said nothing of it… and I neither, now that you mention it. Surely that could not be much, for something that turns only once a day.”
Dessa’s eyes went wide. “Some dozens of miles in the shape of the world, across the thousands of miles from pole to equator. A tilt that will now be… abruptly trying to correct itself.”
And as if the very globe of Dea Aristi herself agreed, there came a faint and ambiguous shudder up through the stone fabric of the castle.
“You must put this right, Arved. Never mind for now the sunward side of our world will soon enough broil, and the nightward side freeze; this is likely of a far more urgent nature. I could ask some of the younger and more learned of our priestesses on the precise mechanics of it…”
And then it struck her, with the force of an onrushing blessing of fate. As a yet more potent and longer-lasting trembling shook again the Tower of Dark Storms.
“Can you resume the turning of our world, Grand-Magister Feuergrau, but in the opposite direction to before? I mean, surely you did not mean to condemn the entire world aside from a narrow twilight band to burn or chill forever, you must necessarily have prepared a counterspell!”
And his face could’ve been carved from stone, for a timeless moment; that passed.
“So it seems you have the right of it, my dear Dessa. Instead of a very slowly receding twilight, as the sun itself moves on its yearly course, the brightening of dawn will undo itself here. Only half a day from now, when our world has turned back halfway, will what was the dusk of last evening come back to us — and the Forvestri hordes — as oncoming dawn.
“Even they must surely be impressed, over the long strange night between.”
And it was, despite the weariness and his white hair, as if the old Grand Magister of the Order of Loreful Magicians was half a teenager again.
And all and entirely in closest kinship with the hunting wolf of the forest.
“Quick, my mad and valiant friend. Quickly, before this world beneath us shakes so badly our City of Blessed Days lays down its strong old walls at last and welcomes these leathery barbarians inside! All the magical resources of our First Temple here are fully yours now to command!” Now, the ordained wait made perfect sense.
He stretched out his hand to her, in comradeship. She took it swiftly, eagerly.
The stone stairway drizzled dust on them as they ran united and determined together back down into the near-eternal bowels of the Dark Tower.
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Nice set of promos today! Thanks!
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“‘Ere! Sir! You one o’ them rozzers?”
Fixx spun around to see the same street urchin who had picked Passepartout’s pocket. He instinctively felt for his wallet before responding.
“And what can I do for you, my lad?” He noted the boy was looking thinner than before, and was shaking in the cold. His voice softened. “When was the last time you had a meal?”
“Proper meal?” The boy paused. “Couple days, maybe. But I heard something you might want to know. For the right price.”
I must be going soft, Fixx thought. “Tell you what. Come along with me, I’ll get you a meal and I’ll pay you too. Down the street here’s a place you can get a decent meat pie.”
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Not Mrs. Lovett’s place, I hope! :-o
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Evening was still light enough that the deer in the headlights wasn’t a complete surprise.
Good brakes. Trot faster, damn you! flashed through the driver’s head as her Suburban slowed to the outside of the road, immediately picking up speed again as the deer didn’t get a well-deserved cleansing from the gene pool.
Good thing that guy wasn’t tailgating She thought, glancing in the rear view mirror at the headlights straightening up behind her.
I’m getting better at this. That barely even raised my heartrate.
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