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

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: City and Secrets: Shikari Book 7

Lost cities, ancient secrets, and rumors of treachery …

Auriga “Rigi” Bernardi-Prananda finds society—and trespassing wildlife—a trial. When Lieutenant Colonel Tomás Prananda suggests going to the wilderness on the tropics of the north coast in order to investigate a ruined city, she quickly agrees. After all, Shikhari’s native fauna only kill. They do not indulge in slander, gossip, and intrigue.

A storm sweeps the sea onto the land, and a military storm sweeps the Prananda family into greater danger. Failed energy shields and jammed communications are only the first hints of trouble. Soon, Rigi finds herself trying to support her family—both human and native Staré—as Tomás awaits trial for dereliction of duty. Yet the neglected duty was never his.

As predators native and human stalk closer, Rigi finds herself playing the Great Game once more. Could a slingball tournament and tail wrestler lead to the real culprit? It will take all of Rigi’s training, faith, and determination to meet the challenge.

Secrets and cities, storms and shadows, are no match for a determined mother and wife. The female of the species may well prove more deadly than the male!

FROM JOHN C. WRIGHT: Starquest: Scourge of the Spaceways

Athos, now Captain of a cutthroat pirate band, slays devil priests and burns slavers’ palaces! How long before the menace of Ahab, King of Pirates, lays him low?
Ansteel, exiled from life as a legionnaire, approaches the jeweled world where his destiny awaits. Will he hold to the Empire of his birth, or enter a strange, new life?
Nightshadow has lost a useful agent, but Napoleon has lost a lovely girl! What faceless force corrupts even men of sterling honesty in the senate?
Has Lyra lost all hope? Will her foster father be never found? Will her dead world be forgotten?
Where is Arcadia?

DIRE DEATH AND DARK DEEDS TO BE SEEN
IN OUR NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT:

STARQUEST: SCOURGE OF THE SPACEWAYS

FROM RICHARD PAOLINELLI: Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe

One detective. Two suspects. A conspiracy big enough to kill them all.

In the 25th Century, Galactic Justice upholds the law across the Milky Way.

They use the HALO to extract confessions from the guilty. For the most heinous of crimes, the guilty are erased and a new personality is uploaded in their place.

Samuel Archer Spade is a private detective on Space Station 1964 on the far edge of the galaxy. He’s a former GalJus Inspector whose conscious couldn’t square with using the HALO.
Spade is at his usual spot, his unofficial office on Norma, when a knockout blonde in a red dress, walks into The Galaxy’s Edge, the station’s bar. She’s on the run from an unwanted admirer.

But when the man arrives on the station, he’s looking to hire Spade himself. He’s claiming she has stolen something from him, As Spade tries to sort out who is telling the truth, GalJus arrives looking for both of his clients for a murder committed on another planet.

Trying to find the truth will lead Spade to discover a dark secret. Some elements within GalJus are using the HALO to frame innocent people. Even worse, they’re programming people to commit murder.

That’s a secret GalJus is willing to kill for and both Sam, and his clients, are right at the top of their list.

FROM JAMES Y. BARTLETT: The Song of Asaph: A Musical Mystery Featuring Johann Sebastian Bach (The Bach Musical Mystery series Book 3)

An ancient song composed by King David’s chief musician Asaph, discovered by the Teutonic Crusaders to the Holy Land, returned to Germany, then divided into four fragments and hidden to prevent the fearsome powers of God unleashed if the Song is ever played …
This is the legend pursued by the 15-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach and his schoolmate Georg Erdmann in 1700 as they walk the 250 miles from their small town of Ohrdruf to the northern city of Lüneburg to join the St. Michael’s School choir. Piecing together the song one fragment at a time, the boys find themselves pursued by the relentless Black Monk, Absalom, who is desperate to protect the Song’s powerful secrets. The Song of Asaph is a page-turning, musical thriller that will appeal to readers of all ages.

FROM DALE COZORT: Wokuo Incursion

Invasion from an alternate timeline?
It’s December 1937 in a world exactly like ours except that it is about to veer wildly into alternate history. It’s less than two years before World War II broke out historically in Europe. War has already come to much of Asia, with Japan invading China. An isolationist US fears it will be drawn into that conflict, especially after the Japanese sink the US gunboat Panay. Just when President Franklin Roosevelt thinks he has that crisis under control, he faces a bigger issue. High tech descendants of the Wokuo, Japanese pirates and smugglers who should have vanished over three hundred years ago, flood into the Pacific coast off California.

The Wokuo are both refugees and invaders, fleeing from war in an alternate reality where they survived and grew strong, while looking for new conquests to replace their lost empire. They set their sights on California. President Roosevelt sends disgraced former Colonel Martin to California to organize resistance to the invaders, but the Colonel has his own issues, buried deep in his brain and waiting to cause disaster.

FROM RANDY BROWN: The Drop: Season One

Twelve people. Randomly dropped on an unexplored alien planet in the ultimate test of survival. Some will live, some will not. First one to the flag wins.

Embark on a survival contest like no other in the galaxy, where twelve contestants are thrust into the ultimate challenge on the uncharted planet Alpha. As they navigate treacherous terrains, from icy wastelands to arid deserts to thick jungles, and face unknown creatures, their every move is streamed to billions on Earth. With high stakes, unexpected dangers, and the constant threat of elimination, this gripping tale of adventure and human resilience will keep you on the edge of your seat. Will someone conquer the wilds of Alpha and claim victory, or will the planet’s mysteries prove too formidable? Dive into the suspense and discover who will rise to the top in this thrilling saga.

EDITED BY STEPHEN DIAMOND: Glitched Grimm: Twisted Fairy Tales with Terror (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 62)

I’ve always been fascinated with fairy tales. No, not the sanitized versions with singing raccoons or whatever. I mean the cautionary tales. The ones where the point of the story is to warn. Don’t trust strangers. Elves and fairies want to eat you. Witches don’t sing showtunes just because they are “misunderstood.” Monsters are monsters. If they are sexy, it’s for the purpose of killing you easier.

And so we come to the point of this anthology.

The idea of taking fairy tales back to their dark roots—to the horror and dread in them—was one of the premier goals of the stories presented beyond this introduction. Twisting them in dark and imaginative ways. Another of my goals was to have a few stories that would make the reader chuckle as things go horrifically bad for the characters. Horror and humor are often found skipping arm-in-arm over the river and through the woods together, after all.

https://amzn.to/4pUNAJVFROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Days of No Ink: A Sketchbook

Every year I make art every day during the month of October. This book contains five years of selected art from those months, along with the prompts which guided my hands. Watch me grow, and hear me tell you that you can do this, with any kind of art you choose.

Black and white. No pen. No ink. Five years of artworks to amuse, spark a story, and hopefully inspire you, too, to take the prompt challenge with me. Come along and see what you can do!

BY HENRY KUTTNER, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Elak of Atlantis (Annotated): The complete classic sword & sorcery tales

Join Elak on perilous quests across the ancient world! These four classic sword-and-sorcery tales by the masterful Henry Kuttner take us to realms of wonder and terror.

Across the mystical landscapes of lost Atlantis, Elak faces down ferocious monsters, cunning foes, and alien magical arts. With his unmatched skill with a sword and unyielding will to survive, Elak battles to protect the innocent and vanquish evil in this action-packed collection.

With their unique blend of swashbuckling adventure, fantastical world-building, and Lovecraftian horror, Kuttner’s Elak tales have captivated fans of fantasy and science fiction for generations.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the stories genre and historical context.

FROM MARY CATELLI: Writing And Reflections: Essays on the writing process from world-building to words

Reflections on the many and far-flung fields that writing can touch upon, from original inspiration to the final work.

Wizards. Metaphysics. Verbs. Fairy tales in all their varied glory. Royalty. Time, how to measure it and how to talk about it. Elves. Piracy. The end of empires. The sword and the sorcery and how they might work together, or not. Past perfect voice. Blue curtains. And more.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Key to the Rift: A Fantasy Adventure Novel (The Fantasy Books)

The Rift is more than a wound upon the earth—it is a gateway to ruin.

When an aged and cursed traveler delivers a dying warning, Paladin Eldric and his companions are thrust into a perilous quest. The barbarian hordes march toward the kingdom, seeking relics of ancient power—an unbreakable shield, a staff of sorcery, and a sword forged in light. Hidden deep within the ruins of a fallen palace and guarded by a red dragon, these relics are the last hope for the realm’s survival.

Eldric, Mira, Toren, Liora, and Garrick must risk everything to claim the relics before the barbarians arrive. But the Rift holds shadows older than memory, and even victory comes at a terrible cost.

Heroism, sacrifice, and cunning will decide their fate—yet the dragon’s fire is not so easily quenched, and the storm of war is only beginning.

The Key to the Rift is a fast-paced, classic-inspired fantasy adventure filled with danger, ancient magic, and the courage of unlikely heroes.

COMING OUT ON THE 7TH FROM SARAH A. HOYT: This volume completes the saga: No Man’s Land: Volume 3 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

No Man’s Land

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.


Volume 3
Skip’s idea of crisis management?
Stress baking. While he’s kneading away his anxiety, Eerlen Troz is fighting for his life—and his unborn child’s—in an ancient and familiar battle.
When saving Eerlen’s life requires forging an unexpected blood brotherhood, it creates something neither person anticipated: a memory bond between two worlds.
Through shared consciousness, they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not just Elly, but the entire Star Empire.
The plot runs deeper than anyone imagined. Lives, fortunes, and freedom itself hang in the balance. But exposing the truth means surviving long enough to tell it—and their enemies have other plans. Two minds. One mission. A galaxy-spanning conspiracy that someone will kill to protect.
When the fate of worlds rests on an unlikely brotherhood forged in blood and baked goods.

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: The Root of All Evil

When murder comes to Stockton, it brings long-buried secrets in its wake…

Kate Bereton leads a busy but unexciting life as the clergyman’s only daughter in a small Dorsetshire village. She’s grateful for the break in routine heralded by the arrival of her stepmother’s latest guests, but when Kate discovers a dead body in the parsonage one morning, she finds herself in much more danger than she could have ever anticipated. Terrified and desperate, she turns to the local magistrate for help. Mr. Reddington is eager to aid his dear friend Miss Bereton, but can they discover the murderer before it’s too late, and the secrets of the past are forgotten forever?

With a dash of romance and a generous helping of mystery, The Root of All Evil is a charming whodunit that will delight fans of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie alike.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox

To save the future, sometimes you have to reach to the past to change it. And in the face of extinction, you do what you must, regardless of who stands in the way.


Cataclysm

Unlucky jerk Tom Beadle was on watch at NASA when the collision alert sounded: a new asteroid, bigger than the dino-killer, headed for Earth. Big problem, but that’s why we have NASA, right? Except, after decades of budget cuts, NASA has no way to shove it off course. That job has to be contracted out. Will the private sector company his best friend from college works at succeed where the government option failed? Might be best to have a backup plan, just in case…

Heisenberg’s Point of Observation

Thomas Sutton was not your average fourteen year old, not even in an Ark City. Born in one of the three refuges of the last remnants of life on earth, deep underground, he knows his history. A century after an asteroid shattered and struck the earth, they have been trapped below by volcanic eruptions, toxic gasses, and radioactive dust. But what if he could…change things? What if he could reach the past, to prevent the asteroid’s impact?

Entanglement

Tom Beadle only volunteered for NASA’s neighborhood watch program when his department said it would maybe help him get tenure.None of them counted on the Neighborhood Watch becoming a mortifying political liability when a malfunctioning probe accidently reveals an asteroid hiding behind the larger outer planets, setting off impact alarms– and politicians looking for blame. When their answer is to defund the Watch program and fire all involved, Tom’s only chance to save the earth is to lie through his teeth and try to deflect the asteroid under cover of harvesting rare not-of-this-earth elements. And even that may not work.

FROM C. CHANCY: The Words of the Night (Colors of Another Sky Book 1)

It’s 1618. Do you know where your historian is?

Retirement wasn’t supposed to have dragons….

Historian Jason Finn crossed the planet to escape the Black Dog of depression – and almost got there. Over the mountains of Korea, a monster out of nightmares tore his plane from the sky… and into another world.

Hunting down ravenous shapeshifting pirates, Night Magistrate Lee Cheong found survivors from elsewhere. Survivors who say pirates are not the only threat. Over twenty years ago Hanyang burned in dragon flames… and that monster still lives.

Now the young magistrate must lead demon-hunters on a desperate chase, aided by a bandit sharpshooter, a seafolk medic, a Heavenly cultivator on the run for her life… and a time-lost historian.

Jason’s willing to help, but he’s cursed, fighting to survive, and struggling to understand a land of magic and monsters. All the while doing his best to keep a teenage girl alive.

Upside? Jason’s definitely not depressed….

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Perfect Darkness

When Pavlik becomes obsessed with the idea of seeing perfect darkness, it becomes a distraction from the pod’s duty as asteroid miners. Little does he know that danger lies in opening one’s mind to the things that lurk in perfect darkness. Things that endanger his pod-brothers, even all of Briar’s Children.

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: DIVISION