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 KEN LIZZI: Cesar the Bravo

Cesar, a sometimes-condottiero and a bravo by trade, has earned a reputation as one of the best swords for hire in the city of Plenum. If you need a foe humiliated before a cheering crowd, he’s your man!

There’s good money to be made—at least enough to pay for fine clothes and cheap wine—but Plenum is a dangerous city filled with corrupt nobles vying for power, crooked merchants and conmen looking for marks, and every manner of hired muscle looking to cozy up or make a name for themselves… not to mention the occasional rampaging demon loose in the streets!

At the heart of power in Plenum is the Collegium: an exclusive aristocratic body of mages who hold a monopoly on magic. Cesar finds himself inexorable drawn into the city’s power struggles, as one of the most pre-eminent members of that esteemed collective finds he has a use for the bravo!

FROM SAM ROBB: Sigils

An open door is an invitation… but you may not like what waits on the other side.
James O’Neil is about to learn the hard way that names have power, and his graffiti tags can open doors in the forgotten byways of Pittsburgh. After an accidental summoning of a powerful and malevolent Fae, he only manages to escape by the intervention of other taggers. On the run, James needs allies, and answers, but everything seems to be conspiring against him and his world is falling apart around him. He can’t fight this alone…

FROM LISA DOLAN: THE BROOKLYN WITCH: The Battle for Brooklyn

HARRY POTTER MEETS THE SOPRANOS IN A MAGICAL BROOKLYN SHOWDOWN.

The Brooklyn Witch, Speranza O’Rourke, operates a spiritual shop amid the bakeries and bodegas of Carroll Gardens. Raised by her feuding grandmothers, Nonna and Grannie Meg, who only agree on their love for her. Speranza is the fiery fusion of Irish charm and Italian drama, armed with spells, street smarts, and an unshakable loyalty to her family and neighborhood that runs bone deep.

Speranza navigates the secret realm of the Never-Never, where faeries lurk just beyond mortal sight. When Queen Mab, the ruthless Queen of the Sidhe, claims her as a vassal, Speranza must choose between power and her family’s legacy.
With a murder mystery, a legendary monster, a magical haunting linked to Al Capone, and a deadly Warlock threatening Brooklyn’s Magical balance, she’s drawn into a battle royale that could tear open the veil between realms.

This is the first in a series chronicling the adventures of The Brooklyn Witch. A gritty, mystical tale where neighborhood loyalty, Old World Magic, and Mafia sensibilities collide.

Come with us on this Wild Ride as we Take the Cannoli and Leave the Magic.

FROM M. K. WEAVING: Aubade

You just woke up and find yourself onboard the spaceship Aubade escaping Earth. Forever. Last thing you remember is going to bed. On Earth.

Sara wakes up onboard the interstellar spaceship Aubade and realizes she’s lost everyone and everything she’s ever loved back on Earth. Forever. As she begins to adapt to her new life as the Historian onboard Aubade, she is determined to find out who selected her against her will.

Once the crew of Aubade land on a foreign planet tensions rise and suspicions grow between the defense team and the engineering team. Commander Stapleton recruits her to unravel a crucial situation within the defense database, and despite her lack of expertise, Sara reluctantly agrees to help. As relationships develop and Sara finds out more and more about this mission, she must confront her fears and navigate the complexities of her new life.

• A space opera for all you sci-fi fans who love Ripley and Sarah Connor and all the strong female leads in action movies.
• A dystopian sci-fi adventure distilled through a strangely romantic and pulpy lens.
• This book is like that TV-series you binge. It’s a combo of all the sci-fi movies you’ve seen, mixed with romance and futuristic technology we barely understand, and characters you end up rooting for!

https://amzn.to/3LBpt3bFROM SCOTT MCCREA: U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint: Flint’s Honor: A Western Adventure (A U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint Western Book 8)

Another pulse-pounding Marshal Ezra Flint adventure from award-winning author Scott McCrea!

Marshal Ezra Flint and reformed desperado Black Jack Timmons stop ranchers from lynching Clay Morley. Flint is convinced Morley is innocent and finds a job for him working at the Estrada ranch just outside of town.

But when Jake and Diane Estrada are found brutally murdered and Morley missing, Flint and Black Jack start down a long road ending in violence and misery. Was Flint right in letting young Morley go? Or was someone else guilty… someone gunning for Clay Morley?

Flint and Black Jack race against time to learn the truth, a truth that might shake Ezra Flint to his very soul.

“…hard to put down. If you like good Western fiction, you will love this book.” – Roundup Magazine review of Hard as Flint

“All very entertaining. I do recommend these tales.” – Jeff Arnold’s West

FROM MARY CATELLI: Even After

Mirror, mirror on the wall — can I be safe when I am tall?

Rumpelstiltskin got the baby.

Rapunzel and her prince never again met.

Snow White still sleeps in the forest.

Biancabella, Snow White’s half-sister, knows that if she is more beautiful than her mother, trouble will follow again. Her appeal to the magic mirror only gains her stories of how hard it is to fight the evil sorceresses and wizards and witches who have banded together to bring unhappy endings.

But with her mother seeking to constrain her, Biancabella knows she may have no choice to use that knowledge to attempt to escape.

FROM M. LEE MOORE: Logan Mitchell and the Glitch in the Grid: (Book 1) Mars Colony Science Fiction Adventure Series for Teens and Young Adult – Perfect for Ages 10-18

Logan Mitchell is a 13-year-old colonist on Mars who’s always trying to make things better. But when one of his clever ideas spirals out of control, a small experiment turns into a colony-wide crisis. The digital helper system meant to make life easier has gone rogue, and now it’s calling the shots. As systems fail and danger grows, Logan and his friends must race against time to shut it down before the colony is lost for good.

Logan Mitchell and the Glitch in the Grid is a thrilling sci-fi adventure about innovation, responsibility, and courage under pressure. A vintage sci-fi adventure for modern kids, this series is perfect for fans of The City of Ember, Space Case, and Ender’s Game.

BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: 3 Ways of Lead (Annotated): A Pulp Western Omnibus

Charles Alden Seltzer was one of the first crop of western authors, a contemporary of Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine. But he *really* hit his stride in 1921, and these three post-1921 novels prove it!

Brass Commandments

“He’s man’s size, goin’ an’ comin’. No show, no fuss; likes to play a lone hand. Cool an’ easy an’ dangerous. Two-gun. Throws ’em so fast that you can’t see ’em. Lightnin’s slow when Lannon moves his gun-hand. Dead shot; cold as an iceberg under fire.”

Such was the opinion in Bozzam City of Flash Lannon. Five years of getting an education back East might have tamed him, some, but when rustlers target his cattle, and the local law doesn’t care, Lannon nails a new law to the wall of the local post office: his brass commandments naming the five men who must leave the country — or die.

Five named men… and “one other.”

Last Hope Ranch

When Ned Templin rode out of the desert to the Last Hope Ranch, Lisbeth Stanton was grateful, because he saved her from having to kill a man. But when Templin told her he was staying, and that he was an outlaw, and that a posse was on his trail looking to hang him for murder, her opinion changed a little.

And it kept changing, for Templin was an enigma, with secrets and motivations she never could have guessed. And, it turned out, so was her father, whom she had been with her whole life but never really known. Between Sheriff Norton and his posse, and the criminal gang Blaisdell’s Raiders, secrets would out, and bullets would fly, at the Last Hope Ranch!

The Way of the Buffalo

When Jim Cameron saved a stranger’s life, he hardly expected that stranger to promise to shoot him dead.

Sunset Ballantine wasn’t bothered that a man had tried to shoot him from a distance — no bullet had ever touched him, despite living his long years in the west and getting into many a gunfight. He *was* bothered that this Easterner was going to run a railroad right past his front door in sixty days. And even more bothered that the man didn’t change his mind once the threat was issued. Ballantine’s word was iron law in Ransome, always had been. Yet this Cameron, understanding full well that Ballantine meant it, and would undoubtedly beat him to the draw in any fair fight, was pushing ahead anyway.

Would Cameron back down? Would Ballantine go back on his word? Could an old western hand face down the forces of Progress, or must he go the way of the buffalo?

• This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions giving the novels historical and genre context.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Passing of the Age

Once, gods and Titans went to war because humanity existed and the Titans…didn’t like that. Will, the blacksmith’s apprentice, was born long after the war’s bitter, destructive, last gasp. It left the land scarred, leaving behind the Wastes, a massive pit in the landscape, dug by poisoned magic. The old world was lost in the ashes, and survivors were left with so little that any who didn’t pull their weight (or had something someone powerful wanted) were exiled to starve in the Wastes.

Just. Like. Will.

Cast out to the Wastes because his father remarried and his stepmother had wanted her children to inherit, he turned to his master, the smith. The smith, who had held Will back to keep using his labor for free, refused to go against the rest of the village, angry though he was to lose Will’s labor. In lieu of the honestly-earned status of journeyman that would have protected Will from exile, his master gave him a bag of grave goods: a hammer (but not a good one), tongs (that were rusting to pieces), and a file (more than half worn out). And two small coins to pay the ferryman when he reached the river dividing life from death.

Will entered the wastes with the clothes on his back, inadequate grave goods, and determination to live through it, in spite of his village. And a mission given him by the Land, and by the god of the wild places, to take the knife he made with his grave goods to the very center of the Wastes. There, he will find his destiny.

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 DAVE FREER, PROMETHEUS NOMINATED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY MY FANS WITH LITTLE BOYS: Storm-Dragon

On the treacherous Vann’s World, Skut battles a savage wind and deadly hamerkops to rescue a mysterious, telepathic creature. Fleeing a rising tide and a menacing Loor-beast, he forms an unexpected bond with the tiny, electric-charged being that sees him as its protector. As Skut navigates the perilous tidal tiers, his impulsive escape from Highpoint Station unravels into a fight for survival—both for himself and his newfound companion.

Podge is the new kid in town, trying to keep his head down. Meeting Skut is about the only bright spot in his introduction to this strange new world. The boys bond over Skut’s creature, and trying to avoid the class bullies. This is only the beginning; soon Skut finds his new friends do not ease the growing concerns of the adults around him while the town is coming under a mysterious threat. What can two boys and a tiny storm-dragon do?

FROM KAREN MYERS: Bound into the Blood – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 4)

DISTURBING THE FAMILY SECRETS COULD BRING RUIN TO EVERYTHING HE’S WORKED SO HARD TO BUILD.

George Talbot Traherne, the human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is preparing for the birth of his child by exploring the family papers about his parents and their deaths. When his improved relationship with his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, is jeopardized by an unexpected opposition, he finds he must choose between loyalty to family and loyalty to a god.

He discovers he doesn’t know either of them as well as he thought he did. His search for answers takes him to the human world with unsuitable companions.

How will he keep a rock-wight safe from detection, or even teach her the rules of the road? And what will he awaken in the process, bringing disaster back to his family on his own doorstep? What if his loyalty is misplaced? What will be the price of his mistakes?

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Lunar Surface Blues

The High Frontier is no place for foolishness, but nature can always make a better idiot.

Four years ago, Molly’s parents brought her up here to the Moon when their work brought them to Shepardsport. In the time since that move, she’s earned her place here and a seat on this field trip. Only one problem — she’s been given the worst possible EVA partner.

A pencil-necked dweeb with an attitude, Benji wants to be one of the guys. But his stunts keep putting them both in danger, and the adults keep blaming Molly.

When Benji gets in over his head, can Molly save him before it costs both their lives?

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

SOME WRITERS AND THEIR INSUFFERABLE SELF PROMOTION: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

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 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

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: LUMBER