Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, 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. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM MEL DUNAY: Pride & Planetoids (The Stars By Degrees Book 1)

With only three years remaining on Albion’s hundred-year lease in the Kuiper Belt, Elizabeth Bennet has rather more pressing concerns than her mother’s nerves. Terrorist attacks on Albion by a rival power are increasing. Mrs. DeBourgh is buying up shares in the Bennets’ mining consortium, with an eye towards gaining control. And events keep putting William Darcy, commander of Albion’s most powerful warship, in Elizabeth’s path.

His manners are cold, his judgment unerring, and he’s Mrs. DeBourgh’s nephew. Elizabeth isn’t sure which one is his worst trait, but she is sure that they are all unforgiveable…

Except that she has misjudged him. Considerably. He shares her vision of Albion’s future, and he’s willing to risk everything to bring it to life.

A Jane Austen fan fiction retelling of Pride and Prejudice in space, for readers of Lois McMaster Bujold and Georgette Heyer.

WITH A STORY BY ROBERT MILLER: Hostile Skies (A Bayonet Books Anthology Book 18)

The skies have turned hostile.

When an incomprehensible entity begins “surveying” the solar system—correcting reality itself—Mars Colony learns the terrifying truth: observation is invitation, and variance is a death sentence. On Earth, the remnants of humanity watch as an unknown fleet emerges from Martian space, its drone swarms descending with mechanical indifference.

Whether it’s scientists racing to go silent before reality folds around them, pilots cheating death in the void, or young cadets facing machines that defy physics, these stories ask one brutal question:
When the stars themselves become the enemy, what price will humanity pay to remain interesting?

For fans of hard military sci-fi, alien invasion thrillers, and tales of desperate resistance.

The invasion has begun. The skies are no longer ours.

FROM FRED PHILLIPS: Sons of Gold and Fire: A Boy, a Dragon, and an Impossible Quest

From the award-winning Gold and Fire Series — Winner of the 28th Annual Critters Readers’ Poll (1st Place, Tied), Finalist for the 2026 Imadjinn Awards Best Middle Grade, and Nominee for the 2025 Kearsells Indie Book Awards.

Aron’s brothers are gone, snatched by goblins in the night. His father and his knight-master rode after them into the mountains and never came back. The only one who can fix this is Aron — and the great golden dragon who is his best friend.

But Doubloon has been snared in a wizard’s enchanted trap, held fast by a net that his own fire cannot burn through. With his family imprisoned and his dragon helpless, Aron is out of options.

His only move is across the mountains. Alone. No harness. No wings. No backup — except a smart-mouthed goblin who talks, a couple with dark ideas about adoption, a sabrecat who takes his last strip of jerky, and one massive platinum dragon who actively despises humans.

Sons of Gold and Fire is a quest story that never lets up. Packed with monsters, narrow escapes, and a friendship between a boy and a talking goblin that nobody planned but everybody needed, this is the kind of book that stays with you long after the last page.

Perfect for fans of fast-moving adventure with heart. Ages 8–14.

Series reading order: Book 1 — Dreams of Gold and Fire Book 2 — Sons of Gold and Fire

FROM PAUL L. THOMPSON AND SCOT MCCREA: U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint: Gunfighter’s Grave: A Western Adventure (A U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint Western)

Bestselling authors Paul L. Thompson and Scott McCrea team up for their wildest, grittiest adventure!

Shorty Thompson learns that Clara Forsythe, his favorite niece, has run away from home after a whirlwind romance. Shorty figured it was none of his business until he learned that her young man just might be the West’s most notorious killer … Billy the Kid, not really dead and on the run from the law.

Shorty must find The Kid without getting Clara hurt and sends for his old friend, Marshal Ezra Flint. Flint also knew Clara when she was a child, and the two lawmen join forces before the trail grows cold. But will they find Clara before Billy the Kid can claim another victim?

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

“Thompson and McCrea make one of the finest writing teams in the genre,” – J.W. Masterson, bestselling author of ‘TEXAS RANGER PHARAOH SMITH’

“Combining Flint and Shorty Thompson is a match made in heaven. Action all the way and some of the finest writing this duo have ever done,” – Robert Hanlon, bestselling author of ‘SHADOW OF THE HAWK’

“A fine story from a fine duo,” – Fred Staff, bestselling author of ‘WILL THOMAS: MOUNTAIN MAN’

“Scott McCrea is one of the finest up and coming writers in the business and I am hopeful we will work together someday,” – C. Wayne Winke, bestselling author of ‘RENO GATES’ and many others.

FROM KYRA HALLAND: Beneath the Canyons (Daughter of the Wildings Book 1)

The bounty hunter. The rancher’s daughter. They share the same dangerous secret – magic.

Silas Vendine, mage and bounty hunter, has followed a trail of strange, dark magic to the remote town of Bitterbush Springs, where he lands in the middle of a deadly feud – and discovers that a local rancher’s daughter is hiding a dangerous secret.

Lainie Banfrey has been taught all her life that wizards are unnatural creatures with no heart and no soul. If anyone finds out she has magical powers, she could end up on the wrong end of a hanging rope. But when a mysterious gunslinger shows up on the hunt for a renegade wizard, she can’t hide her power from him. Drawn to his magic – and to him, she agrees to help him in his search for the renegade who has brought her hometown to the edge of open war.

Forced to hide their magic from the wizard-hating townsfolk, and fighting an attraction forbidden by the strict laws of the Mage Council – and by Lainie’s father, Silas and Lainie must find the renegade mage and stop him before the deadly power he commands destroys everyone who makes the Wildings their home.

Join Silas and Lainie in an epic tale of magic, danger, adventure, and romance, and discover the wonders and mysteries of the Wildings, a frontier land of gunslinging bounty hunters, outlaw mages, and mysterious magic. Beneath the Canyons is the first book in the complete six-book epic fantasy-western series Daughter of the Wildings.

Contains language, violence, and mild to moderate sensual content.

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 MARY CATELLI: Writing And Reflection Volume 2: Essays on the writing process from world-building to words (Writing And Reflections)

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

Wizards. Metaphysics. Good, evil, virtues, and morality meters. Fairy tales in all their varied glory. Desert, forest, and other settings. Dragons and industry. Guilds of magic, quacks, and superstitions. Love and courtship. Portals. And more.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1)

A Duke’s Defiance Could Shatter Two Worlds
In an England where magic pulses through every cobblestone and the English Regency manners and modes never ended, one man’s conscience threatens to topple an empire.
Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, inherited a legacy of forbidden heroism. For generations, his family served as witchfinders, crossing between worlds to rescue those condemned to die for possessing magical gifts. But when the royal princess vanished twenty years ago, the king sealed the borders between realities forever.
Now Seraphim faces an impossible choice: obey the crown and let innocents burn, or defy his king and risk everything he holds dear.
With only his enigmatic half-elf valet Gabriel Penn at his side, Seraphim tears holes in the fabric of existence itself, leaping between alternate Earths where magic means death.
His mother and sister are lost in Fairyland. His enemies circle like vultures. The king’s patience wears thin.
But Seraphim’s stubborn compassion burns brighter than caution. In a world where doing right means risking everything, he’ll discover that the greatest magic might just be the courage to keep fighting when hope seems lost.
Some prices are worth paying. Some lines are worth crossing. Some hearts are worth breaking.
A spellbinding tale of sacrifice, family, and the dangerous allure of doing what’s right in a world determined to punish goodness.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: A Kingdom of Glass: A Novel of The Garia Cycle

In a kingdom of secrets and silk, one girl must choose between duty and her heart.

Zara has spent eleven blissful years in the sun-drenched kingdom of Garia, where she rides free across a vast grassland, shoots her bow beneath starlit skies, and calls her foster family’s castle home. But when a royal summons arrives, her golden world shatters like spun glass.

Thrust into the cold, formal courts of the East Morlans—a realm of rigid etiquette and deadly politics—Zara must navigate an arranged marriage to a stranger, reconnect with a family she barely remembers, and survive the unforgiving world of noble society.

Gone are the warm winds and open skies of her beloved home. In this land of marble halls and suffocating tradition, every word is measured, every gesture scrutinized, and falling in love might be the most rebellious act of all.

As court intrigue swirls around her and threats close in from every side, Zara must discover who she can trust—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to reclaim the freedom she left behind in the endless plains of Garia.

Some cages are gilded. Some prisons are palatial. But Zara’s heart belongs to the steppe.

Perfect for fans of court intrigue, swoon-worthy romance, and heroines who fight for their own destiny.

FROM HOLLY CHISM:Fire and Forge (Modern Gods Book 3)

Long after their worshipers are forgotten, the gods are still holding up a corner of the bar at the Godshead Tavern. Some have learned since their stories became myths, some never did, and some are still finding old curses coming back to haunt…

Poseidon wants Artemis to lift Medusa’s curse so he and Medusa can resume relations, while Chronos seeks another chance to be whole and get to know his kids.

Meanwhile, Ares falls head over heels for a mortal half his size who manages to kick his ass not once but twice, and Loki’s son is trying to rebuild his life (and his credit) after a short marriage to Pandora.

Life and love runs smoothly for no one, god or mortal. And another disaster is brewing…

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: Saving the Spring: A short fantasy (Seasons Book 1)

Jack Randall knew immediately something was off when he pulled up to the old roadhouse. Little did he know that crossing paths that night with the establishment’s beautiful bartender and her handsomely-rugged boyfriend/cook would lead to him recalling his former life as a god – or fighting a rematch with the god who had stolen his memories.

FROM KAREN MYERS: On a Crooked Track: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 4)

Book 4 of The Chained Adept

SETTING A TRAP TO CATCH THE MAKERS OF CHAINED WIZARDS.

A clue has sent Penrys back to Ellech, the country where she first appeared four short years ago with her mind wiped, her body stripped, and her neck chained. It’s time to enlist the help of the Collegium of Wizards which sheltered her then.

Things don’t work out that way, and she finds herself retracing a dead scholar’s crooked track and setting herself up as a target to confirm her growing suspicions. But what happens to bait when the prey shows its teeth?

In this conclusion to the series, tracking old crimes brings new dangers, and a chance for redemption.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Sound of One Child Crying

Who is the child Reza can hear crying every time she goes to the new addition to the Royal Library? Her boss insists there is no child, that it is nothing more than her uncanny sensitivity to the unseen world making a nuisance of itself.

Worse, searching for answers gets her angry rebukes about respect for the dead. The further Reza goes, the more certain she becomes that someone is hiding an ugly secret.

It’s a secret that traces back two generations, to a dark period in this land’s history. A time most people would prefer to forget, not caring that denial doesn’t make a problem go away.

The truth may set you free, but not without a price. And Reza fears that death itself might turn out to be an easier price than the one demanded of her.

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: dependent