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 CEDAR SANDERSON: Child of Crows: Wings of Broken Magic (Witchward Book 3)

Some ghosts refuse to stay buried.

Fresh from the cursed hollows of Possum Creek, Special Agent Amaya Lombard is yanked back to the one place she swore she’d never return: Nesika House, the coastal coven that once cost her everything. When the high priestess who nearly destroyed her demands help recovering a stolen ritual chalice, Amaya has no choice but to walk through those familiar, poisonous wards — this time with a badge, a partner, and fourteen years of hard-won scars.

What she finds inside is far more dangerous than any illusion.

Child of Crows — a Witchward novella.

FROM SAM ROBB: A Sense of Murder: Road Mage Volume 1

In a far-flung corner of the worlds-spanning Empire, Ser Kellan tor Iaestus is a Highwayman, sworn to keep the peace in the rugged Outlands. Armed with a revolver from a forgotten war and a hidden Talent to see truth, he is an agent of justice and peace in a wild land… so long as he keeps his talent hidden, lest he be pressed into the service of the Empire.

When Prospero, an Imperial Magus, arrives in the Outlands hunting for a magical truth-teller, Kellan is assigned as his guide. Certain he can keep his Talent concealed and maintain his freedom, Kellan escorts the magus on his journey. All goes well until a string of seemingly unrelated murders exposes demons, dark powers, and a warlock weaving cruel designs in the shadows. As Kellan and Prospero investigate, they follow a thread that leads from the Outlands to the city of Victar de Reya, links whores and politicians, and takes them from fine restaurants to piratical celebrations.

Saddled with a suspicious young seer and facing demons clawing at them from the Unreal, the two must work together to unravel the warlock’s conspiracy before he kills again. But can Kellan locate the killer without exposing his own power, and surrendering the independence he’s fought so hard to protect?

Duty demands truth. Survival demands secrecy. Kellan can’t have it both ways… and time is running out.

FROM B. K. GIBSON: Freedom’s Vow: Shepherd Trilogy: Book 1

Stand tall, Citizens. Shields up. Spears out. Hold to the Passion of Courage!

In the world of the Three Seas, two city states stand at the brink of war. The city of Helemar faces destruction as hoplite armies prepare for battle. Within the city, Arete, knowing only a life of slavery, vows to seek freedom at any cost. She is thrown into the conflict when she and her master discover she is a Shepherd, one who has the mystic talent to kindle passions in the hearts of people. Passions of rage, joy, fear and courage… all rise and fall at her will.

Fifteen years ago Arete’s soldier friend Philon witnessed a single Shepherd destroy his army and take his people captive. Seeking not to control, but to understand the ability behind the destruction, he joins Arete on her quest to repay a debt, venturing where not even the creatures of myth dare to tread.

As Arete and Philon seek answers, the city-states clash, each exploiting the talents of their own Shepherds, and a greater unknown threat is growing. A power may yet rise that will lead to the destruction of all, one brought about by the war and the talent itself.

An epic tale set in a Hellenistic world that is both familiar and yet fantastical, in place that just may very well be real … somewhere and somewhen.

FROM EDWARD HERING: Pax Oceana

A world out of time. A young man with no direction. A battle that uncovers a century-old secret.

For a century, the colony world of Pomoxis has been a ghost in the stars, its interstellar network links severed since the fall of the Terran Confederation. While his friends head off to university to build their futures, eighteen-year-old Ian McCracken is idling—the directionless son of a wealthy family, content to drift.

But when he is tapped to take part in a high-stakes auxiliary mission to blast through an enemy blockade, a daring parasail escape over active no-man’s land reveals a structural anomaly hidden in the dirt. Buried beneath the grass is something made of an impervious and unfamiliar metal: a functional shuttle to a starship that has sat silent in orbit for a hundred years.

What starts as a reckless gamble to restore a lost network link quickly pulls Ian out of his aimless youth and into a sprawling galactic theater. From the frustrating apathy of a forgotten Earth to the treacherous underworld of Leonis, Ian and a raw crew must navigate a shifting landscape of political betrayal, a two-year tour in an elite interstellar navy, and a desperate race to stop a totalitarian cabal from weaponizing his find back home.

Across the water-world of Oceana and the savage ruins of dead colonies, Ian must face the heavy cost of personal loss and the steep price of a life with a purpose. The long climb of humanity has been interrupted—and the boy who had no future may be the catalyst to restart it.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: FALLING THROUGH TIME: A Sequel To H. G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine

WHAT WAS THE FATE OF H. G. WELLS’
TIME TRAVELLER?

It is the year 188 of the Modern State Era. Raymond Lange, a rebellious citizen of the Modern State, makes an unauthorize visit to the ruins of London, a city destroyed during the wars that brought the old world to an end. There he makes an amazing discovery, a machine created by a 19th Century inventor – a machine that can travel through time.
Raymond also finds the inventor’s journal, which describes an incredible journey to the world of 802,701 AD, where the human race has split into two separate species – the decadent Eloi, who live on the Earth’s surface, and the cannibalistic Morlocks, who dwell below ground.
When Raymond is accused of treason he has no choice but to use the Time Machine to flee into the future. Once in 802,701 AD he faces not only the threat of the Morlocks but the vengeance of the Modern State, which is willing to send a team of agents – a team led by Raymond’s worst enemy – 800,000 years through time to apprehend him…

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2)

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM MAX COSSAK: White Money (The Wilder Bunch Book 11)

When his friend shares half his fabulous silver claim, a smalltown storekeeper must battle claim jumpers, a corrupt judge and ruthless killers.

Most people are at least dimly aware of the Great Depression of 1929. But how many have heard about the Panic of 1873, which was nearly as devastating? In White Money (a wonderful throw-back to old-timey Western novels like Shane and True Grit), Civil War veteran Morris Goldwater, like millions of his fellow Americans, has been caught up in the financial disaster of the Panic.

With his business collapsing, and desperate to support his wife and children, Goldwater leaps at the promise of half interest in an Arizona silver mine claimed by his old Union Army comrade and mentor. Riding the rails, camping with hoboes, encountering the best and worst of humanity, he makes his way southwest.

Dangers and disappointments abound, not least of which is finding that the Arizona desert in winter is not the paradise Goldwater hoped for. Claim jumpers, a corrupt judge, bigots and brigands conspire to thwart his dreams. Will evil be a match for the ingenuity and the basic goodness of the average American? Never count a war veteran out, even against formidable odds.

FROM DRAGON SOUL PRESS: The Wild Frontier: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology

Welcome to the wild west…

Plans are bound to go awry with bandits and robbers on the loose. Anyone can become a victim if precautions aren’t taken. These stories tell of epic quick-draw duels, fights for justice, and survival of the fittest.

Featuring 18 stories by the following authors: Barend Nieuwstraten III, Robert Walton, Rod A. White, Charles Kyffhausen, Marc Sorondo, Zachary Vincent, J. Benjamin Sanders, B.F. Vega, Nicholas Samuel Stember, Daividh Eideard Mitchell, Bruce H. Markuson, George Zamalea, Nicholas Arkison, Steve Loiaconi, David J. Vowell, Zsaffryn Terra, Sarah Cline, and James T. Siburt.

FROM DALE COZORT: The Best of Space Bats & Butterflies – Book Two

Space Bats & Butterflies Book Two is another eclectic collection of the best alternate history or time-travel stories, book excerpts, essays and world-building exercises from the ninety-plus issues of a long-running Alternate History zine.

• Part Two of a two-part book-length alternate World War II scenario-The Moscow Option-1942.
• The Interrupted Trajectory: Indians without the Old World.
• Could you save the Incas from Spanish conquest?
• American Revolution: Britain Keeps the Deep South
• D-Day Landings Fail.
  Fiction stories and excerpts:
• World War II Germany invades a divided alternate history US that still uses black powder muskets.
• Bootleggers from the 1920s invade a far-future sanctuary for massacre victims.
• Modern US collides with an alternate reality full of deadly animals.
• Tasmanian Wolves are supposed to be extinct. What is one doing in a Illinois cornfield?
• An ageless, vastly intelligent dog holds the secrets to immortality. Can he survive long enough to give it to humanity?

FROM KYRA HALLAND: Dreams of Magic (Mage of Storm and Sea)

They called him a war hero. The savior of the Islands. The greatest weather mage the Islands ever knew. But once, he was a lonely, misfit youth with some impossible dreams.

Esavas Daruvias wants two things in life – to become a weather mage and to marry the girl of his dreams. But, bookish and awkward, his magical power stunted since childhood, he’s a failure at everything a highborn mage is supposed to be, and life as a scholar at the remote, secluded Tower is his only hope of refuge from a society where he doesn’t belong.

Then his father offers him the impossible, an arranged marriage to the beautiful Pirazina, the girl he’s always loved – who barely knows he exists. To win her heart and admiration, Esavas takes desperate measures to become the mage and man he longs to be, determined to make his dreams a reality even at the risk of losing his power, his freedom, and his future.

Start your magical adventure through the Islands with Dreams of Magic, the prequel to the epic romantic fantasy series Mage of Storm and Sea. From an austere scholars’ tower to sun-soaked beaches, from desperate hillside battles to seas full of danger, come discover a new world of wonder, danger, and magic.

Contains strong language and mature subject matter, including drug and alcohol use and sexual references.

FROM MEL DUNAY: “Skynet” As Your Secretary: AI Tools For The Indie Author

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS ANTHOLOGIES: With stories by Karl Gallagher, G. Scott Huggins, and more: For Want of a Rivet (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 76)

Small decisions. World-altering consequences.

That’s the premise behind For Want of a Rivet, an anthology of eleven alternate history military stories that asks one deceptively simple question: what if a single invention, tactical choice, or quiet act of courage had gone differently?The stories span a century of conflict and a dozen theaters of war. A Royal Navy pilot spots the German fleet and changes the shape of World War One. Air privateers carrying Letters of Marque dogfight over the Western Front while a brash young balloon-buster rewrites the record books. A Japanese naval officer quietly suppresses a breakthrough antenna technology that will shape the Pacific war. German engineers develop a submarine that makes the Atlantic a killing ground. British scientists discover how to bend the enemy’s own guidance beams back against them, and a stage magician helps make the resulting deception invisible. An all-Black paratrooper battalion that was supposed to be fighting wildfires instead drops into the Battle of the Bulge. A French Foreign Legion scout finds a Roman tunnel under the most heavily defended line in Italy. A Polish tank crew fights to hold the cork in the bottle as Operation Unthinkable opens. A SOE agent moves through occupied France on a prosthetic leg — and the rivet that keeps it silent may decide the war. Britain and Germany forge an uneasy alliance against Soviet France. Japan defends the Imperial Palace to the last man.

These are stories about the human cost of invention, the weight of small advantages, and the soldiers, spies, and engineers who never made the official record.

Eleven contributors. One question. For want of a rivet, the war was lost — or won.

Stories include: ”Wings over Jutland” (William Meinert) · “Ace of Aces” (Karl K. Gallagher) · “Radio Waves” (Joe Salem) · “The Danzig Ghosts” (Michael Patrick Coady) · “The War They Could Not Print” (Ross Hathaway) · “Little Groups of Paratroopers” (Bart Kemper) · “Callis Caecus” (Nick Aalderink) · “Operation Unthinkable” (Samuel A. Mayo) · “Cuthbert’s Silence” (D. S. Ligon) · “Axis of Alliance” (G. Scott Huggins) · “The Last Kamikaze” (Robert Miller)

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS: With stories by Zan Oliver, J. Kenton Pierce and Z. M. Renick: Steam Rising: Tales of steampunk and wondrous inventions (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 35)

Steampunk. It’s not just a genre, it is science fiction in its purest form. In this collection, you will read of the ways that technology could both help and harm mankind. Steam power took a special kind of bravery to use and master, and the people who live in a steam-powered world adjust to that need: engineers, inventors, tinkerers and experimentalists of every kind and every manner imaginable.

Within, you will meet clockmakers and war-widows, steamship captains and airship pilots; you will see wailing engines race and clanking automata strut. Hurry on! The engineer is feeding the coal, and says she’s raring to go.

See that red lever over there? Grip ‘er tight, and heave forward the throttle…

FROM MARY CATELLI: Spells in Secret

Magical doors and other mischief mix badly with tales about murder, as young scholars return to Graytowers.

Kenneth, as prefect, thought he had his hands filled with the beginning of the new session, but when one magical door takes him and another scholar far past the bounds of a prank, they barely escape with their lives, and their escape means only that they are in graver danger. They must hide, leaving the school, and casting all their spells in secret.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: Intrigue at the Interstellar Gate Book I: Ledger of Shadows

At the Interstellar Gate — humanity’s largest transit hub for interstellar freight — every container, every cargo class, and every timestamp is logged across three independent ledgers. The system was built to be foolproof.

It isn’t.

Elara Venn is a mid-level auditor who notices what the system is designed to overlook: a single mismatched checksum during a peak traffic surge. The automated protocols flag it yellow and move on. Elara doesn’t.

What she uncovers — with the unlikely help of customs linguist Tomas Iri — is not a glitch but an architecture. Ghost containers. Shadow bandwidth. A distributed conspiracy that exploits the Gate’s own optimization logic to move cargo invisibly through the most surveilled facility in the known systems.

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: SPARE.