New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 

"The moment you're ready to make the move, do let me know." Angela rested her hand on Jane's wrist for a few seconds. "I know a good two, three dozen people who would be ecstatic to have a place like yours come into town. In fact, if you started now, you could be open in time to take advantage of the Christmas rush."

"Oh... I... Well..." Jane fought not to yank her hand out from the soothing warmth of Angela's hand. “It’s not that easy.”

Demetrius and Beauregard would never let her abandon Fendersburg. Even if the Rivals were ignoring the town lately.

"Anything is possible."

Later, as Angela was ringing up the shirts Jane had picked out, and a bag of two pieces from every candy jar, the Wishing Ball caught her attention. Angela laughed and nodded at it.

"Go ahead. Make a wish." A chiming laugh escaped her. Something in her gaze dared Jane, while quashing the automatic, unspoken response: Wishes are for children.

Jane waited a moment for the colors to swirl gently in the reflective, black opal surface. They didn't. When she put her hand flat on the top curve, she didn't feel that zip-tingle she had always gotten as a child when she made her wish. The disappointment was thick enough to block any words she might have tried to speak.

Please... I want to get out of Fendersburg. Away from those lazy, greedy, totally oblivious people. I want to find a new place to live, and a spa even better than the one I have now, where people use common sense and don't expect a miracle to come out of a jar. I want... I want there to be magic again. Something beyond me, bigger than me, stronger than me. Something mysterious and awesome.

A single spark leaped off the Wishing Ball as she removed her hand and Jane gasped, staring at her index finger where the spark rested for a moment, a golden-green, swirling ball that seemed to have a core of black, just before it vanished.

She thought Angela frowned at her, but a moment later she wore her usual serene, slightly superior, slightly amused expression. What her friend Katie always called a "Vulcan smirk."

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 "I have a spa, back home. Facials, manicures, pedicures, massages, sauna."

"You do all that? Multi-talented. And probably overworked." Angela gestured with a tip of her head toward a corner of the main room. Jane saw a white wrought iron bistro table and chairs.

Definitely overworked, but nothing I can admit to you.

Angela chuckled as she went behind the counter. "Iced green tea with ginseng and honey?"

"That sounds lovely, thanks." Jane settled down at the little table. "Umm, actually, I don't do all those things. I have people who come in and provide services. I have plenty of room in my store, so... Most of what I do is make appointments and sell all sorts of teas and creams and bath salts. The good kind, the legitimate kind," she hurried to add.

"Of course. I wouldn't expect anything else." Angela came back to the table with two glasses full of ice and two tall bottles of iced green tea in Jane's favorite brand. 

Was there room behind the counter for a cooler and glasses and ice? She shrugged away that consideration. Things happened at Divine's Emporium and it was wiser not to ask questions. Answers might destroy the wonder, the sense of "anything is possible."

"We could use a spa like yours. If you ever consider coming back home to Neighborlee, I know just the place. The old Spindelmutter building. Lots of room, three floors, and the third floor is an apartment. You could add a whirlpool and expand your offerings to include exercise clothes and such."

Jane took the information from Angela and chatted about the possibilities. She had actually been thinking about expanding her merchandise to include clothes and homeopathic treatments. Who was she hurting by playing along? It was a good cover story.

Although, a niggling sense of warning crept through her after just a minute or two. Essentially, she was lying to Angela, and Jane vaguely remembered some unspoken law that no one ever crossed Angela or tried to steal from Divine’s Emporium.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 

Angela smiled wider, her expression lighting up as she studied Jane's face. "Yes, definitely. You were that quiet, pale little girl who kept trying to turn yourself invisible." She laughed.

Jane laughed with her. The caress in Angela’s voice made her attempts to fade into the wallpaper sound charming. Sensible.

"I still have that volume of The Jungle Book you loved to read whenever you visited. Jane Wilson. Or did you change your name when you became a legal adult? Did your adopted parents change your name? Never mind. That's your business." She waved her hand, brushing away the questions before Jane could feel invaded. "What brings you to Neighborlee?"

"Playing hooky." She laughed a little.

It was nearly the truth, even if she was here on official Hoax, Inc., business. The grinding stupidity of Fendersburg, where everyone expected the Ghost to save them from a total lack of common sense, made any brief escape feel like a vacation.

"From what?" 

For a moment, that familiar, crooked little knowing smile played across Angela's face. It hinted she knew all the things Jane couldn't say, the things she was feeling and hadn't been able to put into words. She knew her secrets and would wait patiently until Jane was ready to spill them.

Off the Bookshelf: STUCK, by Chris Grabenstein

 

Audible Original

Reminiscent of old-time radio drama. A fun performance by a full cast.

Life is rough for Jackson, who anticipates with dread moving up to middle school. Until his grandfather makes a wish for him ... and suddenly he's living fifth grade over and over again. Which is fine for a while,  since he knows all the answers in school, and he's able to improve in baseball and trumpet playing.

But there's the problem of all his friends leaving him behind, as they grow up and move on in life ... and forgetting him. Every new school year, everybody else's reality and their memories of him get re-set. What's a kid to do to get unstuck, and move on with his life again? Every time Jackson figures out how to re-wish and fix the problem, it doesn't work.

Jackson has to learn some important lessons about life in general, and himself in particular, before his answer comes and he gets his own re-set.

Clever!

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 The sign out front promised whatever someone needed would be here. Did that meant everything had to be here? Jane grinned, wondering if "everything" could indeed be jammed into this house.

She frowned, when it struck her that the room and the aisles certainly seemed longer than should have fit into the house. At least, not the size of house she had glimpsed from the outside. Maybe it was just an optical illusion. With so much crammed in, it just seemed bigger than it really was.

It wasn't like space could be stretched to accommodate everything shoehorned in here. Could it? Sure, some of the members of Hoax had managed to stretch space and even stretch time when they were under a great deal of pressure, but they couldn't make it last.

Her wandering brought her to the main room. Another sigh, as she saw the marble-topped counter with the brass cash register and shelves full of apothecary jars, just like she remembered them.

Where was the Wishing Ball? Panic shot through her, like the first time she rose three feet off the ground without knowing quite how she did it.

"Welcome to Divine's Emporium." A woman stepped through the doorway behind her.

Jane turned around quickly.

Angela, the proprietor of the shop, hadn’t changed in the dozen-plus years since Jane had left Neighborlee. The same long waterfall of hair in dozens of shades of gold, with a hint of strawberry. The same intense, crystalline blue eyes. The same granny-style dress in a blue handkerchief print. Angela had the kind of figure that looked good in the semi-shapeless dress, neither model skinny nor buxom. Just right.

"Uh, hi... I'm—”

"I know you." Angela caught hold of Jane's hand and led her past the counter to a tall, skinny window. The Wishing Ball was right there on the corner, why hadn't Jane seen it?

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 

Was the Wishing Ball still there? What would she wish for, if she could?

"That's easy," Jane muttered as she stepped off the sidewalk onto the flagstone path and through the wrought iron gate that stood open. "To escape Fendersburg."

She grinned at her silliness. She had to grin, or she might cry. Sometimes she absolutely hated the town of lazy, entitlement-attitude mental midgets she had to look after while trying to trick the Rivals into making mistakes so Hoax could identify them.

Then she was at the porch and the front door. She sighed in delight as she pushed the front door open. Bells chimed sweetly, almost like singing, and the sound faded slowly as she stepped down the short entry hallway. The sense of having walked into a familiar place wrapped around her. She smelled fruity scented candles, the dusty perfume of books, and chocolate. Freestanding display shelves invited her to browse a haphazard collection of figurines and decorative boxes, candles, dishes, and numerous other bright, colorful items she ignored as she let memory guide her feet. 

Divine's didn't stock all the trendy candy and gimmicks that cluttered the counters at other stores. No novelty candy shaped like aliens. No trading cards and dispensers shaped like garbage cans or cell phones. She saw candy bars and gum, hard candy and licorice whips and funny, funky shapes she hadn't seen since childhood. Jane wandered for a few minutes, looking at all the display boxes and jars. Dolls in lacy dresses, wooden toys, puzzles made of metal and string and wood, pinwheels and bottles of bubbles, sidewalk chalk, squirt guns, balloons, and other fragments of an innocent, happier time.

Off the Bookshelf: HOW TO DATE YOUR DRAGON, by Molly Harper

 

Audible Original

Narrated by Amanda Ronconi and Jonathan Davis

Have I mentioned how much I love Mystic Bayou?

This is the first book in the series. Figures! I always seem to find  fun new series, and start in the middle somewhere.

This is the fantasy romance that started it all. Jillian Ramsay works for the League for Interspecies Cooperation, and her first field assignment is an enormous challenge: studying the residents of Mystic Bayou to find out just how for several generations the magical, mythical residents get along just fine, living pretty much in the open with their ordinary Human neighbors. The League needs to figure this out, because technology is making it harder than ever for magical creatures to hide evidence of their existence. They need to be prepared to handle the fallout when the news breaks.

There are a few not-so-minor problems facing Jillian from day one, starting with the Rift that seems to be leaking magic into the world, and causing people with no magic in their heritage to suddenly become magical creatures. Add in some residents who aren't exactly thrilled to be under the scrutiny of the League, or anyone else. And what might just be a serial killer -- and Jillian's interviews might just be tying the victims together. But the capper is the sheriff, Bael Boon. Is it a spoiler to tell you he's the dragon of the title? Well, it's pretty obvious within the first couple chapters, but I don't want to ruin the fun!

Love this fun, sometimes silly, clever little mystery and romance and romp through a modern-day magical world.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 "Wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I looked for people I knew … No. Don't be ridiculous." Jane sighed and quashed her grumbling. The last thing she needed was to be caught talking to herself. Even in a town that regularly produced odd incidents, she didn’t want to risk catching anyone’s attention. Or worse, being remembered. One of the first lessons Beau had taught her was to blend in, to avoid notice. To be a watcher, rather than the watched. The safe, responsible use of her Gift depended on it.

More memories crashed down on Jane as she turned the corner onto the street where Divine's Emporium sat near the dead end. Instead of the usual metal highway guardrail barrier at the high point of the slope, Neighborlee had a pretty wooden gate, and signs pointing to paths people could take to walk down to the park below. Jane studied the building as she walked down the street, remembering bits and pieces. The multiple shelves of penny candy in old apothecary jars. The big brass cash register. The book room. The vintage clothing room, where children could play dress up as much as they wanted. Funny, how it never occurred to Jane until now that adults who came into the shop during their play never seemed upset. Angela, the owner, protected their fun.

"The Wishing Ball," she whispered, and her steps slowed as she remembered the globe just about the size of a bowling ball, dark metallic rainbow swirls, sitting in a stand shaped like a coiled dragon. She had loved simply gazing into the Wishing Ball, on the counter next to the cash register. Jane had always imagined someday the soft swirling of colors in the ball would resolve into images that would answer the questions that haunted her young mind. Who her parents were, how they had lost her, so she had been found, a little more than a year old, sitting by the side of the road just inside Neighborlee's borders. Like the other children, Jane had made her share of wishes on the Wishing Ball. Many had come true, but they were easy wishes: what she wanted for Christmas, to pass an upcoming test, for the bullies to leave her alone.

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 

Jane threw away the rest of her apple. She was careful to wrap up the brownie, though. Only a fool would throw away three inches by three inches of fudgy chocolaty goodness with frosting as thick as the brownie itself. She might need the comfort of that brownie after she visited Divine's Emporium.

She remembered how to get there, like she had built-in GPS. A big olive and gold Victorian house on a dead-end street overlooking the slope down into the park. Jane dredged up memories of Divine's as she walked the few blocks over there. Outings to town were treats at the orphanage. She remembered competing with the other girls to hold their housemother's hand as they walked from their cottage to the curiosity shop. Or better yet, to hold the hand of Mrs. Silvestri, the orphanage administrator, when she took children into town for shopping excursions or to play in the park or go to a play at the college.

Funny, how easy it was to remember all those little things now, when up until this visit, it felt like her life hadn't really started until Beau and Demetrius took her to the Sanctum. Not that the Old Poops would ever employ memory-wiping. 

Off the Bookshelf: FAITHLESS IN DEATH, by J.D. Robb

 

In Death series.

Futuristic suspense

Dallas and Roarke are back, just days after their latest adventure and close brush with vindictive revenge.

This time the quest for justice for a murder victim, and to identify the killer and the motive, could be ripped from recent headlines. Racism, misogyny, self-righteousness, abuse of the innocent, and brutes wearing masks of benevolence and spirituality, twisting philosophy and scripture to justify their crimes.

Investigating the murder of an up-and-coming artist leads Dallas quickly to the doorstep of her prime suspect, and the theory that the murder took place to protect the killer's public image. How can you help but suspect the prime witness who lies so consistently to the police? Then strangely, it appears the prime suspect's claims to be a victim herself might be true. But only partly.

In the end, we're responsible for the choices we make, even when we think we have no choices, that we do the vile things we do to survive. While the first suspect didn't do the deed, she was responsible because of the choices she made.

The story takes place in only a few days. I could not put the book down -- I read it in one day. Haven't pulled an up-past-2am read-a-thon in a long time. Worth it!

New release sample: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ

 Jane had chafed, waiting for the day her teachers would give her the duty of testing Neighborlee. She had a talent for sensing when a Gift was being used. Just last summer, she had helped locate a girl in Sydney, Australia, who had started manifesting her Gift at age nine. Demetrius and Beauregard had brought her along to investigate. She had befriended the frightened child and convinced her that being able to manipulate water like clay didn’t make her a freak or dangerous.

That had been far more satisfying than the last five years assigned to Fendersburg, the town the Old Poops had put under her care. Jane understood the necessity of generating “odd” occurrences to draw the attention of the Rivals, trick them into making mistakes, to identify and trap them. Her Ghost talent was perfect for the task, allowing her to be in the middle of activities in town while staying entirely anonymous, so the Rivals would never guess she was the bait, even if she talked to them face-to-face. The problem was that Fendersburg’s population seemed to be getting more lazy and shed more I.Q. points as time went on. She wanted something more challenging and meaningful. Just how long could she play “catch me if you can” with the Rivals before they gave up and left Fendersburg alone?

Jane paused in mid-crunch and had a hard time swallowing the last bite of her apple. Thinking about going back to that antithesis of Mayberry had just killed her appetite. On the surface, Fendersburg looked a lot like Neighborlee: small town, business district measured in blocks, not miles; weekly newspaper, Mom & Pop businesses. Everybody knew everybody else's business. Underneath... Neighborlee didn't have a suspected inbreeding problem. Here, people cared about good personal hygiene, and everybody graduated from high school and at least tried to go to college. No Gifted child would ever appear in Fendersburg. Most of her duties entailed protecting the town from itself. 

That sense of being wasted, of having a useless job, made this visit to Neighborlee feel like a treat. Other than the Sanctum and her little apartment in Fendersburg, this was the only other home she had ever had. Ten years in the Neighborlee Children's Home. She had been happy there. She had friends. What happened to those friends? Did they remember her? She had been a quiet child, with a talent for blending into the background and being unnoticed, even before she discovered her Gift.

New Release: QUITTING THE HERO BIZ, Neighborlee Book 6

 

Jane Wilson disappeared when she was a child. When she learned to make herself invisible, her teachers made her disappear from Neighborlee Children's Home. And just in time, too -- before some nasty folks known only as the Rivals tried to take her away, to turn her into a weapon.

 

Years later, she used her semi-pseudo-superhero powers to become the Ghost, defender of the little town of Fendersburg. The plan was to attract the attention of the Rivals, and lure them into a trap. Unfortunately, the people of Fendersburg got lazy, and soon grew so dependent on the Ghost to fix all their problems, they stopped thinking for themselves.

 

So Jane quit being the Ghost. In the wake of the odd events during the holidays in Neighborlee, she returned to her roots. 

Her mission:

Find out what happened to all the Lost Kids who lived in Neighborlee Children's Home.

Find out what the Rivals are looking for in Neighborlee.

Find the guardians.

Out NOW, in Print and Ebook, from Ye Olde Dragon Books