New Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW. AFV Defender Book 3

 M'kar bit her tongue to keep from asking what "right on time" meant. The crazy old man would just say he had seen into the future, so he knew when she would be back in the suite.

Of course, he was waiting for her, so maybe he did have visions?

Her father would laugh and say that showed the old man’s cleverness, constantly playing mind-tricks on people. They were very good tricks, M'kar had to admit. Especially when his voice got hollow and his eyes rolled back so all she could see were the whites. Many people would say the Ancestors spoke through him when he talked like that.

"Tell your father, don't trust the one-eyed pilot, and don't trust the woman with the blue-tufted ahsnaq riding her shoulders. Trust the Ankuar," he finished on a whisper. "Wait until the Ankuar comes and then bargain with him for the ride up to the station."

M'kar wanted to ask, "What station?" but she was afraid to play games and pretend she didn't know what the old man was talking about.

How had Aquid figured out they were trying to find a shuttle ride up to the Alliance's orbital station, and from there arrange passage to Le'anka? Her mother had the best spy-killing equipment, straight from a friend in Fleet security. She regularly swept their suite for anything that would help the clan spy on them. There was no way her great-grandfather could have been spying on them, listening to their plans.

Yet he knew. How?

Wanna get your FRANKENSTEIN on?

 Ye Olde Dragon Books takes a classic movie monster and invites participating authors to turn the trope "on its ear."

Whether it's just the general idea, or particular details in the lore created by Hollywood, these stories will amaze and entertain, make you shiver and jump at shadows, and keep looking over your shoulder when no one is there -- and sometimes laugh aloud, as well as say, "Hmmm .... what if .....?"

What if the monster was a victim? What if the monster wasn't monstrous, but kind of cute and cuddly? What if the beauty was the beast? What if the werewolf was the hero? Etcetera .....

Join us every fall with a new monster, a new collection of fantastical imaginings.

 

www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com

COMING OCTOBER 15:

WHO’S THE MONSTER?

A child saved from a car crash insists a scarred man pulled her out, earning the moniker Monster Girl. Was there a monster or did she imagine her savior?

A not-so-scary haunted house turns into a true house of horrors for three young people.

Step back in time to watch a man, a computer, and … a virus!

A young girl runs from an abusive father and finds a different kind of monster.

An enchanted castle is under attack from a patchwork monster and our heroes must find the elusive, ticked-off sorcerer who can stop his creation before it tears apart their home.

Inside, you’ll explore a wide assortment of mad scientists and their failed experiments – or successes, if you prefer to see it that way. Some will thrill, some will chill. A few will make you laugh or maybe shed a tear.

But who IS the Monster? You decide.

Even better: If you go to Ye Olde Dragon Books, between now and October 16, you can SAVE $$$ buying directly, both print and ebook!

New Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW. AFV Defender Book 3

 

Ashrock and Jeyn put their plan to leave Nisandros into action as soon as they got up the next morning. There were dozens of little details and messages to handle, material to collect, loose ends in research projects to tie up, promises to fulfill, and private farewells to perform with friends who could be trusted to keep their secret. The winter storms in the northern hemisphere would end in three decs, and that wasn’t nearly enough time to make all the arrangements to take the first shuttle that could go up to the Alliance’s orbital station. The formal announcement of their departure had to be made at the right time and the right place, with the right witnesses, or the uproar could justify their family being detained. Hurt feelings and insult claims had to be prevented at all costs.

M'kar had her part to play, running errands for her parents, returning borrowed items, retrieving items that had been loaned or taken without permission. She returned to their family suite with a handful of book chips that had been borrowed from her mother's library over the years. M'kar was grinning in triumph, until her cheeks hurt. She had retrieved the chips with as much sneaky stealth as they had originally been taken by various cousins and aunts and uncles. Considering how dusty some chips were, and how deeply they had been buried among personal possessions, she doubted anyone would realize the books had been reclaimed until luns or even years after she and her parents had left.

Then she saw the shriveled old man sitting on the bench by the fire pit in their common room, and her grin fell off her face. M'kar immediately looked around for Anguak. She sniffed hard, trying to find him by his dirty wet clothes stink, since she couldn't see him in the shadows. 

"Little Blade," Great-grandfather Aquid wheezed. "Right on time." He beckoned, holding out a bony, wrinkled arm covered in blurry red and black and green tattoos.

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

 

In Death Series

Intense story. Ripped from the headlines in a lot of ways. Kind of depressing to know that man's inhumanity to man will just continue and take on new faces, with more scum-of-the-earth considering it their right to dehumanize and profit from the misery of others, and then when their prisoners rebel and reduce their profit, label them "ungrateful."

Two girls manage to escape a "school" where they are trained to be toys for the rich and perverted. One of them dies. The other is unwilling to trust anyone, especially the authorities, because the System has let her down so many times. Enter Eve Dallas, who knows what these girls have gone through, personally. The hunt for clues, to find the witness, to find those responsible, and the horror and righteous wrath as Eve and her allies put the picture together and realize just what is being done as a business, the cold cruelty inflicted on the young and innocent ... enthralling as always.

Read this one in two days, when I had lots of deadlines to meet and a book launch of my own to somehow stumble through. The Dallas and Roarke books are my treats to myself. Thanks, muchly, for an intense escape, just for a little while -- and the certainty that justice will triumph after all.

New Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW. AFV Defender Book 3

 If they crashed into Etrusca’s Wall, they might vanish forever.

They were going to die.

"You have to turn back before we get killed, that's what it means!" M’kar shouted, as the alarms resumed their ear-splitting shrieks.

The craft tipped. Ke’Jor slid out of his seat, hitting the floor with a thud. Ke’Niq and M'kar slid sideways, he on his knees on the deck of the craft, and her falling sideways along the bench seat. Ke’Niq caught hold of her wrist with one hand and with the other hand caught a cleat in the deck used for tying off cargo nets.

"Get your hands off her!" Ke’Jor lunged at his cousin. "She's mine. Grandfather says so."

M'kar twisted around to kick Ke’Jor in the face. He shrieked like a goosigah, threatening to go so high no Human ears could hear.

The craft kept tipping, and the engines shrieked loud enough to cover up Ke’Jor's cursing and spitting and the slapping of his hands on the deck plating as he tried to climb the steep angle. M'kar got her own grip on a cleat in the deck. She stayed a good meter out of Ke’Jor's waving, slapping hands.

The craft tipped over on its roof, hard enough to knock them loose. They hit the ceiling. M'kar yelped. Ke’Niq swore. Ke’Jor shrieked for Ke’Niq to make the air-car behave.

Then the craft hit hard, bouncing all of them up to the floor, now the ceiling. M'kar's head hit. She saw stars and bit the inside of her cheek. Her neck snapped. She fought to hold onto consciousness as the craft tipped and slid, then hit and flipped up in the air, then turned over.

For a few heartbeats there was nothing but tumbling and trying to grab onto something. Ke’Jor shrieked for Ke’Niq not to tell their grandfather he crashed another craft.

Then blackness.

Good. She was tired of hearing Ke’Jor shriek.

New Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW. AFV Defender Book 3

 

The air-car jolted, dropping suddenly. M'kar thought about trying to crawl across the deck and reaching Ke’Jor before they crashed. If they were going to die, she wanted to hit him as hard as she could, first, as many times as she could.

The air-car jolted. She grunted. Ke’Jor cursed. The bouncing as they plummeted downward broke his curses into fragments and threatened to slam her into the roof. Shrieking alarms filled the air, deafening. Through the wail of the engine and the blatts and squeals of the alarms, the wind’s howl grew stronger, and soon drowned them out.

"Alert," a mechanical voice said, while the alarms silenced for a few seconds. "Approaching Etrusca's Wall. Change course. Continuing on this course violates a blood edict of the Council of Clans."

"What does that mean?" Ke’Jor shouted, as the voice repeated the message.

How could he not know? Etrusca's Wall was the surbda crater on the dividing line between Ba'e'do'stra and Rissor clan lands. Didn't they teach them anything in the Rissor Clan? 

This was the largest surbda crater, with a wall of rubble ten meters high surrounding it. Legends said the warrior Etrusca had pulled it up from the netherworld during one of her many resurrections from the dead. Navigation equipment and sensors refused to work within ten meters of most surbda craters, but that trouble zone reached fifty meters out from Etrusca's Wall. All transportation equipment refused to work. Animals refused to go into it. There were nine total surbda craters, scattered across the planet. All were forbidden, by ritual and common sense. All equipment, whether transportation, probes or drones vanished once they crossed into a crater. 

Off the Bookshelf: SILVERSWIFT, by Natalie Lloyd

 

Audiobook, Audible exclusive

Narrated by Holly Palance and Imani Parks

Two stories are told, Eliza and her grandmother Mora, and the siren Silverswift. Appropriately told through two voices as narrators.

Nice worldbuilding for the Sirens, their traditions and struggles. A quiet sort of story with suspense and heartache and sacrifices, and the struggles that mirror between cultures and times as young girls grow up and learn what and who they are.

Eliza loves the island where her grandmother lives, and when she gets a summons from her grandmother, asking for her help during winter holidays break, she is glad to go, despite the rigors of winter on an island. The quest isn't easy, when her grandmother is losing her sight and a storm is battering the island -- and the map they're using might not be reliable. But they are determined to find the mysterious cove where the Sirens come to sing at winter solstice, no matter what.

RELEASE DAY!!! ETRUSCA'S VOW, AFV Defender Book 3

 

Snarling, Ke’Jor swept his hands across the control panel. The air-car jolted straight up. Only proximity sensors kept it from hitting the roof of the dock. The hatch slammed closed. The car jolted forward, out into the open air and churning sandy winds. M’kar rolled and slid backward, her abdomen slamming into the support for the bench seat, knocking all the air from her lungs.

The air-car tipped hard to the right, then righted itself. It rattled. M'kar was sure it shouldn't make a sound like that. Maybe her uncles were right, and it was boobytrapped, rigged to fall apart when it went far enough into the Barrens to make rescue difficult.

A low rumbling came from outside. It sounded like thunder, or very strong, brutal winds. Or both. And got stronger, louder, shaking the vehicle more with every second.

M'kar needed to laugh, but she couldn't seem to get any air. A growing storm swirled around the air-car. She was sure they couldn't go very far. If Ke’Jor wanted to take her to his clan territory, he had to cross the Ring Mountains, which divided Rissor from Ba’e’do’stra. Storms were always worse in the mountains.

"You have to go back," she finally managed to croak, when she got her breath back.

"I'm not turning back until you apologize," Ke’Jor snarled.

"Apologize for what?" Ke’Niq shouted. "She didn't do anything wrong."

"She's supposed to be nice to me. Grandfather said."

"Your grandfather is a narding indiferp with delusions of being Human!" M'kar reached for the bench seat to pull herself upright.

"You take that back!"

"You take me back home, you thief!"

"You have to obey me. You have to be nice to me." 

"I'll never be nice to you. You're an even worse idiot than your grandfather. And my grandfather says that!" She thumped her fist on the cushion for emphasis. It didn't do much good, but the gesture made her feel better.

Upcoming release sample: ETRUSCA'S VOW

 

There was no security on the air-car, no alarms or locks on the dock. Only someone with a death-wish would take an air-car up before the winter storms had passed, so no alarms went off when Ke’Jor set about hitting the control panel.

"You don't want to do that," M'kar blurted, when the vehicle rumbled into life far too easily.

Uncle Ashreel would rage if Ke’Jor flew his new air-car before he did.

"If you sit with me, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go." Ke’Jor patted the bench seat next to him.

"I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Ever," M'kar snapped.

A loud rumble of thunder answered her words, followed by a wailing shriek of wind that swirled around their heads and filled the air with clouds of gritty dust.

"You're supposed to be nice to me." How did he talk clearly with his lower lip sticking out like that?

"Laws of hospitality don't count when you weren't invited."

"I mean when we get married."

"I am never marrying you!"

"Grandfather says you have to."

"Your grandfather can't make me do anything!" She stomped up to the pilot's seat, intending to punch him. 

He reached for her. She flung herself backward, kicking up with both feet in a one-two swing that would have made her father proud. The toes of both her shoes slammed into Ke’Jor's chest and chin before her back hit the deck of the air-car. She hadn’t mastered the somersault part of the maneuver yet.

Off the Bookshelf: TRAIL OF LIGHTNING, by Rebecca Roanhorse

 

Audiobook, Audible exclusive, The Sixth World series

Narrated by Tanis Parenteau

If you're looking for a suspenseful adventure that immerses you in Navajo mythology, while giving you monster hunters and epic battles ... this is the place.

Maggie is our heroine, living in a post-apocalyptic world where much of the United States has been wiped out by flood, and the former Navajo reservation has survived. And changed. Supernatural creatures and monsters walk among them. Maggie is both blessed and cursed with clan powers, magical abilities that she uses in her quest to fight monsters.

She's been badly hurt, emotionally, her clan powers awakening through tragedy, harassed and teased and given cryptic, questionable help by the trickster, Coyote. Betrayed and abandoned by the one she dared to love, she doesn't trust, doesn't open herself to offers of friendship. But she must learn to trust and take chances to come out of this dangerous adventure alive. 

Fascinating, fun, grim -- and forcing me to find every chance to get away and keep listening to the book. I hope there are more adventures, because yeah, too many threads and threats left hanging!

Upcoming release sample: ETRUSCA'S VOW

 

"I wish I could go up to the Alliance orbital platform right now," M'kar murmured, stroking the control panel.

Too late, she heard footsteps scraping on the sandy floor behind her. Both boys had followed her into the air-car dock. She ducked back further into the vehicle, hoping they hadn’t seen her.

No, stupid move. Now she was trapped.

Ke’Jor leaned into the open hatch and grinned at her. "Of course, this is the best place to hide. No one will expect you to hide here. Know why?"

M'kar said nothing. She had learned the hard way over the last few days that no matter what she said, Ke’Jor would keep talking.

"It's because girls don't like to fly air-cars."

"Our cousins and sisters don't want to fly with him, because he lectures them like he knows everything," Ke’Niq said. He flung himself into the air-car, avoiding Ke’Jor’s punch, which hit the side of the open hatch instead of him. M'kar muffled a giggle.

“I can fly just fine,” Ke’Jor growled. “You want to go up to the orbital platform? Let’s go.” He tried to vault through the hatch to the cockpit, caught his foot on the lip of the hatch and sprawled through the door, hitting his face on the support bar for the pilot's seat.

"Can this fly that high?” Ke’Niq said. He and M'kar settled on the bench seat across the back of the compartment and watched Ke’Jor wipe the blood off his face and reach, half-blind, for the control panel.

Coming Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW, AFV Defender Book 3

 

Only 9 more days until the release of the third AFV Defender adventure.

What's it about?

Etrusca was a warrior woman in the distant past of Nisandros, who defied the clan heads and fought to turn her world from the worship of the Ancestors and back to worshipping and serving Enlo.

 

For that she nearly died.

Many times.

 

Multiple blue lines mark the scars around her eyes and mouth where her enemies tried to blind her and silence her forever.

 

Women of Nisandros mark their eyes with blue lines to honor Etrusca and to vow service to Enlo.

 

M'kar earned her blue lines at age 8, when an adventure nearly killed her, and dropped her into a mystery she would spend the next twenty-some years trying to unravel. Follow her as her Talent awakens and she gains allies and enemies, until the day she returns to Nisandros to solve the mystery, very much against her will.

Off the Bookshelf: ISLAND BOY, by Robert R. Harry Sr.

 

I can still see the shelf in the spare bedroom of my grandmother's house where I found this book when I was in elementary school. It was a hardback, kind of faded and dusty. I think it was marked as a book club pick for young readers.

This story took me to an entirely new place and time and culture. People who lived on islands and went barefoot and had such (to me at the time) strange customs. I loved this book and often when I was at my grandmother's house for a long period of time, I'd pull it out and read it again.

I'm delighted that Wildside Press picked up this book and has made it available in paperback.

So what's the story? Vicious warriors come to Paulo's little village demanding tribute for their new king. When they are unable to pay, they are slaughtered. Paulo is the only survivor. He is found by a friendly trader and taken to another island, where the quest begins to find a place for an orphaned boy to find a new home. Paulo is taken in by Olu the chantmaker, and as he tries to find a place on this much larger island, with so many people, the reader sees what life was like in ancient Hawaii.

Does Paulo find a new home and family? You'll just have to read it and see.

Coming Release: Pre-release Sale on ETRUSCA'S VOW

 

From now until September 10, if you pre-order ETRUSCA'S VOW, you'll save $1 on the regular retail price.

PLUS:

• Receive the book before it's available in the stores and online.
• Order the print book -- get your choice of ebook or audio FREE
• And more goodies in the planning stage!

Check out the Good Stuff page on my website to see what new special gifts might be available. Like free short stories, or maybe a chance to enter to win copies of ALL the Defender Universe stories.

If you haven't checked, that's a lot of stories now -- including a new short story that hasn't even been edited and formatted. In fact, I'm still trying to come up with a title!

To order and take advantage of the pre-release sale price, go to www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com and click on the Storefront -- all three versions of the book will be right on top, marked on sale!

Coming Release: ETRUSCA'S VOW, AFV Defender Book 3

 

Coming September 15

In paper, e and audio

This is the adventure before and during the adventure.

In Book 2, HERE THERE WERE DRAGONS, the Defender's mission to Nisandros is glossed over, with only a few remarks about some troublesome new crew and the fact that there were orders all over the Fleet, specifying that M'kar would never be sent back to her birthworld of Nisandros -- and yet she was, figuring prominently in a diplomatic mission.

The problem? M'kar was a half-blood, the first daughter born to her clan's ruling family in centuries. Dozens of lunatic prophets were shouting before she was even born that she was a figure of prophecy. They just couldn't agree if she had to die in a bloody sacrifice or be made high priestess and ruler of the planet.

Was there any wonder that her parents fled Nisandros as soon as they could?

In ETRUSCA'S VOW, readers get to follow M'kar from the age of 8, through discovering her Talent, training with Infrenx class, making some enemies and surviving several kidnapping and/or assassination attempts. Until the mission to Nisandros -- which she referred to as the "All the Boys I've Loathed Before Incident."

Read, and find out why!