We're almost to RELEASE DAY!
2 stories and 5 days to go until you meet a whole new breed of Red Riding Hood stories!
CRIMSON SPY
Jessica Noelle
A red cloak that protects against evil magic.
A vengeful enemy.
A curse to turn beauty into beast.
Can love find a way?
Get the ebook EARLY, and all anthologies $1 off
YeOldeDragonBooks.com
6 days -- 3 stories to go
Tales of Red Riding Hood that aren't your granny's fairytales!
WOODLAND CRAVINGS
Rachel A. Greco
While she was falling in love, her grandmother changed.
Walking to grandmother's house no longer gives joy but rather dread.
Will the hunger of the wolf be her doom or their salvation?
Releasing May 1
Save $1 on ALL anthologies now at YeOldeDragonBooks.com
PLUS: Save $1 on all the other Fairytale Anthology and Classic Monster Anthology books in stock -- in print and ebook, whatever is available.
Go to the Storefront NOW and take advantage of the sale. Now through May 10.
Been crazy-busy with the Ye Olde Dragon's Library blog, and all sorts of editing assignments for Mt. Zion Ridge Press, as well as prepping several of my own books for publication, both new releases and re-releases.
Here's one of the recently read books:
BECOMING MRS. LEWIS
Patti Callahan
This is a book I've had sitting in my to-be-read bookshelf for a long time. Far too long!
I knew about the romance of CS Lewis and Joy Davidman, from several different viewpoints in various books, as well as two movies, both titled SHADOWLANDS.
This novel is told from Joy's viewpoint. It quotes from many of her writings, essays and poems and letters, and follows her spiritual awakening, her personal struggles, and her search for God. Her long correspondence with CS Lewis grew into a deep friendship, a shared hunger for spiritual things, a mentorship on his part. She helped to edit several of his books, and was a major influence in his novel TIL WE HAVE FACES, the story of Psyche and Cupid, as told by Psyche's sister.
If you're a Lewis-phile or like me a Free Narnian, this is a book you need to read.
Releasing May 1
6 stories and 13 days to go.
We return to a more traditional setting for Red Riding Hood....
THE CURSE
Angela R. Watts
A curse has brought a werewolf to the forest.
To save her grandmother and village, she must brave the woods at night to fetch a healer.
Can she save her cursed friend as well?
YeOldeDragonBooks.com
Check out the other fairytale anthologies!
I READ MORE THAN ONE BOOK AT A TIME!
What I mean by that is, I have different books in different formats for different times of the day.
Sometimes it takes me weeks to read a book. It all depends on what mood I'm in, how busy I am, if I'm driving, if I'm relaxing, if I'm waiting somewhere, if I'm totally brain-dead at the end of the day and couldn't read the instructions to open a jar of aspirin if my life depended on it ....
Here's what I'm reading right now:
15 days - 7 stories until release day.
WOLVES AMONG THE LAMBS
Deborah Cullins Smith
Her sister has been taken.
A veteran goes hunting.
A wolf goes disguised as an innocent lamb to destroy the predators from within...
Red Riding Hood wasn't so helpless after all ...
Save $1 on ebook EARLY: 4/23-4/30
YeOldeDragonBooks.com
17 days and 8 authors to go until the May 1 release
Turning Red Riding Hood inside out and upside down.
KELLI AND KIRMIZI
Michelle Houston
2 cousins, as different as day and night.
Beauty and wolf.
Could they break the fairytale mold the world tried to force on them?
YeOldeDragonBooks.com
Been kind of busy ....
I'm delighted to announce that MAJJIAN SPRINGS, the long-awaited, long-delayed sequel to THE KINDNESS CURSE, will release in print, ebook and audio on June 1.
What's it about?
Happily ever after is never easy …
Formerly an evil queen, Merrigan has reformed. Reunited with her
childhood true love, Prince Bryan, she sets out to return to her father's
kingdom, to break the curse she caused to fall on it.
In every kingdom along the way, Merrigan and Bryan, and their friends, Bib the magic book and Crystal the magic mirror, face magical puzzles and curses that must be lifted.
A league of disgruntled, elitist majjians are turning
happily-ever-afters into curses, in their quest to control all the magic in the
world. Talking frogs and swans are vanishing. The majjian springs are drying
up, threatening the source of magic everywhere.
Today on the Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast, we have a new storytellers episode. It's been a long wait, but we're back to chatting with authors again.
For the next couple of months, we'll be chatting with authors who have stories in the Fairytale and Classic Monster anthologies here at Ye Olde Dragon Books.
Today's podcast features: Jordan Campbell, Deborah Cullins Smith, Yvonne McArthur, Jessi Roberts, and Meaghan Ward. They'll be chatting about their stories in the anthologies, along with current and future projects, where they get inspiration, and how they approach the challenge of creating their stories.
Find these authors online:
Jessi Roberts: The comic: https://theredtattoo.the-comic.org/comics/
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jessi-L.-Roberts/author/B07TF9RV3V
Yvonne McArthur: YvonneMcArthur.com.
Meaghan
Ward:
"A
Good Night to Be Alive" in Stories that Sing Anthology - This was also
turned into a podcast and if anyone would like to listen to it for free they
can find it at: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/havok-story-podcast/episodes/A-Good-Night-to-Be-Alive-ebb7q5
"Iron
Hood" in Casting Call Anthology.
"The
Princess of Callanway Broch" in Tales from the Tower
"The
Weight of Raven Feathers" in Perchance To Dream
Connect
on instagram @meaghaneward .
Jordan Campbell: Amazon.com: Jordan Campbell: books, biography, latest update
Deborah Cullins Smith: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deborahcullinssmith
On
Amazon, and YeOldeDragonBooks.com
THE BEASTLY BEAUTY is the sequel to LIARS' QUEST.
NOW AVAILABLE in paper, ebook, and audiobook, from Ye Olde Dragon Books, at the Ye Olde Dragon Books website or your favorite online retailer.
To celebrate, ALL the Enchanted Castle Archives stories are on sale, for a limited time.
Save $2 on the full-length novels (BEASTLY BEAUTY and LIARS' QUEST) or $1 on the short stories, in both ebook and audiobook, at the Ye Olde Dragon Books storefront.
What's the series about?
THE
ENCHANTED CASTLE ARCHIVES
The
enchanted castle lies somewhere in the enchanted forest, which touches all
kingdoms.
At one
time or another. There's no predicting when the portal into the forest will
open.
Getting
in is difficult.
Getting
out is even harder.
The
castle moves about in the forest, needing an anchor. And a princess.
The
forest moves from kingdom to kingdom.
Until two
wanderers stumble inside, and meet in their separate quests to break curses and
find answers.
LIARS'
QUEST
An orphan
servant, Ash successfully masqueraded as a boy until she was nearly 15 -- then
a spoiled brat nobleman's daughter accused her of assault.
A
quixotic justiciar got involved, and with both girls revealed as liars,
sentenced them to a quest. Ostensibly, the one who succeeded in accomplishing
the list of deeds would be proven the innocent, injured party.
Ash fled
to avoid being captured by the spoiled brat's servants and forced to do all the
quest work for both of them. Along the way, she stumbled in and out of trouble
and learned a great deal of magic -- including the magic born into her blood.
Her
traveling companions: Fang the bunny, who complicated things when he was only
partially turned into a vampire, and a spirit ring, to allow the justiciar to
spy on her adventures. When the ring decided to become Ash's friend, then
things got interesting.
THE
BEASTLY BEAUTY
Ash was
warned, and she tried to be careful, but with the Purple Sky magicians hunting
her to carry out Lathia's vendetta, there were only so many options open to
her. The magic awakening in her blood and breaking free of the binding spells
of her enemies made her even more vulnerable to trouble. And attractive to new
allies and new enemies.
When she
rode through the wrong magical doorway and found herself in the enchanted
forest, Ash knew she needed to find her way out as quickly as possible. The
enchanted castle, however, had other ideas. It needed a princess, and clever,
resourceful, magical Ash was just what it had been waiting for. She refused to
be a princess, but the castle apparently wasn't listening.
As she
gained new allies and discovered just what clever traps awaited her, Ash
settled in for a battle of wills that might occupy her for the rest of her
life. Was it any wonder that when her only freedom lay in being beastly, she
dove into the magic and the mask … and maybe enjoyed it just a little too much?
In honor of the season, and because opening night of the Easter pageant at my church reminds me of this book I wrote quite a few years ago -- based on a script I wrote for the pageant but was never used -- I am offering the 2 books in the Sarai's Journey series for sale at the Ye Olde Dragon Books website.
Save $2 each on either ebook or print.
Heretic's Daughter
Sarai's Journey, Book 1
Sarai knew her life's path from childhood.
Daughter of a wealthy, respected rabbi, she
prepared herself for marriage to a man of equal wealth and status. Her father
indulged her curiosity, and provided her an education rare among women of those
times. She used the healing talents Adonai had given her, to serve others.
However, her father's teachings about the Messiah
were in conflict with the high priest, and many in the Sanhedrin. He believed
the Messiah would first come as the Suffering Servant, not as a triumphant
warrior to rescue Judea from the tyranny of Rome. He was labeled a heretic,
ostracized from the Temple. When he died, Sarai's world disintegrated. Her
suitor vanished, along with all his sweet promises.
Reduced to nothing, Sarai devoted herself to the
man who kept his promises when everyone else abandoned her.
Then she encountered a rabbi named Jesus, from
Nazareth, who fulfilled everything her father had taught about the Messiah. As
Jerusalem was split by the question of who Jesus was, Sarai faced the most
painful decision of her life.
The man who risked everything to rescue her, or
the duty she owed to Adonai?
Break her promises and lose everything she had
regained, or destroy her soul?
Sarai's Journey, Book 2
Sarai refuses to renounce her faith in Jesus, and
her husband, Simon divorces her. She finds shelter with other followers of
Jesus amid the turmoil after the crucifixion and news of the resurrection. When
her friends decide to journey to Damascus for safety and to establish an inn,
she joins them.
Discovering she carries Simon's child leads to
painful decisions. She claims to be a widow, and prays Simon will not hear the
news and take her child from her. Within the safety of the inn family, she
builds a new life for herself as a healer.
The Inn of the Three Sisters becomes the
gathering place for the slowly growing fellowship of Christ's followers. Sarai
puts her education to good use, recording the memories of those who walked with
Jesus and heard Him teach.
Then her old life in Jerusalem reaches out to
claim her, calling on old loyalties and friendship. Returning to her former
home to help those she still loves means risking discovery, possibly
condemnation. Her duty as a healer, and as a follower of Christ, requires a
step of faith and courage that seems beyond her. The consequences of her
decision will change her life, and the life of her daughter, forever
This time around, we're taking Red Riding Hood and really pushing the envelope. There's some silliness, some humor, some heartache, a lot of danger, some sibling rivalry, some magic, some sacrifice and risk.
We have a number of returning authors, and return visits to fictional places that are starting to become very familiar.
Here's our lineup of authors and their titles:
THE CASE OF THE MISSING LEGS: Rosemarie DiCristo and Pam Halter
FACE THE WOLF: Kathleen Bird
THE WAYS OF A WOLF: Lindsi McIntyre
A CACTUS AMONG WOLVES: Yvonne McArthur
KELLI AND KIRMIZI: Michelle Houston
WOLVES AMONG THE LAMBS: Deborah Cullins Smith
THE CURSE: Angela R. Watts
DRESS REHEARSAL: Jim Doran
THE NIGHT OF THE MINDBENDER: Stoney M. Setzer
WOODLAND CRAVINGS: Rachel A. Greco
CRIMSON SPY: Jessica Noelle
RED WOLF: Michelle L. Levigne
The next book in the Enchanted Castle Archives series. Sequel to LIARS' QUEST.
You can listen to chapters of THE BEASTLY BEAUTY now on the Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast.
Either go to your favorite podcast app and subscribe, OR you can go to Ye Olde Dragon Books and listen to the latest episode on the podcast page.
There are lots of short stories taking place in the enchanted forest and the enchanted castle, featuring 'Na -- short for Belladonna -- the daughter of the heroes of the novels.
You can get the ebook of THE BEASTLY BEAUTY right NOW from Ye Olde Dragon Books, nearly 3 weeks early. The audiobook will be available by the end of the week.
And if you buy from Ye Olde Dragon Books, you'll get a new, not-yet-released short story, ASH, BREAD, AND THE BOY. This is an adventure of Ash, the heroine of THE BEASTLY BEAUTY, that was originally part of the book, but cut out during edits. FREE, in ebook. Just buy from Ye Olde Dragon Books, and you'll get a follow-up email using the email address you provide when buying your ebook or audiobook.
You can buy the other short stories in the Enchanted Castle Archives series at your favorite online store, or at Ye Olde Dragon Books. But what might be more fun is to buy the anthologies put out by Ye Olde Dragon Books, where these stories originally appeared. Either the Fairytale Anthologies or the Classic Monster Anthologies. Visit our website and check them out!
TALES FROM THE FOREST, Fairytale Anthology 4, will be releasing May 1, featuring stories that take Red Riding Hood and turn the story inside out and upside down!
INQUEST, AFV Defender book 4, releases today, March 1.
In paper, ebook, and audio.
You can buy the ebook and audio on the Ye Olde Dragon Books website and anywhere on the web that sells books.
The Defender is sent on a mission beyond charted space with the crew of the notorious Inquest, and their equally notorious, rule-breaking captain, Illean Shryne. The Inquest crew always comes back from dangerous missions covered in glory, but that is rarely so for the ships teamed with them. Will the Defender and her crew survive? Or has their misfit luck finally run out?
So, how are we going to celebrate this book release? Simple:
FREE Ebooks!!
(Offer good until March 15 -- so hurry!)
Purchase INQUEST from Ye Olde Dragon Books, and you'll get an email offering your choice of 5 AFV Defender short stories, as a thank-you.
OR: buy the book elsewhere online, and email 2OldeDragons@gmail.com with a copy of your receipt/screen shot of your order, to get your short story. Our ebooks are on Overdrive and other library subscription outlets, so you can send a screen shot of your reservation order for your local library, and get the free short story.
Sound good?
Listen to the Books on the Ridge podcast for a discount code to get $1 off ebook, audiobook or print from Mt. Zion Ridge Press!
"Likely
prospect?" he greeted Angela, as she came back down the hall. They paused
in front of the large room where the reporters worked.
"Maybe.
But we really don't have any openings. Something about her caught my attention.
I'm not sure what." She rubbed her temples and attempted a smile.
"Please tell me Dad isn't trying to install another arcade game on the
file server?" She gestured at the cluster of workers gathered around the
stacked unit of CPUs and printers, with a jungle's worth of cables leading out
to the other computers in the office.
Andrew
Coffelt had inherited the Tabor Picayune
from his father and had gladly embraced every advance in technology. Curt
sympathized with Angela, because her father was a little too eager to rest on
his credits as publisher, semi-retired yet still in the office every day. His
delight in trying out new software on the office system was a constant source
of frustration for Angela. The only thing that kept her from banning her father
from the office was the fact that his experiments hadn't interfered with the
publication of the paper. Not yet, anyway.
Curt
suspected that even if Andrew caused a power blackout of downtown Tabor Heights
for a week, Angela still couldn't ban her father from the paper. They both
loved it too much. He just wished she wasn't stuck with being the adult while
her father enjoyed his second childhood.
"I
think he's just checking out the FBI site that Loni decided to access. Tracking
the White Rose and identifying him has become the favorite hobby here,"
Curt offered.
"Unfortunately."
Angela's brown eyes lost focus. Then she shuddered, wrapped her arms around
herself, and continued down the hall to the lunchroom, her shoulder-length
black hair streaming out behind her with the impetus of her exit.
"Something
wrong?" He followed her.
"Everything
lately reminds me of the White Rose. That woman who was just in here—”
"Looks
like both his targets?" He nodded when she stared at him. "I noticed.
She reminded me of someone I knew when I was a kid."
"You
might have known her. Toni said she lived here for a few years. Toni
Napolitano. Sound familiar?"
Curt
started to say no, then choked. "Short for Antoinette?"
He
remembered Angelique's little sister, trying to tag along with them when their
gang from school went to play kickball. A scrawny kid, she pouted a lot when
Angelique told her to stay home. Curt thought she was four years younger than
him, putting her in third grade while the rest of them were in seventh.
"Yes,
Antoinette. Her credits are impressive. She brought a folder full of
clippings." Angela sighed and put down the coffee carafe without filling
her mug. "We can't really afford another reporter on staff right now. But
it wouldn't be fair to just tell her no without at least examining her
work."
"Look
at it this way." Curt's smile felt stiff. "She looks so much like the
White Rose's targets, would you feel right giving her a job that would have her
all over town, letting him get a good look at her?"
"That's
not funny." She dumped cream and sugar into her cup before reaching for
the carafe again.
"I
wasn't trying to be funny." He glanced toward the open door of her office.
"So, those clippings she brought. What did she write?"
"Everything.
Her specialty seems to be investigative reporting. If you ever feel like you
need a partner, I'd seriously consider her."
"Nah,
not yet." Curt stayed in the kitchen when Angela went back to her office.
Investigative reporter, huh? He felt sick with the certainty of what brought Toni Napolitano back to Tabor Heights. Somehow, she had heard about the White Rose, the two women he had terrorized, the one he had killed. She heard about the notes, demanding undying love and purity; the white roses left on doorsteps and even inside the victims' houses. The threats against any men who trespassed on his territory.
Just like he had done, had Toni made the connection between the White Rose and her sister's murder? Did she feel duty-bound to hunt him? Just like Curt felt duty-bound? After all, he found Angelique's body, left lying like so much discarded forest trash in the park.
Releasing March 1
These are the adventures of the E&D ship, AFV Defender. While they aren't quite as death-defying as a certain other notorious ship in the Fleet, they're developing a legend of their own. Some good. Some bad. But most important, they're a family, with all the benefits and drawbacks.
Every day is a new adventure. If their misfit
luck doesn't finally run out on them.
INQUEST: AFV Defender Book 4
Signals are coming from beyond the edges of
charted space. All indications are that they are being generated by the broken
pieces of a Gate, used by the ancient Gatekeepers to scatter all the Human
races across the universe.
Except that as far as anyone knew, nothing could
dent a Gate, forget break it. Yet the legendary warrior, Etrusca, scattered
pieces of broken Gate across known and unknown space. Now, a response is coming
in. As one of the top E&D (Exploration and Diplomacy) ships in the Alliance
Fleet, the Defender heads across the galaxy to find out just who or what is
sending the signal.
Except this time, they've been partnered with the
Inquest. The only ship in the Fleet with a stranger reputation and record than
the Defender. The notorious Captain Illean Shryne and her crew of rule-breakers
and miracle-workers always manage to escape from the jaws of death and return
covered in glory. Unfortunately, the ships sent on missions with them don't
fare so well …
Listen to the Books on the Ridge podcast for a discount code to get $1 off ebook, audiobook or print from Mt. Zion Ridge Press!
“He claims I broke his heart,” Cilla said, punctuated
by the snap of the measuring tape as it retracted back into its case. She snickered
as she wrote down the measurements of the display window.
“Grandpa should have broken his head.” Melba chuckled.
“Our grandparents had that big old house the Gallery took over. We used to have
sleepovers, all the cousins, maybe once a month. Ernie decided he would play Romeo
and tossed rocks at the dormer windows to get Cilla’s attention. The problem is,
he used really big rocks and broke Grandpa and Granny’s bedroom window. The big
buffoon actually refused to pay to replace the window, because he claimed Granny
insulted his family, getting her landscaping rocks from someone else. Can you believe
that?”
“Ernie’s father and uncles had a landscaping business,”
Cilla explained.
“Well, that’s a chunk of Cadburn history I never
heard,” Tracy said, punctuated with a chuckle. “So Miss Cilla, you’re a heartbreaker,
are you?”
“There’s gotta be a heart to break,” she muttered,
and stepped over to the built-in counter that divided the front room in half, lengthwise.
She extended the measuring tape down the long side and paused to run her fingers
over the dings and gouges and dents and what certainly looked to Melba like burn
marks in the wood.
“Some common sense would have been nice, too,”
Melba added. “Remember the time he showed up to take you on a date, and he wouldn’t
take no for an answer because he had paid Boyd for the right to take you out? He
wanted exclusive access to you for the entire week.”
“Wait,” Tracy said. “Who’s Boyd?”
“Our money-grubbing cousin.”
“Makes those stereotyped ambulance-chasing lawyers
on TV look like Boy Scouts,” Cilla added. Then she giggled. “Remember the time he
tried to convince Aunt Myrna to join some pyramid scheme, and when she didn’t give
in fast enough, he stole the old glass piggy bank where she put her egg money? She
went chasing after him with her rolling pin and he fell going down the steps and
…” Her laughter faded into a sigh and she shook her head. “Oh, my, listen to me.
Gossiping.”
“It’s not gossip if you’d take Ginny’s advice
and put all those family memories into a book and sell it as humor,” Melba said.
“And get sued by three-quarters of the family
for embarrassing them.”
“They did it to themselves!” She snickered. “We
really should. Even if it’s just as a joke. Let’s talk to Charli Hall, since she
knows writing. Or Saundra Bailey. What do you say?”
“It might be fun,” Cilla admitted and chuckled.
Listen to the Books on the Ridge podcast for a discount code to get $1 off ebook, audiobook or print from Mt. Zion Ridge Press!
"The
White Rose?" Ted Gruber, the senior advertising rep, sauntered into the
room. "Bet you anything he got rejected by e-Harmony. Maybe we should get
the cops to subpoena them to open up their records."
Curt and
Max exchanged glances. She muttered about a queue full of stories that needed
to be edited and hurried out of the lunchroom. Ted sidled up next to Curt and
went up on his toes to see through the gap into Angela's office. He whistled.
"Who's
the cutie? Looks kind of familiar... Hey, is she victim two? What's her name,
Karen? Kate?"
"Katrina,"
Curt muttered. "That's not her."
His
stomach twisted and he stared at the young woman, standing now and shaking
hands with Angela. Make her hair longer, exchange that brown blazer for a fuzzy
pink sweater, and make her twelve years old… she could be Angelique Napolitano.
But
Angelique was dead. Nearly twenty years now.
Curt
shook his head. He was seeing Angelique everywhere, lately. He had nearly
knocked himself out on the basketball court two weeks ago, when he looked up in
the stands and thought he saw her sitting there, cheering for Tabor Christian's
team in the inter-church basketball tournament. The look-alike was Sheila
McGuire, Officer Frank McGuire's niece. Her parents were Army doctors, both on
duty overseas.
Ted
stomped over to the coffeemaker and tossed a quarter into the donation jar.
Everyone was supposed to put in fifty cents for the coffee. "Some loony
thinks he's in love and plays Cyrano DeBergerac, spouting love poetry from the
bushes. When the girls get scared, he gets nasty." He spilled coffee on
the counter, then scattered as much sugar as he put in his coffee. He picked up
the sponge from the tiny sink, made a half-hearted swipe at the mess, left it
sitting there, and headed out of the lunchroom. "What happened to the good
old days when a guy saw a girl he wanted, clobbered her over the head and
dragged her back to his cave?" He disappeared down the hall to the front
of the long, narrow office space.
"I
bet you got rejected by e-Harmony, too," Curt muttered.
He heard
the doorknob click and pretended to read the six-month-old copy of Writer's Digest. He sauntered to the
doorway of the lunchroom, watching from the corner of his eye as Angela walked
the stranger to the front of the office. The long hallway down the far side of
the office unit went from front to back, giving Curt a clear view of the traffic
at the front door. He watched Angela and the Angelique look-alike shake hands.
Several knots of tension in his gut and shoulders loosened when the young woman
walked out the door.
