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Who’s brave enough to disturb the paranormal mysteries of the forest? #MFRWHooks
THE next morning, Lane found something a little out of the routine, an email from a woman named Chiara DeLuna, who introduced herself as a ‘paranormal investigations professional’.
Lane shook his head as he read the email.
First off, if your title includes the word ‘professional’ I’m going to think you’re a little insecure. And if you’re that insecure, you probably don’t know what the hell you’re doing.
And if you’re coming to ask me for help, then I think maybe we’re both on the trail to Pretty Well Lost.
He read it again, strictly for entertainment value. “Dear Mr. Donatelli: Perhaps you know my name, Chiara DeLuna, Professional Investor of all things paranormal and weird? My television show on the YES cable network has won several awards, and I have busted myths and legends around the country and also on an international scale. In researching my latest project, I find that not a lot is available on mystical happenings in your local forests, other than the usual Native American spirit legends. I know your book is fiction, but something about the way you tell this story shows me you know more than you’re sharing about what goes on in those deep, dark woods. The Montana Vortex is located just north of the area you wrote about. Are you familiar with this? I’m thinking of featuring this site in one of my upcoming programs. If you’d be willing to be interviewed, I’d love to spend some time picking your brain. You could be one of my on screen sources, maybe even get in a plug for your book. What do you say? I’ll be in Missoula in a few weeks, and I’d love to get together and buy you a drink. Or coffee, maybe, at that little Butterfly coffee shop you wrote about? I’ve included my cell phone number and email address. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
She signed her name with a little circle above it. Or was that a halo?
Lane chuckled. “Oh, lady, if you only knew what I could tell you about those woods.”
THE ELF GUARDIAN Clan Elves of the Bitterroot (Book IV): The strong Earth energies that support the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot have gone awry for unknown reasons, and the powerful forces at work have not gone unnoticed by the outside world.
Can Max get humans, mages, and elves working together in time to save the land before the energies spin out of control? Or is this the end of the elven world in the Bitterroot Mountains?
When a paranormal investigator looking for a story to save her career is told a fantastic tale by the juvenile and disobedient elf prince Elliun, his young albino elf bodyguard Max must try to fix the mistake.
https://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=306268
Viviana’s faves, and a new release!
Welcome, Viviana MacKade! Take it away!
I have a review page on my blog. I’m afraid it hasn’t been updated in quite some time, but I’ll go back to it as soon as I have a little more time. Which can be some time, admittedly.
Despite my reviewing activity status is stuck in a rut, here’s the fantasy books I loved the most in the past year or so.
Georgia Lynn Hunter’s Series Fallen Guardian, and the spin-off Warlords of Empyrea.
Everything you love about fantasy romance is there. Tortured (literally) heroes who come from different dimensions and carry a heavy load on their shoulders. They are all very hot, very pissed, and very much unhappy about falling in love.
The heroines come armed by their own difficult stories, are fighters in their own right. They might be confused and scared but are never too stupid to live, and teach the mighty guardians a thing or two. Although Aethan’s story (Guardians book 1) is my all-time favorite, there is not one book in both series I didn’t thoroughly enjoy.
Longing of the Lone Wolves by Lana Pecherczyk
A surprise. A book that explains shape shifting in a way that I’d never heard. I loved it. Everything just made so much sense, which is a testament to the Author’s hard work in building the backstory. Refreshing and just cool.
Gaslamp Gothic Series by Kat Ross
Ah, another delight. A Bad Breed is my favorite, but all books in the series are great. So much so that I started form A Bad Breed, which is book 3, read The Necromancer’s Wife (book 4) and then I went back to Demoniac. It’s a fantastic journey.
Spells, Salt, & Steel (Season One) by Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin
It tastes like a TV show, as it’s made of short stories. It’s fun, it’s full of action, and the hero’s attitude is so bad that’s endearing.
Special mention: The End Of The Road by Karen Michelle Nutt
Special mention because it’s not really a fantasy. There’s a ghost, though, so I felt it could be sneaked in.
A sweet story, a mystery, a cast that you must love. It was fun, dear, touching.
I hope you’ll give these stories a moment of your time, and maybe, if you want, take a look at Valkyrie Love, too. Thank you!
Valkyrie love never comes easy.
Brenna left Asgard with a curse on her name and a broken heart.
A Valkyrie now free and independent, for millennia her life had been great. Just great.
Then a bleeding Elf knocks at her door holding a baby.
Alexander Reed left the Marines and lost the wheel of his life.
A soldier without a worthy fight, he became everything he despised.
Until he ends up in the wrong backyard at the wrong time.
Fljóða, Queen of the Light Elves and last of her lineage, is an infant with a death sentence on her head.
Hunted by the Night Elves, her survival brings Brenna and Reed together for the ultimate mission: take the little Queen to safety in the Vanaheim Realm, deep in the Roots of Yggdrasil.
Not simple, but straightforward.
Or so it seemed.
Between flaming giants, demons, and an army of Half Breed determined to kill the Queen and conquer all the Elvin Realms, Brenna and Reed will have to face their inner monsters.
Monsters appearing in the form of feelings neither want but cannot control.
Link:
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Find the dates at www.viviana-mackade.blog
Author bio and links:
Beach bum and country music addicted, Viviana lives in a small Floridian town with her die-hard fans and personal cheer squad: her husband, her son, and her daughter. She spends her days between typing on her beloved keyboard, playing in the pool with her babies, and eating whatever her husband puts on her plate (the guy is that good, and she really loves eating). Besides beaching, she enjoys long walks, horse-riding, hiking, and pretty much whatever she can do outside with her family.
Find me:
The best way to know me is through my website (and the books I host): http://www.viviana-mackade.blog/
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Excerpt:
From chapter 17
When you like or are falling for someone, as Reed recognized was happening, there are always these great romantic lines babbled by the hero. Lines as I’d follow you until the end of the world.
Well, he actually did it.
He hadn’t followed Brenna because of his feelings for her, though. Back then, he had none.
He had eyes and she was beautiful, so there was that. Would he have gone all the way to another dimension for a pretty face? Nope.
Brenna was different. He’d known it since the first time he’d seen her slaying monsters in her backyard and a person with her kind of courage?
He would go on a mission with, all the way to the end. A mission which, to him, tasted more like redemption, a chance to find the way back to the person he once had been, one with a solid moral compass.
A man he could live with.
She had an agenda, of course she didn’t enlist him out of a good heart. But for as much as it had pained her to admit it, another person, especially one with his background, was handy to have around for her mission. And in doing so, Brenna gave him a chance, a chance to clean his slate.
They both had crappy baggage; both had left those behind.
In here, in these roots, they were only Reed and Brenna.
Hell, he didn’t even know her last name, if she had one. And you know what? It worked. He didn’t care about her history, how she got to be this way. He only cared about the woman she’d come to be today, whatever byway she took to get to the here-and-now they shared.
The woman he was falling hard for. Maybe he had already toppled over.
A woman who currently disappeared into yet another dimension through a transparent rubber wall that sparkled if hit.
Damn, how crazy was it? How absolutely great, and crazy? Being in love, not the wall.
Reed didn’t have it in him to appreciate those portals.
In front of him, Mae’s head had already disappeared as she continued to hold onto his hand. Time to get his head in the game. Literally.
Only the elf’s arm divided him from the other side.
Downright freaky.
Linked to Mae, his hand crossed the invisible wall. He could feel Mae’s fingers in his, so it ought to be good news, right?
His arm went through.
And then he had to step into it.
It was like pushing through a thick wall of humid, hot, dense sponge. It reminded him of a cow’s nose and the image didn’t help any, despite his love for said animals.
As the wall moved to accommodate his shoulder and half of his body, it pressed on him. Mae released him, so now both his hands were free – one in the warm dwarves’ realm, and the other in the hotter, drier air of the Fire Realm.
He hoped, hard, that the protection he’d fashioned around their ammunitions would hold.
Reed turned his face toward the invisible wall and pushed all in.
A gummy wall pressed tight.
Hard to move.
For the longest moment he couldn’t breathe, and panic slithered through him. Until a different hand took his.
Brenna’s.
He didn’t need to see it. He’d fallen asleep holding her hand for long enough to recognize it.
It was all the encouragement he needed. He grasped at her hold, used her as an anchor, and pulled himself toward her.
He slid all the way out, and he nearly fell as pressure suddenly let go.
Lord, but the air felt good.
Oven-hot, dry air.
“Damn,” he murmured as he took in the new realm, still holding on to Brenna.
The sky hung heavy, clothed in the deepest, darkest shade of purple.
In front of him, rivers and rivulets of lava cut through brown land, bare and dry.
They looked like fire-bleeding wounds on dying ground. Sprinkles of glowing debris wheezed out from barren hills and short volcanoes. Sometimes, out of nowhere, the land would crack open enough to spit a mouthful of lava and fiery sparkles of fire in the black-hot air.
“Ugly,” he murmured, fighting and losing against the need to have Brenna closer.
He pulled her in until she was into his arms, found her stiff.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to keep her distance by placing her palms onto his chest.
“This place is miserable. Everywhere else we went, something was nice. Here? It’s simply dead.” He tightened the hold on her, looked at her and smiled. “I needed a shot of good.”
The best feeling in the world? Her response, how she gave into the hug.
A four-star review for The Elf Queen!
Read all about it HERE: https://www.thefaeriereview.com/2022/01/review-the-elf-queen/
And stay tuned for a new series video COMING SOON!
Thankful for the Internet! #mfrwhooks
Daven Talvi made a choice a quarter-century ago to serve the Bitterroot Elf Clan, allowing the Circle of Elders to send him into suspended animation until the queen could be rescued. In doing so, he gave up his mate and his newborn son, sacrificing his own life for that of the clan.
It had been a mistake.
With the clan now in chaos and the new young queen in hiding, Daven must acknowledge his own errors and take responsibility to set things right. He teams up with Lane Donatelli, a human who has too long used food and computer gaming to feed his own insecurities.
Together, they use Lane’s beloved technology with Daven’s innate magical abilities to wage battle against the evil elf mages threatening the clan.
[Clan Elves of the Bitterroot (Book 3) | Fantasy novel from Dragonfly Publishing, Inc. | Available in Hardback, Paperback, and eBook]
EXCERPT:
“Kev! Come in! Man, you should have called. I woulda come down and saved you the steps.” He stepped aside so Kevin could skinny past him; fortunately, Kevin kept himself in military trim. Lane, on the other hand, had a longstanding love affair with Creamy Cupcakes that kept him mostly round.
Kevin continued into the kitchen. “What’s that noise? I thought you took that hawk back to the forest?”
Lane swallowed hard. “Oh, the hawk. Yeah. Yeah, we did.” He wandered back into the small living room where Crispy sat curled into the corner of their brown Salvation-Army acquired couch.
“That’s a….” Kevin blinked as he leaned on the counter at the pass-through.
“Yep. That’s a baby.” Lane smiled as little Elliun snuggled into Crispy’s arm, both hands on the bottle Crispy had just warmed. Elliun’s blue fleece sleeper zipped all the way to his chin, but Crispy had insisted on wrapping him in a knit blanket, too. Just in case.
Kevin set down the box he’d carried upstairs and walked into the living room, staring. His words dropped like stones. “Where. Did. You. Get. A. Baby.” He glanced first at the door, then at the webcam on the edge of the Cave. “Are we going to have police on the doorstep?”
“Not likely.” Lane sighed. “We’re just…babysitting.”
“Babysitting.” Kevin’s dry tone was laced with skepticism. “Really.”
“At least I hope so.”
Satisfied Crispy was meeting the child’s needs, Lane leaned against the door frame into the kitchen. ‘Babysitting’ wasn’t really the right word. “Kidnapping,’ now that was more accurate, in the legal sense. He’d had to take the baby. He had to. For the baby’s sake. Before something bad happened.
Crispy suspected, but he hadn’t said anything until they got home. Then he’d turned into the perfect little mother, tending to Elliun’s every need. But it didn’t keep the little one from crying. And even though it had been less than two days, the noise and needs of this child grated on Lane’s nerves. More ibuprofen, please…
“Seriously, Lane. Isn’t that your friend’s baby? How long are you keeping it?”
Crispy looked up, a Madonna-like smile on his face. “Until he’s safe. Everyone needs to be safe. You know that. You were a soldier.”
A furrow developed between Kevin’s thin brows. “Well, I can’t argue with you. Everyone sure does need to be safe. It’s just really peculiar.” He inched closer to the couch. “He’s a handsome little guy. But…how did you learn to–”
“Ehow.com,” Lane said. “They also have a page on how to change a diaper and how to mix formula.”
Kevin laughed. “I guess I never looked it up. I had plenty of brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins. We did it all by watching. You want to know how to put a baby to sleep?”
“We learned that on WikiHow,” Crispy said. “They even have a video.”
“Unbelievable.” Kevin shook his head. “Hey…do you think I could hold him?”
Crispy looked suspiciously at Kevin. “Do you have baby credentials?”
“Probably more than you do, Crisp,” Lane said. “Go ahead. It’ll be fine.”
Elliun went to Kevin without a peep, studying his dark face curiously. He reached out to touch Kevin’s skin, then broke into a smile.
“See? He likes you.”
A knock at the door sent them all into shocked silence. Crispy hid his head behind a green sofa pillow. “The government’s here! Your camera told them we’re criminals!”
https://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=301281
Intrigue in the Elf world #MFRWHooks
THE ELF CHILD
Clan Elves of the Bitterroot (Book II)
The moment elf warrior Astan Hawk agrees to protect the young elf queen trouble dogs his heels. Jelani’s human upbringing clashes with clan tradition, spurring dangerous intrigues within the Circle of Elders. Soon even the motives of his father Daven come into question. With nowhere else to turn, Astan asks Jelani’s human friends for help. Hiding in shadows, an outcast elf plots revenge by seeking the help of powerful elf mages who live deep within the forest. Can Astan fulfill his promise to keep both Jelani and his child safe when the whole world seems to have turned against them?
Paperback at Amazon • Paperback at Barnes & Noble • Paperback at Lulu • Hardback at Barnes & Noble • Hardback at Lulu • eBook at Amazon Kindle • eBook at Apple • eBook at Barnes & Noble • eBook at Kobo • eBook at Smashwords
EXCERPT:
This was Grigor’s plan, no one else’s. He’d thought of it all on his own, after the clan had discarded him, left him alone here in the pitiless rocks and cold winds and harsh rain. He deserved the right to carry it out.
“If the elders are involved in their politicking and complaining, then now is the time to strike,” Grigor said, looking Vez straight in the eye. “We should move in and take the child now.”
“All the same, if guards are posted, while they may let us in, they will not let you pass,” Vez insisted.
“We need a distraction. Something to send anyone who’s not already involved in this discussion about the false queen out of our way,” Grigor said.
Terzon’s face lit up, an idea practically bursting from his lips. “A groundquake. That would frighten them, show them we are a force to be reckoned with!” He grinned, and Grigor knew that capability existed within his childhood friend. But so did the rest of the clan.
“They would know you had caused it, Terzon. Inherent in this plan is the ability for you and the others to continue to blend into the clan, to appear innocent, until the queen is deposed once and all. The same goes for the rest of you. Your elven powers are obvious to those who know you well.”
Silence settled around them like a heavy smoke. Grigor hadn’t thought through the details, not while trying to coordinate so many of them, and now facing the open hostility in the eyes of Vez, he struggled to be clever.
“Then we should use human powers,” Vez said.
“Humans have no powers!” Hidal cried.
“Exactly. What can we do that will call to the heart of every elf in the forest, that we can blame on humans?”
“Fire,” Fontine whispered.
“Yes,” Grigor said. “Yes, Fontine, that’s just what we need.”
Grigor knew Fontine could start a fire anywhere, just by wishing it into existence. But careless humans had destroyed hundreds of acres of elven territory over the years. The possibility was one the clan feared more than almost anything.
Yadin nodded. “Beckley said a camp of human males had been on the eastern face of the mountain for the last week, hunting for animals.”
“This was known to the clan?” Grigor asked.
“Yes,” Vez said. “I heard them talking. Here’s your chance to be a hero, my friend. And we can hold the humans accountable for all of it. Of course, this would be more believable if you showed the clan you’d put up a fight to protect them.” He eyed Grigor. “I think a blacked eye and a bloody nose ought to do it.”
https://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=297341
Have you heard of the Montana Vortex?
I knew when I got the idea for THE ELF GUARDIAN that It would be set in the Bitterroot Mountains, like the others–but I wanted a unique twist. It came when I read about the Montana Vortex.
When paranormal investigator Chiara de Luna needs a boost to her sagging career, she makes a trip to northwestern Montana for new material. Little does she know that the real story she’ll find is much more outlandish than weirdly tilted trees and brooms standing up on their own.
Clan Elves of the Bitterroot (Book IV): The strong Earth energies that support the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot have gone awry for unknown reasons, and the powerful forces at work have not gone unnoticed by the outside world. When a paranormal investigator looking for a story to save her career is told a fantastic tale by the juvenile and disobedient elf prince Elliun, his young albino elf bodyguard Max must try to fix the mistake. Can Max get humans, mages, and elves working together in time to save the land before the energies spin out of control? Or is this the end of the elven world in the Bitterroot Mountains? [Urban Fantasy series from Dragonfly Publishing, Inc.]
Excerpt:
The phone line went dead before she could even say ‘goodbye.”
Not that she was going to say ‘goodbye.’ Anything but.
“Hunter, wait—”
The once-sweet name turning bitter on her tongue, the whispered words sighed through her lips, becoming sharp, cutting her.
No, that was her teeth, biting down hard enough to make her bleed.
She set the phone into the stand. Gone.
Her knees gave way and she landed, hard, in her office chair, banging her elbow on the edge of the polished black-and-chrome desk. The pain reverberated up and down her arm, but did nothing to cloak the agony raging inside her.
So close…
The news clippings across the surface of the desk seemed to mock her now. Paranormal Investigator Visits Alcatraz. DeLuna Solves Local Murder with Psychic Clues. Ghosts Give Up Secrets to Ohio Paranormal Expert. All her work, fifteen years of building a reputation as an investigator of the weird and unexplained—what would it mean if Hunter Nowles walked away from her?
And why was he leaving? Because that stupid exorcism had turned out to be a fake.
Okay, and the haunting of that old mansion in Pennsylvania had turned out to be a bust.
She chewed her lip. To be honest, she’d failed to either prove or debunk the last seven investigations she’d undertaken. Lucky number seven.
“The great Chiara DeLuna bites the big one,” she muttered, waiting for the rim shot that had to follow. It was a joke, right? She was a joke. The network seemed to think so. Davis had already sent a memo warning her they wouldn’t fund her program any longer if she couldn’t produce results. And now Hunter had decided she wasn’t worth his time, either.
Or maybe he was just afraid that her failures would taint his own growing stature in the paranormal investigation community. Their three years as lovers didn’t mean anything at all?
Her gaze was snagged by one of the news photos on the desk, herself smiling and shaking the beefy hand of some small-town police chief. See, that woman was Chiara DeLuna, “spooky” media star—the woman with the chic platinum blonde hair, the expensive wardrobe, and the ominous black sedan that seemed to part crowds when she arrived on a scene.
Not the woman who looked back at her from the mirror, dreary, bookish Bonny Lang from Euclid, Ohio whose most thrilling accomplishment before she’d hit the big time was surviving a wreck with a drunk driver, as a teenager. Her mother had been killed in the crash; Bonny had sold her first paranormal article based on a post-mortem conversation they had before her mother’s spirit faded.
Paperback at Amazon • Paperback at Barnes & Noble • Paperback at Lulu • Hardback at Barnes & Noble • Hardback at Lulu • eBook at Amazon Kindle • eBook at Apple • eBook at B&N Nook • eBook at Kobo • eBook at Smashwords
PAPERBACK [EAN 978-1-936381-51-7 | ISBN 1-936381-51-6] 5.5 x 8.5 trade trim or 6×9 library trim (184 pages) | Average Price: $12.99
HARDBACK [EAN 978-1-936381-50-0 | ISBN 1-936381-50-8] 6×9 casebound (184 pages) | Average Price: $21.99
EBOOK [EAN 978-1-936381-52-4 | ISBN 1-936381-52-4] EPUB and Kindle MOBI (58,000 words) | Average Price: $3.99
An adventure she never asked for, a past she never knew #MFRWHooks
One of the themes of this blog is adventure, which I think everyone should experience at some point. But sometimes adventures are planned…and sometimes….
As she reached Broadway, a worn blue bicycle pulled up next to her, horn screeching over its rider’s distinctive squeal. “Where is your car, woman?”
Jelani eyed her best friend, Iris Pallaton, whose blonde hair swirled above the bright cloud of a magenta blouse. “Richard had it towed.”
“Rat bastard!”
“Tell me about it. I’m late.” Jelani headed off again.
Iris pedaled along the curb beside her. “You should call his supervisor and complain.”
“And what? Humiliate myself because he’s a jerk? Screw him!”
“Maybe you should.” Iris laughed. “Then he’d be too awed to bother you again.”
Jelani glared as they crossed the street. “Funny.”
On the far side, she caught the glint of glass in the middle of the sidewalk. “What idiot would drop a bottle when there’s a trash can right there?” she grumbled. “I’ll get it. First karma points of the day.”
Iris climbed off the bike and put down the kickstand. “What is that?” She bent down near the object. “Oh, sweet Gaia! It’s a glass slipper!”
No kidding. It really appeared to be a shoe made out of glass. A large one.
“Who would have left this here?” Jelani picked it up, looking around for a prankster camera team. Something kept her from tossing the shoe.
“Try it on,” Iris whispered. “It would get Richard Snyder off your mind.”
“Richard is not on my mind. He’s on my crap list.”
“Oooh. Sorry.” Iris ran her finger over the shoe. “You’re chicken anyway.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Chicken. Bawk-bawk.” Iris giggled.
“Fine! If it means I can get to work.” Reaching down with her right hand, she unzipped her boot and kicked it off. “Ready? You want a picture?”
Iris dug for her cellphone and raised it, ready to take a shot. “Just in case your prince shows up right then.”
“I don’t need a prince,” Jelani complained. “I don’t need a man. I need a new life.”
Setting the shoe on the ground, Jelani slipped her foot in it and gently stepped down, not sure to what expect.
The slipper shattered, slicing into the sole of her foot.
Nauseous, Jelani screamed and could only watch in disbelief as tiny men sprang from the blood trickling under the broken shoe. She lost track of how many. With the biggest maybe two inches high, the men scattered into the shadows around the nearest building and disappeared.
She lifted her foot, shaking off the blood, and examined her sole to see if glass remained buried in her skin.
“Did you see that?” Iris gasped, nearly breathless. She grabbed at the wall, eyes closed for a moment.
Jelani felt faint, too, suddenly washed out. “I don’t know.”
There were no glass fragments in her foot or anywhere. The shoe had vanished. The only trace of the whole incident was dark blood, slowly drying in the sun on the sidewalk. As she watched, the cuts in her foot healed.
Iris knelt down to peer at Jelani’s foot. “There were little people. Naked little people. They ran away. I swear they did.”
“Did you get pictures?”
“I almost forgot!” Iris got up and activated the screen on her cell phone, pressed the arrow. Jelani leaned close to watch the whole thing replay in living color. “Oh. Bless. My. God,” Iris said, in her shock reverting to the male deity.
Jelani nodded. “And the horse He rode in on.”
****
When Jelani tries on a real glass slipper left lying on the sidewalk, it splits in half and out pour dozens of two-inch high creatures who scurry away into the shadows. As if that’s not bizarre enough, she is soon approached by two men claiming (of all things) to be elves who need her help to rescue their queen.
Buy now at Amazon!
https://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=296360
No room for elves in “Boz Angeles”?
Interesting story about Bozeman, Montana, not too far from the Bitterroot. Seems like they have a lot of problems that my new home city, Asheville, NC, is dealing with:
https://www.businessinsider.my/should-i-move-to-bozeman-montana-2020-3/amp
Is it possible to build up too much fun for anyone to afford?
A little Clan Elves love from Madison Michael! Start reading this series today!
Scenic drive along Idaho-12
Come by, read an excerpt and check out the new covers for the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot series!!
https://www.madisonmichael.net/the-elf-queen-a-paranormal-urban-fantasy-from-lyndi-alexander/
I’ve got a bad feeling about this… Sci-Fi Fantasy Saturday for 1-25
Greetings from the frozen Northland! I used to live in Montana, where THE ELF MAGE is set, and I decided to leave there because it just got too cold in the winter. So today I woke up to -3 (-16 with the wind chill) here in Pennsylvania, and in Missoula, it’s 22 degrees. What’s up with that?
Anyway, as I sit here bundled up in my chair and just my fingers sticking out so I can type, I wanted to share a snippet of THE ELF MAGE, part of the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot series. This piece is near the beginning of the third book, just after the elf prince has been abducted by persons or elves unknown and the clan nearly destroyed. Daven Talvi, whose pride helped bring things to this point, has come to after being knocked out in a fight, in the queen’s enchanted home, finding himself alone and everything in shambles:
Astan had many times expressed his concern since the queen came to live in the forest with the clan, worried that Grigor had not perished alone in the forests, and that he would return to avenge his dead master Bartolomey. But Daven had counseled his son not to take action, to wait and watch. Astan disagreed, but obeyed his father, as duty required.
And look where that has brought you.
Truly Daven had underestimated the evil Grigor held within him, the sense of blackness that still pervaded the atmosphere inside the queen’s home. As a fullblood elf, well-trained in the ways of divination, Daven perceived several mental voices, several personas who had left the barest impression of themselves behind, an impression of menace and ill-will.
Something about one in particular felt familiar to Daven. Something he had not felt for many years. Something so vague he couldn’t put a name to it yet. But he would.
***
And thus begins a transformation that will lead to the biggest battle this clan has ever endured…that may be the end of them all.
For more on the series, visit the Clan Elves page or my tab above, or check it out at Amazon.com .
For other amazing snippets from sci-fi fantasy authors around the world, check out this week’s edition of SFFS here!
Lyndi Alexander's worlds of fancy 