More cool new books

Last week there was a vignette prompt at Sarah Hoyt's blog, but no book promo. This week it seems the vignette prompt has gone astray, but there are two new books you might want to look into, as well as a humorous tale of obstacles overcome.

 Also, I just wanted to remind everyone about Joseph T Major's new novel. I'm hoping to start reading it shortly.

 

 The Motherland Knows by Joseph T Major They thought he could help. The First Man in Space was under pressure. He had to regain his flight status. A friend had died for him. And from all over the Soviet Union, workers and other proletarians wrote him begging for help. Sometimes he could help And now, he was beginning to think, the Soviet Union was going the wrong way, a very wrong way. They might decide to solve some matters. A dead hero can't disagree with the authorities. So he reached out, to someone he had met, someone who was known, someone he thought he could trust. Then, on a cold and clear Christmas night, he took the most daring step -- and the world changed. In a tale of space flight, spying, and politics, people who thought they would never get into that sort of thing now found themselves propelled into it. A turbulent and tumultuous world is shaken into a different path, as leaders react to embarrassment with a desire for prestige, where the wish of a pilot is brought closer to coming through, and famous men are brought together, to find that enemies are more like them than they had imagined.

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Crossposted at my LiveJournal, The Starship Cat

Please remember that indie writers depend upon reviews for visibility. If you've read and enjoyed something, please consider writing a review -- if not on Amazon.com, at least on Goodreads or on your blog.

New Books for the New Year

It's a brand-new year, and there are some brand-new books, some long-awaited and some surprises.




 Survive by Vera Nazarian The End is Here, in a Fiery Cosmic Apocalypse! Gwen Lark knows how to Qualify, Compete, and Win... The time has come to Survive. The Games of the Atlantis Grail have come to a ground-shaking halt and Gwen Lark, nerd, geek, and awkward smart girl, survived the remarkable ordeal, for the time being. But the worst is yet to come! Now, both the colony planet Atlantis and Earth are under a threat of annihilation, and everything is up in the air, including dire and stunning wonders in the Atlantean skies. Will there be a Wedding? Will there be a future for Gwen Lark, her beloved, and all their families, friends, and loved ones? Is Gwen’s rare and powerful talent, the Logos voice of creation, enough to resolve the greatest mystery of the Kassiopei Imperial Dynasty and its role in the events of deepest antiquity since the dawn of time? The fate of the entire human species is at stake, and now there can be no respite, not a moment to lose. The final battle is here, and Gwen, and everyone she knows and loves, are in for the greatest fight of their lives. It is time to survive. SURVIVE is the fourth and final book in The Atlantis Grail series, now an international cross-genre phenomenon, optioned for film.

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 The Motherland Knows by Joseph T. Major They thought he could help. The First Man in Space was under pressure. He had to regain his flight status. A friend had died for him. And from all over the Soviet Union, workers and other proletarians wrote him begging for help. Sometimes he could help And now, he was beginning to think, the Soviet Union was going the wrong way, a very wrong way. They might decide to solve some matters. A dead hero can't disagree with the authorities. So he reached out, to someone he had met, someone who was known, someone he thought he could trust. Then, on a cold and clear Christmas night, he took the most daring step -- and the world changed. In a tale of space flight, spying, and politics, people who thought they would never get into that sort of thing now found themselves propelled into it. A turbulent and tumultuous world is shaken into a different path, as leaders react to embarrassment with a desire for prestige, where the wish of a pilot is brought closer to coming through, and famous men are brought together, to find that enemies are more like them than they had imagined.

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Time of Daughters I by Sherwood Smith In a time of change and danger, peace sparks to war, and sons become daughters... It’s nearly a century after the death of Inda, the unbeatable Marlovan commander. Danet and Arrow, content in their arranged marriage, just want to live in peaceful obscurity and raise their family. But when a treaty sends them to the royal city to meet the heir to the throne, they discover that peace is fragile, old enemies have long memories, and what you want isn't always what you get. By the time they learn that you can’t go back again, events ignite a conflagration that no one could have foreseen—except for the ghosts who walk the walls in the royal city. This is the first half of an epic story of politics, war, family and magic in the beloved world of Sartorias-deles.

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Time of Daughters 2 by Sherwood Smith In a time of rising danger, women go to war, and ghosts walk the walls... A few years have passed since the Night of Four Kings, when the least expected candidates for rulership found themselves in charge of a disintegrating kingdom. These years of tenuous peace see their children reach adulthood. Threats from the border become raids, led by an idle noble with an eye to kingship. The two princes, Noddy and Connar, newly emerged from the military academy, are dispatched to patrol the troubled area until they find themselves under attack. Their loyalty to one another is strong, but what happens when one brother discovers a taste for war and the other a loathing for it? Matters of marriage and love tangle up with the menace of war. But the greatest threat of all comes when the world’s strongest army faces enemies from within. This is the concluding half of an epic story of politics, war, family and magic in the beloved world of Sartorias-deles.

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Also Sherwood Smith has been signal-boosting for Australian writers affected by the massive fires in that country. After seeing so many images of shocking destruction, a lot of us are asking how we can help. Right now, the best way we can help is to buy their books so that they will have some income to return home to and start over. There are several names of both authors and publishers who have lost everything, and who could really use some solid income streams right now, when everything is at its lowest.

Promo Awaits

I'm busy getting ready for Grand Rapids Comic Con, including catching up on some bookwork. So I wanted to get this week's promo post out before the day slips away from me. Enjoy, and hope to see a least some of you at the con.



The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin by L. Jagi Lamplighter

Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts – A magic school like no other!

To Rachel Griffin, Roanoke Academy is a place of magic and wonder. Nestled amidst the beauty of New York’s Hudson Highlands and hidden from the eyes of the Unwary, it offers everything a young sorceress could desire—enchantments, flying brooms, and the promise of new friends.

On her first day of school, Rachel discovers her perfect memory has an unexpected side effect. She can see through the spell sorcerers use to hide their secrets.

When someone tries to kill a fellow student, Rachel investigates. She soon discovers another far-vaster secret world that hides from the Wise the way the Wise hide from mundane folk. Rushing forward where others fear to tread, Rachel bravely faces wraiths, embarrassing magical pranks, mysterious older boys, a Raven that brings the doom of worlds, and at least one fire-breathing teacher.

Described by fans as: "Fringe meets Narnia at Hogwarts", The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin is a tale of wonder and danger, romance and heartbreak, and, most of all, of magic and of a girl who refuses to be daunted.

Curiosity may kill a cat, but nothing stops Rachel Griffin!

"Lamplighter introduces many imaginative elements in her world that will delight..." VOYA

(The first of a series that currently stands at three volumes, with more to come).



A Diabolical Bargain by Mary Catelli

Growing up between the Wizards' Wood and its marvels, and the finest university of wizardry in the world, Nick Briarwood always thought that he wanted to learn wizardry.

When his father attempts to offer him to a demon in a deal, the deal rebounded on him, and Nick survives -- but all the evidence points to his having made the deal.

Now he really wants to learn wizardry. Even though the university, the best place to master it, is also the place where he is most likely to be discovered.



Wren Journeymage by Sherwood Smith

The first summer of peace brings Wren on her weekly visit to the young Queen Teressa, where she encounters the derisive, upsetting Hawk Rhiscarlan riding in! Wren races to warn Teressa, to discover he's expected, which causes the girls' first argument. Tyron gives Wren a chance to leave Meldreth by sending her on a new journeymage project--to find Connor, who had wandered off to the Summer Isles. When Wren vanishes, her scry stone abandoned, Teressa veers between regret over the argument, worry about Wren, and the beguilement of attraction as Hawk skillfully upsets her court. Wren has just made friends with some young sailors when they are captured and forced on board a shady smuggler, where Wren learns all about the sea. When pirates attack, Wren does magic, which leads her straight to another confrontation with the villain she hates most, aided by the boy she . . . what do you call these feelings? Once again the four--Wren, Teressa, Connor, and Tyron--find themselves deep in adventure, as they try to navigate the treacherous waters of growing up.

(The first three Wren books were originally published by Jane Yolen's YA imprint with Harcourt. When Harcourt discontinued the imprint, it left the series orphaned with the fourth book unwritten. Sherwood Smith has reissued the series through Book View Cafe, a writers' co-op. It begins with Wren to the Rescue and continues through Wren's Quest and Wren's War.)



The Sun Never Sets by Joseph T. Major

A passionate defense of an exiled prince leads to changes that shake the course of European and world history, and lay the stage for a wider and wider yet monarchy.
In our world, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, sister of the gallant Prince Rupert of the Rhine, was made heir to the British throne, only to die just too soon, leaving the succession to her son. Once, though, she got a little too exercised about the poor exiled Pretender . . . and if she had been just a little more exercised, William of Orange might have changed his mind.
Such a change could put a strange and striking monarch in reach of the British throne. But the heirs of the Stuarts were not yet gone, and they could strike back. The result of this bold decision would mean wars across the world, involving people from lands spreading from Poland to Virginia, from Scotland to Naples. It would mean battles in the Cockpit of Europe, in the wilds of Saxony, and indeed on the green fields of England itself.
Not all is war. Literary figures such as Swift,Johnson, and Voltaire have strange and different meetings. The universal genius Benjamin Franklin, Printer, has an entirely new field of endeavor.
The opposed royal houses, and the other princes of Europe, face off in new and strange alliances in this novel.



Historical Lovecraft by Silvia Monero-Garcia, editor

Historical Lovecraft, a unique anthology blending historical fiction with horror, features 26 tales spanning centuries and continents. This eclectic volume takes the readers through places as varied as Laos, Greenland, Peru, and the Congo, and from antiquity until the 20th century, pushing the envelope of Lovecraftian lore. William Meikle’s inquisitor tries to unravel the truth during a very hostile questioning. Jesse Bullington narrates the saga of a young Viking woman facing danger and destruction. E. Catherine Tobler stops in Ancient Egypt, where Pharaoh Hatshepsut receives an exquisite and deadly gift. Albert Tucher discovers that the dead do not remain silent in 10th century Rome.

These are tales that reimagine history and look into the past through a darker glass. Tales that show evil has many faces and reaches through the centuries. Tales that will chill your heart.

Join us in our journey through horror and time, if you dare.

Stories by: Regina Allen, Jesse Bullington, Nathalie Boisard-Beudin, Mason Ian Bundschuh, Andrew G. Dombalagian, Mae Empson, Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, Orrin Grey, Sarah Hans, Travis Heermann, Martha Hubbard, Nathaniel Katz, Leigh Kimmel, Meddy Ligner, William Meikle, Daniel Mills, Aaron Polson, Y. Wahyu Purnomosidhi, Alter S. Reiss, Josh Reynolds, Julio Toro San Martin, Bradley H. Sinor, Molly Tanzer, Albert Tucher, E. Catherine Tobler, Bryan Thao Worra

(Contains my short story "Red Star, Yellow Sign," which is tied to my indie short stories The Other Side of Midnight and The Shadow over Leningrad



All the Little Hedgehogs" by Leigh Kimmel

The Lower Volga Special Bio-Research Laboratory is one of the Soviet Union's most closely guarded secrets. Yona Feldberg didn't even know it existed until the day Academician Voronsky arrived at the Suvorov School and took him away from the austere life of a military cadet.

Here Yona learned why he, the son of a KGB labor camp commandant, should have been placed in a school to train the Soviet Army's future officers: he is a clone of one of the Red Army officers murdered in the Great Terror. However, his extraordinary talent for genetics makes him more valuable as the Academician's personal student, learning the technology of gene splicing alongside the Academician's adopted son.

But privileges can be revoked, as Yona discovers when he runs afoul of the local guardians of propriety. Now he will get a different kind of education, in teh darker secrets of the Soviet cloning program.

(Another story set in the Soviet Union, in the Gus on the Moon timeline).

Over at Sarah Hoyt's blog, the Free Range Oyster has even more cool books. In the comments you can also find a story beginning of mine, for another story in the Gus on the Moon timeline.

I also have some new in-depth book reviews up at The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf.

As always, if you'd like to have your works included in future versions of this promo post, please let me know at leighkimmel@yahoo.com. Because I'll be setting next week's promo post up while I'm at Grand Rapids Comic Con, they'll stand a better chance of being included in it if sent earlier.

Crossposted at The Starship Cat Blog and Through the Worldgate.

Making Time for Promo

I'm between events right now, but it doesn't mean I'm not busy. There's merchandise to manage and bookwork to do. And there is my other business, developing and maintaining AdSense websites, which has suffered from lack of attention for far too long. So it's easy to let the day slip away and discover it's gone and I still haven't done the promo post this week.



The Bandit Steals a City by Joseph T. Major

Ordinary worlds have problems with fanatics. So do faerie ones. The faerie worlds have ways to deal with them, but some may be very mundane and ordinary. And then there is the problem of cleaning up afterwards.
Our bandit and her husband the scholar have to deal with a family crisis, an evil that masquerades as good. Not to mention having to raise more of their kind, understand how their lives work, and provide for family of all sorts. There are so many things that go into life, and having it for longer only makes them accumulate.

(The second in the Lady Was a Bandit series, which began with The Death of a Bandit)



Pride and Platypus by Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian

From the critically acclaimed author of Mansfield Park and Mummies and Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons...

Pride and Platypus: Mr. Darcy’s Dreadful Secret

When the moon is full over Regency England, all the gentlemen are subject to its curse.

Mr. Darcy, however, harbors a Dreadful Secret...

Shape-shifting demons mingle with Australian wildlife, polite society, and high satire, in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic supernatural parody of Jane Austen's classic novel.

The powerful, mysterious, handsome, and odious Mr. Darcy announces that Miss Elizabeth Bennet is not good enough to tempt him. The young lady determines to find out his one secret weakness -- all the while surviving unwanted proposals, Regency balls, foolish sisters, seductive wolves, matchmaking mothers, malodorous skunks, general lunacy, and the demonic onslaught of the entire wild animal kingdom!

What awaits her is something unexpected. And only moon, matrimony, and true love can overcome pride and prejudice!

Gentle Reader -- this Delightful Illustrated Edition includes Scholarly Footnotes and Appendices

(Who ever thought lycanthropy could be funny?)



The Trouble with Kings by Sherwood Smith

“With music you can tell the truth about human experience.”

In this romantic fantasy set in the same world as Crown Duel, Flian is an ordinary princess who would rather be left with her music, but gets abducted not once, not twice—three times.

What is a civilized princess to do? Especially when she can’t tell which prince is the hero and which the villain!

Re-edited and reissued by Book View Cafe

(If Jane Austen were to write a novel in Sherwood's Sartorias-deles universe, it would look like this).



Lazarus Risen by Hayden Trenholm (ed.)

Dreams of immortality and eternal youth are almost as old as human culture itself. But what would the world look like if everyone could live and be young forever? What would it look like if only some of us had that privilege? Lazarus Risen presents sixteen stories from around the world that explore the economic, political, social and psychological consequences of life extension, human cloning, the hard upload and other forms of the biological singularity.

Stories by Brent Nichols, Sean McMullen, Teri Babcock, Nancy SM Waldman, Brad C. Anderson, Fiona Moore, Felice Picano, Matthew Shean, Matt Moore, Suzanne Church, Peter Wendt, Holly Schofield, Deborah Walker, Kevin Edwin Stadt, Leigh Kimmel, and Andrew Barton.

(This anthology contains my story "Phoenix Dreams," a companion story to The Crime and Glory of Antonia DeVilbiss.)



The Moon Mirror by Leigh Kimmel

Chelsea Ayles dreamed of going to the Moon since she was a child. Now her dream job at NASA has turned into a nightmare, thanks to those many blood-sucking arachnids. Yeah, politics, as in a Senator accusing her of destroying America's priceless heritage because she chose the moonrocks that were used to make a proof-of-concept mirror segment for a lunar telescope project. Now the mirror sits in her office like a bitter mockery of what might have been -- until the day her reflection turns into a handsome stranger who calls himself the Man in the Moon and offers her visions of a world that might have been. Visions that ignite a longing of an intensity she hasn't known since she was in grade school and watched videos of the Apollo lunar missions in science class.

(Another story that involves the Gus on the Moon universe).

Over at Sarah Hoyt's blog, Free Range Oyster has more interesting books for you to check out.

To get your book in next week's promotional posting, send me a note with the title and publication information atleighkimmel@yahoo.com

Crossposted at The Starship Cat blog and Through the Worldgate.

Back Home With Books

We're back home from Worldcon, and back into the beastly heat. A perfect time to curl up in a cool place with a good book.



The Eyes of a Doll by Rob Howell

Just another day in Achrida... All Edward Aethelredson wanted to do was to enjoy his ale, heal from his wounds, relax during the summer, and help his friend with what should have been nothing more than a pleasant ride in the country. Two bodies later, including one he kills in self-defense, Edward is drawn into the dark recesses of the Empire’s criminal underworld. He cannot flee, for that would impugn his honor. He cannot hide, for that would leave a six-year-old girl and her family in danger for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He cannot attack, for he does not know who to strike at. With an ally who is more foe than friend and his back against the wall, can Edward find the cunning necessary to save his friends? Or will crime lords and deadly wizards spell the end of him?

(This is the second volume of the world of Shijuren, which began with A Lake Most Deep).



Silent Meridian by Elizabeth Crowens

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is obsessed with a legendary red book. Its peculiar stories have come to life, and rumors claim that it has rewritten its own endings. Convinced that possessing this book will help him write his ever-popular Sherlock Holmes stories, he takes on an unlikely partner, John Patrick Scott, known to most as a concert musician and paranormal investigator. Although in his humble opinion, Scott considers himself more of an ethereal archeologist and a time traveler professor.

Together they explore lost worlds and excavate realms beyond the knowledge of historians when they go back in time to find it. But everything backfires, and their friendship is tested to the limits. Both discover that karmic ties and unconscionable crimes have followed them like ghosts from the past, wreaking havoc on the present and possibly the future.

Silent Meridian reveals the alternate histories of Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Houdini, Jung and other notable luminaries in the secret diaries of a new kind of Doctor Watson, John Patrick Scott, in an X Files for the 19th century. Stay tuned for A Pocketful of Lodestones; book two in the Time Traveler Professor series by Elizabeth Crowens.

(If you like steampunk and time travel, take a look).



After the Sundial by Vera Nazarian

AFTER THE SUNDIAL by Vera Nazarian is the author's first short fiction collection that focuses specifically on science fiction works, and can be viewed as a companion volume to her earlier collection, SALT OF THE AIR which focused on fable, myth, and fantasy.

Bound by the common theme of time and temporal exploration, the ten selections here range widely from traditional speculative fiction to the surreal literary to poetry to bawdy adventure humor to space opera and far future speculation.

Includes an introduction by the author, two previously unpublished works and a full-length critically acclaimed novella THE CLOCK KING AND THE QUEEN OF THE HOURGLASS.

(One of my favorite single-author collections, I originally read it in uncorrected proof. And I still enjoy re-reading it, savoring the stories that range from pretty hard sf to mystical speculation that isn't exactly sf or fantasy, almost philosophical fiction).



Sasharia En Garde by Sherwood Smith

First published as two books—Once a Princess, and Twice a Prince—this romantic fantasy has been revised and published as one book, as first intended. It is set in the same world as Crown Duel, to which Sasha’s mother, Sun, was once swept away by a real prince.

But not to happily ever after. Her prince vanished, and a wicked king took the throne. Since then, Sasha and Sun have been hiding on Earth, both training in martial arts until Sasha is tricked into going back to Khanerenth.

She’s more than ready to kick some bad-guy butt, but is the stylish pirate Zathdar the bad guy? Or artistic, dreamy Prince Jehan, son of the wicked king?

Meanwhile Sun is determined to cross worlds to save her daughter. She might not have been a very good princess, but nobody messes with Mom!

(I originally read the two-volume version. A side story, but with ties to Crown Duel and A Stranger to Command. Because it's self-contained and starts on Earth, it may be a good entry point to the intricate world of Sartorias-deles).



The Ten Just Men by Joseph T. Major

The fighting in Europe is over but the war is not yet done. The allies cannot agree. The defeated must rebuild, faced with the problem of overcoming the last eleven years, of creating a new structure of society, of making some sort of economy.
All the while, the former allies are facing problems inside and out.
In the not very pacific Pacific, the power of the Allies is converging on the last enemy. The price needed to be paid to overcome them may be more than can be paid -- even if wonder weapons provide a final out.
In the midst of this tumult, ordinary people try to pick up and carry on, to bring new life into the world and to reconstruct existing life.
The war is grinding to an end . . . but only the dead have known the end of war.

(The fifth volume of Joseph T. Major's Alternate World War II series, it covers the time after VE Day, as Japan alone of the Axis remains to be defeated. This saga began in Bitter Weeds and continued in No Hint of War, The Road to the Sea and An Irresponsible Gang).



Visions V: Milky Way, edited by Carrol Fix

Visions V stories take place somewhere—anywhere—in the Milky Way Galaxy. Planets, stars, and aliens, with no limitations, form the subject and action taking place outside our Solar System and within the Milky Way.

Humankind has forded the immense stream of space between stars and reached our nearest solar neighbors. What will we discover on hospitable planets circling those new stars? Will we find almost familiar moons, asteroids, planetary rings? Or, could there be never before seen astronomical formations? The sky is no longer the limit for our soaring imaginations, because somewhere out there is a potential haven for the remnants of our beleaguered civilization.
Global catastrophe is a constant threat for our war-torn and dysfunctional human race. No one can foresee the future, but we have lived on the brink of extinction since the invention of the atomic bomb and, more recently, germ warfare and genetic manipulation.
Astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking has said, "I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonizing other planets."
The vast Milky Way Galaxy may allow the seeds of our future to be widely distributed, past the danger of a final extinction.
Visions V: Milky Way brings together a collection of fascinating and entertaining stories by award-winning science fiction authors.

“Ships in the Night” by Jay Werkheiser
“End Around” by E. J. Shumak
“Unwanted Gifts” by S. M. Kraftchak
“Greatcloak” by Jonathan Shipley
“Claim Jumpers” by Doug C. Souza
“The Device” by Tara Campbell
“Where the Last Tramz Stops” by Sam Bellotto Jr.
“Eighteen Winters” by D. A. Couturier
“Yellow Star” by John Moralee
“The Shadow of a Dead God” by Leigh Kimmel
“Black Hearts and Blue Skins” by Timothy Paul
“Welcome to Your Dream House” by Steve Bates
“Pan Ad Aster” by Bruce C. Davis
“Rachel’s Fall” by Teresa Howard
“When Unknown Gods Leave” by Margaret Karmazin
“First Sunrise” by Marie Michaels
“Dropworld” by Fredrick Obermeyer
“Bright Horizon” by Thomas Olbert
“The Mirror Dialogues” by Richard Zwicker
“The Drive” by W. A. Fix

(Yet another anthology with a story of mine -- except why did I persistently remember the title as "The Long Shadow of a Dead God"? Was that an earlier working title, later edited away, or was it from some ot her work, now abandoned? Memory is such a tricky thing).



The Stirge by Leigh Kimmel

When Liphrel's family fell too far on their debts, he was sold to the priests of the death god. But his family were followers of the birth goddess, which left him in a difficult position.

(One of my first published stories, it was accepted right at a time when I was at the nadir of my life. Not only was I despairing of ever being published, I was starting to wonder if my life as a whole was ever going to improve. And then things turned around, and by the time it actually saw print, I was in considerably improved circumstances).

The Free-Range Oyster also has more cool book recommendations over at Sarah Hoyt's blog.

And as always, If you would like your work promoted in my blog, please e-mail me at leighkimmel@yahoo.com.

Crossposted at The Starship Cat and Through the Worldgate.

Cool Books for Hot Summer Nights

So often we use metaphors of heat: "hot off the press," "hot new author" etc. to create excitement about a book we want to promote. Yet right now, with a dome of unbearable heat settled over so much of the US, it just doesn't seem to be appropriate.



A Man and a Plane by Joseph T Major

Who could stop Hitler? Germany in 1933 tottered on the brink of revolution, dissolution, and destruction. The Nazis were some kind of a solution.
There was no one who could be an alternative.
A stroke of fate took from the scene one man who could have made the difference. In that fateful April of 1918, Germany's hero fell from the skies.
And if he hadn't?

(I read this one in draft, or rather, several different drafts in the course of transforming it from idea to novel).



Bitter Weeds by Joseph T. Major

"There are bitter weeds in England." The Dunkirk Evacuation was a great deliverance. But some of the soldiers did not make it. If someone had only known . . . A troubled man, a man divided between two nations and several natures, delivered from the continent, pursues a twisted course in a wilderness of mirrors to serve his masters. A woman staging a great pretense that is almost true finds herself in the heart of darkness, seeing the advance of evil. Their relatives and connections each struggle with his or her own burdens as the horrors of war spread. The simple kindness of stopping to give the dead some small dignity begins a wave of change that will wash across the world, in this first volume of a series highlighting the great and the petty, the powerful and the victims, and finding both pain and hope.

(This is the first in a series that is currently up to five volumes: No Hint of War, The Road to the Sea, An Irresponsible Gang and The Ten Just Men. I've read the first and half of the second, and would be reading faster if only I had no obligations in life to attend. Unlike A Man and a Plane, it's a story of small changes that build in significance through the course of the story arc.)



Fleeing Peace by Sherwood Smith

Siamis said, “Your young friend Liere is not going to enjoy the trap she’s walking into, I fear. But you figured that out, did you not? Why didn’t she listen to you?”

“To snap her fingers under your nose,” Senrid retorted.

“Irresistible.” Siamis smiled gently. “But it’s going to cost.”


Fifteen-year-old Senrid is newly king of the difficult warrior kingdom Marloven Hess . . . just in time to lose it, and find himself running for his life. When Senrid is captured he overhears a secret—one he can use against the enemy, a charismatic, handsome man named Siamis who can read minds, and who enchants people just by talking to them.

Liere has always known she was special, which just increased her loneliness and sense of isolation. She can hear others’ thoughts, and she senses the real emotions below the façade. When a golden-haired man named Siamis comes to her village and enchants the entire town around her, she finds herself on the run.

Liere and Senrid couldn’t be more different, but their goal is the same, to locate the powerful magic that will unravel Siamis’s world enchantment.

Chased by powerful enemies, Liere and Senrid are tested to the max as they form an alliance of kids to aid them, and gain magical support from surprising sources.

Neither ever expected to discover something even more powerful than magic: friendship. First written when Sherwood Smith was fifteen, this is the story of how Senrid and Liere first met.

(This is another story I read in draft over the course of its development, from photocopies of fragile hand-written notebooks through typescripts and printouts to digital files. JRR Tolkien was not alone in discovering that it is not easy to reconcile the visions of one's youthful exuberance with the work of one's more mature older self).



Poor World (CJ's Notebooks Book 4) by Sherwood Smith

CJ and the gang of girls from Mearsies Heili like their adventures fun and villains to be defeatable by a well-thrown prune pie. In fact, they laughed at the very idea of stories about kids who have to Save the World . . .

Until it happens to them.

Written when Sherwood Smith was a teenager, this is the story of the M girls up against the toughest challenge of their lives so far.

(Another novel I got to play auntie to, as it went from that first draft in a crumbling notebook to polished prose).



Eldritch Embraces: Putting the Love Back into Lovecraft by Michael Cieslak

Combine the mind splintering horror of the Cthulhu Mythos and the heart shattering portion of that most terrible of emotions - love - and what do you have? You have Eldritch Embraces: Putting the Love Back in Lovecraft. This collection of short stories from some of the best working in the fields of horror and dark speculative fiction blends romance and Lovecraft in a way which will may make you sigh, smile, weep, or leave you the hollow shell of your former self.

(I have a short story in this one: "Beach House on the Moon.")



Ice Storm by Leigh Kimmel

Everywhere Evangeline looks, a thin coating of ice makes objects gleam in the sunlight. Yet the beauty proves deceptive, for it hides a deadly secret, one only she can recognize.

In her youth, Evangeline had aspired ot master the powerful magics of her world. Those dreams died the day her Gift awakened uncontrolled and plunged her into a vision of a full fleet battle. The Admiral's Gift will not be denied, and for Evangeline there was no choice but to trade her mage's robes for Navy blue.

Now she is faced with an enemy she cannot fight save by magic. Except those who bear the Admiral's gift are forever barred from working magic.

(A nice, chilly selection, this short story was one of the finalists for a writing contest at LoneStarCon II, the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention.)



The Workhouse War by Leigh Kimmel

An afternoon for sketching in peace – that was all Nadine Darby wanted. She thought she was taking a shortcut to get past an overgrown levee and gain a better view of the Mississippi for some landscape work. Instead she ended up somewhere else. A place called Elyssium, where the past walks alongside the present. Where you can see a modern car pull up and a Confederate Navy officer climb out, talking on a cellphone.

On the riverbank Nadine met a strange little man who told her he was an artist as well, and showed her his sketchbook to prove it. But no sooner had Nadine made her first friend than she discovered all was not well. She watched in helpless horror as a young man was pursued, arrested and beaten by thugs from an institution that goes by the official name of the City Orphanage, but is generally called the Workhouse by the inhabitants of Port of White Fleet.

Nadine can count herself fortunate that she fell into the company of a man who has little use for this organization. But his efforts to help her attain her artistic ambitions instead attract the attention she must avoid, and draws her into quarrels that have simmered for decades.

Can Nadine thread her way through the myriad perils of this world and save herself and her new-found friends? And even if she defeats the Workhouse, will it be at the cost of losing everything she's found here?

(A little Christmas in July).

If you read and enjoy any of these selections, please consider rating and reviewing them on Amazon.com -- reviews are critical for getting onto recommendation lists, which are critical for indie authors.

PS: I'm hoping to make these promotional posts a recurring, if irregular, feature of my blog. If you have indie or small press

(Crossposted at Through the Worldgate and The Billion Lightyear Bookshelf