NEW RELEASE: FINDING AURORA

24/12/2018

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Title: Finding Aurora

Author: Rebecca Langham

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: December 24, 2018

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 20500

Genre: Fantasy, royalty, magic, action, fantasy, fairy tale

Synopsis

Aurora Rose slumbers in the city of Oldpass, a cursed kingdom once allied with Grimvein. The victim of a malicious spell, she is powerless to control her own fate. At least, that’s how the story goes.

Now, as Grimvein faces attack, Prince Amir has been tasked with the life-threatening rescue of Aurora, his parents hopeful he will marry the princess and secure safety for their kingdom. Talia, the strongest spellcaster in the known lands, protects and guides the prince in his quest to save a woman that threatens to change their lives forever.

In finding Aurora, the pair will realise the truth about themselves and each other, coming to understand just what—and who—they really want in life.

Excerpt

Finding Aurora

I doubt there was even one person in Grimvein who hadn’t heard the story of the sleeping princess. There were those who claimed she’d died a century ago and the curse was merely a story to maintain hope of her well-being. Amir and I knew better. Somewhere beneath the layers of magic and goddess-knew-how-many demonic guardians in Oldpass, Princess Aurora Rose slept. The problem was getting to her.

“Looks like the map was accurate.” Amir tucked the frayed parchment inside his leather vest and then stepped closer to the colossal boulder in front of us. “This entry is well concealed. Most people would walk right by without realising.”

I had to agree. We were deep within the forest to the east of Oldpass. The path we’d been following for over a week had disappeared hours earlier, replaced by mossy undergrowth and grasses. The sweet scent of drenched wisteria had been overpowering, though not as overpowering as the menacing darkness that seemed to swallow natural sounds one would expect to hear in such a place. No birds twittering. No dripping condensation. Not even so much as a rustling branch. If not for Amir’s orienteering skill and the importance of our quest, I’d have turned back.

“Does it open the old-fashioned way, Highness?” I indicated the door with my chin. Embedded in the rock and camouflaged, the ingress was almost unnoticeable, but we could make out the bevelled edges.

I sensed no magic surrounding the rock formation, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. I might have been one of the strongest casters in the five kingdoms, but I was still mortal. There’s only so much one person confined by flesh can know. Or see. Or do.

Amir ran his hand through his shoulder-length black hair. His rather wonderful, lustrous, shoulder-length black hair.

“Let’s see.” He pressed both his palms against the smooth surface, bracing his feet against the leaf-covered ground. Something whirred deep inside the boulder and clicked as though a latch had been released. He stepped back as the rectangular slab skulked off to the side, like a sword disappearing into its sheath. “It appears the answer would be yes, it does open the old-fashioned way. Sort of.”

“I must admit, I had my doubts.”

“As did I,” he replied, scratching at the stubble on his chin. In all the years I’d been acquainted with the prince, he’d always been clean-shaven, and the rugged growth on his face, as charming as it looked, seemed to irritate him more and more. “It seems too convenient there could be an underground passage that would take us beneath the outer walls.” His hands held on to the rock as he leaned forward, peering inside. His soft leather boots gripped his defined calves as he did. “It’s quite dark in here. Do you have that magnificent bauble of yours?” He withdrew from the opening and turned to face me.

I gaped at him. “Prince Amir, the moonbeam stone is no mere bauble. And yes, of course I do. I’ll let the honour of first entry be yours.”

He bowed slightly, his hand over his heart. “Why, thank you, caster.” He returned his attention to the opening. “In we go.”

I followed him closely as we left the fresh air and crunching leaves of the forest behind. Inside, the darkness was thick and the air acrid. I slipped my moonbeam stone out of a pouch clipped to my belt. With a thought, I willed it to life. A soft yellow light emanated from the stone.

“Oh no,” I said. As though the enclosed room had heard me, the door behind us slid outward from its cavity, closing fast and hard.

“It seems we’re trapped.” Typical Amir. Always so calm. He walked around the room. “But surely there is a way from here into the tunnel. This must be a kind of annex.” I admired the fact that no matter how hopeless or scared Amir might have felt, he was always able to focus on the task at hand, putting his feelings aside until a more appropriate time presented itself.

“Mmmhmm.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing away the tension that had taken up residence there. I grabbed the small flask attached to my belt, just above my left hip. The water soothed my throat and afforded a distraction from the momentary sense of panic.

“Talia, I need your help over here,” Amir said. His voice was steady, but the shade of his cheeks betrayed bubbling anxiety.

“Yes, Highness.” I took one more sip of water from my flask, clipped it onto my leather belt, and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. By the goddess, that place was hot. I wondered if we might have found the first level of the underworld rather than the subterranean passageway into Oldpass.

“That’s twice in as many minutes,” Amir said, gently elbowing me as I joined him. “I keep telling you to stop calling me that. We’ve been travelling together for over two weeks. The formalities are unnecessary by now, wouldn’t you agree?” He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. As the Leading Caster of Grimvein, I’d been assigned to help Amir on a journey the public needed to believe he’d taken on his own. So far, my magical services had been of little use, aside from starting a few campfires when we were especially impatient to eat our evening meal.

“Yes, Highness.” I bit my lower lip. “Amir. Sorry, it’s a force of habit.”

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Meet the Author

Rebecca Langham lives in the Blue Mountains (Australia) with her partner, three children, and menagerie of pets. A Xenite, a Whovian and all-round general nerd, she’s a lover of science fiction, comic books, and caffeine. When she isn’t teaching History to high schoolers or wrangling children, Rebecca enjoys playing broomball and reading.

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NEW RELEASE: I am the storm

21/12/2018

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Title: I Am the Storm

Series: The Psionics, Book One

Author: Tash McAdam

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: December 17, 2018

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 64500

Genre: Science Fiction, espionage, spies, military, young adult, lesbian, pansexual, trans

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Synopsis

Keep your head down. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Never even think about technology if one of those ghostly, grey cars is sliding silently down the road. They’ll see the thoughts inside you, if you let them.

Sam’s a technopath, able to control electronic signals and manipulate technology with his mind. And so, ever since childhood, his life has been a carefully constructed web of lies, meant to keep his Talent hidden, his powers a secret. But the Institute wants those unusual powers, and will do anything to get a hold of him and turn him into one of their mindless slaves.

Sam slips up once. Just once, but that’s enough. Now the Institute is after him in full force. Soldiers, telekinetics, and mind readers, all gunning just for him.

Newly qualified soldier, Serena, doesn’t even know she’s chasing a person, all she knows is that she has to find whatever the Institute is after before they do. But tracking an unknown entity through an unfamiliar city, with inaccurate intelligence, unexpected storms, and Gav Belias, people’s hero of the Watch, on the prowl, will she even survive? Will she get to Sam before the Institute does? His special skills could provide the rebellion with an incredible advantage, but not if they can’t get out of the city, and over the huge wall that stands between them and freedom.

Excerpt

I Am the Storm

I didn’t ask to be Talented, but I am, and because of that, I endanger everyone around me. Every day. The government wants people like me under their control, or dead. So we hide the best we can out here in the shadowy and factory district. It’s hot, same as always, even in the shade. Out here isn’t much to look at—especially compared to the inner city, which sparkles like diamonds. Around me, buildings in grays and browns loom into the blue sky, blocking the vicious sun and removing the need for the transparent aluminum shields guarding the open spaces from the UV. Those are for the rich.

This area is always in the darkness. We’re part of the City, but only just. Pressed up against the inside of the Wall, this end of town really isn’t much better than the slums. Nah, shit, I take it back. At least I’ve always had a roof over my head and food in my belly, even if it tastes pretty bland. My mom made sure of that.

People in the slums aren’t as lucky. Mom moved us out to the poor end of town because of me—it’s obvious, even if she lies whenever it comes up. She had a good job back before I was born, as a teacher in one of the elite elementary schools, and she loved it. I hear in her voice how much her heart aches when she tells stories about her old students. Now, she pulls levers fifteen hours a day in a plant and can’t stand up straight anymore. It’s my fault.

I’m snapped out of my musing by a warning shout and barely avoid a speeding mini elec-car, piled high with boxes and strips of metal. A second later, I’d have been another smear marring the tarmaxx. No point in putting solar panels here, after all, so the road is far from shiny and clean. I curse at the driver’s back.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I chew my lip and dawdle down the road. I’m not in a hurry. Medical exams are one of my least favorite pastimes, but if I want to stay in school, and damn straight that’s what I want, I have to go. Being weighed, prodded, and poked isn’t nearly as fun as going home and relaxing with a hacked satellite feed, but we do what we must, right? Since I have these checkups twice yearly, along with every other Citizen in our glorious metropolis, I know how late I can be—without getting penalized—to the second. Although, I don’t have any idea what the time actually is since I don’t even have my comm unit with me. For once, I don’t have any tech in my pockets, and it makes me feel naked and exposed.

But it’s the only way I can keep from blowing my cover.

I’m a lucky sod, for sure. As a technopath—able to control technology with my mind—I have a unique power, and I’m not noticeable the way telekinetics are. They throw stuff around with their Talent. Obvious stuff right there. Me? Hell, if I get really angry, I can cause a blackout, but it’s doubtful anyone would trace it back to me. Living in an area without electricity helps, though. Thanks, Ma.

Giving up the creature comforts for your only son is a noble thing to do, and it’s kept me under the radar for years. Off the radar and above ground, instead of locked up in a facility designed to destroy any aspect of me deemed not “useful.” So, you know, my memories, my personality, and sense of self, for a start. If the Institute had their way and nabbed me as one of their brainwashed weapons, I’d lose everything making me myself.

I should get a bit of a move on, though. If you’re not there when they call your name a third time, you get bounced off the list and marked as “uncooperative,” which isn’t a good thing. They watch the uncooperative, in case we’re considering a life of rebellion and insurrection. And I’m exactly the kind of person they’d love to catch. Besides being Talented, I do my fair share of cybercrime. They’d only have to watch me for a few days before I ended up with a hood over my head and a gun in my spine. I might not be tall, strong, or rich, but I’m definitely dangerous.

I pick up the pace a little and, rushing around the next corner, thud right into the broad chest of a watchman. I stumble and lose my balance, and then I’m knocked off my feet by a powerful and unnecessary uppercut to the jaw. I cry out in pain, rebounding off the wall and crumpling in a heap.

Blinking back stinging tears of shock, I clap my palm to my throbbing face. The brute looks down at me, pathetic Sam, crouched on the ground, wearing worn-out clothes. He spits on me, daring me to retaliate so he can arrest me and throw me in the clink. Power tripping. The Watch—military police—are government thugs, but many of them aren’t bad people. Just people with a sucky job.

This one appears to be your standard petty thug in a uniform.

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Meet the Author

Tash is a 30 year old teacher candidate at UBC in Canada, although they were born and raised in the hilly sheepland of Wales (and have lived in South Korea and Chile before settling down in Vancouver). Tash identifies as trans and queer and uses the neutral pronoun ‘they’. They’re also an English teacher and fully equipped to defend that grammar! They have a degree in computer science so their nerd chat makes sense, and a couple of black belts in karate which are very helpful when it comes to writing fight scenes.

Their novel writing endeavours began at the age of eight, and included passing floppy discs back and forth with a friend at swimming lessons. Since then, Tash has spent time falling in streams, out of trees, learning to juggle, dreaming about zombies, dancing, painting, learning and then teaching Karate, running away with the circus, and of course, writing. They write fast-paced, plot-centric action adventure with diverse casts. They write the books that they wanted to read as a queer kid and young adult (and still do!)

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review: waking the dreamer by k. aten

7/12/2018

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PURCHASE LINK

REVIEWED BY REBECCA

Genre: SciFi
Pairing: F/F
Orientation: Lesbian
Sexual Content: (Fairly) Graphic
Content warnings: Abduction, Child Abuse/Psychological Torture, Scientific experimentation on humans, murder scenes
RATING: Four stars

BLURB:

By the end of the 21st century, the world had become a harsh place. After decades of natural and man-made catastrophes, nations fell, populations shifted, and seventy percent of the continents became uninhabitable without protective suits. Technological advancement strode forward faster than ever and it was the only thing that kept human society steady through it all. No one could have predicted the discovery of the Dream Walkers. They were people born with the ability to leave their bodies at will, unseen by the waking world. Having the potential to become ultimate spies meant the remaining government regimes wanted to study and control them. The North American government, under the leadership of General Rennet, demanded that all Dream Walkers join the military program. For any that refused to comply, they were hunted down and either brainwashed or killed.

The very first Dream Walker discovered was a five year old girl named Julia. And when the soldiers came for her at the age of twenty, she was already hidden away. A decade later found Julia living a new life under the government’s radar. As a secure tech courier in the capital city of Chicago, she does her job and the rest of her time avoids other people as much as she is able. The moment she agrees to help another fugitive Walker is when everything changes. Now the government wants them both and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.

REVIEW

I purchased this book as soon as I read that blurb. Dystopian future? Impact of climate change? Cool astral projecting dream walker types? Lesbians? Well, sign me up!

As someone who isn't especially enamoured with action scenes, my favourite part of this novel was the opening third. The descriptions of a plausible future were provocative, posing many of the classic questions that make sci-fi such a great genre, and answering those questions with a keen and discernible eye. I loved this line:

And humanity was left to harvest the fields we seeded with our own ignorance.

And then there's this:

The world was actually on the cusp of great change until one political leader tipped it all back into the dark-age. Figuratively, of course. It took just one powerful man to back out of climate initiatives, to roll back renewable energy programs, to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, and increase funding and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. It was a far reaching ideological shift and the world paid for it. Being the “greatest country on Earth” meant that we led the other nations by example, poor though it was.

What's not to love? When the romance took over the book, I became a little less interested (just because it meant less attention was being paid to the futuristic world itself), but I know that's probably the part a lot of people will turn up for with this story -- I think this book is romance first and sci-fi second, despite the rich dystopian tones of the opening chapters. That's definitely not a bad thing, but I point this out because there are a handful of readers out there who prefer the situation in the reverse (a small handful, indeed, but I know we exist!).

Overall, the book is well-written and the relationships are developed quite nicely. There's a complex relationship between the individual and society, a theme I love to see explored in any book, but especially one like this with a flawed, (occasionally) morally reprehensible female lead who refuses to play by the rules set down by the Corporation. I mean, how great is this?...

He helped me find a new identity before agents came around to collect everyone with a serial number that had become more important than their name.

That one sentence says a lot, and reflects all of my favourite things in Waking the Dreamer. Power. Authority. Control. Censorship. Repression. Rebellion. Resilience. Great stuff, really!

Now for the main thing that held me back from five stars (though, to be fair, four stars is the highest rating I've given for a while! It's pretty darn good). There are a few minor editing errors ('typos') but what book doesn't have those, right? I swear, you can read a manuscript fifty times and they still slip through, so that didn't really influence the rating very much. I may be in the minority here, but I didn't particularly enjoy the final chapter. I appreciate it was a twist, and many readers may find this sudden shift of the narrative arc to be exhilarating, shocking, and therefore fascinating, but for me, it detracted from the entire story and I wished I'd stopped reading at the end of the second-last chapter because that was a comfortable place to end. A place that didn't leave me confused enough to have to re-read passages and try to work out what had just happened. I love complexity in stories, and it may be the lack of sleep talking (thanks to my toddler who seems to have regressed to a screaming newborn recently), but I was more lost than anything.

Final chapter aside (and hey, you might LOVE the way it ends, my friends), this is an engaging book with much to say, though sometimes the love story overshadows the political and social guts of the tale. WAKING THE DREAMER is perfect for someone after balance between what might be considered traditional "lesfic", with the romantic and sexual elements, and the gritty, meaningful exploration of society that only comes with speculative fiction.

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NEW RELEASE: FINDING AURORA

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Synopsis

Excerpt

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Meet the Author

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Giveaway

NEW RELEASE: I am the storm

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

Excerpt

Purchase

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Meet the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Pinterest

Giveaway

review: waking the dreamer by k. aten

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