Browsing Tag

urban fantasy

Boosting the Signal: Foul is Fair, by Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins

Today’s second Boosting the Signal feature is ALSO YA, this time an urban fantasy by the team of Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins. Jeffrey’s a fellow member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association, with whom I’ll be working at Worldcon this year and cons to come on the effort to sell NIWA books! Jeffrey and Katherine have a bit of a glimpse into the head of Lani, one of their characters who has the pressing problem before her of how to get her friend Megan acclimated–as fast as possible–to the fey world around her. And you gotta bet, urban fantasy involving the fey, set in Seattle, is HIGHLY RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. The authors have kindly provided me a copy of this book. I will be reviewing it.

Foul is Fair

Lani was curled up on a satyress’s loveseat in a trendy Fremont apartment. She knew it was important to get to sleep, and she soon would, but she had to give her mind at least a few minutes to race around the matters at hand.

The day’s objective was complete, at least. Lani had gotten Megan clear-headed enough and told her everything she could. She’d never thought that she’d be able to, back when she thought Megan was all human. There were Restrictions (that was the best way to explain it to non-Hawaiians), after all. You can’t just out yourself as menehune (or, in Lani’s case, half-menehune) to a civilian. But that was before Lani had discovered her ‘human’ BFF’s estranged father was the Unseelie King.

“So…” Megan had said. “My dad is what, ’80s David Bowie? Glammed up, stealing babies, turning into owls?”

Lani had let the focus go to her people’s perfectly rational objection to owls for a moment before moving on to business, because being teased was better than explaining why she wasn’t laughing at the ‘stealing babies’ line. Megan didn’t have a little brother to think of, and she didn’t know what the Unseelie sidhe were like. There was a reason the menehune had allied centuries ago with the brownies: both were hardworking, orderly folk dealing with a lot of things that weren’t. They made good partners.

Megan didn’t know what anything was like, in Faerie terms, so Lani was grateful this was going as well as it did. Here they were, after all, on a satyress’s couch after being chased by a redcap, and yet no one had been eaten or sexually harassed. Lani could finally introduce Megan to her non-human friends. Kerr was already working Kerr’s brownie magic to keep Megan’s mom from worrying, and while Lani could tell Megan had been confused by Kerr, there’d been no gender-essentialist nonsense said that could embarrass anyone. Megan was really handling it all well for someone who’d claimed pixies didn’t exist this morning.

The question was whether she could handle the task at hand. Much to every engineer’s regret, people indeed did not come with breaking-strain calculations. And they were facing a huge problem.

The Unseelie King had gone missing, probably been imprisoned. This was bad. The Seelie were her people’s allies, but the Unseelie were just as necessary. They just didn’t fulfill needs that were easy to understand or that Lani necessarily wanted to think about much. Of these necessities, the Unseelie King was the most obvious. Without his presence in the right place at the right time, the seasons couldn’t change on the Faerie level. There would be no Autumn, not really. And if Lani had learned anything from Neil deGrasse Tyson, it was that without the balance that the breakdowns of Autumn restored to the atmosphere, the world would eventually freeze.

Most in the Faerie court (Seelie and Unseelie) and its allies didn’t know what was going on. All sides were keeping it quiet. Of those who knew about the problem, most were either reacting emotionally, trying to twist it to their advantages, or citing the need for the involvement of human blood. Well, Lani and Megan brought a human’s worth of blood to the table. Lani was more of an aspiring engineer than an adventurer, and Megan was still adjusting to everything. Additionally, of course, people were already trying to kill them. Lani just had to keep it together. She would help Megan navigate the fields of inhuman social landmines and less figurative dangers. She would help Megan find her father. She would help bring him back. And through it all, Lani would have to be the one to remember that just because someone is important—and just because what’s currently being done to them is wrong and dangerous—does not mean that person is safe. Lani had a little brother to think of, after all.

Buy the Book On: Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Paperback)

Follow Jeffrey Cook On: Official Site | Dawn of Steam Trilogy Facebook Page | Facebook | Twitter

May 15, 2015 by Angela Korra'ti

Other People's Books

Cleaning out my inboxes book roundup

Trying to clean up my tag structure around here, which means I’ll be rearranging a lot of the tags I have on forthcoming posts as well as older ones. Like, say, the book roundup posts! Which I’ll be putting under the “Other People’s Books” category now.

Here though are my last five purchases picked up from Kobo!

Honor Among Thieves

Rolling in the Deep, by Mira Grant. Because Mira Grant goes without saying. And also MUAHAHA EVIL MERMAIDS!
A Desperate Fortune, by Susanna Kearsley. Because she also goes without saying, and I need to get caught up on her stuff. This is her latest release, another of those dual-timeline historical-and-contemporary romances she does so well.
Honor Among Thieves, by James S.A. Corey. Because while the majority of Star Wars novels have been relegated to non-canon status, screw it, this one’s starring Han. Which makes it highly, highly relevant to my interests!
The Diabolical Miss Hyde, by Viola Carr. Grabbed this one because it was available for $1.99, and because it’s been getting some good buzz on the blogs. Steampunky followup to the famous Jekyll and Hyde story–this time starring Jekyll’s daughter.
Justice Calling, by Annie Bellet. Urban fantasy. Grabbed this one by way of showing her some support in the Hugo brouhaha.

This puts me at fifteen for the year.

May 3, 2015 by Angela Korra'ti

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Raven’s Wing, by Shawna Reppert

Shawna Reppert has quite a bit in common with me–fellow Carina author, fellow NIWA author, and fellow writer of urban fantasy set in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve actually already featured this book, before on Boosting the Signal, but that was while she was running the Indiegogo campaign for it. Now the book is out and available, and Shawna’s sent me another piece for the book. This time, her character Chuckie would like to have a word with you!

Raven’s Wing

Hi, Chuckie here.

I know I’m not the first image that comes to mind when you say the words ‘Guardian International Investigations.’ I’m built like a scarecrow and my defensive magic isn’t much better than above-average. You’re more likely to find me on a computer than at the gym. I’m an oddball even for GI-squared, and that’s saying something.

I mean, my boss’s ID may say ‘Abigail Andrews’, but everyone calls her ‘Sherlock’, as much for her pipe and her tweed as for her brilliant deductive skills and her Anglan accent.

My partner, at first blush, might seem like what the Joint Council had in mind when they set up GI-squared. Cass Greensdowne once clocked damned near a four-minute mile and she can outlift about half the men in the department. But it’s the strength of her magic and her creativity in using it that make her stand out. So, poster-girl Guardian material—except that she learned her chops apprenticing to Corwyn Ravenscroft back when he was still a dark mage. Of course, she didn’t believe at the time that he was a dark mage, no matter what anyone said, and—well, that’s a long story.

I have been accused of rambling.

So, I know I’m not the hero of any tale, and I’m okay with that. Heroes always catch the worst of whatever goes down. Honestly, when I see what Cass and Raven go through…though Raven would never admit to being a hero, he totally is. He risked not only death, but horrible death, to take down William, and took himself past the point of exhaustion to finish the job. Damned near killed himself.

He’ll tell you that it was atonement, or enlightened self-interest, blah, blah, blah. Just like all those cases he’s helped us with, the ones he’s worked night and day on, the ones where he’s saved lives, those were just because he was bored and needed the intellectual stimulation. Yeah, right.

And I’m rambling again. Cass, if she were here, would be glaring at me to warn me to get to the point already.

So, you asked me about my goals. Which I take it is a more polite way of asking what a scrawny geek like me is doing working for Guardian International Investigations. No, don’t bother to apologize, I get it all the time and, frankly, it doesn’t bother me. Much.

The thing is, as smart and as fast and as good at magic as the heroes are, there’s some things they can’t do. Let’s face it, given a Mundane computer, half the mages in the city don’t know a mouse from a mainframe. But there is a certain criminal element, mostly young and up-and-coming, that know how to interface computer knowledge with mage skills. I know, ’cause I used to be one. I was only out for a laugh, but I did some pretty major damage, and I’d like to think what I’m doing now makes up for that in some way. And hey, maybe I can stop some kid someday before he does something he’ll regret the rest of his life.

(Yeah, I know I seem all happy-go-lucky, but I still have nightmares sometimes.)

Even when someone isn’t getting creative with magic and Mundane technology for all the wrong reasons, the computer’s a useful tool in getting information fast, and that’s useful if you need to know now how many heirs there might be to a certain bloodline if only those heirs are capable of using a magical artifact that’s gone missing. Like, say, the Ravensblood.

I’m like the smith who shoes the knight’s horse before some fairytale battle. I may not be a hero, but I help make the heroism happen. And that’s good enough for this geek.

Buy the Book: Amazon (Kindle and Paperback) | Barnes and Noble (Paperback) |

Follow the Author On: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Pinterest

February 6, 2015 by Angela Korra'ti

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Demon Fare, by Cory Dale

Cory Dale, a.k.a. Karen Duvall, has released her latest book: an urban fantasy set in a version of New York that blends demons, steampunk-style tech, ghosts, and witches. It sounds like great fun, and today she’s got an excerpt to from the book to share with you that lays down some clear goals for her demon protagonist Henry Paine. Check it out!

Demon Fare

“Your neighbors don’t seem to like you very much.” The woman hadn’t stopped smiling.

The word “neighbors” sounded like “naybehs.” A Southern girl. Henry sighed and backed his way into the apartment, sweeping out his hand to welcome her in.

“Thank you,” she said and stepped inside.

The woman had guts, he gave her that, but he questioned her intelligence. He outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, though that hadn’t stopped her last night. The bruise on the back of his head was gone, but not the memory of how it got there. She obviously wanted something else from him and he was curious to know what it was.

“I’d offer you coffee, but I’m fresh out,” he lied, inhaling the luscious scent of his morning brew.

“I prefer chicory.” She gazed around the apartment, not bothering to take off her coat, which meant she didn’t intend to stay. Good. But she did unbutton it and flapped the lapels to fan herself. “You keep it mighty hot in here.”

“My kind like the heat.”

She nodded as if she understood. “Nice kitchen, though that’s the oddest-lookin’ refrigerator I’ve ever seen.”

The robotic arm on the fridge unfurled from its side, two eggs clutched in its steel-clawed hand. It angled as if to throw them straight at the woman’s head.

Henry stepped in the way and scowled at the fridge. It seemed to know more about her than he did. “What is it that you want, uh…”

“Wanda. Wanda Snow.” She stretched her fingers to grab the pinwheel on the table and it flew out of reach, twirling up to the top of the bookcase. “Your little spy is a nice touch, Mr. Paine.”

“How do you know my name?”

“The cab company where I traced your possessed steam car told me you lived in this building. But no one would give me your apartment number. Thanks to your spy—” she glanced up at the bookcase —“I knew just where to look.”

Wanda stared down at his copper heater and it scuttled underneath the bed. It was scared of her. Why?

“Lady—”

“The name’s Wanda.”

“Whatever. Look, you’re upsetting my machines and you stole my demons last night. I’ve been patient, but if you don’t tell me where my boxes are right now, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” She didn’t sound so pleasant now. A thick strand of hair braided into her bun began to glow a vibrant shade of green. “Please tell me, Mr. Paine. What will you do?”

He didn’t know anything about this woman, but his demon intuition told him she was dangerous. She was up to something, and it had to do with the demons she’d stolen.

He locked eyes with her, his will funneling through him like water through a rain spout. He poured it directly into Wanda.

Her smile faltered and she scowled. “What are you doing?”

“I only want to make you happy, Wanda.” His eyes sizzled in their sockets. “And you won’t be happy until you tell me where you stashed my boxes.”

“Can’t.” She swallowed and in a choked voice added, “Must send them back to Hell.”

“But they’re here to help people.” He meant every word, though his intention was to soothe whatever had aggravated her into taking his Vox to begin with. “They want to be here.”

She shook her head. “They can’t understand. It’s not right.”

It was Henry’s turn to scowl. “What’s not right?”

A thin line of blood trailed from one of Wanda’s nostrils. That wasn’t good. She had to stop resisting him.

It was vital she tell him where his Vox were. Those boxes held the future. They represented progress for the modern world. And most of all, they were tied to his family’s livelihood.

Wanda launched herself at him and he caught her by the elbows. Her right hand pressed against his chest, fingers splayed over his heart. “Stop,” she whispered.

“I will. Just as soon as you—”

There was a tugging sensation beneath his skin, then beneath his rib cage. His heart pounded, the muscle cramping and then opening, as if to release something from inside. Part of him felt compelled to return to the Earth’s center and the molten core where the source of his being still lived. It hungered for half of him, his demon half, pulling at one part of his soul while the other part clutched desperately at his humanity.

He gasped. “No!”

They stood locked together in a stalemate of power. If he didn’t release her, she’d die. If she didn’t release him, his demon half would leave him forever. And he’d surely die without it.

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google Play

Follow the Author On: Official Site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

January 9, 2015 by Angela Korra'ti

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: The Siren and the Sword, by Cecilia Tan

I know Cecilia Tan via the Outer Alliance mailing list, and so when she put out a call for help promoting a title she’d re-acquired rights to, I told her, sure, send me something for Boosting the Signal! So this is another out-of-band post, a bit delayed since I’m still neck-deep in editing and also in Canada this week. However, here’s Cecilia’s post for The Siren and the Sword. Her protagonist’s goal? Make it through his first year of a secret magical university hidden in Harvard–and deal with both his emerging bisexuality and his emerging magic.

This piece is an excerpt from the book, and lays down the beginnings of both of these goals. Check it out, and if you go check out Cecilia’s book, tell her Boosting the Signal sent you!

The Siren and the Sword

From The Siren and the Sword: Magic University Book One by Cecilia Tan

Another student came up to their table in the dining hall, a pale-skinned boy with black hair. Kyle stared as the newcomer slid his hands over Michael’s shoulders and Michael tilted his face upward for a quick kiss of greeting.

They made almost a matched pair, though Michael’s cheeks were a little rosier and his hair like straight silk, while the other’s curled in small black tendrils. “Who’s your new friend?”

Michael kept looking up at his friend. Boyfriend, Kyle corrected in his mind. “His name is Kyle Wadsworth. Seems to be a bit of a late bloomer.”

The newcomer extended a hand to Kyle, who shook it. “Frost. Timothy Frost.” Had his hand felt cooler than Kyle expected? Or was it— “Frost, like…”

“Robert Frost, yes. Hmm, Wadsworth, eh?”

Michael shook his head and spoke as if he’d read Frost’s mind. “He hasn’t been assigned a house yet. Or shown any magical aptitudes.”

“That is curious,” Frost said, moving away from Michael and taking the empty seat on the other side of Kyle. “No party tricks? No visions?”

Kyle opened his mouth to say “No, I…” then stared in disbelief as Frost snapped his fingers and a few fronds of some kind of plant appeared in the palm of his hand. He opened Kyle’s limp hand and dropped them into his palm.

“You seem less than impressed?” Frost’s eyes were ice blue.

“I, um, I’ve never seen anything like that before…?” Kyle stammered.

“Not a botanist either, I would guess,” Frost said with a sniff. He snapped his fingers again and Kyle jumped as the long fuzzy stalks in his hand suddenly developed ice crystals.

“How did you do that?” Kyle said, too amazed to worry about the sneer Frost was giving him.

“He invoked his Name,” Alex said with a dismissive wave. “Yeah, I’d call that one a party trick, Frost.”

Frost shrugged. “I’ll always be able to prove who I am though, won’t I? Put your eyes back in your head, Wadsworth. If they fall on the floor, they’ll get dusty.”

“How many times did the bell ring for you, Frost? Once?” Alex said, a toothy smile on his face.

Frost’s pale cheeks reddened, but he didn’t say anything in return. He stood smoothly and returned to standing behind Michael’s chair, running his hand over Michael’s silky dark hair possessively.

Michael looked up at him again. “Fourteen,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“According to Kimble, anyway.”

Frost’s eyes narrowed. “The cards will decide,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll see you later, darling.” They exchanged another very quick kiss, then Frost left.

The two girls were glaring daggers at his Frost’s back as he went and that made Kyle feel a bit better. “Honestly, Michael, I don’t know what you see in him,” one of them said.

Michael shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Apparently not. But really, fourteen? Kyle, that’s amazing.” She had wavy red hair with blond highlights and reached across the table to shake his hand. “My name’s Marigold, but I can’t make marigolds come out of my ass.”

Buy the Book: Riverdale Ave | Amazon | B&N | AllRomance

Follow the Author On: Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Pinterest

November 9, 2014 by Angela Korra'ti

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Raven’s Wing, by Shawna Reppert

I meant to get this posted a few days ago, for which I apologize–this is what happens when I’m flattened by dental surgery! But that said, this is another book with a crowdfunding campaign to which I’d like to draw your all’s attention, especially as the Indiegogo campaign is down to its final hours.

Shawna Reppert is a fellow Carina author, and like me, she’s got some self-pubbed work as well. She’s gotten some high praise for her first solo effort, Ravensblood. Now she’s looking to publish the sequel, and is calling on potential supporters to back her up right over here. Hours are counting down, so go give her a look, won’t you?

And in the meantime, here’s a Boosting the Signal piece that Shawna sent me! Of this piece, Shawna says: “Since Raven’s Wing is written with three POV characters—Raven, Cass and the villain (not gonna tell you who it is, you have to read the book) I thought it would be interesting to let one of the secondary characters have a say. Mick MacLean volunteered.”

Raven’s Wing

Mick sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of rewarmed coffee, listening to Raven’s soulful piano-playing in the next room. The boy was good, not quite concert-pianist quality, but only an educated ear could hear the difference. If Raven had devoted himself to music instead of the Art…but may as well say that if a sheep had gills, it’d be a fish. The Three Communities, and likely the rest of the world as well, had reason to be glad that Raven had devoted himself to the study of magic, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not.

Even in his younger days, Mick would have been no match for him, and he’d been formidable in time. Back in the day when he’d left his outback home and traveled to another continent to help the Three Communities bring down William’s father. Much as his boy had helped to bring down William himself.

Only Zack had never come back.

Raven still looked at him as though he expected to be blamed for Zack’s death, or maybe just for surviving when Zack had not.

Life had taught Raven to expect unfairness. Mick was determined to teach him to trust in kindness, as well. Ana had started the lesson. Cass, he knew, tried, but it was different with lovers, more complicated.

He liked the man. At first, for the sake of Zack, who had befriended him, and for Ana, who had mentored him and worried over him. Later, on his own merits.

Oh, there were bigger-scale reasons to offer the man sanctuary. Whoever had stolen the Ravensblood was powerful, cunning, and surely up to no good. Mick would do anything in his power to head off another William.

Or William himself, returning. They never had found the body.

But if the last Mage Wars had taught Mick anything, it taught him that if you lost sight of the small stuff, the human stuff, while focusing on the big picture, then you risked becoming the thing you fought.

He still wondered if Giles would be alive today if he hadn’t pressured him harder to get out. If he’d made more of an effort to be a friend to the man instead of a handler, maybe Giles would have taken his pleas more seriously. He asked himself if his failure to do so came from holding the life of a dark mage more lightly than he would have another source’s.

In all these years, he hadn’t been able to answer that question.

Support the Book on Indiegogo at: Indiegogo Campaign | Sample Chapters

Follow the Author At: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Pinterest

October 20, 2014 by Angela Korra'ti

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Wolf Interval, by Chrysoula Tzavelas

Oh, this one’s near and dear to my heart, you guys. Chrysoula Tzavelas is Tribe, and I mean that literally: I met Soula back in the day when she was a player in my Willowholt tribe on Two Moons MUSH, when her character Calmwind was the love interest of my character Wayfound. No fewer than four of us out of the Willowholt—myself, Soula, S.L. Gray, and of course the inimitable C.E. Murphy—became writers post-Two-Moons. So it gives me distinct pleasure to feature Soula on Boosting the Signal now!

And in particular, to feature her forthcoming book Wolf Interval, the latest in her series with Candlemark & Gleam. They’ve got a Kickstarter in progress RIGHT NOW to fund the publishing of this book, with nine days to go as of this writing. So if you’ve read Soula’s prior work, or even if you haven’t, take a gander at this piece about Yejun, one of the supporting characters in the book. And then go check out the page for the Kickstarter! Talk to us, Yejun!

Wolf Interval

I never really tried to run away from home. Hell, it never even occurred to me when I was a kid. I didn’t want to run away; I wanted them to love me like they loved my little brother. That didn’t really work out. But, hey, that was then. Life moves on. By the time I was a teenager, I’d been swallowing all that bull about how I would probably die any day for years, about how my differences were a sickness that would destroy me, or possibly I was actually a demon. It wasn’t until I was almost eighteen that I realized I was doing fine. I was just different and nobody knew how to deal with that.

That’s when Senjen showed up. Man, Sen—short for Ascención—was something else. She was this tiny Latin American woman with sparkling eyes who seemed to know everything. Jen was her girlfriend, and they wanted to do what nobody else had ever even considered: they wanted to teach me about how I was different. They wanted to teach me to control those differences rather than be controlled by them. Yeah. You can bet I went with them like a shot.

It was great for a few weeks. We picked up another guy, Cat, and we were going to help Sen on this epic project involving the Wild Hunt, which is on a countdown to escape and tear things up real soon now. And after we saved the world, Senjen—and maybe Cat—and I were going to do a world tour while they taught me about their amazing world.

Sen was over six hundred years old. That’s old. She was born before Columbus brought the European invasion to North America. She’d seen the whole world turn upside down over and over again, and her eyes still sparkled. She never stopped laughing. Jen, on the other hand, was just 38. She was human like me. She told me, later, that Sen’s kind could live forever if nobody killed them.

But somebody did. Something. My grandmother called me a demon sometimes, but she didn’t know anything outside of her book and shows. I’ve seen a real demon now. I’ve felt the fires they can call. I’ve seen the wreckage they leave behind, of buildings and bodies. Sen is dead, and Jen…Jen is worse. There’s just Cat and me now to stop the Wild Hunt and I’ve got no idea how we’re even going to find them.

What’s left of Jen says there’s hope though. There’s a girl she heard about. She’s a little like Sen and a little like me, and apparently she can find anything if she puts her nose to it. We’re going to have to find her first and convince her to help us. For her, we know where to look. They want me to talk her into this, because Cat’s got to keep taking care of Jen. But…I’m not the most convincing guy out there so…wish me luck?

Buy the Book: The book’s not yet available, but you can support its Kickstarter here! And Candlemark and Gleam has a cover reveal post up about it here!

Follow the Author: Official Site | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Goodreads

October 10, 2014 by Angela Korra'ti

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