C Gockel Writes

Featured Fantasy: Truth in the Smoke (Glamour Blind Trilogy Book 1) by SP Neeson

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Featured Fantasy: Truth in the Smoke (Glamour Blind Trilogy Book 1) by SP Neeson

FREE as of May 17, 2024
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But you’re fae. I could feel the magic when I walked in the door.

When a famous actress, says this to me, I’m torn between thinking she’s insane and asking her for more details. But she leaves before I can do either and when I try to find her the next day, she’s dead and I’m left with more questions than before.

Why did she come to me? Why was she killed? Who did it? And was she crazy or did she know something I don’t?

I need answers and she’s not around to offer them anymore. My options are limited. I can forget it ever happened and move on with my life or I can break into her house, and the scene of her murder, to investigate.

What can I say? I’m really good at bad ideas.

Featured Fantasy: Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

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Featured Fantasy: Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

$1.99 as of May 17, 2024
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(Also available in the United Kingdom & Australia)

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Editor’s note: I haven’t read this one … completely. I started reading it just last night, because I loved the first book, over 10 years ago. I was able to fall back into the world. In fact, I don’t think you need to read the first one at all.

In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job.

Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall “meat puppet” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.

To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind . . .

Featured Fantasy: The Shattered Court (A Novel of the Four Arts) by M.J. Scott

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Featured Fantasy: The Shattered Court (A Novel of the Four Arts) by M.J. Scott

FREE as of May 15, 2024
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Enjoy this romantic historical fantasy series from RITA® Award nominated author M.J. Scott.

For a royal witch, magic always means marriage…whether she likes it or not

Lady Sophia Kendall has always known three things. That she’s thirty-second in line to the throne of Anglion. That when she turns twenty-one, she’ll find out if she’s a royal witch. And that, if she is a witch, she’ll be married off immediately to whichever lord the king chooses. Now she’s about to turn twenty-one and fulfill all the expectations that the Anglion court has for her.

But when the palace is attacked just before her birthday, Sophie is spirited away from the city by Lieutenant Cameron Mackenzie, a royal guard determined to keep her safe. Being alone with a man she hardly knows is dangerous, especially so close to her birthday. And when Sophia discovers she does indeed have magic—strong magic—she and Cameron accidentally forge a bond that breaks every tradition Anglion holds dear. When they return to the palace, the aftermath of the attack has stirred up the worst kind of court politics and their unexpected union and Sophie’s magic brings her to the deadly attention of those seeking to control the court and those who seeking to destroy it…and her. To survive, Sophia will have to see beyond the lies she’s been taught and embrace the power nobody wants her to have…

The Shattered Court is the first book in the Four Arts trilogy, a complete historical fantasy romance series from RITA® Award nominated author M.J. Scott. Perfect if you love fantasies with royal turmoil, witches, gaslamp vibes, marriages of convenience, protective heroes, sexy times and political intrigues. Enjoy!

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Featured Science Fiction: Exhalation – Short Stories by Ted Chiang

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Featured Science Fiction: Exhalation - Short Stories by Ted Chiang

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Editor’s note: I’ve read this one. The first two stories alone are worth the price.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • Nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories—two published for the very first time—all from the mind of the incomparable author of Stories of Your Life and Other

Tackling some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine, these stories will change the way you think, feel, and see the world. They are Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic, revelatory.

Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine.

In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In “Exhalation,” an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom,” the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.