C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi: Contract of Defiance (Spectras Arise Trilogy, Book 1) by Tammy Salyer

by

Featured Sci-fi: Contract of Defiance (Spectras Arise Trilogy, Book 1) by Tammy Salyer

FREE as of August 5, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Kobo, GooglePlay

WHEN ALL OTHER OPTIONS RUN OUT, NEVER LET GO OF YOUR GUN.

In a few hundred years, the Algol system becomes humanity’s new home. The question is: is it a better one?

When a crew of arms smugglers botches their latest job, Corps-deserter and crewmember, Aly Erikson, is separated from her brother, the only person she can trust, and left behind to fight for her life. In the aftermath, as she tries to piece together what happened, a crew of roughneck settlers pressgang her into a dangerous mission in the heart of Corps territory.

Time is running out to get back everything she’s lost…

Her crew, her brother, and her options. But no one is taking her gun.

[Read more…]

Featured Fantasy: Darkness Unknown (Beshadowed Book 1) by Selina A Fenech

by

Featured Fantasy: Darkness Unknown (Beshadowed Book 1) by Selina A Fenech

FREE as of August 5, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

In a town filled with monsters, love haunts and secrets kill.

Everly can’t wait to leave her creepy hometown forever. She just has to clear out her family’s antique store and avoid thinking about her unrequited childhood crush. But her plan and heart are shattered when she watches him die at the hands of a nightmarish monster.

Nobody believes what she saw because his body has vanished, and as Everly desperately searches for answers, his spirit haunts her dreams and warns her away: Do not look. Do not pry. RUN…before it’s too late.

Holding onto the hope he can be saved, Everly races to unravel the mystery in time to reunite his body and soul. But Everly’s hometown is crawling with dark secrets and nothing is as it seems. As monsters emerge, something powerful also stirs within Everly that could destroy them all.

Fans of Stranger Things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters will love this young adult supernatural horror with a lovable cast of monster-hunters and slow burn romance.

Grab your copy now to escape into the complete, binge-able Beshadowed series today.

Featured Fantasy: Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

by

Featured Fantasy: Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

$1.99 as of August 5, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US and Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself.

“This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books

First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try?

Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything.

Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.

More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again.

But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. Darkly enchanting and wisely hilarious, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking.

Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too.

Featured Sci-fi: Monuments to the Dead (Forgotten Ships Book 8) by Terry Mixon and J.N. Chaney

by

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

A living tomb dedicated to the long departed lies before them.

Drake and Yukiko have discovered three ancient megastructures. The smallest is an entrance to the defunct alien travel network that trapped them in this section of space, and may provide a way home again if they can unravel its secrets.

Secrets large and small left for those bold enough to find them and strong enough to keep them.

With the path home within their grasp, they must fight marauders and pirates if they want to keep both their finds and their lives. This is no time for half measures. Victory gives them everything, but defeat leads only to slavery or death. They must fight with everything they have or lose it all.

Will their discoveries open the path home for humanity, or will this place be their tomb as well?

Featured Sci-fi: Space Punks by Anna Mocikat

by

Featured Sci-fi: Space Punks by Anna Mocikat

FREE as of August 3, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Meet the Space Punks—the only ones crazy enough to challenge the Pentad’s supreme power…

David wakes up in a high-security prison on the forsaken Martian moon Deimos with no memory of his past. A chance encounter with Aztec, a deadly purple-haired cyborg, propels him into a daring jailbreak. She brings him on board a mysterious warship manned by the most notorious and badass crew of the galaxy—the Space Punks.

One hundred years ago AI waged a devastating war against its human creators. Humanity won, but barely and at a horrible price. Ever since, the solar system has been strictly controlled by the Pentad, a ruthless coalition of megacorporations.

As David tries to regain his memory, he finds himself fighting battles between mechs, cyborgs, robots and super-soldiers alongside his new brothers and sisters-in-arms.

But is there more to the Space Punks than meets the eye? Everyone on board, human and cyborg alike, seems to have their own secret agenda.

Needless to say, the Pentad sends out their best people to get rid of this unruly menace.

And in the shadows lurks the seemingly defeated enemy, a threat to all humankind, ready to strike again…

Space Punks is a sexy, adrenaline-fueled ride for fans of Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy!

From the bestselling, internationally-published author of Behind Blue Eyes!

Featured Fantasy: The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Series by Kara Jorgensen

by

Featured Fantasy: The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Series by Kara Jorgensen

START THE SERIES FREE—Book 2 only 99¢
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

A grounded archaeologist, a scrappy inventor, and a hidden city that holds the promise of a better tomorrow.

Eilian Sorrell is no stranger to cheating death, but when a dirigible accident costs him his arm, he fears his days of adventuring are over. As the eldest son of the Earl of Dorset, Lord Sorrell knows he will face a bleak future among London’s aristocracy unless he can escape. On a quest to return to his old life, Lord Sorrell commissions a prosthetic arm, but the craftsman isn’t quite what he expected.

Fenice Brothers Prosthetics is in trouble. Hadley’s brother is dead, and she is forced to pick up the pieces and finish what he started. When clients begin turning her away, she fears she will fail until she crosses paths with the enigmatic Lord Sorrell. In exchange for a new arm, he offers her a chance at adventure in the deserts of Palestine.
Beneath the Negev’s sand lies something far more precious than potsherds or bones. A long lost crystal city has been found that could change Eilian and Hadley’s world forever, but they aren’t the only ones who know its secrets. Will they make it out alive or will they, too, be buried beneath the desert sands?