Playing with Magick: A Necromancy Novella

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Releases Nov. 16th, on the ten year anniversary of receiving my first publishing contract.

This story was written as a challenge, part of cover artist, Jinger Bruton’s, Written Art Project. She created the cover, and I wrote a story inspired by it. What I ended up with was a psychological story, a paranormal tale of a witch falling apart in her grief, that includes every tiny detail of the cover somewhere in the story from the broken window to her glowing eyes.

Blurb:  

Amara, a powerful witch, loses the love of her life in a horrible accident. A month later, she’s finds herself still living in their 'fixer-upper house,' Kyle hadn’t gotten around to fixing up much before he died. While it had looked haunted before, now it truly is.  

Her grief giving rise to something just short of insanity, Amara is hell bent on resurrecting her soulmate. She plans a mix of many spells, intent on achieving her goal, despite the echoes of her elders in her ears about how he will come back different, something sinister and dark. The ghost of her boyfriend protests the loudest among the voices swirling about her, pushing her even farther over the edge. 

   How far will she go? What lines she will cross, or not, remains to be seen as she is literally playing with magic.

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“Stop reading those damn books!”

Kyle’s voice roared through her head louder than the rush of it emitting lightly through the room. A shiver crawled down her back as the presence before her materialized, turning a milkier shade of white, showing the definition of his body in a brilliant, yet translucent light.

“No, I won’t. I’m running out of time,” she cried out, though her voice came out nothing more than a trembling whisper.

Having a crushing, 'the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know' moment, she looked over her mounds of books. Most of them were open, at least a dozen or more, tossed on top of one another to form an asymmetrical mountain of smelly, aging texts. Yet, she had them arranged to show certain highlighted passages, with the aid of strategically placed post-it notes rather than writing in such books. This way, she could look over them in unison, with the hope of drawing some parallel, a conclusion of sorts, that would work out her current looming problem, literally and figuratively, via magick.

A few other texts that had wasted her time, proven useless, had been tossed as far as her aching arm would allow, in various directions in frustration. Apparently her love of the written word and vow to preserve the books they were in didn’t completely apply in her current state of nervous energy fraught with rapid heartbeats, spontaneous outbursts of grumbling, and unexplainable streams of tears. The notebook she had in front of her, in which she was trying to concoct and pen her own spell, no longer appeared to be even written in an intelligible language. Her scribbles here and there, in the margins, between the lines, made it a mess of letters and lines with arrows, quite appropriate symbolically to the mess of thoughts in her head.

They had to come together soon. She needed this spell done yesterday, and failure wasn’t an option lest she hyperventilate into a puddle of stress on the floor, stiff, unable to move her hand or head. Her body buzzed with both magick and anticipation until her head spun at times, and she gripped her mountain of books for support and to ground her. She stopped a moment, avoiding looking at him, letting the words swim before her eyes as they watered. She tried to regulate her breathing, to stop the burning in her lungs. The butterflies in her stomach did an upbeat dance around the solid brick of sickness residing there.

“You’re running out of time for what? Halloween?” Kyle vented, his ghostly voice as deep as she’d heard it so far. “You are going to turn me into some kind of hideous monster, or worse... Who the hell knows what half dead, half alive, not even me thing, possibly. Neither of us even knows what will happen for sure if you go through with this scheme of yours. Stop reading the stupid books!”

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Turn up the heat on those cold winter nights with 13 sweet and steamy contemporary holiday romances from some of your favorite New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon Bestsellers! You'll make Santa's Naughty List when these Hot Alpha Males and Sexy Billionaires stuff your stockings!

https://www.amazon.com/Holiday-Spice-Everything-Nice-Claudy-ebook/dp/B01LZ1ZDL2

Includes an extended version of my novella, Snowed In

Blurb:

Top advertising executive, Rachael, was on a roll until hot and sexy Aaron showed up and gave her more than just a run for her campaign budget.  Over the course of the last few months their work relationship has gone from helpful friends, to downright mortal enemies. With a terrible winter storm upon them, through an unlucky chain of events, she finds herself in the arms of Aaron, her most hated and heated adversary.  Yet, when the lights go off…the heat turns up!

Excerpt:

Summer had proven the two of them couldn’t work together. He had flirted relentlessly at first, even been overly helpful, but all that had waned and then disappeared after working on just two account proposals together. August had found them hot and bitchy, snapping at each other like the territorial mama turtles she found in her yard each year. Yet, fall’s cooling temps had only fired them up, in the heat of battle, like burning leaves. By Halloween, the witchy season had made them outright, mortal enemies, like some dark magic spell had been cast over them. Lord only knew what this winter, now rearing its ugly head, would bring.

Hitting him in the head with a snowball would feel pretty damn good most days, she mused as she watched him get back out and swipe at the heavy snow on his car again. “Make sure you get the top too, Mr. Inexperience, or cleaning the back widow will be a waste of time once you start moving forward.” There, she had been nice, returned the favor. Rachael shook her head, thankful that was over with. Now the sick feeling in her stomach could abate.

At first the competition between them had been just to gain accounts and recognition as the top account execs at Social Living, a local company offering advertising and PR services in Cleveland, Ohio. But, as of the last few months, their fights had gotten downright ugly and moved beyond just business. They went at each other, behind the scenes, about everything, overtly and covertly. In fact, she’d started to feel like a CIA operative, spying, always on the alert, guns at the ready if needed. She was on a mission.

In fact, until him, she’d worked full time and only dated occasionally. Currently, thanks to a secret online dating account, she’d had a rash of dates, one often more hideous than the other. She endured this agony to keep up with his constant stories of the floozies Mr. Every Woman Wants Me bragged about scoring with every time he found Rachael within earshot.

If nothing else, she gave as good as she got. Who knew what percentage of his sexcapades were fabricated or exaggerated. The tall tales of her dates she talked about, when she knew he could hear her, could win her writing awards they were so fabricated. Last week’s Mr. Computer Nerd And Then Some, who would’ve bored her to sleep if it wasn’t for his constant onslaught of laughter – consisting of uneven vibrations and intermittent squeaks – had become a smart and wealthy man in her retelling of the night. Their fictitious, amazing conversation and dinner had gone head to head, and won in her mind, against his blond bimbo who gone down on him, in his car no less, on the way back to his place from the bar he had picked her up in. So one night! So cheap! Her guy held promise, she’d claimed, if only she could find the time to go out with him again. Not going to happen! Ever!

Warming her wet, gloved hands over the car vents, Rachael looked over at Aaron’s vehicle. The windows were too foggy to be able to see what he was doing. If it didn’t feel like some degree way below zero out there, she would’ve gone to see if he was reading the owner’s manual just for kicks. She remembered the ugly verbal battle they’d had when he’d purchased his new car for winter.

Release Day for Fall into Magic Limited Edition Collection!

Fall into Magic: A Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

Limited Edition, and only $0.99 for a Limited Time!

Prepare to be swept away by 20 paranormal romance and urban fantasy tales from today's NY Times, USA Today, and international bestselling authors! In this limited edition collection, you will find everything from witches to mages, shifters to vampires, demons, faeries, and much more!

Amazon: https://goo.gl/4FaPPM

Barnes and Noble: http://goo.gl/vL6nbI

Kobo: https://goo.gl/ZzovW9

iTunes: https://goo.gl/o04ZDP

My inclusion in this set is What Lies Within Us, 2and Edition, co-authored with the fantastic Gina Kincade!

Amazon Top 100 Bestseller in Gothic Fiction & Occult Horror 

Blurb

After receiving a letter from an aunt she never knew existed, Kyna Hughes travels to Ireland only to find out her whole life has been a series of well-orchestrated lies. 

Suddenly, this poor girl from the foothills of the Alleghany Mountains is thrust into a life of not only the wealthy and affluent, but of dark magic and secret societies. 

As Kyna learns of the magic hidden inside her, purposefully stunted for her protection as she grew up, she must now battle mystical hauntings—the result of curses—while getting a crash course in utilizing her powers. 

Kidnappings and satanic weddings become her daily events as she struggles not to lose her heart to one of two men—a former Navy SEAL hired to protect her, or a wizard hired to train her. 

Soon she will realize just how true it is that “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

Excerpt

Ominous fanfare greeted her arrival in County Monaghan. Lightning shred the fall of dusk as a grisly storm surrounded the car. Her every nerve vibrated with electricity; the well read letter in her hand trembling in the heat of her clenched fist. Her last minute research of this part of Northern Ireland had not done the place justice. Beauty, that of a rolling and majestic nature even in the dark downpour, stole her already shallow breath.

The thousand slices of light tearing through the sky reflected in the grey water beside the road. Kyna perceived the ominous black shadows cast by the trees as decrepit, arthritic fingers reaching out for her from the heavy flowing stream. A resounding flood of sound, deep undulating thunder, made her curl her body in on itself as she angled away from the window streaming with tears from the sky. The squall so violent, she imagined the glass would shatter. Never one to cower, she swore in a whisper to herself. Ever since she’d landed in Ireland, someone or a something, specifically an indescribable dark presence, followed her. Sure, it made no sense, but she couldn’t convince her over-stimulated brain and racing heart.

Trying to swallow despite the dryness in her mouth, looking straight ahead, her gaze following the peaks and valleys of the deserted stretch of road, she sought a moment’s peace from the raging internal war. Deep breathing exercises had yet to award her tranquility. This unexpected twist in her life over the past few days propelled her toward her wits end. From the moment she’d pulled the cream-colored, gold-trimmed envelope containing the correspondence from her mailbox, every part of her being had been altered in some way. From bursts of indefinable energy making her want to run a marathon, to unbidden ideas reminiscent of familiar dreams, to a feeling of having a sixth sense that warned of impending danger, she warred within to maintain some semblance of composure. She didn’t understand her own body anymore, but had not the time or the mental capacity to analyze the abrupt changes as she traveled.

Erratic thought patterns plagued her instead, a barrage of unanswered questions. Prior to that fateful letter, she’d just been a girl from the foothills of the Alleghany Mountains, having lived her whole life in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Her mother’s confession of her true heritage came when confronted with the communication, the damned letter, scrolled in a shaky hand, from an aunt from Ireland she never knew existed.

Apparently, Kyna was more Irish than she knew, as in born in Ireland and adopted through the Irish Mafia into the United States. The father she barely remembered, a man who’d died in a mining accident when she’d been barely five years old, had ties to the organization. She’d been a black market baby, for the love of all that is holy! The adoption had born conditions. Telling the poor child of her adoption a deal breaker, punishable by death. None of these random facts brought about feelings of safety and security as she traveled abroad to meet her aunt on her biological mother’s side.