Book Tour and Giveaway: Wind From the Abyss The Silistra Quartet Book 3 by Janet Morris

 

Aristocrat. Outcast. Picara. Slave. Ruler ....

She is descended from the masters of the universe.

To hold her he challenges the gods themselves. 

Wind From the Abyss

The Silistra Quartet Book 3

by Janet Morris

Genre: Dystopian Epic SciFi Fantasy Romance

Dystopia. Fantasy. Science fiction. Allegory. Political.

 

Wind from the Abyss is the third volume in Janet Morris' classic Silistra Quartet, continuing one woman's quest for self-realization in a distant tomorrow.

Aristocrat. Outcast. Picara. Slave. Ruler .... She is descended from the masters of the universe. To hold her he challenges the gods themselves.

 

Praise for Janet Morris' Silistra Quartet:

"The amazing and erotic adventures of the most beautiful courtesan in tomorrow's universe." -- Fred Pohl

"Engrossing characters in a marvelous adventure." -- Charles N. Brown, Locus Magazine.

"The best single example of prostitution used in fantasy is Janet Morris' Silistra series." -- Anne K. Kahler, The Picara: From Hera to Fantasy Heroine.

 

This Perseid Press Author's Cut Edition is revised and expanded by the author and presented in a format designed to enhance your reading experience with larger, easy-to-read print, more generous margins, and covers designed for these premium editions.

 

Wind from the Abyss starts with this . . .

 

"Since, at the beginning of this tale, I did not recollect myself nor retain even the slightest glimmer of such understanding as would have led me to an awareness of the significance of the various occurrences that transpired at the Lake of Horns, I am adding this preface, though it was no part of my initial conception, that the meaningfulness of the events described by "Khys' Estri" (as I have come to think of the shadow-self I was while the dharen held my skills and memory in abeyance) not be withheld from you as they were from me. I knew myself not: I was Estri because the girl Carth supposedly found wandering in the forest stripped of comprehension and identity chose that name. There, perhaps, lies the greatest irony of all, that I named myself anew after Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, who in reality I had once been. And perhaps it is not irony at all, but an expression of Khys' humor, an implicit dissertation by him who structured my experiences, my very thoughts, for nearly two years, until his audacity drove him to bring together once more Sereth crill Tyris, past-Slayer, then the outlawed Ebvrasea, then arrar to the dharen himself; Chayin rendi Inekte, cahndor of Nemar, co-cahndor of the Taken Lands, chosen son of Tar-Kesa, and at that time Khys' puppet-vassal; and myself, former Well-Keepress, tiask of Nemar, and lastly becoming the chaldless outlaw who had come to judgment and endured ongoing retribution at the dharen's hands. To test his hesting, his power over owkahen, the time-coming-to-be, did Khys put us together, all three, in his Day-Keeper's city -- and from that moment onward, the Weathers of Life became fixed: siphoned into a singular future; sealed tight as a dead god in his mausoleum, whose every move brought him closer to the sum total, obliteration. So did the dharen Khys bespeak it, himself. . ."

 

“Morris, so good at giving us characters we can identify with, characters we can love and hate, strikes at the very heart of the human condition and the duality of humanity — both good and evil. Her prose is lean and spot-on, every word carefully chosen to enhance the milieu of her imaginary world and advance the plot, giving us access to the thoughts, emotions and machinations of the people whose stories she is presenting to us. Once again, she gives us a “thinking man’s” science fiction/fantasy that explores the nature of power and sexuality, and how they can be used, misused and abused. This is a brilliant, mature and very adult novel that will not only leave you thinking about your own place in the universe, but questioning the very nature of existence.” – Goodreads reviewer

 

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I.In Mourning for the Unrecollected

 

The hulion hovered, wings aflap, at the win­dow, butting its black wedge of a head against the pane. Its yellow eyes glowed cruelly, slit-pupiled. Its white fangs, gleam­ing, were each as long as my forearm.

I screamed.

Its tufted ears, flat against its head, twitched. Again and again, toothed mouth open wide, it battered at the window, roaring.

Once more I screamed and ran stumbling to the far wall of my prison. I pounded upon the locked doors with my fists, pressing myself against the wood. Sobbing, I turned to face it.

The beast’s ears flickered at the sound. Those jaws, which could have snapped me in half, closed. It cocked its head.

I trembled, caught in its gaze. I could retreat no farther. I sank to my knees, moaning, against the door frame.

The beast gave one final snort. Those wings, with a spread thrice the length of a tall man, flapped decisively, and it was gone.

When the hulion was no more than a speck in the greening sky, I rose clumsily, shaking, to collect the papers I had strewn across the mat in my terror. They were the arrar Carth’s papers, those he had forgotten in his haste to answer his returning master’s summons.

I knelt upon my hands and knees on the silvery pile, that I might gather the pages and replace them in the tas-sueded folder before Carth returned.

Foolish, I thought to myself, that I had so feared the hulion. It could not have gotten in. I could not get out: It could not get in. Once I had thrown a chair at that impervious clarity. The chair had splintered. With one stout thala leg, as thick as my arm, had I battered upon that window. All I had accomplished was the transformation of chair into kindling. The hulion, I chided myself, could have fared no better.

Hulions, upon occasion, have been known to eat man-flesh. Hulions, furred and winged, fanged and clawed, are the servants of the dharen who rules Silistra. I had had no need to fear. Yet, I thought as I gathered the arrar Carth’s scattered papers, hulions are fearsome. Perhaps if I had been able, as others are, to hear its mind’s intent, I would have felt differently. My fingers, numb and trembling, fumbled for the delicate sheets.

One in particular caught my eye. It was in Carth’s precise hand and headed: “Preassessment Monitoring of the Arrar Sereth. Enar Fourth Second, 25,697.”

I had met, once, the arrar Sereth. Upon my birthday, Macara fourth seventh, in the year ’696 had I met him, that night my child had been conceived. I had read of his exploits. He frightened me, killer of killers, enforcer for the dharen, he who wore the arrar: chald of the messenger. Sereth, scarred and lean and taut like some carnivore, who had loved the Keepress Estri, my namesake, and with her brought great change to Silistra in the pass Amarsa, 25,695 — yes, I had met him.

I sat myself down cross-legged on the Galeshir carpet, papers still strewn about, forgotten, and began to read:

The time is approximately three enths after sun’s rising, the weather clouded and cool, our position just south of the juncture of the Karir and Thoss rivers. I highly recommend that you look in upon the moment.

The arrar Sereth, on the brindle hulion Leir, touched his gol-knife. It was the first unnecessary movement he had made in over an enth. My presence, alongside upon a black hulion, disquieted him. The brindle, gliding at the apex of its bound, snorted. He touched its shoulder, and the beast, obedient, angled its wings and began its descent.

When its feet touched the grass, he set it at a grounded lope. 1 followed suit, bringing my black up to pace him.

Sereth regarded me obliquely. I, as he, served the dharen, he thought, and touched his hulion to a stop.

We had been riding all the night, up from Galesh, where I had met him with the two beasts. He had served the dharen, most lately, in Dritira. And before that, in the hide diet, and before that upon the star world M’ksakka had he dealt death and retribution at Khys’ whim. And dealt them successfully, though those tasks had been fraught with deadlier risk than a man might be expected to survive. His thought was wry, recollecting.

“How did you find M’ksakka?” I asked, to key him, to bring something else above the impenetrable shield he has constructed. My hulion rumbled at the brindle he rode, and that one answered.

“I will make a full report to Khys,” he said, slipping off the hulion’s back. “Let us rest them.”

I joined him where he lay upon the grass, staring at the sky.

“I missed this land,” he said. “The sky there is dark and ominous, always cloudy. M’ksakkan air stings eyes and lungs. Everything is covered with a fine black dust. I would not go again off the planet.”

“Perhaps he will not send you,” I conjectured.

He saw M’ksakka, and that seeing was colored by his distaste, both for the world and the work he had done there. The methods he had employed displeased his sense of fitness. The value of the M’ksakkan’s death was to him obscure. I saw the moment: the adjuster’s surprised eyes, wide and staring as Sereth’s fingers closed on his throat, around his windpipe,·the M’ksakkan’s clawing hand upon his wrist as he ripped out the man’s larynx, vocal folds dangling; then the blood, spurting, and the sound of the adjuster’s choking death. And I saw others he had killed, those who were anxious to try their skills against a real live Silistran. He had been hesitant to do so, but more hesitant to face an endless line of their ilk, so he had killed the first three. Again, his thoughts sank below readable level. The hulions lay quiet, lashing their tails. The clouds scudded heavy over the sun. A soft, drizzling rain commenced.

“The dharen is pleased with you,” I said.

He sat up, his mind absolutely inviolate. “What do you want, Carth?” He stared down at me. I lay perfectly still. He made no attempt to read me for his answer. He merely waited.

“A first impression. You are coming up for assessment.” I rose up. “We want to get some sense of you. Your mental health is now our concern.” He ducked his head, ripping grass from the sward. “You brought child upon that well woman in Dritira,” I prodded.

He saw her. In many ways she had reminded him of the Keepress. It had been passes since he had taken a woman. On M’ksakka there were females, but nothing he understood to be a woman. He had not couched many of them. And in hide diet, there were only forereaders. In Dritira, with that woman who reminded him of the Keepress, he had spent his long-pent seed. Four times he had used her, before she was more than a receptacle in his sight. And he had abused her, more than was his custom.

“Get me the forms. I will collect my birth-price,” he answered. He did not want the woman.

“You should take her. We have been considering her. She might yet make a forereader.”

“Then it is a pity she caught. From inferior blood can come only inferior stock.”

“Khys has asked me,” I told him, “to bid you welcome to any of the forereaders we hold in common at the Lake. Spawn from such a union surely would be possessed of talent. The bitterness you hold is out of proportion to the reality. We all, at one time or another, find there is something we want that we may not have.”

He did not answer me, but rose and went to his hulion. He thought of the Keepress Estri as one thinks of the dead, with acceptance; and then thought of his own life, and what compromises he has made to keep it. What he let me know, I have no doubt, will please you. What he did not — that is what concerns me. He allowed me nothing else for the duration of our return.

His shield, as you will find, is set lower and much farther into his deeper conscious than any I have encountered. Most of his processing must take place behind it. Deep-reading him is out of the question. He visualizes barely enough to verbalize his will. That he is functioning superbly is attested by his works. That he feels it to his advantage to serve us at present is a certainty. I worry over what might occur should he choose, eventually, not to serve us.

My formal recommendation is for a complete and detailed assessment. Also, I feel some attempt might be made to pacify him, in light of what he is fast becoming. Or perhaps even to eliminate him, lest he become, like Se’keroth, the weapon turned upon the wielder.

And it was signed Carth.

“Carth!” I gasped, as a dark hand snatched the sheet from my grasp. Still upon my knees, I twisted to see him. His dark eyes gleamed. He ran his hand through his black curls.

“Did you find this informative, Estri?” he asked, towering over me, the paper crumpled in his fist. Carth was furious.

I dared not answer. I started to my feet.

“Pick these up!” he commanded, pointing.

I scurried to obey him, scrambling for the leaves strewn upon the web-work carpet, my stomach a knot. Once before, I had seen Carth this agitated, when I had written for him a certain paper. And he had called it audacious, and destroyed it. I finished, and rose to my full height, handing the tas envelope to him. My head came to his shoulder. He looked down at me, stern-faced.

“You were ill-advised to do this,” he said. “The dharen is not pleased with you. This” — he threw the crumpled sheet across the room — “will only aggravate matters. You had best make some effort to placate him.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Has he taken some sudden interest in me?” I had seen the dharen precisely three times since I had come to reside at the Lake of Horns: the night he had gotten me with child, the day following, and once while I lay near death when the unborn had driven me to seek it. He had not been at the Lake of Horns when I bore his he-beast into the world. I had cried out for him during that premature and extended labor. He had been unavailable. Now, nearly eight passes later, he had returned.

“Do not be insolent!” Carth’s voice rasped as his palm cuffed my face to one side. Tears in my eyes, I put my hand to my cheek. It was what I had thought, not what I had said, that had brought me chastisement. Shaking my head, I backed away from him. Though I had known Carth a telepath, a surface-reader, rarest of Silistran talents, never had he shown his skills before me, one who neither spoke nor heard the tongues of mind.

“Estri, come here.”

I went to him, my hand trailing from my cheek to the warm, pulsing band locked about my throat.

When I stood before him, he lifted my face, his hand under my chin, so I must look into his eyes.

“He is very angry, child. You must realize that what you think is as audible to him as what you say. I know it was not malicious, that you read what you found. Forget it, if you can. Concentrate on what lies before you.” He patted my back, all the anger gone out of him.

“I do not want to see him,” I said, toying with the ends of my copper hair, grown now well below mid thigh.

Carth pursed his lips. “You have no choice. He will see you in a third-enth. Make ready.” And he turned and strode through the double doors that adjoined my prison to Khys’ quarters. Khys, my couch-mate, was again in residence. The dharen of all Silistra, back from none knew where, would again rule from the Lake of Horns.

Make ready, indeed, I thought, combing my hair. I had only the white, sleeveless s’kim I wore; thigh-length, of simple web-cloth. My jewelry was the band of restraint at my throat. I retied the garment upon my hips. Throwing my hair back, I regarded myself in my prison’s mirrored wall. My body, copper-skinned, lithe, only shades lighter than my thick mane, postured at me, arrogant. I had thought, for a time, that the he-beast had destroyed it, but such had not been the case. Exercise had given its grace and firmness back to me. My legs are very long, my waist tiny, hips slim. Pregnancy had altered me little. My breasts were still high and firm, my belly flat and tight. Good enough for him, surely. I widened my eyes suggestively, then stuck my tongue out at her. She made a face back. I grinned and wondered why I had done so, turning from the wall that ever showed me the boundaries of my world.

*Don’t miss the previous books in the series!**

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Best selling author Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. She contributed short fiction to the shared universe fantasy series Thieves World, in which she created the Sacred Band of Stepsons, a mythical unit of ancient fighters modeled on the Sacred Band of Thebes. She created, orchestrated, and edited the Bangsian fantasy series Heroes in Hell, writing stories for the series as well as co-writing the related novel, The Little Helliad, with Chris Morris. She wrote the bestselling Silistra Quartet in the 1970s, including High Couch of Silistra, The Golden Sword, Wind from the Abyss, and The Carnelian Throne. This quartet had more than four million copies in Bantam print alone, and was translated into German, French, Italian, Russian and other languages. In the 1980s, Baen Books released a second edition of this landmark series. The third edition is the Author's Cut edition, newly revised by the author for Perseid Press. Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

Janet said: 'People often ask what book to read first. I recommend "I, the Sun" if you like ancient history; "The Sacred Band," a novel, if you like heroic fantasy; "Lawyers in Hell" if you like historical fantasy set in hell; "Outpassage" if you like hard science fiction; "High Couch of Silistra" if you like far-future dystopian or philosophical novels. I am most enthusiastic about the definitive Perseid Press Author's Cut editions, which I revised and expanded.'

 

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A Giveaway and An Interview with Susie Black Author of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series

 

How did you get into writing your quirky, fun series?

Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, I was a ladies’ apparel sales executive. The most critical skill a sales executive must have to succeed is storytelling. Fortunately, I’ve been telling stories since I learned to talk. One thing I was told over and over as a sales executive was to know your product inside and out. I heard the same thing when I started writing cozy mysteries: write what you know. If you don’t know it, either do the research and learn it, or don’t dare to write it. Whether you’re an author or a sales executive, you’re selling yourself, and readers, like buyers, can sniff out a phony in a heartbeat. Then you and the story you’re telling are toast.

I came to write in the cozy mystery genre because I love solving puzzles. My parents would certainly confirm that I always asked a lot of questions. I am naturally curious (some narrow-minded people say I am nosy…go figure…LOL). So, writing mysteries was my natural next step. Since I’d never written a novel before, the only thing I knew to do was to apply the same storytelling skills I’d successfully used hawking bikinis to writing a tale. It turns out that how you present an apparel line is the same way you write a story. Both have a beginning, a middle, an ending, and a point of view.

Where do your story ideas come from? 

From the start of my career, I kept a daily journal that chronicled the quirky, interesting, and often challenging people I encountered as well as the crazy situations I’d gotten myself into and out of. The journal entries are the foundation of all my writing for the stories that comprise the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. With a dollop of imagination, a pinch of angst, and a decades-long career chocked to the gills with juicy characters, I had more stories itching to be told in my daily journal than time to write them.

Did you want to kill any of your clients? 

Who could push a sales exec to dream of murder and mayhem? Who else but a buyer?  After completing a rather challenging conversation with an important but difficult customer, I imagined how good it would feel with my hands around her scrawny neck, squeezing the life out of her. While the notion of knocking off my annoying buyers was wildly appealing, a horizontally striped prison uniform making my four-foot, eight-inch body look like a barbershop pole and a fire hydrant had a child wasn’t a pretty sight. The viable alternative? Writing humorous murder mysteries set in the Los Angeles garment center with a protagonist based on me. Brilliant and cathartic! In one fell swoop, eliminate a pain-in-the-patootie buyer, avoid life in prison, and still get the order. It doesn’t get any better than that.  

The Giveaway! 

With swimsuit season upon us, Susie is giving away her guided to the fearful Need a Swimsuit? Don't Panic. Comment on this post to receive this timely guide! 

What else are you doing?

More mysteries, of course! The Hannah White Mystery Series, to be specific.

Tell us about yourself! 

 

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

 Where can readers find you and your books?

Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social

Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Instagram: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/

Substack: Substack Home -Susie Black

X: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) / X

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/susieblackwritescozies

Susie Black Books - BookBub

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21437641.Susie_Black

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21437641.Susie_Black

Contact Susie at: mysteries.authorsusieblack@gmail.com

Book Tour and Giveaway: Lance Loving a Lancaster Book 4 by Stacy Eaton

 

When her world loses its color, he’s the only one who can help her find the brush again.

Lance

Loving a Lancaster Book 4

by Stacy Eaton

Genre: Contemporary Small-Town Romance

As a Forensic Accountant, Lance Lancaster lives on facts and the small details that get overlooked. When his firm takes on a new client, and Aurora Moonshadow enters the room, the facts he lived by and relied on quickly begin to vanish, leaving him in the unknown territory of protective gemstones and Navajo folklore.

Aurora Moonshadow believes in signs and living every minute to the fullest. After her father passes and she takes over the family business, she finds herself unable to understand the dire situation her father left behind. That is until Lance arrives to help her. The creativity that has been hidden by grief quickly emerges after meeting him, and Aurora is on top of the world until her protective bracelet breaks.

When Aurora goes missing, Lance returns to Sedona and will do just about anything to help find her. Learning that she started painting again after their one night together makes Lance even more determined to locate her and bring her home safe.

Will they be able to find Aurora before everything she loves is destroyed, including herself? Or will Lance be left with only her final painting?

Lance is the fourth book in the Loving a Lancaster Series. This series spin-off of the Loving a Winston Series, which spins off the Loving a Young Series.

**NEW RELEASE!**

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**Don’t miss the rest of the Loving a Lancaster series!**

Leo, Book 1
Luna, Book 2
Levi, Book 3
Lance, Book 4

Find them on Amazon!

 

Stacy Eaton is a USA Today Bestselling author and began her writing career in October of 2010. Stacy took early retirement from law enforcement after over fifteen years of service in 2016 due to a second serious concussion. Her last three years on the job were in investigations and crime scene investigation. She now writes full-time.

Stacy resides in southeastern Pennsylvania with her husband, who works in law enforcement. She has a daughter in college and a son who is currently serving in the United States Navy.

Stacy writes a variety of genres, but mostly romance. She enjoys writing real-life stories that people can relate to with real-life problems, emotions, and solutions.

Her favorites: Classic cars, photography, Disney, music, coffee, and her favorite sweatshirt that says, You are dangerously close to getting killed in my next novel.

 

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Book Tour and Giveaway: The Book of Wands The Tarot Series Book 1 by Lauren Louise Hazel

 

 

The cards await, ready to unveil their secrets. 

Are you prepared to witness their magic?

The Book of Wands

The Tarot Series Book  1

by Lauren Louise Hazel

Genre: YA Academy, Urban Fantasy

The cards await, ready to unveil their secrets. Are you prepared to witness their magic?

Olivia Pembroke is in her final year of The School of Wands, where she will vie against her friends and rivals for qualification in The Final Judgment. Designed to be the ultimate test of Intelligence, Strength, Creativity and Courage, The Final Judgment is set by a mysterious figure called Rasmus, who is wrapped in secrets.

Olivia has no doubt she is going to win and claim victory and pride for her family. That is, until her grandmother dies, and leaves her with her old Tarot Deck, which she claimed could see Past, Present and Future…

 

**Releases July 2026 – PreOrder Now!**

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Join the ARC list here!

PROLOGUE 

 

Olivia’s head was bowed, and her neck straining in its awkward position. She had plaited her hair neatly, in a half-crown at the top of her head, at her mother’s insistence. Olivia was already regretting the decision. The weather was drizzling, the mist cool on her flushed skin, but she had no protection from its light drops. 

Nor did she have any shield from the flurry of mourners. 

Her mother was standing at the front, clad in a black suit and skirt and black boots. Her face, starting to line with age, was stone cold and remote. Her father was standing at her side, and like Olivia, he was looking at the floor. He looked hunched and strangely small. 

The casket, black and shiny, was lowered slowly into the ground. 

The priest was speaking, but his words were wrong. He was talking about Olivia’s grandmother like someone who had never met her before; he called her a bright and radiant light, kind and gentle and generous. She had not been any of those things, but Olivia had loved her anyway. She had been strong and resilient and a force of nature. She had advocated for Olivia when nobody else had – attending every school event when her parents could not. Her grandmother had stayed at the Pembroke Estate with her while her parents were travelling for work, assisting with schoolwork and answering Olivia’s many questions. She was always supportive and never judging. She always made time for her.

But now she was gone…

And Olivia had never felt so alone. The distance between her and parents was like a chasm, so far and almost unbreachable. Olivia blamed them for their part in her grandmother’s death – for all that they had done to her – and it was a thought, a feeling, that she could not shake. If they had not sent her away, maybe she’d alive... maybe she would still be with Olivia. She did not know what to do now. 

How could her grandmother leave her? She didn’t understand. What had seen done wrong? Olivia wanted to cry, the conflicting emotions bubbling beneath her skin. She felt trapped, like she was suffocating under a black cloud that only she could see.

After all, her mother was always watching – as soon as the thought crossed Olivia’s mind, her mother turned towards her, reaching, as though she hadn’t done anything wrong. Olivia swallowed and backed away. 

“Don’t let this distract you, Olivia,” said her mother, her quiet voice loud in the oppressive silence. Olivia jerked slightly, unable to suppress the flinch. She did not reply.

Her mother barrelled on. “This is the most important year for you,” she continued, oblivious to Olivia’s thoughts and feelings, as always. “You could achieve anything.”

            In that moment, Olivia did not care.

Her grandmother was not coming back. 

 

Lauren Louise Hazel is a Cyber Security Manager by day and writes YA fantasy by night. She has one annoying brother and younger sister. As she was growing up, the only item her dad would buy her without demanding her pocket money was books. He’s hoping the writing is successful so he can get a Ferrari!

Some of Lauren’s favourite books and influences include the classics – like Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games – and anything by Haruki Murakami and GRR Martin.

 

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Book Tour and Giveaway: Vamps and Vendettas Star-Crossed Chronicles Book 3 by AK Nevermore

 

 

🦇📚 Magic happens and sparks fly in the small town of Havers-By-the-Sea when a sharp-tongued vampire crosses paths with a broody gargoyle. 🦇📚

Vamps and Vendettas

Star-Crossed Chronicles Book 3

by AK Nevermore

Genre: Spicy Small Town Paranormal Romance

Karma sucks.

Ophelia Diamondé never asked to be summoned to Havers-by-the-Sea, but when the node makes her an offer she can’t refuse, she officially becomes stuck representing the crappy little town. Having to clean up their messy legal issues isn’t what she wants to be doing, but anything’s better than being returned to the vampire court’s clutches—or at least she thought so before she met the opposing counsel.

Gideon Sperry isn’t known for his patience or his giving nature, but he is one hell of a lawyer. Unfortunately, all that goes out the window when Ophelia shows up, and the lawsuit between Havers and Fayet becomes personal.

But the facts aren’t adding up. When it becomes clear that karma’s had a hand in bringing them together, they need to find a way to build a case against who’s really at fault for the turbine debacle. If they can’t, it’s not just the town itself that’s in danger, but every resident’s very lifeblood.

Magic happens and sparks fly in the small town of Havers-By-the-Sea when a sharp-tongued vampire crosses paths with a broody gargoyle. VAMPS AND VENDETTAS, a spicy slow burn paranormal romance novel in the Star-Crossed Chronicles series by AK Nevermore.

 

🦇📚 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐄𝐒 📚🦇
✦ Sassy Vampire FMC
✦ Overprotective Gargoyle MMC
✦ He Falls First
✦ Hidden Powers
✦ Loads of Snarky Banter
✦ Touch-Her-and-Die
✦ Forced Allies
✦ Dark Secret
✦ Second Chance Romance
✦ Slow Burn
✦ Small Town

💋 𝑺𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 = 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Explicit Scenes ~ Very Hot

  

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Prologue

Greenthorn Indoctrination Center, Vampire Tribal Lands

Ophelia sat on a hard plastic chair, clenching a mangled pamphlet between her sweaty palms. The silence in the stark, cream and beige waiting room was beyond oppressive. She’d been there since six that morning, and the hour hand on the clock above the frosted glass door had made almost a full circuit.

She riffled her hair. The wait was fucking ridiculous. What the hell was going on back there? All her forms had been completed, every legal requirement satisfied. She’d even taken the intro course to their bullshit religious instruction and been blessed by one of their preoti. This part should’ve gone faster, especially after her more-than-generous donation to the cause.

Fucking bloodsuckers.

God, she just wanted to burst through that stupid door and get this over with. Damn it. No. Breathe. She struggled to bite back her temper. Be contrite, Phe. Try to channel fucking worthiness. She snorted. Like that was hard. She was a hell of a lot farther up the food chain than the rest of the losers that’d shown up to volunteer.

Throughout the day, seats filled with indigents and the dying had slowly emptied to the right and left of her until only herself and two other people were in the room.

One of them was laid out on a hospital gurney. Bags of saline and lord knew what else hung from an IV stand beside him. The other, a woman and presumably the infirm man’s caregiver, slowly flicked through her tablet. By the way she was chewing her lower lip and shifting in her seat, whatever she was reading was juicy.

Ophelia scowled, hooking the long, jagged bangs of her pixie cut behind an ear. What the woman should be doing was reading up on how to properly care for the soon-to-be-corpse’s colostomy. Even across the room, the stench of shit was eye-watering.

What a cunty little campfire scout, all prepared for the wait. Ophelia flicked her nails and picked at the black gel tips, begrudgingly admitting that she’d been too confident she’d be one of the first volunteers called and hadn’t thought about how to pass the time. Normys looking to join the vampiric tribes and subscribe to their fucked-up religion were usually either vagrants, on death’s door, or some special kind of desperate.

Ophelia was a very healthy twenty-nine, a rising star in the litigation world, and fell squarely into the last category.

She was also positive that her soon-to-be-husband would completely lose his shit if he knew she was here, and every second that ticked past increased the probability of him figuring out where she was. Ophelia wiped her sweaty palms against her thighs, all too clearly imagining him bursting through the door, full-on gargoyle.

Her eyes flicked to the clock. These assholes needed to hurry the fuck up.

The bullshit work conference she’d invented wasn’t going to hold up to close scrutiny, but it was the best she could do on short notice. The approval for her to join the tribes had come through almost immediately, and she needed that goddamned virus.

She slowly exhaled and flipped open the mangled pamphlet for the umpteenth time, smoothing it over her bespoke, tailored slacks, glad her phone had died after the first few hours, nixing any temptation to call Deo and come clean about what she was doing.

Fuck around and find out never went over well with him, but that—and his abs—were one of the many reasons she was head over heels for the guy. No one else had ever cared enough to call her on her shit. She chewed a nail, knowing exactly what he would say about all this, but screw him. He wouldn’t understand. How could he? He was a supe and she wasn’t. This needed to happen. She could feel it in her bones. It was the next step.

She couldn’t lose him, couldn’t think about him with someone else after the fact, and her mortality guaranteed that was gonna happen.

Yeah, over her undead body.

Her gaze dropped to the pamphlet. Rereading it was stupid. At this point, she could recite it verbatim.

“Vampirism is a sacred gift.”

Ophelia didn’t quite snort, but damn, that line got her every time. Bit of a stretch there. Though, she had to admit, the tribes had a killer marketing team. She did snort at that, running a hand over her face. God, she’d been here too long, but Vampiric Syndrome wasn’t a gift, sacred or otherwise. It was caused by a virus carried by gravers, a rare species of centipede from the eastern continent that fed on dead bodies.

Gotta love nature, right? Gross, but nothing special. Well, unless they chowed down on someone that hadn’t quite passed into the hereafter. That was unfortunate, and probably unpleasant if said undead were a supe, but if one had the questionable honor of being born a normy like her?

Hello, vampire.

Ophelia put a hand to her churning stomach. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to ingesting one of the fucking things, but if the Victorians could down tapeworms to drop a pound or seventeen, how bad could this be? Granted, tapeworms didn’t have twelve rows of razor-sharp teeth, but…

Fucking A. Who was she trying to kid? It was gonna be horrible.

God, stop being such a pussy. To be with Deo forever, she’d chase the fucking thing with a shot of broken glass if that’s what it took.

Ophelia blew out her cheeks and slumped, her tailbone throbbing from the hard plastic. It was a serious bummer she’d been inoculated for Vampiric Syndrome as a kid. Before the Purge, all you had to do was bang someone already infected to contract VS.

Which was what had kicked off the Purge, the development of the vaccine, was the reason all corpses were now cremated, and a whole host of other shit.

Including the tribes’ need for volunteers to maintain their population.

A shadow moved behind the frosted glass. Ophelia sat up as a brunette vamp with a severe bun and a nurse’s uniform straight out of the 1940s pushed through with a clipboard. A name tag at her breast read “Crake,” and the tatuaj around her eyes radiated to her temples like a spider’s web. The markings looked like a tattoo but weren’t. It was how the virus presented itself and was the basis for their fucked-up caste system.

“Ms. Diamondé?

It was about goddamn time. “Here,” Ophelia said, raising a finger before she stood. She wiped her palms on her slacks and grabbed her purse.

Nurse Crake tongued her cheek, her unnaturally red lips pressed together. She looked Ophelia up and down before checking off something on her clipboard and gesturing for her to follow.

The hallway beyond was as stark as the waiting room had been. White walls, sanitary molding, doors with stainless steel kickplates. All of those had bars dropped across them, moans and thumps coming from within. One of the long fluorescent bulbs flickered above.

“Birthdate?” the nurse asked, her dark eyes on the clipboard.

Something hit one of the doors as they passed, and Ophelia adjusted her purse higher onto her shoulder. “Uh, November third, 2015.”

“And you’re here because…?” The nurse flicked through a bunch of papers, and Ophelia caught a flash of her signature at the bottom of one of the many consent forms she’d signed.

She wet her lips. “Vampirism speaks to me,” she bullshitted, though it wasn’t totally a lie. The part where it extended one’s existence indefinitely was absolutely calling her name. The rest of it could fuck off, but if she had to eat a bug then drink blood to make that happen, so be it.

Nurse Crake glanced at her askance like she knew Ophelia was full of shit. Well, at least she wasn’t stupid. She stopped at a door and pushed it open, gesturing for Ophelia to go in.

The room beyond looked like every other doctor’s office she’d ever been in. Padded, papered table, crappy cream and blue wallpaper, a wheeled, stainless steel table, and a little laminate counter area with a tiny sink and canisters of swabs and cotton balls.

“Remove your clothes and put them and the rest of your belongings in here,” Nurse Crake said, handing over a clear plastic drawstring bag with Ophelia’s name scrawled on it. “There’s a gown on the table, ties in the back. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

The door clicked shut behind her, and Ophelia took a deep breath before beginning to undress. Her hands shook as she unbuttoned her slacks and wriggled out of them. Deo. Think about Deo. A visual of the mountainous, gruff blond man flashed across her mind’s eye. The way his stubble glinted on his square jaw, his intense turquoise eyes…

“It doesn’t matter how much time we have together, Phe. We’ll make the most of what we have, and I’ll love you until the end…”

But it did matter. She flicked a hand across her cheek. The thought of growing old while he stayed eternally young—there wasn’t a fucking chance she was going to subject him to mashing up her food and changing her diapers. And he would, damn him. No. This would take all of that off the table. It was the only way they could be together without her fucking mortality hanging over them like a shroud.

She tied the gown and sat on the table, paper crinkling beneath her. Her pulse raced. He was going to be so angry with her, but he’d get over it…right? He always did. And then they could be together forever. With her credentials, whatever tribe she was assigned to would give her a dispensation to work outside the tribal lands.

The mandatory tithe her position at the firm would provide all but guaranteed that. She’d done the research. Save for two she couldn’t track down, every volunteer since the Purge with a high-paying career had returned to their normy lives. Tithing was how the tribes were funded, and her salary was three times what the majority of them made.

Then why are you sweating so much?

Fuck. She raked a hand through her hair. Did it matter? Introspection was pointless and not her jam to begin with. For better or worse, this was happening.

A soft knock sounded at the door, and a moment later it was pushed open. A thin, dark-haired vamp in a lab coat came into the room with another, younger male and Nurse Crake behind them. She carried a stainless steel tray. A crimson velvet cloth covered whatever was on it. She set it by the padded table, then busied herself by the counter.

The dark-haired vamp flipped through her chart, pursing his lips, and pushed up his glasses. The tatuaj beneath them were the same webbed design as Nurse Crake’s and the other vampire’s. Guess there was a tribe of medics.

“Ms. Diamondé,” the dark-haired vamp said. “I’m Doctor Wong, and this is my intern, Louis. He’ll be observing today, unless you have any objection?”

“Nope.” As long as they made her into a vampire, Ophelia didn’t care if they did it on stage and sold tickets.

“Wonderful.” He smiled, the tips of his pointed incisors gleaming. “I apologize for the wait, but in cases such as yours, we like to give the applicants time to fully consider their commitment to our cause.”

Seriously? That’d been some kind of test? Ophelia bit back a snarky retort, the paper drape crinkling beneath her. “Of course.” She smiled back, hoping it looked more genuine than it was. “Completely understandable. However, I am fully committed.”

The doctor nodded, and Nurse Crake took Ophelia’s arm, swabbing it to install a port for an IV. Ophelia winced at the pinch. The woman might not be particularly pleasant, but she was efficient.

“Well, then everything appears to be in order,” the doctor said, flipping through pages as the nurse sent a burst of frigid saline through the IV. Louis scanned the chart over the doctor’s shoulder, reading along with him and taking notes. “I see you’ve completed the first course of religious instruction as well. Highly commendable. Are we ready to proceed?” he asked Crake. At her nod, his eyes flicked to Ophelia.

She swallowed roughly, her mouth dry. “Please.”

Doctor Wong and Nurse Crake exchanged a glance.

“Then lie back to be secured,” the doctor said, reaching for a box of blue gloves on the counter. “The process doesn’t take very long, and as soon as we’ve finished here, you’ll be transported to the applicable tribe’s sect for recovery. That usually takes two to three days, and your reintroduction will be evaluated based on how well you adapt to reanimation.”

Ophelia nodded, fighting a sudden burst of anxiety. The wedding was in a week, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she was missing it. You can do this, Phe.

She lay back, and Nurse Crake moved to her side, pulling thick leather straps from the sides of the table. She buckled them around Ophelia’s torso and forehead, then pulled out others for her arms and wrists.

“For your safety.” Crake smiled, her grin much more predatory than the good doctor’s and about as legitimate as Ophelia’s had been. The nurse filled a hypodermic, then plinked it.

“Ah, what is your preferred orifice?” the doctor asked.

Ophelia started, her gaze fixed on the needle. “What is that?”

“A lethal injection,” he murmured, pushing up his glasses and still scanning her chart. “Where would you prefer the vessel to make entry? It’s not listed here.”

“I-I thought I had to eat it?” Ophelia stammered.

“Any hole will do,” the nurse murmured with a smirk, setting the needle aside to transition the end of the table flat and secure Ophelia’s legs. A slot opened beneath her rear and Crake yanked up the drape leaving Ophelia’s bare ass to dangle.

Her nether regions clenched. She hadn’t— “Mouth. Mouth is fine.”

The doctor grunted and reverently folded back the crimson cloth. He murmured something and made a solemn gesture before lifting a low jar that’d been nestled on a cushion.

Ophelia’s breath sped at the writhing contents, reconsidering all of her life choices. No. She could do this for Deo. For them, for their future.

The doctor shook the jar, sending the churning mass to the bottom before setting it back on the cushion and opening the lid. Decay laced the air. He picked up a pair of long, silver tweezers and plucked out a flailing insect. Its fanged maw gaped as it struggled, twisting and curling up on itself.

“Injection please.”

Nurse Crake jammed the needle into the IV’s port, and a horrible, searing burn sped up Ophelia’s arm. She whimpered at the rush of heat cresting over her, her heart stuttering. Its fluttering beat a mantra: For Deo, for Deo…for Deo…

The doctor held the irate centipede above her. “Waiting for pupil dilation…and open.”

Her lips refused to cooperate.

The doctor frowned and gripped her jaw—

The centipede fell from his grasp and hit Ophelia’s face with a cold, chitinous slap. She recoiled as it flipped, its tiny legs scrabbling to grip her skin. Its length conformed to the contour of her cheek and then skittered sinuously to her nostril. Her arms jerked against her restraints, her head unable to thrash, and a terrible lethargy stealing over her. Heart slowing, her vision grayed, fingers twitching, mind screaming: get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!

It wriggled into her nasal cavity, clawing into her sinuses, and a garbled moan slipped from her lips. Blinding agony seared across her vision, and she screamed, sharp teeth feasting inside her skull. Her eyes watered. No, it was too hot for tears, the scent of copper thick, cloying the back of her throat. Her pores wept, her skin coated with a slick, sticky film, and the air redolent with the scent of blood.

Nurse Crake licked her lips.

An unnatural numbness bloomed from the bridge of Ophelia’s nose, radiating from her eye sockets, and the rest of her body seized. Foam flecked her lips, her eyes rolling back into her head. A bright, white light shone down for a moment and was ripped away, along with any sense of peace she’d ever felt. Nothing was left but searing, burning, unrelenting pain.

Emotion dissolved beneath it, thoughts a murky haze, her body unresponsive. She was hollow, her mind a void. Empty.

“Very good. It’s taking well. Note the patient has entered rigor. Her sudden pallor coinciding with the sheen of blood-fever and the emergence of the tatuaj around her eyes, there and there…” the doctor said, pointing with his pen, his voice distant and tinny. A godawful cramp went through her body, and a horrific, spattering stench filled the air. “Bowels voided…” He frowned. “Someone didn’t fast as instructed.”

The urge to laugh burbled up Ophelia’s throat, spittle foaming from her mouth. Agony morphed into a bizarre euphoria, her limbs leaden and the feeling of an immense weight crushing down on her. Her heart, still.

Dead.

A wrenching shudder wracked her body as her heart spasmed, once, twice, then sluggishly began to beat again. She strained against the straps pinning her to the table, her chest heaving with the effort.

“Very good,” the doctor murmured.

The room came back into focus, sounds sharper than they should be. The flow of ink from the doctor’s pen as he wrote. Loose strands of Crake’s hair rubbing against one another. The slow scrape of Louis’s blink.

“What the fuck?” Ophelia gasped, her tongue thick and her eyes darting, colors far more vivid than they had been. Bright, everything was too damned bright.

“Welcome back, Ms. Diamondé. Disorientation is a normal side effect of transitioning,” the doctor said absently, busy making notes. “Rest assured, any increased sensitivities you may be experiencing will lessen over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours as the virus continues the reanimation process.” He stabbed the pen against the clipboard, finished with whatever he was writing, and set it aside with a wide smile. “Now, let’s see where we’ll be sending you, shall we?”

Crake wheeled over a tray. The doctor snugged his gloves before taking a pair of hemostats from the nurse and dipping a wad of gauze into a yellow solution. He dragged it across Ophelia’s brow, then discarded it almost immediately for another, the tiny pad thick with gore.

Ophelia winced at the rough drag of it across her skin. Jesus Chri—

Agony flared through her skull, and she cried out. The doctor hummed above her and swapped out the gauze again. “You need to put a call in to Vesper,” he murmured.

“Vesper?” the nurse spat out behind him, incredulous. “Are you sure?”

“Mmm” he hummed again, swabbing. “The tatuaj are gifted as the Great One wills, and whom are we to judge which tribe she’s been deemed worthy of?”

“But—” Crake pushed forward, her eyes narrowing above pinched lips. “I’ll alert the court.” She scowled and left the room. Louis raced after her, his face white.

“What—what’s happening?” Ophelia lisped, her tongue fumbling against sharp incisors. A terrible thirst had overcome her, making it hard to think. She licked her parched lips, the acrid taste of her own sweat roiling her stomach. Vesper? She couldn’t remember a tribe called Vesper.

“Your transition may have very well just signed the death warrants of everyone who witnessed it,” the doctor said, snapping off his gloves. “Prince Kremlyn suffers no rivals for his concubine’s attentions.”

What? Ophelia’s mind raced. No. She couldn’t be a—Deo. The wedding. She’d left her engagement ring by the sink. That last fight they’d had. He’d think she abandoned him, that she’d run. “No, no. I-I’m not a concubine, I’m an attorney—”

“You are whatever the tatuaj has decreed,” the doctor said firmly, moving to the door. “Someone will be in to take you to seclusion. Whatever call to vampirism you felt, I very much hope it keeps you warm at the citadel. You won’t be leaving it.”

The door shut behind him with an ominous click, and Ophelia’s breath stuttered. The citadel? No, that was impossible. What had she done, what had she done? Oh, God—

Agony bloomed through her skull at the word, and she whimpered, tears tracking from the corners of her eyes. The awful reality of her actions crashed down around her, and an insatiable thirst gnawed at her hollowed insides.

The names of the women she couldn’t track down—the two who had disappeared—flitted through her mind, along with a very bad feeling that she’d be joining them.

**Don’t miss the other books in the Star-Crossed Chronicles series!**

Weres and Witchery

Star-Crossed Chronicles Book 1

 

A sassy witch with curves for days stirs up passion with an irresistible alpha shifter.

 

Get it on Amazon

 

 

Wards and Warlocks

Star-Crossed Chronicles Book 2

 

A sassy warlock with oodles of style has sparks fly with an angsty shifter.

 

Get it on Amazon

AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up camo Chucks.

Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time.

She pays the bills editing, wielding a wicked hot pink pen and writing a column on SFF. She also belongs to the Authors Guild, is a chapter treasurer for the RWA, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion, sleeps.

 

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