Just in time for the holidays!
My cover designer finished the cover for my short story collection (can I call it a collection if it’s just two stories? And if not, what SHOULD I be calling it? Seriously, this has been driving me nuts. A duology? But they aren’t connected to each other, just similarly-themed) a couple months sooner than I was expecting. The stories themselves have been ready to go for ages, so all I had to do was fix up a little bit of formatting, and voila! Just in time to add to your Christmas wish list:
If This Be Magic & The Traitor and the Spy, available now at Smashwords and Amazon, and soon to be available in print.
Here’s the blurb for If This Be Magic:
As if being the worst student at Miss Cranston’s Select Seminary for the Study of Sorcery weren’t bad enough, now sixteen-year-old Sophie Abbott suspects her uncle, the most respected magician in Boston, of secretly working for the Kaiser. The year is 1915, and though America isn’t in the war yet, Sophie can’t sit by and do nothing. Before long, she and Uncle Edward’s apprentice Owen are deep in danger and treachery, and Sophie’s unique ability to see magic as a spiderweb of spells might be the only thing that can save them. Time is running short and Owen’s life is in her hands. Every spell she has ever attempted has failed spectacularly – can Sophie trust her magic now?
And for The Traitor and the Spy:
Philomena Stirling-Vane is fourteen years old in Victorian England, and in the unhappy position of having accidentally inherited the family magic. Her father is outraged, and her mother nearly prostrate with grief over the unhappy prospect of a lady magician in the family. When Jonathan Kempson, Mr Stirling-Vane’s former apprentice, requires another magician’s assistance to track down a traitor to the Council of Magicians, Phil sees her chance. Disguised as her brother, she accompanies Mr Kempson to London, where they must overcome their mutual dislike and learn to work together to unweave the tapestry of deception laid around them.
I was immensely proud of Justice’s Mask, and still am, but these two are even closer to my heart. They are fantasy, for one, which is my first and best love. They also both have a great deal more humor than Justice’s Mask, and while the more serious tone fits JM, I really do prefer to keep a more light-hearted tone when I can.
They are also set in the same world, though different eras, as my forthcoming novel Magic & Mayhem (I am aiming for a summer publication – we’ll see). This is my first attempt at playing with different stories and different characters in the same fantasy world, and it’s been so much fun.
Also, the cover. Isn’t that just gorgeous? I am so in love with it. It was created by Kathryn Jonell, and I highly recommend her work for anyone looking for a cover designer.
I have two more short stories and a novella from my summertime non-novel writing. I’m not sure when or how I’ll publish those, but for right now, I am so, so pleased with the three I’ve already published.
I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!
I LOVE IT. I need to read "If This Be Magic," like, now. Congrats on the beautiful cover, too!
Love the cover! The blurbs sound wonderful! Congrats!!
Thank you!
Thanks! I originally threw the blurbs together to give the cover designer an idea of the plot when we first started brainstorming, and I liked them so much I just polished them a little and used them for real! Love it when that happens.
Congratulations, Louise! 🙂
Thank you, Livia!