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Book Review: Moon & Shadow

Moon & Shadow is the first book in The Channeler Trilogy. A finalist in the 2021 Best Book Awards and a second place winner in the 2021 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, J. Steven Lamperti’s Moon & Shadow is an enchanting fantasy with sweet romance, quirky characters, and engaging humor.

Book Review: Merchants of Knowledge and Magic

On one of the many planes of the Pentagonal Dominion, priestess Calinthe trades in information, collecting valuable secrets for her demonic employer. Calinthe has a secret of her own: she's intersex, making her a target for the matriarchal slavers of the Ophidian Plane whose territory she must cross in her search for hidden knowledge. But thanks to her friend Zakuro's illusions, Calinthe presents as a woman—a comfortable, if furtive, existence in a world determined to bring her to heel. But when, instead of a mere secret, the priestess uncovers an incalculably powerful artifact, Calinthe finds herself in a high-stakes negotiation with the same matriarchs who sought to enslave her. On the table: Calinthe's discovery, a charm powerful enough to transform a mortal into a god… against a secret so deadly it could quell all life on every plane of the dominion. If Calinthe plays her cards perfectly, she and Zakuro could escape Ophidia wealthier than either of them ever dreamed possible. But if she plays them wrong… she'll learn slavery in her pursuers' hands is a fate far worse than death.

Book Review: The Salt Grows Heavy

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three “saints” who control them. The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

Book Review: In the Heart of the Garden Is a Tomb

This garden is full of haunted people.

There’s Wash Greavor and his friends, lost on backwoods logging trails, who stumble on an ancient graveyard where a monstrous sentry from long ago awaits them. Then there’s Corbin Grimwood and his new gun. It hums in his hand like a can full of bees.

And there are others. Lost souls seeking a way out. But there’s no escaping the bitter truth that awaits us all in the heart of the garden.

Book Review: Email From the Future: Notes from 2084

It’s 2084, and Aldus, an elderly robot repairman, is writing the history of the 21st century for his grandson, Luca. Born in 2010, Aldus lived through it all—the War on the Warming, the repair of the planet, the rise of true artificial intelligence, automation everywhere and much more. “I was but a foot soldier,” Aldus tells his grandson, “but there is value in that perspective.

Aldus also fears his time is short. Unlucky members of his generation sometimes experience long-delayed side effects from childhood infection with the early century virus COVID. Aldus could be among them, and so his writing may have a literal deadline.

Book Review: Bloody Spade

A girl full of heart
A thief touched by darkness
A hot-tempered golden boy
An unwitting servant of evil

The era of magic was once thought to be a myth, but after the Reemergence ushered forces both dark and light into the mundane world, it has since become a harsh reality. Now those affected by this strange power—a specialized group of Empowered called Jokers, known collectively as Cardplay—must protect their world from the darkness that threatens to consume it, all the while fighting for equality in a society clinging to normalcy.

But the Reemergence was only the beginning.

When another influx occurs on the seventh anniversary of that fateful event, an unfortunate encounter at ground zero lands Iori Ryone, a teenage boy in possession of a corrupt and legendary magic, in the care of recent Joker graduate Ellen Amelia Jane. From him, she learns the Reemergence may not have been the inevitable natural disaster it first seemed.

Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that separates the magical realms from the mundane. The question is why, and can Cardplay stop them before it’s too late?

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