Tag: novella

The Sacrifice and the Spare (Bound by Blood) is here!

At long last, the first of the Bound by Blood spicy vampire romance novellas is here! For those of you who don’t know, Bound by Blood is the multi-author novella series I co-organized with Ophelia Wells Langley. We started planning this since January and I can’t believe it’s finally here!

Each of the 8 novellas are standalones by 8 unique authors. Many of our stories are also diverse, with LGBTQ+ rep, chronic illness representation and diverse characters.

The Sacrifice and the Spare is the first BBB novella to be released (today!). A new novella will launch every Friday from September 1st until October 20th. You will be able to read all of them in Kindle Unlimited, too!

Purchase here

About The Sacrifice and the Spare

An other world paranormal romantasy

  • Royal arranged marriage
  • Murder mystery
  • Vampire-human prince pairing
  • Political intrigue

Synopsis:

When a human prince takes a vampire bride, can love bloom where death is sown?

As the spare, Prince Kallan is duty-bound to wed the woman chosen for him–even if it means marrying a vampire. After Bria is selected from the neighboring vampire clan, Kallan can’t deny the heat that sparks between them, but his cautious optimism goes up in smoke when the heir to the throne is found dead and Bria is the top suspect.

Bria can’t remember her life before she became a vampire, but she knows she was made for one purpose: to wed the second prince of Dolbryn–a human prince. In a kingdom of strangers, Bria anticipates being a lamb to slaughter, but the last thing she expects is to be framed for killing the heir. Now, she must trust that the fledgling bond between her and Kallan is enough to see her rightfully freed.

Start reading The Sacrifice and the Spare here.

About the Author

Elle Backenstoe lives in Eastern Pennsylvania with her husband, son, and two dogs. She grew up with her nose buried in a book and sometimes emerges long enough to write some words of her own. She writes fantasy and romance, often together. Elle runs on pop punk music and Coke, and will always choose sweet over salty. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her at her home-away-from-home, the dance studio.

You can find Elle on:
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Review of Phoenix Heart: Ashes

Phoenix Heart Episode One #1 Ashes Review Graphic

Phoenix Heart: Episode 1: Ashes (Phoenix Heart Season 1 #1), by Sarah K.L. Wilson (Fantasy; July 2021)

I’m so pleased to see more books coming out with disabled and chronically ill protagonists these days. Phoenix Heart: Season 1, Episode 1: Ashes (yes, a mouthful, but these novellas are being released episodically) has a wonderfully realistic heroine in Sersha, a mute teen at the mercy of her inn-running family. Sersha, whose troubles will feel familiar to many chronically ill/disabled readers, worries about her place in the world, how she’s perceived and what will happen when her family can’t support her any longer.

Ashes can easily be consumed in one sitting (though I recommend savoring Wilson’s emotional writing, if you can stand not seeing what comes next). It follows Phoenix Hope, a free short story available to the author’s mailing list subscribers. I highly recommend reading Phoenix Hope, too, possibly before sitting down with Ashes (the moving story of Sersha’s unlucky patients upstairs at the inn, when their ill-fated journey began).

Phoenix Heart Season 1 Episode 1: Ashes Cover
Cover of Season 1, Episode 1: Ashes

When Sersha finds herself the unwitting friend of grieving phoenix named Kazmarev (described as “A name with an adventure inside it”), for once, someone knows exactly what Sersha wants to say. She identifies with Kazmarev, but has no idea what’s in store for her, or that flame riders even exist.

When Kazmarev perishes with the dawn, Sersha assumes her own brief adventure is over. “It was like owning a pearl necklace for a day. Couldn’t you just enjoy it instead of being angry that you couldn’t keep it?” Sersha asks herself. She then returns to her precarious, uninteresting life helping her relatives at the inn—just as raiders arrive on the nearby shore.

Ashes shows Sersha, an overlooked young woman and a keen observer, finding an unexpected place in the world, and unexpected friends—both of which put her at the heart of the action. Though there is a complete story arc in Season 1, Episode 1, it’s clear her adventures are just beginning.

Phoenix Heart promises to be a relatively expensive series, which makes me want to ration each episode (readers who get in on the pre-orders will get a better price; as of writing, the first episode of season 2 still up for pre-order). Though uniformly short, the length of each episode varies. The bother comes because I’d love to consume them all at once without worry about the cost. Still, I look forward to reading more of Sersha and Kazmarev’s adventures, even if I wish they could each last—even just a tiny bit—longer.

To learn more about this author, visit Sarah K.L. Wilson’s website.

Read on!

Review: Sting Magic (Wilson)

Review: Daughter of Shades (Mercedes)

Review: Sabriel (Nix)

A Shadow in Sundown is here!

My first novella has finally made it onto Amazon, after many months of delays!  You can find A Shadow in Sundown (ebook only so far) here.

I also have an Amazon author page now, which I’ve added to my About section.  You can look at that little gem here.

After a lot of back and forth, I decided to enroll in KDP Select.  I had hoped to roll everything out on a variety of platforms (I still can with the paperback, when I get that darn cover done), but then I read this very persuasive article from Draft2Digital about exclusive vs. wide marketing.  (Lot of links in this post, aren’t there!)

In a nutshell, they suggested giving exclusive publishing rights a go, at least for a single term, for authors with less than 3 titles.  That’s me!  And the free promotion that comes with being an ebook exclusive to Amazon could be a real help.  At least I hope so.

Anyway, I now have 90 days to focus on my writing.  And my new four-legged friend.  And my family and the holidays and…you get the picture!

Oh, yeah, and Princess Disasterface, too.  It’s coming back shortly, I promise!

So cheers to you, dear reader, and boo to all the things that take us away from whatever is most precious to each of us!

-CKB