The Light After the Orange
Beverley J. Hall
(The Tundra Stone Series, #1)
Publication date: July 18th 2022
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic

EVEN IN A DYING WORLD, IS SURVIVAL ENOUGH?

After the Orange and the catastrophic devastation of Earth, magic began to seep in—but will it help Alex Chegasa survive?

Hidden and protected by magic, she grew up embracing her gifts. After witnessing the only people she can call family being murdered, eighteen-year-old Alex must choose between her head and her heart in her search for a place to belong. But, her hunt for a home means having to hide her magic.

All the while, in the shadows, eight-hundred-year-old Fae Billey NicNevin, suffering from amnesia, is rediscovering her magic.

Are their fates intertwined?

What if the fantastical stories Alex’s mother told her as a child were true?

ALL MYTHS ARE BASED ON TRUTH

Sales Copy: Eighteen-year-old Alex Chegasa, one of the first generation to be raised on post-apocalyptic Earth, was taught to embrace her magical gifts.

After the Orange, as the planet burned, magic trickled in. The bombs that had wiped out most life ripped open the barrier between worlds. Can the next generation, connected to the magic, be the solution to mankind’s problems or are they destined to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors?

Did the Orange, the very thing that ravaged the planet, also provide the solution? Or is magic more than a coincidence?

While Alex searches for somewhere to belong, in Massachusetts, she questions if survival is enough when she comes to understand that magic, used by the wrong people, could be more dangerous than the power of the generations before her.

Meanwhile, in a parallel story, we meet eight-hundred-year-old Fae, Billey NicNevin. With a past she doesn’t remember, she struggles to fit into Nuadh Caled (New Scotland) as it rebuilds itself. When she meets a woman whose soul calls to her, will she find her missing piece or tumble into insanity?

Are their destinies connected?

WHAT IF THE FANTASTICAL STORIES FROM ALEX’S CHILDHOOD WERE TRUE?

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EXCERPT:

Loneliness ate me up from the inside, nibbling away at me and leaving an aching emptiness. I didn.t know what I missed or who I missed but knew, deep in the part of my soul that holds my intuition, there was a person-size hole nobody could fix, except for the one.

The person we all hunt for but so rarely find.
The person we were made to fit with.
The one imperfect, perfect, mismatch our soul longs for. *

The trees gathered around me and protected me from the breeze that grew and took on a new life. I rested against the rough bark of the largest tree, my rear now sitting into the roots that formed a seat in the ground. The tree, I almost believed, was shaped for me. Its branches wrapped around my tiny form as I snuggled among the roots. The wind grazed my cheek and I pulled my scarf around my face, desperate to stay here for every second possible.

The sound of the wind howling through the branches vibrated the leaves and created a voice I longed to understand. I closed my eyes, listening, imagining I could hear the voices of the trees. I felt my soul combine with the tree, and contentment that existed nowhere else in my life melted my anguish and pain.

My eyes shot open and I stared at where Geilis had been moments earlier. Empty space filled my view.
I was, again, alone.

Author Bio:

Beverley J. Hall was born in Kent, England, and raised in Scotland. Most of her childhood was spent with her nose in a book, and her love of stories was born.

While studying Art and Design, she discovered her love of storytelling, whether with paint, sculpture, fabric, or words.

After completing an MA in Creative Writing, she is now living her best life, writing stories at the seaside with her son, her granddaughter, and her cat Bertie.

Head over to TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter to join her overthinking and daydreaming (she’s still hoping for a pet dragon).

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Storm and Flame
Mallory Wanless
(Enchanted, #1)
Publication date: September 22nd 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Elena has always been a disappointment. Her magic is practically non-existent and now, on her sixteenth birthday, she is expelled from magic school by the strict headmistress–also known as her mother. Cast out into the world of the magically inept with only her familiar for company, Elena feels lost and alone until she meets a strange boy in the woods.

Quinn is a thief, a hunter, and a hothead. His unexpected friendship with Elena awakens a fiery side in him–quite literally–and uncovers new and surprising magical abilities. Except men aren’t supposed to be capable of magic.

With Quinn’s help, Elena carves a safe new life as a barmaid, but when she is attacked, her powers awaken with shocking ferocity. Elena’s explosion of magic creates a power surge that attracts the attention of magical investigators, sent to uncover and contain the source of the power surge.

But the awakening of their powers kickstarts an ancient prophecy. Will they be able to escape those that hunt them? Can they fulfill the prophecy, destroy the turmio and save magic from being destroyed once and for all?

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EXCERPT:

“Come on. Just work, dammit,” Elena muttered to herself, trying for the millionth time to cast her spell.

Agon had stretched his lithe, weasel-like body across a long, skinny patch of sunlight on the floor of the testing room. He’d spent the morning basking in the warmth of the sun-drenched stone and flicking his fluffy blue-black tail back and forth. As her closest, and arguably only, friend, Agon knew nothing he could say would make her feel better. She was in a mood, and the best thing he could do was to leave her be.

Sparks flared and quickly sputtered out from Elena’s fingertips.

“Dammit. Why can’t I get this stupid spell right?” It was a rhetorical question, but Elena was so frustrated by her own ineptitude that she would have traded everything she owned to successfully complete a spell on the first try.

Elena was easily the worst enchantress in her class, probably the whole school. The other students mocked her mercilessly. It didn’t help that her mother, Madame LaBelle, was the most famous enchantress in the whole country, possibly the world, and the headmistress of their school. She could turn a seed into a centuries-old tree with the flick of her wrist. Elena could grow a seed into a sapling with twenty minutes of chanting, flicking, waving, and praying. Maybe. On a good day.

Madame LaBelle was notorious for her skills with magic as much as her beauty. Unfortunately for Elena, she inherited her looks from her father. At least, she assumed that’s where she got her flat hair and dull brown eyes. She’d never actually met him. In Waverly, as far as enchantresses were concerned, men served one purpose: impregnating women. The men were used and released of all parental rights, whether they liked it or not. Most men didn’t even know the woman they had lain with was an enchantress, much less that they had fathered a child as a result. The women opted to disguise themselves — bar wenches, visitors lost in the big city, damsels in need of aid on the side of the road, etc. — just to get what they needed and be gone before the man even knew her name.

It was crass and cowardly, but Elena had been raised to believe it was for the best. Men weren’t capable of raising children, especially magical ones, and an enchantress always gave birth to another enchantress. Never in the history of the world, had an enchantress given birth to a non-magical child. Or a boy, for that matter. Enchantress beget enchantress. End of story.

Elena dreamed of love and happy endings when she was younger. All the girls did, but their time at Harbor Ridge taught them that magic was their top priority, followed closely by their loyalty to the school and Madame LaBelle. Elena always felt that it was a tad hypocritical how often her mother preached about loyalty to their family — the school and their classmates — when she never paid any attention to her own flesh and blood. What sort of mother neglects her own child to favor those who are more adept at magic? Not a good one, Elena mused glumly.

Agon had been with her since before she was born, like all familiars. They were born together and stayed attached for an “unusually long time,” according to her mother. Typically, familiars disconnected from the baby’s umbilical cord within a few days before settling into their permanent animal form. Agon and Elena stayed connected for two weeks, all the while Agon remained a blob encased in the placenta. Her mother had many specialists, including a Therionology Enchantress, or an animal enchantress, come and inspect Agon and try to coax him into taking any form at all. Nothing worked. Baby Elena just spent her days cuddling “this disgusting blob of goo” and sleeping. Madame LaBelle often liked to remind Elena of how unusual that was, and how that should have been a sign that her daughter was going to be different, and not in a good way.

Agon did eventually develop into an animal; however, he didn’t change into anything anyone had ever seen before. When she was young, Elena overheard one of the scholars reminiscing with another about how they’d managed to identify Agon as a Raju. Madame LaBelle had tasked all of the scholars in the Therionology department to scour all the history books and tomes to identify him. Agon was the only known Raju in ages, and Madame LaBelle hated it. Rajus were blue-furred, weasel-like creatures that had lightning abilities. Another frustrating hiccup, as far as Madame LaBelle was concerned. Familiars weren’t supposed to have magic of their own; they were just meant to be guides to help the enchantress learn to control her powers.

Author Bio:

Mallory lives in Texas with her husband and their two young boys. She spends her days homeschooling and full-time parenting. Her nights, and any free time she manages to carve out during the day, are devoted to reading and writing.

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Beginning of the End
Colleen Green
(Amber Milestone, #3)
Publication date: August 10th 2022
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense

“Amber Milestone’s life in New York City has been plagued by the Mafia for as long as she’s lived there. Her roommate, Fiona, and friend, Henry have had their lives ruined by drugs and mobsters, and the trio agree to share what they know with the police in the hopes of taking down the Bugiardini family once and for all. However, informing on the Mafia is not without risk, and Amber will have to be careful if she wants to make it out of the investigation alive.”
Alyssa B., Proofreader, Red Adept Editing

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EXCERPT:

The thought of speaking about my mob-related experiences over the past months caused an emotion I couldn’t name even if I tried. I couldn’t digest what I was feeling. It was such a mixture that it left me with an ache in the pit of my stomach grinding against the swarm of nerves, making it quiver uncontrollably. It was anxiousness and anger toward the men who did horrible deeds under the guise of so-called business. It was hatred toward them, their actions, and the pain they inflicted on others. It was sadness for the irreparable damage they had caused, like Fiona’s disappointment in her gambling-addicted father. Somehow, I was about to take all those feelings and turn them into coherent information with names, dates, places, and suspicions for my father to take to his NYPD contacts.

As we got off the train at our stop, it wasn’t just the cold fall breeze cutting through me. Memories of every injustice played back in my mind and filled my veins with ice. To help take down the mob with information, I needed to be calm under pressure. I couldn’t worry about the bullet that might get lodged in my brain because of the words I was about to speak or the bullets that may go into my dear friends ’heads. I couldn’t let fear win. Instead, truth and justice would prevail no matter what, no matter the cost. It was the only way to stop these so-called businessmen.

Fiona and I walked side by side without talking to each other. We knew what each other would say to my father per our discussion last night. We knew the information was valuable to the police and how dangerous it was to divulge it to the authorities. There was nothing left to say to each other until we were done speaking to my father.

My cell vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw “Henry” on the screen. I flipped it open. “Hey. What’s going on?”

“Change of plans. Now we’re meeting in the restaurant Tea Time in the Continuance Center on the third floor. The building is in the Columbus Circle area. I told your father that you and Fiona are coming to talk to him. He seemed excited to see you. After what he put your family through, he’s lucky you’re talking to him at all!”

“He is. But I’m not doing it for his sake. I’m doing it to do my part in taking down the mob.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up by flipping the phone before putting it back into my pocket.

“What was that about?” Fiona asked.

“New meeting place. We’re still headed in the right direction, so at least we don’t have to backtrack.”

“That’s good. Where?”

“Tea Time in the Continuance Center.”

“I’ve heard they have delicious pastries.” Fiona’s eyes lit up, but the gleam faded quickly.

“I know. It would have been an exciting thing to do if it weren’t for all the ugly things we’re about to talk about.” I frowned. “I’ve always wanted to go to have tea and crumpets or whatever, but not like this.”

At nearly four o’clock, Columbus Circle was already crowded, almost like rush hour on a Monday. In Manhattan, though, it always seemed like rush hour. New Yorkers say the busiest time is from four in the afternoon to about seven in the evening.

Tourists with maps, people in business suits, workers in black-and-white uniforms who must have been servers or bartenders at restaurants, and casually dressed New Yorkers walked around Columbus Circle, heading to different buildings. Traffic was congested, with horns beeping. The statue of Christopher Columbus stood high in the air on a pedestal. We had seen it in the distance when we were walking.

Henry was ahead of us, standing beside the twenty-story Continuance Center. I had heard it had business offices, restaurants, and shops inside. His drawn face, puffy eyes, and the crease above his forehead were most likely due to his inner struggle of living with what he thought his brother, Charles, could be doing with the mob. As we approached Henry, he mustered a faint grin.

I hugged him more tightly than I ever had before.

Author Bio:

Author Colleen Green lives in Ohio. She loves to write, read, and cook. Creating a world that readers can immerse themselves into is her passion. Last Words is her debut novel. The romance suspense book is set in the breathtaking vineyards of Napa Valley, California. Romance suspense, YA paranormal romance, and urban fantasy genres are among her favorites to read and write. She is currently working on the second book in the Amber Milestone series and a series of short YA urban fantasy stories.

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