C Gockel Writes

Want to keep reading for free (or close to it)?

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I Bring the Fire Omnibus eBook and The Defiant audiobook

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You can read (and listen to!) most of my books through subscription services:

  • Everand* (formerly Scribd) – ebooks + audiobooks
  • Kobo Plus – ebooks (no Kobo device needed—the app is free)

Both offer 30-day free trials—so if you’re a fast reader, you could get through quite a bit at no cost.

Learn more about KoboPlus and Everand. 

Or Read & Listen Completely Free

You can also find my books at your local library:

  • Libby / OverDrive
  • Hoopla
  • CloudLibrary
  • BorrowBox

If your library carries ebooks or audiobooks, there’s a good chance they have my books—or can request them.

Find Libraries that Offer Libby/Overdrive

If Your Library Doesn’t Loan eBooks or Audiobooks

You may be able to get a library card at a larger library system for a modest fee. Here is a website that lists libraries with non-resident borrowing priveleges.

A quick note

I’m a big library user myself and often enroll in various subscription services (books add up fast—and so do growing kids’ expenses).

However you choose to read—buying, borrowing, or listening—I’m just glad you’re spending your time with my stories.

*Everand isn’t currently featuring Magic After Midnight.

Special Feature: Meet My (Sci-fi) Cover Designer Tom Edwards

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Volka From Admiral Wolf

DESIGNING THE GALAXY

Science fiction lives or dies by imagination, and nowhere is that more visible than on its covers. Before a reader even turns a page, the art has already whispered a promise of adventure, danger, and wonder. Few artists capture that better than Tom Edwards, whose work has become the visual signature of modern space opera and military science fiction.

Over the past decade, Tom has designed hundreds of covers for some of the biggest names in the genre, from vast fleet battles and alien worlds to intimate portraits of lone heroes against the void. His art doesn’t just illustrate; it invites. It’s that rare fusion of painterly realism and cinematic light that makes you feel the hum of engines and the chill of deep space.

To celebrate his contribution to the worlds we write, and you love to read, a group of us, Joshua T. Calvert, C. Gockel, James Rosone and BA Gillies, have come together to showcase some of our favourite covers by Tom and to ask him how he brings galaxies to life.

[Read more…]

Featured Sci-fi: Fallen Empire (Born of Ash Book 1) by Marc Alan Edelheit

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Featured Sci-fi: Fallen Empire (Born of Ash Book 1) by Marc Alan Edelheit

FREE as of May 30, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

After years of catastrophic fighting, the rebellion is over. The First Galactic Empire has fallen.

The Keeper of the Unknowable, Guardian of the Gates, the Eternal Emperor, is dead. Entire star systems have been ravaged by war, planets cracked by powerful weapons, and suns sent into supernova. The infrastructure of an advanced civilization that spanned thousands of stars is ruined. Trillions have died. Instead of liberation and a return to democracy, freedom, and a new golden age, humanity has been plunged into darkness.

Eighteen years after the Great Fall of civilization, stranded on the wrecked world Asherho, Keira Kane struggles to make her way. Shattered by war, the climate of the planet has become inhospitable to life and is getting worse with each passing year. The government is a brutal regime, focused on maintaining its own grip on power instead of feeding the few million ragged survivors living upon its surface. What little law and order there is has begun to erode and break down.

Adopted, protected, and raised by former Imperial Marines, Keira has been trained as a mechanic and technician. Her skillset is indispensable to maintaining the decaying infrastructure of her dying planet.

Sent out on a routine repair job to Hakagi Tower, a seedy apartment block, Keira rapidly finds herself a fugitive, hunted not only by the government she has faithfully served, but by the planetary militia who wants her for their own nefarious reasons. A mysterious battle-damaged warship has also arrived in-system and they want something too. Unbeknownst to Keira, her Imperial Marine companions have been guarding an incredibly valuable secret, one that has the potential to save humanity or see its light extinguished from the galaxy forever.

Caught up in a planetary revolt and hunted, Keira is thrust into a life-or-death struggle she never imagined possible. Though she has yet to suspect it, the road ahead is not only dangerous, but a path destined for her and her alone.

Does she have the courage to walk it? Does she have the willpower to pick up a fallen standard? Or will she falter and allow humanity to continue its fall into darkness? Only time will tell…

Find out why thousands of readers have fallen for Amazon bestselling author Marc Alan Edelheit’s captivating books! The battle to save the galaxy begins here!

Featured Fantasy: Legendary by Christine Pope

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Featured Fantasy: Legendary by Christine Pope

START THE SERIES FREE
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Kobo, GooglePlay, Apple, Nook, Christine’s Store

Some legends are real. Some secrets are worth protecting. Sidney Lowell didn’t plan to return to Silver Hollow, her sleepy hometown nestled against ancient forests in Humboldt County. But when her mother and grandmother vanish without a trace while investigating the mysterious creatures that have appeared to the women in her family for generations, Sidney has no choice but to come home.

Almost finished with veterinary school but lacking her diploma, Sidney takes over the family pet shop while searching for answers. The magical beings that only appear to the women in her family might hold the key to her mother’s disappearance — if only she knew how to communicate with them.

Ben Sanders, a struggling cryptozoologist with a YouTube channel and a failed academic career, arrives in Silver Hollow chasing rumors of a glowing white horse in the woods. What he finds instead is Sidney — guarded, capable, and hiding secrets that could make his career…or destroy what’s left of her family legacy.

When a logging company threatens the ancient forest that serves as a crossing between worlds, Sidney and Ben must race to protect the magical gateway. As they uncover Celtic symbols carved into trees and standing stones that appear only during the dark of the moon, the truth becomes clear: Sidney’s missing family didn’t just disappear — they crossed over.

With the unicorn as their guide and corporate greed threatening to destroy the portal forever, Sidney must decide who to trust with her family’s centuries-old secret. Because saving the crossing might reunite her with her mother and grandmother…or seal them away in another world forever.

Featured Sci-fi: Cadicle by A.K. DuBoff

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Featured Sci-fi: Cadicle by A.K. DuBoff

START THE SERIES FREE—Book 2 & 3 only 99¢ each
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

A secret war. A galactic empire in crisis. One final hope for victory.

Wil Sietinen never sought power. Torn between his obligations as a High Dynasty heir and training as an elite telekinetic soldier in the galactic military, he would rather design starships than plot political schemes or battle strategies. But when Wil is kidnapped by a mysterious alien enemy, he’s ensnared in an interstellar war that’s been secretly waging for centuries.

Learning that his unique telekinetic powers are the result of a generations-long plan to end the conflict, Wil faces a daunting duty to lead the crumbling military to victory. Though an unlikely friendship with a gifted girl from Earth offers him hope amidst the challenging years ahead, nothing in Wil’s life is by chance. When he uncovers the dark truth about the war and his enemy, Wil must confront an impossible moral dilemma as the fate of two civilizations hangs in the balance.

Caught between ruthless adversaries and unsure who to trust, can Wil unite a fractured galaxy?

The Cadicle series is a thrilling space opera epic in the grand tradition, perfect for fans of big scope sci-fi filled with interstellar adventure, stories about about family, love, and friendship, galactic-scale political intrigue, and heroes with psionic powers. Join three generations of the noble Sietinen family as they challenge destiny to win a war and lead a revolution that will change the course of an empire.

Featured Fantasy: Here Be Dragons (Legendary Book 4) by Christine Pope

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Featured Fantasy: Here Be Dragons (Legendary Book 4) by Christine Pope

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, B & N, Kobo, GooglePlay, Christine’s Store

Some sacrifices demand everything. Some guardians become the fire that saves them all.

Sidney Lowell might have saved Silver Hollow from shadow stalkers and DAPI’s weaponized physics, but the cost of victory has shattered the balance she fought to protect. The portal network — stable for more than 150 years — no longer obeys the lunar cycle. The veil between dimensions has worn paper-thin, and something vast is stirring beneath the town.

Ignis Aeturnus. The Dragon. Ancient, powerful, and waking after centuries of sleep.

When billionaire Julian Gregory arrives with drilling rigs and electromagnetic weapons, intent on harvesting the Dragon’s energy for profit, Sidney realizes her telepathic abilities and merged phoenix nature have made her a beacon for forces she can’t control. The Dragon sees humanity as an infection rotting the dimensional network — and he’s given Sidney until the winter solstice to prove otherwise, or he’ll cauterize the wound by destroying everything she loves.

With Ben’s conduit scars tying him to her survival, her father Finn returning after seventeen years of surveillance and secrets, and her mother and grandmother still trapped beyond the portal, Sidney faces an impossible choice. She can gather an international council of guardians and attempt diplomatic solutions while Gregory’s mercenaries lay siege to her home…or she can do what guardians have always done: become the sacrifice that protects everyone else.

Featured Fantasy: Silver Linings (Legendary Book 1) by Christine Pope

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Featured Fantasy: Silver Linings (Legendary Book 1) by Christine Pope

FREE as of May 27, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Kobo, GooglePlay, Apple, Nook, Christine’s Store

Some legends are real. Some secrets are worth protecting.

Sidney Lowell didn’t plan to return to Silver Hollow, her sleepy hometown nestled against ancient forests in Humboldt County. But when her mother and grandmother vanish without a trace while investigating the mysterious creatures that have appeared to the women in her family for generations, Sidney has no choice but to come home.

Almost finished with veterinary school but lacking her diploma, Sidney takes over the family pet shop while searching for answers. The magical beings that only appear to the women in her family might hold the key to her mother’s disappearance — if only she knew how to communicate with them.

Ben Sanders, a struggling cryptozoologist with a YouTube channel and a failed academic career, arrives in Silver Hollow chasing rumors of a glowing white horse in the woods. What he finds instead is Sidney — guarded, capable, and hiding secrets that could make his career…or destroy what’s left of her family legacy.

When a logging company threatens the ancient forest that serves as a crossing between worlds, Sidney and Ben must race to protect the magical gateway. As they uncover Celtic symbols carved into trees and standing stones that appear only during the dark of the moon, the truth becomes clear: Sidney’s missing family didn’t just disappear — they crossed over.

With the unicorn as their guide and corporate greed threatening to destroy the portal forever, Sidney must decide who to trust with her family’s centuries-old secret. Because saving the crossing might reunite her with her mother and grandmother…or seal them away in another world forever.

Featured Fantasy: Calculated Whisk (Tales from the Dragon Diner Book 1) by Lindsay Buroker

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Featured Fantasy: Calculated Whisk (Tales from the Dragon Diner Book 1) by Lindsay Buroker

99¢ as of May 27, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

The Dragon Diner: Bookkeeper Wanted.

After a lifetime as a mercenary and years of war, Rylana seeks a peaceful new career, and this job looks perfect. What could be calmer and more relaxing than crunching numbers while delightful scents waft from a professional kitchen?

There’s just one problem. The Dragon Diner is run by a real dragon, one she shot with an arrow during the war. And, oh yes, he remembers her.

This might not be the relaxing new start to life that Rylana envisioned.

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The Tales from the Dragon Diner are perfect for those seeking light-hearted, low-stakes fantasy with quirky heroes. Each story stands alone. Pick up the first today!