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 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
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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!

Featured Fantasy: Shadows in the Water Books 1 – 3 by Kory M. Shrum

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Featured Fantasy: Shadows in the Water Books 1 - 3 by Kory M. Shrum

FREE on Most Vendors
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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This box set includes the first three novels in the bestselling Shadows in the Water series: Shadows in the Water, Under the Bones, and Danse Macabre.

When DEA agent Jack Thorne and his wife are executed by vengeful drug lords, their daughter Louie survives by slipping into a dark world beneath the surface of reality—a place no human was meant to see.

Years later, Louie has learned to control her deadly ability. What begins as revenge becomes a mission. She hunts predators who believe they’re untouchable, dragging killers, traffickers, and monsters into the dark where justice waits.

But power comes at a cost. As Louie’s enemies multiply and the bodies pile up, she must confront the thin line between protector and predator—and decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep hunting.

Set in the charged streets of New Orleans, Shadows in the Water is a bestselling dark urban fantasy series blending crime, supernatural suspense, and relentless action.

Perfect for readers who love gritty crime fiction with a paranormal edge.

[Read more…]

Featured Science Fiction: The Galactic Mage by John Daulton

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Featured Science Fiction: The Galactic Mage by John Daulton

FREE on Most Vendors
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Altin Meade is a sorcerer with a curse. Seeking to avoid a looming doom, he sets his magical sights on the stars—a quest that will likely bring about the very consequence he’s seeking to escape.

Far across the galaxy, Ensign Orli Pewter of planet Earth has a looming doom of her own—one of loneliness, depression and, worse, a race of genocidal aliens known as “Hostiles” seeking to destroy humanity. Trapped aboard a spaceship she never asked to be upon, Orli is in a fight for both her life and her sanity.

Worlds apart, Altin and Orli share a destiny, but neither knows the other is alive. The Hostiles know. And they have other plans.

Featured Fantasy: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

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Featured Fantasy: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

$1.99 as of May 25, 2026
Click for Current Price: Amazon US, Canada (Full-price: United Kingdom, Australia, Germany)

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An instant New York Times bestseller * A Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Winner

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts—even as she falls in love with a faerie prince—in this “phenomenal” (RT Book Reviews) bestseller that’s “an ideal pick for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Isobel is an artistic prodigy with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life.

Furious, Rook spirits her away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously wrong in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending on each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws.

Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.