C Gockel Writes

Featured Fantasy: Edge of Magic (Tara Knightley Book 1) by Jayne Faith

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Featured Fantasy: Edge of Magic (Tara Knightley Book 1) by Jayne Faith

FREE as of April 12, 2025
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My name is Tara Knightley, and I’m on the Fae mafia’s hit list. My childhood crush just rode back into town, too, and that may spell even bigger trouble . . .

My talent for sensing magical objects has made me a damn good professional thief for the past decade. But it’s also what got me into a blood oath with notorious Fae mob boss Grant Shaw.

My relationship with Shaw is rapidly souring, and I need to break free before it turns deadly. The solution? I must steal a magic skull from Shaw’s biggest rival and deliver it to him, and then he’ll nullify our blood oath.

Just as I’m set to go after the skull, my childhood best friend and crush, wolf shifter Judah McMahon, shows up asking for help. It’s been ten years since the falling out that ended our friendship, and I know I shouldn’t get involved.

Featured Sci-fi: The Red (The Red Trilogy Book 1) by Linda Nagata

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Featured Sci-fi: The Red (The Red Trilogy Book 1) by Linda Nagata

99¢ as of April 12, 2025
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*RECOMMENDED—I loved Lieutenant Shelley, and I loved this whole series, even if I have a slightly different vision of certain “things” ;-).

Nominated for the Nebula-award and named as a Publishers Weekly Best Book
Lieutenant James Shelley commands a high-tech squad of soldiers in a rural district within the African Sahel. They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive—because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him—but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger . . . as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear. (Hazard Notice: contains military grade profanity.)

“…an amazing novel… The Red: First Light is a dark, intelligent, cynical take on military SF. It’s an excellent novel that deserves a much larger audience.”—Stefan Raets, Tor.com

“…one of the best pieces of near future Mil-SF ever written. What’s so good about it? The action rocks and the characters are engaging as hell. But this isn’t just adventure fiction, it’s Mil-SF and very well done, straight out of DARPA’s dreambook, not somebody’s fantasy.” —Ernest Lilley, SFRevu

Featured Sci-fi: The Universe Within (Amaranthe Book 22) by G. S. Jennsen

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Featured Sci-fi: The Universe Within (Amaranthe Book 22) by G. S. Jennsen

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* A stand-alone adventure set in the Amaranthe universe *

Thousands of years ago, the Elakri were a galaxy-spanning civilization—until one day they vanished. Forced to hide themselves away in the folds of space to escape an unstoppable foe, what was once their salvation soon became their prison.

Alex Solovy and Caleb Marano search the cosmos for signs of an ancient enemy’s return. When they detect a breach in the fabric of space, however, they discover something wholly unexpected: a people lost in time and space, who have forgotten all they once were.

Now Alex and Caleb must navigate a labyrinth of deception and danger on a world on the verge of collapse, as their mission to return the Elakri to their proper place among the stars becomes a desperate race against time to save everyone—including themselves.

The Universe Within is a thrilling sci-fi adventure overflowing with mysteries, conspiracies, and secrets within secrets. On a world where splendor is sovereign and myth is power, truth is the most dangerous weapon of all.

Featured Fantasy: Rampant Dawn by J.W. Meyer

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Featured Fantasy: Rampant Dawn by J.W. Meyer

Start the Series for 99¢—Book 2 only $2.99
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A dangerous task turned deadly. When a novice wizard is pulled into a perilous quest, can he survive a trial by fire?

Kresdin Agaldiar works hard to conquer magic. Keeping a tight rein on his complex emotions, the self-doubting young man hungers for knowledge while diligently studying under his master’s watchful eye. But after an errand for his mentor turns into a life-or-death battle against vicious lizardmen, he’s shocked when he becomes the victim of a mystical kidnapping.

Ordered by his unseen captor to chase down scattered pieces of a mysterious artifact, Kresdin hurtles through a portal to a verdant woodland full of ruins and bloodthirsty horrors. And inadvertently agreeing to help the natives defeat a band of evil jackal folk, the disoriented mage is nearly torn to shreds as he scrambles to locate the first fragment of the coveted relic.

Equipped with little more than his wits and untested gifts, can Kresdin conjure up unexpected courage, unlikely friends, and impossible victories?

Apprentice Gone is the fast-paced first book in the Rampant Dawn epic fantasy series. If you like gritty action, endearing sidekicks, and whispers of dragons then you’ll love J. W. Meyer’s journey of a lifetime.

Buy Apprentice Gone for a treasure hoard of excitement today!

Featured Science Fiction: Well of Furies (Predator Space Chronicles Book 1) by Craig De Lancey

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Featured Science Fiction: Well of Furies (Predator Space Chronicles Book 1) by Craig De Lancey

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The most feared world in the galaxy: The Well of Furies.

From this planet, the godlike Ulltrians waged war on all life among the stars. Long thought extinct, the Ulltrians have returned. Now all the Galaxy is in danger. Humanity faces extinction.

Amir Tarkos is one of the only humans in the Predator Corp, the most elite military force in the galaxy. With his partner Bria, a bear-like carnivore, Tarkos is given a dangerous and difficult mission. Tarkos and Bria must locate the World Hammer, a pair of co-orbiting sunless planets that are the last refuge of the Ulltrians. But to find the World Hammer, they first must brave the dangers of the Ulltrian homeworld, The Well of Furies.

To save Galactic civilization, Tarkos and Bria will have to work with a team of strange aliens and artificial intelligences, explore the perilous ruins of an ancient moon, dare the depths of an ocean that engulfs a dark planet, and fight a fierce battle in the ice rings of burning world. Can one human being save the galaxy?

The Philadelphia Free Press writes of The Predator Space Chronicles, “They are impossible to put down and filled with exciting action in an alien-filled galaxy that humans have just joined.“

Well of Furies is a stand-alone novel, but it is also the first third of the trilogy Evolution Commandos. In addition, it forms part of the seven-volume Predator Space Chronicles.

Featured Fantasy: Unexpected Magic by Christine Pope

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Found Objects: A Paranormal Witch Urban Fantasy (Unexpected Magic Book 1)

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Penny Briggs is a perfectly ordinary woman. Until her life takes a left turn at Albuquerque…

I thought my marriage would be a fairy tale. Instead, I’ve put a thousand miles between me and my broken dream, starting over with temp job in Albuquerque. Prop shopping for a TV production takes my mind off my troubles — until I buy an old pair of glasses no one on the set can wear.

Curious, I look through the lenses myself — and they show me a wild vision of a lonely desert canyon I’ve never seen before.

A friend directs me and my weird glasses to her cousin, a brujo — a male witch — who specializes in weird. He’s also the most spectacularly handsome man I’ve ever seen, with black hair, dark eyes, and a flashing smile so dazzling, I almost miss his casual remark that my magic is powerful.

Magic? What magic? I’m just an ordinary woman from an ordinary family.

Yet as the two of us explore the mystery surrounding those supernatural glasses — and give in to our growing attraction — I discover a past I knew nothing about. And that there’s a dangerous reason it’s been hidden from me all these years….