C Gockel Writes

Book Review: City of Storms (Nightmarked Book 1) by Kat Ross

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Featured Fantasy: City of Storms (Nightmarked Book 1) by Kat Ross

FREE as of May 17, 2026
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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C’s review: A delightfully complex blend of action, adventure, and romance in a unique fantasy setting. Think post-magic apocalypse “utopia.” If it has any flaw, it is that it might have been written in a serial style and the author wasn’t quite sure how to put the episodes together. The last 1/3 of the book could have been in book 2—erm, I may have had that issue before! It didn’t keep me from stopping at book 1, and I just bought book 3 last night.

Winner of the 2022 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A city simmering with repressed urges…

A fallen angel bent on chaos…

And a conspiracy that could destroy them all.

Can one woman harness her own psychic power to stop it?

In a world with three layers of ever darker magic, few dare to wield the most dangerous. And those who try can fall prey to violent madness.

The Church keeps a tight leash on its citizens. It tests every child for psychological deviancy.

If you pass, you’re given a Mark. A tattoo that lets you use the ley power—and shields you from your most primal desires.

For the lucky ones, the world is at their feet. The rest suffer a life of menial jobs and hopelessness.

When tarot reader Kasia crosses paths with a young priest who hunts deviants, her own ugly secret is dragged into the light. Will they learn to trust each other in time to stop a greater evil from corrupting their world?

You’ll love the first book in this epic fantasy series because the lush weaving of intrigue, action and slow-burn romance will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Get it now.

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Featured Fantasy: Mystic Brews Mysteries by Alyn Troy

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Featured Fantasy: Mystic Brews Mysteries by Alyn Troy

START THE SERIES FREE—Book 2 and Book 3 only 99¢ Each
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A magical café where the deceased demand answers, cats are snarky, and chickens ghostly!

When my quirky Aunt Rose asks me, an American barista, to help open a hip espresso café near the Welsh and English border, I jumped at the chance. What better way to celebrate my 36th birthday and try to ignore the second anniversary of my boyfriend’s death?

Misty Valley isn’t just your average Welsh village. This one is full of fae like pixies, orcs, and leprechauns, and now me. My special power, other than making great espresso? I can see and hear ghosts.

So, when the spirit of my ex-boyfriend Jake shows up with more than the ghostly chickens he died with (don’t ask, it’s complicated), I find out just how strange my new life in Misty Valley is.

Jake’s new ghostly friend, Sir Reginald, disappeared a year before I arrived. Now that I’m here, the deceased cricket player wants me to figure out who murdered him. And figure out why. Everyone agrees he’s the most cricket of all cricket players. Who’d want to do in a chap like him?

First I find out I’m a witch, now I have to be a supernatural detective? I’d worry about that, but my new bestie seems to be a top secret agent for the fae queen. Yeah, I told you this is a weird little village.

And, since I’m a new witch, I’ve inherited not only a wand, but also a snarky talking cat named Punkin who is addicted to coffee beans. Seems that he had an incident with too many beans and the fae queen’s ball gown. Now I’m stuck with him.

And our attempt to solve the mystery of Sir Reginald’s death, is making the killer very nervous.

My new friends and I find ourselves in hot water right away. Just locating the car wreck that killed Sir Reginald reveals an escaped infernal that wants to eat my new cat, then eat the rest of us.

Can we serve up justice before a brewing disaster boils over? Lattes and Spirits is the first book in the delightful Mystic Brews paranormal mystery series. If you like high-stakes mysteries, sassy heroines, quirky characters, and a side of spells with your cuppa joe, then you’ll love Alyn Troy’s otherworldly adventure.

Featured Sci-fi: Grid Wars The Complete Series by Daniel Young

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Featured Sci-fi: Grid Wars The Complete Series by Daniel Young

99¢ as of May 14, 2026
Click for Current Price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany

WAR IS COMING TO THE GRIDS. It started the moment Hobbes made the worst decision of his life.

He’d come to steal a jewel. Clean job, clean exit. Then he tripped over a dying man on a cargo platform — filthy, barefoot, shooting like nothing human — and made the mistake of dragging him aboard.

Hobbes should have left him there.

The man knows things he shouldn’t. He whispers the name of a planet that doesn’t exist, in fragments that are starting to make a terrifying kind of sense. And now every powerful faction in the sector is sending warships after the Infiltrator. They want the stranger back badly enough to burn the Grids to get him.

Hobbes is a thief. Not a soldier, not a hero. He doesn’t do causes.

But the stranger saved his life. Some debts you don’t walk away from. This one might cost him everything.

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Featured Sci-fi: Lily Starling Series by Christian Hurst

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Featured Sci-fi: Lily Starling Series by Christian Hurst

START THE SERIES FOR 99¢—Book 2 only 99¢, Book 3 only $2.99
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Triple Gold Winner — 2026 Spring BookFest Awards
First Place: Science Fiction Space Opera, YA Science Fiction, LGBTQ+ Science Fiction

New Edition — Book One in the Award-Winning YA Sci-Fi Series

Lily Starling is alone in a city she barely recognizes, with no memory of her past—only a metal tag bearing her name and an instinct for survival. When a Union starship crew claims she belongs with them, she’s pulled centuries beyond her own time and into a desperate mission against the psionic Krythar.

Aboard the starship Salamander, Lily is drawn into a found family of misfit officers, warriors, and exiles. Together, they uncover mysteries hidden among the stars: an ancient memory seed carrying the voices of the dead—and a weapon capable of unraveling time itself.
But when Lily faces her greatest fear, she must choose—confront the truth of her past, or risk losing everything she’s come to care about.

A lyrical, fast-paced space opera about identity, connection, and courage at the edge of the unknown.

Perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, with the cinematic scope of Mass Effect and the found-family heart of Firefly and Red Rising.

Featured Fantasy: Shadowmarch Volume 1 by Tad Williams

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Featured Fantasy: Shadowmarch Volume 1 by Tad Williams

$1.99 as of May 13, 2026
Click for Current Price: Amazon US, Canada, Germany (Full-price: United Kingdom)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR: The first epic fantasy in an “intricate, intriguing” saga set in a conflicted land of humans, elves, and dwarves (Booklist).

The weight of the world rests on the shoulders of twin royal heirs as their enemies, both human and not, threaten the only home they’ve ever known.

For generations the misty Shadowline has marked the boundary between the lands of men and the lost northern lands of their inhuman enemies, the ageless Qar. But now that boundary line is moving outward, threatening to engulf the northernmost land in which humans still live—the kingdom of Southmarch.

For centuries, the Eddon family has ruled Southmarch Castle, guarding the border against the Qar’s return, but now this powerful royal line has been dealt a devastating blow. King Olin is held captive in a distant land, and it falls to his inexperienced heirs to lead their people in a time of growing danger and dread.

It is on the two youngest Eddons that the heaviest burdens fall. As the Qar’s power reaches out across their land, will Southmarch Castle—the only home they’ve ever known—become in fact what it has long been called . . . Shadowmarch?

Featured Sci-fi: Future’s Fall (After the Apocalypse Complete Boxset) by Kevin Partner

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Featured Sci-fi: Future's Fall (After the Apocalypse Complete Boxset) by Kevin Partner

FREE as of May 12, 2026
Click for Current Price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany

The complete series in one thrilling collection.

Thirty-five years after the world ended, a lonely man picks his way across the ashes of America on a final mission.

Reuben Bane spent decades believing he was a force for good, preserving humanity’s gene pool by hunting and eliminating deviants.

Now, he seeks redemption for his evil deeds, and revenge on the cultish Foundation. He must travel across a broken country to find a woman from the past who holds the key to the future.

Set among the ashes of a destroyed world, the series brings to life a possible future world teetering on the brink between endless darkness and an uncertain future.