Blog - C Gockel Writes

Featured Fantasy: Dragonlands Volume 1 – 3 by Megg Jensen

November 4, 2021 by Carolynn

FREE as of November 4, 2021
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Enter the world of Dragonlands with the first three novels from this bestselling epic fantasy series.

The mystery enshrouding Hutton’s Bridge is as impenetrable as the fog that descended at its borders eighty years ago. Each year, three villagers enter the mist searching for answers. No one ever returns

Then a dragon falls from the sky to the town square, dead—the first glimpse of an outside world that has become nothing more than a fairy tale to Hutton’s Bridge. Except to Tressa.

Tressa grew up with Granna’s stories of the days before the fog fell. When Granna dies, leaving Tressa without any family, Tressa ventures into the fog herself, vowing to unravel the foul magic holding Hutton’s Bridge captive.

What she discovers beyond the fog endangers the lives of everyone she loves.

Includes:
Hidden
Hunted
Retribution

Featured Fantasy: Witch for Hire by N. E. Conneely

October 30, 2021 by Carolynn

99¢ as of October 30, 2021
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Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

Most witches don’t work for police departments, but Michelle isn’t your average witch. She’s clanless, looking for a warlock who isn’t offended by her lack of family connections, and in danger of losing her job if she can’t find the escaped trolls before they start eating the local residents.

Trolls, angry police, and misbehaving spells are the least of her problems. Statues attacking homeowners might be problematic for your average witch, but to Michelle it’s another day at the office. Her real concern is the wizard suddenly interested in dating her and an old elf set on pestering her. When her happy family is rocked by a long kept secret her stable life falls apart faster than she can pick up the pieces.

And she still hasn’t found those trolls.

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Featured Science Fiction: Ambassador Omnibus by Patty Jansen

October 30, 2021 by Carolynn

99¢ as of October 30, 2021
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The bundled edition of the first three books in the popular Ambassador series.

1: Seeing Red – Cory Wilson is about to start his new job as representative to gamra, the alien organisation that controls the network for wormhole travel, when a political murder may well end his career before it started. In Coldi society, you can get killed for looking a superior in the eye. Never mind accusing him of murder.

1A: The Sahara Conspiracy – Cory is asked to deal with the alien mafia on Earth, and stumbles across a plot that endangers Earth’s fragile peace. You did not hear me say “nuke from orbit”.

2: Raising Hell – the wormhole network goes down, and Cory’s friend and leader of the largest populated world Asto is caught off-world. Dangerous politics are afoot on Asto, and Cory decides to help his friend. Yeah. Famous last words.

This series will appeal to readers who like alien societies that are familiar and disturbingly different at the same time, dangerous political intrigue, edge-of-seat action and characters that are never entirely good or entirely bad.

Once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop. There are eight books in the series, with more on the way.

Why not try this one now?

Need more convincing? This is what others say:

A Matt Damon political thriller meets Total Recall action with Avatar otherworldliness. —Ditmar Award winning author Zena Shapter

It is the sign of a great story teller when an intricate political landscape can be seamlessly woven into your brain without you ever noticing. I was well and truly hooked. The hierarchies and customs of various alien races are understandably complex but not too much to lose the reader. The story is fast-paced and twisting as Cory tries to unravel who could perpetrate the attack on the President and why they would do so, while enduring stonewalling and spying from all sides of politics, including his own. — Reviewer at SQ Magazine (sqmag.com/)

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Featured Fantasy: Must Love Ghosts, Coffee & Ghosts Season 1 by Charity Tahmaseb

October 30, 2021 by Carolynn

FREE as of October 30, 2021
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Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

Come for the coffee, stay for the supernatural adventure. There’s more than one way to catch a ghost, and it’s never been this fun!

Katy and her grandmother have always used coffee to catch ghosts. It pays the bills and keeps them in high-end beans. But after her grandmother dies and a rival ghost hunter moves to town, Katy fears things will never be the same.

She’s right.

From a beguiling and charismatic ghost whisperer to her new partner’s ghost swallowing brother and even a (short) stint behind bars, Katy navigates her new reality, uncertain her skills are equal to the tasks at hand. But are these things mere distractions–or do they hide something darker, far more sinister, something that has a long-held vendetta against Katy?

To survive, Katy must uncover an ancient secret. She must brew her very best Kona blend. She will need to rely on unexpected and unpredictable allies.

To survive, she will need to trust what’s in her heart.

Coffee & Ghosts is a cozy paranormal mystery/romance serial told over five episodes. This series bundle contains all five episodes.

Episode 1: Ghost in the Coffee Machine
Episode 2: Giving Up the Ghosts
Episode 3: The Ghost Whisperer
Episode 4: Gone Ghost
Episode 5: Must Love Ghosts

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Featured Science Fiction: Cold Eyes – First Contact Series, by Peter Cawdron

October 30, 2021 by Carolynn

New Release
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Cold Eyes is an original First Contact novel, written as a tribute to the 1974 science fiction classic, The Mote in God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

The UN warship Magellan is twelve light-years from Earth, exploring a cold eye, a tidally-locked super-earth called Bee. At least two advanced, intelligent species evolved on the planet, but the crew’s attempts at radio communication result in garbled replies. No one is waiting for them in orbit. The crew has to figure out why. Any misunderstandings could lead to war.

Warning: The most absurd part of this story is true and accurately portrayed.

The FIRST CONTACT series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that this collection is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact. Some of the other highly acclaimed novels in this series include Jury Duty, Anomaly, 3zekiel, Losing Mars, Xenophobia, Wherever Seeds May Fall, and Welcome to the Occupied States of America.

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Book Review: Nightwings the Complete Collection by Robert Silverberg

October 30, 2021 by Carolynn

“Roum is a city built on seven hills. They say it was a capital of man in earlier cycles. I did not know of that for my guild was Watching, not Remembering …”

So begins Nightwings the Hugo award winning novella by Robert Silverberg, and the first of three novellas in this collection.

It may be because I’d recently read Rome A History in Seven Sackings (entertaining and recommended) and The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes (enlightening, but dry in some places), but whatever the reason, I was instantly charmed. The book was well worth a read, especially if you like sci-fi that is optimistic, as I do. Yes, history does rhyme, but I don’t think that all is hopeless. There have been improvements in the human conditions, and both non-fiction books I just mentioned will bear witness to that.

I liked it enough to even read the forward by the author. Nightwings was written in 1968, when the country was in turmoil at home, and in Vietnam aborad, and Mr. Silverberg’s own life was in chaos, as he’d lost his studio (It had burned down along with all his reference books–even with Wikipedia and Google, that would be painful. Granted, I don’t have a studio, just a corner and a bookshelf, but still, I get it.)

The hero and heroine in Nightwings experience doubt of history and science, and come face to face with alien invaders bent on domination. The solution wasn’t the typical, but it was believable, and hopeful.

The version of the story I’m linking to is the collection that contains Nightwings, Among the Rememberers, and The Road to Jorslem. You can purchase Nightwings on its own, but I couldn’t find the other two novellas. I would recommend just buying the whole collection at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Nook, Apple, GooglePlay, or Kobo. Or you can borrow the collection on Scribd.

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