C Gockel Writes

Featured Fantasy: Becoming Crone (The Crone Wars Book 1) by Lydia M. Hawke

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Featured Fantasy: Becoming Crone (The Crone Wars Book 1) by Lydia M. Hawke

99¢ as of December 26, 2024
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She wanted purpose. She got dark magic and war.

Claire Emerson is adrift. After a lifetime as a wife, mother, and grandma, she never saw divorce or loneliness coming and is desperate for some sense of purpose. But when her sixtieth birthday brings a snarky gargoyle, an annoyingly sexy wolf shifter, and an unknown magical calling, she thinks she’s losing the only thing she has left: her sanity.

Refusing to believe she’s the powerful defender of humankind her so-called protectors claim, Claire attempts a return to her safe life… only to have her powers ignite when she’s attacked by dark supernatural creatures. And without the training she was supposed to have received, she has no idea how she’ll defeat sinister mages plotting her demise.

Can Claire overcome creaky joints and major hot flashes in time to save the world – and her own life?

Featured Fantasy: Riley Cruz Series Books 1 -3 by L.A. McBride

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Featured Fantasy: Riley Cruz Series Books 1 -3 by L.A. McBride

99¢ as of December 24, 2024
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I’m a shifter with a checkered past and sticky fingers.

I like my new life. I’ve got good friends, cheap barbecue, and weekly karaoke. Sure, I live in an apartment with more deadbolts than functioning windows. And yeah, I earn just enough tips as a mediocre bartender to buy name brand ramen noodles. But I can be as flamboyant and fun as I want—as long as I keep my hands clean.

When a mysterious stranger strolls into my bar with tales of a magical dagger so rare it’s guaranteed to start a bidding war, that itch is back. One last heist…for old times’ sake. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

With an uptight alpha werewolf dogging my every step and a demon after my prize, this job could be my downfall. One wrong move, and the pack of werewolves I ran from eight years ago will come looking for payback. Only this time, they won’t leave me breathing. Hopefully, my survival skills are better than my bartending.

Series Omnibus Includes:
1. Relic Hunter
2. Brimstone Burglar
3. Magic Heist

The Riley Cruz series stars a goat shifter who steals magical artifacts. If you like fun, fast-paced urban fantasy with quirky characters, found family, and a dose of slow-burn, opposites-attract romance, this is the series for you.

Featured Sci-fi: The Enemy of an Enemy (Lost Tales of Power Volume 1) by Vincent Trigili

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Featured Sci-fi: The Enemy of an Enemy (Lost Tales of Power Volume 1) by Vincent Trigili

FREE as of December 24, 2024
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Vydor is riding a wave of success, but now his ship, the Dragon Claw, is being sent to investigate a mysterious event deep within the Empire’s space. A secret research colony has fallen silent and the forces sent to investigate were never heard from again.

A new enemy has come to the Empire bringing with it dark powers that were abandoned long before the Empire was born. Powers that were thought to be legends and myths.

It’s up to Vydor to keep this force at bay and protect the Empire, but it may come at the cost of his faith and shake the foundations of the Empire itself.

The Lost Tales of Power is an open-ended series of Sci-Fi/Fantasy books set in a vast multiverse featuring a mixture of traditional fantasy and science fiction elements.

Lost Tales Series:
Volume I – The Enemy of an Enemy
Volume II – The Academy
Volume III – Rise of Shadows
Volume IV – Resurgence of Ancient Darkness
Volume V – The Sac’a’rith
Volume VI – Spectra’s Gambit
Volume VII – Sac’a’rith: Rebirth
Volume VIII – Mage Hunter
Volume IX – The Cerulean Mines

Book Review: The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity by Timothy C. Winegard

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I love this type of book! It traces the ripples of one pivotal stone toss across the waters of human history—or in this case, the ripples of grass through the steppes. Horses were a mode of transportation, a machine of agriculture, and a weapon of war for nearly 5,000 years. This book traces their domestication, their adoption as a mode of transport, and their eventual importance in warfare. It’s surprising, informative, and entertaining.

Highly recommended!

[Read more…]

Featured Sci-fi: Catseye by Andre Norton

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Featured Sci-fi: Catseye by Andre Norton

$1.99 as of December 21, 2024
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The “imaginative . . . intriguing” far-future novel about the telepathic bond of friendship between human and animal—from the New York Times bestselling author (Booklist).
 
Exiled after his home planet was turned into a military outpost following an interstellar war, Troy Horan is relocated to the planet of Korwar. Under the watchful eye of the police state, he lives in the Dipple, a restricted area for subcitizens. He works as a day laborer in an interplanetary pet shop and has no idea why animals from Terra, a third-rate power, have been imported to Korwar—or why he has the ability to silently communicate with them, especially the kinkajou.
 
But a murder forces him to flee with his animal friends into the Wild, where mysterious, sealed ruins conceal Korwar’s most fiercely guarded secret. With no one he can trust and an entire government under siege, Troy leads his extraordinary band of warriors in a final bid for freedom none of them may survive.

Featured Fantasy: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

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Featured Fantasy: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

$1.99 as of December 19, 2024
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*RECOMMENDED: McKinley’s prose “sucks” you in, and her forthright heroine keeps you reading.

Although it had been mostly deserted since the Voodoo Wars, there hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake for years. Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, head baker at her family’s busy and popular café in downtown New Arcadia, needed a place to get away from all the noise and confusion—of the clientele and her family. Just for a few hours. Just to be able to hear herself think.
 
She knew about the Others, of course. Everyone did. And several of her family’s best regular customers were from SOF—Special Other Forces—which had been created to deal with the threat and the danger of the Others.
 
She drove out to her family’s old lakeside cabin and sat on the porch, swinging her feet and enjoying the silence and the silver moonlight on the water.
 
She never heard them coming. Of course, you don’t when they’re vampires.