C Gockel Writes

Uprooted Book Review

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$1.99 as of June 8, 2025 in US & CA
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I LOVED THIS ONE! Uprooted is Naomi Novik’s take on Beauty and the Beast.

Except that the heroine goes unwillingly to a castle to live with the Beast for a time it doesn’t bear much relation to that story. It is much more exciting. Like Spinning Silver there are a lot of great relationships—friendship, love, and family. 

The world is exquisitely crafted. The language is just as lush, and I recommend it highly. It kept me up late reading—if you’ve already read it, I love Spinning Silver , too!

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Featured Fantasy: Aerisia: Land Beyond the Sunset: A romantic portal fantasy adventure (The Sunset Lands Beyond Series Book 1) by Sarah Ashwood

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99¢ in USA as of June 14, 2023
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An entire world is in danger, and I’m supposed to save it. Only…it’s not my world.

Before saving another realm, she must learn to save herself.

Hannah’s college plans didn’t include becoming the savior of a parallel world and getting tangled up with an immortal warrior…. The mystery of other worlds is not one Hannah Winters ever dreamed she’d solve. She also never counted on meeting an elderly stranger bearing an enchanted moonstone during her evening run, a stranger claiming to have crossed from another world in search of that realm’s promised deliverer. Her.

Protests have no sway with the visitor, and Hannah finds herself transported to Aerisia, a mysterious land beyond Earth’s sunsets. Here, Hannah is believed to be the Artan, a legendary heroine prophesied to oppose the dreaded Dark Powers. Majestic fairies, the immortal Simathe, and the peaceful Moonkind are all willing to help her discover her true identity, but Hannah’s just an ordinary college student from Earth. She doesn’t have any latent magical abilities and she’s not the Artan.

Unfortunately, her allies aren’t seeing it that way. Neither are her enemies. In fact, Hannah’s life is in jeopardy from the moment she arrives in Aerisia, which means becoming the Artan may be the only way to survive….

An epic portal fantasy adventure with original races, familiar fairy tale creatures, plenty of twists and turns, lots of action, and slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance. Suitable for Young Adult, New Adult, and adult readers. Welcome to Aerisia! Begin your journey today.

Featured Fantasy : Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg

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Featured Fantasy : Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg

$1.99 as of June 28, 2021
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A thrilling retelling of the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh from the Hugo and Nebula Award–Winning author of Lord Valentine’s Castle.

Gilgamesh’s appetite for wine, women, and warfare is insatiable. As the King of Uruk, he oppresses his people and burdens his city. To temper his excesses, the gods create Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s equal, who becomes his greatest friend. Together they wander the kingdom as brothers, conquering demons until a cruel twist changes Gilgamesh’s path forever. Two parts god and one part man, Gilgamesh is mortal—a fate he now resolves to overcome, no matter what the price. And so he embarks on another journey, in pursuit of vengeance and the ultimate prize for a mortal king: eternal life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Robert Silverberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

See all the Box Set List Featured Fantasy | See All Featured Sci-Fi

UPDATE: Please don’t buy this box set! (But I’d love some reviews)

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Worlds of Wonder a Sci-fi Fantasy Collection by C. Gockel

Available at:
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Hey Everyone,

I’ve put together a box set with selections from I Bring the Fire and Archangel Project with the express intention of making it free. 

I also included Let There Be Light because I think John must find Hana, and I will probably tie that into the Archangel Universe at a later date. 

Please don’t buy it–I mean, you can if you want, and I would gladly take it as a tip–but I will be setting it to free hopefully by August. 

More than anything though, I’d really like reviews on this one. If it goes free with some nice reviews it will get more downloads. More downloads hopefully will mean I’m reached by new readers. New readers will hopefully buy more books.

If you do want to purchase or, (please with sugar on top) leave a review, just click the button below for links to all vendors:

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Book Review: His Majesty’s Dragon

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His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

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Well, this was delightful. Recently I read a Regency Romance that I thoroughly enjoyed. The culture of Regency era Europe is so foreign, that it might as well be fantasy. There are gazillions of Regency Romances out there and I thought I might find another I liked as much quite easily. Ha, ha, ha…No.

And then I discovered His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novik. I am a huge fan of her reimagined fairy tales Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and decided to give this a shot. His Majesty’s Dragon is NOT a Romance; it is better. It has the cultural voyeurism that I so enjoy with DRAGONS! Talking dragons that take the place of airplanes and join the Napoleonic Wars. The lead human character is a good guy, but a bit on the stiff side. The author writes this stiffness in a way that makes it endearing, and shows the positive attributes of that sort of character. Too often the upright individual winds up the minor antagonist in fiction. The hero always has to be the maverick.

It is a super fun book. It is the perfect thing to take your mind off things that we shall not mention it by name here, but it rhymes with “Come on Eileen.”

UPDATE: I finished the whole series, adored it, and went into a state of withdrawal afterwards. It is traditionally published and very popular…and therefore available at libraries, though the first two ebooks are reasonably priced.

Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

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Spinning Silver Book Review

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Spinning Silver

Available at Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, iBooks, and GooglePlay.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is the second in a wonderful series, though I read it first and had no trouble jumping right in. This book is lush in its descriptions and emotions. There is plenty of love—of the friendship variety, of child to parent and parent to child, and even romance. 

This is a story is a take on Rumplestilskin, but in it the heroine Miryem owes nothing to a dwarf. She is the daughter of a money lender who is too kind for his own good. She goes about collecting on her father’s debtors to keep her family from starving. Lenders of money are seldom the heroes, but there is ethically lending  and unethical lending. (There is ethical denying of money—it is wrong to lend money to someone you know will never be able to pay it back.) Her family does spread their wealth around, and is good to those who work for them, treating them as family.

I loved the heroine. She is shrewd and hard when she needs to be, but her coldness is directed at those who deserve it. She is also brave…but not unflawed. In a moment of pride in an enchanted forest she boasts about being able to turn silver to gold, catching the interest of the forest’s powerful fae.

This isn’t just Miryem’s tale. It spins in the tale of a princess and a shepherdess. It’s really full and rich, and I highly recommend it.

Available at Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, iBooks, and GooglePlay.