May 23

New Release Blitz: Terror by J. Hali Steele (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Heartwood

Author: Emily Carrington

Publisher: Changeling Press

Release Date: 05/23/2025

Cover Art: Angela Knight

Genres: Action Adventure, Box Sets, Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, New Releases, Romance

Themes: LGBTQ+ /Bisexual, Nonbinary, Transgender, LGBTQ+ Gay, New Adult

Series: Heartwood (#4)

Multiverse: Sticks & Stones (#1)

Book Length: Duet/Box Set

Page Count: 567

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Synopsis

Can love be shield, sword, and healing balm for this troubled couple?

White Oak (Heartwood 1): Mike Delaney, a sheltered nineteen year old, is hired to assist Aidan Kelly, a blind high school senior with a rainbow for every occasion. But the man who tormented Mike will stop at nothing, including murder, to ensure his silence.

Black Mahogany (Heartwood 2): When Rick Hanlon, the man who molested Mike as a teenager, escapes justice, Aidan will stop at nothing to keep his lover safe, but Mike can’t let go of his self-recriminations or share his nightmares with Aidan.

Yew (Heartwood 3): Mike and Aidan have raised a daughter together. Now they’re looking to foster a second child. But fear and prejudice are even more dangerous enemies than Hanlon, the man who molested Mike when he was a teenager.

Thorn (Heartwood 4): Hanlon is not the only threat to Mike and Aidan’s happiness. From within their marriage, old arguments and insecurities rear their ugly heads. Can Mike and Aidan’s marriage survive?

Excerpt

Heartwood
Emily Carrington
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Emily Carrington
Excerpt fromWhite Oak/Black Mahogany

Mike gulped at his third cup of coffee. He fidgeted with the folder that held his résumé. “They’re paying nineteen thousand for the entire school year.”

His mother, over at the sink, asked, “Are you going to tell us what this interview’s for finally, Mr. I Don’t Want To Jinx It?”

“An aide position at Marisburg High.” He grabbed his cup again as another yawn threatened. God, but he needed to get more sleep.

His mother stalked to the table and grabbed both his cup and the nearly empty carafe from its place in the middle of the table. “Your hands are already shaking. You don’t need any more of this.”

Mike scratched at the narrow space between his neck and the collar of his dress shirt. He adjusted his tie. “I’m fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you go in there looking like a tweaker, no one will take you seriously.”

“A what?” Mike laughed. “Where’d you hear that word? They’re not called tweakers anymore. That must be a word you used back in the sixties.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Were you a tweaker, Mom?”

“Getting back to this teaching position…”

“What?” his father grunted from the depths of the mudroom. “You’re not qualified for that, are you, Mike? You’ve only been at the community college for the summer, and you’re taking different language classes, not how-to-teach classes.”

“Foreign language classes, John,” Mike’s mother murmured.

The older Delaney laughed. “Listen to the woman, would you? She takes one college course herself, and now she’s the professor.” He clomped two steps into the kitchen, took off his hat, and bowed to his wife. “Thank you, Molly. I appreciate the correction.” Then he turned his attention back to Mike. “Well?”

“I’d be assisting a blind student with his class work.” His jittery fingers danced on the table, and he worked to pass it off as impatient tapping on the cover of a second copy of his résumé. “My interview’s in half an hour.”

“So get going,” his father said. “You planned to take night classes this semester anyway. Make the most of this opportunity.”

Mike got up, clutching the folder. Maybe I can take a nap when I get home. He rushed out the door. Assuming I can sleep.

* * *

Ninety minutes later Mr. Callahan, superintendent of schools, Mr. Connolly, the principal, and Ms. O’Carolyn, the guidance counselor, took turns shaking his hand. Their grips were a bit awkward, Mike being left-handed, but he’d given up trying to shake the normal way. Even if that would have further dispelled the stereotypes.

“Congratulations,” Mr. Callahan said. “We don’t usually make a decision this fast, but with teacher in-services starting next week, it’s important. You’ll be expected to participate in those, of course. I’ll e-mail you a schedule.”

Mike swallowed. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.” He almost asked when he would meet Aidan Kelly, the blind student, but that would probably be on the schedule. For now he needed to worry about teacher in-services. Whatever those were.

“If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact any of us. We’re at your disposal. But be patient. This is a busy time of year.” The superintendent ushered Mike toward the office door. “Good luck. I hear Mr. Kelly is intelligence personified, but a little… quirky.” He chuckled. “Have a great day, Mike, and again, congratulations.”

The carpet scraped the bottoms of Mike’s shoes as he made good his escape. Other administrative offices surrounded the superintendent’s enclosed haven like deficient, two-walled boxes. Mike headed back the way he’d come, unable to take a straight path because of the random assignment of desks and file cabinets.

His heart jackhammered in his throat. He slowed his feet and flexed his hands to keep his fingers relaxed. I got the job? Really? He felt a five year old’s irrepressible grin starting and forced himself to hold his bland, polite expression.

I’ll be reporting to Marisburg High every day. Just like when I was in high school.

That thought squashed any and all urges to grin, and he rushed past the final desk, anxious to be alone in his car.

He saw the wavering shadow of a person on the other side of the outer door. He had barely enough time to get out of the way as the door flew open.

“They promised to wait.” The man, resplendent in a black suit and dark, subdued tie, shoved his way past Mike as if he didn’t see him. Despite the overcast skies, he wore dark sunglasses. “They promised to get our input,” he went on muttering, his words barely audible. He swung a long stick out in front of him like a pendulum, tapping the floor rhythmically. “Now I hear they’re holding interviews for my aide without consulting me?”

Mike escaped out the door before it closed. And before too many people could catch him staring. Not that any of the office staff seemed to be watching him. Through the door’s window, Mike watched a woman intercepting the blind man, taking his arm.

The red-haired man tore his wrist out of her grasp.

That’s a white cane, Mike thought as his logic caught up with his shock. And that must be Aidan Kelly. He’s a high school senior, which means he’s probably sixteen or seventeen, but he looks like an Irish god.

Quirky wasn’t exactly the word for him. Arrogant, maybe, or rude.

A woman brushed by Mike, opening the office door and rushing in, but he scarcely noticed.

Or hot. His gaze lingered on the man’s mildly curly locks. And if he’s got an ounce of fat along with all that muscle, I’m a — He froze. A what? What was he exactly, staring at another man?

I’m straight. End of discussion.

“At least I got the job,” he told the empty foyer.

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,” Emily has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a passionate quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central or on her website.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Shapeshifter Central

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One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 Changeling Press Gift Code!

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May 20

New Release Blitz: Zeno by Gene Gant (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Zeno

Author: Gene Gant

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 05/20/2025

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 78100

Genre: Contemporary YA, contemporary, US South, YA, high school, coming out, coming of age, bisexual, gay, Black teens, slow burn, friend crush, family, black joy, humorous, friendship, #ownvoices

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Description

At sixteen, Zeno Anderson is on the cusp of graduation. He’s anxious to leave for college in Illinois come fall, but his cautious parents have their doubts about letting him out of the nest before he’s eighteen. Zeno worries he’s doing more to hurt than help himself on that front.

The thing is, Zeno has a tendency to run from problems, and he’s a bit confused in his social life. After a terrible misunderstanding, he’s been avoiding best friend, Marvus, for months now, only to find himself semi-crushing on Jemma, who seems to be catching feelings of her own. When something serious happens to Zeno at Jemma’s unsupervised party, threatening their friendship, Zeno doesn’t do himself any favors by not letting his parents in on it.

Then, there’s tall, handsome Dalvin Drake, wide receiver on the football team. Zeno is surprised to discover, as his crush on Jemma wanes, his feelings for dreamy Dalvin fast-track from buddy zone to full-on flirt. With two friendships already on the rocks, Zeno doesn’t want to risk losing Dalvin. Yeah, but the thing is, Dalvin’s suddenly dropping hints that he’s into Zeno too.

Life is so complicated. What exactly is a fella supposed to do with all this?

Excerpt

Zeno
Gene Gant © 2025
All Rights Reserved

“Are we ready, Zeno?”

I looked up, the smile automatically spreading across my face. Mrs. Herron stood in the middle bay of my dad’s auto shop, smiling back at me. For a thirty-something sister, she was really pretty. And hella hot in her tight jeans and blue turtleneck.

“Sure thing, ready to rock,” I replied in my most upbeat, customer-friendly tone. For the record, the “we” she was referring to didn’t include me. She meant herself and her baby, the cherry-red Lexus NX 300 whose hood was currently undergoing a power-buffing at my determined hands.

This was my quasi-new hustle. Almost a year ago, in April, I started working part-time at Dad’s shop doing janitorial work—dumping trash cans, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping and mopping, that sorta stuff. Four months later, a dude brought in his muddy pickup for a new transmission and offered to pay extra for a wash and shine. When Dad turned him down on the cleaning, I volunteered my service, accidentally starting my own car detailing business. After scrubbing abused toilets and emptying absolutely unholy garbage cans, this was definitely a less disturbing and more lucrative livelihood.

Mrs. Herron, one of my best customers, was a corporate attorney who could’ve easily passed for a Memphis Grizzlies cheerleader.

“Well, let’s see about that.” She stepped from the shaded opening of the bay into the afternoon sunshine. Her short black Afro sparkled in the bright yellow rays. So did her eyes as she angled her way between me and the right front fender of her car. With blue microfiber towels clutched in both hands, I moved back to give her room.

I smiled, aglow with pride as she inspected my handiwork. The car interior had been thoroughly vacuumed and dusted, the leather seats and trim wiped down with honey-inspired leather conditioner. The windows had been polished inside and out, totally free of streaks. And the exterior, tires and rims included, bore a super shine worthy of a new car fresh out of the dealership.

“Well,” Mrs. Herron sighed when she completed the circuit of her car and stood next to me. The citrusy smell of her perfume tingled in my nose. Man! Mr. Herron was one lucky dude. “Baby looks like she just rolled off the showroom floor.”

See? I wasn’t exaggerating.

Mrs. Herron lowered her chin, looking directly into my eyes. The smile she gave me now was quite pleased. For some reason, my whole face suddenly flared hot, and I had to look away for a moment. She opened the little black purse she carried, pulled out a neat green roll, and handed it to me. “Great job as usual, Zenie. And you got Baby ready in time for me to make my meeting downtown as promised. Thanks. See you in two weeks.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Herron.” I opened the driver’s door for her. She slid behind the wheel, fired up the engine, and backed carefully into the street. With a casual wave, she took off.

I’d put away the hose and bucket after finishing the wash and rinse. Humming, I tossed my buffing towels into the old toolbox with the rest of my detailing supplies, grabbed the box, and walked into the service bay.

Bobbo, one of my dad’s mechanics, got in my face right off. He was, like, in his forties with a thin body, a bald head, and a wiry black whisk broom of a goatee. His dark red coveralls were so smudged with grime they looked black. After my last growth spurt, he was now maybe five inches shorter than me, which meant we stood with his nose about level to my chin. He still managed eye contact. His smirk was the kind you’d probably see on an anthropomorphic cat who’d just left a fresh hairball in one of your shoes.

“You don’t count your money, kid?” he said. “That ain’t good policy.”

“I trust Mrs. Herron.” I tried to step around him.

He got in my way again. “Don’t let the pretty faces make you stupid. This is business. Even if they ain’t cheats, people make mistakes. How do you know your customer didn’t accidentally shortchange ya?”

“Uhm?” Okay, he had a point. I unfolded the roll of bills Mrs. Herron had given me and counted them. My mouth dropped open. “Dang. She paid in full and threw in a fifty-buck tip!”

That smirk on Bobbo’s face turned evil. “Hell, I got it all wrong. Lady Law wasn’t the one who played on pretty, huh, ‘Zenie’?” He tweaked my nipple.

“Ow.” I jerked away from his pinching fingers. “What’re you talking about?”

“Yeah, right. Like that tight-ass T-shirt of yours got wet by itself.” Bobbo shook his head, chuckling, and turned away.

“You got it wrong, Bobbo,” I protested, but he waved me off as he went back to work on the car he had hoisted in the air. I felt stung. Let it be known that I’m not a tease, especially when it comes to grown-ass married women who happen to be customers of mine. My T-shirt was tight because I’d been working out a lot over the past few months, bulking up, and neither Mom nor I had gotten around to buying bigger shirts for me. My T-shirt was wet because I’d just finished washing two cars, and I was kinda sloppy when it came to water hoses. Any tips I earned were for doing a thorough, most excellent job and not because I showed off my muscles.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

A former corporate writer of business correspondence, policy, and training manuals, Gene Gant lives with his family in a quiet little neighborhood outside Memphis, Tennessee. You can find Gene on Facebook.

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One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

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May 13

New Release Blitz: The Timeslot Paradox by Jeff Womack (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: The Timeslot Paradox

Author: Jeff Womack

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 05/13/2025

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 100500

Genre: Science Fiction, time travel, time portal, time jump, time slot, rescue, revenge, romance, lesbian romance, friends to lovers, paradox, disabilities, found family, interracial/intercultural, university, computers, hacker, temporal engineer

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Description

Empowering time travelers to communicate across decades, an eager and gifted temporal engineer develops a secret mail drop, hidden in plain sight on a university campus. Codename: the Timeslot.
A charismatic physicist and a focused, revenge-driven hacker go to daring lengths to escape the man who murdered their best friend and fiancé—his boss.

A grieving musician in search of closure uncovers her late father’s notebook, written before she was born but, impossibly, dated twenty-five years in the future.

Generations later, another engineer, brilliant but disorganized, struggles to repair the abandoned Timeslot equipment after years of disuse. Her unexpected discovery draws this disparate group of men and women into a cascade of events which echo across a century of recent-past and near-future history.

Journals from five intertwining lives, Black, White, Asian, queer, straight, disabled, and not, blend time travel with mystery, revenge, found family, vintage music, sci-fi references, and even a little romance.

Excerpt

The Timeslot Paradox
Jeff Womack © 2025
All Rights Reserved

1

Crystal

August 1993

I spent weeks cleaning out the house before I discovered the secret compartment.

Unexpectedly, the lowest dresser drawer was crammed full of socks, far more colorful than I would ever wear. I slid the whole thing out to tilt them into the donation box. Shaking the drawer to free the last pair, I felt something shift, just before a false bottom hinged open, and a book fell out among the clothes.

The unmarked tan cover had no title, no call number, nothing.

Three months before, Mom had…faded to silence like the final song on an album. After the funeral, when the flow of her friends bringing food over eventually slowed and stopped, I slipped into a deep funk. No desire to move on, I’d just spun in place, the crackle of static at the center of a record repeating over and over.

My counselor suggested that the grief process could be helped by changing how I thought about the house. Even though I lived there alone, it still felt like Mom’s. So, I cleaned and sorted absolutely everything. Like learning to play an instrument, the only way to improve was practice. So, I practiced. I practiced being a self-sufficient adult, one shelf, one box, one drawer at a time.

Sorting and cleaning became the therapy that finally lifted my needle out of that endless groove.

Slowly, I’d worked my way through the entire basement, most of the garage, the kitchen, nearly everything except Mom’s bedroom. I knew I needed to build up to it, so I left her room to last. That morning, I’d stood in her doorway, debating between the dresser and the closet. It didn’t matter much. Since I was several inches taller, most of her clothes would be donated anyway.

Gently lifting the book out of the box, I opened it to the first page, where handwritten text began. “James was my best friend, and now he’s dead.” The date didn’t make any sense though: July 2018.

An unpublished novel set in the future? As a librarian, Mom lived her entire life around books. So maybe? Except this wasn’t her familiar handwriting. It was far too messy. Why go to such trouble to hide it?

Sitting on the floor, the socks forgotten, a story unfolded, page by page: time travelers, friendship, loss, escape, revenge, and even a little romance.

I read until my legs fell asleep. Standing unsteadily, a folded bundle of paper covered with undecipherable math calculations slipped out from between the pages onto the floor. Tucked inside, I found two white rectangles. I used the smaller, a worn piece of unlabeled plastic to mark my place in the book. The larger showed writing in one corner that I recognized was Mom’s. “Charles and me, 1968.” I flipped it over to see an old black-and-white photo of a smiling couple posing on a stair landing. An Asian man in shirt and tie had his arm around the waist of a White woman in a floral dress. She had straight dark hair parted in the middle.

Mom only had a few photos of my dad. Her favorite hung in the hall, the rest stayed in an album. I’d seen them all many times, but never this one. Dad looked the same as in all his other photos, but Mom was so young, her hair longer than I remembered and years before any gray crept in.

On the wall behind them, the bottom corner of an antique picture frame showed. I leaned close and noticed a dog in the painting. Gasping, I sat up straight. I knew that painting! I knew exactly where they stood.

I headed out the door so fast I barely remembered to lock up. Parking always sucked near the student union, so I paid for the parking garage. Through hallways, past meeting rooms, the main lobby, and then halfway up the atrium stairs brought me to a landing with a painting of the first dean of the university…and his dog.

I stepped back and held out the photo. It lined up perfectly: the corner of the painting with the brass plaque underneath, the curving handrail to the stairs, all of it. The only things missing were my parents.

The only things missing were my parents.

That hit me hard. My counselor said grief was a road that winds back on itself. On a stair landing, empty except for me and a century-old dog, I didn’t even realize I was crying until an older woman passed by and asked if I was okay. I wiped my cheeks, told her I was fine, and walked away, back toward my car, my house, and the book my dad had left behind.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Jeff is an architect, archer, author, costumer, hiker, home-brewer, re-enactor, woodworker, etc. etc. etc. He lives in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, with his family.

Instagram | Bluesky

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One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

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May 09

New Release Blitz: Terror by J. Hali Steele (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Immortal Heat

Author: Kira Stone

Genres: Action Adventure, BDSM, Box Sets, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance

Themes: Alternative Universe, Dark Romance, Elves, Dragons & Magical Creatures, LGBTQ+ Gay, Multicultural & Interracial, Vampires

Book Length: Duet/Box Set

Page Count: 237

Synopsis

Three vampires battle the lives they left behind to build a future out of the ashes of their pasts.

Immortal Steps: Tain, a renowned Celtic dancer, has bitter memories of his first crush and the trainer who left him without a word. For years he’s flung himself from one brief romantic encounter to another, the subject of tabloid gossip and speculation, always insisting he’s not gay. When Kyle, Tain’s old mentor, comes back into Tain’s life, the last thing Tain wants is to give the man, or the vampire, a place in his heart.

Hidden Depths: Pat’s devoted his life to locating the wreck of The Pelican’s Flight, sunk in 1692, along with forty other ships, when the infamous town of Port Royal slid into the Caribbean. Jamie lost more than his lover when The Pelican went down. Pat offers Jamie hope at finding his ship, along with a chance at rediscovering love. Will the secrets they share bring them together? Or tear them apart?

Vampires In Heat: Humans in Seattle are dying as a result of domestic cat vampires and demonesses working together. The latest victim is Erron’s neighbor and best friend. Nolan, the leader of Seattle’s Pacifistic Vampire Clan, and Erron, an albino who is commonly mistaken for a vampire, team up with the cat vamp leader to find the rogues who are killing needlessly and trying to discredit vampire-kind. And just maybe, between them, they’ll find more than a remedy for this vampire scourge — like love!

Publisher’s Note: Immortal Steps, Vampires In Heat, and Hidden Depths have been previously published as stand alone novellas.

Excerpt

Immortal Heat
Kira Stone
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Kira Stone
Excerpt from Immortal Steps

Alone, Kyle Lohan entered his private balcony at the Grampian Theater in Edinburgh, Scotland. As he sat down, the house lights dimmed briefly to signal a two minute warning before the show began. The box smelled faintly of sex, although he doubted anyone without a vampire’s heightened senses could detect the erotic scent. Regardless, it was his own fault for sneaking in to watch rehearsals the previous evening. He’d been unable to resist tugging his cock in time with the heavy beat of the dancers as they practiced.

Okay, not all the performers excited him. Just one.

Tain O’Halloran.

Tonight Kyle had better prepared for the public performance, or so he’d thought. The quick release during his shower should have calmed his libido enough to sit through the performance without a hard-on. But as the first strains of a flute solo poured across the stage, the anticipation proved to be more than his body could resist and his cock rose to an aching fullness.

Tain. On stage. His stage.

How long had he waited for this? Worked for this? Dreamed of this? Sometimes it seemed like forever. And yet, very soon, the moment he’d been preparing for would arrive. One way or another, he would finally end his long pursuit.

He adjusted the fit of his tuxedo pants as the chorus sprinted across the stage. Their shoes hit the wooden floor in rhythmic, staccato beats, flirting with the notes. Kyle couldn’t stop his own feet from scuffing against the floor in a pale imitation of the dancers’ fancy footwork. Had his heart been prone to beat, it would have been racing as fast as the music.

A few more seconds…

Then, appearing out of a flash of light and smoke, bam! There he was. Tain O’Halloran. The male lead’s long, sleek black hair floated behind him as he bounced in perfect synchronization with the little blond at his side. His grey eyes flashed with pure joy and a little arrogance. A smile curved his thin pink lips. And what that black leather did for his ass…

Kyle groaned softly as his cock twitched with longing, but he refused to slake his lust. Privacy wasn’t an issue, even during a public performance. No, nothing mattered more than soaking up every moment of this night to tuck away in his memories. If the evening didn’t go as planned, this could be all he had left to remember the talented young man come morning.

The first dance ended, and Kyle felt the tightness in his chest ease as Tain exited stage right. He’d reappear several times throughout the performance.

Kyle itched with anticipation for the next time, and the next… and the next… By the second act, Kyle could pick out Tain’s unique sweat from the morass of odors permeating the air. The scent teased his cock like nothing else. His whole body tensed as he imagined jumping over the balcony’s rail to land on top of the dancer’s young bones, then fucking him to within an inch of his life, claiming him on stage for all the world to see.

Well, that’s one way to announce that you’re back in his life, Kyle thought with a rueful shake of his head. Definitely not one of your brightest ideas though.

If anything, such a bold, stupid move would get him thrown out of Tain’s life for good. Kyle’s goal was quite the opposite. If he had his way, nothing would separate him from Tain ever again.

The show ended with a roar of applause that pulled the dancers back on stage for a second encore. Vibrant and smiling under the lights, Tain looked like he could hold out for a third reprise if the director let him. However, the rest of the troupe wasn’t fairing as well, so when the curtains closed again the house lights came up.

The show was over, but Kyle’s performance of a lifetime was about to begin.

Purchase at Changeling

Meet the Author

Kira Stone lives in a warm cave tucked away in the remote Scottish Highlands, where a small band of ever-changing heroes serves as company. As they relax in front of a roaring fire, demons dance in leather pants and angels stroke tunes from the harp strings, while the Fae stop in to share tales from other worlds. Bound by pen and imagination, these are the folk who wait to greet you from the pages of Kira’s stories. Visit Kira’s Website.

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One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 Changeling Press Gift Code!

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May 06

New Release Blitz: Blood Which Burns by BL Jones (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Blood Which Burns

Series: Liquid Onyx, Book Five

Author: BL Jones

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 05/06/2025

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 128900

Genre: Fantasy, family drama, gay, sci-fi/fantasy, superheroes, vigilante

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Description

Three months ago, Rex discovered a world-shattering truth about what it means to be a Liquid Onyx survivor and experienced devastating losses in the process.

Rex, momentarily gripped by raw fury and freshly torn grief, committed an act of shocking violence and was reforged by it.

Unable to face his new, fractured reality, he ran away from everyone who loved him and threw himself into the life of a morally grey vigilante.
Every choice Rex makes pushes him one step closer to embracing his father’s legacy. But there are other legacies who won’t let Rex fall into that darkness without a fight.

At his lowest point, will Rex find the strength and courage to step out of Alex Nova’s shadow and finally become the man—and the hero—everyone needs him to be?

Excerpt

Blood Which Burns
BL Jones © 2025
All Rights Reserved

ANDY

I was six the first time I broke into my mum’s lab.

Even at that age, I knew I wasn’t allowed in there because it was full of dangerous and fascinating things.

I had to break into the lab at least two dozen times before Mum gave in and simply took me down there with her.

She would sit me up at a table and give me work to do. Just simple things at first, calculating equations and mixing low-risk substances as required.

When I watched my mum move through her lab, I marvelled at her intellect. She knew so much, understood so much of the world that I did not.

It seemed to me she was one of the most brilliant people alive, and I wanted to be exactly like her.

Then there was my dad, a man like a natural disaster, unrelenting and inexplicably dangerous, his unique genius as captivating and destructive to watch as a tornado tearing across continents. His mind was unrivalled, a man destined to change the world.

And he did. With my mum’s help. My parents were the creators of Liquid Onyx, the gods of superheroes, the killers of children.

But, in most ways, Alex Nova was the man who taught me how to swim at our local pool and how to do a cartwheel, who took me out for ice cream when I did well on a test in school. He was the man who tickled me until I cried with laughter and dried my tears away when I got hurt falling off my skateboard. He was the man who told me I could do anything I wanted with my life because I was brave and clever, when all anyone else did was call me pretty.

My dad was my hero, not because of his extraordinary mind or the things he could do with it, but because he was my dad, and I loved him desperately.

When he died, my world crumbled and my heart broke. A piece of my childhood was set ablaze, never to be recovered from the ashes.

From then, it was just Mum and me. Mum became my everything; there was no one else, really. She didn’t want me to have any contact with my dad’s side of the family, and her side didn’t want anything to do with either of us.

Mum tried to make up for it by always being there when I needed her, by being my best friend. She came to all my science competitions and supported my academic dreams with all the attention, energy, and money she could spare. She bought me enough books to sink a ship and took me to museums all over the world, encouraging me to seek knowledge wherever I could find it.

I came out at fifteen and Mum made me a cake with the pansexual flag colours, which we ate together in front of the TV, watching our favourite 80s eighties films, quoting lines from Top Gun and Back to the Future in terrible American accents.

For a very long time, all I had in my life was my mum and my work.

Then there was Dru, who was too easy to love, and through her I met my little brother for the first time. Rex. A boy I’d been thinking about for too many years, imagining what he would be like and all the things we might have in common. Shared DNA doesn’t have to mean much, I know that, but it still felt like a connection I couldn’t pass on the potential of. I was too curious, have always been too curious by nature. Mum used to say that was how she knew I’d grow up to be a scientist like her and Dad.

Now, Mum is dead, and it was Rex who murdered her, and all I could do was scream for him to stop. Useless. Fucking stupid. As if my pleading would mean anything to him at that moment, after what I saw in that factory, what happened to Damon North. After what happened to our uncle Roux.

Thing is, I was right about how it would feel to meet Rex. There was a connection, instant and visceral. I felt it wind around my heart like barbed wire the moment our eyes met across the university lawn. Eyes the exact replica of our dad’s. He looked so much like Alex Nova, my breath had caught in my throat, threatening to choke me up. It had been a long time since I saw our dad’s face, and seeing it reflected back at me, albeit in an undeniably younger and angrier iteration, was bizarre. It’s like there was an edge there in the cut of my brother’s cheekbones, in the sardonic twist to his mouth that I can’t remember our dad ever possessing. Almost too much to deal with. But when he looked at me, I felt something, a tether pulling taut between us, and I’m certain, even now, that Rex felt it, too.

That’s what makes hating him so hard.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

BL Jones is a twentysomething British author who spends all her free time reading and writing and taming her three much younger brothers. She works as a BSL interpreter in Bristol and lives with a temperamental bunny named Pepsi. She’s been writing stories since she was five, rarely sharing them with anyone except her numerous stuffed animals. BL has had a difficult journey into discovering and accepting her own queerness, and therefore believes that positive, honest, and authentic stories about queer people are very important. She hopes to contribute her own stories for people to have fun with and enjoy.

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May 02

New Release Blitz: Gatos by Lia Connor (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Gatos

Author: Lia Connor

Cover Art: Renee’ George

Genres: Action Adventure, Box Sets, Dark Fantasy, New Releases, Paranormal, Romance, Wildest West

Themes: LGBTQ+ /Bisexual, Nonbinary, Transgender, Multicultural & Interracial, Multiple Partners /Polyamory, Shapeshifters, Voyeurism and Exhibitionism

Series: Cat O’ Nines (#6)

Book Length: Duet/Box Set

Page Count: 315

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Synopsis

Catkind — they’re rough, they’re tough and they don’t take no for an answer. But who’d want to say no? Not Gabriella, a barmaid in a tiny roadhouse named Gatos near the Mexican border. Nor her sister Marnie. With his sisters carried off by the Catkind, Tony’s left to run Gatos, but he won’t be alone — a couple of misfit “alley cats” have joined forces with Tony.

Lucia’s a party girl with two hot, hunky Catkind on her trail. Orion, a white Tiger, and Jomei, a Bengal, are royalty among the Catkind. They’re about to learn Lucia’s much more than a pretty face. When the four Gatos siblings return with their Catkind mates for a final showdown against their nemesis, Anuetta thinks she’s got these tigers by their tails, but she doesn’t count on the mighty strength of the Gatos family. The line’s been drawn in the ashes, and the claws are out!

This collection contains the previously released novellas in the Cat O’Nines collection: Cat’s Claws, Cat’s Eye, Cat’s Cradle, Cat’s Meow, and Cat’s Paw.

Excerpt

Gatos
Second Edition
Lia Connor
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Lia Connor
Excerpt from Cat’s Claws

“So there I am, standing in the middle of the street, screaming at him en Espanol. I’m calling him things our abuela would turn over in her grave to hear me say. And then she’d wash my mouth out with soap.”

“Lucia, when are you going to learn?” Gabriella unlocked the door to Gatos’ cold storage unit. “You stay away from men like him. They’re trouble.”

Lucia, her sister, had the fire of a Roman candle and a temper to match. She jammed her hands on her hips in indignation. “Like you have room to talk,” she shot back.

“I do. Do you see me getting tangled up with any troublemakers like him?” She yanked open the door, and cold air escaped with a whoosh. “Uh-uh. Oh, that’s good.” Gabriella closed her eyes and swayed in bliss. It was a gorgeous day outside in the shabby outskirts of San Miguel, the sky pure blue and the horizon clear for miles. Which meant it was hot enough to suit the devil himself, especially back in the warehouse. She let herself enjoy the cool air coming from the cold storage unit for a moment, then got back to business. She nudged the handcart. “Come on, you take one crate and I’ll take the other.”

“We shouldn’t roll out a keg?”

“If you think you can manhandle a keg in heat like this, dolly or no dolly, you’re welcome to try. Grab a case for now. Tony can get the rest later.” Gabriella sized up the hefty crate stamped with the Moctezuma Brewery logo. Nothing tasted as good or as rich as their cervesa. Moctezuma was why locals bothered traveling to her tiny, out-of-the-way bar. If the brew master hadn’t been a friend of her brother Tony, no way she’d have gotten her mitts on any of their goods. “Come on, Lucia, put your back into it.”

Lucia pouted briefly before bending and lifting the crate. Tendons stood out in her neck from the effort as she wrestled a heavy crate onto the dolly. “We need some strong young stud for this.”

“And there you go again, thinking about men,” Gabriella chided. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to have a strong young thing around, especially if he’s hot, eh? I’m saying we can get by fine without one. You seem to think that’s a mortal sin, which is why I’m listening to you pitch a fit in the street.” She tempered the sting of her words with the fondness of her tone.

Gabriella shut the door to the cold storage unit and clicked the padlock back in place before taking the handle of the dolly. Oof. She had to admit, the crates were terribly heavy. Together they headed back to the main room of Gatos, the tiny tumbledown bar that had been their sole legacy from their mother.

Not exactly a rich and abundant inheritance. Ah, well, Mama had tried.

Lucia was still stuck back on Gabriella’s opinions. “You’re telling me if a man like Roger came on to you, you’d say no? He looked so pretty.” She swung around to walk backwards. “Those cornflower blue eyes and his soft golden hair. Like a prince out of a fairytale.” Her pleading turned wicked. “And good in bed? He was a devil when it came to loving me.”

“And how many other women at the same time?” Gabriella bumped open the swinging kitchen door. “Would I say no to a man like Roger? Hell, no, I wouldn’t. But…”

Lucia rolled her eyes.

“But,” Gabriella went on, not letting Lucia’s scorn stop her, “I’d say yes long enough to enjoy his body. If he’s as good as you say, I’d have fun with him for a few days then send him packing. No harm, no foul, and no broken heart that needs someone to sweep up the pieces.”

Lucia scoffed. “You wouldn’t know how to let your hair down if someone gave you a hands-on demonstration.”

Gabriella’s pride was stung. “Says you!”

“You’re right, says I. You want to make a bet on this? Friday night’s tip jar says you don’t have the guts to take the next handsome guy who walks into Gatos for a test run.”

Ay, Lucia had her there. Gabriella could never back down from a challenge. “I’m listening. What are the terms?”

Lucia stretched her muscles out before unlocking the cooler. “So we have a deal?”

“Not yet.” Gabriella pulled the dolly close enough to the cooler to unload it. “Let me hear the details before I say yes or no.”

“Like you would,” Lucia smirked. “All right, here’s the deal. When we open tonight, you and I man the bar. When the first hot guy walks in, one I decide is enough of a handful for even you, I point him out and that’s when the game begins. You come on to him, you do whatever you have to do, and if he’s safe you get him into bed.”

“I’m not a slut,” Gabriella objected, all the while hoisting crates and holding them for Lucia to unpack and stow in the cooler. “And how am I supposed to know if he’s ‘safe’?” She dusted off her hands after the last bottle was stashed away. “You have to give me more than that to go on. I’m supposed to proposition a customer? That’ll give me a great reputation.”

Lucia shrugged smugly. “So you’re saying no? You’re backing down already?”

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Lia Connor lives in the South, but her job takes her almost everywhere but. Her laptop is her best friend. Lia loves stories about BBW’s, hot, hot, hot threesomes and wily shifters who get into (and out of) all kinds of trouble…

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Apr 29

New Release Blitz: Missing by Chelsi Robichaud (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Missing

Author: Chelsi Robichaud

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/29/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 50100

Genre: Contemporary, Genre/lit, contemporary, family-drama, bisexual, lesbian, dissociative personality, therapist, musician, cult leader

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Description

Kate wakes up in her kitchen, having no idea where she had been for five hours. The only clue she has is a note she left for herself on her desk, stating that she was going to see someone named Naomi.

With some investigation, she discovers Naomi is a therapist she has been seeing for months to discuss her blackouts and dissociation. However, she hasn’t been attending the sessions as Kate, but under a different name: Veronica.

Once she realizes she is experiencing dissociation, Kate takes a deep dive into her life, trying to uncover her alters and make peace with the people she shares a headspace with.

As she unlocks secrets hidden even from herself, she has the support of her best friend, Brielle, and her therapist, but not everyone is out to help her.

Excerpt

Missing
Chelsi Robichaud © 2025
All Rights Reserved

October 2022

Sheets of rain poured down from the sky. I moved through the crowds of people. The raindrops hit the ground rhythmically like drums, drowning out the sound of footsteps.

I sighed in relief as I made it to the shelter of my home. Nobody greeted me on the road. Everyone was probably inside, where it was warm. I was unfazed by the cold.

When I got inside, I found a clear patch of floor near the kitchen and lay down. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there. I didn’t even check the time when I came in.

“What’s going on with you?” Mike asked in horror when he walked through the door.

I was curled up on the floor, my hair and clothes completely soaked from the rain. I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re sitting on the floor. Come on, honey, get up.” He helped me stand. “What were you thinking, lying down on the floor? Why didn’t you get changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where have you been?”

I bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood. I didn’t want to say “I don’t know” a third time, but I really had no explanation for why I was where I was.

Mike guided me to the couch. He fetched a towel and put it down so I wouldn’t soak the furniture. “Here, sit down.” I sat. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I remember walking to the apartment,” I said. “I remember it raining.”

“And before that?”

“Not much.” I looked down at my fingers, pruned from the dampness. “I must’ve been out for hours.”

“The last time you texted me was at 2:00,” he said. “It’s 7:00 now.”

Five hours. I had five hours unaccounted for. My head spun. How could I have just forgotten what I was up to for five hours?

Mike must have sensed my impending panic. He pressed his hands to either side of my shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”

I took out my phone. Mike had tried calling me during the time I had been out. “Missing” almost felt more appropriate—although at this point it seemed I had been missing even to myself. I scanned my text messages to see if there were any conversations I had opened while I was out. Nothing. I hadn’t talked to anyone—I had just disappeared, and my memories went with me.

“Do you think we could retrace your steps?” he asked. “The last thing you told me was that you were going to do groceries today. By the looks of the kitchen, though, you didn’t get to it.”

“Guess not,” I muttered. I was entirely depleted of energy. I wanted to sleep, but the anxiety of not knowing where I was for most of the day kept me awake.

“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes and into something warmer, okay?”

I got up from the couch and followed Mike into the bedroom. I stripped off my wet clothes. He took them and tossed them into the dryer. I picked out a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a plain black T-shirt.

I noticed a note sitting on my bedroom desk. It was written in a hand I didn’t recognize. The desk had been tidied, too. I must have cleaned it before I left. The note read: Going out to see Naomi. Be back before dark.

I sat down at the desk and read the note again. I didn’t have any friends named Naomi. But it only made sense that I had written this note before I blacked out.

I picked up my phone and searched through my contacts. Naomi. I found her. Her area code was local. Which meant I really had gone out to meet with her.

“Babe,” I called.

Mike shot into the room. “What’s up? You need a doctor?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Look at this note.”

He stood behind me and read over my shoulder. “Who’s Naomi?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” I showed him my phone. “She’s in my contacts. But I have no idea who she is.”

Mike pressed a hand to his chin. He paused for a few moments, thinking. “Should we…call her?”

“I can at least text her,” I said.

Me: Hi. This is Kate.

Naomi: You left in a hurry. Everything OK?

“So, you were with her,” he said. “This is great. Maybe she can tell us why you were out for so long.”

How could I have been out with a new friend all day and not remember a thing? It didn’t make any sense.

Me: I don’t remember meeting you. How did we get in touch?

I watched as Naomi typed, then stopped. Eventually, my phone chimed as a text came through.

Naomi: I think you need to tell Mike about your dissociation.

Me: Is that what you call the blackout? Were you with me when it happened?

Naomi: Go check your desk drawer for the journal. It might help.

I pushed back my desk chair to get to the drawer. When I pulled it open, I spotted the journal right away. It was black and green, with a Celtic knot on the cover.

“I remember buying this journal online, but I haven’t filled it out yet,” I said. “I bought it to write music in.”

“Let’s see.” I could hear a note of fear in Mike’s tone.

I opened the journal. A page had been filled.

“I don’t remember writing this.” But even as I said it, I knew there was no other possibility. It was my handwriting. I checked the most recent entry. It was from the beginning of the week.

October 17th, 2022

Things are getting worse. Hard to handle. I’m not sure when I should tell Mike about this—Veronica thinks it’s best he stays out of it. She always had an issue with him, though. Thinks that he can’t be trusted. I don’t know why she feels this way. It might be a trauma reaction. Jer thinks that he’ll be receptive to it all. I have no way of knowing. I’m thinking of going to visit Naomi to talk it all out. She’s always been supportive.

The sound of clothes tumbling in the dryer was all that could be heard. I let out my breath with a deep exhale. Mike’s brows were knit together in concern.

“You don’t remember writing any of this?” he asked.

“Not a word.”

“Who’s Veronica? And Jer?”

“I have no idea.” I pressed a hand to my forehead. My head was pounding. I felt like memories were dancing on the edge of my conscious mind, but they were too far out of my reach to fully understand. “The names mean something to me, but I don’t know what.”

Mike crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Why would one of your friends think I shouldn’t be trusted? We’ve been together for months now. I don’t think I’ve done anything to warrant that.”

“Me neither,” I said, and meant it. Things had been good between Mike and me ever since we’d started dating.

Mike took the journal from me and closed it. “Let’s explore this more tomorrow, okay? I think you need some rest. I’m sure you’ll remember everything once you’ve slept a bit.”

I wished I shared his certainty. It wasn’t like I had forgotten to pick up the milk at the store—I had forgotten almost an entire day, and there were now three people in my life who apparently knew far more about me than I knew about them.

“How can I sleep right now knowing I’ve essentially been leading a double life?” I asked. “None of this makes sense, and I don’t recognize any of those people. I don’t even know who Naomi is. What if they’re dangerous?”

“I don’t think you’d make friends with dangerous people.” Mike did his best to comfort me.

“But if neither of us know, then how can we be sure?”

He hugged me. “I don’t know, babe. I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out together, okay? I just don’t want you to overwhelm yourself. Not when I just found you on the floor.”

I checked my phone one final time before heading to bed.

Naomi: Tell Kate everything will be OK.

I wondered who she was, and how exactly she knew that.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Chelsi Robichaud writes and resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She publishes sapphic romance and fantasy novels. She has also self-published two comics. You can find Chelsi on Twitter

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Apr 22

New Release Blitz: The Lost Selkie by Eule Grey (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  The Lost Selkie

Author: Eule Grey

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/22/2025

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 30500

Genre: Paranormal, British, butch/femme, age difference, demisexual, age gap, one bed, selkies, midsummer/solstice, ancient mystery, sweet, friends to lovers, performance arts, mythical creatures, HEA

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Description

Esther is excited to start a new job on a beach TV shoot. Sure, maybe it is strange how the ocean seeps in overnight with weird sea snails everywhere, but the technical issues are down to science, not myths. As an electrician, Esther understands facts. If only women were so simple.

In her daydreams, Esther’s a passionate woman. Who cares if she lacks the courage for the real thing? And, yeah, maybe a girlfriend is better than a fantasy, but who’d put up with Esther? Her shyness keeps her from socialising, so it’s a shock when she ends up sharing a bed with the star of the show.

Beautiful, gentle Layla becomes fascinated by a mythical selkie who guides lesbians to physical love. If only! Layla craves a real woman who will wait for sex until they’re ready for intimacy…a strong, kind woman exactly like Esther.

Midsummer magic, faulty wiring, sexual awakenings, an ancient diary. Everyone knows about the lost selkie with a broken heart: she may only return to the sea once she finds her missing fur. Can Esther fix the set’s electrical issues and reunite the selkie with her lost love? Will the TV show ever be ready to broadcast? And, most importantly, can Esther and Layla come together on the beach and discover what matters most?

Pretty Selkie from the sea,
Can’t you spare a kiss for me?

Excerpt

The Lost Selkie
Eule Grey © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
On a chilly morning, my sister drove me to the train station and pushed me out of the car. “Why? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

I stumbled into the dank car park, brandishing my precious toolbox like a shield to protect me from Becka’s fierce questions and whatever else lay ahead.

Somehow, I resisted the overwhelming urge to retreat into my sister’s warm car and admit she was right about Scarborough being a foolish idea even though I was terrified. “I’m going to be a TV electrician in Yorkshire. It’ll be great!”

My brave words hid a mountain of worries. Nine months, five hours ago, the soap opera director I’d served for twenty years had delivered the bombshell: “We don’t need old-style electricians anymore. Have a break while you think about what to do next. We’ve gotten old, Esther. AI has taken our place.”

Gotten old? I was forty, not one hundred. Romance scenes were my beating heart—first kiss, illicit liaisons, gangster couples, later life snogs—every storyline sustained me, however implausible. True, my own love life was non-existent, but why worry about what I couldn’t change? Women never paid me much attention anyway. To them, I was boring Esther Sparks; to actors, I was the leccy queen. Sparkie—Can you help me with this? Where’s Sparks? Perfect! No AI electrician would fix the wiring with as much love or dedication as me. They never could.

The advert for Scarborough became a glimmer of hope in a sea of despair, a chance to reignite the spark in my life.

Wanted! TV electrician for haunted hotel set in Scarborough. Lodging and board. Free screwdriver. Must be comfortable around snails and actresses.

I could have sworn my heart had stopped beating. Scarborough. Actresses. All I remembered from a childhood day trip to Yorkshire was beautiful seals peering from beneath the waves and vinegary fish and chips.

The memory was enough. Surely, on a beach set, there’d be at least one romantic plot with lines I could fall in love with and dream about.

I emailed my CV within minutes. A job offer arrived three hours later, train ticket attached. ‘Dear Ms Sparks, come immediately. We need you.’

Needed me… My trusty toolbox and I were packed within ten minutes. I could have cried with relief, envisaging a sunny set filled with laughing actresses and dodgy electrics. Esther Sparks was ready to help the actresses shine.

If beneath my excitement, an uneasy inner voice nipped at my consciousness—is this all there is to my life?—I ignored it and the gaping maw where a girlfriend and social life should’ve been. Down the hatch and switch on the lights had always been my motto. Why change now?

Unfortunately, my sister was anything but enthusiastic about my new venture. She’d spitefully tugged my hair, growling at passing trains as if they were naughty children. “Why can’t you be an adult? Scarborough is on the other side of the world. You won’t find happiness or a woman to love you there!”

A woman to love me? I probably went redder than a strawberry while my sister readied herself for another round.

I ignored Becka’s cat-bum expression and the nasty acidic acknowledgement in my throat that sis was right. “It’ll be great. Scarborough is only a few hours drive from Ramsgate, so stop nagging.”

She snatched up my suitcase. “Who are you kidding? It’ll be shit. A haunted hotel, for god’s sake. And on your own! Why don’t you get an ordinary job like everyone else—maybe in London? The whole thing is probably a scam.” She booted my toolbox for emphasis. “Stop idolising others and find a life of your own. Fancy-arsed actors who take advantage of your kind nature won’t love you how you deserve. I could give them a good slap.”

Awch.

Cruel, but not new. She’d been saying the same thing for years. I loved my sister dearly, though she could wind me up like nobody else. Yes, she’d brought me dinner when I was too sad to leave bed. I was grateful. But. Becka’s life had been a champagne glass of friends, exams, and jobs, whereas mine, more of a chipped, empty mug.

It was time to return to the safe world of soap opera romances. What hope did someone like me have of finding love elsewhere? Maybe the gaping absence inside me couldn’t be filled by yet another TV plotline, but you couldn’t have everything.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Eule Grey has settled, for now, in the north UK. She’s worked in education, justice, youth work, and even tried her hand at butter-spreading in a sandwich factory. Sadly, she wasn’t much good at any of them!

She writes novels, novellas, poetry, and a messy combination of all three. Nothing about Eule is tidy but she rocks a boogie on a Saturday night!

For now, Eule is she/her or they/them. Eule has not yet arrived at a pronoun that feels right.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Apr 18

New Release Blitz: Earth’s Passion by Emily Carrington (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Earth’s Passion

Author: Emily Carrington

Publisher: Changeling Press

Cover Art: Angela Knight

Genres: Action Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, New Releases, Paranormal, Romance

Themes: Elves, Dragons & Magical Creatures, LGBTQ+ /Bisexual, Nonbinary, Transgender, Multicultural & Interracial, Shapeshifters, Werewolves & Wolf Shifters

Series: Dragon Lost (#2)

Multiverse: Searchlight Academy (#13)

Book Length: Novella

Page Count: 78

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Synopsis

As their need for each other grows, so does the danger.

Kailee and Tom are falling for each other, but their secrets continue to come between them. Kailee’s afraid to show her physical scars, while Tom dreads his lover will discover the power those he still calls Master and Mistress hold over him.

Dragon and werewolf must join together in every way to defeat those who would dominate Tom and kill Kailee.

Excerpt

Earth’s Passion (Dragon Lost 2)
Emily Carrington
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Emily Carrington

Kailee had been lying next to Tom for close to twenty minutes. Her new dragon lover was fast asleep, and she knew she should be resting too. Instead, she was filled with joy and an incautious sense of promise that she hadn’t felt in years.

Tom rolled over, draping his arm over her waist. Kailee wriggled a little as the urge to pee made itself known. A deeper craving drew at her also.

“Are you okay?” Tom mumbled. Then he stiffened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He pulled his arm off her.

She turned over, snuggling in close. “I like it when you touch me. I just… I need to get up and use the bathroom.” It was true, but her ulterior motive was to take so long that he fell back to sleep, and she could go outside.

“I’ll wait up for you,” he said, slurring his words a little.

Kailee kissed his temple. “Go to sleep. I’ll be back in a moment.”

His eyes were already closed. As she watched, he lost the tension in his limbs and the worry lines on his face smoothed out. He began to snore.

She waited another five minutes, to make sure he was well and truly under. He’d had a sucky, hard life and she thought he hadn’t probably slept well for large parts of it. Knowing he was safe here, that she would protect him, made her smile.

She got up, padding to the bathroom after putting on the clothes she’d worn before they made love. Once in the bathroom, she unzipped her jeans. As much as she felt one hundred percent female most of the time, she still enjoyed the simple pleasure of peeing while standing up.

When she was finished, she flushed, zipped up, and washed her hands. Then, moving silently, not wanting to wake anyone up because this pack already knew everyone else’s business as it was, she went to the mudroom, put on her boots, and made her way out of the back door into the gloriously dark night. It was a waxing crescent moon tonight, about four days from the first quarter, and with so little light coming from that celestial orb, the darkness was close as a passionate lover, full of kindness. Like Tom.

She wrapped her arms around her chest, which was flat without the boobs she usually wore. That felt a little awkward but for this one moment, she was able to dismiss the feeling. She’d needed to embrace herself for pure joy’s sake. She’d been so very alone for damn near half her life, relying on gentleness and understanding from those who were either hired professionals or simply much older than she was and thus not quite as in touch with their wolflinghood as she could have wished. Maybe it was foolish to assume someone closer to her own age would have “gotten it,” her experiences and suffering. Still, because Tom understood, and only after so short a time, she thought the idea had slight merit.

Wanting to make some sort of noise to express herself, she began to sing. It was a simple song in Werewelsh, her first language. She’d grown up surrounded by the language developed by werewolves for their own kind, and although other people spoke it now, it remained mostly shared among the ones who had to change at the full moon. Werewolves largely did, though, and she was, first and foremost, a wolf.

She translated in her head as she sang, loving the poetry even though it didn’t rhyme in English.

Moon of darkness, moon of light,

Moon of power and strength.

Moon of my heart, full and wise,

Be with me tonight.

Probably, she thought as her joy crested but didn’t recede, I’m being foolish. He hasn’t even said he loves me.

That was true but what made her heart sing was a simple truth, not complicated by whether Tom wanted to be her mate or not. “In all honesty,” she whispered to the night that seemed to be listening, “I never thought anyone could see past my scars and love me anyway.”

All right, so he hadn’t actually seen her physical scars, her dead name carved into her chest with a silver knife and made to stay because of silver powder. She hadn’t been quite that brave. Still, Tom knew she had a reputation, that she’d killed, and he hadn’t pulled away. Wasn’t that worthy of ecstasy?

She closed her eyes and resumed her singing. Now she sang a song of how the sky so loved the moon that he bid her to cross from one edge to the other so he might admire her beauty. The moon’s response Kailee sang too, reveling in the way the moon demanded something in return: to see the stars scattered before her like diamonds.

Once again, her joy crested until it filled her chest. She broke out in a light sweat. That was when she became aware that the exhilaration she felt wasn’t hers alone.

Wary because she’d been influenced by outsider forces before, although less directly or psychically, she mounted her defenses and scanned the area with her telepathy, seeking the source of the external, pushy force.

At first, she felt nothing and no one. Widening her circle of ability, she fumbled in the darkness of the in-between that existed in the psychic world. Reaching, reaching, she felt a half-familiar mind.

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,” Emily has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a passionate quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central or on her website.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Shapeshifter Central

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Apr 15

New Release Blitz: The Night Menagerie by Kathryne Lentes (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: The Night Menagerie

Series: The Pact of the Veil, Book One

Author: Kathryne Lentes

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/15/2025

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 25400

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Romance, paranormal, urban fantasy, lesbian, trans, shapeshifters, police detective, disappearance, role-playing game

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Description

Sah Williams is used to navigating the fantastical worlds of her own creation, but when her sister disappears, she is thrust into a world of magic and shapeshifters beyond anything she would have put to page. The only things she might be able to count on are a mysterious detective who she suspects has their own agenda and her novel’s main character’s voice whispering her advice.

Excerpt

The Night Menagerie
Kathryne Lentes © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

I woke to the sound of a person screaming. I sat bolt upright in bed and looked around, trying to remember where I was. There was no one else in the room, and I realized it had been me who had screamed. My heart beat like a jackhammer and I clutched the blanket to myself. Instinctually, I reached out to the right side of the bed, but there was no one there. There had not been anyone there for almost six months, and most nights, I had no problem remembering that. Robert had been a comfort in the darkness, able to quiet the nightmares I had. Nisha, my sister, had loved him for that. He could also make you laugh, no matter how hard times were. Everyone loved Robert—everyone but me, I guess, or at least I could not love him in the way he needed me to. I was most at home in solitude and did not really believe in just one person, one love, for the rest of a person’s life.

I reached out and ran my hands along my shoulder; the pain had been so intense in the dream when the beast had torn a chunk of flesh, I half expected to find blood on my fingers. I looked around at the plain white walls barely visible in the moonlight and took several long, slow breaths, forcing myself to calm down. Slowly, my heart began to beat slower, and my mind distanced itself from the nightmare and came back to reality. Okay, let’s start with the first question: where was I?

The room was small and sparsely furnished. I could hear the hustle and bustle of the street outside, even at this hour, and remembered this was my new apartment. I had not decided if I would stay in New York after my breakup. There were a lot of memories here, good and bad, and it was where Dominique lived. Dominique Fortune, an international thief and woman of mystery, is a character I created for my novels. Dominique had given me everything I had dreamed of when I was a kid. She lived in New York so, as soon as I could afford it, I moved here, even though I have always felt my real home is Saint Louis. Some people are method actors; I think I am a method author. I had to get into all the details and experiences of a character if the book was going to feel real when I was writing it.

I reached out for the notebook I kept by the side of my bed and tried to remember the dream that had shocked me awake. That notebook had served as a constant stream of inspiration, and I wrote down almost every one of my dreams, from the scary to the spicy. This dream was different somehow, and it seemed to be fading quickly; the only thing reverberating in my head was the howl of an animal and that searing moment of pain.

I involuntarily reached out again to the untouched right side of the bed. I knew I could have been using the whole bed, but even after six months, the right side was still Robert’s side. Not sure if the loss of the relationship had hit me so hard because of what it said about us or what it said about me, I lay back and closed my eyes to dispel thoughts of him and tried to return to sleep, but when I did the fear rose inside me like the beast was waiting for me in my dreams. I gave up and looked at my phone, but it was dead. The clock on the wall said 4:45 a.m. Well, it was too late for warm milk and cookies and too early for a shot of whiskey and a beer, so I figured I might as well go for a jaunt.

I got up out of bed and pulled out some sweats and a baggy T-shirt from the top drawer. Before I met Robert, my choice of outfits had been sexier, but now all I wanted was something that would not shred when I did a jump or tumble. Dominique had taken up parkour. Thus, so had I, joining lock picking, mastering security systems, combat driving, and generally being sneaky in a series of skills I had acquired to make the novels feel more real. Parkour or free running was all about trying to cover a distance from one point to the next in the most efficient way; usually that included flips, rolls, and jumps using any piece of available architecture to maintain your momentum.

“If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward.” As I said it out loud, I could hear my dad speaking. It was something he picked up in the service from some drill sergeant and passed on to us. I’m not sure what Dad would have said about my current career. His life had been built on service, and all I did was entertain.

I had grown up as an army brat traveling with my father. He went from infantry to the rangers, to OCS, and finally to a battalion command. It had been a long road and my only companion had been my twin sister Nisha. I allowed myself a smile that turned bittersweet. Whenever I thought of my sister, my thoughts naturally went to our mother. She had died in childbirth, and the only thing we had to remember her by was our names, Nisha and Sah; they were small pieces of her—well, our—Nepal ancestry. My parents had met when my dad had been serving in East Asia, and from all the stories he told, it had been true love at first sight. After she had died, he refused to be apart from us except when he was deployed in a forward position. He even put special effort into allowing us to develop our own identities and never dressed us the same or pigeonholed us into being like each other, except when it came naturally. Nisha was more of a girly girl and loved fancy clothes, while I was more of a tomboy and could usually be found halfway up a tree or on a rooftop.

He also decided at an early age to teach us how to take care of ourselves. We both learned general hand-to-hand combat, but he also gave each of us specialized instruction. Nisha was trained on how to handle knives and blades of assorted sizes, while I was taught how to shoot. When I was young, it had always seemed strange that my father had split things up between us, with him constantly trying for us to be a family, but I soon realized that it provided time for each of us to be with him individually. Also, it meant any of the boys who had tried to go too far in high school had an unpleasant surprise waiting for them.

We did have one thing that united us: no matter where we went, we loved stories. It started when we would constantly ask our father to tell the story of how he and our mother had met and their courtship. Then, when Dad was deployed, we would tell each other those stories, and it soon grew into us creating new stories all our own. We would while away the hours working on huge, convoluted sagas filled with action and romance. Nisha would come up with a grandiose flight of fantasy, and I would populate it with the day-to-day details that would make the story believable.

I was still focused on my memories to get rid of the aftereffects of the nightmare when I climbed out onto the fire escape. A moment later, I was on top of the building and sprinting across the heights, leaping, and rolling from one elevated position to another, hopefully looking like a cross between Jackie Chan and Spider-Man.

I had been a gymnast in high school, but this was so much more intense, and after a couple of months in the gym, I was hooked. I had replaced my daily jog with a run over the rooftops in my neighborhood. As I sped through the city, I saw a huge divide looming in front of me. The gap between the buildings was large, but nothing I had not done with pads on the floor. I dug my heels in and propelled myself faster and faster, but as I got closer, a little voice spoke up inside my head.

You’re not Dominique. That is a long way down. You can’t do this.

Contrary to what most people believed, being too gutsy was not the greatest danger to a free runner; the biggest threat was hesitation. The moment you were not confident, a person got hurt, and suddenly, my attention was diverted.

I panicked and slammed on the brakes, breaking into a slide. My feet kept moving on the gravel.

A moment later, I felt air under me. I started to tumble downwards. As I fell, I saw out of the corner of my eye a clothesline between the buildings. I had no thoughts, just a blind instinct to reach out my hands. I grabbed the rope, the impact causing the line to cut into my fingers, but I held on; for one long moment, my descent was stopped. I took a deep breath as I hung there, then the hook holding the rope to the far building pulled out of the wall. I swung backward, desperately keeping a grip on the rope, and slammed into the wall. The impact smacked the wind out of me, and I tumbled onto the fire escape.

“What the fuck are you doing out there?” A guy looked at me with a menacing glare and turned back to cooking his breakfast.

You gotta love Brooklyn. If I did this in Hell’s Kitchen, I would probably get some yuppie calling the cops. Brooklyn, a little profanity and everything is forgotten. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the protest of my body, and swiftly went down the fire escape to the street before the person I woke up decided I was a burglar.

I limped my way back to my apartment. As I walked in, I grabbed my mail. There was a package wrapped in brown paper from my sister in there. I threw the rest of the mail on the nearby counter and ripped into the packaging. It was a thick book with a note stuck to the front.

Hey, sis, I’ve been playing this new game and thought you might like it. I know you don’t normally do the DND thing, but you might find the world-building cool. Let me know what you think.

Hmm.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Kathryne Lentes has been writing stories as long as she could hold a pen in her hand. She is a transwoman who, when not working on her own projects, operates Paper Phoenix Ink, a blog showcasing queer creators. She is currently living in Saint Louis with her wife, two cats, and a pile of science fiction and fantasy books.

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