In Which Killian Becomes Concerned…

Hello, Champions!

We are a little over a month out from when you can expect to see Jade book 1–titled, “The Lies of Vampires and Slayers”–available for purchase! (No exact day yet, but it will be mid December!) This is usually when we as a community start prepping for the new series, so I thought I’d kick everything off with something I’ve never done before: a series teaser!

This extremely short trilogy teaser is from Killian Drake’s point of view (Killian being the main male character of the first Magiford series, Hall of Blood and Mercy) and it reveals Jade’s main male character’s connection to Magiford.

Spoiler info: This teaser DOES contain a few spoilers for the second chapter of The Lies of Vampires and Slayers. It’s information you’d see if you clicked on the “Read Sample” button on Amazon. It’s pretty general stuff, just not something I’d include in the book description because it’s backstory and is more about Magiford world building than the events of the book.

With all of that said, Click Here to read the Trilogy Teaser, and then comment below to let me know what you thought of our community’s first trilogy teaser! 😉

Stay tuned for the release date, series name, and cover reveal in the next few weeks! Until next time, thanks for reading!

Audio Books: Magical Beings’ Rehabilitation Center

The audio for Sheacon will be coming…soonish. I can’t give an estimate as I am happily on a short vacation as we speak, but when I get back to work I’ll work on making it available to you!

But! I do have some related audio news for you! First up, the complete boxset of the Magical Beings’ Rehabilitation Center is now available on Audible and you can get it on Amazon too. The narrator for this series was Natalie Duke – she also narrated Hazel in the Hall of Blood and Mercy series as well – and she did a great job with this story and capturing Morgan’s no nonsense attitude.

Click here for the audiobook!

Just like the Snow Queen series I decided to release the full boxset (including the short story collection) as one single audiobook so you can easily binge the whole series and you only have to use one credit if you have the Audible monthly program.

If you haven’t tried this series before, if is a paranormal romance/urban fantasy that is set in the Midwest of the United States but it is not in the same world as my Magiford series. It is however, famous among the Champions for its humor–especially if you can handle jokes about Twilight. Whenever I ask the Champions to tell me what they like about this series the humor is always the #1 thing they bring up. Come for the paranormal romance tropes, stay for Morgan’s quick wit and epic one-liners!

It’s considered young adult because Morgan is a teenager in both books but the high school drama is pretty nonexistent–this series is more about finding the humor in what every day supernatural creatures would be like if they really existed in our world. (Vampires drink tomato juice, werewolves have fleas, cyclops run multimillion dollar businesses, that sort of thing!) The side characters really steal the show in this series with their zany personalities and hysterical antics.

And now for some more Audio book news:

What’s coming next for audio books? Well you can always get the most up-to-date news by checking my coming soon page, but I’ll save you a click and let you know that the King Arthur and Her Knights audio book has started recording and me and the audio team are hopeful it will be available this fall. (We’re going with late October-ish, maybe November because the closer we get to Christmas the longer Audible takes to approve audio files.) The Gate of Myth and Power series will be the next series after King Arthur and you can expect it in early 2024. (Originally I was hoping to get King’s Captive out before Christmas…and then I remembered Audible sometimes takes a full month to OK projects in November/December. So it is not looking good, and it would be better if you plan for 2024 for all three books.)

I also uploaded an experimental audio short story to my Youtube series for my Twisted Tale short story. (This was part of the SheaCon goodie bag but I wanted to make sure you saw it.) It’s an experiment because we created this using an AI voice not a human narrator so we could make it free for everyone to listen to. If you have a Youtube account please like/comment on the video so we can determine if we should make more of these.

I will continue to use human narrators for all my audiobooks available for purchase, but I wanted to try something different and it’s amazing how much the AI “robot” voices have improved. And let me also take this chance to plug my Freebies and Extra page where you can find Twisted Tale and all my other short stories that are stand alone or related to one of my existing series!

That’s all for today, but I wanted to thank you Champions again for all the love and support you showered on me with the loss of Perfect Dog. Thank you so much for the stories and (in Facebook’s case) pictures. It really did help.

Hades and Persephone Retellings

The story of Hades and Persephone is probably the most well known love story in Greek mythology. (It's my personal favorite out of all the Greek myths!)  If you find yourself craving more Hades and Persephone stories, you should take a look at this list of clean/sweet romance retellings.

I’ll start this list off with two special call outs:

The Gate of Myth and Power trilogy by K.M. Shea (yes! that's me!)

This is a funny, urban fantasy retelling in which my version of Persephone disguises herself as a cat, and is unwillingly adopted by Noctus–the elf king of death aka my version of Hades–as his new pet. It’s an unusual start to the story, but you’ll see lots of familiar Greek characters, like Kerberos and Charon!

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

I love this book. You NEED to read it! It’s so fun, and twisty, but so cute! (The publisher put a darker cover on it right now–I have no idea why. It’s the quintessential fantasy romance, so don’t be scared off by it!) It is single-handedly is responsible for turning me into a fantasy romance nut.

The rest of the recommendations on our list were put together by from the reader community (thanks to Discord Admin Vin for organizing these). We asked for no spice and low language suggestions only but check the reviews if content is a concern for you.

Abandon by Meg Cabot

Seeking Persephone by Sarah M. Eden

Of Earth and Shadows by Kimberly A. Rogers

Dark King and the Eternal Dance by Alesha Adamson

The Concord Coalition by Kenley Davidson

The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle

Linnet and the Prince by Alydia Rackham

Phone Home, Persephone by Kate McMullan

Persephone the Phony by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

Persephone the Daring by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

The Darkest Summer by Rebecca Greenwood

Peaceweaver by Everly Haywood

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

The Soulless Slipper by Abigail Manning

Tempting Hades by Emma Hamm

This Rotting Heart by Celeste Baxendell

Dawn by Camille Peters

Snapdragon by Sarah Beran

The Spring Maiden by Allison Anderson

This list is pretty short right now as the majority of the Hades and Persephone retelling are spicy, but I will add to this list whenever I find a new book that applies!

If you're looking for more books for your TBR I have a whole series of these blog posts featuring book recommendations and lists of popular retellings. Click here to start reading through all of them or use the Book Lists category to filter them.