Drake Hall Vampires: Arts and Crafts

The vampires of Drake Hall are initially introduced in the Hall of Blood and Mercy trilogy and even though most of them are initially standoffish with Hazel, the female lead of that series, you quickly realize that they don't always act like typical vampires.

They really give themselves away in the related Magiford urban fantasy series and I'm going to highlight two very specific ways because I happen to have "props" for both of these!

Custom Greeting Card for Leila

The Court of Midnight and Deception trilogy focuses on half-fae Leila and her journey as the new Queen of the Night Court. Near the beginning of the series she mentions visiting the Drake Hall vampires to get a training refresh but I didn't have a chance to include it in the actual book. So I wrote a short story about it instead!

In How to Train with Vampires you see Lelia training with the vampires, and it also jumps ahead to her opening a card from them once she is crowned Queen.

One of my reader Champions, RayJay, was inspired by the card description to mock up an example of what it probably looked like just for fun, and she kindly allowed me to share it with you! Click here to see it - you can also print it out if you'd like your own version of it!

Josh's Scrapbooks

The fact that Second Knight vampire Josh maintains scrapbooks for his boss Killian and send them to Considine was confirmed in the Magic on Main Street series. And if you read this short story: The Annoyed Eminence you get to see Josh hard at work collecting photos for a new scrapbook starring Considine.

One of the fun activities during SheaCon 2024 was a dedicated Discord channel encouraging everyone to make a "scrapbook" page that could be added to the the scrapbooks that Josh maintains for Killian and Considine's "growth".

My team tried sharing these on social media, but they aren't default social media size so Instagram auto cropped them. :( :( :(

Because of that we knew we had to share them here on the blog as well so you could view them in their full glory!

Considine's emotional growth - created by BookDragon of Chaos

Happy Treason Day - created by AudreyRose

Fine Dining at Chez Killians - created by Alissande

Hand Drawn pages featuring Killian choosing a pony for Hazel - created by Pendragon

Scavenger Hunt: Summer Camp for Slayers

For the rest of July I'm hosting a scavenger hunt and the prize is a brand new never-before-seen story about Jade from the Magic on Main Street series!

I wrote this story way back when I was releasing the Magic on Main Street series. It was supposed to be the bonus for the first book, but it got so long on me that I couldn't finish it in time so I had to abandon it and write something else instead. I finally finished it after the series released but I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I've just been sitting on it... until now!

Here's your "Treasure Map" for the Scavenger Hunt:

As you can see on the map I'm breaking the story up into three pieces and releasing them separately:

• July 3rd: the first 1/3 of the story will go out to my Newsletter Champions (you have to signup for my Newsletter BEFORE July 3rd if you want to make sure you get this first part!)

• July 10th: the second 1/3 of the story will be published on my Instagram and Facebook Page

• July 17th: the final 1/3 of the story will be published in Discord and in the Facebook Group

• July 30th: I will publish the full story on my website and via a blog post*

*If you follow along with the scavenger hunt you will get to read 1/3 of the story each week. Or, if you are willing to wait until July 30th you can read the full story at that time.

As you can probably tell from the fact that I am breaking this story up, this story is much longer than my typical short stories and I'm not really sure if I should call it a short story or a novelette!

I know it's hard to tell in the tiny thumbnail of the cover (because YES! this story has it's own dedicated cover!) but Jade has long hair in this story because it takes place before the start of The Lies of Vampires and Slayers. She actually references the events of this story in the Magic on Main Street series and it's the reason why she knows so much about werewolf abilities.

I hope you enjoy this fun Scavenger Hunt Champions and have a great time!

Audiobook: The King's Queen

The final audiobook in the Gate of Myth and Power series, The King's Queen, released earlier this month in audio and it is now available for you to listen to on Audible!

Click here to buy it now or listen to the sample!

Here are some helpful links if you want to check out the earlier books in the trilogy:

Book 1: The King's Captive

Book 2: The King's Shadow

Words cannot express how happy I am Champions that this series is finally available for you to enjoy! Thank you to everyone who has been waiting so patiently for Noctus and Chloe to make their audio debut! I hope you loved the final product!

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the first two books, here's a few reviews from book 1 (spoiler free!):

"Excellent narration! I think this was one of my favorite narrations of KM Shea’s books. Smooth, emotive without being irritating. Well performed. I’m sure I will listen to it again."

"The narrator for this series is fantastic. She nails every nuance and manages to communicate panic without being overly shrill. This series is one of the funniest of the Magiford world, and she gets that. highly recommend."

"Based on the bland, cheesy cover art, I was expecting a trashy teen romance, but instead I discovered a book that's been incredibly charming, sweet, well written, & even funny. I can't wait to listen to the next book. The 2 narrators were great too. This is a hard book to dislike!"

Other Audiobook news:

Next up the audio team is tackling the three standalone stories in the Elves of Lessa series. It's too early to guess the release dates for these but we are super optimistic at least the first audiobook will release later this year!

Once fact I can share is these books are once again dual narrated so there will be a male narrator for the male POV scenes and a female narrator for everything else. And we are changing the narrators for each book to match the character personalities!

Once all three of the Elves of Lessa books are released (probably in early 2026) we will start to evaluate other potential audio projects!