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Story spotlight: “Beneath the Knowe” by Anthea Sharp

From USA Today bestselling author Anthea Sharp, a magical faerie tale featuring an ancient Celtic setting, music, and the ageless denizens of the Bright Court.

Can music overcome fey magic?

When the chieftain’s infant son is stolen away by the fey folk of the Bright Court, Maeve Donnelly journeys beneath the faerie hill to save the child.

Her only weapon is a simple pennywhistle, and the music running in her bard-gifted blood…
 
 
“Beneath the Knowe” is in The Faerie Summer bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Growing up on fairy tales and computer games, Anthea Sharp has melded the two in her award-winning, bestselling Feyland series, which has sold over 150k copies worldwide.

In addition to the fae fantasy/cyberpunk mashup of Feyland, she also writes Victorian Spacepunk, and fantasy romance. Her books have won awards and topped bestseller lists, and garnered over a million reads at Wattpad. She’s frequently found hanging out on Amazon’s Top 100 Fantasy/SF author list. Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction River, DAW anthologies, The Future Chronicles, and Beyond The Stars: At Galaxy’s edge, as well as many other publications.

Anthea lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes, hangs out in virtual worlds, plays the fiddle with her Celtic band Fiddlehead, and spends time with her small-but-good family.

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Story spotlight: “Cauldron Bubble” by Rebecca M. Senese


Mathilde Blackmore needs to move out of her mother’s house pronto, but her new home has to meet some specific requirements in order Young witch Malinda Hazelthorn excels with the wand but sucks at potions work. So naturally her project for the Witches and Warlocks Special Exhibit demands both. As if that isn’t enough, a run in with Wenda Brazenwood leaves her facing the other witch’s wrath.

Will Malinda survive her friend’s help, detention, and Wenda’s thirst for revenge?
 

“Cauldron Bubble” is in the Witches’ Brew bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

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Based in Toronto, Canada, Rebecca M. Senese writes horror, science fiction and mystery/crime, often all at once in the same story. Garnering an Honorable Mention in “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” and nominated for numerous Aurora Awards, her work has appeared in Fiction River, Tesseracts, Ride the Moon, TransVersions, Deadbolt Magazine, On Spec, The Vampire’s Crypt, Storyteller, Reflection’s Edge, Future Syndicate and Into the Darkness, among others.

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Story spotlight: “The Scottish Play” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Portia uses her magic to solve problems—theatrical problems. She prefers to work alone, even though her two sisters possess magic, too. But her latest job, in London’s West End, poses problems not only because of the play being performed—the cursed Scottish Play (aka Macbeth)—but because she must deal with a magic she has never seen before. A magic rooted in her past and threatening her future. A magic that will take the three sisters together to fight—or die trying.

Originally written for the Fiction River anthology Hex in the City, “The Scottish Play” adds a clever twist to the legend of Shakespeare and the three witches.

“The Scottish Play” is in the Fantasy in the City bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

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New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

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Story spotlight: “Among the Shadows” by Louisa Swann

When Cal is “sentenced” to spend her summer outside with a bunch of gawky kids and stinky cows, she’s certain there is no worse punishment. Life without her computer is no life at all. All her friends, at least the ones that matter, are online. There’s no one in the real world Cal wants to spend time with.

Until she meets Troy.

But he’s not in the real world either.

Or is he?
 
 
“Among the Shadows” is in the Haunted bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Growing up in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada mountains, surrounded by deer and beaver, muskrat and bear, Louisa Swann found ample fodder for her equally wild imagination. As an adult, she interweaves her experiences with that imagination, creating tales of fantasy and science fiction, mystery and thrillers, steampunk and historical fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River anthologies, including Reader’s Choice; Mercedes Lackey’s Elementary Magic and Valdemar anthologies; and Esther Friesner’s Chicks and Balances. Novels include light-hearted mysteries (It Ain’t No Bull, The Trouble with Bulldogs) and her new steampunk/weird west series, Abby Crumb and Myrtle Creek (with Brandon Swann).

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Story spotlight: “Rolo the Great” by Annie Reed

A heart-warming tale from Annie Reed, one of the founding members of The Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly publication of short fiction some of the best writers working in urban fantasy today.

Rolo, a diminutive, courtly peddler of tourist trinkets, has at long last found the woman of his dreams.
Unfortunately, she’s trapped in the belly of a brass pig.

In a world filled with magic, a man with none finds himself at a distinct disadvantage. Not that Rolo would ever let a little thing like that stop him. For even a small man can accomplish great things in the name of love.
 
 
“Rolo the Great” is in The Faerie Summer. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Annie divides her time between writing short fiction (her first love) and novels in whatever genre strikes her fancy. Her most popular fantasy stories, including her Diz and Dee fantasy detective stories, are set in a fictional version of Seattle called Moretown Bay. She has two mystery series: the Abby Maxon mysteries featuring Reno private detective and single mom Abby Maxon, and the Jill Jordan mysteries about rural Nevada Sheriff Jill Jordan.

Annie’s background is as diverse as her writing. She’s been in a rock band, worked as a radio DJ, and taught tole painting. These days when she’s not writing, Annie spends her time in a law office working for a busy litigation attorney. She lives in Northern Nevada, and together with her husband and daughter, she shares her house with a number of high-maintenance cats. (Aren’t all authors required to be owned by cats?) A friend to backyard bunnies and kamikaze quail, Annie would probably befriend dogs, too, except they’d chase the rabbits.

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Bundle story: “Can You See the Real Me?” by Sèphera Girón

Welcome to the eighties!

A time when going off to University signified true independence, smoking in the dorm rooms, and partying.

Tia has her eye on the resident hottie, Dana.

Although she’s not terribly pretty, she hopes she can entice him in other ways.

Find out what happens behind closed residence room doors in this creepy little tale.

“Can You See the Real Me?” is in the Witches’ Brew bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

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Sèphera Girón is a multitalented artist with a background in stage, film, and music as well as writing. Her main love is horror and most of her work embraces themes of occult, metaphysical, erotica, and suspense.

When Sephera isn’t writing, she’s a professional tarot card reader. She also holds Certificates in Reiki and Touch for Health. Her acting has led her through theatre shows and movies, including Slime City Massacre and Killer Rack. She’s currently a co-producer for The Great Lakes Horror Company podcast.

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Bundle story: “Living with the Past” by Dayle A. Dermatis

Former Hollywood party girl Nikki Ashburne sees ghosts—in fact, many of them are her friends. Okay, they’re kind of her only friends. Most ghosts stick around because they’re happy here and have no desire to move on…but sometimes, they need help.

Like when a decades-dead Marilyn Monroe impersonator wants Nikki to find her granddaughter. In Los Angeles.

Yeah. That’ll be easy.

Another story in the Ghosted urban fantasy series featuring Nikki Ashburne.

“Living With the Past” originally appeared in Fantastic Detectives (Fiction River, 2014).
 
“Living with the Past” is in the Fantasy in the City bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Called “one of the best writers working today” by bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith, Dayle A. Dermatis is the author or coauthor of seven novels and more than a hundred short stories in multiple genres, including the first seven Uncollected Anthology anthologies and the forthcoming urban fantasy novel Ghosted. She is a founding member of the Uncollected Anthology project.

A recent transplant to the wild greenscapes of the Pacific Northwest, in her spare time she follows Styx around the country and travels the world, which inspires her writing.

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Bundle story: “The Scent of Roses” by Jamie Ferguson

Lori recently moved into an old Victorian which, as is often the case with old houses, makes creaks and hisses and all kinds of noises. Occasionally she hears three knocks in a row, as if someone were knocking on a door, and every time that happens she swears she can smell the scent of roses.

One windy night Lori’s brother, who had spent the day helping her work on the house, decides to tease her about the knocking sound – so she calls his bluff and tells whatever is knocking to come in.

And so it does…
 
 
“The Scent of Roses” is in the Haunted bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Jamie focuses on getting into the minds and hearts of her characters, whether she’s writing about a saloon girl in the American West, a man who discovers the barista he’s in love with is a naiad, or a ghost who haunts the house she was killed in—even though that house no longer exists. Jamie lives in Colorado, and spends her free time in a futile quest to wear out her two border collies since she hasn’t given in and gotten them their own herd of sheep.

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Bundle story: “The Flat Above the Wynd” by Alexandra Brandt

As a half-Wyndling, Sky Patel already carefully stands with one foot in her beloved Edinburgh and one in the magical Wynd, a realm just on the other side of any Old Town alley (if you know how to get there).

But now Sky must also protect the doorways between those two worlds. And when past mistakes come back to haunt her, she begins to question the one man she thought she could always trust. The very man who gave her the role of Protector of Old Town in the first place.

All this with new, vulnerable charges to guard against the grasp of the Wynd.

Can Sky even protect herself…let alone anyone else?

“The Flat Above the Wynd” is in The Faerie Summer bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.
 

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Alexandra Brandt spent most of her childhood dressing up in fairy wings and parading in front of the mirror telling stories to herself. Not much has changed — she still loves a good costume, and tells herself stories every day. Her stories appear in Fiction River and other anthologies. “We, the Ocean,” her story in Fiction River No Humans Allowed (Vol. 22) was described as “inventive, heartbreaking, and wholly original” by Hugo award-winning writer and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

When not spinning tales, reading, or debating worldbuilding details with her writer husband, Alex writes marketing copy for a medical practice and does graphic design work, including freelance book cover design. She also sketches, sings, watches too many Sci-Fi and superhero shows, and welcomes any excuse to sit down and play tabletop games — from D&D to board games to cards.

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Bundle story: “The Hutsu Hunter” by Valerie Brook


In the ancient world of Gwyndor, the mysterious legends of the hutsu hunters are passed down by oral tradition. They are the centenarians of the Northern Peaks, the witch hunters who protect the land from practitioners of the darkest arts—man, woman, or otherworldly.

Wynd is a hutsu, and she wears the battle scars to prove it. But when a powerful enemy from the past lures her to a wayward tavern in a remote village, will Wynd have the skills she needs to survive?
 

“The Hutsu Hunter” is in the Witches’ Brew bundle. You can learn more on BundleRabbit, Goodreads, and the bundle’s Facebook page.

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When Valerie was a little girl her parent’s television blew out one night just as the news broadcast ended. For some mysterious and fateful reason, they never fixed it. Not for five years. And during those five years her mother read to her nearly every night; filling her head with distant lands, magical creatures and heroic courage. This seeded Valerie’s childhood dream to be a writer. Now, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family and well-loved pets. When she’s not writing she can be found painting, riding motorcycles, or dreaming about living on an old-fashioned farm.

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