August’s Snippets
August is done, so it’s time to check out the month’s Saturday Snippets.
Now with 100% more Luminary!
W.A. Stanley
The Travelling City
After a hundred years of watching humans make bad decisions, anyone would be sick of their job as peacekeeper.
Reihan, a seaver created to deal with humans who lose control over their manifestation abilities, is no exception.
Worse still, virtually all humans in the Travelling City can manifest.
That is, shape reality according to their more or less well-formed and often poorly thought-out designs.
That alone would be enough to keep her busy, but then there are people like Phillippe.
Phillippe, who drenched himself in the city’s collective subconscious to strengthen his inborn powers.
Even though he shouldn’t be, he seems fine, crowned as the new star escort in the Brothel of Transformative Curiosities.
But Reihan has seen this story play out before. And Phillippe is far too charming, far too kind, and far too inconsolable for her to simply look away.
The Legend of Rachel Petersen
Did his book raise the dead?
Outraged when The Post Gazette overlooks him for a well-deserved promotion, 43-year-old Sports Writer Christian Kane quits the Paper and moves to the country to write fiction.
Inspiration flows from a lone grave he stumbles upon in the woods. He compiles “The Legend of Rachel Petersen,” a fascinating story revolving around the dead twelve-year-old girl laid to rest beneath the weathered tombstone. His book quickly becomes a Best Seller; then Hollywood turns it into a blockbuster movie. Kane becomes rich and famous. But then? Does an enraged Rachel become more than a figment of the writer’s imagination? Does she rise from her grave to seek revenge on Kane for slandering her name?
A Dream of Stars and Curses: Chaos of Esta Anderson, Book 2
Alright, so, maybe taking photos of people who don’t want to be noticed was a bad idea. Esta knows this now, and she’ll never forget the promise she made the Mara and the Dreamcatcher:
Stay out of the Veiled’s business unless they say otherwise, and learn everything—the many different types of Veiled so she can help rather than accidentally destroy, and all about Magick 101 from Kate, her friendly witch neighbour.
Only, as it turns out, not all Veiled are easy to spot, and soon Esta has every reason to believe she’s been cursed: There are growing tensions between her and handsome vampire bookseller Leverett, and not all of them pleasant (and those are not helped by some very vivid dreams); her sisterhood with her life-long BFF Bonnie is suffering; and the huge power imbalance between her and the Veiled grows ever more obvious when a jealous and deluded friend from Leverett’s past decides to deal with Esta for good.
Can Esta find the source of the curse and break it before she runs out of time…
And before she loses everything and everyone she cares about—including her life?
Daughter of the Beast: Book I of the Vyshivka Trilogy
“Fear not the beasts in your stories. For anything can be slain with a stout blade… and a stouter heart”
When her sleepy village is RAIDED by the Vulkari, the fearsome warrior-women of the Ancient Wilds, only Zyntael Fairwinter is TAKEN.
Claimed as a daughter by their infamous matriarch, Zyntael is trained to HUNT, to FIGHT, and to KILL.
In the company of their unruly young, she must find SISTERHOOD. In their ancient customs and beliefs, she must find BEAUTY.
And in the violence of their rades, she must even find a path to GLORY.
But it is a glory that must be earned in the BLOOD of those Zyntael once called her own. For the Vulkari are not like other women…
The Vulkari are MONSTERS.
Sketching Rebellion
Conformity is mandatory. But seventeen-year-old artist Breel rebels anyway.
In the city of Lexum, personal choice is nonexistent, and defiance is severely punished. Breel is alone in seeing the injustices in her world. Isolated due to her beliefs and haunted by the disappearance of her uncle, she finds solace in the forbidden act of drawing. Creating art is a rebellion against an oppressive regime that stifles self-expression.
When a glimmer of hope emerges in the form of a resistance group, Breel faces a decision. Will she risk execution to join their fight for a society which would celebrate rather than condemn her artistic skills? Or will she continue hiding her non-conformity?
The outcome of her choice will not only define her own fate but may also set in motion a revolution that could reshape her world forever.
wastanley.com 