Friday's here! Which means I get to read to you! This week. the lovely Ro Merrill has sent me an excerpt for her new release,  You Can Do Magic: Carnival of Mysteries. A bit of time travel and rock stars with your romance? But of course :D Come have a listen:

You Can Do Magic
Carnival of Mysteries
(Summer of Hush 3)
by R. L. Merrill

​Amazon

From the author of Foreword Indies Finalist Summer of Hush and BookLife Prize Quarterfinalist Brains and Brawn comes a new installment in the series, a contemporary gay romance with a side of time travel and magic.

Musical prodigy Kallos Alexandrou has played his calliope for countless visitors at Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries, but his one-year residency has come to an end. Scars from a terrible tragedy in his past are the only explanation he has for his loss of speech and memory, but it’s time to move on, so when a music festival sets up next to the carnival, Mr. Ame sends him off with identification, a bottomless billfold, and a set of new clothes. Outside the carnival’s perimeter, Kal finds himself in an unfamiliar world surrounded by strange instruments and vibrant people like nothing he’s ever seen.
 
Ryan Wells is the troubled and celebrated lead singer of the metal band Backdrop Silhouette. He’s brought more than his share of baggage on the last cross-country Warped Tour, including harsh restrictions placed on him by his parole officer and the band’s label, but it’s the treatment from his bandmates that have him feeling unsettled. After a tough morning, he spots a strange young man playing carnival music on a keyboard backstage, and the sound takes him back to a particularly vulnerable time in his youth. Intrigued, Ryan asks the young man’s name, but he flees only to appear later as a replacement stagehand for the tour.
 
An invitation from the band Hush to ride on their bus gives Ryan and Kal a welcome distraction. They find the camaraderie and support they’ve both been craving…as well as a little magic and a fresh new romance. But the music business makes personal relationships difficult to maintain, and when the tour ends, Ryan and Kal will have to make a choice: move forward together on an uncertain path, or let fear keep them from trusting that sometimes you really can have everything you desire.
 
You Can Do Magic is part of the multi-author Carnival of Mysteries Series. Each book stands alone, but each one includes at least one visit to Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries, a magical, multiverse traveling show full of unusual acts, games, and rides. The Carnival changes to suit the world it’s on, so each visit is unique and special. This book contains a Depression-era calliaphone, a Ouija board with a purpose, and tour bus hijinks that will warm your heart and make you gigglesnort. Reading Summer of Hush and Brains and Brawn before this book will give you the full Warped Tour experience, but You Can Do Magic can be read as a standalone as well as the other books in the shared universe. Recommended 18+
 
Warnings: Mention of prior sexual abuse, off-page, no descriptions
 
​

About R. L. :

Whether she’s writing swoon-worthy contemporary romance featuring quirky, queer, and relatable characters or diving deep into the supernatural to give readers a shiver, R.L. Merrill loves creating compelling stories that will stay with readers long after closing the book. Ro writes inclusive romance for the Happily Ever After collective, contributes paranormal hilarity to Robyn Peterman’s Magic and Mayhem Universe, and pens horror-inspired tales and music reviews for HorrorAddicts.net. A mom, wife, daughter, and former educator, you can find her rocking out in her Bronco with Great Dane pup Velma, being terrorized by feline twins Dracula and Frankenstein, or headbanging at a rock show near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area! Stay Tuned for more…
 
Author Website: https://www.rlmerrillauthor.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/rochellerlmerrill/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/rlmerrillauthor
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rlmerrillauthor
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9828914.R_L_Merrill
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/r-l-merrill/
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/R.L.-Merrill/author/B00PI6Q1LI
​

Whee! It's Friday! And time to round out our September J. Scott Coatsworth Reading Day extravaganza! This week, though, we're not reading from an anthology Scott headed up, but from his own brand new novel, The Gauntlet Runner! Yaaaay! Come have a listen :)

The Gauntlet Runner
Tharassas Cycle, Book 2
by J. Scott Coatsworth

Buy Link

A GUARD AND A THIEF. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
 
Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven's a thief, which makes things... complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.
 
Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his ... friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.
 
Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik's ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to do try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik's stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won't let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.
 
Things were messy before, but now they're much, much worse.
​

About Scott:

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
                                     
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
 
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
 
Author Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor
Author Mastodon: https://mastodon.otherworldsink.com/@jscottcoatsworth
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jscottcoatsworth/
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth
Author Liminal Fiction (LimFic.com): https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
Author Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ

Happy Friday! This week I have a fun one for you - stories from the annual Queer Sci Fi Flash Fiction contest! 300 words, speculative fiction with queer characters, on the theme, Rise. The anthology of chosen stories comes out October 25, but I get to read you a selection early! :D Come have a listen:

Rise
The ninth annual Queer Sci Fi Flash Fiction anthology

Coming in ebook and paperback October 25!

Happy Friday, everyone! This week is our last installment of our Elevator anthology series of readings! I'm reading excerpts from three paranormal offerings from the anthology - stories from Pandora Pine, BL Maxwell and Eden Winters. :D Come have a listen:

Midnight in the Renaissance Elevator
A Charity Anthology
by Miski Harris, et al

​Amazon

Do you like mechanical devices with personality? Sure, who doesn’t? How about when they hold your life in the palm of their hands? Hmm…less sure now, yes? Don’t worry, you’re gonna love this.

At an LGBTQ literary retreat in October of 2022, a group of authors met a particularly cantankerous elevator. Doors slamming open or closed for no apparent reason? Check. Scary noises, also for no apparent reason? Also, check. Were we concerned for our lives? Okay, listen…
This cranky elevator figured heavily into conversations for the next few days, many of which included expletives in a dozen languages, but eventually, it became a (somewhat) beloved mascot. Some people actually chose it over the other elevators!
The resulting mayhem is over twenty-five different author takes on the underlying story behind the elevator’s peculiar behavior. Possession? Poltergeists? Personified mechanical objects? Vampires?
All these unique stories come together in one volume: Midnight in the Renaissance Elevator. Join us as we attempt to explain the unexplainable, rationalize the unrationalizable, and give imagination free rein.
Proceeds for the sale of this book benefit The Trevor Project, which provides crisis support services to LGBTQ young people. More information can be found about this worthy cause at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Friday's here! Summer is almost over! (small cheer for us heat intolerant folks) This week, I'm reading to you from Transform the World, an anthology edited by our good friend, J. Scott Coatsworth who gathered SF authors together to write hopeful stories about the future. Come have a listen!

Transform the World
J. Scott Coatsworth, et al

Amazon

Fourteen Ways to Change the Planet

Income inequality is worse than it was in the Roaring Twenties. Corporations are moving fast and breaking things, and the social contract seems to be falling apart, aided by social media disruption and division on steroids.

There has to be a better way.

We asked fourteen sci-fi writers to come up with innovative ways the world could work better. Universal basic income, smaller communities, AI voting, and learning to live in harmony with nature are just a few of the ideas explored inside these pages. So buckle up and settle in for a look at the world of the future.

The world’s not going to transform itself.