Christmas Kindle Sale: 3 Books at 0.99

To celebrate the Christmas season, from now until January 6, On the Soul of a Vampire, the first book in the On the Soul Series, and both books of the Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files, Mareritt and Vingede, are on sale on Amazon Kindle for only 0.99.

For some it takes a lifetime to discover their raison d’être. Imagine searching for eight centuries. In 1997 Philadelphia, an 800 year old vampire comes face to face with his reason to be when he discovers a young mortal woman whose understanding of immortality is about to change all he’s known as truth. Obsessed with the mystery of her knowledge, he embarks on a journey that leads him not only to his childhood home in the Provençal Alps, but into his greatest hopes and dreams, fears and disappointments, and into the strange and frightening past that shaped him. A novel about faltering faith and never-ending hope, On the Soul of a Vampire will not only alter everything you think you know about vampires, it will change the way you see your very soul.

 

 

 

As beauty lies sleeping…

 

Four pretty, partying high school seniors, four strange and startling accidents the police believe the girls have brought on themselves. Do demonic nightmares and fairy tale visions bury a dark secret haunting the girls or is the past simply struggling to reach the light?

 

Twenty-eight year old former novitiate turned PI, Tobias Berger, hired to discover who, if anyone, is threatening the four troubled young women, is about to embark on a wild “mare ride” to slay their dragon and uncover the truth.

 

A dark fairy tale mystery with a touch of mystic light.

 

 

 

A possibly schizophrenic adolescent boy who speaks mysterious, rhyming riddles… a mute teen girl who can only communicate through art and has an odd collecting habit… Two young people held captive by unrelated mental illness or is there a sinister connection between the cases – a swan song cry no one has yet heard?

 

When former novitiate turned PI, Tobias Berger, is hired by the foster father of a teen whom his unusual new client believes may have knowledge of an undiscovered crime, the private eye finds himself immersed in two cases stranger and darker than the one which introduced him to his current secretary, a young woman who’s much more to him than an employee. As the pieces in an eerie puzzle come together and the couple begins a relationship that Tobias has been hesitant to let take flight, the two discover that the supernatural is far from done with them and that the mystical may well be at work in more than one aspect of their lives.

 

Another fairy tale mystery in which the paranormal proves itself business as usual.

 

 

I'm also currently finishing work on my fifth book, a new stand-alone novel, called Unless, which is in a different genre from my previous supernatural/metaphysical fiction stories. It's a New Adult/Contemporary Fiction novel about power, pain and the problem of physical pleasure that can know a body but can't know a person. A sneak peek at the cover and preliminary book description will be coming soon and an early 2014 release is expected.

 

A beautiful and blessed Christmas to those who celebrate it and a happy holiday season to all.

 

Some Books Are Harder to Write Than Others

To celebrate her newest release,  Demon's Grip, the third book in the  Diamond Peak Series, I'm honored to feature a guest post by the exceptional author, Tahlia Newland, on the challenges and rewards of writing metaphysical fiction. As Tahlia has kindly noted, I've had the great fortune to work as an editor or her outstanding fantasy and magical realism novels and highly recommend her original and creative blend of adventure-filled magical fantasy and real world metaphysical reflection.

Some books are harder to write than others

 

Sometimes I wish I could write a story that is just a story, not one threaded through with philosophy like my stories, but I never could, because that isn't me. It would be a lot easier though, and that appeals to my lazy side, but it wouldn't satisfy me. I like novels with a touch of metaphysics in them, and authors always write the kind of books they like to read.

The most difficult aspect of writing metaphysical fiction is that you need to remain true to whatever philosophy you're working with without it being either didactic or extraneous to the story line. It also needs to be expressed in universal terms that relate to people of different world-views, otherwise it becomes religious fiction which has a different purpose.

I find myself faced with interpreting the technical language of my area of study, Buddhism into simple language that means the same thing but doesn't have religious overtones. Also, my books have teens as their main characters so the language has to be teen-speak.

Before you can simplify anything without destroying its integrity, you need to have studied the philosophy enough to understand it well. I can confidently say that I have done that, and I have no problem interpreting the simple concepts and weaving them into the story, but I was ambitious (sometimes I think foolish) enough to choose a theme for a series that required me to go deeper, and that's when things can get tricky.

Book one sets the scene with a simple idea, that of demons that are an external manifestation of emotions. My characters use skills learnt in meditation to defeat the demons, but before my central character, seventeen-year-old Ariel can do this, she must learn how. So, within this book are genuine and complete meditation instructions, and yet the word meditation does not appear even once. 

Yet this is essentially a new adult fantasy with all the elements of any great example of that genre ie romance, adventure, humour and life threatening battles!

I have just released book three, Demon's Grip, and it was the hardest book to write, because it had to explore the difference between wanting something and craving it. Why? Because the demon lord, Emot, bodyguard to the Master Demon, feeds on craving.

Finding the right words wasn't easy. Luckily I have a fabulous editor, Krisi, who by questioning the meaning of what I had written helped me to write it as clearly as possible.

All this talk about  concepts might make the book sound heavy, but it isn't. The demons are pretty sleazy, as demons should be, but all my writing has a light touch. There's a grumpy but amusing talking cat, a mysterious magician, a handsome young man, a gutsy nearly eighteen- year-old and a quirky but wise old man, and it takes place in our own time, in a realm hidden within our world.

 

Here's some perceptive things people have said about the series.

 

 “I can't even begin to describe all of the action you'll find in this highly imaginative journey. This is a fantastic depiction of a fight between good and evil.” Crazy Four Books.

"A magical world with an exceptional well-written ribbon of 'real world' weaved throughout."  Twisted Sense Book Blog

“This world is the context for Ariel, a young woman in the grip of a prophecy, desperately trying to rescue her mother before her mother is killed... or worse.” Ruthanne Reid, author of The Sundered.

 

“A beautifully written, exciting fantasy-adventure with vibrant description.” Krisi Keley, author of Mareritt.

 

It’s always best to start at the beginning of a series though, so to inspire you to do just that, book one in the series is only 99c until the 6th July on Kindle and Kobo, so pick it up and read your way to the top of Diamond Peak.

 

You can also pick up a FREE short story prequel to the Series here.

If you’ve read books one and two, you can find Demon's Grip at your Kindle Store , Smashwords & Kobo

Post by Tahlia Newland, the award-winning fantasy and magical realism author with a metaphysical twist. If you enjoyed this blog post, you can join her on Facebook , Twitter or Google+ You can even fan her on Goodreads. When not reading, writing, reviewing or mentoring authors you may find her being an extremely casual high school teacher or making decorative masks. Tahlia began writing full time in 2008 after twenty years in the performing arts and a five-year stint as a creative and performing arts teacher in a High School. In 2012, she set up the Awesome Indies List to showcase quality independent fiction. She has had extensive training in meditation and Buddhist philosophy and lives in an Australian rainforest south of Sydney. Creativity is her middle name!

 

 

Mareritt: The Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files Now Available in Paperback and on Kindle

My newest release,  Mareritt, the first book in the  Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files, is now available in both paperback and on Kindle. Readers who enjoy mystery/suspense, fairy tales and supernatural metaphysical fiction, or those simply looking to try something new, can check out sample chapters at the links below. (The paperback and Kindle pages aren't linked yet, so I've included a link to each separately.) The paperback is currently on sale for $9.49 and the Kindle version is only $2.99.

Paperback

Kindle

As beauty lies sleeping…

 

Four pretty, partying high school seniors, four strange and startling accidents the police believe the girls have brought on themselves. Do demonic nightmares and fairy tale visions bury a dark secret haunting the girls or is the past simply struggling to reach the light?

 

Twenty-eight year old former novitiate turned PI, Tobias Berger, hired to discover who, if anyone, is threatening the four troubled young women, is about to embark on a wild “mare ride” to slay their dragon and uncover the truth.

 

A dark fairy tale mystery with a touch of mystic light.

 

My thanks to anyone who gets a chance to check it out and to all who give the story a read, I hope you enjoy it. Other e-book versions will be available soon and more Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files will be on the way.

 

What is metaphysical fiction?

For a really interesting article about a little-known genre that's been gathering more attention lately, check out this great post from Tahlia Newland (Lethal Inheritance, You Can't Shatter Me).  For those who enjoy reading (and/or writing) magical realism, mystical realism, spiritual or visisionary fiction and supernatural novels and stories, there are some wonderful insights and recommendations.  And I thank Tahlia so much for the kind mention!

http://tahlianewland.com/2012/11/28/what-is-metaphysical-fiction/