Book Review: Odd Spirits by S.T. Gibson

Great review for Odd Spirits from Katie over at Quills And Crystals:

“Odd Spirits is the literary equivalent to dark chocolate. Once I got a taste, I could not put it down. The writing style is absolutely gorgeous, and the story itself is immediately captivating. It was sweet and romantic one moment and brutally honest the next; plus, the paranormal elements made every chapter dark and mysterious in all the right ways.”

If you aren’t already following Katie, get on that! She blog about books, travel, politics, and the intersection of all three topics.

Quills and Crystals

40583018 Note: I received an advance reader copy of Odd Spirits from the author in exchange for a book review.

It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits.

Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.

Fans of The Raven Cycle and The Haunting of Hill House will devour this paranormal romance with a diverse cast of characters!

Like so many other writers I admire, I discovered Sarah Taylor Gibson through social media. When she announced that her novella Odd Spirits would be released this month, I could hardly contain my excitement.

I…

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Odd Spirits is Available for Purchase

Welcome to publication day! Odd Spirits is now available for digital purchase in the Amazon kindle store and (if you don’t feel like giving Jeff Bezos 30% of your purchase) on Smashwords for only $2.99! That’s less than your morning latte!

It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a modern ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.

This diverse paranormal romance novella is perfect for fans of The Raven Cycle and The Haunting of Hill House.

Can I read the digital copy without an e-reader? Absolutely! You can read it on your phone, laptop, or tablet for free without any special software

I only read print books. Will there be a paperback edition? Yes! As soon as Amazon approves my submission we will be in the paperback business. I will also be selling print copies direct from me if you prefer to bypass Amazon and get a free autograph out of the deal.

I pre-ordered a book and my order was cancelled? Sorry to hear that! Due to technichal difficulties, Amazon cancelled and refunded many pre-orders. DM and I’ll get you hooked up with your copy!

I’m strapped for cash right now; is there any other way I can support you? Reblogging this post is a great help to me! Also, if you’ve received a copy of the book, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are a blessing to me.

I’d like to donate some spare change to your writing so you can turn out more books. Do you have a Patreon? Yes! Every donation helps, even one dollar, and I’ve got cute bat-themed prizes for my Patrons.

Thanks for your support, and happy reading!

Hey Book Lovers!

Anyone out there want a free e-copy of ODD SPIRITS in exchange for an honest review on their blog/social media and Amazon?

It takes a lot of commitment to make a marriage between a modern ceremonial magician and a chaos witch work, but when a malevolent entity takes up residence in Rhys and Moira’s home, their love will be pushed to the limits. Brewing up a solution is easier said than done when your magical styles are polar opposites; throw a psychic ex and a secret society in the mix, and things are bound to get messy.

Think The Haunting of Hill House meets The Raven Cycle with a multicultural married couple and LGBTQ protags. The book is novella length at just under 100 pages, so it’s a perfect weekend read.

odd spirits

Comment below or shoot me a message at sarahtaylorgibson@gmail.com if you’re interested and I’ll hook you up, no strings attached! E-copies will be sent out early next week.

Non-book bloggers, make sure to mark Odd Spirits as to-read on Goodreads,and keep your eyes peeled for a super-steal sale on pre-orders coming in just a few days!

Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

Keep your eyes peeled for an ODD SPIRITS cover reveal this weekend! Looking for a paranormal romance featuring hauntings, folk magic, a multicultural married couple, LGBTQ protags, and a secret society? I’ve got you covered.

Genre Spotlight: ElfPunk

BookRiot recently put out an article that had my little faery-loving loving heart all a-flutter, an introductory reading list in the fantasy subgenre elfpunk. Hallmarks of elfpunk include a modern urban setting, new spins on old folk beliefs about the fae, fast cars, a dollop of teen angst, and lots and lots of rock and roll. Elfpunk tends to skew towards Western European folklore, and never seems to get tried of staging ballads of lost love in hazy nightclubs or pitting roving gangs of sidhe punks against each other in back alleys. I would call it my guilty pleasure but there’s nothing guilty about it; elfpunk shaped me into the writer I am today, and it’s still my favorite genre to read, full stop.

Emma Bull is among the authors on this list, and should be as one of the originators of the genre, and so is Holly Black, an author who remains almost unflaggingly loyal to stories of fae and humans in the modern day. But one huge piece was missing, the sprawling, enchanting originator of the entire genre: The Borderland Series.

last border

The Borderland series is a collection of short story anthologies and spin-off novels set in the shared universe of Bordertown, a city on the border of Faery and a large American metropolis. Bordertown is a shifting, dangerous place full of buskers and runaway teens and rock bands looking to strike it big in clubs crawling with feuding species. The original anthologies captured the wild dirty color of youth culture in the eighties, and were so successful that a follow-up anthology was published in 2011 featuring writers who had cut their teeth reading Borderlands books as kids, heavy hitters like Catherynne Valente, Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Cassandra Clare, and Charles DeLint.

border2 — I checked the 2011 reboot out from my library three times in high school. Three.

It’s impossible to overemphasize the ripples Bordertown has made in the fantasy world; some people say it kicked off the urban fantasy genre wholesale. It’s inspired in part by Terri Winding’s experience of being a young artist in the mean streets of New York, which is an excited/terrified/starry eyed bouquet of emotion that so many of us can relate to. Everything Windling touches turns to gold, especially her anthologies, but the Bordertown Series is by far the most iconic.

So if you’re looking to get into some anachronistic, enchanted reads, don’t pass up this series. It’s really true what they say: even after all these years, Bordertown is always there waiting for you.

Brontë Lovers Rejoice!

It is a good week for Charlotte Brontë fans, as two previously unpublished manuscripts have been rescued from obscurity by the Brontë Society and are slated for publication in autumn of 2018.

charlotte-bronte

In a very Brontë -esque twist, The 77-line poem and 74-line story were found pressed between the pages of a book belonging to Charlotte’s mother, which was salvaged from a shipwreck off the coast of Devonshire in 1812. The book and its precious contents were passed around from private owner to private owner before coming to rest in the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire in 2015. As you can probably imagine, the book cost a pretty penny. According to an article in The Bookseller, it was “acquired with a £170,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund as well as support from the V&A Museum and the Friends of the National Libraries”.

That’s right folks. Not dollars. Pounds.

This discovery comes on the heels of a controversy regarding the appointment of actress and model Lily Cole as a “creative partner” of the Brontë Society early this year. A member of the society, Nick Holland, quite in a huff and accused the Society of giving in to the pressure to push a younger, sexier brand. What Holland failed to mention, however, is that Lily Cole holds a double first in Art History from Cambridge, has worked on a number of humanitarian campaigns, co-owns a bookstore, and is the founder of a “gift-economy” app that enables people to donate their services. She’s hardly uneducated about the arts, and is certainly not disengaged with the philanthropic world. Some other members of the society cried snobbery, and took to social media to remind their former colleague that the Brontës themselves had been young women struggling to be taken seriously due to their age and sex.

The new manuscripts, including commentary by scholars, a drawing by Charlotte’s brother, and annotations by Charlotte’s mother, will be in stores in time for the Christmas holidays with a limited edition available exclusively to Society members.

FICTION REVIEW: The Beloveds

beloveds

Title: The Beloveds by Maureen Lindley
Genre: Suspense/Gothic
Rating: ★★ (2/5)

Elizabeth Stash has never really loved anything in her life except Pipits, the cherished ancestral home of her childhood in rural England. Even when her mother’s favoritism for Elizabeth’s despised little sister Gloria reared its head, Pipits was there to enfold Elizabeth into a voice that spoke through creaking wood and rustling curtains. Her obsessive love for the house only grows with time, and when Elizabeth’s mother dies she is certain that she, the eldest daughter, will rightfully inherit Pipits. But when the will specifies that Pipits will pass to beautiful, beloved Gloria, Elizabeth begins to hatch an ugly plan that will soon consume her entirely.

The Beloveds is a book that flirts with the supernatural but for the most part stays staunchly psychological, delving deep into the malice which Elizabeth nurtures and cultivates. Elizabeth is a narcissist who can’t properly empathize with other people, considers herself superior to them, and is constantly convinced she’s been wronged. As far as unreliable, unsympathetic narrators go, Elizabeth held my attention, though some of her diatribes about being betrayed bordered on repetitive.

The tension in this book ratchets wonderfully as the narrator becomes more and more delusional, and as her actions become progressively more criminal and poorly disguised. However, and to my great disappointment, this suspense ultimately comes to nothing. Elizabeth character’s steadily erodes, but the lives of those around her remain largely unchanged, as as the book reaches what I hoped would be a gloriously cacophonous crescendo, it goes out with a whimper rather than a bang.

The Beloveds is an engaging read that cultivates a Gothic atmosphere without pulling in some of the more scenery-chewing tropes of the genre, but ultimately, it falls flat. It felt like one long character sketch, and Elizabeth’s family remained so unbelievably oblivious to her machinations that I supposed there must be some catch, something hidden from the narrator that would be revealed in the big finish. Sadly, there was not, and without any satisfying cherry on the cake of nastiness, The Beloveds is ultimately an unremarkable summer read.

Note: I received a copy of The Beloveds in exchange for an honest review. The Beloveds is set to drop on April 3, 2018.