The City Between Series by W.R. Gingell | Weekend Reads (Lauricia Matuska)

 Pet lives alone in the house where her parents were murdered.

Of course, “Pet” is not her real name. It’s more of a job title, really. But when the knowledge of someone’s real name can grant power over that person, it’s better to keep that name to yourself. Especially when dealing with arrogant fey, eternally adolescent vampires, and the other denizens of the realms Behind and Between.

Four years after her parents were killed, Pet discovers another body hanging, horribly mutilated, outside her bedroom window. While she tries to avoid discovery inside her house, two fey and a vampire begin investigating the murder outside. This leads to them buying Pet’s house without knowing that she still lives inside and is exactly how she becomes the human pet of three other-worldly detectives.

Greetings and happy New Year’s Eve! I’m not one for resolutions -- I try to make improvements on an as-needed basis and for me they are, alas, regularly needed. However, I can agree that one thing I resolve to do every year is read good books. So, as we celebrate another transition from old to new, I’m thrilled to recommend that your first read for the new year be The City Between Series by W. R. Gingell. This series is a collection of urban fantasy detective stories set in Australia. The entire series consists of ten novels and two novellas that tell the story of a snarky mostly eighteen-year-old who is thrust into the politics of the worlds Behind and Between as she tries to make sense of and resolve the murders of her parents. You don’t have to read the companion novellas in order to understand the books that follow them, but I recommend that you do because the events that occur in them are referenced frequently in the subsequent stories. (Read Cloudy With a Chance of Dropbears after Book 5 and read All the Different Shades of Blue after Book 6.)

These stories drew me in because Pet is so delightfully snarky. She is also relatable in many ways, and, while naive about much, she is very capable. Her interactions with the other characters in the series are witty and droll enough that I laughed out loud several times. While the series is extensive, the story lines are masterfully woven together at a pace that kept me engaged throughout the series. I even thought I’d take a bit of a break between the books so that I didn’t become bored, but I found myself jumping into them one right after the other, instead.

If you enjoy paranormal / urban fantasy with a hint of mystery and a bit of snark, then I highly recommend you begin your reading for 2022 here. I’d also love to hear your new year reading recommendations, along with other questions, observations, and remarks about all things related or relatable to Lands Uncharted, in the comments below.

As ever, it has been a delight to be among the authors who blog here. We hope you have a wonderful 2022 filled with grace, love, and peace. From all of us here to all of you, happy reading!

Story Snippets: Guardian Prince by Lauricia Matuska (Lauricia)

Greetings, all and happy fall. Only THE best season of the year. I adore the way the light takes on a richer tone and the air takes on a mysterious smell, and the mist... having grown up in a land-locked, semi-arid desert, I can't tell you enough how I adore misty mornings. I hope that you're finding this time of year just as enchanting.

Here's a snippet of my most recent release, Guardian Prince (book two in the Ceryn Roh series), for you to enjoy during these magical autumn days. When you've finished, I'd love to know what your favorite season is and why. Tell me in the comments below! 

        Sabine expected to walk into complete blackness. Instead, she found the cave faintly illuminated by a multitude of green luminescent specks draped like a canopy across the cave ceiling. At first, she compared them to stars—although she knew she was now inside the cliff and could not see the sky, she could think of no better way to describe them. Upon closer inspection, however, she noticed the lights were moving, squirming over one another, like—
         “Glow worms,” Koen stated, his head craned back to study the ceiling. “Gaoth will be beside himself when he learns of this.”
         “He eats them?” Sabine guessed.
         Koen chuckled dryly. “He can’t resist them though they make him very ill. His droppings glow for days.”
         Sabine grinned. Ahead of her, Gaelan snorted.
         A thought of Bree twinged Sabine’s heart. She wondered how the dog was doing without her, then reminded herself that Bree had Gaoth for company. Besides, Sabine would only be gone for a few sennites. The dog would be fine.
         For some reason she couldn’t explain, Sabine had expected the labyrinth to be constructed of carved stone, so the ruggedness of the path they now stood on surprised her. The glow worms were so numerous that they provided enough light to see by, but only just. Even so, everyone agreed it would be best to not use additional light, yet, in case it alerted the Rüddan to their presence. Because of this, Sabine stumbled several times as her toes got caught in shadow-concealed holes.
         Sabine checked the cuff often, worried that she would misjudge the distance between the twists and turns of the path. Fortunately, the glow on the armband seemed to fade behind them as they followed the trail, indicating where they were as they moved. Sabine was grateful for this, because the strain of peering through the gloom was making her head throb and her eyes ache so that when they came upon the first turn, she almost walked right past it.
         “Turn here,” she called, directing the others off the main path.
         “Are you sure?” Gaelan furrowed his brow. “We’ve already passed two branches just like this.”
         Sabine nodded. Displaying the armband, she explained how the path was fading as they followed it.
         “We’re here,” she pointed a fingernail to the spot where the black path behind them met with the red glow before them and turned right. “And we go there.”
         Gaelan nodded but said nothing before stepping into the new tunnel.
         Sabine led them like this for a while, constantly checking the armband and indicating turns as they came upon them. The others followed without much comment.
         Then the path ended.
         “What now?” Gaelan asked as they faced a wall that blocked any forward movement on the path.
         “The cuff says to turn right again,” Sabine said, looking from the cuff to the wall and back again.
         “I’d love to,” Gaelan remarked. “Would you like to tell me how?”
         “Look around,” Koen said. “Labyrinths are full of concealed paths. You just have to find them.”
Sabine’s face burned, the heat of embarrassment scalding her cheeks. What would she do if she had led them to a dead end? Could she have misread the armband, maybe misunderstood how it worked? She scanned the wall in front of her desperately, so focused that she almost missed the clue that revealed the hidden path Koen had suggested they find.
         It was the breath of cold air that caught her attention. She had stumbled yet again as she moved to inspect a new section of the wall and had paused to massage her ankle when the wisp of cold passed her face.
         “Did you feel that?” she called softly to the others.
         “Feel what?” Koen said as he drew near.
         “A small wind, as if from outside.”
         “Wind?” Gaelan’s voice carried across the path. “In a cave?”
         “Maybe a cross tunnel,” Aodhan countered.
         Sabine surveyed the wall doubtfully.
         “Don’t expect it to be obvious,” Koen cautioned. “The easy paths are often the deadly ones.”
Sabine nodded, not really sure what she was looking for until she felt another puff of cold air. Following the direction it came from, she examined the shadowy crannies and nooks until she found an opening that turned out to be much wider than it had initially appeared.
         “Over here,” she called to the others. “This crack is wider than it looks. If we go single-file, we can fit through it easily.”
         “The glow worms stop here, so we’ll need a light,” Aodhan said as he peered over her shoulder. “A dim one, though. The Rüddan will discover our presence soon enough without our announcing it.”
A moment later an orb of light blossomed in the darkness. Hovering near Koen’s shoulder, it was just bright enough to illuminate the path clearly. Sabine was glad for this since the new tunnel was just as rugged as the one they were leaving.
         The air grew colder as they walked. At first, Sabine welcomed it. The chill refreshed her as it cut through the still, dank cave air. Soon, however, it grew chilly. Not long after that, it became uncomfortable enough for Sabine to draw her cloak around her. Unfortunately, everything she wore was still damp, so the chill soon sank into her core.
         “Human, does that map of yours indicate any new turns?” Gaelan asked, apparently unfazed by the drop in temperature.
         Sabine checked the armband. “Not for a while yet.”
         “Then that gate is going to be a problem.”
         Squinting into the gloom ahead, Sabine envied her companions’ superior eyesight. She continued forward, reluctant to admit she saw nothing. “There’s no mark on the cuff to indicate any sort of barrier, but that’s not necessarily significant. It could be the map only marks distance and direction.”
        “Let’s hope so.”
         Just then, Sabine spied the gate, as tall and as wide as her former home in Khapor. Small black mounds dotted the ground before it, splayed randomly in a half-circle array. Yes, she agreed silently, wrinkling her nose as she caught a whiff of a charred, acrid smell. Let’s hope so, indeed.

Story Snippets: Guardian Prince (Lauricia)

Greetings once again, all!

I hope you are well and well-read. We are getting A LOT of rain where I live, but my house is high and dry, so I'm not too worried. Plus, it's great reading weather, and school's almost out for the summer, which means A LOT of reading time for me!

Today I'm sharing a snippet from my recent release, Guardian Prince (book two in the Ceryn Roh Saga). As you know, I'm a huge fan of fantasy, but it always vexed me that a deity-based magic system could be ultimately controlled by mortals. I always that thought that if mortals received magical ability from a deity, that deity should have the authority to decide when and if the mortals get to use it, or else why was he/she the deity? In Guardian Prince, I chose to explore what a deity-based magic system would look like if the deity whose power is being used not only could but did say, "No." This excerpt is one of Sabine's introductions to that kind of magic system. I hope you enjoy!

    Sabine followed a dry stream bed until she came upon a large stone jutting out into the path. Water marks stained the lower half, revealing the gradual recession of the river that had once flowed around the rock. The top was relatively smooth and flat, so Sabine sat upon it, settling into the safe, familiar comfort of being alone in the woods.

    She had not been there very long when she heard the snap of a twig. Sabine tensed, suddenly alert, but the noises of the animals around her continued unchanged, so whatever had moved nearby was not unfamiliar to the surrounding animals. Since this meant it was not an Aethel, she relaxed.

    “You have good instincts,” Koen said as he emerged from behind a nearby tree, “but you dropped your guard too soon. Although the forest knows me, that doesn't mean I'm safe for you.”

    “Koen,” Sabine greeted the Dryht tersely. Frustration flared within her, stirred to new life by his intrusion. “What are you doing here?”

    One corner of the Dryht's mouth curved wryly. “Communing with the forest. It's what Dryht do. Mind if I join you?”

    Before Sabine could say no, he sat beside her on the rock.

    “How soon do you expect to hear from Gaoth,” Sabine asked, her tone more terse than she intended. 

    “The bird is fast, but he gets distracted. A juicy berry here or a lovely she-raven there, and business is a lost priority. I don't expect him until morning.”

Sabine nodded, but grimaced inwardly. So much for that topic. “So...you knew my friend Mariel?” 

    Koen nodded. “She did much to fight for the freedom of your people. She was not strong in her use of magic, but she was diligent. She worked hard to master her ability.”

    Sabine shook her head. “I never would have thought it.”

    “That was rather the point,” the Dryht countered. “What about you? Your mentor believed you held even more potential than your friend. Shall we find out?”

    “What, now?”

    Koen glanced around, exaggerating the action as if to make a point. “You have pressing business elsewhere?”

    “All right,” Sabine consented. She truly wanted to say no, but it was clear the Dryht was not going away. “How do we begin?”

    "Technique,” Koen stated simply. “The last time we spoke of this, we discussed how all magic comes from one of two sources: the will of Torian or of Nymhon, depending on whom you serve. So. Now you learn how to tap into that power.”

    “Let me guess,” Sabine said when she recognized the Dryht's silence as a prompt. “A prayer? A chant? An incantation?”

    “All of those are options,” the Dryht conceded, his tone reluctant, “but each of them is time consuming. It's really just a simple matter of the will. You focus on what you want to happen, will it to occur, and it happens.”

    “As long as Torian allows it,” Sabine amended, recalling the night of Aodhan’s rescue. She had certainly wanted the arrowhead out of his shoulder, but nothing had come of it.

    “Yes, there is that. Still, calling on your will is much faster than any other option and is preferable in any number of situations.”

    Sabine was about to ask for an example, but she remembered when she had first used magic to rescue Danelle's baby from being still-born and kept quiet. As she considered it further, she could imagine many instances in healing when time made all the difference. “I suppose this method is the easiest to learn as well?”

    “Actually, no. The benefit to prayers, chants, and the like is that they help you narrow your focus and pinpoint your will. It takes much discipline to focus your will without them, because you can be easily distracted by everything around you. You must be able to block everything else out.”

    That shouldn't be a problem, Sabine mused, since she had been blocking out distractions all her life: her mother's criticism and negativity, her sister's snide comments. Blocking things came easily to her. 

    “Sabine,” Koen prompted. “Are you still listening?”

    “Yes,” she replied, chagrined at the way she had let her thoughts wander. So much for focus.

    “Then watch.” The Dryht held out his hand. A moment later a butterfly rested in his palm, opening   and closing its wings a few times before fluttering away.

    "Did you make that?"

    Koen chuckled and pointed to the opposite bank of the dry riverbed. “No. Creation of something from nothing is reserved only for Torian and the Creator God. I simply moved it from that flower over there.”