Falstaff Books releases Winter's Sting from Sara Bond!

More Faerie Urban Fantasy!

To stop a killer, bartender and Gate Keeper Siobhan sacrificed herself to the Gate between the human and Fairy realms, only to emerge with a powerful magic she can’t control. Now it seems everyone wants a piece of her. To the Summer Court, she’s a challenger. To the Winter Court, she’s a threat. And to the Fair Folk, a growing political movement of solitary fae, she’s a potential savior.

When several members of the Winter royal families are killed, all signs point to the Fair Folk trying to start a revolution against the Courts, setting Siobhan up as their new Queen. That’s news to her, as she wants nothing to do with the political fights of the fae. Still, several Winter Courts name her enemy number one and threaten the Greenwood Knoll as a hub for political unrest.

Siobhan may not be able to control her new magic, but she’ll have to master it as she travels across through the Gate to Fairy to defend herself and her community. Solitary by nature, she will be forced to call on every connection she has, from her sister Bryony who is poised to take the Atlanta Summer throne, to Thierry Kellan, the powerful solitary fae who seems to be everywhere he’s not wanted.

She has already shown she’ll sacrifice herself to save her found family. But now with a murder mystery confronting her that spans both Atlanta and Faeire, how will Siobhan know who to trust?

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Quincy Harker is back!

Quincy Harker is back, and this time he's really living up to his nickname!

Order the print book, get the ebook free! Remember, all Falstaff Hardcovers and Paperbacks include the ebook at no additional charge!

Mysterious bodies are showing up around Charlotte, bodies of shifters with no discernible cause of death. Harker's investigation leads him to a biker bar, a meeting of lycanthropes at Mort's, a coffee bar battle in a South Charlotte bookstore, and eventually to an underground fight club for paranormal creatures and cryptids.

Who's running the fight club? Who's killing the losers? It's hard to find out, because everybody knows the first rule of fight club, and nobody's talking. So Harker has to go undercover in a series of bloodier and bloodier cage fights until he can figure out the real motives behind this series of dead paras in the Queen City.

And the answer will be something, and someone, he never expected. Bloodshed and betrayal lurk around every corner, and before it's all said and done, everyone will know why they call Quincy Harker Reaper.

Available in hardcover, paperpack, or ebook.

Pixie Dusted - Out Now!

Get your mitts on the awesome third installment in the Fractured Fae series!

Chessa Moon and Gwendolyn Evenshine started C&F Investigations with a clear objective: pursue justice for the countless fae who’d been let down by the system. Unfortunately, the lines of succession and a botched insurrection tore Gwen away, leaving Chessa to press on without her partner.

With help from Norman, a rehabilitated criminal wizard, and Cross-Eyed Quincy, a disreputable half-ogre, C&F scrounges for business, crippled by its connection to the Seelie Throne.

Until Xander Aster is pushed through the front door.

Xander’s brother Mandrake was murdered, and the teenaged pixie doesn’t believe the story the cops are selling. When the case leads to Avalon, the seat of Seelie power, Chessa must determine who is trustworthy before the magic inside consumes her and a new evil is let loose upon the world.

Available from: 

• Amazon
• Direct (Falstaff Books)
• Other Retailers

Falstaff Books Introduces a New Badass Urban Fantasy Series Starter, The Driver of Serpents!

It's just NOT Saint Patrick's day...

St. Patrick has seen better days.

The reincarnation of Ireland’s patron saint and your favorite screw-up’s reason to drink in March has quit the Vatican again, tired of serving as one of their exclusive exorcists amid the constant corruption. Well and pissed, he gets on a plane…

And goes to New York, of all the dreadful places.

But the call to serve never ends, and on a dark trail of clues given to him by a strange demon, St. Patrick must navigate the city from the booze-soaked bowels to its glittering heights, uncovering a conspiracy that stretches back before Creation.

To stop it he must rescue the last Nephilim.

Locked and loaded with action-soaked comedy, The Driver of Serpents is the Urban Fantasy debut of a war between the forces of heaven and Perdition, archangels and demons, God, and the rest… and one Irishman already tired of it!

For fans of The Iron Druid Chronicles, Dogma, and Constantine, prepare for hell in this unholy thrill ride!

Available from Falstaff Books.

New Imprint Falstaff Dread Launches with killer historical vampire novel!

Falstaff has a new imprint. Ready for the next generation in horror? Read the killer historical vampire novel. 

Ten years ago, Ezekiel escaped one evil, only to watch helplessly as an even more ancient evil in the form of a vampire ripped his wife from his grasp.

Ezekiel’s hunt began in the ashes of his former life.

Now, the Civil War burns through the American South, and Ezekiel cuts his own swath of destruction, battling man and monster alike. Two unlikely allies join him in his quest: Will, a member of the Union's Ambulance Corp, and Kate, a young Confederate sympathizer. The jaded, world-weary hunter doesn't know if his wife is alive or dead, just that revenge is a dish best served bloody red.

Available from Falstaff Books.

Falstaff opens up The Starlight Contingency by Kyoko M.

Thrilled to announce the publication of The Starlight Contingency by Kyoko M.! This is an awesome adventure SF story of family, found family, alien invasion, and ne'er do wells becoming heroes. Check out this kickass new release from Falstaff Books! Ebook available now - print coming as soon as Amazon and Ingram's proof processes!

Orphaned siblings Scarlett and Duke Nam have had it rough. Cast aside by society, they've managed to stay afloat as thieves on the streets of Alexandria, Virginia. Things plunge straight to hell when a heist goes wrong and they're on the run from the cops, but after they stumble into a nearby home to escape, something seemingly impossible happens - the house transforms into a spacecraft and leaves the Earth's orbit.

Scarlett and Duke awaken to find that they are now prisoners aboard the Titan International Spaceship. The Earth has been destroyed by the Bergleute des Todes, AKA The Miners of Death. Scarlett and Duke are given the chance to become soldiers to fight the aliens who destroyed the world.

The only thing left for them is the hardest thing of all: Survival.

The Starlight Contingency is the new space opera from USA Today best-selling author Kyoko M. (She Who Fights Monsters, Of Cinder and Bone).

Introducing The Last (The War of Souls Book 1)

The War of Souls is lost

For five thousand years, the Nephilim, begotten by the angels cast out of Heaven, have fought to corrupt mankind. Opposing them are the Ageless, the offspring of the Seraphim. Mankind’s fate hangs in the balance.

But Hell cheats...

While Earth suffers a slow-motion climate apocalypse, the love of Heaven is losing the War, while the hate and lies of Hell are winning. When the last human soul is finally corrupted, Armageddon will sweep the Earth clean.

Only one warrior for Heaven remains, Empa, the last of the Ageless, daughter of the Seraphim Raphael, Angel of Healing. She is opposed by the full complement of Hell's minions, two-hundred Nephilim. She’s unable to quit, even though she knows all is lost.

But the war isn't over yet, and hope rises unbidden. Empa searches for a weapon that may tip the balance toward Heaven’s favor for the first time. With the experiences and skills of thousands of years, but an equal burden of PTSD, she is a survivor. She has learned from the very best and worst of mankind, finally shunning love to avoid heartbreak.

But love is her greatest weapon against the minions of Hell.

https://readerlinks.com/l/2577642

NEW RELEASE! HUNTER HOUSTON AND THE MOLTEN MENACE NOW AVAILABLE!

Are you ready to meet Hunter Houston: Horror Hunter?

Now available: Hunter Houston and the Molten Menace! The first of four novellas featuring Hunter Houston: Horror Hunter is now available in paperback and ebook for your monster-battlin’ pleasure. Paperback is only $5.99! What a deal!

About Hunter Houston and the Molten Menace:

When the South’s preeminent monster hunting badass vanishes without a trace, it’s party time for the weirdest, creepiest, most menacing things that go bump in the night. Is there anyone strong enough, brave enough, or stupid enough to fill Bubba’s shoes?

Hunter Houston is the Horror Hunter, the South’s Number Two Monster Hunter. He’s the guy who handles the small stuff. He’s not the hero we need, but he’s the hero we’ve got. When Bubba and his team vanish, Houston has to step up and handle the extra load. If only it wasn't so much like work.

When the war between two unknown cryptid armies breaks out beneath Atlanta, Georgia, the entire state is in deadly jeopardy. Diving deep beneath, can Houston put a cork in this situation before it spills out into the city streets?

Hunter Houston and the Molten Menace is available from Amazon (paperback). 

Hunter Houston and the Molten Menace
Written by Bobby Nash.
Cover by Tony Elwood.
Published by Falstaff Books.

New from Falstaff Books!

Magical Cursed Pirates!

From the author of the fantasy thriller Thief of Destiny and the bone-crunching sword and sorcery novella WAR PIGS sails a breakneck tale of adventure on the high seas and the devils waiting beneath it!

Already a legend among the corsairs of the Silver Coast, Captain Ngala of The Gamka and his cutthroats ply the Mirror Sea for glittering spoil, threading between the vengeance of the unforgiving ocean and the justice of the western empires always at their back. On the run after a night raid, success is in reach when his ship is moored in the mysterious Shallow Bay.

The crew’s terror multiplies as the dreaded song of a deadly brine-singer echoes across the waves, summoning a terrifying monster from the depths. Against the murderous onslaught of the horrific beast and the mystery of the enchanted singer, Ngala must stem a rising mutiny as desperation and bloodshed spawns fear and betrayal. Every secret, no matter how deep, must be unearthed to end the curse of Shallow Bay. With his ship, crew, and very family at stake, how far will Ngala go to rescue everyone and everything he loves?

For fans of Pirates of the Caribbean and Conan the Barbarian, voyage deep into the epic unknown in The Curse of Shallow Bay.

Available Now!

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Have you seen my body parts?

Hilarious Urban Fantasy from the Author of the Monster Hunter Mom!

Captain Perkins once again drags Waylon Jenkins, zombie and cosmetologist to the biggest Hollywood stars into a murder case. Eyeless, and missing hands, the bodies tingle the experienced officer’s ‘woo-woo’ sense and the captain demands that Jenkins help find the killer.

Unfortunately, one of the victims is linked to Waylon’s favorite client, and Hollywood “It’ girl, Mitzi (one name only). Meanwhile, Jenkins’ new luxury cosmetic line struggles with several federal agencies, especially since “dehydrated zombie skin cells,” aren’t an FDA-approved ingredient.

A new mystery man takes over as CEO of The Industries, “Miss Mango,” Amalia tricks him into building a treehouse for a charity playground, and his executive assistant, Mrs. Betsy Ross, floats through the house in a fit of ghostly depression.

And if that isn’t enough, Waylon desperately needs a body to loan him an ear.

Get it today!

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I never trusted that Edison fella...

Meet Kate Warne - Pinkerton, Savior of Presidents, Investigator Extraordinaire, Ghost.

Magical children, American legends, and the nation’s first lady detective come together in this thrilling fantasy for fans of The Wild, Wild West and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Kate Warne shattered the glass ceiling and helped save a President as the first female Pinkerton detective. Now she’s learning a new role in life – ghost detective. Coming back from beyond the Veil to continue her work, Kate and her partner Shadow are tasked with finding a missing girl somehow linked to the famous Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison.

But all is not as it seems with the strange inventor, and Kate begins to suspect that his strange assistant may be much more than he appears to be. What she learns is that Edison, the girl, and all her strange siblings are involved in something much deeper and far darker than she ever imagined.

Now Kate and Shadow must join forces with a traveling snake-oil salesman, a semi-retired combat airship pilot, Edison’s most famous rival, and a legendary riverboat captain and itinerant scribbler of tales to keep Edison and his mysterious cohort from calling forth an ancient power and possibly the end of life as we know it.

Pre-Order Now!

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In the darkness, hate festers...

A town's darkest secrets will be exposed. Will she be strong enough to survive the truth?

A successful novelist who wants to do more than just write scary stories.

A young widow who thinks there is no escape from a life she never imagined.

A plantation house with dark secrets that infect every corner of a small South Carolina town.

Will Jacob McGinnas’ dream house become a nightmare for him and everyone he cares about?

In 1837, Briarwood Plantation was abandoned when Ezra Woodbine slaughtered his fianceé’s entire family. Now, after nearly two centuries, life returns to Briarwood. But for how long?

Serena Decatur is a thirty-year-old Black woman trapped in a life she never asked for. Widowed, underemployed, drowning in debt, she is living with her in-laws in the small town where she grew up.

Bestselling horror author Jacob McGinnas wants to dig into the secrets of Briarwood and write a new book, perhaps the literary masterwork that will etch his name in the lists of great authors.

But as he enlists Serena’s help in bringing Briarwood back to life, they uncover a gruesome history of hatred and evil in Saxon County that extends far beyond the gates of the plantation and through time all the way to the present. Serena learns horrible truths about the town, her family, and their connection to Briarwood. Jacob’s writer’s block is shattered and he feels a bond with Briarwood and those who lived there. But is that bond imagined, or is it something real, something much darker?

For there is a power long dormant on the grounds of Briarwood, and it seems to be stirring. When it wakes, will anything of the town survive?

The Devil Makes Three contains scenes of racial violence that may be disturbing to some readers. 

Pre-Order Now!

James Palmer -- A Man at Loose Ends Gone To Writing

James Palmer is an award-nominated author of science fiction and pulp adventure. A recovering comic book addict, James lives in the wilds of Northeast Georgia with his wife, daughter, three dogs, and a metric ton of books.

Tell us a bit about your latest work. 

I always have a lot of irons in the fire. I'm writing a follow-up novella to my series in the Shadow Council Archives series from Falstaff Books, this time starring Allan Quatermain. I just wrote a story I'm shopping around in a Lovecraftian space opera world I'm developing, and plotting a story about Dragon Con. I wrote a space fantasy novella in the vein of Roger Zelazny's Amber and Van Allen Plexico's Lucian about a god-like planet conquerer with amnesia. in 2019 I adapted the late Jerry Pournelle novel Exiles to Glory into a one-hour audio drama for the Atlanta Radio Theater Company. They plan to stream it at virtual LibertyCon this year. I also wrote a comic book for Lucky Comics. Recently I edited War on Monster Earth, the third and final volume in a trilogy of anthologies in which the Cold War is fought with giant monsters instead of the threat of nuclear weapons. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I don't know that it was any one thing. I've always wanted to create and get paid to use my imagination. When I was a kid I wanted to be a movie producer, without having any inkling of what a movie producer does or is. Sometime early on in my high school years, I decided I wanted to write after I started reading Stephen King. I wanted to write something that made someone feel like King's books and stories made me feel.

Alfred Bester once said, "Put any man at loose ends and he invariable goes to writing." I've had a lot of odd jobs and dead-end jobs over the years, but there was always something in me that made me believe I was superior to my circumstances, that if I just got out of my own way long enough I could really do it. 

What inspires you to write? 

Everything. Other books and writers. A snippet of science news. Sometimes I combine two or more ideas that have been nagging me into something new. Reading (or rereading) great writers like Robert E. Howard, Harlan Ellison, and Ray Bradbury, even a trip to the book store makes me want to run to the keyboard.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work? 

I use a lot of Lovecraftian themes in my work, the idea that we are just small specks fighting over a dust mote in one forgotten corner of an indifferent universe. I like to play with time travel. But most of all I like the idea of the reluctant hero, someone who isn't equipped to lead the charge but does it anyway and figures it out by the end of the story. 

What would be your dream project? 

I would love to write a Marvel comic. I don't know which title. Probably the Silver Surfer. 

What writers have influenced your style and technique? 

A lot of writers have influenced me in different ways, including the above-mentioned. I try not to copy any one writer's style. Lovecraft's cosmology has influenced a number of my works and continues to do so. I love the idea of species and races that are far older than us and turned to dust before we came down out of the trees, but not before leaving behind their mysterious and often dangerous engineering projects for us to stumble upon. 

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do? 

My first full novel, Star Swarm. It has a number of structural problems that stem from the jumbled way it was written. If I had it to do over I'd probably burn it down to the ground and start over. 

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why? 

The line between art and craft is a blurry one. Every writer comes at it differently, with a different set of skills. He may be naturally good at structuring plot or creating rich characters. Everything else he or she has to learn. In a word, I think it's both. But those elements are different for every writer at different stages of their growth as a writer. Or maybe I'm just flat-out wrong. Who knows?

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

The planning stage of a new project, and getting out of my own way long enough to finish the thing. 

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not? 

I consider myself lucky to know so many creative people, not just writers but visual artists as well. Their successes buoy my spirits and their struggles give me insights into my own. They make me want to be a better writer so that I will work hard to become one. 

What does literary success look like to you? 

I've never really chased literary success, though I would certainly accept an award or two if one were tossed my way. I want to reach readers and sell my books and stories to as many people as possible. Success to me would be to write full time.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug? 

I have a current project, War for Monster Earth, the third and final volume in the Monster Earth anthology series. It's about a world where the Cold War was fought with giant monsters instead of the threat of nuclear weapons, and features stories by talented folks Jim Beard, Teel James Glenn, Nancy Hansen, Desmond Reddick, John C. Bruening, and Russell Nohelty, with cover art by the dynamite Jeffrey Hayes. You can check out the entire series here.

I'm also trying to guide people over to my Patreon, where I'm going to be serializing some novellas and stories. Readers can get full access for as little as $1 per month. You can check it out at www.patreon.com/jamespalmer.

For more information, visit: 

• My website: www.jamespalmerbooks.net
• My Patreon page: www.patreon.com/jamespalmer
• My Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/James-Palmer/e/B004QVULIK
• Monster Earth series page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08M6BKQMJ

Falstaff Books annouces Cabinet of Aberrations by Judy Black!

If Sam Winchester was the illustrated lady in a traveling sideshow in the 1900s, he'd be Hazel Finnegan.

Hazel has a power, and with that power, a responsibility. She hunts down the things that go bump in the night, and once she kills them, traps them into her skin via magical tattoo transference. Then she can call upon the monsters she's vanquished to help her take out other baddies. But she may have bitten off more than she can chew this time.

The troll was big, dumb, and strong as an ox, but that wasn't the real threat. The real threat lurks in the woods, and just maybe in whatever made her father disappear…

The Shadow Council Archives are historical novellas set in the universe of the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter books. They are the tales of folklore and legend collected by The Shadow Council in the centuries since their founding.

Get your copy on Amazon.