A haven of magic, myth and mayhem! Blog stops, books, reviews, interviews and more. The site of fantasy author, poet and blogger A. L. Butcher.
For information about my Dark Adult Fantasy Romance Series please visit the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles page.
I have finally plucked up the courage to end my books in a blog tour – see the link and info below. If you’re a blogger, or would like to host me/my books on Facebook please sign up. It’s free to be a host – and you get a chance to win in the giveaway! 4th Feb – 4th March 2020. There will be review copies available, plus you’ll be provided with the materials to post if necessary.
Yay! Echoes of a Song came top in the NN Light Fantasy category for best book reviewed in 2019!
https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/post/announcement-2019-n-n-light-book-award-winners
The other nominations are here
Check out some of these awesome reads.
A dozen tumultuous years after the dramatic events at the Paris Opera House Raoul, Comte de Chagny is still haunted by the mysterious Opera Ghost – the creature of legend who held staff at the Opera House under his thrall, kidnapped Raoul’s lover and murdered his brother. In Raoul’s troubled imagination the ghosts of the past are everywhere, and strange and powerful music still calls in his dreams.
Madness, obsession and the legacy of the past weave their spell in this short, tragic tale based on the Phantom of the Opera.
Available on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and many other stores on the link below.
Universal Link https://books2read.com/Echoesofasong
Amazon .com http://amzn.to/2E7Cdu0
Amazon.co.uk http://amzn.to/2BJwAgk
Amazon Audio https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Song-Legacy-Mask-Book/dp/B07HCKG3WK/
Amazon UK audio https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echoes-Song-Legacy-Mask-Book/dp/B07HCM1624/
Audible UK https://adbl.co/2xlH8Tz
Audible.com https://adbl.co/2MRTQP7
https://books2read.com/DarkTalesTwistedVerses
Available in e-book, coming soon in print.
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tales-Twisted-Verses-Collection-ebook/dp/B07ZXM7TYH
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Tales-Twisted-Verses-Collection-ebook/dp/B07ZXM7TYH
https://books.apple.com/gb/book/dark-tales-and-twisted-verses/id1486156953
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark-tales-and-twisted-verses-a-l-butcher/1134703807
https://www.scribd.com/book/433380947/Dark-Tales-and-Twisted-Verses-A-Fire-Side-Tales-Collection-2
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/dark-tales-and-twisted-verses
Dark tales of ghosts of war, blood from the Autumn of Terror, the wrath of nature, an unusual murder and a cynical vampire. Twisted poetry of loss and mayhem.
Some adult themes and language.
Stories:
The Secret of Blossom Rise – A Ghost Story
The Watcher – A Tale of Jack the Ripper
The Last Forest – A Tale of the Wrath of Nature
The Last Dance – An Autumnal Flash Fiction
The Sleeper – A Yoyo Murder
So Many Nights, So Many Sins – A Vampire’s Tale
Poetry:
We Must Remember
Giving It All
Enigma
Yours Truly
End of Days
Empty Classrooms
The Glass-Eyed Monster
Calling all readers! Fill your library with N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Snuggle Up With These Books Readathon picks. 56 books from multiple genres featured plus a chance to win one of the following:
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $25 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $15 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $10 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
I’m thrilled to be a part of this event. My book, The Shining Citadel, will be featured on 14th November. I even talk about what I’m thankful for this year. You won’t want to miss it.
Bookmark this bookish party and tell your friends:
https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/snuggle-up-readathon
Calling all readers! Feed your book addiction with N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Binge-Worthy Book Festival. 43 books featured plus a chance to win one of the following:
1-30th August.
Winners are drawn on 1st Sept.
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $25 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $15 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $10 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
I’m thrilled to be a part of this event. My book, The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles, will be featured on August 29th. I even talk about the first binge-worthy book I read. You won’t want to miss it.
Bookmark this get-together and tell your friends:
https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/binge-worthy-book-festival
Here Be Magic Bundle – available 4th August 2019
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
Magic invites . . .
Curses and blessing, sorcerous time travel, shape-shifters, hidden enchantment and corrupted blood.
Magic demands . . .
Saving those you love, courage, betrayal and fights against unspeakable forces.
Magic promises . . .
Last best hopes, reluctant and desperate heroes, ancient power unleashed and the compulsion to overcome death itself.
Magic risks . . .
Forbidden spells and deadly bargains.
Here be magic!
From life to death, from realm to realm, from past to future and in between—dare you adventure with wizards?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VTY6G4H/?tag=kydala-20
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07VTY6G4H/?tag=kydala-20
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/here-be-magic
https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1474685562
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/here-be-magic-dayle-a-dermatis/1132724600
I am pleased to announce the release of my latest short story:
#Darkfantasy #shortstory #nature
When humans come to fell the last forest, they are in for a surprise.
A short dark fantasy tale of the wrath of nature.
Approx 2500 words.
Available as an e-book in all the major e-book stores.
Name: Madam Lise Giry
Which book/world do you live in? Tears and Crimson Velvet.
Tell us about yourself: I am a wardrobe mistress at the Opera House in Paris. I have been here many years – M. Giry died not many years after our marriage and the children from his first marriage ensured I was left with very little. I have a daughter – Meg – the only one of our children to survive and thus at first my life was hard.
How do you see your world? A friend, I suppose that is the correct term, arranged for my employment here. I have been seamstress, box-keeper, ballet mistress, and almost every role open to a woman in this grand establishment. I am eternally grateful to Erik, through his kindness my daughter has been educated, danced and we have had, if not a life of luxury then at least more comfortable than otherwise. Once I was an innocent girl with dreams. Now I am an old woman with arthritis, a heart that loved unwisely and memories of an angel in cage.
I have a kind benefactor – perhaps the greatest, but most unhappy and tragic of men. I could have a life so much worse.
What part do you play in this tale? This is my story, our story. The tragedy of the Phantom of the Opera is well known; the deaths, the disappearances, the music, the Opera Ghost. I knew the man behind them when we were both barely out of childhood. I suppose you might say I saved his life, and he changed mine.
Do you consider yourself a good person? I have tried to live a good life, a life to please God, and in that, I may have failed.
He could have left me to starve, or eke out my living in the slums, but he did not. He remembered me, and he repaid the debt he thought he had – and more. Women of my status and situation have very little on offer without a husband or money and I have seen many sell everything, including themselves. I could have, should have been one of those unfortunate women.
There was something about that young man, a caged songbird filled with despair, hatred and the most exquisite song, and marvellous tricks, even then. There is not another such as Erik, no do I believe there ever will. But that haunted, twisted face still appears in my dreams. An angel damned to wear the face of a monster and be shunned by man and god alike. I am not surprised he lived apart from men, and the tragedy of his misguided love happened. My heart broke that day. Now my friend is gone and the world is thus emptier.
Should I have told what I knew? Should I have turned in the man I suspected to be a murderer? Probably. Do I regret that I did not? No. Not for one single day. I should have told the authorities where he was, who he was and yet I perpetuated his legends and his secrets. Yet I have heard him sing, and seen the tragedy and the curse in his eyes. And I have been part of that curse.
Do you follow any religion? I was raised a Catholic. Do I still believe? I pray, but mostly it is out of habit. The prayers are hollow. I have seen, and been complicit in too much to believe I will be forgiven. Once I may have thought that, but many years have passed.
What is your favourite music? I love Opera – the glory of the human voice and the excitement. One cannot work here without that love.
Eclectica A Short Story Bundle
From fantasy to space adventure, pirates, mystery, horror, historical fiction, romance and coming of age you’ll find short, snappy reads herein. There is something for everyone in this lucky dip.
19 short stories and collections from multiple authors.
https://books2read.com/EclecticaBundle
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NWQ4YTP/?tag=kydala-20
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NWQ4YTP/?tag=kydala-20
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/eclectica-1
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1458246383
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1131078746?ean=2940161178102
https://bundlerabbit.com/b/eclectica
Blown – Diana Deverell
Socks and Pins and Aliens – Thea Hutcheson
Tales of Blood and Ink – Kate MacLeod
Tales of Tomorrow – Debbie Mumford
Shaken, Not Stirred: A Dawna Shepherd Short Story – Diana Deverell
City Shadows – Chuck Heintzelman
Outside the Walls – A.L. Butcher and Diana L. Wicker
Tales of an Altered Past Powered by Romance, Horror, and Steam – Donald J. Bingle
Dear Brother – Felicia Fredlund
The Cache and Other Stories – Sherry D Ramsey
Sword Oath – Jackie Keswick
The Hooded Man – Barbara G. Tarn
S F & H – Harvey Stanbrough
Resonant Bronze – J.M. Ney-Grimm
Hitomi’s Path – M.L. Buchman
Children – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Jhyoti Planetside – Marcelle Dube
Petra and the Blue Goo – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tears and Crimson Velvet – A. L. Butcher
As part of the author/character features for 2019 I am starting 3 Questions With….
We get to meet, in brief characters or authors who answer only 3 questions, but have to bare their soul…
Three questions with…
Name: Comte Raoul De Chagny
Tell us a little about your life and story:
My life is one of riches and luxury, I should have everything I money can buy. Yet I do not. I have an aching loneliness, sadness and my family is touched by a curse. I have three children – a son and heir, and two daughters – but I cannot love them, not truly as a father should. My wife Christine lies in the marble tomb yonder and my heart with her, but my soul belongs to a devil in a mask, who sang like an angel and entrapped us all. And I am ashamed of it. I could not save her, he was beyond saving and I surely cannot save myself.
I was a young man, wealthy and privileged, I married beneath my station and that choice brought death to my family, and left us semi-exiles. I loved Christine and was foolish enough to believe she loved me. But love is strange – there is the love of the heart, and then there is the love of the soul. Love keeps us alive as it slowly kills us. I would have died for her, and almost did, and her loss tears me apart. But I know now I am not worthy of her love, and certainly not his pity or love. And so love and hate dance hand in hand and I can tell not one from the other these days.
They boy – Charles looks through me, he is far more intelligent than either myself or his mother. I see nothing of myself in him, and he misbehaves. The girls grow more like their poor mother each day – and it breaks my heart. What lives will they have when I am gone? Who will take care of them? We are the last of the De Chagny’s in a world where the old nobility is long fallen. Once we had a name, now we have a curse.
Who is this nemesis?
Erik. I do not know his family name if he even had one. I can’t tell you from where he came, or how. He is a ghost, a monster and an angel. I once believed he was just an unfortunate man – disfigured by God for his sins, but I am not sure. There was that music – I still hear it in my dreams, oh God that music.
Erik is dead. He died over a decade ago, yet I cannot escape him. I will never escape him whilst one of us lives. That terrible night he let us go – I thought myself the victor. I thought the loss of her would kill him, and surely it did – but this ghost of a man haunts me still and I get no satisfaction in my gains and his loss. The world is poorer for his loss. Some nights I wonder if he ever existed, or if I do. It all seems so far away, and so bizarre – it must be a dream or the plot of one of the Operas we used to attend.
How do you see your future?
My mind plays tricks and my sleep is plagued by awful dreams. Laudanum is my solace and my vice. I hope to see my children grown but ever winter becomes harder to bear, ever summer a little colder. I see the darkness and the mask which haunts me. I hear the music calling… the music always calls.
*****
Raoul was originally created by Gaston Leroux, he has been adapted in many forms and by many writers. My own tragic adaptation is here in Echoes of a Song.
I am delighted to announce the forthcoming release of the latest in the Here Be series.
From fable to legend, these wondrous beasts enchant us. Healers or harmers, no one truly knows the heart and horn of the unicorn—dare you seek the answers?
A collection of tales featuring unicorns and magical horses. A collection of tales featuring unicorns and magical horses.
On Preorder Now – out 16th March 2019
Part of the Here Be Myth Monsters and Mayhem series
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P7BJ2JN/?tag=kydala-20
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1454984222
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/here-be-unicorns
https://bundlerabbit.com/b/here-be-unicorns
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130765937
Featuring:
Hidden Eyes – Meyari McFarland
The Dreamweaver’s Journey – Diana L. Wicker
A Game of Horns – Lisa Mangum
The Hunt of the Unicorn – J.M. Ney-Grimm
Rider – Diane J Cornwell
Unicorn Magic – Roz Marshall
One Horn to Rule Them All – Lisa Mangum
Fossil History – Meyari McFarland
And The Unicorn You Rode In On – Robert Jeschonek
Escape (The Peena Colada Song) – Mark Leslie
