Yesterday's Dreams by Danielle Ackley-McPhail

Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s novel Yesterday’s Dreams is an interesting mix of Celtic myth, women’s empowerment literature, and urban fantasy. The story is about Kara O’Keefe, a gifted violinist who, through unfortunate circumstance, is forced to pawn her most prized possession, her violin. In doing so, she comes across an unusual pawnshop, called Yesterday’s Dreams, with a caring and kind proprietor who gets Kara out of her jam. But unbeknownst to Kara, this pawnshop and its proprietor are unique in magical and mystical ways. This leads into an adventure that will have Kara relying on a dead man she has never met and fighting against an evil magician.

Ackley-McPhail knows her Celtic mythology. The story, though set in a modern period, is imbued with all the details and richness that readers expect from Celtic lore. Wri... Read More

Bad-Ass Faeries by Danielle Ackley-McPhail

Although I disapprove of the title, I still found Bad-Ass Faeries edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, to be a pretty good collection of stories. At least, that’s true if you discount the one or two stories that really boiled down to faerie porn. Which, ironically, is part of the humor in the story by Den C. Wilson, "Heart of Vengeance" (Well, elf porn, anyway). All, in all though, the collection is pretty good. It is targeted in its concept, but broad in its application. There are science fiction stories, high fantasy stories, westerns, and even a couple of noir mysteries. And yet all center on the faerie race, at least as a starting point.

Divided into five sections, these nineteen stories are short, roughly six to ten pages in length, but without the text being too small to read. The illustrations appear only at the beginning of each section, ... Read More

Some of your favorite authors take some time to answer our questions:
Got any news to share with us?
Laura Bickle / Alayna Williams: My first YA novel, The Hallowed Ones, will be released by HMH Graphia on September 25. Pitched as Witness meets 28 Days Later, The Hallowed Ones is a paranormal thriller in which Amish girl must protect her family from a violent contagion, even as fear and denial threaten to erode her community from within.

Mark Lawrence: Why yes I have! My daughter (age 8 and severely disabled) wrote a book that's out-selling my own in the US! It's a picture book and she used a head-switch and communication device to guide the pl... Read More

Some of your favorite authors take some time to answer our questions:


Got any personal news you'd like to share?
 

L.E. Modesitt Jr.: I've just turned in the last novel about Quaeryt (Rex Regis) in that subseries of THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO, which will make five books about him -- Scholar, Princeps, Imager's Battalion (release date of January 22nd), Antiagon Fire (release scheduled for July 2013), and, of course, Rex Regis (not yet scheduled). Also, I've got a stand-alone SF novel -- The One-Eyed Man -- coming out a year from now.

Danielle Ackley-McPhail: For the... Read More