Embers by Laura Bickle

In her debut novel, Laura Bickle introduces us to Anya Kalinczyk, a woman as troubled as her home city of Detroit. Like many of her sister urban-fantasy heroines, Anya has a tragic past and uses it as a reason to push people away. She works as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department and moonlights with a ghost-hunting team. Anya is a Lantern, which means she has the rare ability to consume ghosts and demons. She also has a familiar spirit, Sparky, a fire elemental who takes amphibian form but acts more like a large dog. (Sparky, needless to say, is adorable.)

A serial arsonist is targeting what seem to be random buildings in the city. Anya discovers that the crimes are ritualistic in nature, and that the perp is planning a grand finale on Devil’s Night, just two weeks away. This plotline is exceedingly well done. The investigation scenes are fascinating. The arsonist harbors... Read More

Sparks by Laura Bickle

In Sparks, Laura Bickle’s follow-up to Embers, Anya Kalinczyk faces another baffling case of magic and mysterious fires. The Detroit Fire Department is confounded by what seem to be instances of spontaneous human combustion. Meanwhile, huckster guru Hope Solomon is amassing wealth and power on the backs of Detroit’s desperate. Anya and her friends are in grave danger when Anya discovers a link between Hope and the fires.

Hope Solomon is incredibly creepy. She espouses a blend of the popular “law of attraction” and “pay it forward” philosophies, with a sinister twist. I got a chill down my spine when I realized what she was doing, and I don’t even mean what she was doing supernaturally. If you’ve read anything about cults and/or pyramid schemes, it’ll probably give you a chill too. Hope may be a fantasy villain, but she’d... Read More

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


What are you working on these days?


Morgan Keyes (Mindy Klasky): I just finished the sequel to Darkbeast, which is tentatively called Darkbeast Rebellion. (It should be in stores about a year from now.) Next up, I'm working on a totally new fantasy series, about a boy born without magic in a society where everyone else has special powers.

Stephen Deas: Edits to my next dragon book and the first draft of the one after. Other things I can't talk about just yet, but I can say that I'm putting ideas together for a collaborative Space Opera series.

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Today we welcome Laura Bickle, author of Embers, Sparks, and the YA novel The Hallowed Ones. The Outside, a sequel to The Hallowed Ones, will be released later this year. Laura also writes the DARK ORACLE series under the name Alayna Williams. Her question for you today is: Where do you want to be when the apocalypse hits? One commenter wins a copy of The Hallowed Ones.

One of the great things about writing is getting to ask those “what-if” questions. When I was writing The Hallowed Ones, I knew that I wanted to unleash a plague of bloodthirsty vampires on humanity. But I wanted to also explore the idea of survival, and I gave some thought into who might be best-equipped to surv... 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 news to share?
 
Stephen Deas: The Black Mausoleum came out in August and The King's Assassin will hit the shelves in a couple of days.

Bradley Beaulieu: I'm headed to the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, Canada at the end of this month. I'll be doing a reading there, and there's also the mass autograph signing, so if anyone happens to be there, please stop by and say hello. I'd love to see you.



Laura Bickle: My first YA novel, The Hallowed Ones, was r... Read More