He swore he'd never abandon another shopping cart. That's how you know it's serious.
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Hello, dear friend. It's Laura, author of The Fralsningdor Chronicles. Join me for a cup of tea at my writing nook in Wyoming! No big announcements this week — just a new AHOT episode, a very suspicious research list, and a promise that the next issue of The Goblin Grace Gazette is going to make you scream a little. 😏 📝 Writing updates I’m still chipping away at drafting — all between lunches at the park, vacation Bible school, and water balloon fights, of course. It’s approximately eight billion degrees in Wyoming right now (don’t fact check me on that, northerners simply aren’t built for the heat), which means a glass of iced tea in my writing nook has become a very welcome retreat in the afternoons. That being said, you’re going to want to keep your eyes on your inbox, because in our next newsletter I’M TELLING YOU THE TITLE! 👀🙊 In the meantime, here are some random things I researched this week for Operation Chatterbox with absolutely zero context:
🌅 Ruin streaks the future, and this is merely the dawn The prelaunch page for S.L. Klein’s medieval romance is LIVE. This is the first book in her upcoming trilogy, The Faithful, that takes place in Italy during the Reformation. I absolutely devoured this story, and I am dying to find out what happens next! (No, seriously, ask my Wednesday Bible study — I cannot stop yapping about it). Go follow her Kickstarter now so you won’t miss the launch on October 10! The blurb: In the height of the Italian Renaissance, rumors lurk in the shadows. With the Protestant movement growing in the north and the Roman Catholic Church determined to retain power, Christendom as a whole appears to be on the brink of crumbling under the weight of division. Corruption breeds disunity, and there is much to go around.
Sir Valentino Zanni is the Venetian captain of an elite force of knights, unknown to all outside their ranks. When carrying out his duty to root out those who would threaten the rule of Doge Loredan, he discovers the existence of a group with intentions far more nefarious. Within days, Valentino and his men find themselves on their way to Roma under orders to uncover those who would threaten the life of political leaders all across Italia—including Pope Leo X. But when they ambush the right carriage at the wrong time, things become more complicated than Valentino had ever thought possible.
Life had promised Lady Eleonora Ricasoli more than any Florentine woman could have dreamed of. Then with the pain of an unrelenting headache and recurring nightmares, her future was snatched from her. So when her uncle, Cardinal Marco Ricasoli, invites her to travel to Roma and visit one of her brothers, not even the worst hemicrania would keep her at home. Until she meets a knight whose very presence often results in just as much irritating torment.
As the plot continues to twist with rumors threatening all of Italia, allegiances must not only be decided but clung to. For one never knows who might be the one to fracture the foundations we all stand on.
Previously on A Hoard of Tales... Charles ventures into Rot-ravaged Sovra’an to rescue Amelia. Imprisoned, she endures another extraction as Lothienne steals more of her stories, finding fragile hope in Kalder’s comforting tale. Missed an episode? Catch up here. A Hoard of Tales: Episode 15 Samuel McClemmons skidded to a halt, slammed the toe of his boot against the kickstand of his stolen HE-LTV bike, then dropped one foot to the ground where it crunched against the dead, grayish dirt below. He squinted at the settling cloud of dust on the horizon before him, sweaty brow furrowing. What was the idiot up to now? Charles, in his tactical truck, had been barely more than a speck for Samuel to follow for the past seven hours, so he suspected that his much smaller matte black motorcycle made him look like scarcely more than a weed from where Charles was. The other man certainly hadn’t recognized Samuel following him; otherwise, he’d have called on the radio for a verbal lashing as a little appetizer for the physical butt-kicking he’d be handing out later. Which was, naturally, why he hadn’t told Charles he was coming. As if that would be enough to stop him. Which was, probably, why Charles hadn’t told him he was going. Bleeding idiot. Samuel’s jaw flexed with anger as he yet again replayed Greyson’s words in his mind from before. He’s gone, McClemmons. And don’t you dare follow him. Yeah, right. The absolute audacity of Charles to think that this — their most important mission ever — was the time to get a shift-snared hero complex and go charging into Hell itself on his own. As soon as they got Amelia back, Samuel would be recruiting her to join him in awarding Charles with the Realm’s Most Chivalrous Moron Award. Complete with a punch to the jaw if he had anything to say about it. Except now, Charles had stopped driving. His engine still roared, though, which was why Samuel hadn’t realized right away that he wasn’t moving. Was something wrong? Had they found the location? Glancing at the display between his handlebars, Samuel noted that they were on the mirror side from the Faeclectic Eatery — the district of Valehaven that housed all the best restaurants, burger joints, food trucks and street vendors. Well, bleed him dry. Had they actually been right before? If this was the place, then their first guess for the location of the Faengster’s HQ hadn’t been that far off after all. They’d simply been looking in the wrong side of reality. Hitting the kickstand with his heel, Samuel centered himself on the bike and hit the gas with his right hand. He crept over the lifeless landscape until he was close enough to see Charles’ truck disappear. He slowed down but didn’t stop. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen his best friend erase himself from the map entirely. But how did he think he was going to cover the sound of the… Samuel smirked. “Chuckles, you sly dog,” he murmured. A dozen other SRTVs identical to Charles’ had blossomed into existence, along with a few wavy mirages that distorted the air slightly to mimic other trucks being camouflaged with illusion. Charles’ truck, of course, wasn’t one of them. He was too good for that, and the air where his truck had been just a moment ago was crystal clear. But illusionists as powerful as Charles were rare, and if anyone with a trained eye discovered that the trucks weren’t solid, they’d immediately turn to the mirages, assuming they’d found their mark. All the while, Charles would be free to maneuver unseen. But Samuel wouldn’t, so he had to hurry and get in position. Now if he only knew what on Tarraven’s grisly Under Side that position was supposed to be… The illusioned fleet of trucks disappeared one by one as they crested a small hill, and Samuel revved his bike’s engine, wincing at the way the machine creaked and whined as he pushed it harder than it wanted to go. The acrid air whipping past his face lashed at his lungs and made him cough raggedly — a damp, barking sound that felt even worse than the public safety vids portrayed. “Molten Rot,” he wheezed once he finally drew in another not-quite-adequate breath of toxic air. He stopped the bike just short of the top of the hill, leaving it running but preferring to peek over cautiously rather than charge into death itself. Between himself and Charles, only one of them could be operating without brains at any given moment. Charles seemed to have claimed the Designated Idiot Token for the day, leaving Samuel to act as a mildly responsible adult. Wonderful. He crouched down and approached the last few feet as unobtrusively as possible before peering down into what looked like a portal to Hell. But like… a worse Hell than even Sovra’an. Hell 2.0. The one designated for jerks who didn’t return their shopping carts. His cheek twitched slightly as the thought occurred to him. Samuel didn’t actually care about the location of abandoned carts, but Amelia was constantly nagging him about it like the bossy sister he’d never had (which only led him to abandon them more frequently and in increasingly less convenient places). We’ll get you outta here, Millie, he promised silently. You hold on till then and I promise to never abandon another cart in a parking spot. His eyes flicked across the illusioned trucks and over the opaque black lake. From this vantage point, he could just see beyond a small peninsula covered in dead trees and crisp black plants that jutted into the dark liquid. It looked unobtrusive and as harmless as anything in this wretched realm could, but something about it… “Damn it, damn it!” he hissed, fumbling as he unclipped his cross-realm radio and hit the button. “Smirk?” said Charles’ crackling voice. “I’m a little busy. Can’t have a lunch-break gab.” “I’m not at the Eatery. I’m here, you suicidal idiot. And you have to move. There’s an ambush behind the…” Shots rang out, and Samuel leapt to his feet, mounting his still-running bike and charging down the hill, tires tearing up the dusty shale in his wake. The dark figures that had risen from the lake behind the cover of the peninsula’s dead foliage were wreathed in egg-like orbs of sickly teal magic. Cursed magic. Unfortunately for them, a level-seven curse breaker with a sore throat, a sore backside and a bone to pick skidded to a stop in the middle of the illusioned fleet of SRTVs. No one was killing Charles — not until Samuel had sufficiently chewed him out for coming to Sovra’an without him. He stood straddling his motorcycle as he gathered his magic, his radio crackling as Charles’ furious voice came shouting from his hip. Cursed elemental magic rained down like violet brimstone around him, and the air rang with the cracks of the enchanted semi-auto rifles being fired at will. Clearly they hadn’t bothered to solve Charles’ little riddle and were instead spraying the entire shore with shots that would kill just as surely as a bullet… but with far more pain. Samuel cast a shield, slinging a dome of crackling silvery-white magic around himself and the fleet. He still couldn’t see Charles, but he knew his friend had to be nearby to anchor the rest of the illusions. Illusions that abruptly winked out, because — for whatever reason — Charles wasn’t fueling them anymore. Rotshard. Had one of the rounds made it through just before… Samuel whipped around, desperately seeking the real truck that should now be visible. There. With Charles slumped over the steering wheel. “Chuck, if you are dead so help me, I’ll bring you back and kill you again myself,” spat Samuel, dismounting his bike so fast that it fell over and landed in a puff of gray dust. Samuel ran, half of his mind still focused on holding up the shield that even now was being pelted with hundreds of rounds of cursed elemental magic. He wrenched the truck’s door open and slid one hand in under the steering wheel, pushing aside the high collar of Charles’ F.R.E.B. suit to feel his neck for a pulse. He relaxed slightly as the blood beneath his fingers thrummed steadily. Then he released the four-point harness and unceremoniously shoved Charles’ mass of dead weight backward into the open gap of the rear litter berth. He winced at the way his friend’s head smacked against the floor with a dull thud but didn’t stop, slipping into the driver’s seat and throwing the truck into reverse. He looked over his shoulder as he backed out, gathering more magic and getting ready to collapse one shield while simultaneously casting another smaller one that would be anchored to the SRTV itself. He slammed the truck into drive and floored it, barreling toward the crackling magic wall that was just as impenetrable on this side as it was on the other. Three… two… one… The shield shattered with a sound like breaking glass just before the speeding truck would have rammed into it, and one of the ambushers screamed loud enough to hear even over the chaos. Samuel slung another haphazard shield around the tactical vehicle and shredded the engine as he pushed it up the hill and out onto the craggy, flat expanse. He floored it south toward the Tarraven and silently begged the truck to hold on until then. He glanced at the map on the truck’s dash and swore. If he didn’t call now, he’d be past the ley line and out of range for hours. He unclipped his radio and held it by his jaw, panting slightly as he hit the button. “All units, 15-Tom-21, emergency traffic — all available units, we are inbound to the Tarraven at 0600 hours. We have a Priority One, officer down — I need medical staged and ready at the gate.” What is the craziest thing a friend has ever done to help you? Email me back and let me know! Until next time! Stay whimsical and overcaffinated, 💚 Laura Amazon, Audible, and Kindle Unlimited Goblin Grace Gazette Freebies You received this email because you downloaded a freebie or signed up to be on Laura Cheever's street team. If you'd like to opt out, please unsubscribe below. |
Hello, dear friend!
Come sit by the fire. I’ll pour the tea and tell you a story. Then, every other Tuesday, you can expect The Goblin Grace Gazette in your inbox — a warm bundle of project updates, bonus content, serial episodes, and devotionals.