by Sam Hall
“Group hugs and we’re only one load in? I take it all back, boss, I’m glad you roped me into this,” Shane said, dropping the box with a disturbing crash and surrounding the lot of us with his arms. I huffed at this, wriggling to get out of his grip, reality crashing back in. I did have a lot of shit, having lived in my flat since my uni days and we had a lot more to move. Tess was trying to do the same and Shane just made revolting noises as we tried to fight our way free until Jez kidney punched him.
He staggered back and she said, “The only harem I’m interested in is the reverse type, so unless you’ve got a group of extremely good mates you don’t mind crossing swords with, think again.”
Gabe shook his head, obviously having arrived soon afterwards. His arms slipped around me, pulling me back against the hard wall of his chest, his lips grazing my neck. “I’m a little scared of how things are going to end up with those two.”
“Yeah, but if there were ever two people who were resilient enough to bounce back, it’s them.” I patted his arm, “We’ve got to let the chicks fly the nest at some point.”
“Particularly as we are sharing a nest now,” he said, turning me around and smiling. “Is it too early to tell them to go home so we can christen the bed?”
“Gabe, we’ve got a truck full of shit outside and another at home . . . at the old place, plus we’ve already christened the bed here, vigorously,” I replied.
“Who said anything about the bed?”
“Tess, I have finished vomiting. Please tell me I will not be required to fly around in another of those damnable machines again.” We looked up to see Miazydar the dragon dog had appeared, somehow looking cute and fluffy as well as imperious.
“Um. . .”
“Well, he’s not going in my car,” I said. “I’m still trying to get the smell of regurgitated kibble out of my upholstery.”
“If you’d pulled over when I said,” Miazydar said.
“We were on a freeway, dog. It was either keep going or cause a car accident. We nearly damn well did, when you refused to hurl out the window,” I said.
“You forget, I knew neither what a window was, nor had the opposable thumbs required to wind down said window,” Miazydar replied.
“OK, OK, I’ll see if I can get us an Uber when we’re finished,” Tess said. “Maybe a convertible with the top down would make you feel less sick.”
“That’s going to be expensive,” Gabe said. “Have you got your bike license? If fresh air is what works for him, a motorcycle with a sidecar would work. I’ve got one I’ve been doing up back at the shop.”
Yes, yes it would, I thought. It would also get Mum off my case as she had kittens, puppies and ocelots at the thought of her baby girl riding around the big city on a motor bike. Might head off her dumping wedding magazines in my lap the minute I walked in her door. Baby sister had stepped up, kicked butts and taken names in Damorica; she could be my meat shield for once. Speaking of it being Tess’s turn, what had happened to Nan’s spell? Surely, it wasn’t just me who had to suffer through being woken up by romance characters every morning. If there was any logic to it, turnabout was fair play. I gave an evil chuckle as I went to one of my boxes of books, digging out a novel with five glistening hunks surrounding a pretty female MC on the cover, flipping it open to page one as everyone chattered.
Aussie Lingo Glossary
Terms are presented in order of appearance. Not sure if all are Australian terms, more me trying to guess what are regional sayings.
Belted: punched
Loo: toilet or bathroom
Swapping spit: kissing
Iffy: suspicious, of dubious quality
Dodgy: dubious, probably illegal
Won’t be a tick: won’t be a moment
See you in a few: see you soon
Getup: clothing, often ostentatious or outlandish
Ute: utility vehicle or truck
Flannel shirt: plaid shirt
Singlet: tank top
Ticking along: humming along
No dramas: no worries
Being able to breathe out your ears: a quality in men rated highly desirable when performing oral sex on a woman
Sack someone: fire someone
Refractory time: time it takes to get another erection
Chuck: get rid of
Punching above your weight: being romantically involved with someone somehow ‘better’ than you (looks, money, personality)
Cashed up: rich
Mining boom: in Australia, the periodic rise and fall of the mining industry in some areas of Australia, creating small boom and bust economic cycles
A carton or slab: a cardboard box with 24 cans of beer in it
Shit bricks: scared
Squishy: emotional
Suss: suspicious
BASS statement: taxation form businesses need to submit
Dero: derelict or homeless person, but has been extended
to people that look very unkempt
Milky Bar: white chocolate bar targeted at kids
Bogging: applying a resin based patching material to car bodies to smooth over imperfections
Punching on: fighting
Stuffing around: messing around
Spag Bol: spaghetti bolognese
Dead shit: idiot
Punting: moving a boat across a watercourse using a pole
Skip bin: large industrial bin hired for use on demolition sites
About the Author
I grew up in that bit of Australia you saw in Crocodile Dundee. Yup, I have seen saltwater crocs in the wild, have held a koala (the 70s, when stressing wildlife for the kiddies was still cool) and have swatted an insane number of hand sized spiders (they think I am their queen and are always wherever I am!). I have a gorgeous child with ASD, a super supportive, truly awesome partner and so, so many animals. Seriously, there are double the pets to people.
Being a little baby writer, trying to make her way in the big, crowded, world of self-publishing, reviews are our lifeblood. Seriously, we’re sitting in isolated rooms wondering what the hell we are doing with our lives, so chuck a review on Amazon or Goodreads and I will loooove you!
Stalk me!
Facebook author group: Sam’s Hall of Heroines
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2356697491274667/
Come and see teasers and me explain what the hell was going on in my head when I was writing that.
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/samhallauthor/
Teasers, WIPs and pictures of my animals here!
Upcoming releases:
Book Lover 2: As You Wish
Tess is sick of being the sidekick. She’s come back to her life with a dog/dragon in tow and the memories of a dragon rider, so doing stock take at the shop isn’t quite cutting it. She’s trying, really she is, but with Ash’s insistence on doing her own thing, rather than learning more about the many different people they deal with through the portal and Jez’s horny hijinks, she’s starting to wonder if there isn’t more to life.
Then there’s Flea, the dark haired, sexy tattooist who travelled through an inter-dimensional portal to rescue her. They’d shared one of the amazing nights of her life together, but now they barely even say hello when he comes by the shop.
As if responding to her unspoken need for a call to action, dragon riders from Aravisia appear in the shop, complete with plasma spears, ordering her to appear before the courts for having an unregistered dragon. She thinks it’s going to be little other than traffic court, but it soon becomes clear that there’s something much more life-threatening afoot.
Join Tess, Jez and Flea as they rampage through Aravisia, find out the truth behind Nan’s curse and maybe, just maybe, create sweeping, world altering, change.
The Ladder of the Gods series:
My name is Lethe, and I’d rather bloody die than take the two paths in lives offered to me: anyone’s meat or junkie. I was born in the Quarter, the decaying remains of old
Meridian City where all the country’s supernatural creatures were corralled after the Revolution, but I’m neither vampire, werewolf nor witch. The McIntyre brothers, childhood friends, first lovers, want to offer me security, but at a price. One too expensive for me to pay: my freedom.
The gods once walked the earth and somehow I’ve managed to bring one back, at least partially. I end up being the avatar of the goddess Lyra and I’m ready to use her almighty powers to fuck things up. I want out of the cage of the Quarter, I want all of us out. I want to bring down the immortal Hesse, hero of the Revolution and current string puller in Cremorne and I want to be free. On my journey I meet the mysterious Nathaniel, golden and beautiful; I try to resolve the endless push/pull of love and freedom with Bennet and Gavin and I try to bring the werewolves on board with tawny Brendan. I’m collecting allies so I can start a revolution, one that seeks to shake my country and the heavens to the core. But this game has been in play for a lot longer than I have and there’s every chance I’m just another pawn. That’s OK, because I’m determined to win.
Author’s note: This book is an RH tale, so the MC does not choose one partner, but the romance angle is definitely pretty low key in some instances and is a bit more complex than girl meets multiple boys and falls in love. It takes a lot of its inspiration from 80s urban decay films like The Warriors and Blade Runner, so is kind of dystopian in tone. Politics and how power is used to control is a big theme, though hopefully the reader isn’t bashed over the head by it!
Acknowledgments
This book was initially supposed to be a quick little project, knocked out after reading one too many urban fantasy and paranormal romance books, as I was feeling a bit hit over the head by repetitive tropes. Instead it became…well, you know, you’ve just read it! As with every book, it takes a village and here I acknowledge mine.
My partner, Matt. I grew up reading Mills and Boons while on holidays at my grandmother’s place, because there was nothing else to read and she hoarded boxes of them. The rapey bodice rippers and references to throbbing lengths of manhood used to induce eye rolls in teenage me, but much later, it was contemporary romance, with its much more 3D, realistic characters that ended up sucking me in. This whole book was about the stuff we bookworms wish for: the chance to interact with the amazing worlds we read about. Well, Matt is my real life romantic lead. While I ain’t much of a female MC, he’s definitely romantic lead potential. Not due to smouldering eyes and rippling six pack (he prefers to drink his), but because of something much deeper.
He’s seen me through several crushing, long term bouts of depression and anxiety, where my symptoms seemed to just keep multiplying and I could barely keep my head off the pillow. We’ve been riding the diagnosis rollercoaster since our son was born and he just keeps on keeping on. He is a much better mother than me, spending the first five years of our child’s life looking after a kid with special needs and me.
He’s also an excellent critique partner, pointing out logical flaws, even when I wish he wouldn’t, always pushing me to explain why things happen the way that they do. Romance isn’t really his thing, but he’s read all my WIPs, some of which have had so many incarnations he can’t keep them straight in his head. He acts as a weapons consultant, delighting in telling me exactly how I need to write anything with guns in it. I don’t always follow his advice so he wants everyone to know those inaccuracies are mine.
He really is the heart and soul of our household, we all would be completely lost without him and hope to the god of your choice we never need to.
Alpha and beta readers Michele Temple Moore, Amanda McEwan, Manuela Andreotti Duggan and Amber Norris Lee, you were amazing. I was pretty sure no one would like this book or find all my feeble attempts at humour funny, but you guys helped me find typos and plot holes and a belief in this book, so thank you!
Thank you also to the wonderful author, Winter Rose (https://www.facebook.com/winter.rose.73157203), who solved my endless ‘what do we call this damn book’ problem in one afternoon. Seriously, it was driving me nuts.
My editor, Michelle at Michelle’s Edits (https://www.facebook.com/Michellesedits/) helped me whip things into shape and work out how to properly punctuate those damn ellipsis.
The beautiful cover, with Ash sporting epic resting bitch face, was by the talented Nichole Witholder at Rainy Day Artwork (http://www.rainydayartwork.com/).
Many newb authors have a story about how an established writer helped them on their way and here is mine. About fifteen years ago, I sent a manuscript to British writer, Storm Constantine (her work is amazing and lush and beautiful and you should all read it) and she gave me some very kind, appropriate feedback. In my first WIP, I was playing with words like a kid who uses all of the colours in the crayon box, writing all sorts of weird shit that meandered and stagnated, thinking I was ever so arty. Like a lot of newbie writers, I thought this was all pure genius which was going to revolutionise the writing world. Of course, it was all pure bollocks and Storm could have very easily tossed it in the “Are you fucking serious, set it on fire” pile, never to be seen again. Instead, her advice was spot on: I had no understanding of plot and how to structure a book and if I could please start there, that would be great, thanks. It took a really, really long time for me to get my head around that, I still am really, and I’m hoping to finish the massively reworked book later this year, but without that feedback, I would have just been slush piled and none the wiser as to why, so seriously, thanks.
And lastly, thank you, dear reader! You read right the way to the end and hopefully enjoyed the ride. See what happens next to the Magicorium gang in the upcoming book, As You Wish. The first draft has been written and a cover is in the works, so should be released hopefully in October.