Blood and Magic
Author: Ann Gimpel
Find “Blood and Magic”: Amazon
Magic didn’t just find Luke Caulfield. It chased him down, bludgeoned him, and has been dogging him ever since. Some lessons are harder than others. Luke survives by embracing danger and upping the ante to give it one better. An enforcer for the Coven, a large, established group of witches, his latest assignment is playing bodyguard to the daughter of Coven leaders.
Abigail Ruskin is chaperoning a spoiled twelve-year-old from New York to her parents’ home in Utah Territory when Luke gets on their stagecoach in Colorado. A powerful witch herself, Abigail senses Luke’s magic, but he’s so overwhelmingly male, she shies away from contact. Stuck between the petulant child and Luke’s raw sexual energy, Abigail can’t wait for the trip to end.
Wraiths, wolves, and humans with dark magick attack. Unpleasant truths surface about the child and Abigail’s well-ordered world crashes around her. Luke’s so attracted to Abigail, she’s almost all he can think about, but he’s leery too. In over his head, he summons enforcer backup. Will they help him save the woman he’s falling in love with, or demand her immediate execution?
~Guest Post~
Musings on Steampunk
There are about as many interpretations of steampunk as there are writers who incorporate some of its elements into their stories. Steampunk started as a subgenre in science fiction, which is probably why it appeals to me. I’ve been reading SF books since I was a kid. “Traditional” steampunk—if there even is such a thing—took place in the nineteenth century and featured steam powered machinery operated by creative means. (That’s where the science in science fiction comes in: an artistic bending of scientific principles that doesn’t offend readers with a hard science background.) Many steampunk books feature airships, which of course weren’t cluttering nineteenth century skies.
Maybe because of the airships, goggles made the hit parade. After all, it’s tough to pilot an airship without eye protection. Another prime element of steampunk is gears and gearing mechanisms, frequently run by steam, but also by magic.
Though the genre first showed up in the mid-1960s television show, The Wild Wild West, it didn’t get popular until the 1980s. Since then authors have placed steampunk stories in Victorian times, the American West, post-apocalyptic settings, alternative worlds, fantasy, and horror. It’s such a broad swath, the genre has gotten progressively more difficult to pin down.
Blood and Magic is a historical paranormal romance with a healthy splash of urban fantasy. Its only claim to steampunk fame is a stagecoach operated by gears (in addition to horses) with a magical assist from my witchy heroine. There were other places I could have added steampunk elements, but I was afraid they’d take away from the pace of the story. Whenever an author puts in something unusual, readers always slow down to picture it.
How about some of you? What about steampunk appeals to you? Do you have favorite books in the genre? What are they?
~Giveaway~
~About the Author~
Ann Gimpel is a clinical psychologist, with a Jungian bent. Avocations include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course, writing. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. She’s published over 20 books to date, with several more contracted for 2014.
A husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her family.
