Excerpt of Illusion by S.M. Boyce + #GIVEAWAY

Illusion by S.M. Boyce 

(The Grimoire Saga #4) 

Publication date: November 4th 2014 

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

The final chapter in the war for Ourea ends with blood.

Kara Magari is an icon. A hero. The people love her. The royalty tolerates her. She has everything—an army, allies, and a close circle of chosen family. They believe she will end the war, and they shouldn’t. She’s as scared as they are. She just can’t show it.

The war she accidentally started ends with a final battle that will either save or enslave her people. She will do anything to win—until she learns the cost of victory.

Braeden Drakonin is afraid of what he’ll become when he takes over his father’s kingdom—that much authority can change a man. But his father has already tried to kill him more than once, and it’s time to end his reign. Braeden’s armies are ready. His strategy is foolproof. His generals are waiting for the order to attack. It’s only in the final seconds before the battle begins that he realizes he missed one crucial detail—the traitor.

            

EXCERPT:

He looked at her—really looked at her, with a gaze that almost stole the smile from her face. She held on, despite his scrutiny. She’d successfully killed Niccoli this time. She absorbed a Blood. She would bring Niccoli’s remaining guild to its knees. Andor—of all people—couldn’t shake her.

His boots thumped against the floor as he came closer. Every slow step chipped away at her smirk. He knelt on the mattress and leaned in, setting a hand on either side of her head. His fingers stretched against the wooden headboard in her periphery, but she never broke eye contact.

He inched closer until the world blurred around him. He was turning this on her, calling her bluff. Maybe he knew her seductions were always a tease, that she never followed through. Perhaps he even figured she imagined Michael on the face of any man who invaded her space, who got too close.

Focus.

“What are you up to?” His breath rolled over her cheeks.

She grinned, letting the joy of her plan wash through her. “It’s quite elaborate.”

AUTHOR BIO:

S. M. Boyce is a lifelong writer with a knack for finding adventure and magic.

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Review: The Puppet Spell by Emma L. Adams

The Puppet Spell, a through the looking glass styled otherworldly adventure by Emma L. Adams, begins in the all too familiar everyday nomadic world all too familiar to so many of today's youth: uncertainty, guardianship, eviction, strained family relationships, and high school. Of course, when your uncle has an enchanted secret laboratory and a pet cat with an uncanny understanding of what is going on around him, those mundane details can't stay humdrum for long. Told from the point of view of Lexa, a dependable, geeky, and imaginative girl whose twin sister, Lucinda, is anything but, The Puppet Spell is told with awe and excitement for adventure.

When Lucinda steals an invisibility potion from her uncle's secret cache of otherworldly items, Lexa, with the help of her trusty guy-friend Marlon, sets off on the adventure of her life to try to find her sister, accompanied by the house cat who is more than he seems. In the other world they'll discover deception, illusion, political intrigue, magic, and that their frumpy uncle was never really a computer tech, all of which will bring Lexa's family closer together, and leave them sundered in ways she never could have forseen when they first moved into the flat with the secret room.

I enjoyed Adams' world building, and that the tone, pace, and movement of the story reminded me so much of role playing. The Fae's reliance on illusion to sculpt the world around them reminded me of the meticulous nature of a Game Master's world building, and that set this book apart from other stories in which a group of adventurers goes on an adventure that no one back home would ever believe.  If you decide to go along with Adams, be forewarned, you may never look at long walks through the woods quite the same way.