Well, here it is. The fifth Friday of the month and it comes right before Halloween. So what’s better than a trick-or-treat promotions post? Pull up a chair, top off your favorite beverage and let’s go. Here are some of the most recent titles put up by our MGC bloggers in no particular order.
This includes short stories by several of our Mad Ones, including Dorothy Grant and Peter Grant.
This collection is from ten different Texas authors. There was no ‘world’ or set up for the stories. It was up to the individual authors to write their stories, so you get a wide variety! Vampires, dragons, werewolves, enchanted swords, runaways, SciFi, and cowboys… Stories for everyone in this collection of Texas authors!
Alma TC Boykin- Pigmentum Regium; Monalisa Foster- Caliborne’s Curse; Dorothy Grant- Business not Bullets; Kathey Grey- The Invisible Train; Pam Uphoff- Runaway; JL Curtis- A Favor Owed; Jonathan LaForce- Knights and Dragons; Peter Grant- Starting over; Lawdog- Bad Night in Falls Town; John Van Stry- They Only Ever Just Send One; Wayne Whisnand- For a Child.
This is the result of that collaboration- May I present Tales Around the Supper Table- The Anthology.
by Dave Freer
Captain Pausert just can’t catch a break!
First, he became the mortal enemy of his fiancée, his home planet, the Empire—and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space. All because he helped rescue three slave children from their masters. Of course, these three young women were the universally feared Witches of Karres—but how was he to know that?!
And after he defeated the Worm World (with the help of the witches, of course), the Empress herself had sent him on a secret mission to stop a nanite plague that was raging across the galaxy. But an enemy had somehow convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, so after a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs, Pausert and the witches of Karres joined an interstellar traveling circus in order to save the galaxy.
Now Pausert and the witches of Karres roam the spaceways again, this time dealing with a slaver-culture that somehow makes slaves happy to be in servitude, and a quest for a long-lost alien pet, during which the youngest witch, The Leewit, begins to come to her full powers as a healer—and of course generates chaos in her wake.
For Pausert, it’s all in a day’s work. But would it be too much to ask for a vacation?
by Amanda S. Green
Five years after the world learned shapeshifters are real, Mackenzie Santos is at a crossroads. Her responsibilities to the local pride and the Tribunal are taking more and more of her time. As the Dallas Police Department’s official liaison with the federal government on all things dealing with shapeshifters, she often finds herself on the road. That means she is away from her daughter, who is growing up much too quickly. Something has to give, and it might just be the job she loves.
But walking away isn’t going to be easy. Someone out there is determined to prove monsters do walk the face of the Earth and that they are the top of the proverbial food chain. They don’t care how many lives are lost or how many innocents are hurt. This is war and Mac and those she loves are in the middle of ground zero.
Leaving the DPD may no longer be an option. Yet the restrictions placed on her as a cop may prevent her from stopping the carnage, especially since she doesn’t know where the danger comes from or where it will strike next.
by Sarah A. Hoyt
Like all Private Detectives, Seamus Lebanon [Leb] Magis has often been told to go to Hell. He just never thought he’d actually have to go.
But when an old client asks him to investigate why Death Metal bands are dressing in pink – with butterfly mustache clips – and singing about puppies and kittens in a bad imitation of K-pop bands, Leb knows there’s something foul in the realm of music.
When the something grows to include the woman he fell in love with in kindergarten and a missing six-year-old girl, Leb climbs into his battered Suburban and like a knight of old goes forth to do battles with the legions of Hell.
This is when things become insane…. Or perhaps in the interest of truth we should say more insane.
by Margaret Ball
After waiting ten long years for Richart Dalkey to realize she’s no longer the awkward young girl he grew up with, Elspet is thrilled when he finally comes to pay her court . . . until he divulges the true reason for his visit. His proposition? A sham engagement to discourage debutante Dorothea Turvoll, who’s infatuated with Richart and whom his mother wants him to marry. Elspet convinces him to pretend he’s desperately in love with her and actually court her instead, certain that with time—and a little bit of magic—he’ll see they’re meant to be together.
But another woman in Din Eidyn has her sights set on Richert, as well as some dark magic of her own, and she’ll stop at nothing to win the one man who can give her the social standing she desperately desires. Before long, the charade gets out of hand, and as scandal engulfs the ton, Elspet must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the love she’s always wanted.
by Blake Smith
Gavril of Grimsby is not your ordinary monster-slayer for hire…
Gavril thought defeating a giant was the most interesting thing he’d do all week. But when a merchant caravan needs guards for the treacherous journey over the mountains to Stonberg, he can’t resist signing on, and learns that even peaceful men don’t always have peaceful lives.
by Pam Uphoff
When the Miss Outer Space beauty pageant decided they should hold the contest in outer space, they created an irresistible prize for the pirates that preyed on ship on both sides of the Pegasi Rift. And an opportunity for politicians on both sides.
by Cedar Sanderson
The ghouls, wraiths, and ghosties had not been part of the job description. Or maybe they had, just not in so many words. The neatly printed sign next to the ornate gates had simply read “Cemetery groundskeeper and caretaker needed. Inquire within.”
Now Chloe’s trying to calm an irascible ghoul, help a lost ghost find his way back to his grave, and get the mowing done before she needs to break out the bush hog instead… Who knew being a groundskeeper meant trying to keep things in the ground?
Check out these and all our other titles. If you enjoy a book you read, please leave a review. It doesn’t take long and it is the best form of promotion we can get.
Enjoy!
Featured Image by David Tarczynski from Pixabay
Mad Genius Club 
I’m a Texas author … I didn’t have a chance to be included?
sullenly kicks stone in the path.
Darn.
You live too far south! 😉
I’m pouting too. But I suppose they’d say that Austin isn’t really part of Texas. Hard to argue against that.
That would imply that it is wrong to refer to your local university as UT Austin. Would that imply that the Aggies are correct to call it ‘varsity’? XD
Um, no, it has nothing to do with Austin, and everything to do with… these tales were literally started over the supper table. Everybody in it has shown up to eat with the gang. Now, if you and Celia managed to show up to dinner (which would, admittedly, be a heck of a drive for you two!), you’d probably be handed pages to beta read, scold the dog to get out from underfoot/stop begging, and pick any or all of the 8 conversations swirling around and going orthagonal to each other, much less tangential to themselves, and…
…if we suckered Jim into making another anthology, be happily sucked in. And offered dessert.