Blog Tour + Excerpt: The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais

Today, I am excited to be participating in the blog tour for Bianca Marais' recent release The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, a delightful story about a coven of witches that will fulfill all your witch-y desires. For my stop, I'll be sharing some general information about the book and the author, as always, as well as an excerpt from the first chapter that will hopefully get you hooked and excited to read the rest of the book! Let's go ahead and check it out. :)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: THE WITCHES OF MOONSHYNE MANOR
Author:  Bianca Marais
Pub. Date: August 25th, 2022
Publisher: MIRA
Pages: 400
Find it: Bookshop.org | B&N | Amazon | IndieBound | Books-A-Million | Kobo | AppleBooks | Google Play | Libro.FM | Indigo | Target

SYNOPSIS:

“A coven of modern-day witches. A magical heist-gone-wrong. A looming threat. 

Five octogenarian witches gather as an angry mob threatens to demolish Moonshyne Manor. All eyes turn to the witch in charge, Queenie, who confesses they’ve fallen far behind on their mortgage payments. Still, there’s hope, since the imminent return of Ruby—one of the sisterhood who’s been gone for thirty-three years—will surely be their salvation. 

But the mob is only the start of their troubles. One man is hellbent on avenging his family for the theft of a legacy he claims was rightfully his. In an act of desperation, Queenie makes a bargain with an evil far more powerful than anything they’ve ever faced. Then things take a turn for the worse when Ruby’s homecoming reveals a seemingly insurmountable obstacle instead of the solution to all their problems. 

The witches are determined to save their home and themselves, but their aging powers are no match for increasingly malicious threats. Thankfully, they get a bit of help from Persephone, a feisty TikToker eager to smash the patriarchy. As the deadline to save the manor approaches, fractures among the sisterhood are revealed, and long-held secrets are exposed, culminating in a fiery confrontation with their enemies. 

Funny, tender and uplifting, the novel explores the formidable power that can be discovered in aging, found family and unlikely friendships. Marais’ clever prose offers as much laughter as insight, delving deeply into feminism, identity and power dynamics while stirring up intrigue and drama through secrets, lies and sex. Heartbreaking and heart-mending, it will make you grateful for the amazing women in your life."

 

        Excerpt:  

1

Saturday, October 23rd 

Morning 

     Half an hour before the alarm will be sounded for the first time in decades—drawing four frantic old women and a geriatric crow from all corners of the sprawling manor—Ursula is awoken by insistent knocking, like giant knuckles rapping against glass. It’s an ominous sign, to be sure. The first of many. 

     Trying to rid herself of the sticky cobwebs of sleep, Ursula throws back the covers, groaning as her joints loudly voice their displeasure. She’s slept in the buff, as is her usual habit, and as she pads across the room, she’s more naked than the day she was born (being, as she is, one of those rare babies who came into the world fully encased in a caul). Upon reaching the window, the cause of the ruckus is immediately obvious to Ursula; one of the Angel Oak’s sturdy branches is thumping against her third-floor window. Strong winds whip through the tree, making it shimmy and shake, giving the impression that it’s espousing the old adage to dance like no one’s watching, a quality that rather has to be admired in a tree. Either that, or it’s trembling uncontrollably with fear. 

     The forest, encroaching at the garden’s boundary, looks disquieted. It hangs its head low, bowing to a master who’s ordered it to bend the knee. As the charcoal sky churns, not a bird to be seen, the trees in the wood whisper incessantly. Whether they’re secrets or warnings, Ursula can’t tell, which only unsettles her further. 

     That infernal billboard that the city recently erected across from the manor property—with its aggressive gigantic lettering shouting, ‘Critchley Hackle Mega Complex Coming Soon!’—snaps in the wind, issuing small cracks of thunder. A storm is on its way, that much is clear. You don’t need to have Ivy’s particular powers to know as much. 

    Turning her back on the ominous view, Ursula heads for the calendar to mark off another mostly sleepless night. It seems impossible that after so many of them—night upon night, strung up after each other seemingly endlessly—only two remain until Ruby’s return, upon which Ursula will discover her fate. 

    Either Ruby knows or she doesn’t. 

    And if she does know, there’s the chance that she’ll want nothing more to do with Ursula. The thought makes her breath hitch, the accompanying stab of pain almost too much to bear. The best she can hope for under the circumstances is that Ruby will forgive her, releasing Ursula from the invisible prison her guilt has sentenced her to. 

    Too preoccupied with thoughts of Ruby to remember to don her robe, Ursula takes a seat at her mahogany escritoire. She lights a cone of mugwort and sweet laurel incense, watching as the tendril of smoke unfurls, inscribing itself upon the air. Inhaling the sweet scent, she picks up a purple silk pouch and unties it, spilling the contents onto her palm. 

    The tarot cards are all frayed around the edges, worn down from countless hours spent jostling through Ursula’s hands. Despite their shabbiness, they crackle with electricity, sparks flying as she shuffles them. After cutting the deck in three, Ursula begins laying the cards down, one after the other, on top of the heptagram she carved into the writing desk’s surface almost eighty years ago. 

    The first card, placed in the center, is The Tower. Unfortunate souls tumble from the top of a fortress that’s been struck by lightning, flames engulfing it. Ursula experiences a jolt of alarm at the sight of it for The Tower has to signify the manor; and anything threatening their home, threatens them all. 

    The second card, placed above the first at the one o’clock position, can only represent Tabitha. It’s the Ten of Swords, depicting a person lying face down with ten swords buried in their back. The last time Ursula saw the card, she’d made a mental note to make an appointment with her acupuncturist, but now, following so soon after The Tower, it makes her shift nervously. 

    The third, fourth and fifth cards, placed at the three o’clock, four-thirty and six o’clock positions, depict a person (who must be Queenie) struggling under too heavy a load; a heart pierced by swords (signifying Ursula); and a horned beast towering above a man and woman who are shackled together (obviously Jezebel). Ursula whimpers to see so many dreaded cards clustered together. 

    Moving faster now, she lays out the sixth, seventh and eighth cards at the seven-thirty, nine and eleven o’ clock positions. Ursula gasps as she studies the man crying in his bed, nine swords hovering above him (which can only denote Ursula’s guilt as it pertains to Ruby); the armored skeleton on horseback (representing the town of Critchley Hackle); and the two bedraggled souls trudging barefoot through the snow (definitely Ivy). Taking in all eight sinister cards makes Ursula tremble much like the Angel Oak.    

    Based on the spread, Ursula absolutely should sound the alarm immediately, but she’s made mistakes in the past—lapses in judgment that resulted in terrible consequences—and so she wants to be a hundred percent certain first. 

    She shuffles the cards again, laying them down more deliberately this time, only to see the exact same shocking formation, the impending threat even more vivid than before. It couldn’t be any clearer if the Goddess herself had sent a homing pigeon with a memo bearing the message: Calamity is on its way! It’s knocking at the window, just waiting to be let in! 

    And yet, Ursula still doesn’t sound the alarm, because that’s what doubt does; it slips through the chinks in our defenses, eroding all sense of self until the only voice that should matter becomes the one that we don’t recognize anymore, the one we trust the least. 

    As a result of this estrangement from herself, Ursula has developed something of a compulsion, needing to triple check the signs before she calls attention to them, and so she stands and grabs her wand. She makes her way down the hallway past Ruby’s and Jezebel’s bedrooms at a bit of a clip before descending the west wing stairs. 

    It’s just before she reaches Ivy’s glass conservatory that Ursula breaks out into a panicked run. 

Excerpted from The Witches of Moonshyne Manor @ 2022 by Bianca Marais, used with permission by MIRA Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bianca Marais cohosts the popular podcast The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing, aimed at emerging writers. She was named the winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Creative Writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies in 2021. She is the author of two novels, Hum If You Don’t Know the Words and If You Want to Make God Laugh, as well as the Audible Original The Prynne Viper. She lives in Toronto with her husband and fur babies.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Blog Tour + Review: ELEKTRA by Jennifer Saint

Today, I am pleased to share with you all my stop on the blog tour for Jennifer Saint's most recent release, Elektra, which is on sale now!

Last year, I read Jennifer Saint's debut novel Ariadne and really enjoyed it and appreciated Saint's incredible work in retelling the story of a lesser known figure in Greek myth who I feel is overlooked quite often. I was excited to see that Saint was back this year with another Greek myth retelling to dive into, this time featuring the cursed House of Atreus. The Greek tragedy "Agamemnon" by Aeschylus is one of my favorite Greek tragedies and is actually one I translated while studying Greek, so I was really looking forward to reading this retelling, especially since it was in the hands of an author I already enjoyed and respected! Below you will find some general information about the book as well as my own review, so be sure to read on and check it out. :)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: ELEKTRA
Author:  Jennifer Saint
Pub. Date: May 3rd, 2022
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pages: 320
Find it: Bookshop.org | B&N | Amazon |  

SYNOPSIS:

“The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods. 

Clytemnestra 
The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon - her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against them, and determines to win, whatever the cost. 

Cassandra
Princess of Troy, and cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall. 

Elektra
The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Elektra is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But, can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?"

 

        Review:  

Elektra tells the story of three women tied to the House of Atreus, a family line that has been plagued by a curse of violence for generations. In this story, we visit a time before the Trojan War when Clytemnestra and Helen were just two sisters of Sparta preparing for marriage, we visit the time of the Trojan War and everything that occurs within it, and we finally visit the time after the Trojan War when King Agamemnon returns home to Clytemnestra and the Greek world must go back to their regular way of life. 

In Elektra, we follow three women who are a part of this myth: Cassandra, the cursed seer; Clytemnestra, a daughter of Spartan rulers who is wed to the king Agamemnon of Mycenae; and Elektra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon who is left behind with her mother in Mycenae when Agamemnon goes off to fight in what would be the Trojan War. 

I appreciated Saint's candid portrayal of Clytemnestra in showing how her actions and motivations are both understandable and extreme in varying circumstances. Saint makes it easy to follow along with Clytemnestra's character development and gradual evolution as she is affected by various experiences in her life, and particularly a traumatic one involving the death of one of her daughters. 

I also really liked having a POV from Cassandra, as she is always a figure that has intrigued me and that I’ve connected with for some reason. She was cursed by the god Apollo to where she would always be able to accurately receive prophecies, but no one would ever believe what she told them–and I can only imagine unbelievably infuriating that would be. I loved getting a more multi-dimensional view of Cassandra, as I've always found her a very sympathetic and intriguing character. 

Elektra herself was surprisingly the most difficult character for me to connect with in this book and I have to say I really didn’t care for her or her portrayal. I found her very close-minded and difficult to connect with at times, but I did understand her headspace and her choices that were necessary for the myth and was relevant in the myth as well. 

Saint’s writing is incredibly thoughtful and quiet, but still very powerful. We really got to hear each character's unique voice, no matter how big or small their role was. Her prose is vivid and thorough, but not overdone in conveying the many events of this myth story that range from the traumatic and tragic to the loyalty between family and long family curses. There’s a very lovely simplicity about it that I think lended itself to the story really well, and I appreciated that it followed the myth fairly closely in the areas she chose to include. I didn’t end up connecting with Elektra to the same extent that I did Ariadne, but I think that’s solely due to my own interest level and how much I loved Ariadne and the minotaur story and I really liked and appreciated the story within Elektra and had a great time reading it. 

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of grief, tragedy, power, betrayal, and family. Overall, I've given Elektra four stars! If you are at all interested in Greek mythology, tales of fascinating women, and/or books in the same vein as Circe and Ariadne, then Elektra is a book that should definitely be on your radar. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 Jennifer Saint is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Her debut novel, ARIADNE, was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2021 and was a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards Fantasy category in 2021. Her second novel, ELEKTRA, comes out in 2022 and is another retelling of Greek mythology told in the voices of the women at the heart of the ancient legends.(from Goodreads)

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Blog Tour: The Last Grand Duchess by Bryn Turnbull + Excerpt!

 

I know, another blog tour... but I couldn't pass this one up because I think this book has such a great premise! I love historical fiction, especially any set around the Romanov family and Russian history, so this is a perfect fit. Below you'll find some information about the book and the author, Bryn Turnbull, as well as an excerpt from the first chapter of the novel!

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: THE LAST GRAND DUCHESS: A Novel of Olga Romanov, Imperial Russia, and Revolution
Author:  Bryn Turnbull
Pub. Date: February 8th, 2022
Publisher: MIRA Books
Pages: 400
Find it: B&N | Amazon |  Harlequin | BookShop.org | Books-A-Million | Powell's

SYNOPSIS:

“This sweeping new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis takes readers behind palace walls to see the end of Imperial Russia through the eyes of Olga Romanov, the first daughter of the last Tsar. 

Grand Duchess Olga Romanov comes of age amid a shifting tide for the great dynasties of Europe. But even as unrest simmers in the capital, Olga is content to live within the confines of the sheltered life her parents have built for and her three sisters: hiding from the world on account of their mother’s ill health, their brother Alexei’s secret affliction, and rising controversy over Father Grigori Rasputin, the priest on whom the Tsarina has come to rely. Olga’s only escape from the seclusion of Alexander Palace comes from her aunt, who takes pity on her and her sister Tatiana, inviting them to grand tea parties amid the shadow court of Saint Petersburg. Finally, she glimpses a world beyond her mother’s Victorian sensibilities—a world of opulent ballrooms, scandalous flirtation, and whispered conversation. 

But as war approaches, the palaces of Russia are transformed. Olga and her sisters trade their gowns for nursing habits, assisting in surgeries and tending to the wounded bodies and minds of Russia’s military officers. As troubling rumors about her parents trickle in from the Front, Olga dares to hope that a budding romance might survive whatever the future may hold. But when tensions run high and supplies run low, the controversy over Rasputin grows into fiery protest, and calls for revolution threaten to end 300 years of Romanov rule."

 

   Excerpt:  

Chapter 1

March 1917 

Tsarskoe Selo

Shots rang out across the twilit grounds of Alexander Park. Sit-ting on the window ledge in her father’s study, Olga turned her head toward the sound. She’d heard gunfire in the days and weeks since the riots had broken out in Petrograd, though they’d never sounded so close, so final. Incongruously, she thought not of advancing troops, but of her brother Alexei and his cap-gun, firing at imagined enemies in the grounds where, at this very moment, true monsters stalked between the trees.

Across the room, shrouded in the darkness that had cloaked the palace since the electricity lines were cut days before, Olga’s mother pulled a shawl across her shoulders. Candlelight sent dark flames up the cavernous bookshelves that lined the walls, illuminating her weary face.

“Abdicated?” she whispered.

Panic gripped her by the throat, and Olga turned to face the window once more. In the deepening gloom, she fancied she could see the orange glow of bonfires. “I don’t understand. In favor of Alexei?” She glanced at Mamma: Alexei’s chronic poor health had always made him seem older than his age, but at twelve, he was still very much a child, and far too young to take on the heavy burden of ruling.

Standing in front of the tsarina, Major General Resin, the commander who’d taken charge of the garrison of troops that protected Olga’s family, cleared his throat. “No, Your Majesty. It’s more complicated than that. We’re still receiving information from the front, but it seems His Imperial Highness was most insistent on the matter. He offered the crown to his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail, but the grand duke refused it. The Duma has formed a provisional government to determine what will happen next, but as I said, we will learn more once His Majesty returns.”

Olga turned her attention back to Mamma, shutting out the continued rattle of gunfire—no closer to the palace walls, but no further away, either. Having spent the last several weeks nursing her siblings through a fierce bout of German measles, Olga had not had the time nor the energy to keep abreast of political developments, but she’d heard enough to know that unrest had been boiling in the capital. Protests in the coal plants; riots in bread lines. Rolling blackouts, hitting tenements and palaces alike; rallies and calls for change, growing ever louder as the war against the Central Powers continued to leech provisions from households and businesses.

But abdication?

From within the white folds of the Red Cross veil she’d worn since the start of the war, Mamma’s face fell, her pale eyes darting around the room. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I simply don’t understand.”

She reached out a thin hand, waving her fingers insistently; recognizing the movement, Olga stepped forward and took it, searching for a logical route through her own confusion. She could hear a buzzing in her head: an insistent roar, the sound of surf crashing against the hull of a ship. With Papa’s abdication, the situation had become everything she’d feared, the sickening finality in the word itself enough to keep it from passing her lips: revolution.

She squeezed Mamma’s hand, watching as Resin’s fingers tightened on the flat brim of his cap. “Where is Papa?”

“He’s coming here, Grand Duchess,” replied Resin, “but in the opinion of the Provisional Government, the palace is not the safest place—not for His Imperial Majesty, and not for you, either. I’m afraid they can no longer guarantee your welfare.”

Mamma looked up sharply. “We have three hundred loyal Cossacks at the gate—the finest soldiers this country has ever produced,” she said, sounding for a moment like her old, fierce self. “They’re loyal to my husband. I fail to see the danger.”

Resin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, Minister Rodzianko disagrees. The barracks in Tsarskoe Selo have begun to riot; they’re singing the ‘Marseillaise’ as we speak.”

Mamma paled. Olga recalled visiting the garrison less than a year earlier, trotting on horseback past 40,000 troops all sworn to protect the tsar and his family. How could 40,000 minds be so easily turned?

“And what of my children?” Mamma persisted. “Tatiana can hardly walk. Maria and Anastasia are delirious, and the tsarevich is in a very delicate state—”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty.” Resin met Mamma’s gaze directly. “When the house is in flames, one carries out the children.”

The room fell silent. Despite her attempt at composure, Olga began to shake, a thin, uncontrollable trembling, which, given the darkness of the study, she hoped Resin couldn’t see.

Mamma gripped Olga’s fingers in a silent plea to keep calm. Though her poor health would make it appear otherwise, Mam-ma’s Victorian upbringing had given her a stiff upper lip which Olga and her sisters lacked. She’d been instrumental in running the government since Papa went to command the front, overseeing the distribution of relief aid to soldiers’ families, orchestrating shipments of food and provisions, reining in the government ministers whose political agendas risked the country’s success at the front. Despite what people said about her—despite her Ger-man roots—Mamma had led Russia through the worst of the war years, relying on her faith in God and in Papa to make the decisions others would not.

How had things gone so wrong?

Mamma stood. “We will stay,” she said finally, lifting her chin. “I won’t leave the palace without my husband.”

Excerpted from The Last Grand Duchess by Bryn Turnbull, Copyright © 2022 by Bryn Turnbull. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

BRYN TURNBULL is the bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis. Equipped with a master's of letters in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews, a master's of professional communication from Ryerson University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from McGill University, Bryn focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record. She lives in Toronto.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads

Blog Tour: A Lullaby for Witches by Hester Fox + Excerpt!

Today I am excited to share my stop on the blog tour for Hester Fox's A Lullaby for Witches! A Lullaby for Witches is an atmospheric, engaging tale featuring two women from two different times–and witches! Be sure to read on to find out more about the book, as well an excerpt from the prologue and first chapter. Happy reading!

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: A LULLABY FOR WITCHES
Author:  Hester Fox
Pub. Date: February 1st, 2022
Publisher: Graydon House
Pages: 
Find it: B&N | Amazon |  Harlequin | BookShop.org | Books-A-Million | Powell's

SYNOPSIS:

“Augusta Podos has just landed her dream job, working in collections at a local museum, Harlowe House, located in the charming seaside town of Tynemouth, Massachussetts. Determined to tell the stories of the local community, she throws herself into her work--and finds an oblique mention of a mysterious woman, Margaret, who may have been part of the Harlowe family, but is reduced to a footnote. Fascinated by this strange omission, Augusta becomes obsessed with discovering who Margaret was, what happened to her, and why her family scrubbed her from historical records. But as she does, strange incidents begin plaguing Harlowe House and Augusta herself. Are they connected with Margaret, and what do they mean? 

Tynemouth, 1872. Margaret Harlowe is the beautiful daughter of a wealthy shipping family, and she should have many prospects--but her fascination with herbs and spellwork has made her a pariah, with whispers of "witch" dogging her steps. Increasingly drawn to the darker, forbidden practices of her craft, Margaret finds herself caught up with a local man, Jack Pryce, and the temptation of these darker ways threatens to pull her under completely. 

As the incidents in the present day escalate, Augusta finds herself drawn more and more deeply into Margaret's world, and a shocking revelation sheds further light on Margaret and Augusta's shared past. And as Margaret's sinister purpose becomes clear, Augusta must uncover the secret of Margaret's fate--before the woman who calls to her across the centuries claims Augusta's own life."

 

        Excerpt:  

Prologue

Margaret

I was beautiful in the summer of 1876. The rocky Tynemouth coast was an easy place to be beautiful, though, with a fresh salt breeze that brought roses to my cheeks and sun that warmed my long hair, shooting the chestnut brown through with rich veins of copper. It was enough to make me forget—or at least, not care—that I was an outsider, a curiosity who left whispers in my wake when I walked through the muddy streets of our coastal town.

Do I miss being beautiful? Of course. But it’s the being found beautiful by others that I miss the most. It was the ambrosia that made an otherwise solitary life bearable. And it was being found beautiful by one man in particular, Jack Pryce, that I miss the most.

He would come to find me out behind my family’s house as I helped our maid hang the laundry on the lines or weeded my rocky garden. He always brought me a little gift, whether it was a toffee wrapped in wax paper from his parents’ shop, or just a little green flower he had plucked because it reminded him of my eyes. Something that told me I was special, that those stories around town of him stepping out with the Clerkenwell girl weren’t true.

“There she is,” he would say, coming up with his hands in his pockets and crooked grin on his full lips. “My lovely wildflower.” He called me this, he said, on account of my insistence on going without shoes on warm days when the grass was soft and lush. Whatever little chore I was doing would soon be forgotten as I led him out of sight of the house. With my back against a tree and his hands traveling under and up my skirts, we found euphoria in a panting tangle of limbs and hoarsely whispered promises. Heavy sea mists mingling with sweat in hair (his), the taste of berry-sweet lips (mine), the gut-deep knowing that he must love me. He must. He must. He must.

But like all things, summer came to an end, and autumn swept in with her cruel winds and killing frosts. Jack came less and less often, claiming first that it was work at the shop, then that he could no longer be seen with the girl who was rumored to practice witchcraft and worship at the altar of the moon on clear nights. Finally, on a day where the rain fell in icy sheets and even the screeching cries of the gulls could not compete with the howling wind, I realized he was not coming back.

Time moves differently now. Then, it was measured in church bells and birthdays, clock strokes and town harvest dances. It was measured in the monthly flow of my courses, until they stopped coming and my belly grew distended and full. Now—or perhaps it is better to say “here”—time is a fluid thing, like water that flows in all directions, finding and filling every crack and empty place, like my womb and my heart.

I did not want to give the babe up, though I knew it could only bring heartache and pain to my family. A mother’s heart is a stubborn thing, and no sooner had I felt the first stirrings of life within me, than I knew I would do anything in the world to protect my little one.

It was folly, I know that now. A woman like me could never hope to bring a child into this cruel world, could never hope that the honey-sweet words of a man like Jack Pryce carried any weight. What irony that I should not realize such simple truths until it was too late. Should not realize them until my blood ran icy in my veins and my broken heart stopped beating. Until the man I thought had loved me stood over my body, staring down as the life ran out of me like a streambed running dry. Until I was dead and cold and no longer so very beautiful.

1

Augusta

“Hello?” Augusta threw her keys on the table and slung her bag onto one of the kitchen chairs. As usual, a precarious stack of plates had taken over the sink, and the remnants of a Chinese food dinner sat out on the table. Sighing, she covered the leftovers with plastic wrap, stuck them in the fridge and followed the sounds of video games to the living room.

“I’m home,” she said tersely to the two guys hunched over their gaming consoles.

Doug barely glanced up, but her boyfriend, Chris, threw her a quick glance over his shoulder.

“Hey, we’re just finishing up.” Turning back, he continued mashing keys on the game controller, shaking his dark fringe from his eyes and muttering colorful insults at his opponent.

Chris and Doug weren’t the best housemates. Sure, they paid their share of the rent on time, but the house was constantly a mess, and video games took priority over household chores. She supposed that’s what she got for living with her boyfriend and allowing his unemployed brother to move in with them. 

“Well, I guess I’ll be in my room if you need me,” Augusta said, too exhausted to pick a fight about the mess in the kitchen.

“You can stay and watch,” Chris said without turning back around.

She’d had a long, hard day. Between the air-conditioning being broken at work and discovering she only had ninety-eight dollars in her bank account after paying her cell phone bill, she wasn’t in the mood to watch Chris and Doug massacre each other with bazookas. She grabbed an apple from the kitchen, and went back to the room she shared with Chris, closing the door against the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Outside, the occasional car passed by in a sweep of headlights and somewhere down the street a dog barked. Loneliness curled around her as she sat at her laptop and began cycling through her bookmarked job listing sites.

Her job giving tours at the Old City Jail in Salem was all right; she got to work in a historic building, it was close enough that she could walk to work, and the polyester uniform was only a slightly nauseating shade of green. But it wasn’t challenging, and she wasn’t using her degree in museum studies for which she’d worked so hard. Not to mention the student debt she was still paying off. The worst was dealing with the public, though. Some of the people that showed up on her tours were engaged in her talks, but mostly the jail attracted cruise tourists who hadn’t realized that it was a guided tour and were more interested in snapping a quick picture for Instagram than learning about the history. The other day she’d really had to remind a full-grown man that he couldn’t bring an ice cream cone into the house, and then had to clean up said ice cream cone when he’d smuggled it inside anyway and dropped it. And the witches! Just because they were in Salem, everyone who came through the door assumed that there would be history about the witches, never mind that the jail didn’t even date from the same century as the witch trials. Most days she came home tired, irritable and unfulfilled. 

From the other room came an excited shout as Chris blew up Doug’s home base. Augusta turned her music up. Most of the listings on the museum job sites were for fundraising or grant writing, the sliver of the museum world where all the money was. She knew she shouldn’t be choosy, the millennial voice of reason in her head telling her that she was lucky to have a job at all. But Chris, with his computer engineering degree, actually had companies courting him, and his job at a Boston tech firm came with a yearly salary and benefits.

She was just about to close her laptop when a new listing popped up. Harlowe House in Tynemouth was looking for a collections manager to work alongside their curator. As she scanned the listing, her heart started to beat faster. She wasn’t familiar with the property, but a quick search showed that it was part of a trust dedicated to the history and legacy of a seafaring family from the nineteenth century. She ticked off the qualifications in her head—an advanced degree in art history, museum studies or anthropology, and at least five years of experience. She would have to fudge the years, but other than that, it was made for her. She bookmarked the listing, making a mental note to update her CV in the morning.

The door swung open and Chris came in, plopping himself on the bed beside her. Tall, with an athletic build and dark hair that was perpetually in need of a trim, he was wearing a faded band shirt and gym shorts. “We’re going to order subs. What do you want?”

“Didn’t you just get Chinese food?” she asked.

“That was lunch.”

Augusta did a quick inventory in her head of what she’d eaten that day, how many calories she was up to, and how much money she could afford. After she’d fished ten dollars out of her purse, Chris wandered back out to the living room, leaving her alone. She picked up a book, but it didn’t hold her interest, and soon she was lost scrolling through her phone and playing some stupid game where you had to match up jewels to clear the board. A thrilling Saturday night if there ever was one.

In both college and grad school, Augusta had had a vibrant, tight-knit group of friends. She’d always been a homebody, so there weren’t lots of wild nights out at clubs, but they’d still had fairly regular get-togethers. Lunches and trips to museums, stuff like that. So what had happened in the last few years?

Her mind knew what had happened, but her heart refused to face the truth. Chris had happened.

She had been with him ever since her dad died. She’d run into Chris, her old high school boyfriend, at the memorial. He’d been a familiar face, and she’d clung to him like a life raft amid the turmoil of putting her life back together without her father. It had been clear early on that beyond some shared history, they didn’t have much in common, but he was steady, and Augusta had craved steady. A year passed, then two, then three, and four. She had invested so much time in the relationship, sacrificed so many friends, that at some point it felt like admitting defeat to break up. For his part, Chris seemed content with the status quo, and so five years later, here they were.

That night, after Chris had rolled over and was lightly snoring, Augusta lay awake, thinking of the job listing. The words Harlowe House, Harlowe House, Harlowe House ran through her mind like the beat of a drum. A signal of hope, a promise of something better.

Excerpted from A Lullaby for Witches by Hester Fox, Copyright © 2022 by Hester Fox. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

HESTER FOX is a full-time writer and mother, with a background in museum work and historical archaeology. A native New-Englander, she now lives in rural Virginia with her husband and their son.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Blog Tour: Trashlands by Alison Stine + Excerpt

 Today I'm excited to share with you all my stop on the blog tour for Alison Stine's Trashlands, a haunting, emotional, and compelling story about a future exploring the effects of dramatic climate change. Below you'll find some information about both the book and the author, as well as a brief excerpt!

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: TRASHLANDS
Author:  Alison Stine
Pub. Date: October 26th, 2021
Publisher: MIRA Books
Pages: 384
Find it: B&N | IndieBound | Amazon |  Harlequin | BookShop.org | Books-A-Million | Powell's

SYNOPSIS:

“A resonant, visionary novel about the power of art and the sacrifices we are willing to make for the ones we love 

A few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: garbage is currency. 

In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a “plucker,” pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She’s stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor. 

Amid the polluted landscape, Coral works desperately to save up enough to rescue her child from the recycling factories, where he is forced to work. In her stolen free hours, she does something that seems impossible in this place: Coral makes art. 

When a reporter from a struggling city on the coast arrives in Trashlands, Coral is presented with an opportunity to change her life. But is it possible to choose a future for herself? 

Told in shifting perspectives, Trashlands is a beautifully drawn and wildly imaginative tale of a parent's journey, a story of community and humanity in a changed world."

 

Excerpt:  

1 

Early coralroot 

Corallorhiza trifida 

            Coral was pregnant then. She hid it well in a dress she had found in the road, sun-bleached and mud-dotted, only a little ripped. The dress billowed to her knees, over the tops of her boots. She was named for the wildflower which hadn’t been seen since before her birth, and for ocean life, poisoned and gone. It was too dangerous to go to the beach anymore. You never knew when storms might come. 

            Though they were going—to get a whale. 

            A boy had come from up north with a rumor: a whale had beached. Far off its course, but everything was off by then: the waterways, the paths to the ocean, its salt. You went where you had to go, where weather and work and family—but mostly weather—took you. 

            The villagers around Lake Erie were carving the creature up, taking all the good meat and fat. The strainer in its mouth could be used for bows, the bones in its chest for tent poles or greenhouse beams. 

            It was a lot of fuel for maybe nothing, a rumor spun by an out-of-breath boy. But there would be pickings along the road. And there was still gas, expensive but available. So the group went, led by Mr. Fall. They brought kayaks, lashed to the top of the bus, but in the end, the water was shallow enough they could wade. 

            They knew where to go because they could smell it. You got used to a lot of smells in the world: rotten food, chemicals, even shit. But death… Death was hard to get used to. 

            “Masks up,” Mr. Fall said. 

            Some of the men in the group—all men except Coral—had respirators, painter’s masks, or medical masks. Coral had a handkerchief of faded blue paisley, knotted around her neck. She pulled it up over her nose. She had dotted it with lavender oil from a vial, carefully tipping out the little she had left. She breathed shallowly through fabric and flowers. Mr. Fall just had a T-shirt, wound around his face. He could have gotten a better mask, Coral knew, but he was leading the crew. He saved the good things for the others. 

            She was the only girl on the trip, and probably the youngest person. Maybe fifteen, she thought. Months ago, she had lain in the icehouse with her teacher, a man who would not stay. He was old enough to have an old-fashioned name, Robert, to be called after people who had lived and died as they should. Old enough to know better, Mr. Fall had said, but what was better, anymore? 

            Everything was temporary. Robert touched her in the straw, the ice blocks sweltering around them. He let himself want her, or pretend to, for a few hours. She tried not to miss him. His hands that shook at her buttons would shake in a fire or in a swell of floodwater. Or maybe violence had killed him. 

            She remembered it felt cool in the icehouse, a relief from the outside where heat beat down. The last of the chillers sputtered out chemicals. The heat stayed trapped in people’s shelters, like ghosts circling the ceiling. Heat haunted. It would never leave. 

            News would stop for long stretches. The information that reached Scrappalachia would be written hastily on damp paper, across every scrawled inch. It was always old news. 

            The whale would be picked over by the time they reached it. 

            Mr. Fall led a practiced team. They would not bother Coral, were trained not to mess with anything except the mission. They parked the bus in an old lot, then descended through weeds to the beach. The stairs had washed away. And the beach, when they reached it, was not covered with dirt or rock as Coral had expected, but with a fine yellow grit so bright it hurt to look at, a blankness stretching on. 

            “Take off your boots,” Mr. Fall said. 

            Coral looked at him, but the others were listening, knot-ting plastic laces around their necks, stuffing socks into pockets. 

            “Go on, Coral. It’s all right.” Mr. Fall’s voice was gentle, muffled by the shirt. 

            Coral had her job to do. Only Mr. Fall and the midwife knew for sure she was pregnant, though others were talking. She knew how to move so that no one could see. 

            But maybe, she thought as she leaned on a fence post and popped off her boot, she wanted people to see. To tell her what to do, how to handle it. Help her. He had to have died, Robert—and that was the reason he didn’t come back for her. Or maybe he didn’t know about the baby? 

            People had thought there would be no more time, but there was. Just different time. Time moving slower. Time after disaster, when they still had to live. She set her foot down on the yellow surface. It was warm. 

            She shot a look at Mr. Fall. 

            The surface felt smooth, shifting beneath her toes. Coral slid her foot across, light and slightly painful. It was the first time she had felt sand. 

            The sand on the beach made only a thin layer. People had started to take it. Already, people knew sand, like everything, could be valuable, could be sold. 

            Coral took off her other boot. She didn’t have laces, to tie around her neck. She carried the boots under her arm. Sand clung to her, pebbles jabbing at her feet. Much of the trash on the beach had been picked through. What was left was diapers and food wrappers and cigarettes smoked down to filters. 

            “Watch yourselves,” Mr. Fall said. 

            Down the beach they followed the smell. It led them on, the sweet rot scent. They came around a rock outcropping, and there was the whale, massive as a ship run aground: red, purple, and white. The colors seemed not real. Birds were on it, the black birds of death. The enemies of scavengers, their competition. Two of the men ran forward, waving their arms and whooping to scare off the birds. 

            “All right everybody,” Mr. Fall said to the others. “You know what to look for.”     

            Except they didn’t. Not really. Animals weren’t their specialty. 

            Plastic was. 

            People had taken axes to the carcass, to carve off meat. More desperate people had taken spoons, whatever they could use to get at something to take home for candle wax or heating fuel, or to barter or beg for something else, something better. 

            “You ever seen a whale?” one of the men, New Orleans, asked Coral. 

            She shook her head. “No.” 

            “This isn’t a whale,” Mr. Fall said. “Not anymore. Keep your masks on.” 

            They approached it. The carcass sunk into the sand. Coral tried not to breathe deeply. Flesh draped from the bones of the whale. The bones were arched, soaring like buttresses, things that made up cathedrals—things she had read about in the book. 

            Bracing his arm over his mouth, Mr. Fall began to pry at the ribs. They were big and strong. They made a cracking sound, like a splitting tree. 

            New Orleans gagged and fell back. 

            Other men were dropping. Coral heard someone vomiting into the sand. The smell was so strong it filled her head and chest like a sound, a high ringing. She moved closer to give her feet something to do. She stood in front of the whale and looked into its gaping mouth. 

            There was something in the whale. 

            Something deep in its throat. 

            In one pocket she carried a knife always, and in the other she had a light: a precious flashlight that cast a weak beam. She switched it on and swept it over the whale’s tongue, picked black by the birds. 

            She saw a mass, opaque and shimmering, wide enough it blocked the whale’s throat. The whale had probably died of it, this blockage. The mass looked lumpy, twined with seaweed and muck, but in the mess, she could make out a water bottle. 

            It was plastic. Plastic in the animal’s mouth. It sparked in the beam of her flashlight. 

            Coral stepped into the whale. 

Excerpted from Trashlands by Alison Stine, Copyright © 2021 by Alison Stine. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ALISON STINE is an award-winning poet and author. Recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and an Ohio Arts Council grant, she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow and received the Studs Terkel Award for Media and Journalism. She works as a freelance reporter with The New York Times, writes for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, 100 Days in Appalachia, ELLE, The Kenyon Review, and others, and has been a storyteller on The Moth. After living in Appalachian Ohio for many years, she now lives and writes in Colorado with her partner, her son, and a small orange cat.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads