Happy New Year!
I thought we’d start the year with a giveaway. I had this idea of having monthly giveaways throughout the year.
That’s actually a lie. If you follow my Facebook page, you might have noticed that I shared a snippet from a book every Tuesday during 2020 except for a few weeks toward the end of the year when I ran out of books. I planned to do something similar this year, but post my books on their birthday.
Then, when I started making lists of when every book was published, I change my mind. Isn’t giveaways more fun? I think so.
How does it work?
At the beginning of each month, I’ll publish a post with the books having been released that month in the past. A week later, I’ll randomly pick a winner from the comments below who gets ebook copies of that month’s books.
January only has two books. Apparently, I haven’t released a lot at the beginning of the year. But we have Worth His Salt and Scary Gary, so two paranormal short stories.
Worth His Salt is a tattooed corpse story which is a series I’ve been writing with Amy Spector. It’s a series, and yet the books have nothing in common. The only thing binding them together is that in each book, a body will appear, and that body is the same in every story.
Worth His Salt is about Eldred Henstare. He’s a not so powerful witch, who’s in charge of keeping spirits away from his city – something he isn’t very good at. It’s the call of a spirit that leads him to meet Mo.
Energy more intense than anything he’d experienced before smashed into him and he stumbled backwards. He’d heard tales of spirits trying to incapacitate the guardian to be able to roam freely in a region, but those were no ordinary spirits.
“Shit.” Eldred rubbed his heart. The area between his eyebrows burned despite the cold, and he flung out whatever energy he had stored to protect his aura.
Something was trying to force itself into his mind.
“Who are you?”
Eldred yelped, there was no better word for it. To his right, a dark, towering figure had appeared out of nowhere. He dug his hand into his pocket and threw a handful of salt at the fucker. “Into the white light!”
“Excuse me?” The figure spat on the ground. “I think it’s best if you leave my property.”
Eldred was sucking in breath after breath. He needed to cast a circle. He never should’ve gone alone.
“Are you all right, kid?”
“All right? Kid? Why are you here?”
The silence went on for a couple of seconds. “Because you’re on my lawn.”
Eldred looked down on the ground. The grass was neatly cut around him. When had he stepped off the meadow? The rain and wind were stinging his face, and he had a hard time thinking. He peered at the man, and it looked like a real, living, breathing man—exactly the way Eldred wanted his men.
And then we have Scary Gary. I’m in love with Scary Gary. It’s a super short story, only around 5k (and it’s free everywhere but on Amazon, because Amazon! *growl*) and I wrote it in a few days after having seen a writing prompt saying: There’s a reason I’m afraid of my own shadow.
Poor Micah has a murderous shadow. On days when he’s not careful, it gets the better of him. But, the good news is that when he dies, Gary the Grim Reaper shows up. And we all want Gary to show up LOL
“Micah. Time to wake up.”
A cold hand lightly slapped Micah’s cheek, and he sucked in a breath. “Stop it.” The croak was a surprise. Though, considering he’d been strangled, it shouldn’t have been.
“Oh, it talks.” Gary’s unimpressed huff would have made Micah smile if he’d had the energy. Squinting at Gary, he noticed they were in his apartment. His small, safe, apartment.
“Are you okay?” The worry in Gary’s voice had hot and cold clashing in Micah’s chest. Those unnaturally blue eyes skidded over his face and he wondered how many scrapes and cuts there were this time.
“Of course. I just missed your cheerful company and was wondering if maybe you’d be up for a nightcap.”
Gary groaned and rubbed his eyes, his shoulders slumping as if Micah had stolen what little energy he had. Guilt, and maybe a little worry, had Micah struggling to sit. There were bloody scrapes on his forearms. Bruises encircled his wrists—that was new. He frowned at them and glanced at Gary.
Gary flew to his feet, pointing a pale finger at him. “Do I need to remind you—” His black cloak billowed around him, blue smoke wafting from around his ankles, and his face etched in stern lines. Had this been the first time Micah had seen him, he’d have been petrified.
“Oh, shut up, Scary Gary. Do you want a drink or not?” Micah refused to acknowledge the way his hands shook and how he wished Gary would sit on the sofa next to him.
So to join the giveaway, I want you to comment below and tell us about your favourite paranormal creature to read about. Is it wizards, shifters, or perhaps Grim Reapers?
I read everything. I’m a bit hesitant when it comes to gods and demons, but some of my favourite stories have gods and demons in them, and I tend to avoid dragon shifters, but a few always end up in the read pile anyway.
Eldred Henstare is a not so powerful witch who’s been left in charge of helping the city’s lingering spirits to move on. He usually handles it pretty well, but something’s wrong with the spirit leading him to the abandoned lighthouse.
Mo Vin likes his quiet life in the cottage next to the lighthouse, at least it’s quiet until one night when Eldred Henstare—young, beautiful and crazy—arrives. After that night things aren’t the same. A man is found dead on the beach outside Mo’s cottage, and he’s almost sure he’s the one who killed him, except it doesn’t make sense. Why would he kill anyone?
Eldred needs to get rid of the ghost haunting Mo. If he doesn’t Mo’s life is in danger, but to do it he needs both Mo and his brother Lachtin to help out.
Micah Thaxter has a problem—one scary, inconvenient problem. His shadow wants him dead and isn’t shy about it.
On the plus side, it’s not his time to die and Scary Gary is always there to carry him back to the land of the living. Gary is far too pale, his black cloak a bit out of fashion, and his scythe quite terrifying, but he’s still one of the most beautiful men Micah has ever seen.
Micah may be stuck with a homicidal shadow, but perhaps there’s a way to keep Gary around too. His job escorting souls keeps him busy, but since Micah has already died once today, Gary’s there. So what’s the harm in offering him a cup of tea?
JMS Books began in 2010 as a way of getting a few friends into print. Ten years later, we’ve published more than 2,000 books celebrating LGBTQ+ romance from over 200 authors. A Decade of Gay Romance is a collection of our ten best-selling short stories, one for each year (to date).
Ofelia Grand 