Word Count: 1100
Summary: A muddy trench in France during the Great War wasn’t the most auspicious place for Tom and Michael to reach an understanding of their own natures. A small, individual tragedy unfolds … But then Tom discovers a place beyond, where he and other men like him are blessed with all that life denied them.
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Summary: Olson lives in a city that has been sealed from the outside world. He’s an Eleven Year and close to citizenship. His life is upended when one of the few adults who cares about him commits suicide - or so it appears at first. While investigating, Olson meets a girl named Natalie snooping around his school. He soon learns that one of her friends died under similarly mysterious circumstances. Together, they start looking for answers, and end up discovering the city's darkest secrets.
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Summary: Jennifer Bronwen, deep-space freighter skipper, sometime smuggler, and occasional blaster-for-hire is flat broke and in desperate need of a job. With her bills mounting and her ship one unlucky micrometeorite collision away from the scrapheap, when she’s offered a lucrative contract for a risky heist, well, it’s an opportunity she can’t afford to pass up. Keera Naraymis, a secret agent on deep-cover assignment in alien space, has just one more job to finish before her mission is complete. Getting it right means making the galaxy a safer place, and taking a trip to the Terran homeworld should be simple enough. But in the espionage game, your enemies are never quite who they appear. When their lives collide with catastrophic consequences, Jen and Keera form an unlikely alliance to find out why anyone would want to kill either one of them. What they discover runs far deeper than they could ever have anticipated, and throws them into a race against time to stop a conspiracy that threatens to unravel a thousand years of peace in the galaxy of the Burning Suns.
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Summary: Thrown into an unwilling partnership by a heist gone bad and a botched assassination, mercenary captain Jennifer Bronwen and changeling intelligence agent Keera Naraymis are on the run from just about everybody. If they can learn to trust one another, maybe they can figure out exactly how their lives got turned upside down. But right now, mired as they are in a game of cat and mouse in the bowels of a criminal’s lair, that seems like a big if. On the other side of the galaxy, Admiral Kiith Kohath has an even bigger problem—a corrupted cohort of cyborgs intent on pillaging the Assembly systems. Tracking the enemy to the sites of their atrocities, Kohath and his team must piece together the Reavers’ plan and determine their next target, preferably before they have a chance to slaughter yet another defenceless colony. With alliances and agreements fraying at the seams, and new and old trusts being put to the test, the personal and political stakes rise ever higher as Jen, Keera, and Kohath struggle to prevent the galaxy from slipping into all-out war…
Word Count: 10000
Summary: How far would a werewolf go to help a friend? Werewolves and dogs don’t usually get along, but Jordan Abbey has formed a bond with her elderly neighbor’s Rottweiler. So when Rex goes missing during a dog-walking mishap, she’s determined to return him home. With her abilities, finding him should be easy. Except there is one problem. The vampire lord of the city has declared she’s not allowed to shape-shift within the city limits of Rancho Robles. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, or so Jordan thinks. But there is another issue she has to face - Animal Control. Rumors are getting around about wolf-like dogs wandering the city, and they respond quickly to panicky stray dog calls. Jordan knows how to be discreet, or so she believes. Will Jordan be able to find her friend without sacrificing her freedom?
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Summary: The world of Avern has moved on. It has been almost a thousand years since the day the entire pantheon disappeared. Since the Abandonment, the mortals have learned to live without gods and goddesses. The world became mundane with little magic, and even less hope. Tyrants have risen, and those able to wield what is left of magic are powerful. Forces surge in the darkness that threaten to topple the already fragile world. The plight of the world of Avern is not unknown, however, and those that watch from a distance have decided to intervene. The mortals are sleeping, however, unknowing that two great powers will soon by vying for control.Then something happens that changes things. A young princess makes a bid for power by murdering her father. She then attempts to murder her sister, the crown princess of Lineria, Keiara. Despite a true strike, aided by dark powers, Keiara doesn’t die. Instead, the strike pierces the barrier between her human soul and the soul sleeping within her, the soul of the Dark Phoenix. More than a goddess, the Dark Phoenix is the legendary mother of the gods. She is a part of the Eternal Phoenix that brought life to their world eons ago, one of the primal forces of the cosmos.
Word Count: 112,000
Summary: Where does magic end and love begin? Oliver Evans spent his youth spinning one tall tale after another until it got him over his head in trouble. Now he has returned to his grandmother's cottage in Aberdaron, determined to put his past behind him and settle down. But the misty Llŷn Peninsula hides dangerous secrets and Olly is torn between the Longing, a powerful force driving him away from the only home he has ever known, and the growing conviction that the prince of his childhood make-believe is real and in need of Olly's help. There is more truth in Olly's stories than he realises. If he is to have any chance of righting past wrongs and rescuing his prince, Olly must navigate the truth in his old stories and discover the magic right in front of him. But Olly has a powerful enemy on the Llŷn, an ancient king who would like to end Olly's story-telling permanently. Written for the M/M Romance Groups 2015 Don't Read in the Closet event, Deep Magic was produced with the support and effort of members of the M/M Romance Group. You can find out more about the event and discover hundreds of other free stories here. Cover art produced by Bree Archer. Deep Magic does contain adult material.
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Summary:
Word Count: 5200
Summary: There’s something in the dark … but is Lem’s imagination worse than reality? Out in the vast emptiness of the galaxy, anything can happen. It’s a fact that Lem and her trusty companion Spock know all too well. Sometimes, the things lurking in the darkness are all in your head. Then again, maybe there really is something out there. With her talking dog and an infuriatingly literal AI by her side, Lem must rely on nothing but her strength and wits to help her. As a humorous homage to Arthur C Clarke’s classic A Walk in the Dark, this short adventure is a not-actually-scary sci-fi horror story that’s perfect for fans of Martha Wells and John Scalzi.
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Summary: Kal has always been considered too "fragile" to participate in the village activities. Her lithe stature links her to her father and distances her from everyone else. He left the village to fight in the Teristaque Wars and never returned. She meets Sarge, a strange star species of the human race who seems to know the secret of the patch from her father's uniform. Kal has always known she is different than her fellow villagers, and finally she may be closer to finding out why.
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Summary: All she wants is to be an engineer, but her parents—and society—will never allow it. Until riots break out in steampunk London and she seizes her chance... It’s 1889, and Claire Trevelyan is expected to do nothing more with her life than catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, her talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the laboratory, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine despite the fact that everyone knows the world runs on steam, Claire finds herself out in the street with nothing to her name but her steam landau and her second best hat. But the embarrassments of her old life just might be the talents that save her now ... and it’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices… If you like old-fashioned adventure, brave young women, clever children, and strong-willed chickens, you’ll love the Magnificent Devices series. Fangs for the Fantasy says Claire is “a wonderful main character (one of my favourites in the genre)” and the series has “a great sense of Victorian style and language that’s both fun and beautiful to read.” With Lady of Devices, you can begin the adventure today!
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Summary: SciFi Thoughts will tease and tantalize your mind with this genre from the future with short, laser focused episodes. SciFi has many dozens of sub genres with different story telling styles which attempt to bring new possibilities into how you see the world. Our mission is to expand what science fiction means to you by exploring this genre that is diverse as the stars in the sky. SciFi thoughts will, like the James Web Telescope, draw focus on a discovery and tantalize you with thoughts on movies and literature through intelligent and engaging discussion.
Word Count: 90000
Summary: Biology professor Roman Janz was walking across campus and planning his next plant-collecting trip to Brazil, when something stung him on the neck. And now… now he’s wandering in the dark, in the blue, floating, disembodied, and confused. There has to be a good explanation, if he can just find someone, anyone, he can actually talk to about it. Xavier Faulkner is intelligent, creative, and made millions when he sold his tech-security company. But all his wealth and skills couldn’t keep his sister Tam from being poisoned by food contamination. She lived, but her health was damaged, and her job as a cop is gone. In the antebellum house he moved them to, Xavier hopes to find both a distraction and maybe a purpose for their lives. But the old house seems to come with strange noises, and odd blue lights, and maybe― if Xavier isn’t just going crazy― a naked guy, walking away into the blue… This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love’s Landscapes" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. Dear Author, I just moved into this old antebellum home I bought with the intentions of restoring. I often find myself awoken in the night by strange noises I cannot identify or hear during the day. At first, I think it’s just a dream… this seemingly phantom always walking away. Who is he and how can I get him to finally turn around and see me? 79,000 words
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Jake is a trapper working high in the mountains of Wyoming Territory, usually not seeing another human from one month to the next. Recently, however, he’s had an unexpected guest – an Easterner named Edwin, who pitches in to ensure that Jake has enough supplies to survive the coming winter. As the evenings draw in, Jake works on knitting a blanket, adding a bit of love (and maybe even magic) into every stitch, hoping to entice Edwin to join him under its warmth…
Word Count: 50000
Summary: Asking a necromancer for help is scary; falling for him may be downright terrifying. Darien Green's afraid he's going insane. The voices in his head are getting louder, weirder, and more numerous. But tattoos appearing on his skin say that there might be a magical reason, something other than his own brain going around the bend. He's worked up the nerve to ask the local necromancer for help. Now he just has to survive his encounter with tall, dark, and talks-to-ghosts. Necromancer Silas Thornwood doesn't appreciate being woken out of his bed by a stranger pounding on his door. But when that stranger turns out to be a half-frozen young man with an unexpected appeal, Silas can't turn him away. Even Grim, his cat-familiar, agrees— in a world of death and demons, protecting gorgeous, ghost-ridden Darien is Silas's next difficult job.
Word Count: 4800
Summary: Tahl promised Enfys ice bears for Midwinter, but ey neglected to tell him that ey and eir kin were the ice bears. Written for the Rainbow Advent Calendar 2018
Word Count: 103000
Summary: First I was a sorcerer. Then I was a hermit. For so long—for years that seemed to go on forever—I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole stone bunkers to keep everyone out, emotionally, and physically as well. I was protected from people, from ghosts, from specters real and imagined. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after a while, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" empty life was really worth living. Then Tobin came along. Out of the blue, out of my past, with a summons from the king that he wouldn't let me ignore. I tried to cling to my isolation, but he wouldn't give up on me. Tobin never believed in walls. This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. 103,000 words
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Isolated on Mars, anyone could start going stir crazy… Katya should be on top of the world. She’s overcome a traumatic past and now she’s part of the first permanent settlement on Mars. So why do things feel so wrong? The colonists are confined to a small base on the surface of a hostile planet, so perhaps it’s only cabin fever. After all, she’s got great friends, an exciting career, and an ex-girlfriend who – she’s sure – would do anything to have her back… But with cracks appearing in the relationships between the crew and nothing but empty Martian desert beyond the safety of their domes, it’s far too easy for the mind to drift. And when it does, it can be difficult to tell what’s real, and what’s pure imagination… Past Imperfect is a short story set during Livid Skies, SI CLARKE’s second novel. It’s written for people who enjoy science fiction that challenges their preconceptions. This is a work of neurodiverse, culturally diverse, gender-bendy, socio-politico-economic, drunken-arguments-in-the-pub science fiction – not bang-bang-pew-pew science fiction.
Word Count: 72000
Summary: Have you ever looked at a picture, perhaps a photo of two guys in a tight hug, or two girls holding hands, and wondered, "What happened before that moment? What will they do next?" These fifteen stories were inspired by images from the Young Adult LGBT Books Group. In these pages you'll find LGBTQ teenagers living their lives - experiencing first encounters and long relationships, coming out, staying closeted, questioning, loving, having adventures, dealing with family, with prejudice, with magic. Author Kira Harp provides this collection of Young Adult romantic, fantasy and contemporary short stories. Any author royalties from this book will be donated to The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and resources for LGBTQ youth. (**This book is a free download in ebook everywhere except Amazon, and also available in print.)
Word Count: 100000
Summary: Dragons don't care what gender you are. A small town may be a refuge, or a trap. Some younger brothers really do save the planet. Three people can be the strongest shape. There's nothing quite like a gorgeous girl on a shape-shifting motorcycle. This second Kira Harp collection brings together LGBTQ teens in 21 stories of adventure, discovery, and romance, in fantasy, paranormal, contemporary, and SciFi settings. Ranging from a few short pages to 12,000 words, each story was inspired by a prompt picture from the YA LGBTQ Books Group on Goodreads. (Content warnings for abduction, bullying, self harm, substance abuse, suicidal ideation.) **This book is free in ebook everywhere except Amazon
