Showing posts with label Sparks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sparks. Show all posts

Monday, May 30, 2011

Would You Like to Have Author Laura Bickle Be a Guest at Your Blog?

Laura Bickle has signed on to be one of my PR clients. I am not currently setting up a tour but we are scheduling several stops per month at interested blogs and websites.

If you are interested in having Laura be your guest please email me for details. We are currently booking spots for June, July and beyond.

RoxanneRhoads@aol.com

EMBERS

Anya Kalinczyk #1

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN: 978-1439167656

April 2010

“One of the most promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not much higher praise that I can give.”

—Elizabeth Bear on Tor.com

“Bickle has something great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex, police, and murder.”

—M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels

“Gritty but never grim, Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”

—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade

Unemployment, despair, anger--visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit's unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya--who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern--suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil's Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya--with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team --can stop it.

Anya's accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she's risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she's ever faced.

A free excerpt is available here.

EMBERS is available now from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.


SPARKS

Anya Kalinczyk #2

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN 978-1439167687

September 2010

The second book in Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)

- RT Book Reviews

...a charming and inventive read.

-Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010

WITHOUT A TRACE...

Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.

After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.

SPARKS is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

A free excerpt is available here.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Devil's Night Terrors with Laura Bickle

Detroit’s a city lush with storytelling possibilities. The landscape provides so many real-world places with history behind them that made Detroit an irresistible setting for EMBERS and SPARKS. Given the heroine’s ties to fire as an arson investigator and the owner of a fire salamander familiar, Detroit was a natural choice as a location. It’s got a history of fires going back to the one that leveled the city in 1805, right up to Devil’s Night arsons in the twentieth century.

Devil's Night was traditionally the night before Halloween, October 30. In the 1930s, it began as general mischief, but escalated to arson and serious crime by the 1970s. From the 1970s through the 1990s, hundreds of arsons and vandalisms were reported each year on the days surrounding Devil's Night.

The crimes prompted the organization of Angel's Night in 1995. In 1995, more than 30,000 volunteers patrolled the city. Devil's Night crime began to decline from then to the present day.

In 2009, groups such as Blight Busters and New York's Guardian Angels gathered volunteers to patrol Detroit's neighborhoods, concerned that the economic downturn that has struck the city will fuel more crime. The real estate crisis has left thousands of homes abandoned, which may be fuel for further arsons for opportunistic or insurance fraud purposes.

I'm hopeful that history will remain just that - history - and that there will be a quiet night this year. Fire makes wonderful fodder for fiction, in terms of fire salamanders and dragons...but no one wants to see it come to life.

Laura Bickle is an urban fantasy writer, tech nerd, and feral cat rancher. She’s the author of Embers and Sparks for Pocket-Juno Books in 2010.

More information is available at www.salamanderstales.com




If you've read Sparks already you should check out this article and photo slide show of the Michigan Central Depot- the same train depot featured in Sparks.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Free Book Friday : Sparks by Laura Bickle


If you loved Embers you are really going to enjoy Sparks.

Laura Bickle's Sparks is even better than the first book Embers.

My review will be up tomorrow, be sure to check it out. This book is fabulous.

Here is the book description from the back of the book:

WITHOUT A TRACE

Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.

After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.

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