Did You Notice?

The Vine Witch e-book is on sale on Amazon for a limited time in the U.S. right now, so I thought it might be a good time to share a little insider info on the books in the series.

Okay, so my very first literary crush was on Shakespeare. I was in high school, and most of the accomplished authors I was reading were doing impressive summersaults with their words, but Shakespeare's writing was on a Cirque du Soleil-level of ability for me.

And while it was maybe a little self-indulgent of me to do so, with The Vine Witch trilogy I set out to give homage to Shakespeare for inspiring me to become a writer and lifelong lover of words.

None of the novels are retellings, but there are scenes and words sprinkled into the novels that are simply there because of my love of his plays. In this case Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. All three plays contained elements of fantasy already, so it was a natural fit for me.

For example, In The Vine Witch, there’s a reason a witch’s tavern in the French countryside has an English name. Grimalkin & Paddock (cat and toad) are two of the three witches from Macbeth. There’s also an encounter with a pair of “weird sisters”, a little "hurly-burly" on the road, and a theme of murder and deep-seated betrayal.

In The Glamourist, the connections are a little more apparent. Yvette grew up in a cabaret named Le Reve, which means the dream in French. Her whole life has been a dream basically. And then (*spoiler) she discovers her mixed heritage includes a famous name from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

And The Conjurer is a classic tale of forbidden love and miscommunication. There's also an odd character in the novel who is based on Queen Mab, the tiny fairy that invades men's dreams according to Mercutios's speech:

"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;"

There are other examples, but those novels are my little homage to Shakespeare. Did you notice?

Out Now! The Wolf's Eye

The second book in THE ORDER OF THE SEVEN STARS series is finally out! If you were a fan of the first book, THE WITCH’S LENS, I hope you’ll enjoy this conclusion to Petra and Josef’s story. If you’re new to the series, I do recommend reading the first book beforehand, as this one doesn’t work well as a stand alone. Fortunately, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, the first book is available on Prime at no extra charge for a limited time.

Happy Reading! And thank you to everyone who pre-ordered and/or left a review. As always, your readership is much appreciated!!

New Review: The Wolf's Eye

One week to go until The Wolf’s Eye release! This is the second book in The Order of the Seven Stars series. For a limited time you can pick up book one, The Witch’s Lens, for no additional cost as part of your Prime membership benefits on Amazon. If you don’t like waiting for the second book to come out, now’s the time to read the series!

And I have to thank The Historical Novel Society for their wonderful review of The Wolf’s Eye!! Full review below.

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“Set during WWI on the Eastern Front, The Wolf’s Eye makes a strong followup as the second book in Smith’s Order of the Seven Stars historical fantasy series. The magical main character, Petra Kurková, and her found family of fellow witches are assigned the hateful task of tracking down and killing soldiers cursed to transform each full moon into a kind of werewolf called vlkodlak. The central challenge for them is that one of their crew was bitten by a vlkodlak early in the war and fights the curse only with the help of an elixir that he no longer has. That they may need to kill him is especially hard for Petra, who has fallen in love with Josef. With the full moon less than a month away, the magical group is running out of time to find a cure. They return to the hometown city and begin to uncover a way to save Josef, using secrets from Petra’s past.
As with the first book in this series, Smith engagingly develops the themes of friendship, loyalty, and the value of the family you choose for yourself. The bashful and gradual romance between Josef and Petra gives sweetness to this fairly dark book. For those who enjoy the revelation of the “scientific” mechanics of magic, The Wolf’s Eye will be highly satisfying. Despite occasional slowdowns in the plot’s momentum, Smith builds characters the reader actively roots for and throws them into exciting danger that only their loyalty to each other can overcome. An entertaining, intelligent historical fantasy.” - Historical Novel Society

Goodreads Giveaway for THE WOLF'S EYE!

A sure sign that a book is about to be released is a Goodreads Giveaway! Beginning April 15, 2024 you can enter for a chance to win an ebook copy of The Wolf’s Eye, the followup to The Witch’s Lens. You can enter until May 13, 2024 at which time 100 ebooks will be given away. Good luck!

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Under the full moon of World War I, a baleful curse threatens to tear apart a witch’s found family in a novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.

Petra Kurková—a witch who wields magic worth its weight in gold—is tasked with combating the undead on World War I’s eastern front. The battlefield has yielded a newfound closeness for her spellbound team, especially for Josef Svoboda, a recruiter for the Order of the Seven Stars. But Josef was bitten at the start of the war, leaving his blood tainted by a strain of the vlkodlak curse, which makes him a target of the Order’s latest mission: slay the werewolves prowling the eastern front under the moonlight.

Petra refuses to give up on one of their own. From the hasty kill order of a clandestine society to the long-lost spells in an old grimoire to the unraveling mysteries of Petra’s own past, the urgency to save Josef grows, particularly as his feral impulses become harder to control. The werewolves are closing in. So, too, are the bounty hunters eager to collect. As Petra’s team finds itself at a magical crossroads, Josef devises an ambush of his own—one that could wipe out the cursed threat forever or endanger everything and everyone he loves.

One Month to Go!

Fantasy is one of those genres where multiple books in a series is the norm, but there's always that big gap between finishing the first book and waiting for the next one to drop. I often see an uptick in interest on the first book just before the second releases. I suspect there's a subset of readers who prefer to wait until a series is complete before diving in to the first book. I’m the same when I’m invested in a story. I gotta know what happens next!

The Order of the Seven Stars series will be complete when THE WOLF'S EYE publishes on May 14th. In case you're one of those readers who waits. 😉