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Monday, June 22, 2020

Blog Tour- DEVIL'S WAYS ANTHOLOGY by @Dragonwellbooks With Excerpts & A #Giveaway! @RockstarBkTours




I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the DEVIL'S WAYS ANTHOLOGY by Dragonwell Publishing Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About the Book:
Title: DEVIL'S WAYS ANTHOLOGY
Authors: Nancy Kress, Ben Loory, R. S. A. Garcia, Michael Swanwick, Andy Duncan, Curtis C. Chen, Darrell Schweitzer, Imogen Howson, Edwina Harvey, Avram Davidson, J. M. Sidorova, Nancy Kress, (Edited by Anna Kashina and J. M. Sidorova)
Pub. Date: June 25, 2020
Publisher: Dragonwell Publishing
Formats:  Paperback, eBook
Pages: 270

There is no light without dark; no highlights without shadows; no good without evil. The Devil is where things happen. Where stories begin. This collection brings together stories from multiple cultures, featuring the Devil both as an abstract concept and a creature, a terror, a force of nature, an enemy, a trickster, and so many more.

Step into the world of shadows, and travel through Devil's many incarnations spanning centuries of history and myth, from the Ancient Greece, African and Caribbean folklore, dark ages in Europe, all the way to the present day.

This anthology features new and established authors from diverse, multicultural backgrounds.

“The Devil goes globe-trotting in this eclectic anthology that explores the many guises of the Dark Lord across cultures and ages. Persephone D’Shaun’s shocking “Nzembe” is a twisted tale of zombie-like creatures set in the plains of Africa with an ending some readers will find hard to stomach. An unnamed girl tries to steal back her heart from her winged lover in R.S.A. Garcia’s lyrical “Fire in His Eyes, Blood on His Teeth,” which draws from Caribbean folklore and the legend of Nanny of the Maroons. Feminist themes carry through many of the tales. Imogen Howson’s “Frayed Tapestry,” which follows an amnesiac woman and her manipulative husband, is a bit too on the nose, but elsewhere gender dynamics are handled more gracefully, as in “Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown” by Michael Swanwick, in which 15-year-old Su-yin follows her father into hell, where she must endure a series of horrible dates in order to save him from eternal damnation, and in Nancy Kress’s brilliant “Unto the Daughters,” a powerful reimagining of the story of Adam and Eve. Though horror fiends may be disappointed to find little blood-curdling terror, there are very few duds among these wide-ranging tales. Readers are in for a devilish treat.”—PW Review


Excerpts:
1. The opening of Persephone D'Shaun's "Nzembe":

"Last week all the nzembe-born children in town went into trances.
The week before that, leopards sat together on my grandmother’s porch for an entire day, keeping her inside. Later, many women came to her for help, insisting they had fallen into sleep in the middle of the day and been violated by evil spirits in the shape of vulgar children.
And the week before that, Henriette claimed to have seen a sharp-toothed boy peeking at her from one of the thick clusters of palm trees that grow near Little River.
I do not want to think about these things, but today memories are thick and dry like wild grass in the place between towns, tinder in my mind, needing only the smallest spark to destroy the fragile peace I have built.
Today…"

2. The opening of R.S.A. Garcia's "Fire In His Eyes, Blood On His Teeth":

"He comes to me with fire in his eyes and blood on his teeth. Sometimes the blood is his enemies. Sometimes it’s mine. Eventually, it’s mine. Always.
He is different today, striding across the sandy soil toward my home with scuffed, much-mended boots. Often, he’s charming and beautiful, like the first time I met him. Smooth brown skin and white smiles, smelling of freshly scraped coconuts. Sometimes he is fierce and tall and smells of the salty sea, with a glorious shining beard braided around the fuses he hides beneath his battered hat. His teeth are longer, yellow, and his skin burned from the sun. They call him a pirate then, and men on land and sea tremble to speak his name. He has harsh words, but there are no teeth for me yet. They come later.
They come with the fire and a shadow on the sun."

3. The opening of J.M. Sidorova's "Escape Goat":

"A man was leading a goat to a precipice. When they got there and the man readied to bind the goat’s feet, the goat said, “Stop right there, human man.”
The man froze and stared.
“You think I don’t know everything about you?” the goat said.
Goats’ eyes are notoriously hard to read. And the man had been in the blazing sun since morning, walking the high desert, and admittedly had addressed the goat on several occasions—as those things go—with a criticism or simply sharing an observation. So it was easy for him to slip into a conversation with the goat: “What on earth are you talking about?” the man said.
“She had black hair and blue eyes,” the goat replied. “She cried the first several times. Until you gagged her with her favorite rag doll. After that, when you came to her she would bite on that doll ahead of time.”
The man stumbled back as if pushed, and sank down.
The goat said, “Shall I go on?”
“It was thirty years ago,” said the man. “She was—” But he could not finish saying what she was."

4. The opening to Imogen Howson's "Frayed Tapestry":

"The first time it happened was almost a year after he’d married her. They were giving a drinks party, and the spacious top-floor apartment was filled with sleek, beautiful people in immaculately cut trousers, or little black dresses and the discreet glint of gold jewelry.
Candy had been busy since the first guests arrived. Clym liked her to keep the canapés coming and make sure he was supplied with ice for the drinks. With that, as well as welcoming new guests and trying to make sure she remembered everybody’s names, she’d scarcely sipped her own glass of wine.
So, afterwards, although she tried to blame the alcohol, she knew she couldn’t.
She was in the kitchen, cutting up more lemons for the gin and tonics. She had a gleaming steel bowl of them, glossy polished yellow next to the duller green globes of limes, and a neat little serrated knife to slice them into perfect rounds. But then, of course, she had everything. She’d seen it reflected in her guests’ eyes. Her, this nineteen-year-old, already with a beautiful apartment, a handsome, adoring, powerful husband…

The knife slipped."

About The Authors & Publisher:



Founded in 2012, Dragonwell Publishing is based in the US Northeast and publishes 4-6 books a year, focusing mostly on science fiction and fantasy. Dragonwell Publishing titles have been featured by Publishers Weekly, ForeWord Magazine, RT Book Reviews, San Francisco Book Reviews, and Portland Book Reviews, and highlighted by Historical Novel Society and Mythopoetic Society. Our books have been among the winners of the 2013 ForeWord Book of the Year Award and 2014 Independent Publishers Book Award.

Get to know all the authors here on the Dragonwell Publishing Site!



Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a $10 Amazon GC, International.




Tour Schedule:
Week One:
6/22/2020
Excerpt
6/23/2020
Excerpt
6/24/2020
Excerpt
6/25/2020
Review
6/26/2020
Review

Week Two:
6/29/2020
Excerpt
6/30/2020
Review
7/1/2020
Review
7/2/2020
Excerpt
7/3/2020
Instagram Stop

2 comments:

  1. Most are new authors to me but this sounds like a great collection of stories.

    ReplyDelete

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