#fantasy

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Christmas (miracle) review on Part One of my Fantasy/Attempted Comedy story The Last Philosopher 😊

P.S Links to places where I'm currently posting Part Two are on my profile, updated weekly.

@reading @fantasy @bookstodon @writingbooks @keepwriting




I really really like this by 167five on The Last Philosopher: Part one Wednesday, December 24th, 2025. Overall rating: 5/5 stars Honestly, when I read the first chapter, I was like... What the heck am I reading? I thought that the writing was going to just be random philosophical nonsense. And for the first couple of paragraphs, that was what I recieved. But then... Herschel being a prisoner in a far off fantasty world really got to me. It seemed just an interesting premise, and seeing him give his satrical thoughts and ideas are just very entertaining to read. The grammar, plot, and story are all greatly done as well. Overall, this is a great story that I would recommend to other new readers.

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Added to the Expired Reflection Draft yesterday: 1,861 words.

And that’s it. Done.

It’ll be a long time before I look at it again, & it’s kind of a mess, but given that Covid was robbing my focus, I’ll take it. Instead, in the afternoon, I indulged longing & started reading some of my holiday tales.

That’s a real story with meaning, a real human’s struggle to draft while ill.

Be everwell.

On a shelf where a gargoyle guards them from the shadows, are the first three books in the Kovenlore series. Each book’s cover is the negative image of a golden, hand drawn map showing mountains, plains, and rivers, but sometimes a black void. The titles are always displayed across two lines up high, the color varying. Between the two lines of the title is always a set of turquoise eyes. A subtitle, always in turquoise, is below that and shares which number book it is in The Kovenlore Chronicles. At the bottom is the author’s name, Christina Anne Hawthorne, and always in a dark yellow. All text is outlined in black, the titles possessing a shadow. Book 1, Trust in the Forgotten, is on the left, it’s title in turquoise. Book 2, A River in Each Hand, is at center, its title in red. Book 3, Exhuming Truths, is on the right, its title in dark blue.

@adriabailton thank you for hosting the last of 2025 😊



The sale is in its last few days (ends 11:59 p.m. Pacific January 1st US time, so Australians have to the middle of 2 Jan)

All mine are 25% off, if you’re in the mood for well-rated quirky/low-key/non-epic fantasy with queer romance:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/wendylpalmer

there’s plenty more to browse too. I’ve got a few queued up, but the one I’ve already read, and really liked was, The King is Dead, by Naomi Libicki, for a not-European-set fantasy about a man who must look after his deeply traumatised cousin, while uncovering a conspiracy within his own family and beyond.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1474178

@bookstodon

Graphic showing the sale, a woman reading with text proclaiming that The Smashwords 2025 End of Year Sale runs between December 8 and January 1, discounts from 25%-100%

50% off omnibus @ : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1733647

Levi always dreamed of being like his father, a great wizard, but had no understanding what it would be like. Follow Levi's journey from bumbling teen to great hero, while the young wizard learns to master magical powers that are barely under control.

@bookstodon

The ad flyer for the series The Wizard's Scion. (Background) View of a planet from space. (Top Center) A black flying saucer surrounded by this text: Trolls, boogeymen and witches, oh my! Just another day for a young wizard. (Top Left) The cover of Troll Song displays a woman in battered, muddy armor with her two swords crossed against the neck of a dwarf. (Lower Left) The cover of Forgotten Legends displays a child reading in bed as a black, smoky monster with red eyes peeks out from under the bed. (Lower Center Left) The cover of The Third Wish displays a wizard on top of a mountain, looking to the sunset, over a city of sky scrapers that have plants growing on them. In his shadow is the red eyed creature from Forgotten Legends. (Lower Center Right) The cover of Dark Moon displays a witch and wizard fighting back to back, holding pistols, while objects fall around them, with the moon behind their heads. (Lower Right) The cover of The Inverted Glass displays a line art hourglass with a white figure in black sand at the bottom, with a black figure in white sand upside-down in the top. Balanced on a scale are a heart and a feather. (Upper Right) The cover of The Wizard's Scion: The Complete Series displays several figures in silhouette representing the main characters, as they traverse a wormhole. Behind them is a red-eyed octopus.

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Added to the Expired Reflection Draft yesterday: 2,099 words.

One chapter remains, & then I can rest. There’s always mixed feelings when a draft ends. I’m exhausted, but proud of the story & its possibilities, & that’s without Covid.

Why can’t drafting ever be a straightforward experience? Because there’s no such thing. Books change, as do we, including our health.

Be everwell.

Black and white Tremjara map. The continent is roughly oval with notable exceptions, the oval tilted southwest to northeast. In the far north are the Frozen Lands, but otherwise the continent is surrounded by three oceans, the Para-Equa in the west, Terminus in the south, and Titania to the east. A long, slim peninsula, along with multiple islands, exists in the northwest. In the west and south are multiple, large islands. The southeastern peninsula is a barren wasteland with some volcanic islands off its coast. There are scattered islands up the eastern coast, most notably Pannulus, a roughly circular archipelago. The continent is roughly divided in half by mountain chains, some more extensive than others. Mountains also exist in other locations, especially the southwest. The west is heavily forested, the east a mix of forests and grasslands. The south desert. The east coast is dominated by the Brillica Cataclysm Region that prevents east and west travel. Some notable locations follow. Mythwyll in the southwest was the elfin homeland. In the west, Forstava is still the ora’ean homeland. In the east, Emprensa was once the home province of an empire. In the northeast, Draskrith is the realm of the shadow lords. Below that, and as noted, is Pannulus. At the continent’s center is nation of Carrdia. It’s surrounded by mountains, except in the west along its border with Forstava, and in the northeast. The continent’s biggest lake is located there, as is the mighty Key River.

If winter is your season and you're sorely missing the snow - here are a bunch of books with connections to winter that might appeal to you.

Ready for the cold?

Check out this bundle!

https://books.bookfunnel.com/midwinter-fantasy-fair/bjdf5a7wgp

All of these books are on sale or possibly even free!



Promotional image for the Midwinter BookFunnel bundle. The image shows the castle Neuschwanstein, with tall white walls and towers, sporting a blue roof, plenty of windows and small, decorative towers, in a winter landscape of snow-covered fir trees and mountainside. To the right of the castle, in a light blue swirly font are the words Midwinter Fantasy Fair.

50% off @ : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1657116

After experiencing the death of his wife and child, destruction of his home world, an addiction forced on him by the one responsible and a third of the galaxy falling under the heel of that tyrant, Levi Jacobs, a wizard, seeks to unravel the secrets of time and fate.

@bookstodon

(Left) The cover of The Inverted Glass, by Owen Tyme. The Background is a pink and purple nebula in space. The foreground is largely line art, in white, with a black shadow outline. At the center is an hourglass. The bottom has black sand, with a white figure standing in it. The top has is an inverted mirror image of the bottom, with a black figure in white sand. The hourglass serves as the balance point for a set of scales, which hold a heart and a feather. The heart is on the left and the feather on the right. The heart is lower than the feather. (Right) Lying in blue sand is a heart made of the same sand, full of cracks. It glows from the inside in a warm, yellow color. Over that is the following quote: Nicole felt an extreme kind of loss, realizing she’d been stolen away from the afterlife, just before finding out if she deserved punishment or not! “How dare you do this to me? Why?” “I’m always in need of strong spirits and I’ve seen none stronger. You have unique talents I refuse to see go to waste.” (Bottom) https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass

2025.12.25 — If you were to retell one of the novels you've written from memory, how much do you think you would miss?

I'm sure I'd miss a lot of the wordplay (substituting new) and if it were written a long time ago, forget some of the SCs and subplots. I've rewritten a night's work lost to a power failure—and it came out better!—so I'm confident if I have a reason, the retelling will have its own magic.

This is NOT a trivial question for me. I have a fantasy trilogy that didn't sell because of the MC's journey started such that reader (actually the editor and agent) could not relate to her or her plight. I am rewriting the 1990s books, at least the beginning, again from memory, with the MC being less of victim mentality though still suffering when her daughter magically rewrites herself …

QSFer Shannon Blair has a new MM gay fantasy book out: Moon’s Shadow.

Moranthus and Gerrick return to Dawn’s Gate in hopes of a happy homecoming, but Moranthus’s past as a duskblade stands in the way of his future. When a delegation from his native Moonridge pays a surprise visit to Dawn’s Gate’s court, Moranthus is enlisted as a guard...

https://www.queerscifi.com/new-release-moons-shadow-shannon-blair/

@MMbookstodon @lgbtqbookstodon @diversebooks @bookstodon

50% off @ : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1604529

On a world long thought to have no moon, its sudden appearance inspires wonder and terror. Hasty research links it to catastrophe and the so-called ‘Harbingers of Doom’, creatures that harvest souls. Can everyone survive or will they become part of the dark harvest?

@bookstodon

(Left) The cover of dark moon, by Owen Tyme, illustrated by Ryan Johnson. In the foreground, a redheaded witch and a dark haired wizard fight back to back, holding some rather large pistols. The witch is in a black dress and the wizard is in a black robe with golden decorations. Both looked a bit purple, due to the lighting. The witch's hair blows on the wind and she wears a necklace of bone beads. Behind them, there's dust, mist and fog lit by twilight as a moon rises, framing their heads. Objects that look like shooting stars fall from the moon and there's a few visible impacts. (Right) A white moon, on a background of the stars of space, with the following quote over the top of it: “Idiot! You’ve likely killed us both, leaving us stuck out in the open like this.” “We’ve got incoming. I know you’re angry and I suppose you’ve got every right to be, but we need to defend ourselves.” “ ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, for now, and then we decide what to do about the conflict between us.” (Bottom) https://books2read.com/TymeDarkMoon