Magic Thursday:

It's Magic Thursday. So… let's give away a book! Yes! But first... let's talk about magic.

Because, y'know. It's Magic Thursday, people.

Spells, enchantments, hexes, curses. Eenie meanie chilli beanie, wave your wand and say 'abracadabra', and you're a frog.

Or not.

That's the kind of thing you don’t find much in fantasy novels these days. We like things to be more realistic. We're tough and cool like that. Power always has a flip side, and magic comes at a cost.

The fallen angels in my Seven Signs series have magical powers. For instance, my hero, Luniel, can flash, or teleport, from place to place. His weapon – a sword, of course, what self-respecting angel of vengeance doesn't wield a sword? – is imbued with holy fire, and materialises at his whim. He can curse his demon enemies and set them on fire, if he's quick enough. And he can track the scent of evil.

But it only works if he believes it will. So the price of his magic is humility. The realisation that while he might have lost faith in heaven – even if only for one crucial moment, when he fell – heaven never lost faith in him.

For a guy who's already struggling with faith – and wouldn't you be, if you'd been thrown out of heaven for falling in love, and cursed to walk the earth for eternity? – that's not always easy. And when the seven signs begin, and it becomes clear that the Demon King and his hellish minions are trying to bring on the end of the world, Luniel's doubts crystallise. Why is stopping the demons his job? If God really wants to stop the End, why doesn't He just smite the bad guys and get it over with?

But when zombies threaten to take over Manhattan – can't have a good apocalypse without zombies! – Luniel has no choice but to step up. Especially now he's falling for Morgan, who believes in science, not hocus pocus. It's up to him to prove to her that this Apocalypse is real – before both their souls are lost, and the demons bring about Hell on earth.

No pressure.


Anyhoo... let's do a giveaway! Come down below (snigger... she said 'down below'...) and answer the fab comment question, and a lucky random person will win a pre-order of book 2 in the Seven Signs series, REDEMPTION. It's due out March 2013, so it'll be a nice surprise in your mail. Yay!

Here's a magical snippet from REVELATION to whet your appetite. Luniel and his heroine, medical examiner Dr Morgan Sterling, are checking out an angel's corpse for clues to the killer. Y'know, like CSI, except with woo-woo...

~~

Luniel poked his finger into the hole in Ithiel’s heart, swiping up a clot of dark angel blood. He sniffed his finger, and licked it. Faint putrefaction stung. The demon magic had faded a lot. A week since Ithiel stopped answering. It fitted.

Morgan wrinkled her nose. “Eww, gross.”

“Is that the scientific term? You should try it in your autopsies. Taste is a powerful attractant.”

“Tell me about it.”

He grinned. “No, I mean for spells. Magic has its own distinct flavor, depending on the caster. That one has the definite stink of demon prince.”

A sexy cocked eyebrow. “And what does yours taste like?”

“Breathe in and see.” He flattened his palm on Ithiel’s broken chest, and murmured the words for a sigil burn.

Blue light flashed, the hissing stink of burning flesh. Lune snatched his hand back, shaking it. Ouch.

He turned Ithiel’s left palm over. Now a sigil glowed there, two circles and a cross, carved into the flesh in burning blue light.

Morgan gasped. “How did you . . . ?” She broke off. “No, don’t answer that. What is it?”

“It’s lettering. An angelic sigil. It’s a mark given by the archangels. Should tell us what Ithiel was up to...”

~~

Enough? Of course not. Go and download the free sample for Kindle! That's nearly TWO chapters for NOTHING, folks. Or, you can read the first chapter on my website. And hell, if you're in Australia? You can buy the whole thing in paperback here at Booktopia, currently for a 42%-off bargain price!

To enter the giveaway for a pre-order of REDEMPTION, answer me this: if you could have one magic spell to use whenever you wanted, what would it be? Contest closes on Monday night 22 October, and it's international, provided the online store will let me ship you the book.

Thanks for visiting Magic Thursday!