Tag: Gifts of the Magi: A Speculative Holiday Collection

(Video) Author Interview | Jorie and Ms Chris (virtually) have a convo with each other and discuss the Road Ghosts series! This is #UrbanFantasy Jorie loves to read! Find out more about about the collective works of Jorie’s friend, Ms Chris!

Posted Saturday, 10 March, 2018 by jorielov , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Video Interview banner created by Jorie in Canva using Unsplash.com photography (Creative Commons Zero).

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I have a very special *surprise!* for you, today is the dawn of a new interview series here on Jorie Loves A Story! As you know, I love trying new ways to connect with authors & for the readers of my blog to enjoy the conversations I bring to my blog. I’ve hosted live interviews on my blog where authors respond to questions in real-time with readers as much as I’ve hosted author chats on Twitter; not just solely the ones I host via @SatBookChat.

March, 2018 marks my 5th Blogoversary (on the 31st) here on Jorie Loves A Story – what better way to mark the auspicious milestone than to bridge into a new way of conversing with the writers I am appreciative for having crossed my path as a reader and as a book blogger? The first two lovelies will be focusing on two such authors – whose stories have enriched my heart & endeavoured to take my imagination further than I have travelled previously. They each write Speculative Fiction stories in niches of genre I had never known about previously until I tucked into their beautiful lovely novels and discovered new ways of ‘seeing’ Spec Fic!

I have scheduled a third video interview this Spring by an author I hope to read one day – so you see, today is quite the special day! This is the first in a series of video interviews wherein I have found a way to new media outlets to reach out through the divide and interact with authors in a way which builds on the conversations I started five years ago on Jorie Loves A Story but allows this new portal of insight to draw us all a bit closer and have the opportunity to get to know each other on a bit more of a personal level of insight.

I look forward to taking this journey with you and reading your reactions after you finish listening the conversations as they evolve. Although, these are vlog interviews – I encourage you to play them as they are embedded here, whilst having the JOY of reading my in-line reactions as I initially listened to them myself – seeing where the author & I each reacted to each other as we had this ‘virtual’ fireside chat and engaged in an intrapersonal way.

If you use YouTube directly, I encourage you to leave a comment on there as well as on this post in the threads below. This way both I & the author will know your thoughts, listening to your thoughtful comments & the conversation can carry forward. Bless you if you chose to share the video or this post on your own social networks.

Now, as you know – I am rather infamous for having delightfully in-depth conversations – therefore, before you hit the PLAY button, due yourself a kind favour? Brew yourself a cuppa & find a comfy spot to sit – this is interview is just shy of *forty!* minutes of bookish insight & writerly blissitude of the collective writings of Ms Chris (E. Chris Garrison). She’s a dear friend of mine – as previously disclosed – connected through this series (the Road Ghosts) as explained on my review of the series whilst we had the chance to ‘hear’ each others’ voices for the first time when we were both guests on the Star Chamber Show.

Come see why we both *love!* the paranormal & psychological suspense with dashes of Cosy Horror thrown in for good measure! Take a walk into the unknown realms & find an author talking openly & honestly about what excites her about her characters & why she loved writing this epic series entitled: Road Ghosts! Remember: as we both love the paranormal – share your own takeaways about ghosts & hauntings in the Comments!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

On my connection to Ms Chris (aka E. Chris Garrison):

I first discovered the style of Ms Chris’s story-telling when we both appeared on the Star Chamber Show, which is a weekly podcast on BlogTalkRadio sponsored by the publisher Seventh Star Press. Since our first encounter with each other, we’ve developed a friendship I am blessed to have and I appreciate getting to know a bit more about an author whose not only developing a unique style in the world of Fantasy but is receptive to the thoughts readers have as they gain impression by reading the stories themselves.

I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Ms Chris through our respective blogs, the twitterverse, the podcast world, and privately. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time. For more information, I disclosed a bit more on my first 10 Bookish, Not Bookish Thoughts (read No.7!).

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com
The Road Ghosts Series:

Four ‘Til Late (Book One)

Sinking Down (Book Two)

+ Spectral Delivery (companion short story) | *to fit between books 2 & 3

Me and the Devil (Book Three)

Published By: Seventh Star Press (@7thStarPress)
Available Formats: Softcover and Ebook

Why I appreciate reading the stories by E. Chris Garrison:

I’ve come to love how Ms Chris combines the supernatural with the fantastical – of how she has her own unique style for giving us Urban Fantasy with heaps of quirkified humour wherein the cosier bits of horror which are sometimes laced inside her stories never truly feel oppressively horrific. She keeps the tempo light in her craft but there are keen moments of seriousness abounding in them as well. She hits on harder topics, delves into the emotional and psychological lives of her characters but at the heart of her narratives are rag-tag families who choose to be together (strangers turnt friends who become bonefide family) to take-on whatever sinister forces are out to drag them down.

You get the benefit of having all the lovelies you love out of Fantasy intermixed with supernatural entities which could leave a few hairs standing on end – as they are brilliantly conceived and have their own nod of realistic intensity about them but you also know, your in for one wild and wicked awesome ride of a story! You can easily get caught up walking alongside her characters, seeing what they see and experiencing a bit of their lives as you do. They’re ordinary people who have had the extraordinary enter into their lives without too much interference on their end to jump-start the veils between the worlds to disappear. It’s keen how she writes the stories as if everything happening inside them is as natural to occur to her characters as meteorological phenoms.

-quoted from my SERIES Review of Road Ghosts

Read about how the Road Ghosts series was created & developed via Beauty in Ruins

I, especially loved reading this guest post on the blog tour this month due to the fact I hadn’t known the inside bits of how it was created or what was etched inside it until now. Connecting the dots on who inspired ‘Gonzo’ makes sense but also, how Gonzo embodies the spirit of ‘Uncle Chuck’ – this much I knew from reading ‘Restless Spirit’ ahead of the Road Ghosts series. Somehow I had also missed the fact my dear friend is a paranormal sleuth as well – something I’ll happily have to add to our upcoming convo for the tour! As we share a love of parapsychology! Ha! As soon as I saw her saying ‘Scooby Doo for grown-ups’ I smirked like a Cheshire cat! For one thing, who *didn’t!* watch Scooby Doo!? lol This guest post is delightfully engaging for those of us who haven’t had the pleasure of following the series as it released.

Converse on Twitter: #RoadGhosts & #7thStar

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • #FuellYourSciFi
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Posted Saturday, 10 March, 2018 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Doctor Who, Fantasy Fiction, Genre-bender, Good vs. Evil, Horror-Lite, Indie Author, Parapsychological Gifts, Parapsychological Suspense, Speculative Fiction, Supernatural Creatures & Beings, Supernatural Fiction, Tomorrow Comes Media, Urban Fantasy, Urban Life, Video (vlog) Author Interview, Zombies

#TwelfthNightReadathon | “Gifts of the Magi: A Speculative Holiday Collection” an anthology with a charitable heart benefiting Indy Reads Books!

Posted Saturday, 14 January, 2017 by jorielov , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Twelfth Night Readathon badge created by Jorie in Canva.

Acquired Book By: Ahead of Christmas 2015, I received a beautifully lovely gift: a specially released anthology celebrating Speculative Fiction authors and the gift of charity. Indy Reads Books is an independent bookstore in Indianapolis, Indiana giving back to authors, readers and members of their community on a yearly basis whereas the other half of “Indy Reads” is a non-profit literacy organisation. This is a bookstore I have come to know through the authors who are behind this anthology: Mr (RJ) Sullivan, Mr (John F.) Allen and Ms Chris (E. Chris Garrison) of whom I have had the joy of interacting with both on blog tours or outside of them for Tomorrow Comes Media and/or Seventh Star Press.

This particular book was offered to me knowing how much I love holiday stories and the beauty of having such a strong presence of Speculative stories contained in one singular anthology with the heart of the holidays a central theme running through them! I personally love reading anthologies within the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Cosy Horror genres, which in of itself felt like a good fit to read this collection. I was unexpectedly taken ill during December 2015 (my infamous thirty day flu!) and this past December, whilst I had re-scheduled this to be a part of my #ChristmasReads and #WYChristmasReadathon series of posts, I was otherwise distracted by the recovery process after my Dad’s stroke. You can read about the first twenty-four hours after his stroke (per this post) and a bit of a background on my inability to read during December (per this anchour section of a recent review). Thus, my idea of recapturing the Christmas Spirit during Twelfth Night weekend was bourne!

I received a complimentary copy of “Gifts of the Magi” direct from the author R.J. Sullivan in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

#TwelfthNightReadathon & what sparked the idea:

I personally love reading holiday stories around Christmastime, however, this year, proved to be quite a unique year all the way round; starting Thanksgiving weekend. I dearly wanted to dig inside these lovely stories which are winking at me to read but with a heavy heart and a mind weighed down by anxieties attached to stroke patient’s recoveries, you could say the timing was definitively ‘off’ this year for posting anything remotely lit with the Christmas Spirit in December. I had to fight my way back into reading just to secure a passageway back into the hours I love spending inside stories and the journey of characters; as let’s face it, I had a lot on my heart and soul this year.

The blessing is being able to find my bookish joy emerged through a succession of Rom Novellas through a blog series I entitled: #MidnightChocLit (see the thread). This enabled me not only to retrieve my bookish heart but my bookish joy – the curiosity about stories and the lives of characters started to renew inside my imagination and it started me off again on solid ground. Spending this past week tucked inside an INSPY #HistRom also provided me with the hours I needed to heal my nerves and resume enjoying the hours I could spend inside a fictional world (see also Review).

Despite my progress back to my blog and back into an active reading life, there were ebbs of guilt murmuring inside my heart because more than anything I had wanted this to be a December where I could fully embrace reading stories of the season. This is when a lightbulb flashed in my mind – wait! The Christmas season isn’t fully extinguished until Twelfth Night and Twelfth Night is a celebration of the three kings! I knew I should start by reading and live tweeting my responses to Gifts of the Magi on this particular Friday, as it marks Twelfth Night officially! Ergo, all the lovely stories of Christmas Spirit across genre and literary selections could now be happily read during my own personal #TwelfthNightReadathon!

Except to say, Mother Nature had other plans in store for me – we had an epic storm arriving in the afternoon hours of Twelfth Night itself and it continued into Saturday; therefore, my tweets were quite a bit delayed – thus kicking off this readathon as a ‘weekend’ celebration; perhaps it was meant to be all along, as this is what I had put on the badge I created to celebrate the series of reviews! My readings of this anthology truly were encased during #TwelfthNight weekend, however, my reviews I wanted to feature over the weekend are running this week instead. The best part for me – is to be able to recapture stories of a season I cherish so dearly during a year where my heart was full of anxiety and now just a stone’s throw in the New Year, I can reattach the joys of soaking into stories of Yule & Christmastide!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

This of course, would have remained true if my dear Maine Coon / tabby hadn’t been struck quite ill whilst I was trying to kick-off this readathon. Turns out, as a senior cat of nearly 13 years he’s developed horrid food allergies and was quite miserable; his sister-in-arms is one year his junior (my little Tux!) of whom now has ‘food intolerance’s’. Despite being earnestly hopeful to find something that would work for them (as in their kittenhood and early years of growth, they had (as did their two siblings) multiple health issues which is why Mum and I were consistently ‘on the road’ to new places to purchase high quality pet foods whilst the Vets and my fam were growing more discouraged by the hour when even the best quality you can find isn’t working for your four cats. Hence why we were advised to go with what worked for our darlings and not worry about what is working for everyone else. This worked out quite well – until now.

Turns out!? The *best!* cat food our cats need was developed by Rachael Ray! Her Nutrish line for cats (esp the Chicken and Potato dry food!) is what turnt this crazy insanity around in *one!* feeding! ONE! Our Coon / Tabby who was *always!* Alpha is now a Beta cat whose so relaxed and happy, his Tux of a sister is still trying to get used to him being less playful around her and just go with the flow. All his issues are gone as are hers, to such a degree it’s a true miracle. They used to eat only wet food, but this dry food has done so many marvels for their health (i.e. vision, fur, digestion, etc) I cannot see them returning to wet food! Their so happy right now, it’s a beautiful thing to see – ergo, I am continuing this readathon in the spirit of Twelfth Night – as a closing of the holiday season and the stories of Yule.

This is why you’ll see my tweets stopped for a short break – as everything prior to Unraveled was written by the 9th before I was able to resume and conclude my ruminations.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com#TwelfthNightReadathon | “Gifts of the Magi: A Speculative Holiday Collection” an anthology with a charitable heart benefiting Indy Reads Books!Gifts of the Magi
Subtitle: A Speculative Holiday Collection

Stories for Christmas-- authors for the New Year!

Find within this magical tome 14 NEW original holiday-themed stories of fantasy, horror and science fiction by a talented group of authors--plus one holiday essay. The tales from our Magi vary from the light and satirical to the dark and serious, and we've shuffled the deck to keep you guessing.

· A time guardian may have to choose between preserving reality or destroying the man she loves.
· A snowman comes to life, but he's not a happy soul.
· Santa makes a terrible bargain in order to save Christmas.
· On Christmas Eve, a furious fairy princess attacks a double-decker bus.
· Two secret agents attend an exclusive Christmas party with an unusual price of admission.
· Soldiers in the midst of the zombie apocalypse try to find the Christmas spirit.
· A boy and his father confront an alien creature on the Longest Night.
· A mercenary packing magical pistols battles a monster while Christmas shopping for her werewolf boyfriend.
· Steampunk detectives find themselves fending off Christmas "elves."
· Humans exiled to an alternate world blend alien and human holiday traditions.
· A banished prince with a magic chicken finds a nearly drowned soldier--so says the storyteller.
· A bounty hunter searches for a rogue elf.
· A traumatized punk girl confronts the spirits from the worst night of her life.
· In a dystopian future, Christmas is outlawed.
· ...And Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Nicole Cushing reveals the holiday specials that she feels deserve "lumps of coal."

100% of all proceeds from this book benefit Indy Reads.

Indy Reads is a not-for-profit organization that relies on volunteers to provide basic literacy tutoring to illiterate and semi-literate adults. Indy Reads operates a bookstore in downtown Indianapolis. Learn more at www.indyreads.org.


Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

Find on Book Browse

ISBN: 978-1502902528

on Halloween, 2014

Pages: 196

Published By: Speculative Fiction Guild | Facebook | @sfg2013

Available Formats: Trade Paperback and Ebook

Converse via: #SpecFict + #anthology (or #SpeculativeFiction)

About John F. Allen

John F Allen

John F. Allen is an American writer born in Indianapolis, IN. He is a member of The Indiana Writers Center, began writing stories as early as the second grade and pursued most forms of writing at some point, throughout his career. John studied Liberal Arts at IUPUI with a focus in Creative Writing, received an honorable discharge from the United States Air Force and is a current member of the American Legion. John's debut novel, The God Killers was published in the Summer of 2013 by Seventh Star Press. He also has published short stories in several anthologies including: Thunder on the Battlefield, Vol I, also by Seventh Star Press and In The Bloodstream, by Mocha Memoirs Press.

John currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana.

About Ms Chris (E. Chris Garrison)

Ms Chris Garrison

E. Chris Garrison writes Fantasy and Science Fiction novels and short stories. She used to publish as Eric Garrison, but has since upgraded.

Her latest series is Trans-Continental, a Steampunk adventure with a transgender woman as its protagonist. The series is set in one of the worlds in Chris’s dimension-hopping science fiction adventure, Reality Check, both of these series are published through Silly Hat Books. Silly Hat Books released Alien Beer and Other Stories, a collection of her short stories, in 2017.

Chris’s supernatural fantasy stories include the Road Ghosts trilogy and it's companion series the Tipsy Fairy Tales are published by Seventh Star Press. These Urban Fantasy novels are humorous supernatural fantasies, dealing with ghosts, demonic possession, and sinister fairy folk delivered with a “lightly dark” side of humor.

Her novel, Reality Check, is a Science Fiction adventure released by Hydra Publications. Reality Check reached #1 in Science Fiction on Amazon.com during a promotion in July 2013. Chris lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her wife, step-daughter and cats. She also enjoys gaming, home brewing beer, and finding innovative uses for duct tape.

*Biography updated: March, 2018

About R.J. Sullivan

R.J. Sullivan with his characters

R.J. Sullivan’s novel Haunting Blue is an edgy paranormal thriller and the first book of the adventures of punk girl Fiona “Blue” Shaefer and her boyfriend Chip Farren. Seventh Star Press also released Haunting Obsession, a Rebecca Burton Novella, and Virtual Blue, the second part of Fiona’s tale. The short stories in this collection have been featured in such acclaimed anthologies as Dark Faith Invocations by Apex Books and Vampires Don’t Sparkle. His next book due out very soon will be Commanding the Red Lotus, which collects the series of science fiction novelettes in the tradition of Andre Norton and Gene Roddenberry.

R.J. resides with his family in Heartland Crossing, Indiana. He drinks regularly from a Little Mermaid coffee mug and is man enough to admit it.

Read More

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • #TwelfthNightReadathon
  • #WYChristmasReadathon
  • Sci Fi Experience 2017
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Posted Saturday, 14 January, 2017 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, BlogTalkRadio, Book Review (non-blog tour), Cosy Horror, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore, Futuristic Fantasy, Guest Author on the Chamber, Indie Author, Parapsychological Suspense, Podcast, Supernatural Fiction, Telepaths & Telepathy, The Star Chamber Show, Vulgarity in Literature