December 2020 Indie/SelfPub Book Haul: Set 1

Saturday I hauled a bunch of books. Like 17 books. Now my TBR that was already a mile high and ready to collapse is just a heap on the floor. I blame Twitter.

You see on Saturday the kind folks over at r/fantasy hosted a 2020 Holiday Megasale. It was a one day only sale with over 100 authors and 250 titles all of which were free or just $0.99 each. And all of them were indie/self-published authors. So naturally I had to buy some because that’s what one does. I ended up with seventeen books for just $3.00 which was a steal.

I’ve been a slacker about Book Haul posts the last few months but I really wanted to put this one together because I love supporting indie/self-published authors as much as I can. So for the next few days I’m gonna post a handful of the books I hauled and why.

Here’s set number one…

Book Haul Set 1

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Shadows of Ivory,
The Godforged Chronicles #1
T.L. Greylock & Bryce O’Connor

“An undying king. A relic of rune-carved bronze and ivory flames. A war for powers only a god could fathom.

In the centuries since rising up against a cruel, twisted dynasty, the Seven Cities have done much to move past their horrid histories, the memories of ancient monarchs who once fed on the life and blood of their own people. Those with a talent for magic are no longer hounded and slain. The lands beyond the Cities are safe, spared the atrocities the Alescuans once wrought upon them. For 300 years, there has been peace.

Then Eska de Caraval, head of the prestigious Firenzia Company, finds herself framed for murder.

Soon hunted for the strange bronze disc she most certainly did not steal, Eska is forced to pit both wit and blade against all manner of adversaries who would eagerly see her dead. An assassin in the shadows. A monster in the deep. A rival looking to burn her alive. From sword and fang and flame Eska must defend herself, struggling all the while to prove her innocence and unravel the mysteries of a dangerous artifact.

But unbeknownst to Eska and her enemies, the cruelest of those tyrants of old is stirring in his grave.” – Goodreads Blurb

Shadows of Ivory was the first book I picked up in the sale. I chose it for a handful of reasons…

• That cover is AMAZING (yes I judge books by their covers and you do too)
• The story sounds cool as hell
• I reviewed The Blood Tainted Winter by T.L. Greylock for Self-Published Fantasy Month and enjoyed it
• I follow T.L. Greylock on Twitter (@TLGreylock) and enjoy all the book, fashion, hair, and cooking posts

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Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire
G.M. Nair

Michael Duckett is fed up with his life. His job is a drag, and his roommate and best friend of fifteen years, Stephanie Dyer, is only making him more anxious with her lazy irresponsibility. Things continue to escalate when they face the threat of imminent eviction from their palatial 5th floor walk-up and find that someone has been plastering ads all over the city for their Detective Agency.

The only problem is: He and Stephanie don’t have one of those.

Despite their baffling levels of incompetence, Stephanie eagerly pursues this crazy scheme and drags Michael, kicking and screaming, into the fray only to find that they are way out of their depth. They stumble upon a web of missing people that are curiously linked to a sexually audacious theoretical physicist and his experiments with the fabric of space-time. And unless Michael and Stephanie can put their personal issues aside and fix the multi-verse, the concept of existence itself may, ironically, no longer exist. – Goodreads Blurb

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire has been on my want list for a while now, largely due to the influence of fellow Self-Published Fantasy Month team member Beth Tabler who reviews over at Before We Go Blog. I’ve seen a few positive reviews for this book by other bloggers, but Beth has been a persistent fan and has recommended it to me more than once. So when I saw it on the list I couldn’t pass it up. Plus it just sounds like a fun read. Nair is also part of Beth’s blogging team so I sometimes read his posts there as well.

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Darkmage
The Rhenwars Saga #1
M.L. Spencer

The hope of the world rests in the hands of a Darkmage.

The Well of Tears is open and the terror of the night has been unleashed. Now, the last Sentinel left alive with the power to defend his world against the minions of the Netherworld is a man destined to be corrupted into the image of what he hates. In the name of duty, Darien Lauchlin will see oaths forsaken, crowns toppled, friends sacrificed and the land he loves desecrated. For there is a very thin line between duty… and brutal inhumanity. – Goodreads Blurb

I picked up Darkmage because of reviews for Dragon Mage, another book by M.L. Spencer coming out in January. Everything I’ve seen for Dragon Mage has been fantastic so I decided to take a chance on this one as well while the opportunity was there. Don’t let anyone ever say reviews for one book don’t sell other books. Darkmage was also a semi-finalist for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off (#SPFBO) so it has to be at least somewhat good right? We’ll see.

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Red In Tooth And Claw
Ryan Howse

A brutal wilderness.

Hungry, plague-ridden animals.

A winter so cold it snaps wood.

Chemosh, a scout imprisoned by the enemy, agrees to lead the way through this wilderness for his freedom. But both his knowledge and his resilience are put to the test, not just by the wilderness, but by the chaotic, violent man he guides. A man he must rely on if they are to survive. – Goodreads Blurb

It was the title that grabbed me with this one. But what sealed the deal were the handful of reviews I found on Amazon. There aren’t many there yet, but comments like these were noteworthy…

• “Pulse-pounding and meaningful”
• “A book has not made my heart race like this…all year.”
• “Blew me away…a short and relentlessly-paced Neolithic fantasy…”
• “In a word…wow!”
• “features some of the finest prose I’ve read in genre fantasy.”

The blurb sounds gripping, and I can’t say that I’ve read many “Neolithic” fantasies before. I’m really eager to read this one in the new year.

It was only at this point I also realized I already follow Ryan on Twitter because he is also on the blogging team with Beth over at Before We Go Blog. Beth has a pretty good blogging team if you didn’t already know.

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A Threat of Shadows
The Keeper Chronicles #1
J.A. Andrews

Do some choices change us too much for us to ever change back?

There was a time when Alaric was a Keeper, one of the men entrusted with counseling the queen, protecting the people’s histories and ancient stories, and working magic in defense of the land.

But in a desperate attempt to save his dying wife, he has sacrificed it all— abandoning his duties, betraying his deepest beliefs and falling ever deeper into darkness.

So far, he has done nothing but fail, and his wife’s time is growing short.

Now, haunted by his past, Alaric has found one last chance at a cure, hidden in a magical Wellstone buried a century ago. With the help of a handful of quirky companions, the stone—and the cure—are finally within his grasp.

But he’s not the only one searching for the Wellstone.

His quest grows more perilous as he discovers that his companions are harboring dangerous secrets their own. It becomes almost impossible when he unearths rumors of a gathering shadow threatening the land—whispering of the return of a dark lord, thought to be defeated.

To face this enemy, and have any chance of saving his wife, Alaric needs to be the Keeper he used to be, not the broken man he has become.

Can he put the failures and pain of his past behind him to stand against the approaching threat? Or, in the face of all the growing shadows, will it be the darkness within himself that destroys everything? – Goodreads Blurb

I picked up A Threat of Shadows on the recommendation of Calvin Park, another one of the Self-Published Fantasy Month team members and host of the Under A Pile of Books podcast. Calvin reads a ton of self-published/indie fantasy and knows his stuff. So when he said, “A Threat of Shadows was also good classic fantasy” I grabbed it up.

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From Legend
The Reeve #1
Ian Lewis

Sober, serious, and driven, Logan Hale is the highest peace officer in Beldenridge, and he knows his city better than anyone: the labyrinthine streets, the vaulted architecture, and all the dark corners where tales of mutations and a vicious enemy still linger like hushed secrets. Logan is quick to dismiss these accounts as part of a storied past with which he’d rather not contend, but when a suicide investigation leads him to believe there’s something more sinister at hand, he questions whether that near-forgotten lore isn’t the stuff of legend after all. – Goodreads Blurb

Something about the cover to this one caught my eye so I checked out the blurb. Then I decided to grab it because I enjoy urban fantasy, and I enjoy detective/crime mystery fantasy, and I don’t know if this will fall into the noir category but I kinda like that too. The reviews looked good as well so I thought I’d give this one a chance and see if it is a gem in hiding. We’ll see…

Well that’s it for the first set of books. Have you read any of them? If so what did you think? Check back tomorrow for set number two.

– Jason