Category Archives: Giveaways

June Storm Point – Growing by Conflict in the Arena

Conflict in the spiritual arena makes or breaks a story’s characters. Conflict in that arena also builds up or tears down something in us as we read. That thing is goodness. How do we face the inner battle, how do they face it? Much depends on how that battle is portrayed. Through the characters, their actions and reactions, is the author of the story leading us on an adventure of hope, or through a tale of despair?

Characters we admire can inspire us to goodness, or characters can drag us through the ugliest levels of inhuman evil. I started to watch the series 1883, and I pulled it out of the dvd player very soon. When I watch or read something I want to be encouraged, warned, taught, inspired, and given strength to go on by a real look at people, not have indifference to darkness and evil rubbed in my face, and worse, my spirit. All we have to do to know evil intimately is to look inside. We don’t need anyone to tell us how corrupt we are.

People who try to rewrite our perception of history and claim it is valid because it is reality, are not doing us any favors. I especially hate it when they try to make out that people of past ages were as bad as we are, and end up showing the worst of us. Is that going to do anything good? Is it true?

We enjoy our heroes and heroines, handsome and beautiful or not, whether they overcome together or are pitted against their enemy alone. Their spirit, their strengths, and yes, sometimes even their weaknesses, endear them to us—when they show themselves human, yet with a capacity for greatness. [That is reality. All of us have the capacity to rise above greed, hate, and evil in all its forms, in Christ. We have been given the gift of change. Story is about change in ourselves and changing things.] Things we all wish for. We all wish to be brave, to overcome wind and wave and monster—to be a hero to someone, even if only in the ocean of fantasy. –Fantastic Journey pg. 51

Elisa Rae’s newest release showcases a conflict that shows beautifully how the spiritual arena can change characters for the better, from the lowest verbal spat to running for your life. Whether in a literal arena or that of a court, the stakes are high, and every challenge gifts us the capacity for growth.

“I long to be free.” I blushed. “He says I am a fool, wishing for something I can’t comprehend, but I understand enough. I wish to make my own decisions and not consider what would please my master.” I clasped my hands at my waist and bowed my head briefly. “You probably agree with him.”

“Quite the contrary.” Greyson glowered at the far wall. “Freedom is precious.”

After a moment of stilted silence, he spoke again. “Be at peace. Bartle will see that Silda does nothing to harm you when reporting to her mistress. And if the servant doesn’t attend to the warnings, I will see to it personally.” His ominous tone sounded almost malevolent.

I watched his expression for a few moments, debating what kind of fae he was. There were so many possibilities. He was too large for a sprite and too small for an ettin, not to mention possessing the wrong coloring. It would be rude to ask, and considering clothing completely covered him form the neck down, he seemed to be possibly hiding his true nature.

“Lord Greyson.” A halfling with glasses tucked into the wild thatch of hair at the top of his head bowed to Greyson.

“Lord?” Panic tightened my chest. Had I been overly familiar with a noble of the Unseelie court?

“I have need of your verification of this order for three hundred barrels of Tiren blackberry wine,” the halfling explained, holding up an invoice.

“Pardon me, my lord.” I curtseyed. “I really must return to work.” I hurried off without waiting for a response, my heart thundering in my chest. An Unseelie nobleman–I had been casually conversing with a member of the court. What a fool he must think me.

The Unseelie’s Wallflower

Because freedom truly is a precious thing, fighting for it carries the most risk. And the highest reward. Never stop fighting for it. Above all, for the freedom to do right, to do good. And doing that often calls out evil. Be wise as serpents . . . There is a wise and foolish way to wage war, of course.

The Unseelie’s Wallflower is a great tale, and one you will enjoy if you like stories of fae and humans and clean, adventurous romance. You can check it out here.

If you can’t get that one at the moment, read one of your old tried and true stories where the battle was hard, the conflict stiff, and the reward worth it all. If not immediately, in the end.

Not being overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with good. Now there’s a reality possible in the arena. Think about what helps you overcome in your arenas of conflict. What stories stiffen your spine when you are in the grip of the enemy and everything hangs in the balance?

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Until next time, all the best!

Azalea

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Celebrate July 4th – Clean Gothic and Giveaways

Special July weekend announcement!

Links are live though they appear dim.


My friend Charlotte Lesemann is a writer of clean Gothic Fiction.

I wanted to introduce you to her Youtube channel, where she discusses all things Gothic at the “Gothic Literary Society”.

You can explore her website GothicLiterarySociety.

And her author page can be found here.

The above links went live July 1st!

I was privileged to read the work she is in the process of publishing. It is a solid read, and I don’t usually read Gothic, or thought I didn’t.

Often mistaken for the horror genre (my misinformed opinion), or associated with it, true Gothic is as different from horror as peas and apples, though it may have threads of horror within.

Reading this work and talking with Charlotte, I was pleasantly surprised, entertained, and educated on what a good Gothic story is.

Classic Gothic stories like The Woman in White, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre have elements of the fantastic in them. I thought that as a fantasy reader you might be interested in discovering what true Gothic is all about: the mystery, the beauty, elements of grandeur and suspense and layered meaning in a rich tale.

P.S.

  1. Here is a giveaway for July Children’s and YA books.
  2. And here is a Clean Books Series sale.
  3. To cool you pleasantly on these scorching days, try this steal: A Soul as Cold as Frost

Dive in, discover and enjoy!

Azalea Dabill
Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

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Launch Day for Fantastic Journey! and other Giveaways

LINKS are live though they appear different colors.

The ocean of fantasy and speculative fiction is vast.

Have you wondered how to find the best fantasy adventures for yourself, your children, and your friends, teens to adults? Or where to hunt for the gems?

Dive into the sea of fantasy with us in Fantastic Journey – The Soul of Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Adventure to find what you seek and more. On launch special $ 0.99 now. Please follow me on Amazon!

If you got the preorder, or got Fantastic Journey and are enjoying it, would you leave me your thoughts here, or email them to me at fantasticjourney.dynamospress@gmail.com? Thank you more than I can say!

If you’d like more About the book, and a secret bonus, see my book page here.

And Derek Murphy with CreativIndie posted my article about Fantastic Journey’s blog to book creation here.

Then come back and check out the giveaways I will be adding below over our launch.

5 Days of Giveaways

Day 1: Discover New YA Series for 2021! Free download

Day 2: Clean Young Adult Free Giveaway – All Genres – Celebrate 2021!

Day 3: Free E-books to get 2021 Started!

Day 3 Extra: Faith Based Book Sale

Day 3 Extra: Fellowship of Fantasy – January 2021 New Releases – Clean Indie Reads

Day 4: (Giveaway is live the 4th) General Non-fiction/Christian Self-help/Instructional Book sales

Day 5: January Wishes for Clean Romance Free in KU

I also want to extend a special thank you to my reviewers:

Phyllis W.
Deb D.
The Christian Bookworm
Hannah R.

Thank you for your beautiful, instructional reviews!

I have sent out one paperback to Deb D. in exchange so far.

If any of you who have reviewed it would like a paperback, please email me at fantasticjourney.dynamospress@gmail.com with your name and address, and I will mail you one.

And for any others interested in leaving me your honest thoughts in a review – for the first 10 reviews up on Amazon and Goodreads I will send each of you a paperback copy of Fantastic Journey.

We are at 4 on Amazon – only 6 more to go,
We are at 0 on Goodreads – with 10 to go.

Purchasing the ebook first (0.99 special) would make it a verified purchase review, which I really appreciate, but it’s not required.

Again, thank you!

I am so encouraged reading your reviews. Your thoughtful opinions have taught me some valuable things to keep in mind for my next books, though the very next will not be non-fiction but the completion of the Falcon Chronicle series.

So for those of you who have been waiting, Falcon Dagger is the work-in-progress this coming year!

Thank you so much, thank you for joining us, and have a great new Year!

Azalea Dabill

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

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Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Escapes

20 Author Fantasy Round Up

(Round up announcement.)

Few successful journeys begin alone.

The road to publication for Fantastic Journey is no exception.

This is a joint venture. The seventy authors and their inspiring adventures we explore are beacons of extraordinary story. Most of them are lights by contrast, guiding us to enchanting lands of danger in the ocean of fantasy. With them, we learn how to identify true gems and sell them not. How to discern enemies, friends, and endless possibilities with our inner eye: to touch and to taste the truths of life in all realms near and far.

-Fantastic Journey The Soul of Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Adventure

Of the 70 authors I approached, some quoted in Fantastic Journey and some I simply invited to a signed book giveaway coming in September – October to celebrate my book launch, twenty of these Imaginative Fiction writers have graciously joined us.

The gems these intrepid adventurers bring forth for our delight are:

  1. How has fantasy or speculative fiction impacted your experience of the world?
  2. Why do you think fantasy adventure is important to us as human readers?
  3. In what ways are great fantasy and imaginative fiction vital to our future?

Here is the line-up for these authors’ fascinating answers to our Q and A Round Up. (Only some of each author’s works are listed beside their names. Once the Q and A begins, their answers will be posted on this blog, with links to their pages or websites, etc.)

RJ Anderson – No Ordinary Fairytale trilogy, the Flight and Flame trilogy, Swift

Kathleen Baldwin – The Stranje House series, A School for Unusual Girls

Morgan Busse – The Ravenwood Saga, Mark of the Raven

Chuck Black – Wars of the Realm series, Cloak of Light

CJ Brightley – The Lord of Dreams

Sigmund Brouwer – Merlin’s Immortals series, Martyr’s Fire

Patrick Carr – The Darkwater Saga, The Shock of Night

Serena Chase – The Eyes of Everia series, The Ryn

Katie Clark – the Enslaved trilogy, and The Rejected Princess

DM Cornish – The Monster Blood Tatoo series, Foundling

Azalea Dabill – the Falcon Chronicle, Falcon Heart

Melanie Dickerson – Fairy Tale Romance series, The Peasant’s Dream

EJ Fisch – The Ziva Payvan trilogy, the Ziva Payvan Legacy, and Fracture

Victoria Hanley – The Seer and the Sword

Kathrese McKee – Mardan’s Mark series, Pirate’s Wager, Mardan’s Mark

Sharon Hinck – The Sword of Lyric series, and The Dancing Realms, Hidden Current, Forsaken Island

Ashley Maker – Under the Trees

Rachel Neumeier – The Griffin Mage trilogy, and The Floating Islands

A. A. Radda – The Numin U’ia series, Numin U’ia

J.F. Rogers – The Ariboslia series, Astray

Jonathan Rogers – the Wilderking trilogy, The Bark of the Bog Owl

Anna Thayer – The Knight of Eldaran series, The Traitor’s Heir

Chris Walley – The Lamb Among the Stars series, The Shadow and Night, The Dark Foundations

KM Weiland – Storming, Dreamlander, Wayfarer

In my last newsletter, I mentioned “posting the Q and A’s soon.” I apologize that things were delayed. But as long as my launch team’s advice is a go, posting these generous Authors’ answers should begin regularly in the next two weeks!

Until then, here is a sneak peek into RJ Anderson’s wonderful introduction to the Q and A’s:

Q: How has fantasy or speculative fiction impacted your experience of the world?

A:

As a child, fantasy was hugely important to me as an escape from loneliness and the bullying I experienced at school. But for me the best fantasy stories were not just the ones that transported me to another world, but the ones that reminded me in some way of the Great Story found in the Bible. It meant a lot to me that the best fantasy books depicted the heroes’ sufferings and struggles not as senseless cruelty but as part of a greater Purpose, and affirmed that no matter how terrifying and even unconquerable the darkness might seem, light and truth would triumph in the end. 

As an adult I no longer feel the need to retreat into fantasy worlds, but I still love to visit and explore them. Fantasy is one of the few genres left that celebrates the triumph of goodness over evil and insists that there is a real division between them — even if, as Solzhenitzyn reminded us, that line cuts through the heart of every human being and it’s important to remember that as well. A fantasy that pits sinless saints against irredeemable sinners can be just as false as a fantasy that pretends there’s no difference.

Q: Why do you think fantasy adventure is important to us as human readers?

A:

Good fantasy inspires us to dream of and seek after better things, and also to see our own everyday world with new eyes. I often think of C.S. Lewis’s quote about how he wrote the Narnia books to steal past the “watchful dragons” of people’s false and jaded notions about Christianity, and I think fantasy has tremendous potential to show us truth from unexpected angles and help us to understand ideas that we may struggle with or even outright resist in real life. So I try to find ways to bring that into my own storytelling.

Q: In what ways are great fantasy and imaginative fiction vital to our future?

A:

Our present world has a desperate hunger for love, happiness and purpose, and people are searching wildly in every direction to find it. But the shabby idols propped up by the entertainment industry and the muddy cisterns of modern “realistic” storytelling inevitably leave them feeling cheated. Many people these days are embarrassed to want happy endings, let alone believe in them, and I’ve heard a lot of snide remarks about the “toxicity” of stories that claim villains can be redeemed and not just beaten. But that just shows how far we’ve wandered from the truth of the gospel, which offers hope to every human heart. 

I really believe that telling great imaginative stories that acknowledge we are fallen creatures who can’t save ourselves, but which also point us to One who is worthy and who can offer us the redemption we long for, will resonate with people in ways that no other stories can. But we have to learn how to tell those stories well enough that people who don’t already agree with us will listen, and that’s not a skill that can be learned overnight. If we want to see great fantasy stories being written in the next few decades, we don’t just need to support young authors and praise their efforts, we need to encourage them to seek out thoughtful criticism and use it to make their stories truer and richer and better. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, as Hebrews 12:11 reminds us, but the harvest it yields can’t be produced any other way.

This will be re-posted along with a bonus Q and A to a personal question I had about Knife, on the coming Q and A’s. Until next time!

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

P.S. None of these launch things would be going as smoothly as they are without the help of my trusty assistant, Susana. Thank you, Susana!

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Medieval Romance in Spring

This is the Romance Giveaway I committed to a while back that looks like it has some interesting reads. Don’t forget to sign up for a chance to win a gift card for the book of your choice! And the ebooks in the giveaway are free, for a limited time.

Then below is a clean Christian Romance Giveaway with a $20 gift card prize. Be the lucky winner! This one just started today.

Seriously, spring is in the air. The clouds are passing, sunlight is staying a little longer, the robins are seeking worms. New life is around the corner – take advantage of warmer days and plant spring in your heart with thankfulness to our Maker. And don’t forget to thank the special loved one who adds romance and true love to your life.

There are more forms of love than Eros, as a man loves a woman. If you have never read the original story of Valentine, I suggest you do. Or get it at your library.

A happy Valentine’s to all!

Azalea Dabill

Crossover: Find the Eternal, the Adventure

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New Books to Read

Here are some fantasy and other reads new to me and maybe to you. My most recent clean fantasy adventures have been Jeff Wheeler’s The Hollow Crown, Morgan Busse’s books, and I’m working on getting K. M. Weiland’s Wayfarer and Jeff Wheeler’s The Silent Shield.

The Silent Sheild Fantasy Adventure

And Morgan Busse has a new release coming February 4 2020. The first two in the series, Mark of the Raven and Flight of the Raven were excellent, now the third is coming, Cry of the Raven. Don’t miss it! Great fantasy adventure.

Cry of the Raven Morgan Busse

But there’s more. I’m part of a giveaway for a $30 Gift card and free ebooks thru January 30th.

Some of them are rated moderate for fantasy combat, like mine. Others you will have to use good judgement whether they are clean or not. There are a couple of these I’m looking forward to checking out.

I committed to this giveaway believing it was for pretty clean reads only. I’m keeping my word to share it now, not realizing beforehand what genre some of the books would be. In future I will stick to clean genre giveaways only. Enjoy the clean reads included!

I’m can’t wait for Cry of the Raven! This author I know is good, a great writer of adventure.

Crossover: Find the Eternal, the Adventure

All the best to you,

Azalea

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