Title: Murder and Magic Among the
Dwarves
Author: Erik Bundy
Blurb:
Amanda
is used to living a life that is less than ordinary. Haunted nightly by her
late husband, she is a psychic living next door to a colony of dwarves. Despite
males normally taking on the task, the colony’s females ask her to find a lost
baby for them, and then hire her to tell them who strangled their midwife
with a diaper and cut out her gossiping tongue.
She’s
thrilled at the honor, but Amanda must learn to tame her own unruly psychic
power. The shadowy side of her gift raises a demon that attacks her,
stalks her, and slashes her hand. When she feels something live
wriggle in her wound, she knows no one can fight her battle for her. She
must face her demon alone.
The
town’s sheriff asks Amanda to help him solve the disappearance of a missing
teenage girl. Her involvement in this case brings a predator into her
life, an enemy who allies himself with her demon. To make matters worse,
the midwife’s murderer comes after her, too. Amanda, though, has no
intention of becoming anyone’s victim.
Death
is no longer her worst possible fate.
My Review: I'm not sure where to begin exactly this was such a great book to read it was funny and at a couple of points it also caused a tear or two. Amanda is a very well thought out character in this story who is about to have a demonic infestation on her hands if she isn't careful. While reading this story the song Black Magic Woman played in my head. It seemed fitting. Amanda is asked to take on three different cases at once and as she does this she knows that she has to be able to control her psychic abilities there's just one small problem with that they are already upon her ready to reek havoc where ever they can. reading every scene in this story and seeing how it all plays out in my head was quite comical at least for me it was. Poor Amanda will she be able to control the inner demons waiting to run a muck and can she solve the cases before she herself becomes a victim? The worst of the worst maybe unleashed and it all falls in Amanda's lap could things get any worse. I for one am rooting for Amanda but the odds seem to be against her. This was an absolute great read I found it to be light and a refreshing story. Magic and Murder Among the Dwarves is one story I would truly love to hear more about. Thank you Eric Bundy for sharing your story with the rest of us!
5/5
Excerpt:
Fate
didn't announce itself by rapping its hard-luck knuckles against my green
cottage door. Nor did it bother to crawl in through my cranked-open bathroom
window. So I gave it no more attention than I did the mountain air I breathed
every day. That was my downfall, my sin. Fate might forgive greed, gluttony, or
even bloodlust, but it never ignores being ignored. It punished my neglect with
death and a demon. It yoked guilt like a leprous shadow to my heels.
Fate's
wake up call came to me one cool spring night after I had lived on Crying Woman
Lane for about a year. I was in bed, just skirting along the edge of sleep,
when a guttural, female voice called, "Amanda," through my window
screen.
My
bedside clock, instead of displaying numbers, looked back at me with a luminous
green eye. Startled, I watched it, waiting to see if this obvious sign would
make its meaning known. The eye winked, and the clock became normal again with
the numbers 11:02 brightly displayed. The numbers added up to four, the number
of wholeness. It didn't describe me at the moment.
Fully
awake, I rose up on one elbow, tucked a tuft of hair behind my right ear, and
listened. Beyond my open window, the tidal racket of katydids rose and fell
with the shrill anguish of self-centered insects braying for sex. I stayed
quiet, hoping the female would go away but knowing I shouldn't let her leave.
The sign indicated this meeting was important. On the other hand, my body felt
raw and jangled with a restless need for sleep. She could come back.
A
second time she called my name from the tangle of darkness and moonlight in the
woods. At least it was not a ghost's voice. It had breath in it. The throaty
intonation, though, was not quite human, the vowels veined in iron, the
consonants ancient and startling.
"Not
tonight," I yelled back.
"Now,"
the female insisted.
I
punched my pillow. My eyes felt dry as dust, gritty, and probably looked as
though threaded with varicose veins. One consolation was that they paid in
gold, and come flood or parching drought, I was going to make them pay me a
bucketful of nuggets this time.
Peevish
as a cat sprayed with a garden hose, I delayed getting up and wished mouth
sores on the jolly, jowly realtor who had sold me this cottage a year before.
Handing
me two sets of door keys, he had said, "There's one other little thing you
might want to know." His blue eyes twinkled. "Most of your neighbors
are a bit peculiar. They live in a colony and only come above ground after
dark."
I knew
about dwarves, of course. Everybody did, but I hadn't known my newly bought
property bordered the treaty land of one of their colonies. The realtor had
lied by saying nothing. He had conned me, a young widow, and deserved the
ulcerated mouth I wished on him now.
When
the realtor saw his late disclosure angered but didn't alarm me, he threw his
head back and yodeled laughter at a ceiling fan.
"They're
allergic to sunlight, see." His eyes widened with mock delight. "It
paralyzes them, turns them into granite statues." He held up an open hand.
"Scout's honor, petrifaction is their preferred method of suicide. It's
painless, see. It's clean and saves their families the cost of a funeral
pyre."
He
patted my arm as if to let me know I didn't need to thank him for the favor of
his settling me near these considerate suicides. Not amused, I flinched away
from his presumptive familiarity. Sourwood was a valley village isolated by
mountains, a place where everyone bumped into everyone else often. He and I
would meet again.
"Don't
expect a Christmas card from me," I told him and punched his forearm.
All the
same, the realtor had been wrong, and I took childish satisfaction in that.
Tall Tristan, he with the precious green eyes, and my closest human neighbor,
had put the lie to that tale. The suicidal dwarves didn't turn themselves into
fossils to save their heirs the price of a funeral pyre. No, they did it for
revenge.
They
bequeathed a monumental problem to their daughters and sons. Where do you put
Uncle Steen after he has become a statue of himself? The irascible Uncle Steens
of the colony usually committed suicide because they felt unwanted and ignored.
On their granite faces after death were the smirks of those who knew they now
had their kinfolks' full attention, even if only for long enough to find
permanent storage for them.
So why
would a female dwarf come calling on me? Did she want to use my psychic power,
my oddsense, to find another killer? I had already solved two dwarf
murders for Brialdur, the colony's sheriff. He had been considerate enough,
though, to come calling just after sunset while I was still awake.
A
chesty cough for attention outside curtailed my reverie of resentment. I was
not being neighborly. I glanced at the clock and saw only the time, no eye or
other sign. Oh well, you couldn't ignore a dwarf any more than you could the
constant flush of a stuck toilet.
I slipped
out of my canopied bed and slid into a fuzzy white robe that fit my body like a
sock. The dwarf outside knew I had gotten out of bed. She could hear a spider
tickle along its web toward a struggling fly.
I
baby-stepped through my dark living-room so as not to stub my toes against
furniture, wrenched open the cottage's reluctant front door, and strutted
outside onto the moonlit porch. There I knuckled my fists into my hips and
stood balanced on both feet, my back straight, posed as if to wrestle any half-quart
boogeyman that dared show up. I was a modern young woman, fearless and capable
(with mace spray in my robe's right pocket), and I didn't care who knew it.
Attitude was everything when dealing with dwarves.
Author Bio:
Erik
Bundy lives in the magical North Carolina woods where chocolate is a
semi-sweet vegetable, female chipmunks are called chipnuns, and mice claiming
to be cousins move in for the winter then take the bath towels when they leave
in spring. The federal government pays him not to work in one of their
offices. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop and a
grand prize winner of the Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. He has
published more than thirty stories and poems.
Connect with Erik:
Links:
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Murder-Among-Dwarves-Bundy-ebook/dp/B00J0NMFRE
Amazon Smart Url: http://bookShow.me/B00J0NMFRE
Goodreads- book link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20930528-magic-and-murder-among-the-dwarves
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Murder-Among-Dwarves-Bundy-ebook/dp/B00J0NMFRE
Amazon Smart Url: http://bookShow.me/B00J0NMFRE
Goodreads- book link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20930528-magic-and-murder-among-the-dwarves
Book
Trailer:
You tube link: http://youtu.be/UObdj_79Ssw
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