The Immortal City is the second standalone book in The Sacred Dark series from acclaimed author May Peterson. This lush fantasy romance features bird-shifters with supernatural powers, a beautiful amnesia love story, time magic, and love that beats the odds. Read on to see how author May Peterson uses the novel’s title to describe all the amazing elements you’ll find in Ari and Hei’s story. T is for time mending, a witchcraft for second chances. H is for Hei, a mysterious but charming wanderer who falls from the sky. E is for erotic chemistry, something Ari and Hei have a great deal of. * I is for immortality, the common gift of the moon-souls. M is for memory, a commodity as fine as gems in the streets of Serenity. M is for moon-souls, the dead resurrected by the power of noble beast spirits. O is for original life, that which Ari is trying to reconnect with. R is for resurrection, the miracle that brings about living-again. T is for Tamueji, a merchant of knowledge who can drink anyone under the table. A is for Ari, a sleepy dove-soul who doesn’t remember his mortal life. L is for living-again, those raised…

With COVID-19, nowadays “quarantine”, “social distancing”, and “isolate” are common parts of our everyday vocabulary. While isolating is necessary right now, it can lead to varying levels of depression and other unexpected emotions – even for an introvert like me. As I was sitting in the quiet of my apartment, with my cat keeping vigil next to me, I was longing for any type of travel and human interaction. Travel and human interaction are not normally things that are normally high up on my “must haves.” While dystopian films and novels might seem like a natural for readers to gravitate right now, a lot of my friends have avoided those types of entertainment because it seemed off-putting. It’s as I was sitting at home in isolation that I thought of some of my favorite romances that take place in far off worlds and unique characters and bizarre situations that seem like just the thing to perk up a reader longing for travel, adventure, fun, and excitement. You might not be able to go far right now, but books provide an entertaining alternative. Although I don’t normally read sci-fi, something about the Cat Star Chronicles books by Cheryl Brooks intrigued me….

In my Forgotten Empires trilogy, the heroine—Queen Euthalia of Calanthe—uses the dreamthink. Because she’s magically sensitive, messages come to her in nightmares, when her mind is vulnerable. The world is a chaotic, broken, and wounded place—and it cries to her for help. When she wakes from these terrible dreams, she pretends to be asleep still, just to calm herself so she can face a day of politics. In some ways, she isn’t entirely faking it. She wakes, then goes into another stage of sleep: the dreamthink. Lia, who lives in a world that celebrates science and knowledge, but is not technologically advanced, has given this state it’s own name. It feels to her like a kind of light dreaming, where she can also guide where her mind goes. Those of you familiar with meditation or sleep stages, might recognize this as a trance state. Or it could be a Stage 1 sleep with theta waves (which are also present during meditation) or Stage 2 with sleep spindles in the brain activity. Magical or not, those are states of mind we all experience at some time or another. I know I do! I made up the term “dreamthink” for myself. (Even…

My newest YA fantasy novel, Storybound, is about a girl, Edie Keller, who moves to the city where her favorite books are set (in this case Austin, TX) and when she walks through the doors of BookPeople, she walks into the world of those books. It’s all real. The good guys, the bad guys, the book boyfriend she’s been in love with forever. The book boyfriend who dies at the end of the last book. .  . Except he isn’t dead. Not yet anyway. And if she plays her cards right, she just might be able to save his life. Before I get to the actual Title Challenge, I have a funny story to share. I misunderstood the rules for this challenge when I read them. I thought I needed to describe my book using only anagrams of my book title. Which—I’ve gotta say—is a lot harder than the actual challenge. So first, I want to share my anagram solution: Broody book boy toy snubs nutsy nobody! Okay, okay. . . I had to add in an extra s in ‘snubs’ … still, I think I did pretty good! Though, my teenage daughter rolled her eyes and said, “Mom! Please….

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, M.A.! Please introduce yourself and tell us more about your new novel, THE IRON CROWN. Thank you so much for having me! I always struggle to introduce myself. I guess the easiest way of explaining who I am is to say that I’m basically the village lady who lives on the edge of the woods and only comes in to town when absolutely necessary. I love my animals, spending my time gardening, crafting, and baking, as well as writing and reading. I enjoy living in the liminal space between the world we know and the world we can sense, but not always see. The entire DARKEST COURT series is a great reflection of who I am and all the nerdy things I love. It centers on the lives of three Unseelie princes at the moment a civil war breaks out in Faerie, threatening their world and the safety of their people. THE IRON CROWN features the last battles of the war and ties up all the plotlines that have run throughout the series. This is the third book in the Darkest Court series. Can you set the scene (without out too many major spoilers, LOL!) for…

The world needs more female leaders, that’s for sure. But bringing a strong female leader to life in my latest book Echoes from the Veil wasn’t always easy for me. In this book my half-Fae main character Elizabeth Tanner has to learn how to trust herself and her abilities to lead a Fae rebellion. I didn’t want to write a cliché “kickass female heroine,” though. I wanted readers to see her development, her struggles, and her insecurities. I’ve recently finished Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead and she says that one of the most defining factors of a good leader is being able to lean into vulnerability. It seems a bit counterintuitive in our hyper-competitive, “show no fear” kind of leadership culture, but for Brené Brown, true leadership comes from understanding one’s values, strengths, and weaknesses. It means coming to terms with fundamental truths about who we are, and in order to do that, we must make ourselves vulnerable. In Echoes from the Veil, I wanted readers to experience that journey with my heroine as she struggles to carry the heavy mantle of leader of a resistance movement in the Faerie realm. Because she doubts herself and her abilities, she…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-ReaderMatch” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present MILLA VANE! Writes: Epic fantasy romance, featuring surly barbarian heroes who don’t quite know what to do with the women who cross their path (or, in the case of A HEART OF BLOOD AND ASHES, what to do with a princess whom the hero intends to kill in revenge for the death of his parents, but who somehow persuades him to marry her, instead.) Includes sword fights, dinosaurs, chases and escapes, true love, miracles…! And yes, these are kissing books. (The hero kisses the heroine in a LOT of places. For a long time.) About: Dorky, shy author who spent her childhood immersed in fantasy movies, comic books, and fairy tales has channeled all of that into emotional, epic romances. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: I’m looking for readers who love to lose themselves in another world, and who are eager to take an epic and emotional journey with my characters. Must appreciate alpha warriors who sometimes make huge…

My Dark Desires series takes place around a thousand years from now, in the year 3048, in a distant star system, and follows the adventures, romantic and otherwise, of the crew of the space cruiser, the Blood Hunter. It was my favorite series to write, so when my publisher asked if I would be interested in writing a Dark Desires Origins series, I jumped at the chance. The new series takes place five hundred years before the original Dark Desires books, when the fleet of ships carrying the last of humanity, first reach their new home. What most of the fleet don’t realize is that it’s not only humans who escaped the destruction of Earth. One of the ships carries a cargo of supernatural beings, captained by a thousand year old vampire. (Ricardo Sanchez, hero of Break Out, book 1 in my Dark Desires series.) Malfunction, book one in the new series tells the story of Katia, a werecat, and Logan, a human, as they fall in love while investigating a series of murders and trying to stay alive. Both series are a blend of science fiction and fantasy—which have been favorite genres of mine for many years. So I…

Welcome back to Fresh Fiction! Can you catch us all up to speed with the Crown of Shards series and a little bit about PROTECT THE PRINCE?  Thanks for hosting me. I appreciate it. 🙂  PROTECT THE PRINCE picks up a few months after the events of KILL THE QUEEN, book #1 in my Crown of Shards epic fantasy series. Everleigh “Evie” Blair might be the new gladiator queen of Bellona, but her problems are far from over, something she realizes when someone tries to assassinate her in her own throne room. Magic, political intrigue, a steady stream of assassination attempts, oh and a will they-won’t they romance… PROTECT THE PRINCE has it all! In fantasy series, I’m always impressed by the amount of worldbuilding that goes into, well, everything! Was there anything in particular that inspired the “realm” in Crown of Shards?  Thanks! I appreciate that. When I was first coming up with the series, I knew that I wanted to write about gladiators, so I decided to use Roman and other mythologies for some of the place and character names. For example, Bellona, my gladiator kingdom, is named after a Roman war goddess. I thought the Roman mythology…

Warrior in Love is about a professional tomb robber and a Valkyrie on the hunt to retrieve an ancient artifact before it’s used to trigger Ragnarök – but treasure hunters have been around for decades! Here are my Top 5 Tomb Raider movies! #5: Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft Oh, come on – you knew this was going to be here! Yes, I know it’s from a video game – and yes, it had a sequel and has been rebooted since. But to me, this first movie was a great show of female power and strength, with Lara charging in where men feared to tread to find the treasure. A great movie! #4 The Mummy (NO, not the Tom Cruise one – the Brendan Fraser one!) Rick O’Connell kicked Royal Butt in this movie, chasing down an ancient mummy along with finding true love with Evy – a librarian who is much tougher than she looks. Don’t you DARE email me and argue for the Tom Cruise version – no, no, no! #3 The Mummy Returns No, it’s not cheating! Not when you see that Evy and Rick have an ADORABLE little boy and he’s just as…