Release Day for A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS!

My new mystery novel, A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS, is now available in print and eBook! Click here to grab your copy!

For fans of Hallmark Mysteries, Agatha Raisin, and Stephanie Plum, A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS is an amateur sleuth mystery novel where the entire town concocts wild theories and tramples the evidence all to find out Whodunit.

Charlie Goode is struggling to reset her life. After a split from her longtime partner, she’s returned home to the Pacific Northwest town of Harvest Falls. Drifting between jobs at her cousin’s board game shop and the police station, she avoids commitment like the plague.

When her one-time BFF is murdered, Charlie looks to her father, the chief of police, for justice. But to Charlie’s shock and dismay, not everyone trusts her father’s abilities, or his integrity, and Harvest Falls soon devolves into a frenzy of half-baked theories and armchair detecting.

Determined to protect her father’s reputation, Charlie finds herself battling wits with the bumbling sleuths, joining the hunt for her friend’s killer. But with librarians, florists, and bakers tromping through crime scenes, hurling accusations, and fudging the law, she’ll have to act fast before the killer’s dagger pricks another friend.

PRE-ORDER A Dagger Among Friends

The A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS eBook is now available for pre-order on Amazon! Click here to have a copy delivered to your reading device August 8th.

For fans of Hallmark Mysteries, Agatha Raisin, and Stephanie Plum, A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS is an amateur sleuth mystery novel where the entire town concocts wild theories and tramples the evidence all to find out Whodunit.

The plot is a humorous and loving take on mystery tropes:

“I solved it!” They beamed, gasping and thrusting out their chest.

“Running blindly into the killer’s grasp is called being a victim.”

The main character, Charlie Goode, is in her 40s and has recently split from her long-time boyfriend. Starting over in her small hometown of Harvest Falls, she spends time playing board games with her cousin Case, and working for her father, the chief of police.

Board games and 80s movie references are littered throughout the book. After all, every sleuth needs a hobby!

“You need a hobby.” He beamed. “That’s an actual thing. All sleuths have hobbies—baking, quilting, cat herding. It helps with the process.”

I thought for a moment before perking up. “I play board games,” I said. “But I’m not sure how that helps.” I lofted my whiskey, stared at my playing cards: a cattle ranch and the cooperage I’d built beside it. “Seems like a distraction.”

Like cozies, board games, and 80s movies? Check out the book and leave a review!

New Book Cover Reveal: A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS

Here it is: the cover for A DAGGER AMONG FRIENDS, the first in my new mystery series set in the Pacific Northwest!

When murder comes to Harvest Falls, amateur sleuths abound. But the killer’s game pits friend against friend, and everyone’s in danger of a final turn.

I’m working on some final edits and getting ready for another fun summer of book events. More details to come!

Rose City Comic-Con, Fairs, and SummerFest!

As summer rolls along, here are some events where I’ll be meeting new readers. They’re all first-time events for me, and I’m excited to be a part of them!

Thralls of the Fairie – Baldairn Motte

A new anthology from Craig Comer – ebook available for pre-order. Eleven tales of Sword & Sorcery, low fantasy, and high adventure.

I’m excited to say that Thralls is now also available in print – Get yours here!

Broken into three sections, I’m sharing more about each in turn:

TALES OF BALDAIRN MOTTE – Far away in Baldairn, the king is dead. As armies march and lords grasp for an empty throne, the villagers of Burn Gate find themselves caught between protecting their families and defending their lands. For the crofter, Trask, the decision is simple, but the cost will shape the fortunes of those he loves.

Baldairn Motte started as a question posed by author Ahimsa Kerp, who wondered how the men who fought for Sauron in Lord of the Rings were tricked into believing they were in the right. That idea melded with one of my own, where I pondered over the impact a large medieval battle would have on the local populace—the farmers and villagers who had to deal with trampled fields, slain livestock, and a sea of rotting corpses. Not to mention the loss of life and the struggle they faced between honoring their duties to their lords and protecting their families.

Along with author Garrett Calcaterra, we set out to explore these topics in a slightly different manner—we would each create our own story based around a common set of “factual” events. In this way, each of us would tell a different point of view of the same conflict. The original result was the three novellas of The Roads to Baldairn Motte, with my tale called Thralls of the Fairie. To that mosaic novel, we added a few interstitial documents—made-up chronicles and letters—to help flavor the wider world and help setup the core conflict of our tales.

When our first publisher, L&L Dreamspell, closed its doors we had the opportunity to republish Baldairn with Reputation Books. Our editor there asked for more short pieces to color our world and characters. “An Ambush at Plum Grove” was one of these tales, and serves as a prologue to the expanded edition. “A Morning Storm” was a cut bit from an initial draft of Thralls, when there were several additional point-of-view characters. It serves now as a resolution to the ill-fated Orren of Burn Gate.

Now with Knight Owl Publishing, Baldairn has grown and morphed throughout the years. But at its heart it remains a collection of tales, not of destined heroes or mighty lords, but of simple folk trying to survive and find happiness.

Pre-order the ebook now on Amazon!

Thralls of the Fairie – Kuthahaar

A new anthology from Craig Comer ebook available for pre-order. Eleven tales of Sword & Sorcery, low fantasy, and high adventure.

I’m excited to say that Thralls is now also available in print – Get yours here!

Broken into three sections, I’m sharing more about each in turn:

TALES OF KUTHAHAAR – In Kuthahaar, the Sultan lords over imprisoned oracles, wraith-like assassins, and underground rivers filled with the dead. For Saja and Akil, uncovering these mysteries will seal their fates, whether they wish it or not. For Rajheb, it is enough to wander the city, and remember what was.

“The Kultar’s Lost Hand” was the city of Kuthahaar’s first appearance. The story came of wondering what happens to young heroes when their bodies age and exploits are forgotten. But the city, with its Sultan and boatmen, shaded palaces and cults of mystics, spawned so many other thoughts that soon I had a whole series of tales that further flushed out the mightiest city in the world. The fabled capital of a largely desert empire, Kuthahaar is not quite Arabian, but certainly not stock European. The city lives somewhere in-between, in a time not yet faded into myth.

In “The Dream Thief of Kuthahaar” and “The Augurwraith” questions of fate and agency carry forward Kultar’s themes. If magic exists, will it help or hinder the lowborn? Will it be an equalizer or another tool for oppression? “The Blood of Khalid Al’Tahir” is a more straight-forward tale, but still with its own twist of fate. This play between heroes and rogues, fate and agency, is one I find fascinating, and I hope you, the reader, will as well.

Pre-order the ebook now on Amazon!

Thralls of the Fairie – Lost Lands

A new anthology from Craig Comer available for pre-order. Eleven tales of Sword & Sorcery, low fantasy, and high adventure.

I had fun time working on these tales, dusting off the old and polishing up the new, never before released. Herein lies a span of almost twenty years of writing, and whereas I hadn’t remembered every twist and turn of each of them, I had a clearly etched memory of when I’d written them. Each is dear to me, and I hope will be an enjoyable read for you!

Broken into three sections, I thought I’d share more about each in turn:

TALES OF LOST LANDS – To reclaim the heart of her god, Mior bargains with mages and delves deep into the temple of a cult. Caita Halftallow finds strength amongst the herd, the better to crush her enemies, while Jaelyn’s song lends her the strength to slay fiends.

The winner of the Artist’s Challenge Anthology contest, “The Song of Jaelyn” first saw print in 2008. The contest rules were simple: submit a story inspired by the anthology’s cover. With a ship besieged by a storm, and a begowned woman staring longingly at the sea, the story formed quickly and almost wrote itself. Its theme of a wronged, and seemingly desperate, victim turning the tables on their assailants continued in other tales. In “Tazirum’s Dagger,” my second published story, it’s a group of young would-be adventurers who get in over their heads. “The Tomb of Jorem’bel” and “The Lure of Caita Halftallow” feature heroes fighting against the odds to save their family’s legacies.

These are tales inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s BLACK ARROW and Sir Walter Scott’s IVANHOE, not to mention the adventures of more brawny rogues like Conan and David Eddings’ Sparhawk. They are gritty and set in lands both familiar and strange, where magic exists but is clouded in mystery and not readily visible. And if the gods play a hand in the fate of our heroes, it is only for their own ends.

Pre-order the eBook now on Amazon!