Tuesday, September 24, 2024

A Touch of Magic

It's always great to have a former blog guest featured again. It means the author has a new book out and I always look forward to new releases. My guest today is Mickey Flagg and I am pleased to welcome her back and feature her newest release, Night of the Crescent Moon, which is part of The Champion Chronicles series. It is now available for pre-order and will be published on October 2, 2024.

Mickey's imaginative world is full of mystical warriors, witches,  not-so-normal vampires, and now she has added teenage ghosts! She has published  five novels in the paranormal genre--tales about the paradox of love is a passion, and there is always a twist of fate involved. 

Mickey is also a contributor to a book on urban music education and has published a piece in Still Standing, a web-magazine about loss and healing. She is a life-long New Jersey resident, a member of Liberty States Fiction Writers, NJ Author Network and NJRW.


Mickey, what is your book that you will feature today and how did you come up with the idea to write it?


Thanks for having me on your blog today, Rebecca. 


Night of the Crescent Moon, book four in my paranormal series The Champion Chronicles, takes place sixteen years after book three, His Soul to Keep. Although I loved creating Michael, a mystically enhanced vampire who gains redemption, creating his troubled teenage son, Lukas, had always gripped my heart. 


Michael’s story is set in the early 2000s. I wanted to continue the series, but didn’t know where I wanted it to go. Then I had an idea about a minor character introduced in the first three books. I kept seeing the teenager Martine Kendrick, now as a powerful good witch. Once it hit me that she’d be the perfect love-match for Lukas, I knew I had to bring the two of them together as adults, with baggage, of course 😊. That said, the plot for Night of the Crescent Moon started to take shape. 


The idea to write this book meant that world-building in book four had to expand to include the Second and Third Realm where threats to innocent humans abound. The use of magic plays a subtle role in Martine’s life, in Lukas’s as well. Although Michael’s unprecedented journey was the crux of the first three books, moving the storyline into the present switches that focus to Lukas and Martine. There are new characters introduced as well as established characters revisited.     


I’m a pantser, not a plotter. But the idea to finally create Lukas and Martine’s story totally reignited my imagination. Since writing Night of the Crescent Moon in 2021, I’ve written four additional novels in the series. Book 5 is with my editor at TWRP. I hope readers enjoy these tales that explore paranormal romance with a twist of fate as much as I enjoy writing them.  


Let's get a Blurb:

Some wounds never heal. 

Martine, a good witch and ER nurse must enlist Lukas, a mystical warrior to save her patient who is under the spell of a dark witch from the Second Realm. But she pushed Lukas out of her life years ago. When Lukas agrees to return to the realm where he was once held captive, he faces unexpected danger to bring the dark witch back to lift the spell.  Many assist Lukas, but few are trusted through his travels in a realm with ugly memories.  Will Lukas succeed in saving her patient from a fate worse than death? Will Martine open her heart, or lock Lukas out again?  

Want more? How about an excerpt?

Curious about what her daughter knew and proud of her powerful talents, Mary asked, “So what did the old one say?”

“Something about a dark witch slipping into our world, and you know that witch wasn’t the friendly Tabitha type. She mentioned the crescent moon. And she used the word fornication. Piecing it all together, between the legend and what was in her mind, I get dark witch on a fertility mission. Having sex with a human for the specific purpose of getting pregnant. Jeez. I hope the old one makes it because she looked pretty weak.”

“And the old one just happened to be at the ER, at the same time as your John Doe. At the very hospital you work in.”

“One and the same,” Martine answered.

“Martine. I urge you to listen to me. You shouldn’t get involved.”

“Too late. I see need. I help.”

“I don’t care.”

“But I do,” Martine replied, more intense than usual. “Mare, he’s an innocent. Used in a terrible way.”

“You don’t know that, and you aren’t going to stick around him to find out.” Mary didn’t care if she looked like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse in the house. “The violation of Unwritten Law is never acceptable. The witch purposely jumped dimensions, knew what she wanted and went for it. We all sensed something, it was the only topic of discussion in our healing circle last night.” She had to convince her daughter, saying with a sigh, “Martine. You’re jumping into something you can’t fix. Again.”

“You’re crossing a line, Mare.”

“No I’m not. I know what you carry in your heart, in your soul. I know the sadness, the devastation.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Honey, it’s exactly what I know to be true. You can’t interfere because he’s marked by her. She can find him and use him again if she wants to… if what they did last night doesn’t result in conception.” 

The shake of her daughter’s head was predictable, also unwise. “It’s a ridiculous piece of folklore. The night of the crescent moon crap. How does it go again? I remember you and Granny Martha saying it on All Hallows Eve, like a fairytale turned nightmare or something.”

Mary recalled the stories as well, whispering the rhyme. “On the night of the crescent moon, a male child strong will be conceived. And after all his time within, ‘twill be on the night of a crescent moon received.” She rubbed her forehead and let out a sigh. “It’s been said Second Realm witches and warlocks believe this child will be raised like a prince and then sacrificed for the sake of the immortal sorcerers.”

Her daughter’s hand flew up in the air. “It’s just fantasy and folklore. Special births and sacrifice. Pfft!”

With a tilt of her head, Mary studied her daughter. Too thin and too stubborn. “Whatever you may or may not believe, if there are issues in the Second Realm, let’s say a move against the Third Realm vampires? The next ones they’re coming after are those of us who chose to stay in the human world.”

Want even more? Well, you'll have to buy the book!  Thank you, Mickey for being my guest today.  Here are the buy links and contact information for Mickey and her new book:

Any questions  or comments for Mickey?

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for having me here, Rebecca. It's always a pleasure.

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  2. What an amazing world you've created! Sounds so imaginative! I enjoyed the interview.

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  3. Thanks, and thanks for stopping by, Kara.

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  4. Thank you for having me, Rebecca. I hope to visit again when my YA Haunting Melody is released. I'm in TWRP's the Haunting of Pinedale High Series.

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  5. Wow...sounds like a fantastic book. Enjoyed the excerpt. Congrats and best wishes!

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