Today is an amazing day, massive congratulations to Lydia Sherrer on the the release of Betrayal (book #5 in the Love Lies and Hocus Pocus series) What better way to mark this day than with a character guest post from everyone’s favourite witch, Sebastian Blackwell! I have been a huge fan of this series from the start and one question I was itching to ask, was how did he learn to tame all the magical creatures that help (and also sometimes hinder) him in his escapades. Lucky for me, and you, he’s prepared this handy guide to help you tame a magical creature of your very own!
Sebastian Blackwell here, devilishly handsome Professional Witch and your guide to all things magical and beastly. It seems there is cause for celebration today because another one of our adventures has been “leaked” to you mundanes.
I think that’s all fine and dandy, but Lily is worried that some “poor” and “innocent” mundane is going to have the wrong idea and get themselves killed trying to copy us. Sooooo, I’m here to assure you that no cats were harmed in the writing of…hmm, that doesn’t sound right, what was it I was supposed to say? Oh yeah! All magical feats were performed by trained
professionals, and do not try this at home.
There, got that out of the way.
Now, since you’re going to pay as much attention to that warning as you do to the speed limit, the suggested serving size on a box of thin mints, and that safety tag you always tear off of your mattress, here’s a handy little guide to get you started. If you follow these ten rules, your chances of survival will go from about 1 in 5 to a good fifty percent.
Probably. Have fun!
Sebastian’s 10 Rules For Taming Magical Creatures
(AKA Sebastian’s Guide to Avoiding an Untimely and Grisly End)
So you want to tame magical creatures? Well, it’s not all exciting adventures, exotic animals, and fashionably dramatic cloaks, let me tell you. It’s more like life-threatening mishaps, seat-of-your-pants guesswork, and lots and lots of bleach—you’re gonna need that stuff by the gallon. Oh, and cloaks? Seriously? Talk about strangulation hazard right there. Ditch the cloak and stick with jeans and a t-shirt (and not your favorite jeans and t-shirt either, because they’ll probably get torn, stained, burned, and vomited on in short order).
- Never summon a demon.
Seriously, just don’t do it, no matter how desperate you are. Been there, done that, regretted it for the rest of my life. Plus, they stink like rotten eggs. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
- When it comes to ghosts, do your homework.
Or don’t, if you feel particularly lucky and enjoy the thought of gambling your eternal soul on the off chance that whatever spirit you’re bargaining with is a stand up kinda guy. Unlike the fae, your run-of-the-mill ghosts, poltergeists, and the like don’t follow any rules and will happily lie to your face if it serves their purpose. So, make sure you research the history of said floaty individual and know what kind of person they were in life, not to mention what’s motivating them to stick around in death. People don’t change when they die, they just get cranky about all their favorite foods they can’t eat anymore.
- Invest in a sturdy pair of leather boots.
They come in handy when those miniature alligator fae decide they’d rather take a chunk out of your juicy human foot instead of eating the perfectly good slab of raw beef you just threw at them.
- Pay attention to your teacher in Spanish class.
Why bother developing your foreign language skills when everyone speaks English anyway? I’ll tell you why, because when you mispronounce that demon’s name you’ve just summoned (because, of course, you’re a reckless masochist and have ignored Rule Number 1), the demon is going to laugh at you and then bite your head off. So, kids, bring your teacher a nice box of chocolates, sit in the front row, and study Spanish (or French or Latin or whatever) like your life depends on it.
- Never accept a gift.
Because probably, it’s not. No matter how much that magical creature seems to like you, gift-giving is just a sneaky way to rope you into doing something later that you’ll severely regret. Ask me someday about the time I got hoodwinked into hosting a full moon fae jamboree in my apartment. Imagine one hundred drunk toddlers…yeah, and Lily wonders why I never bother cleaning my apartment.
- Take a bartending course.
Do you have any idea the kind of social skills it takes to bargain, cajole, bully, persuade, threaten, and trick various creatures into doing what you want? If you can’t make it as a bartender, don’t even think about trying to be a witch, not unless you want to be eaten alive, turned into a goat, or stuck in unending nothingness in-between dimensions (those are
just the first three things that came to mind, there are worse fates, believe me). Assuming you can handle bartending, such training will have the side benefit of teaching you about mixed drinks, which are a prime bargaining chips with pixies. Those little stinkers will do anything for a well-made cocktail.
- Always carry dog biscuits.
Because you never know when a well-aimed dog biscuit will be the difference between normal life, and life as a quadriplegic. Most hungry things with sharp teeth aren’t picky about what goes in their mouth, as long as something does. If you want to spice things up, you could even invest in some of those super fancy dog biscuits that look like cookies with icing and everything. Just don’t get them mixed up with the actual cookies (because who doesn’t carry around a handy bag of emergency cookies?)
- Build a greenhouse.
No, I’m not going all hippie on you. The greenhouse is so you have somewhere to cultivate the variety of grubs, herbs, and various other living things you’ll need to attract magical creatures. Or, if you’re lazy like me you could just use your kitchen sink and the back seat of your car. Back seats are a great place to ferment aged pizza, and there’s nothing better to attract mold fae.
- Adopt ten cats.
This one is not for the faint of heart. But I promise, if you can keep ten cats happy, you are much more likely to survive being a witch. Why do you think we have all those stories about witches keeping cats? It’s not because of the feline race’s winning personality, I can promise you that. Plus, cats are good at catching all the mice that’ll be hanging around if you’re cutting corners on Rule Number 8.
DISCLAIMER: I was in no way influenced to add this rule by the large grey ball of floof currently sitting on my lap. If Sir Kipling had his way, the rule would say “Find the nearest cat and give it salmon,” on the off chance that he might be near anyone reading it. When I pointed out that cats aren’t technically magical creatures, Sir Kipling decided to use my lap as a scratching post, so I quickly dropped the subject.
- Make friends with a wizard.
This is probably the most challenging rule, since wizards aren’t overly fond of witches. In fact, if you ever meet a wizard, best not to tell them you’re a witch until you’re reasonably confident they aren’t a “curse first and ask questions later,” kind of person. But if you do happenacross a rare specimen of magical impartiality and tolerance, be sure to:
a) Do your research (in case they are secretly a megalomaniacal narcissist plotting to rule the world—those are more trouble than they’re worth)
b) Give them lots of gifts (real cookies, not the dog biscuits) and
c) Don’t tell them about the greenhouse in your sink.
If they stick around after they meet your ten cats, then you’re golden. As long as you keep the cookies and/or mixed drinks coming (depending on their preference), they will most likely be excellent backup in any magically hazardous situation, and might even be persuaded to let you “borrow” their magical knick knacks (and by borrow, of course, I mean procure with no firm return date in mind).
Well, there you go! Ten sure-fire ways to stay on top of things when interacting with the various creatures of the magical underworld. Of course, it would be safer to just read about our adventures from the safety of your armchair with a cheese scone and a hot cup of tea close at hand. But then nobody has ever accused me of being “safe.” *Winks*
Good luck!
Betrayal (Love Lies and Hocus Pocus #5) is live now and you can grab it from Amazon here and it’s also available to KU subscribers.
You can also find my 5 star review of book five here and don’t forget reviews from all the books in the series are available in the blog review archive!
I’m so so excited, my pre-order of Song of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury arrived early!!! This book is beautiful and whilst I am still a little disappointed that it was only a paperback release, the stencilled sprayed edges are an absolute joy. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this so far – I get the feeling a February book may get knocked off my tbr for this one!
I’ve just finished up Betrayal which is book 5 in the Love Lies and Hocus Pocus series by Lydia Sherrer. I’ve had an interesting journey with this book as I was honoured to be asked to Alpha read in the early stages, I love how the story has evolved since then! It’s another 5 star read for me, the author took a real risk in changing a few things up in this instalment and it paid off in spades!
I have often said on here that there is something a little special about when an author comments on a pic I’ve posted on Instagram. Having received my copy of Song of Sorrow I just had to post a pic, and I was so excited when Melinda Salisbury commented. I had been holding out to see if Fairyloot could work some magic to get another hardback edition but they have been silent since it was first mooted, so after a very small twitter chat with the author, I pre-ordered this Waterstones exclusive edition and I’m so happy I did. It is a shame that the editions don’t match and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way – I hope that Fairyloot takes on board all the comments from subscribers when turning a paperback release into hardback for their boxes in future.
Printed stickers are my biggest peeve when it comes to paperbacks. Even before I started bookstagram I found them to be incredibly frustrating and now they mar the beautiful covers for my pics I hate them even more. Why spend time and money creating a beautiful cover if the aesthetic is going to be compromised? I have to admit that I have spent a lot of time and often more money trying to track down covers of books that are without them, I know that so many readers hate these and I have often thought of starting up a petition but I doubt publishers will take any notice!
Movie or TV tie in covers just look cheap and nasty in my view. I understand why it happens as it gives new readers a beeline to go for if they recognise actors on the cover but they are often unimaginative and have that mass market feel to them. It’s like publishers know they will be a quick and easy sell whatever, which begs the question – give your readers the benefit of some intelligence and allow them to find a book in a store the normal way, they may even find some other great reads in the process.
Nothing worse than picking up a book opening its pages to find that you can’t read easily because your thumbs are covering the words (I have pretty tiny hands too). I format books for print and make sure that this is never an issue but again I can see how it happens, but it doesn’t make it right. For me this is one of the reasons historically that I have rarely bought indie print books, however, with the rise of formatters like myself and my friend and mentor Jo Michaels, this is starting to become a thing of the past. I have to admit that I went to an indie book signing a couple of years ago and I have read 0 of the 10+ books I bought because they just look terrible inside. This isn’t an indie bash though as there are trad books which do it too. To this day I don’t understand why Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo was forced to be aesthetically the same size as Six of Crows, it’s led to it being a pretty unreadable book inside. Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J Maas was also a lesson in how not to format a book (tiny font and so heavy I could barely hold it up for long reading sessions,) although with a book of that size there was probably little they could do, rather than editing out the 200 pages or so of dead weight in my opinion.
I know authors are not writing machines and people demanding the next book in a series will likely lead to a block in creativity but leaving more than a year between books is likely to end up losing readers. I think the most obvious and most lamented of these is George RR Martin and the Game of Thrones series. I didn’t come late to these books and I read a Dance with Dragons when it came out all those moons ago. The conclusion of the TV series (and yes I hated the Ned Stark tie in cover) will be coming in April and for me I’m going to be done with the series, there is no way I remember what happened in the books (as we all know how different the two beasts have become) and no way do I have time to re-read the whole series so I can safely say that when the last series finishes i’m going to be done with the story, although I know that many, including my lovely friend Vanessa, is in it for the long haul. My favourite indie sci-fi series too seems to have completely stalled, it’s been over 2 years since the last book and the author hasn’t announced a single thing about the next in the series (which ended on a whopping cliffy) as they seem now to be focused on writing romance, I’m pretty sad that I may not get to see how the story ends.
I’m putting King of Scars in for this week, I didn’t outright love it as much as I wanted to, but I think I put it on too high a pedestal if I’m being honest. It was full of feels and I did enjoy a lot of it, just not all…..
As before, I’ve been pretty poorly which has meant that I’ve not been feeling that creative, so I’ve not posted much on IG this week, however in honour of Valentines day, I did this post featuring a gorgeous new candle from Bookish Burns, they consistently knock it out of the park with their fragrances and this one my have just become my favourite!
When Gaynor Smith first approached me about doing a blog spot of who I would put on my own Apocalypse Five team, my mind instantly began buzzing and clicking with possibilities. For a team designed to be earth’s last line of defense against looming catastrophe, who would I want acting as champions to man-kind? In the first draft of my list, I found many Marvel characters added into the mix. Anyone else see the fatal flaw there? Recently, Thanos proved that particular group can be whipped out with a snap of the fingers. Maybe they aren’t the 
Paperbacks and Pinot 