Oracle 2: beyond luck

Beyond luck

I See You (Oracle 2) is now available for pre-order.

Oracle 2: Excerpt 3 of 3

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR I SEE ME, ORACLE 1

Click here for the OPENING 500 words of Chapter One

Click here for the second 500 words of Chapter One

I See You, Oracle 2 - eBook cover — Book cover by Irene Langholm and Elizabeth Mackey

CHAPTER ONE CONTINUES (2):

I glanced over at the cash counter. Sid and Lina were still wrapped up in their electronic devices. The laundromat was otherwise empty.

I looked back. The butterfly was gone.

No. It had flitted away to dance over top of the grubby glass entrance.

“Ah, geez.” Sid spoke from behind me.

My stomach bottomed out as I turned to look back at the counter. Could Sid see the butterfly? How the hell was I going to explain my tattoo flitting around the storefront windows?

“That old guy is back,” he said.

“What guy?” Lina didn’t look up from her iPad.

“The Chinese guy who just wanted to watch the dryers last week and kept asking for Oreos.”

I snapped my head back to the front door, actually hurting my neck with the sudden movement.

An ancient-looking Asian man was grinning at me from the sidewalk beyond the door of the laundromat.

Chi Wen, the far seer of the guardian dragons and my old-as-ass mentor, had apparently decided that his typical gold-embroidered white robes and sandals would stand out too much in Yachats. So he was now clothed in a baby blue, oversized short-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with a fuchsia pink Cake in a Cup — Taste the Magic logo. The shirt hung almost to his knees, his cargo pants ended at his lower calves, and he was wearing black combat boots to complete the ensemble.

“Don’t call him Chinese like that,” Lina snapped as she stood to cross back to the dryers she was manning. “You don’t like people calling us Indian.”

“He’s homeless.”

“How does that make any difference?”

Chi Wen opened the glass door, triggering the bell as well as allowing a warm gust of the sunny day inside.

The chime of the bell mystified him, and he paused — still grinning madly — as he looked around for the source of the sound. Instead, he saw my butterfly tattoo fluttering over his head. He lifted his hand and the butterfly landed in his palm.

“No, no!” Sid called out from behind the counter. “No sit here. No watch. Go. Go!” For some reason, his previously perfectly-articulate-though-accented English broke down as he confronted one of the nine most powerful beings in the world.

“Wait,” I said. “That’s my … grandfather.”

Sid eyed me distrustfully. He was wearing a canary-yellow turban today. I was fairly certain it had been tangerine orange last week. I wondered if there was a religious significance to the color. I’d been coming to the laundromat for a few weeks now, and Sid and Lina accepted my business but didn’t particularly like me. It might have been my full arm-sleeve tattoos, or the weird white streak that wouldn’t take the jet-black dye with which I colored my hair, or maybe they didn’t trust anyone under twenty-five. Which was cool, because remove ‘under twenty-five’ from that misgiving and neither did I.

To be continued …

I SEE YOU (ORACLE 2) IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER.

RELEASING DECEMBER 17, 2015

Oracle 2: bad company

bad company

I See You (Oracle 2) is now available for pre-order.

Oracle 2: Excerpt 1 of 3

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR I SEE ME, ORACLE 1

CHAPTER ONE

“There are zombies in Florida.”

I looked up from ironing butterfly patches onto my well-worn blue jeans just as Lina, the owner of the laundromat, plugged another quarter into one of the dryers in the bank she’d commandeered for the day. She was crazily talented at reading off her iPad and doing laundry at the same time.

We called it “the laundromat” because it didn’t appear to go by any other name. It was situated in the middle of Yachats, Oregon, though the coastal town was so tiny that there really wasn’t much of a middle to it at all. The underutilized laundromat got my business every Friday. I’d been going there weekly since Beau and I got into town. Today, I’d rented an old iron and an ironing board for an extra two dollars.

“Did you hear me, Sid?” Lina called out to her husband, who was doing some sort of paperwork behind the cash counter to my right. “Zombies in Florida?”

“That’s drugs,” he replied. “Weird drugs making people eat other people’s faces.” Normally Sid suffered from selective hearing, but apparently zombie-related topics were interesting enough to pull him away from his bowl of cheese puffs.

I dropped my gaze to the butterfly patches I was applying to the tear in the left thigh of my jeans. I’d already loosely darned and interfaced the rip from the inside. Beau had bought me the fuchsia, electric blue, and deep purple butterfly patches from Etsy because they were reminiscent of the butterfly tattoo on my left inner wrist. Also, money was tight, so patching jeans was way cheaper than buying a new pair right now. Not that I minded. I wasn’t big on the accumulation of clothing — or anything else, really. I was going to hand stitch the patches after I ironed them on, just to be extra careful. I didn’t want them peeling off.

“Drugs,” Lina scoffed as she crossed behind me and around the peeling laminate counter that held the squat cash register and not much else. She stole a handful of cheese puffs and settled back into her folding beach chair. “Who’d want to take something that makes them want to eat people?”

Zombies, huh? I knew that shapeshifters, werewolves, sorcerers, witches — and whatever Jade Godfrey was — existed. So why not zombies? Except, of course, it would be difficult for the Adept community — aka magical peeps — to keep flesh-eating zombies on the down-low. Yeah, I had figured out pretty quickly the Adept were big on secrets. Which made sense, since they were massively outnumbered by nonmagical people and all their pitchforks.

Sid didn’t answer. I could never figure out what he was working on all day. Yachats boasted a full-time population of six hundred and ninety people, all of whom probably owned their own washers and dryers. Even with the seasonal influx of tourists, the laundromat certainly didn’t do so much business that Sid needed to pore over the receipts with such attention.

I doubted, however, that he was the local pot dealer or anything. First, he just wasn’t the type — meticulous records or not. And second, weed was now legal in Oregon.

To be continued …

I SEE YOU (ORACLE 2) IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER.

RELEASING DECEMBER 17, 2015

Oracle Series: flash giveaway meme postcards (2)

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. THE FIRST SIX RESPONDENTS HAVE BEEN EMAILED. THANKS FOR PLAYING!!

I just finished uploading the FINAL ebook version of I See You (Oracle 2) to all the retailers and sent the paperback off for formatting. So I’m done … other than manning the blog and giveaways (etc) and sending out the newsletter on December 17 … I’m done. CRAZY.

Wanna help me celebrate? How about a postcard flash giveaway?

I have six sets of these postcards and six stamps all ready to go. All I need to do is address the envelopes.

Would you like to win four Oracle 1 meme/book cover postcards? I’ll even autograph them if you like. 😀

You would?

Okay then!

To enter:

Comment below.
first SIX respondents win!

Notes/Rules: OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. Each comment will be assigned an entry number. The first SIX comments win a set of Oracle 1 postcards. One entry per person. Please make sure to fill out a valid email address in the comment form. Email addresses are not collected for any purpose other than notifying the contest winner.

If you haven’t commented on the blog before, or you comment from a different IP address, the comments are moderated. So don’t worry if you don’t see your entry right away. I will approve it, then assign it an entry number.

Contest closes when the six stamps have all been spoken for …

<3 <3 <3

Oracle 2: synopsis

If magic was real, then what? Was it simply a form of energy? The energy I felt when I touched Beau, Chi Wen, and Blackwell? Energy from where? From some divine providence? From the very earth?

If magic came from somewhere godly, then why come to me? Why communicate through me? What purpose did the visions have?

Could I actually change the future? And if yes, would I change it for better or for worse?

Over a year and a half had passed since Jade Godfrey — aka the dowser — fixed my mother’s necklace. Since I’d thwarted the vision of the death of love. Since I’d made a deal with a devil and acquired a demigod for a mentor.

I still didn’t understand or control my power, my magic, but it had been a great year. A year of rest. A year of love and light.

But now the reprieve was over.

Now it was time to see.

Magic willed it so.

– I See You (Oracle 2) is now available for preorder. –

T-shirt mail

There were treats waiting for me in the mailbox today. T-shirts! Two for Michael and three for me.

And an attempt at a selfie. Some makeup might have helped …

They smell slightly of vinegar from the printing process but a quick wash should take care of that. I <3 them. Thanks to Elizabeth Mackey for her design prowess!!

Oracle 2: destiny and the future

Destiny is immutable.

I See You (Oracle 2) is now available for pre-order.

Dowser Series: ‘Cake in a Cup’ T-shirt and a giveaway

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. Winner: Lucky #45, Avanti from Indiana!

Last but not least! Cake in a Cup!

Elizabeth models the Cake in a Cup T-shirt - white printing on black — Elizabeth models the Cake in a Cup T-shirt – white printing on black

This logo makes its appearance in the Dowser series (of course), but the actual T-shirt is due to show up in I See You (Oracle 2). Here’s a sneak peek of the scene:

Chi Wen, the far seer of the guardian dragons and my old-as-ass mentor, had apparently decided that his typical gold-embroidered white robes and sandals would stand out too much in Yachats. So he was now clothed in a baby blue, oversized short-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with a fuchsia pink Cake in a Cup — Taste the Magic logo. The shirt hung almost to his knees, his cargo pants ended at his lower calves, and he was wearing black combat boots to complete the ensemble. – I See You (Oracle 2)

Three guesses as to who dressed Chi Wen. 😛

The logo also appears in Jade’s bakery in the Dowser Series, as well as on Blossom’s apron in Dowser 5!

Note the chocolate cosmos. 🙂

I made the ‘Cake in a Cup’ T-shirts available in white printing as well as pink printing in the maximum colours I was allowed by the retailer (five). They are printed on fitted American Apparel T-shirts and THEY FIT SMALL!! Elizabeth is wearing an XL in the picture, and she usually wears a medium. I knew this about the American Apparel T-shirts (I also wear an XL) but I really like the fabric and the flattering fit. The site suggests going up a size – based on their sizing chart I’m a large – so please check the sizing.

GIVEAWAY

Would you like to win an ‘Cake in a Cup’ T-shirt?

You would?

Okay then!

To enter the giveaway all you need to do is:

Comment below and tell me your favourite ‘Cake in a Cup’ cupcake.

Notes/Rules: OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. Each comment will be assigned an entry number. ONE winning entry will then be selected via random number generator. One entry per person. Please make sure to fill out a valid email address in the comment form. Email addresses are not collected for any purpose other than notifying the contest winner.

Contest closes SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015 at 8 p.m. PST.

More giveaways coming through December to celebrate the release of Oracle 2!!

<3 <3 <3

Oracle Series: ‘Chicken Butt’ T-shirt and a giveaway

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. Winner: Lucky #9 Michelle from New Jersey!

So just to add another glitch in this T-shirt launch week, the design I intended to release today has disappeared from Amazon. Yep. It’s been there for over two weeks all ready to go and now it is gone. The helpful people at Amazon Merch are looking into the issue, so hopefully it will be available by Saturday. Or I’ll have to re-upload, not sure yet.

So … we are out of order then. Skipping over to the Oracle Series.

… *SPOILER ALERT* … … *SPOILER ALERT* …… *SPOILER ALERT* …

This is Elizabeth’s and my interpretation of the ‘Chicken Butt’ T-shirt that Kandy wears to visit Rochelle and Beau in I See You (Oracle 2).

Elizabeth models 'Chicken Butt' T-shirt in cranberry with white printing — Elizabeth models a ‘Chicken Butt’ T-shirt in cranberry with white printing

Beau stopped a few feet away from Kandy. She eyed him but didn’t change her stance. She turned to look at me, dropped her folded arms, and nodded. “Oracle.”

I swallowed. “Kandy.”

Her goldenrod T-shirt was printed with a picture of a chicken and the question, ‘Guess What?’ in green lettering. A red arrow was pointed to the chicken’s back end. Someone had used a black fabric marker to add a second arrow that pointed to an additional squiggle of black just behind the chicken.

Kandy also wore three-inch-wide gold cuffs on either wrist. These were inscribed with symbols and edged with hundreds of what looked like tiny diamonds. They were like something that belonged in ancient Greece, not on the skinny, muscled arms of a werewolf.

“I don’t get it,” I said, with a nod toward her T-shirt.

Kandy’s grin widened. “The shirt was a gift from the dowser, but it needed a little something.”

“Chicken butt,” Beau said. “Guess what, chicken butt?” His arms were loose at his sides, but he’d widened his stance as if he was expecting to be attacked.

“Guess what, chicken shit?” Kandy added. Her answer was full of laughter that was more threatening than joyful.

– I See You (Oracle 2)

I made the ‘Chicken Butt’ T-shirts available in black printing as well as white printing in the maximum colours I was allowed by the retailer (five). They are printed on fitted American Apparel T-shirts and THEY FIT SMALL!! Elizabeth is wearing an XL in the picture, and she usually wears a medium. I knew this about the American Apparel T-shirts (I also wear an XL) but I really like the fabric and the flattering fit. The site suggests going up a size – based on their sizing chart I’m a large – so please check the sizing

The T-shirts are available at Amazon.com (via Amazon Merch), shipping to over 75 countries with taxes and duties added at check-out but before you purchase. They aren’t currently available at any of the other Amazon stores because they’re printed in the USA.

Also there is one more T-shirt design to come, so you may wish to hold off any purchases until you’ve seen them all. 😀

GIVEAWAY

Would you like to win an ‘Chicken Butt’ T-shirt?

You would?

Okay then!

To enter the giveaway all you need to do is: