Hello awesome readers. Welcome to my stop on the blitz tour for Grayghost by Tamara Grantham. Be sure to enter the giveaway and enjoy the excerpt and deleted scene!
Grayghost
by Tamara Grantham
(Fairy World MD., #7)
Published by: Crimson Tree Publishing
Publication date: February 26th 2018
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance
The final installment in the epic Fairy World MD series by Tamara Grantham.
It’s been four years since Olive Kennedy sealed the portals between Earth and Faythander. Four years that she’s been living on Earth, working as a consultant to the Houston PD. It helps keep her mind off other things—like being separated from her husband and her dragon king stepfather.
Her ex, Brent Sanchez, works with her on the police force and helps her solve crimes. His friendship is a comfort—but also a reminder of what she’s missing. Everything changes when Olive discovers a broken mirror at a murder scene. It contains magic, and although it shouldn’t exist, it could be used as a portal to Faythander. Dark forces are at work, and the one person she wants by her side to help her is literally a world away. Olive will stop at nothing to solve the murder and return to the only place she calls home.
New from award-winning author Tamara Grantham, Grayghost is the thrilling conclusion to the best-selling fantasy series Fairy World MD.
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*Excerpt*
Page 90… Olive and Kull choose a weapon…
I trailed him down the hallway. Torches flickered, casting our path in an orange glow. We passed one room after another until we entered a large chamber under an arched doorway. Chills bristled my skin. We stepped down a narrow set of stairs to enter the room. Above us, sunlight shone through cracks in the ceiling, and shallow pools of partially melted snow lay in patches on the floor.
Weapons of every conceivable shape and size ringed the walls. Battle axes with blades bigger than my head, swords, knives, cudgels—they all gleamed in the early morning sunlight. The smell of oiled leather came from the rawhide wrapping the swords’ grips. Kull and I stood scanning the weapons, the only sound coming from the drip-drip-drip of melted snow falling in puddles from the ceiling to the floor.
“These are all the weapons we managed to salvage after the defeat at Danegeld. I realize your choices are limited.”
Limited? I eyed him. Wults had strange notions when it came to weaponry. Also, why was he helping me in the first place? He’d said he wanted me to change my form by this morning, and if I didn’t do it, he would have Maveryck do it, so why hadn’t he brought it up?
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why have you suddenly decided to trust me?”
“I don’t. But I also don’t know what to do with you. The only safe place for you is where I can keep an eye on you. I can’t allow you to return to the elves and tell them of our plans. I cannot kill you—not as long as you stay in that form—which Maveryck informs me he can do nothing about it. As of now, you have no way of escaping. Anyone who enters that wasteland alone dies within a day. So, the only choice I have is to keep you where I can see you. Now, will you please choose a weapon?”
“And what happens if I try to kill you with it?”
“You would not succeed.”
I balled my fists. Sometimes I found his smug attitude endearing. But not today. “If I’d wanted you dead, I could have already killed you with my magic.”
“I doubt it. Now, will you please focus and choose a weapon? Personally, I would go for the bo staff, as there is less chance of injuring yourself when—”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why let me choose a weapon when you believe me to be a witch who wants nothing more than to turn you over to the empress?”
He was silent for a moment, his eyes boring into mine. “I have my reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“I don’t owe you any sort of explanation. Choose a weapon, or I shall choose one for you.”
Fine. I marched away from him, and stood near a wall of swords. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him anyway. I didn’t understand his motivations at all. If he thought I was truly Sorina, why in the world was he arming me?
Unless…
Unless this was a test. If I were Sorina, then wouldn’t I try to use the weapon to kill him? Or at the least, use it to escape?
He was arrogant enough to think he could defend himself from any sort of attack I would bring on him. In fact, he most likely wanted me to attack him. It would make killing me a whole heck of a lot easier.
Whatever. Two could play this game. I would choose a weapon, but that was all I would do with it.
I scanned the rows of swords, but I’d always been lousy at swordplay. I moved on to the axes, laughing as I imagined myself with one of those suckers, then went to the bo staffs. Some looked blackened with age, while others were crafted from a blond wood, and others with wood of a red color. I picked up one and tested its weight, but as I imagined riding a horse with the thing, then traversing the wastes, I wasn’t sure how practical it would be.
“Is there anything smaller? Something I could put in my boot or on my belt, maybe?”
“Yes. We have daggers.” He pointed to a shelf along the opposite wall. I crossed the room and stood at the shelf, looking down over rows of glistening daggers. I’d used daggers before, but like swords, I’d never been great at handling one. I picked up a few knives and looked them over, but nothing felt right. If he was forcing me to use a weapon, it had to be something I liked—and none of these Wult weapons felt right.
“Found anything yet?” Kull asked impatiently.
“No. It would help if you had something less Wultish.”
“Less Wultish?”
“All these weapons are made for hand-to-hand combat, and that’s always been my weakness. If my magic fails, which it somehow always does, I’d want something I could use from a distance without having to attack in close quarters.”
Kull seemed to ponder for a moment. “There may be something…” He crossed to a shelf and pulled off a rectangular box. As he opened the lid, I found an actual, Western-style revolver inside, complete with gold filigree around the grip. Except for a little rust around the muzzle, it seemed to be in perfect condition.
“Where did you find this?”
“My sister Eugrid found it years ago. She was out gathering wood when she stumbled upon a man’s corpse in the forest. He must have been a traveler from Earth Kingdom who died in Faythander after the portals closed. This weapon was holstered to the man’s belt.”
“Does it work?”
“Yes. Maveryck tampered with it. He even crafted a few magical metal talismans to go with it.”
“Magical talismans? You mean bullets?”
“Bullets, yes.” Kull removed a red velvet bag from the box, opened the drawstrings, and dumped the contents onto his open palm.
I counted seven bullets, glowing with a blue hue. Reaching out, I felt the soft hum of magic gently calling to me. Carefully, I picked one up and studied it.
“Maveryck made these?” I asked.
“Yes, in anticipation of an attack from the elves, he said we needed better weaponry. Unfortunately, none of my men feel comfortable using a foreign weapon—especially of the magical variety, so it remains unused. It is yours if you wish.”
*GRAYGHOST Deleted Scene*
Oftentimes, when I’m outlining a book, I come up with a skeleton-type structure and fill in the smaller tidbits as I go. When I was outlining Grayghost, I felt there needed to be some background onto how portals function, but after writing the first draft, most of what I’d detailed was no longer needed. Unfortunately, this caused me to have to cut out a cool—and somewhat disturbing—story from a Faythander text. I kept the story because I hoped I would be able to use it at some point, and that’s why I’m including it here. I’m pleased to introduce you to the twisted and sordid tale of the wizard Triviath…
I put the book away and found another one. Portals in the Realm of Faerie. I remembered reading something about portals and spirits, but couldn’t remember the details. After flipping through the pages, I found what I was looking for.
…that spirit matter could create portals regardless of the magical form used was a bold idea. Most believed it too impossible to be true. There was one unfounded experiment whispered about that was such a horror, most refused to believe it. Yet, I have recorded it here for those who enjoy suspending their beliefs.
Once such tale is that a wizard named Triviath preferred to use travelers from Earth Kingdom as his power source to open portals, as the Earth magic tended to create a more stable portal for his type of work. It was said that in order to obtain the subjects he needed for his experiments, he would capture Earth Kingdom travelers, place them in degraded living conditions for a time, and then kill them in an excruciatingly painful manner, using their spirits in an attempt to open a portal through a mirror kept in complete darkness. For the spell to work, the exact timing was a factor. At midnight, the spell was enacted.
However, little is recorded on what actually happened, as rumors are all that is recorded. This man’s remains were never found, and no evidence of his work discovered. Thus, Triviath and all his research passes into the realm of myth…
I glanced up from the book, my mind awhirl with ideas. Had someone resurrected the wok of Triviath? It seemed the most likely assumption.
Author Bio:
Tamara Grantham is the award-winning author of more than half a dozen books and novellas, including the Olive Kennedy: Fairy World MD series and the Shine novellas. Dreamthief, the first book of her Fairy World MD series, won first place for fantasy in INDIEFAB’S Book of the Year Awards, a RONE award for best New Adult Romance of 2016, and is a #1 bestseller on Amazon in both the Mythology and Fairy Tales categories with over 100 reviews.
Tamara holds a Bachelor’s degree in English. She has been a featured speaker at the Rose State Writing Conference and has been a panelist at Comic Con Wizard World speaking on the topic of female leads. For her first published project, she collaborated with New York-Times bestselling author, William Bernhardt, in writing the Shine series.
Born and raised in Texas, Tamara now lives with her husband and five children in Wichita, Kansas. She rarely has any free time, but when the stars align and she gets a moment to relax, she enjoys reading fantasy novels, taking nature walks, which fuel her inspiration for creating fantastical worlds, and watching every Star Wars or Star Trek movie ever made. You can find her online at http://www.TamaraGranthamBooks.com.
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