Today’s Words & Music Monday is doubling as a release day celebration for the first book in Yasmine Galenorn’s brand new Moonshadow Bay Series, STARLIGHT WEB!! I have been a fan of Yasmine and her stories for a looong time, and I am THRILLED about this new world from her.
Moonshadow Bay…where magic lurks in the moonlight, and danger hides in the shadows.
One month before January Jaxson turns 41, her husband ditches her for a trophy wife. Adding insult to injury, he steals the business she helped build, and kicks her out during the holidays. So when her best friend Ari suggests she move back to Moonshadow Bay—a quirky, magical town near Bellingham WA—January decides to take the plunge.
Born into a family of witches, January accepts a job at Conjure Ink, a paranormal investigations website. The job’s right up her alley but she doubts that everything reported to Conjure Ink really exists. That is, until she’s sent out on her first case.
An abandoned asylum once housed a murderer, who killed an entire family one Yuletide Eve. It’s rumored that every December he returns to haunt the woodland around the asylum, seeking to add new members to his supernatural family. January’s sure it’s an urban legend, but when new victims show up with no logical explanation for their deaths, Conjure Ink sends her in to investigate. Suddenly January finds herself in over her head, staring directly into the shadowed world of the Veil.
Now, January must not only navigate the new life she’s trying to build, but the paranormal beasties she’s sent out to explore, as well as a hot new neighbor, who seems to be hiding a shadowed past of his own.
By Yasmine Galenorn:
I love starting to write a new series! There’s an excitement for an author, on the first book, that you can take it anywhere you want. And so, I start yet another new world with the Moonshadow Bay Series. This time, my heroine’s nearing 41, so she’s had some life experience. She’s born into a magical family, and she’s starting a new life after leaving her scumbag ex. She moves back to Moonshadow Bay, a quirky little magical town on the coast of Western Washington, and starts a job with Conjure Ink, a paranormal investigations website. Like all my series, the world has a life of its own, and nothing is quite what it appears.
I always have a playlist for each series, (used to be each book but now there’s a core list for every series and some songs move off and onto it throughout the writing. But there are always a few key songs that stay for every book. So today, I’m listing ten of them that I know will be integral to the writing of Moonshadow Bay, along with an excerpt from STARLIGHT WEB, the first book in the series which released today.
Ten Songs for Moonshadow Bay:
1. Burning Down the House (Talking Heads)
2. Agony Box (Shriekback)
3. Think I’m In Love (Beck)
4. Magic Man (Heart)
5. Major (Asteroids Galaxy Tour)
6. Speak Loud (Trills)
7. The Bounce (Outasight)
8. The Gap (Thompson Twins)
9. (It Could Be) Love (Camouflage Nights)
10. Coming For You Baby (Jay Price)
Excerpt from STARLIGHT WEB:
Slowly descending the steps, I walked out toward the front of the yard. The streetlights cast a muted glow in the winter night, and I closed my eyes as I crossed my arms, jamming my hands deep beneath my armpits to keep warm. My breath hung in the air, vaporous—like a miniature cloud. It was cold, but I just wanted to let the peace that came with the snowfall encompass me.
“Hello…” The voice came from over my shoulder, but when I jerked around, I couldn’t see anybody there. It was a woman’s voice, clear and familiar though, and I was sure that I had heard it. I glanced around, suddenly realizing I was going to be alone in the house. While Ellison hadn’t been much comfort, at least he’d been a warm body.
“Can you hear me?” The voice echoed again, this time from the other side. I whirled around, but still, there was no one in sight.
Holding my breath, I turned and ran back up the sidewalk and took the steps two at a time. Once inside, I slammed the door behind me. I didn’t have the energy to deal with ghosts tonight, and since there hadn’t been any stranger lurking in the bushes, that’s all I could assume the woman’s voice had been. There were certainly enough of them hanging around.
Shaking, I locked the door. Tomorrow I would dig out my mother’s herbs and make a protection charm, but for tonight, I decided to sleep on the sofa. In the kitchen, I found the biggest, meanest-looking knife my mother had owned. Clutching the hilt, I returned to the living room. I placed the knife on the coffee table within easy reach and then, exhausted, I curled up under the afghan on the sofa and promptly fell into a dreamless sleep.
Funk-N-Fiction 