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The brew is hot and bubbling over with romance and terror in this twistedly beautiful anthology that welcomes the darkness of horror and the temptation of love's veiled promises. Six remarkable tales from six incredible authors fill this book of dark shadows and ancient whispers.
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble - by Jennifer Patricia O'Keeffe: Enchanted pastries and spell-brewed coffee make Esmerelda's sugar-dusted counter the city's most coveted haunt—until a dangerously charming newcomer slips into her shop, immune to her magic and unraveling her carefully guarded world. As his witch-hunter heritage threatens to burn her legacy to ash, Esmerelda finds herself torn between the threat of revenge from the witch hunter's ancestors and the intoxicating truth of the connection that they share.
Silverwood - by Lynn Hubbard: A lonely rancher's daughter finds her isolated Wyoming homestead upended when an amber-eyed stranger ignites a mud-splattered passion that defies reason—until his supernatural secret and the vengeful ranch hands hunting her force her to choose between the man who saves her and the monster who might destroy her. Torn between fierce protectors and forbidden desire, she must trust the very darkness that could shatter her world to survive the wild frontier's deadliest threats.
Ivy, Lichens and Wallflowers - by James Ryan: Marketing executive Hilda finds solace from her stifling corporate life and overbearing past in the quiet companionship of Miriam, a mysterious 19th-century marble statue in a city micro-park, only to discover their connection transcends stone when Miriam begins answering her handwritten notes through cryptic poetry left in return. As their forbidden connection deepens into an intoxicating dream-bound romance, Hilda uncovers Miriam's supernatural secret: she's a cursed thaumaturge sustained by stolen life force, forcing Hilda to confront whether love can survive the devastating cost of keeping her alive.
A Mirror to Die For - by Cindy Lewis Smith: A desperate woman finds solace in an antique mirror that whisks her nightly to 1880s Arizona, where a charming outlaw named Johnny Ringo fulfills every fantasy—until her jealous fiancé shatters the glass and vanishes, leaving her trapped in an asylum screaming that he is the real monster, a man who shouldn't exist: Dr. John Henry Holliday, the gambler who killed Ringo a century ago. Now, with "MPR" carved into her cell walls and time itself unraveling, she'll stop at nothing to prove her sanity by proving time travel is real—even if it means unleashing the very darkness that destroyed her.
Flight 1031: Cosmic Turbulence - by Julian Christian: Diplomatic courier Sarah Martinez boards Flight 1031 expecting routine turbulence, not a Halloween dimensional rift that strands her at Germania International Airport—where the Greater German Reich has ruled since 1943 and perfected technology to harvest souls from parallel realities through consciousness-scanning machinery that pulses with seventeen-beat rhythms. Now trapped in a terminal that breathes like a living organism, Sarah must navigate a world where every passenger hides a secret and her resistance could either save her timeline or doom infinite versions of humanity to eternal enslavement in a Reich that spans all dimensions.
Dream a Little Dream - by Jae El Foster: After a near-death car crash rewires her brain, Sarah's nightmares bleed into reality: sugar on the counter forms glyphs, bats appear out of nowhere in broad daylight, and her own hands betray her—while the velvet-eyed stranger from her dreams appears in her waking hours, his urgency growing as Halloween's veil thins. Now, with her reality twisting into something surreal and an ancient language hijacking her voice, she must confront a dark truth: her soul isn't hers to keep, and the man who saved her in death is the very entity hunting her in life.
Read an Excerpt from ‘Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble’ by Jennifer Patricia O’Keeffe
She drew a slow breath, the scent of ozone clinging to her skin. From the oak block, she took a pewter ladle and a vial stoppered with black cork. Dipped the ladle into the cauldron. Poured the sludge—thick as clotting blood—into the vial. Corked it tight. A flick of her wrist, and the vial vanished—reappearing nestled in her handbag across the room.
"If the spell doesn’t work," she murmured to the empty cabin, her voice steady as a surgeon’s hand, "then I’ll make him drink its nectar. That… so much worse than death." She peeled off the battle gown, slid into soft blue jeans, and pulled a cream sweater over her head, the wool catching static against her skin. Then, stepped into sensible loafers.
Now ready for her date with the witch hunter, Esmerelda smoothed the cream sweater over her ribs, the wool soft as a lover’s whisper against her skin. She inhaled slowly, counting the creaks of the cabin’s old bones—the groan of floorboards, the sigh of wind through pine boughs—to steady her pulse. But the quiet shattered with three sharp raps against the stone fireplace. Not wood. Stone. Flames erupted in a violent bloom, leaping toward the ceiling like grasping hands, their light bleaching the bone-lamps to ghostly white.
She knew this sound. This fire. Three raps meant the veil had torn. Not a knock at the door—but through it. From below. The hearth’s warmth turned to furnace heat, searing her cheeks even from ten paces. Ash swirled in the air, thick as funeral incense. She did not move. Did not breathe. Only watched as the flames coiled inward, collapsing into a frame of blackened stone—a doorway where none had been.
Before her very eyes, the stone frame solidified, its edges sharp as broken tombstones. A door of living fire filled the archway, its surface rippling like molten glass. It swung inward with a groan that had no source—no hinges, no wood, only the slow creak of reality bending. The room plunged into near-darkness as the flames dimmed, revealing not the cabin’s back wall but an abyss of swirling black fog. From that void, a shape drifted forth—a shade no taller than a child, its form shifting like smoke caught in moonlight.
It moved without sound, gliding over the floorboards until it hovered inches from Esmerelda. No eyes. No mouth. Only a deeper darkness within the dark. She felt its chill before it touched her—a cold that seeped through wool and skin, freezing the marrow of her bones. Then it surged forward, pouring into her like ink into water. Her breath hitched as shadow filled her lungs, her veins, her very thoughts. She stood rigid, a vessel for the dead.
Through this melding of shadow and body, the message took root. Not words. Knowledge. A truth that bloomed in her skull like a black rose: her spell had not bound Keith’s will—it had bound his heart. The Latin she’d woven—"Venator, venator, locum tuum nosce"—was no hunter’s snare. It was a lover’s noose. Every syllable had knotted their fates tighter than graveyard vines. Love spells ended in madness. In blood. In souls devoured by the one they clung to.
Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the oak block, knuckles white against the ancient wood. Impossible. The Book had listed it under "Protection and Manipulation." Not love. Never love. She clawed at the shade within her, pouring her thoughts into the void: It was meant to trap him! To make him confess! But the shade was a courier, not a confidant. It carried no replies. Only the warning, sharp as a scalpel: You have tethered his heart to yours. Now it beats for you. And hearts that beat for witches… always stop.
As the shade withdrew, it took no gentleness with her. It ripped free like a hook from flesh, leaving her hollowed and gasping. Esmerelda crumpled to the floor, her vision swimming as the cabin’s rafters tilted. She watched, dazed, as the shade drifted backward through the stone doorway, the fire-door sighing shut behind it. The hearth collapsed inward—a final puff of ash, the scent of brimstone thick as a funeral shroud. Then silence. Only the lingering sting of sulfur in her throat.
Buy the Book
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS7DXSXX
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1849875
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/toil-and-trouble-jae-el-foster/1148244179
Apple:https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6752260026
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/toil-and-trouble-17
Thank you so much for hosting us today! We're super excited for this book!
ReplyDeleteHi, this is James Ryan, the writer of “Ivy, Lichens, and Wallflowers” appearing in TOIL AND TROUBLE.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank It’s Raining Books for highlighting the collection, and giving me a chance to get some feedback from *you*:
When you look at a lot of horror works, you often see more romances in them than you’d imagine, whether it’s Mary Shelly’s FRANKENSTEIN, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee”, or David Cronenberg’s THE FLY. I’d love to find out from you, which work of horror with a strong romance would you recommend.
Thanks for your replies, and I hope that everyone out there will enjoy the book.
Sounds like a good read.
ReplyDelete