Featuring gripping Independent authors from around the world, GATEWAYS is the second collection of short works published by Breakwater Harbor Books. Compiling heart-pumping tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Crime are nine stories that will thrill you, rivet you, and some will even make you sleep with the light on.

As I Wake (and See the World) – He wasn’t supposed to survive. But he did. Now the Dark Ones are after him.
IVAN AMBERLAKE

Arrival - Zoya's mind is hijacked and her clone wakes to find she has no choice but to be a colonist on a new planet.
TED CROSS

Living in the Pages - Hendrix Massey wished for a dream on a desperate day as he sat in a deli on Harris Street. What he got was magic.
MINDY HAIG

The Fall of Eon - Three mortals versus one planet-devouring horde. Existence is on the line. Just another day in the life…
SCOTT J. TONEY

Lethal Black Book - Ever heard the phrase ‘two whores is too many’? Love isn’t cheap and business is deadly.
MELISSA SIMONSON

Blind Alley - In a high-tech future, low-tech ex-operative Burgundy sets out with Big Boy, his .500 Magnum Smith and Wesson, and Leyla, his capable techie partner to settle a score and clear his name.
DYANE FORDE

Pivot of Fate - Ama’na was a grand dream of Kin and Celt seeking peace from ancient prejudices until a fell moon and desire tore it asunder.
LELA MARKHAM

Foresight - Falath believes he has free will. Tamilin knows differently.
DEE HARRISON

Incident in Class 4666 - A normal Monday at school for Emi Matsumoto and her classmates: History, Math, Art, and a prophecy of Hell on Earth.
SIMON PAUL WILSON

Gateways is a step into the novel realms of Breakwater Harbor authors. Each work is a standalone, giving a gateway into the larger work it was inspired by.

Every good book needs a dedication. For me as an author it's one of my favorite parts of writing. After all the long hours writing, editing and formatting there's one last thing to do and that's writing the dedication. For the Nova Trilogy I decided a good while back that each book will be dedicated to authors who have greatly supported me in my writing and who have helped me progress in my work. I dedicated book 1, NovaForge, to Ivan Amberlake, who has become so essential in my editing process and who, more important than that, is such a fantastic friend. Book 2, NovaSiege, is dedicated to... drumroll please... author Cara Goldthorpe. We met years ago on the author website Authonomy, quickly realizing that the realms of our fantasy books had similar names and that we both greatly enjoyed each other's works. Cara co-founds Breakwater Harbor Books with me and I cannot think of a better author to dedicate NovaSiege to. I hope she and all my readers enjoy the book! The dedication to her and a link to the book on Amazon is below! Have a vivid and wonderful day!

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This book is dedicated to Cara Goldthorpe, a fellow author who stood behind my work from early on and who has read, helped in editing and highly supported my books as they publish. She helped provide the confidence to delve into the published world and is a co-founder of Breakwater Harbor Books by my side. Goldthorpe is a brilliant author and I greatly look forward to her first published release!

From Meridia and Meridisia to the beyond!
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NovaSiege is book 2 in the Nova trilogy, and I must say I’ve been really enjoying this trilogy so far and can’t wait to read the next book in the series. It is set in the distant future on a planet where people’s minds are manipulated by the essences. The world-building is just amazing. As I’ve already mentioned in my review of NovaForge (book 1), the author has a gift for inventing new worlds teeming with monsters, which makes his series stand out.

I loved spending more time with the main characters. With each page we get to know them better, and we can understand what makes them fight. It’s Faith and Hope. They play a crucial role in all of Scott Toney’s novels, including NovaSiege.
NovaSiege is a well thought-out novel which you’ll never want to put down until the final page. I certainly look forward to reading Book 3 of the series.

NovaSiege, book 2 in the NOVA Trilogy, has just released in paperback! Just off the presses! Get it while it's hot!

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The dark priest, Samuel, is dead, but at what cost?

In a time of darkness the young boy, Bayne, has bonded with Samuel’s essence. The minds of all who connect with the essences are tested as an undefeatable evil reaches its tendrils through their minds. Beasts roam Solaris’ landscape, preying on its starving inhabitants.

Can the remainder of the Julieth’s league overcome the voices within them and the beasts plaguing the land, or will they be devoured in their struggle?

Is the boy Julieth once loved like a son forever lost?

As the temptation of godhood, power and hate tempts all people bonded with essences, who will overcome the control and who will embrace what is whispered to them as destiny?

An enemy hand opens as their final hope. Can it be trusted?

The character Julieth in the NOVA Trilogy is an intense, headstrong female character with vast feathered wings and a leaning towards the bow and arrow. She’s tough, and yet in a world that has been decimated by years of a corrupt humanity, she is the character with the most heart. She understands the need for battle, and yet struggles in her mind against it.

The origin of the name Julieth has a long history for me. Each one of my books has a character in it that in some way came out of my poetry book, Dusk Crescence. In the NOVA Trilogy Julieth is that character. There was a character in Dusk Crescence named Julieth who was a winged woman. She had a different personality than this Julieth, but that is the name’s original usage in my books. When I created the name I was in High School, sitting in class looking at a friend of mine, Judy. I needed a name and I thought… Judith, Judie, Julie, Juliet. But Juliet is Shakespeare’s character’s name. Then I added an H. Julieth. So now you know where and how. Julieth is a key player in the NOVA Trilogy. Check out an excerpt below from NovaSiege involving her character. I take great pride in Julieth.
NovaSiege releases Friday June 18th. NovaForge, book 1 in the trilogy, is currently FREE on Amazon in eBook and NovaSiege is available for eBook pre-order and also paperback. Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading!

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The wind sawed over Solaris’s arid land, howling like a tortured, dying creature being torn apart in the night. Julieth, though warmed by the heat of a crackling fire nearby, was chilled to the spine by the sound.

It had been months since she last saw Ivanus and the others leaving Gest’s gates, venturing into the thankless expanse. Rumors grew by displaced citizens searching out Gest that Samuel killed more and more, amassing his forces.

Bayne, Ivanus, they must all be dead. How do we stand against such evil? She turned a twig with a leaf on it in her hand, watching the moonlight refracting off its veins. A tree with white blooms thrashed in the harsh wind close by. So much life blooms around us and yet we can do nothing to clog the sea of blood coursing across our world. I feel it bludgeoning Gest’s gates, reaching for me.

As she closed her eyes a deep chill crept over her, a sharp cold starting with her palms bracing the ground, and then seeping up her body.

The wind tonight… it has never been so cold.

But it was not the wind. Thick frost marked the earth, spreading and climbing the rust-walls nearby and the trunks of trees, coming from below. It ascended her flesh, its sparking white form glistening in the moonlight. Cracks slowly formed in the ice sheen, and then the ground moaned as a section of earth a distance from Julieth cracked in on itself and then fell into a dark void.

Julieth opened her eyes while hearing shouts of terror, stripping her of near sleep. Shadows thrashed through her sight. An entire shack dropped through the earth, disappearing from her view. “Mother!” a girl shrieked.

Ice flecked from Julieth’s body as she moved. “What is happening? Ineal! Help!” she shouted, running towards the screams. A sudden thrust of wind punched her wings, beating her flat to the earth.

She breathed erratically, her arms punching through frozen soil as if it were a shell. The arms of a beast ripped through the earth below her, clawing at her form as the earth’s shell cracked away and they both fell into a dark void.

“Ragoor!” Julieth screamed, panic surging through her as pain burned in her skull. The beast which had pulled her down climbed her body, clawing at her flesh and weighing her down as she beat her wings, trying to fly out of the darkness. Its talons reached around her back, shredding a wing and sending blood spattering. They dropped quickly and Julieth punched the beast’s rocklike hide, and then kicked it hard, somehow managing to separate it from her. Its bloodshot eyes stared hauntingly at her as its form disappeared in the black. Other shouts of Gest’s people pierced the air around her.

She struggled frantically, her one usable wing beating hard, spinning her madly until her legs punched against the rock below, dislocating joints as the rest of her body smacked the surface.

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'Fusion: A collection of short stories from Breakwater Harbor Books' authors' is the WINNER of the Best Anthology category for the '2014 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards!'
 
This festival was put together by Bards and Sages Publishing, a Publisher of Speculative Fiction and Roleplaying Games since 2002, and nominations were voted on by the general public. The winners were announced during the actual festival which included virtual panel discussions, live author Q & As, seminars and workshops.

BHB's authors are honored to have won top honor in the Anthology category and are also honored to be considered beside the other high quality Anthologies involved! Check out Fusion below and go to Amazon to get your free copy today! Below is also the link to the eFestival website!

http://www.efestivalofwords.com/2014-efestival-of-words-winners-t568.html

Featuring gripping Independent authors from around the world, FUSION is the first collection of short works published by Breakwater Harbor Books. Contributing heart-pumping tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Crime are seven stories that will thrill you, rivet you and some will even make you sleep with the light on. Authors from across a wide variety of genres, Dee Harrison, Ivan Amberlake, Claire C. Riley, Scott J. Toney, Mindy Haig, Cara Goldthorpe and C.M.T. Stibbe.


The Sliver of Abilon – A Mirrorsmith Tale – 'and you thought it was safe to look in the mirror?'

Diary of the Gone - Without a girlfriend, bullied by the Principal’s son, and haunted by the dead, Callum Blackwell thinks his life can’t get any worse. But he’s wrong.

Life Ever After. Nina's Story: Part one. – When the dead begin to rise, it's time to put your differences aside and run!

NovaFall – When the Meteor falls, the essences will come, forging flesh and planetary souls as one.

Cybilla. – To claim his Muse, one man must find the gate between the mortal and the immortal worlds.

Capturing Perfection – An artist's tale of love, loss and beauty in Renaissance Milan

Until The Ninth Hour – Until a man loses his daughter to a serial killer, until he loses his best friend, until he is down on his luck, Darryl Williams must put all thoughts of retaliation out of his mind.

An excerpt from Dee Harrison’s The Sliver of Abilon – A Mirrorsmith Tale

Junah Venmark, Master Mirrorsmith, exited the wayportal directly into the seaweed stench of Abilon. The foul odour tickled the back of his throat and he gagged on a rise of bile. Mirrorsmith Guild protocol demanded that he preview his destination before he arrived but it could not prepare him for an assault on his other senses. He vomited onto the trackway, just thankful that there was no-one to witness his most pitiful entrance ever. He loathed the smell of mouldy greens – it stirred up too many reminders of his wretched childhood in the back alleys of Varna, largest city on his homeworld of Vargo – but this was kabbige soup intensified tenfold.

When his heaving subsided, Junah sank down onto his rump, trying to ignore the early evening dew which was soaking into his leggings. He pulled a kerchief from his belt-purse, to wipe the spittle from his lips, and cursed this ill-favoured world. Sissik, his wail, chittered and scurried around him like a silver-furred cyclone, mewing her distress. Junah winced when she skipped onto his tender stomach, the better to peer into his face with her large, prosimian eyes. He ran a finger down her spine and she slowly relaxed beneath his touch.

Junah ill? She sent.

No, I’m fine, Little One he reassured her. He grimaced. The smell caught me out, that’s all.

Sissik wrinkled her own nose. Nasty, nasty stink, she concurred.

Junah delved into his purse a further time and extracted a couple of lozenges from a packet. A few chews later and he could smell nothing.

“Next time I’ll take ‘em before I get here,” he promised out loud. “Not that there’ll be a next time!”

Junah clambered to his feet and peeled the sodden fabric from his buttocks. Sissik took her accustomed place on his shoulders, hiding beneath his long, dark hair and curled around his neck like a fur collar. Wails were native to all the worlds of the Regium, even the undeveloped ones like Abilon. Some wails, the silver-furred ones like Sissik, were prized for their ability to generate the acoustic frequencies that Mirrorsmiths depended upon. Others, the plumper, browner ones, made good eating. Whenever Sissik irritated him, which was often, Junah threatened to dye her coat russet. Now, however, she was quiescent, understanding that it was time for work.

The wayportal, part of the network of gates that connected all the worlds of the Regium, had opened between a pair of standing stones that dominated the headland to the north of Abilon.

For your FREE copy please visit one of the links below!

'Fusion: A collection of short stories from Breakwater Harbor Books' authors' is a finalist in the Best Anthology category for the '2014 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards!'
 
This festival is put together by Bards and Sages Publishing, a Publisher of Speculative Fiction and Roleplaying Games since 2002, and nominations are currently being voted on by the general public. That means its time for YOU (Stop looking at other people around you), yes you to go and vote Fusion to the top of the pile! In August the winners will be announced during the actual festival which will include virtual panel discussions, live author Q & As, seminars and workshops.

BHB's authors (myself among them) are excited and honored to be finalists! In addition Claire C Riley is a finalist in the Best Novel category for Limerence and Ivan Amberlake is a finalist in the best Contemporary Fantasy/Urban Fantasy category! Check out Fusion below and go to Amazon to get your free copy today! Below is also the link to the eFestival website!

http://www.efestivalofwords.com/2014-finalists-for-best-of-the-independent-ebook-awards-t513.html

Featuring gripping Independent authors from around the world, FUSION is the first collection of short works published by Breakwater Harbor Books. Contributing heart-pumping tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Crime are seven stories that will thrill you, rivet you and some will even make you sleep with the light on. Authors from across a wide variety of genres, Dee Harrison, Ivan Amberlake, Claire C. Riley, Scott J. Toney, Mindy Haig, Cara Goldthorpe and C.M.T. Stibbe.


The Sliver of Abilon – A Mirrorsmith Tale – 'and you thought it was safe to look in the mirror?'

Diary of the Gone - Without a girlfriend, bullied by the Principal’s son, and haunted by the dead, Callum Blackwell thinks his life can’t get any worse. But he’s wrong.

Life Ever After. Nina's Story: Part one. – When the dead begin to rise, it's time to put your differences aside and run!

NovaFall – When the Meteor falls, the essences will come, forging flesh and planetary souls as one.

Cybilla. – To claim his Muse, one man must find the gate between the mortal and the immortal worlds.

Capturing Perfection – An artist's tale of love, loss and beauty in Renaissance Milan

Until The Ninth Hour – Until a man loses his daughter to a serial killer, until he loses his best friend, until he is down on his luck, Darryl Williams must put all thoughts of retaliation out of his mind.

An excerpt from Dee Harrison’s The Sliver of Abilon – A Mirrorsmith Tale

Junah Venmark, Master Mirrorsmith, exited the wayportal directly into the seaweed stench of Abilon. The foul odour tickled the back of his throat and he gagged on a rise of bile. Mirrorsmith Guild protocol demanded that he preview his destination before he arrived but it could not prepare him for an assault on his other senses. He vomited onto the trackway, just thankful that there was no-one to witness his most pitiful entrance ever. He loathed the smell of mouldy greens – it stirred up too many reminders of his wretched childhood in the back alleys of Varna, largest city on his homeworld of Vargo – but this was kabbige soup intensified tenfold.

When his heaving subsided, Junah sank down onto his rump, trying to ignore the early evening dew which was soaking into his leggings. He pulled a kerchief from his belt-purse, to wipe the spittle from his lips, and cursed this ill-favoured world. Sissik, his wail, chittered and scurried around him like a silver-furred cyclone, mewing her distress. Junah winced when she skipped onto his tender stomach, the better to peer into his face with her large, prosimian eyes. He ran a finger down her spine and she slowly relaxed beneath his touch.

Junah ill? She sent.

No, I’m fine, Little One he reassured her. He grimaced. The smell caught me out, that’s all.

Sissik wrinkled her own nose. Nasty, nasty stink, she concurred.

Junah delved into his purse a further time and extracted a couple of lozenges from a packet. A few chews later and he could smell nothing.

“Next time I’ll take ‘em before I get here,” he promised out loud. “Not that there’ll be a next time!”

Junah clambered to his feet and peeled the sodden fabric from his buttocks. Sissik took her accustomed place on his shoulders, hiding beneath his long, dark hair and curled around his neck like a fur collar. Wails were native to all the worlds of the Regium, even the undeveloped ones like Abilon. Some wails, the silver-furred ones like Sissik, were prized for their ability to generate the acoustic frequencies that Mirrorsmiths depended upon. Others, the plumper, browner ones, made good eating. Whenever Sissik irritated him, which was often, Junah threatened to dye her coat russet. Now, however, she was quiescent, understanding that it was time for work.

The wayportal, part of the network of gates that connected all the worlds of the Regium, had opened between a pair of standing stones that dominated the headland to the north of Abilon.

For your FREE copy please visit one of the links below!

Tome Tender, a blog website run by Amazon Top 500 Reviewer, Dii, is currently running a giveaway special of 2 FREE NovaForge paperbacks signed by me with a piece of hand drawn artwork next to the signature. Follow this link and add your name for a chance to win!

http://tometender.blogspot.com/2014/06/scott-toneys-novaforge-book-blitz.html?zx=5023cc0ddae29799

Solaris. A planet like any other, rife with wars, science and love. But at the peak of its civilization, a great meteor fell, bringing long-dead souls to Solaris, souls that had been sustained by the life-force of one lone man, Ineal.
At the moment of impact, these souls scattered across Solaris, giving inhuman abilities to mortals while scarring their bodies and corrupting their lives.
Samuel was one such man, a man of faith who thought to use his powers to worship his God: he watched his followers, and his planet, die. Seas turned to lava and the skies darkened. And as Samuel’s heart grew weary and angry, he used his powers to manipulate the world to serve him alone.
Samuel became god of a planet whose only life was the symbiotic life so like his own.
Centuries later, he discovered others, threats that had not been on this planet before. A winged woman; a cyborg; a future-seer and a child. A great vengeance burned a comradery between them.
They were souls that could overthrow him. Souls that he would need to destroy.

An excerpt:
Darkness consumed Ineal as the voices tore at his thoughts. The sole survivor of the planet Eon, he wanted to shut off his brain, to destroy his consciousness and be nothing. But the voices would not let him.
The planets’ souls, he thought, encased in this meteor hurtling through space. The souls of dead planets destroyed us. I am the last. They take me for their own.
He did not know when the essences of dead planets first came to Eon. Men and women bonded with them, inviting the haunting gaseous essences to their bodies and allowing the essences to become necessary symbiotes of the flesh. The symbiosis with the dead planetary souls gave his people powers and abilities beyond their dreams. But the price, the price of the flesh was great, and an ultimate death of sacrifice and pain was given in return. Ineal was the last, and the only being of Eon who had not accepted them into his flesh.
But you took me, he thought as they spoke with their unintelligible voices, whispering in a constant echo through his mind. When my planet died you came to me. You took my body to keep yourselves alive. They kept him alive too, feeding him their energy as they fed off his living essence.
Millennia of time passed as the meteor orbited the solar system.
Ineal could take no more. Rock pressed against him, suffocating his thoughts.
He closed his mind, pulling blackness from the void beyond and urging it to destroy him and the planetary souls, so that whatever planet they would go to next might be spared.
His mind’s darkness came. He forgot speech. He forgot sight. He forgot love. But the essences would not release his life force and the greatness it became in their harnessing embrace. They would not allow him to forget primal sense.
Then, in that rawness of life, where he was barely being at all, he sensed a planet. They had intended this new planet as their destination from the start.
The essences’ telekinetic connection pulled away from him, severing the symbiosis and sending searing heat through his form.
There was a moment of silence for Ineal, of freedom. Then came the violent crack of stone, as meteor met planet. A great boom consumed him. Ineal’s consciousness was lost… almost. But his essence lingered somehow in the planet’s form.
The planetary essences fled their transport, consuming life and searching for prey.