Available Today, November 8, 2024
Blurb
Winter has exploded in Roshaven.
Ned’s city is buried under enormous amounts of snow and ice and nobody quite knows why. Yes, it’s winter but… it’s never been this winter.
There’s a strange magic in the snow calling to Jenni which she has to avoid at all costs while a stranger from the mountain searches for Ned the Sorcerer Slayer.
The stranger is definitely hiding something, but with the snow drifts getting worse and the Jacks out of icy control, Ned has to find a way to defrost Roshaven.
It’s freezing cold and without Jenni on his team, Ned must turn to old friends and ask for help. Trouble is… what exactly is lurking in the mountain?
Excerpt
Winter had barely begun. It shouldn’t even be snowing and yet determined snow fell in swirling patterns, buffeting this way and that thanks to a cheeky gust that was amusing itself.
Jenni hunched down further in her blue coat. It wasn’t as warm as the red one. It wasn’t as long either. Nor did it smell right.
She to admit it, but she had rushed acquiring this coat, swayed by its cobalt tones, and not thinking clearly upon the ramifications of new outerwear.
Jenni came with coat. They were a package and this non-red one just wasn’t holding up to its end of the deal.
Especially with this unexpectedly harsh weather. If it carried on like this, the entire city of Roshaven would grind to a snowy halt.
A particularly snowflake-packed eddy swooshed into Jenni, making her splutter at eating unwanted weather.
She tried to magic the flakes away from her vicinity, but her power sputtered before refusing to do what she wanted. Unfortunately, that was standard practice these days, so she went for a stern talking to instead.
‘Ere, cut that out. I’ll ‘ave words wiv yor mum.’ Jenni wasn’t entirely sure that the wind elemental was female, but she knew them, in passing, and if this mischievous little gust didn’t stop blowing around… well, words would be said.
Not that you could talk to the elementals if they didn’t want to listen to you. But at least Jenni could still shout in the wind.
The snowflakes stilled as the gust blustered off somewhere else, and gravity took over their slow descent.
The streets of Roshaven fell into a hush and the tired lamps did their best to glow. It was neither cheery nor warm.
The Black Narrows loomed, and Jenni’s shoulders slumped even further. She knew if she patrolled down the Narrows, she’d find someone doing something they weren’t supposed to, and for the first time ever, she couldn’t be bothered to check it out.
Patrolling the Black Narrows was meant to be an easy job. A quick collar for the office and a tick on the chart Joe had put up, recording everyone’s arrests. There was a prize hamper for the winner come Yule Eve.
Jenni tried to muster up some enthusiasm. She was two points behind Sparks. The crafty little firebug had been using his extensive network of friends and relations to ferret out crimes and misdemeanours.
They would both be behind Willow if she activated her plant network, but the tree nymph was taking the high road and wanted to prove her Catcher skills to their boss without resorting to her wiles.
Thinking about their boss, Ned Spinks, drove Jenni further into her own personal gloom. Their changing relationship was something else she had no control over, along with all this weather and her unreliable magic.
Things between them had shifted. To be fair, they’d been evolving slowly but surely for a while.
And yet, to Jenni, it had seemed as if they hadn’t quite changed–not yet, and that they were always teetering on the verge of change, so it felt like she still had time to adjust. But then, when she hadn’t been looking, suddenly everything was different.
Okay, so Ned had found out his dad wasn’t who he thought–which was a good thing as his previous dad was the ex-Chief of T.A.R.T.S and no one wanted to be officially associated with the official association of Thieves, Arsonists, Raconteurs, Tarts, and Solicitors.
Then he’d married Rose and whilst Jenni had nothing against her empress, she missed living with her boss. True, he’d kept his little narrow house on Wide Street so he could escape the imperial palace from time to time and true again, Jenni was still living there, but it wasn’t the same.
After Jenni had met her own father, been hoodwinked by him, and lured into illegal magic skimming, she had become temporary persona non grata with her mother and now her father was one of the most wanted criminals in Efrana. The whole thing gave her an all-over icky feeling.
Jenni kicked some loose pebbles into the opening of the Black Narrows and heard several things scuttling.
‘Yeah, you’d better ‘ide,’ she muttered before wheeling away from the crime encrusted alleyway and heading instead for the tiny pub on Castle Avenue.
None of the other Catchers went there because the ceilings were too low. It was a fae pub, the only one in Roshaven, and whilst non-fae were of course welcome, they would find it rather difficult to get inside the smaller than average door and stand up in the smaller than average interior.
About The Author
Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening.
Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home.
An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion.
You can follow her on Twitter @grasshopper2407, Facebook.com/busswriter and visit her website www.clairebuss.co.uk for more information about Claire and her writing.
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