Trifles and Folly by Gail Z. Martin Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Trifles
and Folly
A
Deadly Curiosities Collection
by
Gail Z. Martin
Genre:
Urban Fantasy
A
collection of nine adventures: Buttons, The Restless Dead,
Retribution, Coffin Box, Wicked Dreams, Collector, Bad Memories,
Shadow Garden, and Spook House.
Cassidy
Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an
antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read
the history of objects by touching them and along with her business
partners Teag, who has Weaver magic and Sorren, a 600 year-old
vampire, they get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the
world safe from supernatural threats. An extension of the Deadly
Curiosities book series.
Revised
Edition 2, 2018. Includes an updated cover, minor edits and the BONUS
section with three stories chronicling Sorren’s early days:
Vanities, The Wild Hunt, and Dark Legacy.
Coffin
Box
“I
don’t know why, but I’ve really got a bad feeling about that
house.” I sat in the car parked at the curb near the big house on
the Battery. “Bad feeling like
they won’t pay their bill, or bad feeling like there’s a hungry
demon inside?” Teag Logan asked. I shook my head.
“Not sure, but if I had to put money on it, I’d go with the
demon.” Most people would be
kidding. Teag knew I wasn’t. I’m Cassidy Kincaide, owner of
Trifles and Folly, an antique and curio shop in historic, haunted
Charleston, SC. Neither Teag nor I are entirely what we seem, and
that holds true for the shop as well. I’m a
psychometric, which means I can often read the history of objects by
touching them. Teag has Weaver magic, an ability to weave spells into
cloth and to weave data streams—like the Internet—making him an
awesome hacker. He’s my best friend, sometime bodyguard and
assistant store manager. I’m the latest in a very long line of
relatives to manage Trifles and Folly in the 350 years the store has
existed, but we’ve all had the same silent partner, a nearly
six-hundred-year-old vampire named Sorren, and the same mission: to
get dangerous magical items off the market and out of the wrong
hands. Most of the time, we succeed. When we fail, people die and
really bad things happen. “How do you want
to handle this?” Teag asked. I drew a deep
breath. “We go in, and see what’s what. Then we figure it out
from there.” My magic is touch-psychic, not clairvoyance, so I
can’t see the future, much as I would sometimes like to. The house was large,
old, and expensive. Most of the homes on the Battery hailed from
before the Civil War. Many of the houses are painted in the muted
pastels most people associate with places like Bermuda and Nassau.
Some of the families who owned these homes had been here since the
mansions were built. The houses are beautiful, and tourists flock to
see them. But as much as I admire their beauty, I try not to spend a
lot of time down at the Battery for the simple reason that it creeps
me out.
Shadow
Garden
“Why
is your garden gnome in a cage?” I frowned as a plump middle-aged
woman deposited a stone statue locked in what looked like a large
“live trap” steel mesh box. “Because this
thing ate my cat,” the woman declared. “And I want rid of it
before it goes after the dog, too.” We see all kinds of
things at Trifles and Folly, but even for us, this was a first. “Are you sure
about the cat?” I asked, warily eyeing the gnome. It looked much
older than the brightly-painted resin figures on sale at the big
national-chain garden supply stores. The statue was weathered, with
some bits of lichen stuck to its body, and I wondered if it had been
custom-made. Now that she mentioned it, the gnome did look a little
creepy. The features looked sly instead of welcoming, and the set of
the mouth seemed to hide sharp teeth behind the carved stone lips. “I’m sure,”
the woman said, slapping her palm against the wooden counter.
“Fuddles never did like the statue. Always hissed at it when he
walked by it. I should have taken that as a sign.” “Where did it come
from?” I asked, looking away from the creepy gnome and returning my
attention to the lady who had brought in the caged decoration. “My mother said
she bought it from one of those architectural salvage places,” the
woman replied. “Have you had
other problems with it, before the… um… cat incident?” I’m
sure she was embarrassed and believed I was secretly laughing at her,
but I had seen much stranger things. I’m Cassidy
Kincaide, and I own Trifles and Folly, an antique and curio shop in
historic, haunted Charleston, SC that is a lot more than it seems.
The store has been in my family for over three hundred years, and
we’ve got a secret. While we’re a great place to find beautiful
old heirlooms and estate jewelry, our real job is getting dangerous
magical and supernatural items off the market and keeping them out of
the wrong hands. That means we see more than our share of cursed,
unlucky, or possessed objects, so I was taking my hapless customer’s
tale seriously. Her murderous gnome sounded exactly like the kind of
problem we deal with every day.
Trifles
and Folly 2
A
Deadly Curiosities Collection
Cassidy
Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an
antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read
the history of objects by touching them and together with Teag (a
hacker and weaver witch) and Sorren, a 600 year-old vampire, they get
rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from
supernatural threats.
An
extension of the Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy novel series, this
collection contains three full novellas and four short stories: The
Final Death, Predator, Fair Game, Fatal Invitation, Redcap,
Bloodlines, plus three bonus stories: Among the Shoals Forever, The
Low Road, and Steer a Pale Course.
Fatal
Invitation
I
reached into the shipping crate. My hand closed around a
newspaper-wrapped piece from a china dish set, probably a gravy boat
from its contours. The warning tingle from my psychic gift was too
little, too late. By the time I realized the danger, I was already
immersed in a vision of tragedy and terror. Images strobed in
my mind, searingly clear for an instant and then suddenly dark. A
dining room table set with holiday finery for a Thanksgiving feast.
Eight people—no, nine—but the one person’s face was hidden.
Dinner began with high spirits. The person whose memories I was
experiencing was a man, the father of the family gathered for the
feast, happy that he was surrounded by loved ones—and a guest. Despite the high
spirits, a warning tingled at the edge of my host’s senses. It
had been a mistake to invite the stranger, he was thinking. They
say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The stranger
didn’t say much as the meal began. Everyone else laughed and talked
as silverware rattled and food was passed around the table. His son,
the youngest at the table, was the first one affected. He complained
about his stomach, folded his arms across his midsection, and fell
forward onto his plate. I saw the man’s hand set the gravy boat
down on the table as he stood. Everyone rose in
alarm—everyone except the stranger. I couldn’t get a clear look
at the guest’s face. The others were in sharp focus, but the one I
knew was the stranger had blurred features, and the baggy clothing
made it impossible to tell gender. The stranger stepped back as
everyone rushed to the boy, who fell back, eyes staring blankly,
unresponsive, into his mother’s arms as she screamed. The others began
to stagger, hands going to their heads or abdomens, faces frightened
and worried. The boy’s mother collapsed across his body. Others
crumpled to the floor or sagged from their chairs. The person whose
memories I shared tried to go to them, but his legs failed him. His
heart raced but it was hard to breathe, and his mouth had gone dry.
Vision blurred, and despite his panic, he was so utterly tired.
Still, he dragged himself toward his family, but halfway across the
room, his body no longer responded to his mind’s commands. He
reached out to the stranger, one hand raised in a plea for help. The
stranger only smiled.
Redcap
I
ran through White Point Gardens as fast as I could. Behind me, teeth
snapped, and feet crunched on gravel. The redcap was gaining on me. I
turned and caught a glimpse of the creature that was hunting me, and
let loose with a blast of cold white force from the athame in my
right hand. The energy bolt
sizzled through the air, but the redcap was gone. They’re
devilishly hard to hit. Mocking laughter
came from the shadows. The redcap was enjoying his game. He was
toying with me, letting me get ahead of him, saving his speed for the
kill. Legend says it’s impossible to outrun a redcap. I had hoped
to draw him off, away from the homes that bordered on the garden,
where there were fewer prying eyes and a lesser chance of collateral
damage. I’d offered myself as bait to draw the redcap toward the
waterfront. Now, I dodged around the statues and war memorial
cannons, trying to out outwit a bloodthirsty pixie with a taste for
human flesh. Unfortunately, this
wasn’t the strangest way I had ever spent a Friday night. The redcap was
chattering in excitement, stoked about getting a good feast—me. I
was predictably less enthusiastic about the possibility and
determined to make sure he stayed hungry. The back corner of the park
was coming up, where it was a darker thanks to a burned-out street
lamp. Just a few more feet. The redcap gave a
feral cry and sprang at me, snapping his sharp teeth on my jeans and
barely missing my skin. I wheeled and gave him a good kick in the
face, knocking him a few feet away. The redcap howled in anger and
jumped to his feet; eyes fixed on me as he sized up his prey. A larger shape moved
fast enough to blur, and in the next instant, Sorren tackled the
redcap. Sorren hung on, using his own immortal strength to restrain
the redcap, who despite being two feet tall and built like a stringy
old man was as tough as a tiger. “Now!” Sorren
cried out. Teag
darted from behind a monument. I heard the redcap scream as Teag
pulled the creature’s head back and swung his blade, neatly
severing the vicious pixie’s head.
Gail Z. Martin discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school. The first story she wroteat age fivewas about a vampire. Her favorite TV show as a preschooler was Dark Shadows. At age 14, she decided to become a writer. She enjoys attending science fiction/fantasy conventions, Renaissance fairs and living history sites. She is married and has three children, a Himalayan cat, a Maltese and a golden retriever.
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