"The Oakhurst School of Magic is going places. They're applying for accreditation as an official institute of Pure Magic, and this will attract more students.
But in amongst preparations for the visiting accreditation committee, Mrs. Marsh's rabbit goes missing and Veronica gets roped into trying to find it.
Why does a wayward rabbit matter?
Well, it's a magical rabbit, and you can't have magic running loose in the school grounds if you want to impress the committee.
Scratch that, it's a clockwork rabbit and it symbolises everything Pure Magic is not, everything Mrs. Marsh and a couple of other teachers stand for. The one rabbit stands for a deep division in the school community.
The school's reputation, Veronica's job and the harmony of the Oakhurst village are on the line. How can Veronica make sure no one is harmed, not even a clockwork rabbit?"
"I've self-published for over ten years. I've seen the industry start, take off and mature. I've seen tactics, companies and people come and go.
However, over that time, a few important principles have always held true, but in the morass of advice of varying quality it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
In 2017, I wrote the Unboxed books, a series of four books about how to publish sustainably, and by that I mean in a manner so that you can keep doing it long-term, and how to use your mailing list to set up a self-perpetuating sales vehicle.
While the strategies haven't changed, many of the peripheral situations have. In short: we have far more and better tools, but far more competition, not only from other authors on the sales front, but also from services that entice us to spend ever more money before we publish.
This book is my ultimate guide to what you need, what you can try, and what is likely to be a waste of your money and time.
Over more than 500 pages I talk about the unvarnished experience of self-publishing and selling books while keeping control of my catalogue and not funding anyone's private jet in advertising costs.
I wrote this book to pay it forward to the community. I don't sell courses. I don't do affiliate marketing. I have no vested interest in anyone's self-publishing journey. Except for this: I want you to enjoy it."
"Veronica arrives with her class in the spellcraft tower of the Oakhurst School of Magic to teach the bunch of young--and not particularly well-behaved--teenagers about the school's ancient spellbook. But the book has gone missing from the cabinet!
Only a few people have the key to the tower, and very soon, the town's mayor will need the book to bless the start of the new council year.
Who has stolen the book?
Is it Barnaby the caretaker, and has he sold it on the black market?
Is it Jasper Bloom, a fellow teacher, and did he want to find a love spell?
Is it the cranky teacher Mr. Stone, who hates the mayor and would gladly make the council's life difficult?
And what can Veronica do if the truth potion she gives these people only complicates matters, backfires spectacularly and makes them say outrageous and embarrassing things?"
"A fisherwoman finds a dead man on a tiny offshore island, with no clue about how the man got there.
A camel driver deep in the northern desert rescues a man who speaks no known language, but is clearly well-educated.
An ancient sect that was considered close to extinct sucks in all the land's young people and creates tension that may well lead to a civil war.
And the old astrologer to the court, a weaselly and much-maligned relic of old times, might have hidden, for twenty years, evidence that those things are connected.
An epic saga of magic-turned-technology, power and discovery."
"After many years in space, Jonathan receives the message he's been dreading: his father has taken a fall. He can no longer live by himself and Jonathan's cousin has managed to get him into a care home.
Jonathan is an only child, he is no longer in contact with his mother, and a deep sense of guilt forces him to return to Earth to look after his father's wellbeing.
Except his father has a secret. He's in poor health and rather confused, so Jonathan finds it hard to get to the bottom of it.
It's not like he has a lot of time, since he has to look for a job, a task which is proving surprisingly hard. P
No one wants scientists, especially not if they've worked in space. But his father's secret shows how important it is to keep the work going. Not that governments will listen."
"Picture this: you've somehow come into the possession of a dragon (long story--you can read the previous book if you really want to know, but it's kinda embarrassing, so you don't need to).
And you need to return that dragon to the place it came from.
You've tried putting it on a truck--but it destroyed the truck.
You've tried putting it on the train--but it destroyed the carriage.
Now you've put the dragon in a warehouse while you figure out what to do, but--
You guessed it: the dragon destroys the warehouse.
Tell me, why wouldn't you trick some rich merchant into lending you the only thing you haven't yet tried: a boat.
Trouble is, the merchant's price is that you return an old artefact to the whale kingdom along the way.
Whales are not nice. They're very big. They're cranky. And, here is a secret: they hate dragons.
They especially hate dragons."
"When Perrin was so desperate that he applied for a job with the Bureau of Magic Abuse, there were two things he didn't realise. One, that he might actually get the job and two, that it would involve working with magic sniffers.
And what an annoyance the creatures are. They keep him up at night, need to feed on expensive fresh fruit and cause him embarrassment.
A new inn opens in town and patrons flock to it. Perrin checks it out for forbidden magic, finds none but something doesn’t add up. Is it the stranger, clearly a wizard, who makes little effort to cover up his illegal activities? Is it the owner of the new inn, who can’t possibly have accumulated enough money to buy the place? Or is it the unfailingly raving reviews?
Something fishy is going on, and his boss at the Bureau doesn't even want him to investigate. But Perrin has never let that stop him."
"For three months, Cory and his team have hung with Asto's military in orbit, watching as drone armies attacked Earth.
They could have helped more had Nations of Earth communicated with the fleet or if they could only find out where these drones come from, who controls them and from where. The enemy is smart, enmeshed with sections of Earth's population and Asto's military severely hamstrung by Nations of Earth playing chicken.
Three months ago, the president contacted Cory asking for help. The connection was interrupted and never re-established.
It's as if they don't want help.
Cory's got gamra breathing down his neck with the requirement that Nations of Earth officially approves the presence of Asto's military in orbit.
Something has to give.
He and his team return to a battle-scarred Earth on a hare-brained mission to talk to Nations of Earth, to check on the president, to get him to sign for approval. Getting there is hard. The state of the Nations of Earth assembly is deeply troubling. But getting out, that's where it gets truly interesting."
"The shocking conclusion to the Moonfire Trilogy.
Lana han Chevonian is one of the world’s brightest minds on the brink of making a huge discovery. There is only one problem: she is stuck as prisoner in the harem of the Aranian king. She could try to escape and run the risk of getting re-captured or getting killed on the very long and difficult road back home to Chevakia, or she could win the favour of the king, beg to be allowed to use the famed library and promise Arania credit for her work.
Meanwhile, war is about to break out between Aranian armies with icefire weapons and Chevakian armies wanting to wipe those weapons off the face of the earth.
Lana’s discovery turns the understanding about icefire on its head, but no one is listening. They’re on course to destroy everything that’s keeping the world alive."
"Sanity is a lone voice crying in the desert.
The world is under increasing threat from as yet undiscovered sources of icefire, but all the people who have answers are cut off from the authorities, kings or councils, with the power to mobilise the scientists and armies to keep the world safe.
Young meteorology student Javes is stuck in the remote desert of the north. The area bristles with technology of an ancient past, but he cannot tell anyone about it because roads and telegraph lines have been cut by bad weather and invading bandits.
Lana, a fellow student, is on her way to meet him, but Aranian soldiers raid the bus that she's travelling on. She is taken to the capital to serve at the king's court."
"Tina and her crew finally arrive on Olympus, the world that holds the Federacy Assembly. Her initial plan was to go there to present the data the left in a locker on Kelso Station fifteen years earlier, but many things have changed.
For one, rather than wait for someone else to do it, she and the scientists they collected at Aurora Station have been working on a cure for the infection that turns people into grey-skinned mutant pirates.
Secondly, they're bringing a stricken war ship and a few of its remaining crew members who were rescued from pirate captivity.
Little has gone to plan. After a few attempts, they don't yet have a cure. And while the infection does horrendous things to people besides giving them a long, but miserable, life, it seems that the only way it spreads is through human intervention.
Tina and her friends are about to make a few discoveries about power, who wields it, and how it is used in this conclusion to the Project Charon series. The betrayal runs much deeper than anyone has predicted. Those in power are not going to take their uncovering lying down."
"The entire world laid to waste. There are no second chances.
The ancient machine that produced icefire was destroyed twenty years ago, but the deadly magic is again on the increase. No one understands why or where it’s coming from.
Massive changes in weather patterns plunge the northern half of the inhabited world in deep drought. People are once again fleeing, but nowhere is safe.
King Isandor sends people to investigate a concentration of icefire in the mountains at the border, but two consecutive patrols both vanish. It appears that, after having suffered badly in wars, the neighbouring country Arania is on the offensive, and is using icefire as weapon. Their culture is harsh and their barbarism knows no boundaries.
Meanwhile two young meteorology students make a string of discoveries that will change the way the people understand the world. They’re on the threshold of the age of enlightenment, but vital knowledge necessary to save their world may well get lost when war overruns the inhabited world."
