🔦In the Bookish Spotlight & Book Giveaway🔦Knot of Souls by Christine Amsden

 

Kindle Edition: $4.99/Free with Kindle Unlimited

Other Formats: Paperback

Knot of Souls

By Christine Amsden

Two souls, one body …

When Joy wakes up in an alley, she knows three things: she was brutally murdered, she has somehow come back to life … and she is not alone. She’s been possessed by an inhuman presence, a being that has taken over her dying body. That being is powerful, in pain, and on the run from entities more dangerous than he is.

Shade, a Fae prince on the run, didn’t mean to share the body he jumped into. Desperate and afraid, accused of a murder he didn’t commit, he only sought a place to hide—but if he leaves Joy now, he faces discovery and a fate worse than death.

Forced to work together to solve multiple murders, including her own, Joy and Shade discover hidden strengths and an unlikely friendship. Yet as their souls become increasingly intertwined, they realize their true danger might come from each other … and if they don’t find a way to untangle the knot their souls have become, then even the truth won’t set them free.

Knot of Souls is a stand-alone buddy love fantasy that forces two very different beings to work together … and come out stronger on the other side.

Knot of Souls is available at Amazon.

Joy

The first thing I realized, after I died, was that my body could walk and talk and no longer needed my help for any of it. I was in there, able to look through my eyes and hear through my ears, but even the simple task of aiming my gaze had slipped outside my control. I was a passenger inside my own mind, an observer along for the ride.

Kristen had been right, I thought numbly as I struggled to make sense of my new reality. Had it only been lunchtime today when she’d told me I’d never get ahead if I didn’t learn to assert myself? “Take control of your life,” she’d said, “or others will take it for you.”

She couldn’t have been thinking of anything quite so literal. Whatever was happening to me, it wasn’t because I’d failed to advocate for a promotion at work or refused to ask out a coworker.

Right?

My body reached my car and slid behind the wheel. A rattled thought—not my own—cursed as it tried to understand how the contraption worked. How much can cars have changed in only a century? Visions accompanied the thoughts, memories—again not my own—of a classic car, gleaming black and elegant, its top down, my bobbed hair whipping around my face as I laughed with glee, a white-faced young man at my side gripping the door, begging me to slow down. I did not.

Which brings me to the second thing I realized, after I died: I was no longer alone inside my own mind.

Whoever was in there didn’t seem to have noticed me yet. Fine. I slid into the smallest corner of my brain I could find, ignoring the intruder as they struggled to figure out how to work an automatic transmission. Maybe they’d get frustrated and give up and go find someone else’s body to possess.

Holy shit! I’ve been possessed by the ghost of someone who died in like 1930.

But why?

I tried to remember what had happened, but the images danced just out of reach. I recalled that the night had been unseasonably cold for October, the chill biting through my inadequate jacket as I hurried to my car, parked in a garage two blocks away from the shelter where I’d been volunteering. Hugging my arms around my torso for warmth, I took a shortcut through an alley and …

There was a noise. I’d startled, my heart pounding in my throat, already on edge because of the argument.

Wait. Back up. There’d been an argument. That seemed significant, but my scattered thoughts couldn’t piece it together as yet, not when a bodily intruder fumbled at the gearshift of my two-month-old Hyundai Accent with only fifty-eight “low monthly payments” left to go.

Low is such a relative word.

– Excerpted from Knot of Souls by Christine Amsden, Christine Amsden, 2025. Reprinted with permission.

 

 

 

Christine Amsden is the author of nine award-winning fantasy and science fiction novels, including the Cassie Scot Series.

Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but Christine believes great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. She writes primarily about people, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

In addition to writing, Christine is a freelance editor and political activist. Disability advocacy is of particular interest to her; she has a rare genetic eye condition called Stargardt Macular Degeneration and has been legally blind since the age of eighteen. In her free time, she enjoys role playing, board games, and a good cup of tea. She lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two kids.

Author Links

Website ➜https://christineamsden.com/wordpress/

X ➜ http://www.x.com/christineamsden 

Facebook ➜https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christine-Amsden-Author-Page/127673027288664?ref=hl

Christine Amsden is giving away 2 sets of the 4-book Cassie Scot series (gifted through BookFunnel)! This includes Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective, Secrets and Lies, Mind Games and Stolen Dreams

Terms & Conditions:

• By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
• Two winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive one epub set each of the 4-book Cassie Scot series (4 books total in each set).
• This giveaway starts July 1 and ends September 26.
• Winner will be contacted via email on September 26.
• Winner has 48 hours to reply.

ENTER TO WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

 

🔦In the Bookish Spotlight🔦Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard I. Levine

 

 Kindle Edition: $2.99

Other Formats: Paperback

Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea

By Richard I. Levine

When they met in the fourth grade, it was love at first sight for Mitchell Brody and Jessica Ramirez. He was the freckle-faced kid who stood up for her honor when he silenced the class bully who’d been teasing her because of her accent. She was the new kid whose family moved to San Juan Island, Washington, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and whom Mitch had thought was the most beautiful girl in the world.

She was his salvation from a strict upbringing. He was her knight in shining armor who had always looked out for her. Through the many years of porch-swinging, cotton-candied summer nights, autumn harvest festivals, and hand-in-hand walks planning for the ideal life together, they were inseparable…until 9/11, when the real world interrupted their Rockwell-esque small town life, and Mitch had joined the Marine Corps.

This is not just the story of a wounded warrior finally coming home to search for the love, and the world he abandoned twenty years before. It is also the story of a man who is seeking forgiveness and a way to ease the pain caused by every bad decision he’d ever made. It’s the story of a woman who, with strength and determination, rose up from the ashes of a shattered dream; but who never gave up hope that her one true love would return to her. As she once told an old friend: “Even before we met all those years ago, we were destined to be together in this life, and we will be together again, because even today we’re connected in a way that’s very special, and he needs to know about it before one of us leaves this earth.”

Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is available at Amazon.

Jess gently and methodically caressed the fly rod and sent her hand-tied lure through the air with confidence and grace. Back and forth it sailed with effortless rhythm, as if it were a weightless feather being carried on a breeze. It was as if she had been a world-renowned conductor leading a philharmonic as the gentle sounds of woodwinds and strings flowed through her ear buds, no different than the crystal-clear water of the river as it flowed over a path that for time immemorial had been orchestrated by all that had come before it. Over the years she had mastered the art, not so much for the sport of teasing a steelhead or a rainbow trout onto the end of her line, but rather from the repetition of returning to the same little spot on the Clearwater, her favorite refuge. This was the very place where Mitch had introduced her to the melodic seduction of his most private collection of music. It was a playlist he had long guarded, a playlist that betrayed the commanding presence of his large muscular frame, his athletic prowess, and the simple way he had always looked at life.
Having first brought Jess to this place a month after the September 11th attacks, Mitch had arranged the weekend getaway after he had been presented with a no- win dare from his father to be as patriotic as Alex. When she’d learned of his enlistment, it had caught her off- guard. When he’d said basic training was twenty-four hundred miles away at Parris Island, she’d been speechless. But when he’d told her he was leaving in less than ten days, she’d struggled to catch her breath. As far as she had been concerned, South Carolina might as well have been another planet somewhere far beyond the stars that blanketed the black velvet nights of this pristine wilderness.
She had been overcome with emotion during that trip to the Clearwater River in Idaho. The crispness of the morning mountain air, mixed with the sounds of the crackling campfire and the rushing water just a few feet from their tent, had been a confluence of ingredients no master chef could have ever conceived. Jess had enjoyed every second of the experience until the sting of the news he was leaving was more numbing than the water itself. And while they both lost interest in the river’s offerings, the hours spent on the drive home were filled with tears, promises of fidelity, never-ending love, and a long life together tending to the small farm of their dreams. It was a dream they had carefully crafted during long secluded walks when even the innocent world of San Juan Island disappeared, and time seemed as if it would stop long enough for all the pieces to float seamlessly into place. Again, she drew back and set the custom-tied fly to flight and followed its arc before it kissed the water’s surface. In her mind, the only thing that ever landed more softly or with equal intent was the brush of Mitch’s lips across the back of her neck on those long summer evenings when counting fireflies had sparked dreams of the perfect life together.
Over the years, the river had become the special place where Jess could escape the pressures of the successful life she had carefully carved. Just being there enabled her to decompress, and to relive the weekend where she had surrendered to her long-suppressed desires, seducing the love of her life while simultaneously absolving him of any responsibility for having complied, albeit with little resistance. During their high school years there had been plenty of times he had taken her just short of that point of no return. And while his conscience would inevitably get the better of him, she had always hoped he would have forgotten that he was a gentleman. What she hadn’t realized at the time, was that their dreams and those promises would never come to fruition. What she could never let go of, however, was her need to make the yearly return to this place to resurrect that moment, as if continuing to do so would somehow or in some way ease her pain by keeping the possibility of that unfulfilled fantasy alive.
As she cast her line once more, she looked past the riverbank toward her tent, hoping as always that she could be transported back to the time when Mitch emerges from the warmth of their sleeping bag to watch how prolific she had become at his favorite recreational pastime. And just as she fell a little deeper into the warmth of his smile and his embrace, just as she placed her head against the memory of his chest and felt his heart beating strong and fast, she was abruptly pulled back to reality when her rod jerked with equal intensity, nearly being pulled from her hands just as the line snapped. 

– Excerpted from Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard Levine, KDP, 2025. Reprinted with permission. 

 

 

 

Richard I Levine is a native New Yorker raised in the shadows of Yankee Stadium. After dabbling in several occupations and a one-year coast-to-coast wanderlust trip, This one-time auxiliary police officer, volunteer fireman, bartender, and store manager returned to school to become a chiropractor.

A twenty-five-year cancer survivor, he’s a strong advocate for the natural healing arts. In 2006 he wrote, produced, and was on-air personality of The Dr. Rich Levine Show on Seattle’s KKNW 1150AM and after a twenty-five-year chiropractic practice in Bellevue, Washington, he closed up shop at the end of 2016 and moved to Oahu to pursue a dream of acting and being on Hawaii 5-O.

While briefly working as a ghostwriter/community liaison for a Honolulu City Councilmember, a Hawaii State Senator, and volunteering as an advisory board member of USVETS Barbers Point, he appeared as a background actor in over twenty-seven 5-Os, Magnum P.I.s, NCIS-Hawaii, and several Hallmark movies. In 2020, he had a co-star role in the third season episode of Magnum PI called “Easy Money.”

While he no longer lives in Hawaii, he says he will always cherish and be grateful for those seven years and all the wonderful people he’s met. His 5th novel, To Catch the Setting Sun, was inspired by his time in Hawaii.

Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is Levine’s first foray into the romance genre.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ http://www.docrichlevine.com  

X ➜ https://www.twitter.com/Your_In8_Power 

Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/RichardLevineAuthor/ 

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/rilevinedc