Release Blitz, Exlusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
The Fantastic Fluke by Sam Burns
A lost fox. A gorgeous ghost. And an unlikely partnership to stop a murderer.
Since his mother’s murder, Sage McKinley doesn’t live, he exists. His weak magic has made him an outcast, shadowing his life with self-doubt. All that changes when the spirit of a gunslinger appears in his bookstore with a message that will flip Sage’s world upside down. According to the mesmerizing apparition, a powerful magic lies within Sage… if he can find a way to tap into it.
But dastardly threats accompany this untapped power. Bodies are piling high as a killer hunts for the secrets of the mage that now course through Sage’s veins. Can Sage find the confidence to embrace all he’s capable of? Or will the next life snuffed out be his own?
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Movement caught my eye—foxy making a beeline for the couch.
The couch that already had an occupant.
“Holy fucking shit!” I jumped back, my shoulders jarring the hold shelves behind the counter and leaving a dull ache in my back. That was gonna bruise.
The man sitting on the couch looked like the star of one of the books I’d been cataloguing that very morning—an old western gunslinger. He had wavy golden hair and deep brown eyes that stared at me with unnerving intensity. Like I was being weighed as a threat. That shouldn’t take long, since I undeniably was not one.
Him, on the other hand . . . under his long brown duster, he was wearing a leather gun belt. With a gun in it.
My heart leapt at someone openly carrying a freaking weapon in my shop, and I had to remind myself to breathe.
Just as I managed to drag in a deep breath, logic brain kicked in and pointed out the obvious. The gunslinger was dead. He was as translucent as morning fog. As translucent as my father, who was standing next to the counter alternately glaring at me and then the stranger.
I wondered if Dad was more offended that the man was in the shop, or that he knew how to sit on the couch while dead. I coughed to disguise a laugh, but I could barely choke it back.
Meanwhile, foxy hopped up on the couch right next to the gunslinger, looking at him expectantly.
The gunslinger looked at foxy, then closed his eyes and sighed. It was another oddity about ghosts. They didn’t need to breathe—they didn’t have bodies—but they all went through the motions of the physical things they had done in life. Like the gunslinger, who was giving every sign of exasperation.
“A fox? Really?” His voice was deep and rough, like he gargled rocks or smoked a pack a day. I wondered if ghosts could smoke ghost cigarettes. I’d never seen it happen, but like I said, ghosts are rare. I’d only seen a scant handful in my nearly thirty years.
Yep, that was me. The world’s weakest social mage, with the most useless peripheral ability known to magic.
I wasn’t going to let him malign my not-familiar, though. “What’s wrong with a fox? He’s a good fox.”
The gunslinger turned to look at me. “A trickster. Woulda been better off with a mouse or a hawk. Something smart without being clever.”
He said clever like he meant pestilent, and dammit, I took offense.
“They’re the same thing.” Okay, yeah, so I’ve been called clever. That and “gifted” were the gifts that kept on giving well into adulthood. Giving, you know: anxiety, depression, and generalized feelings of failure.
To celebrate Sam’s new release, we are giving you a chance to win your choice of any book from Sam’s backlist! Three winners will be chosen!
Sam lives in the Midwest with husband and cat, which is even less exciting than it sounds, so she’s not sure why you’re still reading this.
She specializes in LGBTQIA+ fiction, usually with a romantic element. There’s sometimes intrigue and violence, usually a little sex, and almost always some swearing in her work. Her writing is light and happy, though, so if you’re looking for a dark gritty reality, you’ve come to the wrong author.
Connect with Sam:
www.burnswrites.com
facebook.com/sam.burns.52459
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FlickerFoxBooks
goodreads.com/author/show/16897949.Sam_Burns
amazon.com/Sam-Burns/e/B07123MZ62
instagram.com/samburnswrites
