Hi, my name is Sophie Duncan. I'm an author of fantasy, paranormal, horror and erotica. Welcome to my blog. Here I'll ramble on about the books I'm reading and writing, ebooks, publishing and anything else I happen to think of.
Greetings and welcome to my blog on the spookiest of spooky days. It is a tradition of Tasha and I that we always produce a free eBook at Halloween. Usually it is for AllHallowsRead, but they don't seem to have updated their website this year, so just think of this as a trick or treat that is better for your teeth.🎃
Beyond Death - Tales of the Macabre
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake
Two tales that look past death into the terror beyond.
The Cup Runneth Over by Natasha Duncan-Drake
You have been tempted into places unknown and there are
things lurking in the shadows.
The Promise by Sophie Duncan
When a person makes a commitment, they should stick to it.
Carol is determined to stick to hers no matter how scary it may become.
Haunted Words! #FreeFictionFriday Exclusive Free Short Story
It's Friday and we're now in August, which means it's Free Fiction Friday.
This month's story is a short about a haunted book.
Haunted Words
by Sophie Duncan
When a bibliophile finds a book of awful love poetry, she has no way of knowing where Wilbur's purple rhymes will lead her.
It's easy to get a copy even if you're not already a subscriber - just join the Wittegen Press Newsletter and the links are included in the final welcome email.
Our promise to our subscribers: we never spam and we promise to never use you email address for anything else.
We send our newsletter via Mailchimp, so your details are perfectly secure.
Happy New Year everyone! To wish all our Newsletter subscribers the best this year, and to thank you all for sticking with us, we have 2 stories instead of 1 this month: a fantasy story of a young girl taking her first steps into magic and a contemporary fantasy m/m short about a young man, his dragon, and his best friend. You can find both of these for Free Fiction Friday over at Wittegen Press.
These stories are exclusively for subscribers of our newsletter, but anyone can join and it's really easy.
It is completely free to become a member and all you need is a valid email address. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and you’re done. Don't worry if you join after the 1st Friday, the password for the month will be included in the welcome email after you subscribe.
What we WILL DO for our subscribers:
Send you an email on the 1st Friday of the month to remind you about the short story and give you the password for the month as soon as the story goes live.
Send you information about new books, competitions and events, so you don’t miss anything.
Give you two Free eBooks just for joining.
What we WON’T DO to our subscribers:
Spam you with loads of random advertising.
Reveal your email address to anyone else.
This Month's Short Stories
The Wand by Sophie Duncan Genre: fantasy Length: ~3.5K wds Description: Aelwin is a Maker, like her mother before her: she knows this in her heart, but will the fae Match her to her calling? When a hostile Shadow Coat arrives to perform the New Year Matching Ceremony for her and her friends, disaster threatens. Only Aelwin can stop it, but she doesn’t know how.
Mark of the Dragon by Natasha Duncan-Drake Genre: contemporary fantasy, m/m, adult Length: ~3.5K wds Description: Luke has always known he has a destiny, after all he has the manifestation of a dragon on his skin that moves around as it pleases and a book in his head that explains all about it. However even dragons can't help with relationships, or can they?
Newsletter Subscription Form
We'll send you details of book releases, competitions and other news from our authors, BUT we WON'T spam you, or pass your details on to anyone else.
We will also give you 2 FREE ebooks just for signing up.
Happy August everyone, we hope you are not sweltering too much in the Summer heat. We have some contemporary fantasy for you this month for Free Fiction Friday over at Wittegen Press. This month's exclusive short story is an exciting tale of magic and self discovery, as ever, free to our wonderful subscribers.
These stories are exclusively for subscribers of our newsletter, but anyone can join and it's really easy.
It is completely free to become a member and all you need is a valid email address. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and you’re done. Don't worry if you join after the 1st Friday, the password for the month will be included in the welcome email after you subscribe.
What we WILL DO for our subscribers:
Send you an email on the 1st Friday of the month to remind you about the short story and give you the password for the month as soon as the story goes live.
Send you information about new books, competitions and events, so you don’t miss anything.
Give you two Free eBooks just for joining.
What we WON’T DO to our subscribers:
Spam you with loads of random advertising.
Reveal your email adress to anyone else.
This Month's Short Story
Sistiri: Awakenings by Sophie Duncan Genre: contemporary fantasy, magical realism Length: ~8.5K wds Description: ‘Skin as white as ice, heart as black as coal.’ That’s how Sky understood Mountain Elves, blood enemies of Hearthfae, and, a nerd that she was, allergic to magic, the last thing she expected was to end up tutoring the first diplomatic exchange student at the Interpeoples College for Magical Sciences. Freya Bloodstone is powerful, scary and determined, and she is about to awaken depths in Sky that she never knew she had.
Newsletter Subscription Form
We'll send you details of book releases, competitions and other news from our authors, BUT we WON'T spam you, or pass your details on to anyone else.
We will also give you 2 FREE ebooks just for signing up.
To celebrate this day of love, my sis, Tasha, and I are sharing some free stories with you.
Over at Tasha's blog, you can find, Motivation, a fun little investigation of what it takes to persuade a shapechanger he's not stuck in one shape.
And I have a spooky love story for you: Phantom Love, which you can download from the widget below.
When Ben promises to show his cousin, Ellen, a ghost, the pair set in motion a series of events that lead them into a terrifying encounter. Yet, within her fear, Ellen finds a purpose, and it is to find out what Millicent Van Curren, shot by her lover, wants from them. Phantom Love is book 1 in the Inspired By... Series, where each story is prompted by a memory.
Newsletter Subscription Form
We'll send you details of book releases, competitions and other news from our authors, plus the odd free story, BUT we WON'T spam you, or pass your details on to anyone else.
We will also give you 2 FREE ebooks just for signing up.
As is our tradition at Halloween, Tasha and I are supporting All Hallows Read once again. The idea is that instead of candy we give out a free book. This makes giving over the internet much easier and promotes the joy of reading, so it's win/win!
Our book this year is called Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law and it has two spooky stories in it to tingle the spine:
Looking for Luticia by Natasha Duncan-Drake Lucy is the host of a successful ghost hunting TV show, but their latest location is going to be a lot more haunting than she or her crew have ever dealt with before.
Lost in the Dark by Sophie Duncan Evelyn Edness is a medium who works for the dead, helping them to move on from the limbo of an eternity as ghosts. Kate Grange has come to ask for her help.
It is free to download from Smashwords for all our trick or treating visitors. After Halloween it will be 99c so grab your copy TODAY while it is free. Just click below and you're away.
It's the 1st Friday of September and that means it is Free Fiction Friday over at Wittegen Press. A new short story is now up for all the subscribers to our newsletter.
It is completely free to become a member and all you need is a valid email address. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and you’re done. Don't worry if you join after the 1st Friday, the password for the month will be included in the welcome email after you subscribe.
What we WILL DO for our subscribers:
Send you an email on the 1st Friday of the month to remind you about the short story and give you the password for the month as soon as the story goes live.
Send you information about new books, competitions and events, so you don’t miss anything.
Give you two Free eBooks just for joining.
What we WON’T DO to our subscribers:
Spam you with loads of random advertising.
Reveal your email adress to anyone else.
This Month's Short Story
Dark Celebrations by Sophie Duncan Genre: ghost, science fiction Length: ~9K wds Description: Mina is enjoying hers and her brother, Ali's, new posts as Ensign Navigators on board Interstellar Cruiser Queen Elizabeth VI. The entire liner has been booked out by Axis, the company that brought the known universe Carbon Prime, the key to interstellar travel, and they are celebrating their primeversary, so it's party time all round. Yet, an encounter with an impossible, derelict ship and the death of a guest in strange circumstances lead Mina to think there is something very wrong on board.
Newsletter Subscription Form
We'll send you details of book releases, competitions and other news from our authors, BUT we WON'T spam you, or pass your details on to anyone else.
We will also give you 2 FREE ebooks just for signing up.
Announcing Wittegen Press Halloween Book Price Slasher!
On 31st October 2016
Tasha and I will be discounting all of our Wittegen Press horror/paranormal themed books.
That means many of our 99c books will be free and our higher priced books will have money off. Check back on the 31st to see all the deals.
For even more exclusive FREEBIES join our newsletter (form below), where, on Halloween, we will be giving our members chances to grab those discounted books completely FREE. You get two free books just for signing up anyway and on 31st Oct 2016 we will be sending out our exclusive offers all day.
We'll send you details of book releases, competitions and other news from our authors, BUT we WON'T spam you, or pass your details on to anyone else.
We will also give you 2 FREE ebooks, not available anywhere else, just for signing up .
Thank you to everyone who dropped by during the A to Z Challenge. My theme this year was Murder Most Foul, which meant that I was sharing an episode a day of my murder mystery, The Case of the Cursed House, or rather the bare bones of it.
Everyday, I revealed more about my developing Cozy Mystery: descriptions of scenes; character details; locations; clues to the mystery. And, at the end of each post, I gave everyone a chance to vote on whodunnit. So, I thought I'd share some of the results of the votes, revealing no details on who the murderer actually is...
I excluded any character who got 1 vote or less, and, as you can see, Alice Rigden, the superstitious housekeeper, was a strong contender early on and maintained her lead, with Lord Michael, the charming, but snooty Lord of the Manor, and Bethany Mortby, possibly the spurned ex, began to catch up later in the plot. This kind of info is going to be really useful to me for when I turn the notes into the full novel, because it's giving me hints as to whether I'm giving away too many clues or not enough, so thanks to everyone who popped by and voted.
All parts of the mystery are linked below if you want to go back and read it (I'm not revealing here whodunnit, so it'll still be a surprise ;P):
A to Z Reflections
This year I found the A to Z tougher than previous years, and there was but one reason - I didn't finish my posts before the start of the A to Z, which meant I was trotting to keep up. I had finished my posts for FB3X Drabblerotic, which was a minor mercy, but I dropped the ball on our other blog, the Wittegen Press posts, so I have to give a BIG THANK YOU to my sis, Tasha, who picked up that ball and did all but 2 of the Literary Smackdown posts.
Because I was running to keep up, this year was lot more stressful than others and I didn't get round as many blogs as I would have liked, but the ones I did are below. It was still a lot of fun, I made some new friends and rejoined some old! I never quite know which blogs are going to catch my attention, which ones I'll be going back to day after day, but there are always some, and there are also the lovely ones that I just popped by, but that didn't make me enjoy them any less.
The A to Z is a source of myriad wonders :). A to Z Shout Out!
I had great fun bouncing around blogs this year. I kept a list of those I visited so I'd like to share with you some of the blogs I have enjoyed:
