Category Archives: Author

Two fantasy stories and a romance (and a cherry on top!)

By Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Fiction River, Romance, Short Stories

I’ve been remiss in announcing some new publications, so here are three—two fantasy stories and one romance story—for your reading pleasure.

Still-Waking Sleep by Dayle A. Dermatis
literary alchemical fantasy short story

Fiction River’s latest anthology contains my story “Still-Waking Sleep,” which is one of the more unusual stories I’ve written. The editor of the volume said I created a new subgenre: literary alchchemical fantasy. Okay, I’ll take that!

Tangent Online reviewed the issue and said of “Still-Waking Sleep,”

“Dermatis has a love of lush language…that fits well into the story.”

(I recommend you read the issue before you read the review, because it contains some minor spoilers.)

Here’s what the issue is all about:

Humans prove great fodder for fiction. But what about the universe of possibilities offered by the nonhuman protagonist? The eighteen daring humans of Fiction River’s latest volume explore just that. From a goblin who must choose whether to risk everything for love to a heroic rat adventuring at sea to sentient underpants (yes, underpants), these nonhuman tales demonstrate why Adventures Fantastic says: “If you haven’t checked out Fiction River yet, you should. There’s something for everyone.”

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks
and in print: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

You can also check out the book’s product page here and learn more about the entire Fiction River series.

Girls That Glitter by Dayle A. Dermatis
urban fantasy short story

Fans of my Nikki Ashburne/Ghosted series, rejoice! For here is a new Nikki story. It has drag queens in it. It has a search for missing paperwork. And it’s my homage and fond farewell to the Sunset Strip House of Blues.

Here’s what the issue is all about:

Think you know a tavern tale when you hear one? Think again. The seventeen stories in this volume run the gamut of genre and mood. Bars filled with glitter and ghosts stand alongside taverns filled with orcs and adventurers. Exclusive members-only drinks served at the end of the universe war with coffee bars with strange employee policies in the Pacific Northwest. Dive bars, afterlife bars, gay bars—you name it, and you’ll find it in Tavern Tales. So, grab a drink and get ready for one of the most entertaining Fiction River volumes yet.

I love every story in this issue.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks
and in print: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The book’s product page
More about the entire Fiction River series

Leave a Candle Burning by Dayle A. Dermatis
romance short story

The second issue of Heart’s Kiss is out now, with my story “Leave a Candle Burning.” Hurrah!

About my story:

Claudia lives a vagabond life, crisscrossing the country doing research for a reality show about American myths and legends. Christmas finds her in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, at a small hotel allegedly haunted by the Lady in White, who leaves a candle burning for her husband, lost in the snow.

The ghost might not be real, but Claudia’s attraction to the mysterious Reese, who once lived in the Victorian house, definitely is. Will he be what it takes for Claudia to change her wandering ways?

You can buy the issue on Amazon or Barnes & Noble in ebook or print form, from Kobo in ebook, or purchase directly from the website. You can also subscribe to the magazine, which might not be a bad idea, because I have a story in issue #3 coming up, too…!

emagazine: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
print: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Heart’s Kiss website

If you’d like to get this sort of information—and more!—directly in your In Box each month, you can sign up for my newsletter. The May newsletter has publication news about three additional new stories plus an upcoming novel! BONUS: you get a free short story every month! What are you waiting for? Subscribe today!

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Heaven Has Eyes

By Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Short Stories, Soul's Road Press, Young Adult

Cassie suffers from a chronic disease and hides her sexuality from her family.

Feeling alone and adrift in her new home in Southern California, she turns to crafting little white lies—and maybe little white spells.

But when her only friend disappears, Cassie discovers a deeper magic than she ever thought existed…and must choose whether to come clean once and for all.

Especially to herself.

“Heaven Has Eyes” combines myth and reality in a touching YA short story.

Buy it at any of these fine online retailers:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks

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The Faerie Summer Bundle

By Bundle, Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Short Stories

The Faerie Summer Bundle
20 faerie stories

The summer sun bathes the earth in warmth and light
Faeries dance under the moon at night.
Cross through the portal into a land ancient, beautiful, and wild.
See the wonders that enticed the stolen child.
Come away, O reader! To the Realm of Faerie.
But if you want to make it back home, you had better be wary…

This collection includes twenty tales of faeries and magic set in our world – and in others.

THE FLAT ABOVE THE WYND by Alexandra Brandt
SILVER DUST by Leslie Claire Walker
UNICORN MAGIC by Roz Marshall
BENEATH THE KNOWE by Anthea Sharp
LEXIE’S CHOICE by Deb Logan
FLOWER FAIRIES by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
PAULALEENA by Leah Cutter
ROLO THE GREAT by Annie Reed
THE FAKE PATH TO TRUE MEMORY by Brigid Collins
PROOF OF DEVOTION by Dayle A. Dermatis
BY DAWN’S BLOODY LIGHT by DeAnna Knippling
ONDINE by Brenda Carre
SNAP A TRAP, INC. by Louisa Swann
THE FAERY’S CHOICE by Jamie Ferguson
THE QUEEN OF MAY by Linda Jordan
SKYWALKERS by Marcelle Dubé
STORMRIDER AND THE LADY OF SOUL by Karen L. Abrahamson
THE BODY PLOT by Rebecca M. Senese
THE WISHING RING OF OLD QUEEN MAAB by Steve Vernon
HAWTHORN & WILLOW by T. Thorn Coyle

Buy it at any of these fine establishments:

Breakfast in Bed by Andrea Dale

By Andrea Dale, Erotica, Short Stories, Soul's Road Press

Jennie’s husband, Cal, wakes her up for a naughty meal involving a bit of restraint and some creative use of strawberries and crepes. Breakfast in bed never sounded so tasty—or sexy!—in this wickedly delicious short story from legendary erotica heavy-hitter Andrea Dale.

“Breakfast in Bed” originally appeared in Afternoon Delight: Erotica for Couples (Cleis Press, 2009).

Buy it at any of these fine online retailers:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks

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Living With the Past

By Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Short Stories, Soul's Road Press,

Former Hollywood party girl Nikki Ashburne sees ghosts—in fact, many of them are her friends. Okay, they’re kind of her only friends. Most ghosts stick around because they’re happy here and have no desire to move on…but sometimes, they need help.

Like when a decades-dead Marilyn Monroe impersonator wants Nikki to find her granddaughter. In Los Angeles.

Yeah. That’ll be easy.

Another story in the Ghosted urban fantasy series featuring Nikki Ashburne, “Living With the Past” originally appeared in Fantastic Detectives (Fiction River, 2014).

Buy it at any of these fine online retailers:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks

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Haunted Bundle is 30% off!

By Bundle, Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Short Stories

Sorry to keep flinging news at ya’ll, but I’m not responsible for all these deals and deadlines. I’m not complaining about them, mind you—I just didn’t choose to have them hit all at once!

The Haunted Bundle is currently part of a promotion at Kobo Books, where you can get it for 30% off by using the code 30BOX when you check out.

It’s normally $3.99 for 20 short stories, which is dead cheap already, and 30% off is…uh, math. Cheaper. An even better deal. A steal!

But you only have until Monday, February 27, to get the deal, so gogogo!

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Run away with the Escapist Bundle!

By Bundle, Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Mystery/Thriller, Novels, Soul's Road Press,

I feel like a kind of lame writer right now because I’m running out of ways to say I’m delighted, happy, chuffed, squeeing, running around the house without pants on flailing my hands about some piece of good news.

I am all of those things over the fact that I’ve been invited into to participate in Storybundle’s Escapist Bundle.

This bundle is based around the Fiction River anthology Recycled Pulp. The stories in the anthology (which is included in the bundle) were all inspired by pulp-like titles, but none of the stories are pulp. They run the gamut of genres, and they’re all unusual and a great read.

The authors in the anthology were asked to include a longer work of fiction that related to our short story. That was tough for me, because my story, “The Imperfect Otter Empire,” is a odd but touching story about a woman watching the otters at the Santa Barbara Zoo (and then Stuff Happens). I don’t have any novels quite like that.

So I suggested Waking the Witch, a gothic mystery with a hint of romance, and the bundle coordinator was on board with that. I think it makes sense. You tell me after you’ve read the story and the novel, okay?

Of the novels and collections in the bundle, I’ve read a few, and they’re marvelous. I’ve read at least something by every author in the bundle, and I’ve loved their work, so I’m pretty confident it’s all wonderful.

This bundle is available for only three weeks, so hop on board now, while you can. You can get any ebook format, worldwide.

For a mere $5 (less than $1/book), you get…

  • Waking the Witch
  • Recycled Pulp
  • Isabel’s Tears by Lisa Silverthorne, a novel about a magical inn
  • The Pale Waters by Kelly Washington, the first novella in a four-part epic journey
  • Hot Waters by Erica Lyon, a steamy sea adventure novel

For $14, you get a bunch of bonus reading material:

  • Rebecca Senese’s ten-story science fiction collection Tales of Possibilities
  • Thomas K. Carpenter’s Revolutionary Magic, a historical fantasy and the first in the Dashkova Memoirs
  • Annie Reed’s A Death in Cumberland, a moody police procedural
  • Nebula Award finalist Cat Rambo’s Neither Here Nor There, a double collection of alt-world and real world fantasy stories
  • New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s The War and After, five historical fantasy stories of magic and revenge
  • USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith’s The Slots of Saturn, the origin story for his fan-favorite superhero Poker Boy.

You can pay more, of course, if you think 20 novels/novellas/collections are worth more than $14 (seriously, just round it up to $20, why don’tcha?)—and you can choose how much of that gets donated to the charity SMART (Start Making a Reader Today), which promotes the love of reading for children in Oregon. That is a charity I can get behind one hundred percent.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run around the house without pants on flailing my hands, then curl up and read some seriously good fiction. I hope you do, too. The reading seriously good fiction in the bundle part. But feel free to run around the house without pants on flailing your hands too.

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Heart’s Kiss, a new romance magazine

By Dayle A. Dermatis, Romance, Short Stories

I meant to post this by Valentine’s Day (the official day to post about romance, even though romance readers are the most voracious of any genre and devour romances all year long, hurrah! And I am one of them.), but our home Internet went out, and Life. (Don’t talk to me about Life.)

I am thrilled to be in the inaugural issue of the brand new Heart’s Kiss, a magazine devoted to short romance. It’s edited by Denise Little, one of the top editors working today. She had her own imprint at Kensington, was the executive editor for Tekno Books (during which time she edited approximately a bazillion anthologies for Daw Books), and worked as a national buyer for Barnes & Noble). She’s also one of the funniest people I know.

But I’m here to tell you about Heart’s Kiss. The first issue has an interview with and a story by Mary Jo Putney, and more fiction from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Christina F. York, Laura Resnick, Diane A.S. Stuckart, Petronella Glover, Casey Chapel, and Neesa Hart, plus some nonfiction as well.

You can get it for your Kindle or buy the hard copy, and even better, you can subscribe and never miss an issue (it comes out bimonthly). (Psst, I can tell you I have a story in an upcoming issue, too. I’m not officially announcing it ’til I sign the contract, but Denise has asked for the story, so it’s almost a done deal.)

My story in the first issue, “Then & Now,” was inspired by true circumstances, although I changed both the decade(s) and the outcome. It’s a lost love found again story, a second changes story, and it’s sweet and…well, you can read it and see. I hope you like it!

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The Haunted Bundle is spooky good fun!

By Author, Bundle, Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Short Stories, Soul's Road Press

The other day I watched a trailer for a horror movie on my computer. I use a standing desk, and by halfway through the trailer, I had backed up until my back was against a wall, as far away from my monitor as I could get. I knew what I was doing, and I was laughing out loud at my own ridiculousness…albeit it was a nervous laughter because I knew something was going to scare me in that trailer. It was just a matter of when.

Point is, most of us liked to be scared—in controlled environments. I might like spooky gothics, you might bloody slasher flicks, but there’s no denying the horror genre is here to say.

Which is not to say the stories in the Haunted Bundle are all scary. Mine isn’t. (I don’t think. It’s got a little suspense.) I haven’t read all of them yet, so I can’t say. The one thing they are all about is fantastic writing. I love the authors I’m in this bundle with!

Here’s the blurb:

Have you ever felt as though someone was watching you, but when you turned around no one was there?

How many times have you been unable to find something, then it later turned up in the exact place you’d searched over and over?

Why does your cat act as though it’s staring at something, even though you can’t see anything?

Just because you can’t see anything doesn’t mean there isn’t something there…

But don’t worry. Ghosts aren’t real.

Or are they?

And look at all these authors:

You can purchase the Haunted Bundle at any of these fine online retailers:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks | Bundlerabbit

And check out the Goodreads page!

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A nice review of Tempest, the new Valdemar anthology

By Dayle A. Dermatis, Fantasy/SF, Kudos, Reviews

51Y2hLCKcPL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_Here’s a thoughtful review of Tempest: All-New Tales of Valdemar, the latest Valdemar anthology, with a specific mention of my story, “Unraveling the Truth” (warning: there’s a minor spoiler in the review, so you might want to read the story first).

And here’s a link to Tempest on Amazon, if you’re so inclined. (It’s available via any bookseller.)

Happy reviews mean happy authors! It’s always such a thrill to be included in these volumes, too!

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