Magician First Class: LAUNCHED!

Magician First Class, the first book in the Sparks and Recreation series launches worldwide today! Buy it from Amazon, add it to your Kindle Unlimited library, purchase a paperback or hardcover, or ask your library to stock it, because it's LIVE!

Look at my Charlie. When my cover artist and I were picking a stock footage model to buy pictures of (you need lots, for a series I would like to be lengthy) I was immediately like THIS ONE, CHECK OUT THIS NERD WITH HER BOOK.

I did not know that a book about community building and choosing to do the right thing would be so on-the-nose topical when I started writing it.

I did know that it would be relevant, because standing up against bullies and bigots is always relevant.1

I knew that my nerdy protagonist Charlie had to be a history graduate, because historians have a wider view.

I knew that she had to be mostly new to community building and resistance work, because I want the readers to follow her journey (and her inevitable mistakes).

I knew that she would have a stubborn adherence to individualism and a belief that she has to do things herself that's going to take her some time to get over.

I knew that she'd be a newbie, in other words - good-hearted, trying her best, but not always getting it one hundred percent right.

And I knew that the series had to be fun, because community work is fun.

There are some grim moments and dangerous confrontations, but this is a book with a lot of banter, between Charlie and her new workmates, her punk vigilante local pack leader (possibly my favourite character), and the clairvoyant in Alphabet city (okay, maybe that's my favourite character). There are moments of tenderness and friendship. There are wry observations and unexpected kindnesses. There is making out in the front seat of a muscle car with a half-demon (very important) and a hot Nordic vampire who looks like a businessman in a ten thousand dollar suit (also essential).

I've described it as "urban fantasy with heart" because that's what it feels like to me. Charlie and the people around her have heart and humour, and that's really important to me.

There are also people without heart, trying to do terrible things. There are some evils that can't be tolerated in community life, and it costs something to resist them. But mostly, there are people looking out for each other and trying their best. Writing stories like that feels important right now. If you want to read one, here you go.

(And if you want to rate/review Magician First Class, I would be delighted. Reviews make a huge difference to Amazon ranking, and therefore to sales, and therefore to how many more of these I can write.)

While you're at it, don't forget to check out Romantasy Rebels, where you can get 26 fantasy romance novelettes and novellas about pushing back and standing up, by FaRo Society. You can buy this anthology from all your favourite e-retailers, and all proceeds go to PEN America, to combat book bans and fight for freedom of expression.

I have a great novelette in there that you can only get in its new and expanded form via this anthology, and there are brilliant works from Casey Blair, Stephanie Burgis, Vela Roth, Heather G. Harris, and more. Rebel romantically and fantastically!

That Healey Girl is the newsletter of Karen (or Kate) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might enjoy it.

1 I'm halfway through Second Chance Charms now, and it's like hm, this is... okay, we've got police harassment, and overt dogwhistling against magical minorities, and a war on fae drugs weaponized by bigots and yeah, yep, that sure is something to be writing about. Okay! Let's go!