It’s launch day for Spellbinding: Tales from the Magic University! This collection of short stories include seven by me–two never before published and new for this edition–and ten by other writers exploring the world of Magic University!
POEM CONTEST!
To celebrate the new book, which is in paperback for the first time, I’m holding a contest to win an autographed copy of the book. To enter the contest write me a poem about sex, magic, or love and post it in the comments on my blog*! Haiku, limerick, sonnet, free verse: the form is up to you. I’ll accept entries until July 17th at midnight Eastern U.S. time!
Contest is open to people anywhere in the world. I’ll spring for the mailing cost if you’re somewhere distant.
If you’re wondering “why a poetry contest?” for a book of erotic fantasy stories, it’s because in my universe poetry itself is a powerful form of magic. The hero of the Magic University series, Kyle, has prodigious powers as a sex magician, but ultimately his ability as a poet is what shapes his destiny and the fate of those around him.
Poetry is magic. Creativity is magic. Love is magic. That’s pretty much what these books are about!
If you’d prefer to just purchase a copy instead of entering the contest, please do, at your favorite retail outlet–it should be going live everywhere today–including Amazon, All Romance eBooks, and Smashwords. If you’re on Goodreads please add it to your shelf!
*If you’re on Livejournal/Dreamwidth, please hop over to the original post to leave your contest entry so they’ll all be in one place? Here: https://www.ceciliatan.com/archives/2427
Title: Spellbinding
Subtitle: Tales from the Magic University
Author: Cecilia Tan
With contributions from Deb Atwood, Lauren P. Burka, Julie Cox, Rian Darcy, Sarah Ellis, Elisabeth Hurst, D.K. Jernigan, BriAnne Searles, and Frances K. Selkirk
Page count: 218
Word count: 72,808
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62601-204-2
Print ISBN: 978-1-62601-205-9
Categories: LGBT new adult, new adult paranormal, paranormal romance, erotic fantasy, short stories
Description:
When lovers meet, it’s magic–literally–when your characters are studying at the Magic University and erotic magic is the most powerful of all. In these 17 short stories featuring characters from Cecilia Tan’s Magic University LGBT new adult romance series, erotic energy heals wounds, lifts curses, bonds some people together, and tears some people apart. Tan and a merry crew of nine writers explore the intriguing secondary characters, unanswered mysteries, and background stories of Veritas.
Spellbinding includes 7 stories by Cecilia Tan–including two never before published!–and 10 by authors and fans she invited to come “play in her sandbox.” The stories range from fanciful “what ifs” to explorations of the backgrounds of characters we don’t fully learn in the course of the main novels. Through these tales we see Frost’s rescue as a child, the tumultuous relationship of Dean Bell and Master Brandish, what Kyle did on his summer vacation, and much more. Representing a range of sexualities, the stories include lesbian, gay, bi, and heterosexual pairings.
The Riverdale Avenue Books edition of Spellbinding will be the first in paperback and contains two never-before-published stories by Cecilia Tan. Any lover of magical erotic fiction will find much to enjoy, and any fan of Magic University will find these stories revealing.
Author Bio: Cecilia Tan is the recipient of the 2014 Pioneer Award and the Career Achievement Award in Erotica/Erotic Romance given by RT Magazine. She is not only the author of the Magic University series, but also Slow Surrender, The Prince’s Boy, Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, The Hot Streak, Mind Games, and many other books and stories. Susie Bright called her “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature.” Tan was inducted into the Hall of Fame for GLBT writers at the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival in 2010. She and her partner corwin (and their three cats) live in Cambridge.
Spellbinding is launched! Write a poem, win an autographed copy!
Not a poem, just a thank you:
Just finished binge-reading Spellbinding. Unending gratitude to all whose talents made for the revelatory beast that is this book!!! So many burning questions (how did Frost and Michael first hook up? who were Glendon and Ash seeing? what was Callendra’s name before her gender change? what kind of ritual preparations were involved in Brandish and Frost’s gender exchange prior to Brandish plucking a hair from her head? did Timothy and Dean Bell ever get it on, and, if so, what exactly went down? did Kyle and Alex ever get it on, and, if so, what kind of secret magical motivation for going through with it did Alex have? etc.) answered and so many new ones sparked (like this “Chimera”-induced Magic U./The Prince’s Boy crossover-fantasy-“what if…” I can’t help indulging: what if, in a past life, Frost was Jorin and Dean Bell was Sergetten?) Finally, a special shout-out to Lauren P. Burka: as a queer ASD creature, the combination of devouring “Aunt Wendy’s Ring” and Raven Kaldera’s Broken Toys—which I, perhaps-not-merely-coincidentally, just finished last night—has left me wondering if I’m only temporarily in the throes of an epic, off-the-charts-validating, text-based dream. I hope not; I hope I never wake up.
Wow! Whoa and wow. I have Raven Kaldera’s “Broken Toys” on my to-read list right now too (just noticed it bc of the Golden Flogger Award nomination it got!) and Lauren’s “Aunt Wendy’s Ring” is one of my faves in the book. Glendon was her idea originally: I inserted him into book 2 at her urging when I mentioned I was thinking of giving Kyle a “nerdy” roommate. “Make him autistic,” she said, “and I’ll write his story.” I don’t get to give him much screen time in the main novels and Kyle is too wrapped up in his own quest for self and love to figure him out, so I was very happy we get to see the world through Glendon’s eyes at last.
And wow on the Frost-Jorin/Bell-Sergetten idea… love it love it love it. (Write it!)
Rhythm
New York, My City,
she plays me her nightly lullaby
as I walk down one of her crowded sidewalks.
I love my city.
What I worship about her is her rhythm.
Horns squawk their impatient tune.
Coins in my pocket jangle as I walk.
People jostle each other.
Their jackets make swishing sounds.
Humans clear their throat.
I make my way to the Beehive.
An exclusive Jazz club
My face is the lightest one.
I get several uncomfortable looks.
1962.
That’s the year.
The band begins to play.
I am overtaken by the music;
gently I sway.
Sizzling beats melt me.
I am plastered to the wall.
The melodic music is the honey I glut myself on.
I am the fattest bee in the joint.
Fourteen times in two months, that’s how often I visit this place.
The chairs are too small or perhaps I’m too tall.
Sadly the band ends their jam and I head home.
I lie my head on the pillow and horns honk and the band plays.
Private concert
In my dreams
“I am the fattest bee in the joint.” Love it. New York still has that rhythm.
A haiku:
Bent over, parted,
My breath catches as I wait.
When will she thrust in?
oooo yasssss
A limerick:
When working a spell in the buff,
Holding focus can often be tough
With a partner who thrashes
The wrong way, and then crashes
Her wand right into your muff!
(Yes, I hate “muff” as a term there too, but nothing else sprang to rhyme).
*snerk*
Obsidian
She runs through the garden,
her exposed feet digging into the rich, black,
mica-flaked soil with every step.
The earth pulls her in, marking her
skin with the thorns and whip-like branches
that line the overgrown path.
Exhausted, she falls
to her knees in the once volcanic landscape,
her fingers wrapping around vitreous
cool surrounding barely contained centuries
of remembered heat.
The smooth sharpness of obsidian pierces
the palm of her right hand and echoes the coppery
sweetness that floods her mouth and gives rise
to nature, primeval and raw.
Oh gorrrrgeous. I love it.
Thought I’d haiku also:
Bound by a rope, spelled
out with arousal; wide eyes
and erection, mmm.
xx Dee
Excellent! Last syllable makes the whole thing! <3
even though I am frustrated by your absence
when the thought of your mouth on my lips crossed my mind
my whole body pulled as if on a string
played by your breath and tongue
and that is just a memory
Oh wow, lovely.
Lovely! Evocative!
–Sex–
Pound it thin like
mouths on chipped wood,
on glossy paper and pixels,
and it will slip away
at the break of dawn
between puddles and lamplight.
Forget it behind a bookcase
among dust and candy wrappers,
busy yourself with other things
until all you remember is the memory
of remembering its shape,
and when it comes calling
you’ll see a monster where your friend once stood
and taste his blood in your cunt.
It may brush against your leg in the dark
It may knock you down
It may carry you with it
to the slime-bedecked sea
but it is yours.
It breathes.
You hear it.
Oooh amazingly turned.
(Web URL corrected!)
—-
Interregnum
Through the Black Interregnum we took forbidden comforts.
I, the only child of a murdered king;
He, favored spy, prized target.
He found me in the bolted tower chamber where I hid,
in a forgotten northern keep;
we made love among musty velvet and cobwebs.
…That is what I tell my daughter,
the artful silent one who decoded his letters,
the one who still believes in making love.
Maybe we were making love when he came,
love the way we could give and receive it,
love the way we needed it as the world outside bled.
The world would not see it as love.
Not love, the way he kept the keys.
Not love, how when the door creaked shut behind him,
he pulled me to my feet by the warm hair at the nape of my neck.
Pushed my heavy robe from my shoulders
to crumple at the floor so I stood shivering in my chemise.
Not love, to put a queen in leather collar like a greyhound.
To lead her to the looming old bed.
To flip her back and chain her there, collar and four points.
To suckle her chill-hard nipples through fragile silk,
wetness from his mouth spreading like a shadow nimbus in the fabric,
until she groans and the bowl of her loins shifts and rises to his belly.
Wow! That is intense. And hot. Whew.