What Spookery Is That? (Mature Magic, Book 5)(Paranormal Women's Midlife Fiction)

WHAT SPOOKERY IS THAT? SAM CHEEVER ELECTRIC PROSE PUBLICATIONS Copyright © 2023 by Sam Cheever All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS About Rome Stay in Touch The Lares Must Her Council Keep 1. A Full Blue Moon Does Magic Hold 2. Its Rays Ensure Adventure Bold 3. The Lares Must Her Council Keep 4. An Unknown Friend, an Intrigue Deep 5. The Dead Will Roar in Helpless Rage 6. To Feel the Touch of a Fleshly Sage 7. The Lion Bellows and Bares its Claws 8. The Celestial Spy its Ire Draws 9. A Supplicant, Her Pain Must Bear 10. A Bargain Struck, a Price Most Fair 11. The Lares’ Friends are Worse Than Foes 12. With Weapons Thrown the Tension Grows 13. A Friend Whose Family Needs Her Aid 14. A Dastardly Foe His Presence Made 15. Prisoners of the Beast Afraid 16. An Unpalatable Plan, a Favor Given 17. Unlikely Allies, Bargains Driven 18. Regrets and Revelations Sour 19. Our Friends Approach Their Darkest Hour 20. A Warning Comes, its Visions Dire 21. Regrets Renew the Lares Ire 22. A Tiny Fiend, a Mystery Brings 23. Our Heroes Plan, a Loved One Sings 24. A Demon’s Threats Strike the Child Most Dear 25. The Loss of Heart, the Lares’ Fear 26. A Battle Comes, a Killing Ground 27. And in the Fight a Clarity Found Don’t Miss Out About the Author Also by Sam Cheever ABOUT ROME Crafting worlds is crazy good fun. Authors love to make stuff up. Sometimes locations that are created for books seem like real places, even though they’re not. That’s actually good, because it means the author has done her job well. My fictional town of Rome, Indiana is not based on a real place. I’ve created a location that lives in my mind—one that fits the stories I wanted to tell. Hopefully you have enjoyed the picturesque town of Rome with all its paranormal challenges. I’m thankful for the opportunity to share this fictional town and its inhabitants with you. xo Sam Cheever PRAISE FOR SAM CHEEVER “You have that essential Je ne sais quoi that it takes to tell a story so mesmerizing you cannot stop reading once started. You are not telling stories to your readers…you are taking them with you on your adventures so that the experience can be shared by all as it happens and not simply replayed like a memory on the page of a diary! You are indeed gifted and it is my pleasure to read your books!” Valerie Irwin I'm trying to find my missing Council member, which might involve visiting the spectral plane. Something that I'm strangely not looking forward to. (sarc) The last thing I need is this...this mess. Achieving my full powers feels like mega-menopause, hot flashes and all. Unfortunately, these flashes can actually burn. Something’s changing. Something big. I’m finally achieving the last stage of my Lares power. I realize the transformation is going to be hard. It’s going to be painful and confusing. I know all of this because my advocate, the world’s crankiest moon hound and consummate know-it-all was elated to inform me about it. What I didn’t know was that I’d be trying to save one of my council members and beat off a demon invasion in the middle of the whole mess. Unfortunately, this is all starting to remind me of my initiation into the Lares gig. I barely survived that transition. I’m not so sure I’m going to survive this one. STAY IN TOUCH Sam doesn’t give away a lot of books. But she values her readers and, to show it, she’s gifting you a copy of a fun book just for signing up for her newsletter! SIGN UP HERE! https://samcheever.com/newsletter/ THE LARES MUST HER COUNCIL KEEP When every soul is drawn to see, a place where only death decrees, then life becomes a distant thought, and each torn heart once pleasure wrought, the devil rises on its heels, and every soul its future yields. A Full Blue Moon Does Magic Hold Its Rays Ensure Adventure Bold The Lares Must Her Council Keep An Unknown Friend, an Intrigue Deep The Dead Will Roar in Helpless Rage To Feel the Touch of a Fleshly Sage. The Lion Bellows and Bares its Claws The Celestial Spy its Ire Draws A Supplicant, Her Pain Must Bear A Bargain Struck, a Price Most Fair The Lares’ Friends are Worse Than Foes With Weapons Thrown the Tension Grows A Friend 1 A FULL BLUE MOON DOES MAGIC HOLD The moon was blue. It hung over us like a threat, so big and so close I imagined I could feel the touch of its rays against my skin. My hot, sweaty skin. Ten feet away, Wanda and Caleigh, otherwise known as the crone, had their heads bent over a grimoire they’d opened in the thick, overlong grass of the graveyard. I’d been informed by my groundskeeper, the gnome, that the grass would go into shock and falter if he cut it so late in the season. I didn’t know about any of that. I just wished it wasn’t drenching my sneakers. Blowing air through my lips, I felt instantly shamed. I was a sweaty, cranky