trans

P.S. I Love You (Love Is Love 03) by Meg Macy #BookTour #OtherWorldsInk #LGBTQ+ #Romance #NewRelease

Posted by

1

Moonbeams over Atlanta welcomes Meg Macy to the blog. On June 1st, 2026, she will release P.S. I Love You, book three of the series called Love Is Love. It’s an across-the-LGBTQ+-spectrum romance, including poly elements. You do need to read the prior two books in the series before reading this one.

BOOK BLURB

Jackson Riley and Juliette (aka Jules) Baxter are enmeshed in new situations. Jack fled his latest trauma to act in a rom-com film, taking a break from his relationship with Reese, but now regrets his impulsiveness. His ex-lover Kyle is the least of his problems when odd things happen on set and off.

Jules and Chris are committed to their new love affair and in charge of the breakfast café and a new bakery, but keeping on top of employees and finances is not yet a “piece of cake.” Family problems also plague Jules and Reese, while Jack discovers that acting in a film is totally different than acting on the stage.

Will he ever answer Reese’s barrage of texts and voicemails? Will Reese solve the mystery of Jack’s mysterious past?

Warnings: Past trauma

SERIES BLURB

In the Love Is Love series, these LGBTQA+ contemporary romance novels explore past hurts, healing, and the vulnerability of gay love and acceptance. Friendship, trust, courage, and resilience unite to combat fear and homophobia in reshaping lives and communities.

Buy Links:

Universal

EXCERPT

Life sometimes throws you a curveball out of nowhere. You either react fast and catch it, or you’re blindsided when it smacks you in the head. The latter applies to Jack Riley’s man, for sure. Reese Baxter missed the worst signs of trouble in their relationship.

Jack knows all about those curveballs, too, after surviving on the streets. He shivers after stepping out of the shower and checks the new tattoo on his upper arm. It’s healed, for the most part, but his skin has raised goosebumps. Michigan ain’t that far from Ontario, but damn. It’s fucking cold in Canada. When he first woke, he caught a glimpse of fat snowflakes outside the window against the darkness. Back in Ann Arbor, he wore shorts and a tee in a string of days with upper sixties temperatures. No need for a coat or a hoodie.

“Jesus. I’m gettin’ to be an old man bitchin’ about the damned weather.”

The patio installation at the café must be almost finished for the one year celebration. Jack wouldn’t blame his bestie and co-owner, Jules Baxter, for going ahead without him. Not that he knows what’s happening, since he ain’t answered any anyone’s texts. After packing a suitcase, donning a sweatshirt he stole from Reese, Jack rode with Kyle Kingston to this town in Canada to share an old house with his ex-lover’s friends. At least until they find out where they’re gonna be sent for the film production.

After toweling dry, Jack dons boxer briefs, jeans, a tee shirt, plus a wool and cashmere ice blue hoodie sweater he bought in Vegas. Takes out his makeup kit, adds moisturizer and bronzer. When his phone on the counter buzzes with a text, his hand slips. Cursing under his breath, he ignores the phone and wipes off his ruined eyeliner. Decides to go femboy with shimmery lavender shadow on his eyelids, contour and blush, then uses setting spray. He brushes and styles his hair, applies lip oil. At a loud crash, Jack rushes out of the bathroom.

 “What the hell, King! You okay?”

Muffled mumbling reaches his ears. Kyle rises from the floor, hands blindly groping, and slides back under the covers. “Do I look okay? Goddammit,” he grumbles. “You didn’t have to insist on twin beds, Tink.”

“Fuck off. You’re gonna be late if you ain’t got an alarm set.”

He throws a pillow at Jack. “Go fuck yourself. I need more sleep.”

“’Cause you got drunk last night.”

Kyle pulls the covers over his head. Jack chose to ignore everyone last night, since the table read today is stressful enough. Jack kept waking up, the party keeping him from much needed sleep. Deep snores from the other bedrooms reach his ears now. He failed to memorize his dialogue due to the noise. Hope he don’t bomb today. Reese always helped him relax, rubbing his back, huggin’ or kissin’ him. Jack misses seeing his man’s deep blue eyes, dark hair, scruffy jaw, that broad smile. He inserts his earbuds and chooses a playlist.

After tossing his kit on the flimsy bed, Jack heads to the kitchen. Good thing he set the machine up last night to brew at five a.m. Yawning, he fills two paper cups with black coffee. Adds lids to each… Until their production assistant can find a better place, he’s stuck here with actor friends of Kyle’s. Decent guys but total slobs.

 Having to share a room is another bone of contention. No way is Jack gonna film all day for two or three months with his ex-lover and deal with him all night, too. He wants privacy to chill on his own. That better happen, or he’s gonna pitch a fuckin’ fit.

But Jack smiles to hear Conan Gray’s song, “Maniac.” Perfect choice, given how he ended up here with Kyle. His ex abandoned him, then turned up again outta the blue. Wantin’ him back, despite Jack bein’ with Reese now. He shoulda never let him get under his skin.

Donning his boots, heavy parka, and gloves, Jack slings his backpack on one shoulder and carries the coffee cups into the cold. His breath steams in the air. He curses when a sip of coffee burns his tongue. It’s a ten minute walk to the table read location, but he ain’t in the mood to wait for Kyle. Too restless, Jack figures the fresh air will help clear his head. And bein’ early might make a good impression on the director.

Whatever that’s worth.

His homesickness keeps getting worse, his misery deep. Jack tramps on. Every step fails to ease his jumpy nerves. Why did he agree to do this film? For the money, of course, helping the café survive. They got so far in the red, Jack worried they’d lose everything. Until Reese stepped up and took over without telling him, renovating a building on the other side of the café’s parking lot into the Sunshine Bakery. That was a smart move. Less than a month after it opened, profits are paying off some of the debt.

But his man stepped over the line, not telling him he paid half the new patio’s cost with Jules. “Too fuckin’ late to quit this rom-com,” Jack says aloud. “I’m an asshole, lettin’ Kyle talk me into it. I should be at the café, not a stupid table read.”

Jack wished he listened to Stevie’s advice before running off. Regret hits him now. He misses Reese, bad. Seeing his man, sharing meals, cuddling after sex and playing with his chest hair, waking early to see him, his cheeks flushed, hair mussed, naked under a sheet. Or without anything covering his muscular shoulders, arms, and ass. Jack loved to watch Reese sleep or wake up, grumpy and silent, until he drinks coffee.

“Dammit. Stop being so fucking stubborn and text him…”

Buy Links:

Universal

AUTHOR BIO

Meg Macy

National bestselling author Meg Macy first dreamed of seeing a book with her name on it in the school library. She’s always found comfort, adventure, and connection in books—which might explain why she now writes stories that offer all three.

Meg writes LGBTQIA+ romance with a touch of spice, intrigue, and plenty of emotional payoff in the LOVE IS LOVE series. M/M romance and M/F polyamory, her stories are comfort reads with a twist. She’s also written cozy mysteries for Kensington, the Shamelessly Adorable Teddy Bear series, and is one half of the D.E. Ireland team for the Agatha-Award nominated historical mysteries featuring Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins.

She lives with her writing companion, Mr. Whiskers the cat, and prefers pages to parties.

Author Website
Author Facebook (Personal)
Author Facebook (Author Page)
Author Instagram
Author Goodreads
Author QueeRomance Ink
Author Amazon

#BookBlitz Phoning Faust by Sophie Mutiara Nova #NewRelease #LGBTQ+ #NonBinary #Paranormal #UrbanFantasy #NineStarPress

Posted by

0

Please welcome returning author Sophie Mutiara Nova to the Moonbeams over Atlanta blog. This is a book blast for the new release Phoning Faust. It is a fairytale retelling that looks intriguing with demisexual and genderfluid dynamics. Let’s kick of Pride month in style and read on. 😉

Title: Phoning Faust
Author: Sophie Mutiara Nova
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 06/02/2026
Heat Level: 1 – No Sex
Pairing: F/NB
Length: 208

Add to Goodreads

Book Description

Queer mixed Indonesian college student Dian Faust attempts to call the suicide hotline only to dial the wrong number, her finger slipping and typing in six three times (the mark of the Devil). The mysterious voice on the other end of the line is revealed to be a charming scam caller named Memphis with a penchant for chattiness, trapped in a dingy bus stop bathroom, wanting to learn a concerning amount about the lonely Dian’s life.

But this scam caller is more than just a Mr. Robot hacker wannabe—a sinister presence lurks in the pixels on Dian’s laptop screen in the shadows of her apartment. The Devil themself has come to collect Dian’s soul, and “Memphis” is actually Mephistopheles—Hell’s foremost golden-tongued agent and notorious liar.

In this loose retelling of Queer mixed Indonesian college student Dian Faust attempts to call the suicide hotline only to dial the wrong number, her finger slipping and typing in six three times (the mark of the Devil). The mysterious voice on the other end of the line is revealed to be a charming scam caller named Memphis with a penchant for chattiness, trapped in a dingy bus stop bathroom, wanting to learn a concerning amount about the lonely Dian’s life.

But this scam caller is more than just a Mr. Robot hacker wannabe—a sinister presence lurks in the pixels on Dian’s laptop screen in the shadows of her apartment. The Devil themself has come to collect Dian’s soul, and “Memphis” is actually Mephistopheles—Hell’s foremost golden-tongued agent and notorious liar.

In this loose retelling of Goethe’s Faust, will Dian save her soul before time runs out—or will she fall prey to the renowned storytelling deception of the infamous Mephistopheles?, will Dian save her soul before time runs out—or will she fall prey to the renowned storytelling deception of the infamous Mephistopheles?

Excerpt

Phoning Faust
Sophie Mutiara Nova © 2026
All Rights Reserved

This is not a cry for help.

This is a scream.

Please, please, please.

I don’t want to die alone.

The suicide hotline is taking too long. Another shining example of the American medical system as I stare, dissociating, at my black-polish-chipped nails surrounding the dimly lit version of my nighttime phone screen. The string of unfamiliar text blinks blankly back at me. Not judging. Not caring. On my empty gold-whorl desk, a laptop. The web browser which has “I WANT TO DIE” in a Google search next to a second tab that screams: “HELP ME.”

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to.

I don’t…alone…

I sigh as the ringtone keeps going, going, going, gone. It’s a little comforting, the faded buzz like a lukewarm high in my brain as I shiver while encased in sweat. It feels cold tonight even as my body runs hot. I’m always cold even in the heat of summer, like the vampire in Nosferatu, shadow tendrils trailing along white walls. I’m also all cried out at this point, empty as the bottom of a Styrofoam cup. Monologuing to my own reflection in the mirror like Gen Z Hamlet (to be or not to be) so at least someone listens.

I stare at the empty cardboard box across from me with a smiley face note on it. My roommate, singular, had long packed up after we got the pandemic alert. All our courses cancelled as the oh-so-lucky graduating class of 2020, sending us off to an uncertain one-week vacation while they rebooted school for Zoom classes.

My roommate, Talia, and I had gotten along decently for the past three years, time flying by in a whirl of late-night fast-food adventures and giggling over TV show reruns. Though she’d taken to more emotional distance as my senioritis turned to ennui turned to something much worse. Something that probably required a clinical diagnosis—but hell if I was going to haul ass to the campus medical ward with COVID on the rise. They had bigger problems than my mental health right now to deal with.

Talia returned home to parents who are worried about her, relatives who rely on her college knowledge to make the world a better place. Time and visas and the pandemic are all extra unkind to her as an international student, even if she is from Canada. We’d bonded fast over both being Southeast Asian—I was part Indonesian, and she was Filipina, and we’d often joke over the word selamat meaning “hello” in Indonesian but “thank you” in Tagalog. Switching dinner responsibilities and struggling through half-remembered family recipes when we were homesick. I always begged her to bring extra hopia from her trips visiting aunties, and whenever I fried kerupuk I’d find a few missing after I got home. It was a symbiotic relationship.

But I miss Talia—the void she left behind—as I stare at her smiley-face note, the spare coffee maker she left even if I don’t have any of those special tinfoil cups to put in it. I barely have enough energy to eat microwave oatmeal and mi goreng lately.

Which leads to me here, stuck in lockdown, surrounded by crappy dorm room furniture and microwave, nonperishable meals. A vacant room where Talia used to be. I’d insisted on staying out the rest of my lease even if campus was nonoperational. My parents are maybe an eight-hour drive from here, but I told them I wanted to quarantine a bit before going home to see them. My mom’s immunocompromised, and I don’t want to risk giving her anything. Plus, home has always been a bit tense since I was outed a while ago as queer when my aunt saw me in the college pamphlets during Pride Week—Pride flags smeared across my grinning cheeks in vibrant, technicolor paint. I’d rather let that conversation go to voicemail, metaphorically and in what remained of my reality.

I reframe my time alone here as a martyr’s sacrifice, a saintly retreat, like all those macabre stories I learned from Sunday school. Like Joan of Arc burning in her armor, cursing out the enemies of Satan and giving up her life for all of France. Or maybe she was crazy like I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just as bad as her, continuing a cycle of women who thought they had to die rather than live and be “too much.”

The number you have dialed is not responding, please hang up and try—

I hang up.

I don’t want to try again.

I stare at the bottle of aspirin. Our generation’s version of ambrosia or perhaps snake oil, a cure-all that could vanquish your average colds, flus, fevers, and everything but the mysterious virus devastating America. The plague is upon us and all I have are crumpled masks from our school health office in the corner and vitamin C packets—like that will keep me safe. Global warming is getting worse, world events are shitty, but I’m alive. A lot of people don’t have that luxury.

God, I’m a shithead.

I don’t deserve to…to…

I stare at my open laptop screen. The morbid searches. I don’t deserve to do this. People in the world are really suffering. Afraid and huddled together for warmth against a cruel, unforgiving backdrop of hellish global torment. I don’t deserve to cry about this. Cry about what? Being lonely? Being “big sad”?

Why do I feel so empty inside?

I shake my head as though that’ll clear it, brushing away the flyaway bangs at the corners of my newly pierced eyebrows. I’d DIYed a haircut I’d grabbed off social media, wanting to look more rocker chick but instead, just looking like a little kid with craft scissors. That was okay. It would grow out soon. My mom’s hair always grew out thicker. My dad was bald. He said I had good hair—shame I kept dyeing it and chopping it and dyeing it again in my quest to find myself in queer person’s second puberty. Change helped me feel better…

…for a little while at least.

I take in a deep breath. Suck it up, bitch. And I type in the number of the emergency hotline again. But my fingers type too fast, vision a bit hazy, and I accidentally press too many 6s. Three of them, in fact. My blood runs cold.

My mom would call it the devil’s number.

Not knowing what possesses me, I press enter. The number rings…

…and rings…

And finally, someone picks up. A few breaths into the receiver and I’m blushing already, unsure how to handle speaking to another person. I haven’t seen anyone since Talia left in a flurry of quick tears and hasty care packages. “H-hello?” I stammer.

“Hello.” The voice that purrs back is silky, soft. Full of sensuality like the sex kittens in all those movies from the 1960s, lounging on a lace canopy bed as big bad Mr. Super Spy comes back from one of his missions. Dressed in nothing but a diaphanous nightgown. But there’s something else to her voice, a vocal fry undertone, like a punk rock babe singing about crimson and clover. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

Jesus. It seems I have accidentally called an escort. My thumb hovers over the End Call button as I stare, my cheeks fully on fire now at the traitorous phone. “S-sorry. It seems I’ve called the wrong number.”

“Or the right one, baby. We could go at this all night.” Then, an ungodly hacking sound, like a black cat with its hackles raised in an arch, coughing up a hairball. “Sonuvabitch, sorry. That voice is really hard to keep up.”

Purchase at:

NineStar Press
Books2Read

Meet the Author

Queer Midwest emo turned Scream-Queen-Lover (in real life and onscreen) Sophie Mutiara Nova/Whittemore is a half-Indonesian, SLE-diagnosed Writer-Director. They are the Writing Fellow of the ACEX TV Initiative and Finalist of the Emmy’s TV Academy Foundation Directing Program. Their TV series have been selected at the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, ScreenCraft and more. They’ve screened in festivals internationally and across the US and won the Los Angeles Asian Film Awards. Their monster book CATCH LILI TOO was spotlighted by GCLS (known for honoring Allison Bechdel). Originally from Chicago, Sophie’s now based in Los Angeles ( Dartmouth College BFA & MFA Film Directing CalArts). When not writing or rocking out, they perform Indonesian traditional dance with Burat Wangi.

Website
Facebook
X
Instagram
Pinterest
YouTube
https://www.indigomarketingdesign.com

Love Me Do (Love Is Love 02) by Meg Macy #BlogTour #OtherWorldsInk #LGBTQ+ #Romance #Poly #Contemporary #RainbowIdentities #NewRelease

Posted by

0

Moonbeams over Atlanta welcomes Meg Macy, a new author, to the blog. On December 15th, 2025, they released Love Me Do, book two of the series called Love Is Love. It’s a polyamory, neurodivergent, LGBTQA+ romance that’s right up my alley.

BOOK BLURB

Longtime friends Jackson Riley and Juliette (aka Jules) Baxter are committed to fulfilling their first year of business at their breakfast café, but trouble is brewing again in their personal lives. Jack and Reese Baxter are in a committed relationship — or are they? Jack’s not so certain given Reese’s continued reluctance to come out of the closet. Jules has ended her polyamorous relationships, but she’s juggling her romantic attraction to two café staff members – a man and a woman. Jules’s parents split in their support of the cafe, and Reese’s mother is making a big stink as well. When more details of Jack’s secret past rise from the ashes, everything is thrown in turmoil. Will they all survive to celebrate?

Warnings: Anxiety, past abuse, foster care, trans attack, cutting

SERIES BLURB

In the Love Is Love series, three LGBTQA+ contemporary romance novels explore past hurts, healing, and the vulnerability of gay love and acceptance. Friendship, trust, courage, and resilience unite to combat fear and homophobia in reshaping lives and communities.

Buy Links:
Universal | Goodreads

EXCERPT

Juli eyes Jack. “How come you two didn’t stay at the Unicorn until midnight on New Year’s Eve?”

He glances over the table at Reese, whose cheeks flush again. “We agreed to go home early. My man gets overwhelmed with so many people.” Jack leans over and whispers a phrase that Chris doesn’t catch, then taps out a pattern on the table with a finger. “You good?”

Reese taps the same pattern with a smile and visibly relaxes. But he keeps his eyes on the table, avoiding the growing crowd around them. Chris steers the conversation in a different direction, figuring that might help as well.

“I heard last year the Unicorn was so crowded, people couldn’t get in.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I was so squashed, I got bruises.”

“You kissed all the pretty boys that night,” Juli teases him. “You went missing a few times, too. Bet you were popular in the men’s restroom, is that it?”

“Hey, I missed my friends after being gone,” he says, his face scarlet from his hairline to his neck. “But Stevie and me left for Blake’s house. They don’t like crowds, neither.”

Reese remains silent, eyes hooded. Chris saw the social media posts from over a year ago, and Juli’s right—Jack was the life of that party. A couple photos showed him sandwiched between two guys on the dance floor, hugging, kissing, groping.

Juli squeals when the waiter sets her pulled pork entrée down with a separate plate of French fries. “Oh my God and the angels, these are so good!”

He steals a few garlic fries. “Remember you owe me, babe.”

“For drinking some of your milkshake?”

“Some? Like more’n half!”

Jack finishes his salad bowl and leans against Reese’s shoulder. “I’m stuffed, that was so good. Glad we didn’t order that churro. You’re as bad as my man chowing down on beef, cheese, and bacon all together. Talk about risking a heart attack.”

Reese shakes his head, his mouth turning up into a half smile. “Don’t listen to him. More than eighty percent of vegetarians go back to eating meat.”

“I’m pescatarian. Just for that, I’ll making pasta with tofu tomorrow for dinner.”

“Hmm. I might have to work late.”

“What a coward! You won’t get a tattoo neither.”

“My body is a temple, not a canvas—”

Juli giggles at their teasing exchange. “Love always wins in the end.”

Chris notices a tall, well-built guy in a hoodie staring at them near the door before he saunters over to their table with a big grin. Doesn’t say anything, but stands behind Jack, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. Cocks his head, clearly listening.

“You ain’t gonna believe this. I was sat down when this lady comes up to me, asking—” Seeing Chris point a finger behind him, Jack twists around in surprise. “The hell?”

The stranger pulls him up from the bench and gives him a ferocious bear hug. “Tink! Knew I’d run into you at some point.”

Jack pulls free. “Never expected to see you in Michigan—wait, hold on.” He turns toward the table. “Hey, everyone. Kyle Kingston is an actor friend from New York. This is my business partner, Jules Baxter, and Chris Bouchard. And here’s my hot man, Reese Baxter.”

Already standing, Reese extends a hand to shake. The actor accepts and gives Jack a knowing smirk, which puzzles Chris. Is Kyle gay or straight? He eyes Juli with interest, winking at her and acting more like a “bro” with a swagger, but keeps a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Chris notices how Reese looks more stone-faced while Jack and Kyle exchange tidbits about theater friends they knew back in New York. At last the actor glances around at them, as if realizing they’re all listening.

“What kind of business are you in, Tink?” the actor asks.

“Running a breakfast café,” Jack says. “Here Comes the Sun’s north of the river. You should stop in and see it. I can text you the address. You still got the same number? Did you ever replace your Android, that damned screen was so scratched….”

Chris stays quiet, but Juli’s attempts to get a word in edgewise are hit or miss. She glances his way and hides a smile behind one hand. Signals him to leave by hooking a thumb at the door. He tosses money on the table to cover their part of the bill.

“Nice meeting you, Kyle! See you guys later.” Juli hurries outside, Chris trailing her, but she turns and holds out a few bills. “This wasn’t a date, remember, so I’ll pay for myself.”

“I just figured you wanted to get out of there fast.”

“I did! You saw Reese? I swear steam came out of his ears,” she says, laughing hard. “He is soooo jealous. I could tell if Kyle has the hots for Jack, didn’t you think so? I wonder if there’s more between them than we know.”

“I remember Stevie or Blake talking about some guy Jack was dating in New York.”

Juli rubs her hands together with a wicked gleam in her blue eyes. “You mean more than a hookup? Oooh. Guess I’ll have to dig for the gossip! If Blake doesn’t know, then for sure Stevie will tell me.”

“She doesn’t know everything about Jack, though,” Chris says, “and Stevie claimed that Jack avoided committed relationships. He’s been with Reese for what, over six months?”

“Yeah, Jack resisted whenever I tried to them up for a blind date last year when we opened the café. Hey, today was a lot of fun,” she says. “Sometimes I get so wrapped up at home or doing a bunch of errands, I never enjoy a day off.”

“Yeah, I get that. I’m also Stevie’s personal assistant, doing her laundry and getting her groceries. Without the benefits—money or sex,” Chris adds with a wink.

Juli bursts out laughing again, her reddish-gold hair framing her face like a halo.

Buy Links:
Universal | Goodreads

AUTHOR BIO

Meg Macy

National bestselling author Meg Macy is a reader first and foremost. She’s always found comfort, adventure, and connection in books—which might explain why she now writes stories that offer all three.

Best known for her Shamelessly Adorable Teddy Bear Mystery series (Kensington), several Christmas romance novellas with rescue pets, and as one-half of D.E. Ireland, the Agatha Award-nominated duo behind the Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins mysteries, Meg has long embraced the cozy end of fiction.

Now, she’s rewriting the rules with a new direction: LGBTQA+ romantic suspense —queer characters in a cozy setting, with spice, intrigue, and plenty of emotional payoff. M/M or M/F polyamory, traditional or trailblazing, her stories are comfort reads with a twist. Unique? Yep. Meg loves breaking the rules. She lives with her writing companion, Mr. Whiskers the cat, and prefers pages to parties any day.

Author Website
Author Facebook (Personal)
Author Facebook (Author Page)
Author Instagram
Author Goodreads
Author QueeRomance Ink
Author Amazon

Broken Mirror (Resonant Earth Volume 01) by Cody Sisco #BlogTour #NewRelease #OtherWorldsInk #LGBTQ+ #Paranormal #Romance #Giveaway #Queer

Posted by

0

Moonbeams over Atlanta welcomes Cody Sisco to the blog. Broken Mirror is the first book in the Resonant Earth series, and this second edition was released on August 16th, 2024. There is a Rafflecopter giveaway at the end of the post for Tortured Echoes, the sequel to Broken Mirror. Read on to discover more and good luck!

BOOK BLURB

A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself.

Broken Mirror is the first volume in a queer psychological science fiction saga that looks at the stigma of mental illness and the hellish distrust and alienation that goes with it.

Victor Eastmore knows someone killed his grandfather, the pioneering scientist Jefferson Eastmore. But Victor, diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome, has been shunned by Semiautonomous California society. Nobody will believe a Broken Mirror. Now Victor must tread the line between sanity and reclassification—a fate that all but guarantees he’ll lose his freedom.

With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the science fiction world of Broken Mirror may sound like a near future utopia, but on Resonant Earth, history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe manipulates its citizens through propaganda. And Asia is reeling from decades of war.

Determined to uncover the truth about Jefferson’s murder, pansexual Victor and his trans friend Elena set out on a road trip that takes them across the American Union from Semiautonomous California through the Organized Western States to the Republic of Texas. But Elena is holding something back, and Victor’s condition worsens.

Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a cyberpunk crossroads: evolve or go extinct.

Warnings: violence, discrimination against characters with mental health challenges

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link | Goodreads Link

EXCERPT

Chapter One

A new universe, its vibrations, called to me, and I answered, ignorant of the harm in crossing over.

—Victor Eastmore, Apology to Resonant Earth, (transmission date unknown)

Semiautonomous California

29 February 1991

It’s one thing to die quietly with things left unsaid among family members. It’s another thing to do what the great Jefferson Eastmore did with his secrecy and architecture of conspiracy: keep essential truths from Victor and put him on a collision course with an uncanny future.

Victor gazed across City Lake toward the tessellated foothills, where the elite families of Oakland and Bayshore kept their hedges trimmed and thorny. His grandfather’s sarcophagus was up there, surrounded by marble pillars and gold-gilt fencing shaped like twisted strands of DNA. A tidy and neat brick gravemound would never have sufficed, since at the end of his life, Jefferson was as grandiose as his cancer-curing career. The stones were plucked from the canals of New Venice, and a plaque listed the man’s many accomplishments. Not listed was his failed effort to cure Victor of mirror resonance syndrome.

Victor spun around to face the city skyline. The morning was bright and windy. The timefeed on his MeshBit indicated thirty minutes until his reclassification appointment. He could go and wait in the anteroom, but his anxious vibrations might shake the building to its foundations.

He took a breath. No going back. Before the sun reached its zenith that day, his path would materialize. If he were lucky, he could stay a Class Three: free but under close supervision. Or he could become a Class Two: under guard, imprisoned, at a rancho in the hinterlands. He whispered a cherished but inconsistently effective mantra to fight off brain blankness: The wise owl listens before asking who. Each episode of blanking out was one more step toward mirror resonance syndrome’s inevitable tragic end: becoming a comatose Class One, insensate, a forgotten ward of the government. The only unknown factor was how quickly the future would crash against him.

He trudged along the shoreline, tensing and relaxing his jaw, trying to distract himself. Glittering towers rose exultantly cityside. Squally breezes swooped out of a cloudless, azure sky and assaulted bulrushes, sedges, and cattails in the shallows where a grid of waterplots penned them in.

Granfa Jefferson had been poisoned. Victor knew it. He had proof. But his family didn’t believe him, and if he said any more about it, he would be locked away. Fair? No. Surprising? Not really. After all, his life was a farcical succession of tragedies. It wasn’t time to give up, though. Not while he had unanswered questions.

The palm trees encircling the lake rustled like cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms. The water rippled, creating countless sun flashes on the lake’s surface, and afterimages glowed and pulsed when he closed his eyes. The stench of goose shit turned his stomach.

He wedged the MeshBit’s detachable sonobulb in his ear, then called Elena. She answered right away. This was not the first time her promptness was suspicious.

“See?” she said. “When a friend calls, you should answer. Right away. Not never.”

“I know. I need your help,” he said. “My appointment is here. I’m having trouble.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“City Lake. West shore.”

“I can’t get there in time.”

You were there for Granfa Jeff’s funeral. You showed up at my apartment whenever you wanted. Why can’t you be here now?

“Then talk to me,” Victor said. “Anything to keep my mind off my theories about Granfa Jeff.”

At the time, Victor had nothing close to the truth about Jefferson’s secret messages and plans for conspiracy and counter-conspiracy. He couldn’t have guessed his role in the proliferating conflagration that would transform every person on Resonant Earth and beyond. No one could have predicted the neuro-contagion that eventually radiated beyond the American Union of Nations, or the mind-machine hybridization that became humanity’s destiny, or the fact that crossing over to another world would become a possibility rather than paranoia. If Victor had guessed any of it, he might have failed his reclassification deliberately and shown up at the gates of a rancho to check himself in. All this was a lot to have piled onto a mentally unstable young adult.

“But you found radiation on the data egg,” Elena said. “I believe you. We’re going to figure this out.”

Universal Buy Link | Goodreads Link

Giveaway:

Cody is giving away an ebook copy of Tortured Echoes, the sequel to Broken Mirror:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link if unable to see the above embedded Rafflecopter: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47317/

AUTHOR BIO

Cody Sisco is an author, editor, publisher, and literary community organizer. His LGBT psychological science fiction series includes two novels thus far, Broken Mirror and Tortured Echoes. He is a freelance editor specializing in genre-bending fiction and the acquisitions editor for RIZE Press. In 2017, he co-founded Made in L.A. Writers, an indie author co-op dedicated to the support and appreciation of independent authors. His startup, BookSwell, is a literary events and media production company dedicated to lifting up marginalized voices and connecting readers and writers in Southern California and beyond. He serves as a co-executive on the Board of Governors for the Editorial Freelancers Association, as the treasurer for the LGBTQ+ Editors Association, and as a board member at APLA Health.

Author Website | Author Facebook (Personal) | Author Facebook (Author Page) | Author Instagram | Author Goodreads | Author Amazon