EMBERS
Anya Kalinczyk #1
Pocket Juno Books
Mass Market Paperback, $7.99
ISBN: 978-1439167656
April 2010
“One of the most promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not much higher praise that I can give.”
—Elizabeth Bear on Tor.com
“Bickle has something great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex, police, and murder.”
—M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels
“Gritty but never grim, Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”
—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade
Unemployment, despair, anger--visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit's unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.
Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya--who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern--suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil's Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya--with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team --can stop it.
Anya's accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she's risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she's ever faced.
A free excerpt is available here
and 
SPARKS
Anya Kalinczyk #2
Pocket Juno Books
Mass Market Paperback, $7.99
ISBN 978-1439167687
September 2010
The second book in Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)
- RT Book Reviews
...a charming and inventive read.
-Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010
WITHOUT A TRACE...
Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.
After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.
and
A free excerpt is available here.
AUTHOR BIO
Laura Bickle has an MA in sociology-criminology (research interests: fear of crime and victimology) and a BA in criminology. She has worked in and around criminal justice since 1997. Although she does read Tarot cards, she's never used them in criminal profiling or to locate lost scientists. She recently took up astronomy, but for the most part her primary role in studying constellations and dark matter is to follow her amateur astronomer-husband around central Ohio toting the telescope tripod and various lenses. Writing as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket - Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE.
More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: http://www.salamanderstales.com
Laura/ Alayna’s blogs
http://www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com and http://delphisdaughters.blogspot.com
She’s a proud member of Word-whores
She’s at Facebook, and Fangs, fur and fey
GUEST POST
The
Care and Feeding of your Magickal Familiar
by
Laura Bickle
The
idea of the magickal familiar isn't new. The idea of a magick worker having a
helpmate has appeared frequently in fantasy and urban fantasy. Oftentimes, these
familiars take the shape of creatures that occupy our own homes. I'm owned by
four semi-reformed feral cats in my non-writing life, and I can fully
appreciate how intertwined these delightful creatures become with our own
lives.
When
I set out to begin writing the Anya Kalinczyk series, I wanted my heroine to
have a familiar, some bit of unconditional love in her chaotic world. By day,
Anya investigates suspicious fires as an arson investigator in Detroit. By night, she works as part of an
eccentric group of ghost hunters. Anya's the rarest type of spiritual medium -
a Lantern. Where other mediums allow spirits to use their hands and voices to
communicate, Anya incinerates malicious ghosts.
I'd
established a theme centering around flame....and decided to give Anya a fire
salamander as a companion. Salamanders haven't gotten much press since
Paracelsus' time. They are the elemental avatars of fire. Our ancestors assumed
that they were the spirit of fire, as they were often seen crawling out of logs
tossed into hearth blazes. The salamander was probably annoyed to have his
peaceful woodland home turned to tinder, and was making a fleet-footed escape.
But alchemists and sorcerers made the link between salamanders and flames, and
the association has endured.
There's
not much to find about salamanders in the literature, beyond their origins.
They're rumored to be capricious, destructive, and unpredictable as fire
itself. That made a salamander a perfect sidekick for Anya. And Sparky hopped
out onto the page, wiggling his tail and looking for trouble.
Sparky
was handed down to Anya by her mother. When he's taking a nap or disinterested
in Anya's work, he's housed in a salamander-shaped torque she wears around her
neck. When he's feeling peevish, or in the presence of danger or ghosts, he's
unleashed from the necklace. Most often, he takes the form of a five-foot
speckled hellbender. Only Anya and ghosts can see him, but he makes his
influence felt in the physical world: he can disrupt electrical fields. He's
prone to chewing on cell phones, shorting out fire alarm systems, blowing up
microwaves, and wreaking havoc on nearly anything he can get his paws on. He's
not a bad salamander...he just manages to find trouble, wherever he goes. In SPARKS, he manages to get
the fire department called on him at a baby superstore and sets off the
sprinkler system at the crime lab while playing with a Bunsen burner.
And
no, he doesn't have a leash.
Sparky
is fiercely protective of Anya. He's not fond of the idea of suitors entering
Anya's bedroom. He spends his nights curled up at the foot of Anya's bed,
cuddling his Glow-Worm toy. Like a possessive pet, he doesn't want to share.
Anya,
as you can see, has her hands full with Sparky. After introducing him in EMBERS,
I decided to give Anya a few more headaches in SPARKS. While Anya's tied up with a
spontaneous human combustion case and exploring her feelings for a fellow ghost
hunter, Sparky decides to bring a bit more chaos into Anya's life...by laying
eggs in Anya's bathtub. Fifty-one of them.
If
Anya thought she had problems keeping just one salamander under control, she's
going to be up the creek with fifty-one.
Thanks so much for hosting me! :-) I'm super-excited to be here.
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