Showing posts with label magic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magic. Show all posts

Sunday, July 5, 2026

πŸŽ…πŸŽ†πŸŽ„Sunday's Safe Word Shelf-Xmas in JulyπŸŽ„πŸŽ†πŸŽ…: Naughty Elf-Sugar by Wendy Rathbone



Summary:
Santa's Naughty Elf Mates 
If I don’t find my fated mate by Christmas, I’ll be banned from the North Pole forever.

I’ve messed up bad for the last time.

My life is a series of mistakes. The first happens when I am born and dumped unwanted at the door of Santa Christero, who immediately adopts me.

Being raised by a Santa from the revered consortium of Santas sounds like an omega elf’s dream come true, right? Wrong. While he loves me a lot, my father, Christero, is one of the busiest of all the Santas and spends very little time at home. I revere him, but I rarely see him. Sno, his housekeeper, is the one who raises me. He is wonderful, but old, and my spoiled and lazy behind gets away with a lot of mischief.

When I turn nineteen, my father decides I should work in his toy shop to learn responsibility. I take advantage of the job by not showing up on time and having three-hour lunches.

One day, I fill a thousand fancy stockings with candy and gum only to discover they are the diabetic gift stockings and have to be scrapped. You’d think someone who goes by the name of Sugar could get that right, but not me.

My father is so furious he conjures a spell that turns me into an elf figurine.

My final instructions before being boxed up and mailed to some unknown destination are: Find yourself. Find love. Find your mate. You have until Christmas or you will become an elf figurine forever.

I have only eight weeks and no idea how to make that happen.

MM romance, omegaverse, alpha/omega, holiday romance, rescue, blizzards, cabin in the woods, only one bed, heat, knotting, mpreg, HEA.

Santa’s Naughty Elves brings you a new series of Christmas magic, fated mates, and adorable babies from some of your favorite mpreg authors. Be sure to grab them all and see what knotty fun Santa has brought good alphas and omegas this holiday season.




PROLOGUE
Sugar
Colorful lights glittered up and down the empty street. The first major storm of fall had hit Santa’s Village and here I stood on the school walkway looking ridiculous in my red velvet pants and blazer, no winter coat, and lightweight black boots.

I heard him before I saw him. The tapping of his cane. The heaviness of his boots.

Sno’s hunched figure turned the corner, the gray silhouette of my 90-year-old elf nanny appearing through the thickly falling snow. His red and white striped cane tapped the concrete as he limped toward me.

Even though magic spells protected the village from the worst of the north winds, snow still got through. No one else was out in this weather. They were all in school or doing their jobs. No one but me and Sno, and I felt terrible.

I ran toward him, slipping and sliding as I went. Even though I was only in second grade, I knew better than to run. My shoes weren’t made for the ice. But I didn’t care. I was mad and sad and very very bad.

I nearly slid into Sno, who caught me easily with his free arm, holding me close as he spoke.

“I hear you’re banned from the Christmas party this year. And suspended for the next two days.”

I stomped my foot and tightened my shoulders. “I don’t care. I don’t like the other elves and shifters. I called them bad words.”

“Your teacher called and told me what happened. You ran out of class and into the storm.”

I kicked at a tiny drift of ice. “My teacher doesn’t know anything.”

He sighed, the snow making the sound seem loud against the silent, empty town. “Thank you for waiting at the gate for me to come and get you.”

That was my father’s rule. He didn’t want me walking alone even though his huge house was so close to my school.

Snow held out a bundle of wool. “You forgot your coat this morning. I brought it.”

Even with the cane, he was quite adept at getting me into it, fastening the buttons and bringing the hood over my head. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and escorted me home.

Within five minutes, we were both inside the warmth of the mansion, shaking off the snowflakes and hanging up our damp coats.

Sno led me into the kitchen where the air was warmer and wonderful things were bubbling in big pots on the big shiny stove. “Sit,” he said.

I took my usual chair, put my elbows on the table and, with my chin in my palms, sulked.

Everything smelled so good. It was safe here. Comforting. But I was still mad.

Sno kept his back to me while he took things from the fridge, puttered a bit, and then brought out fresh cookies from the oven. He set the tray on the table on two soft pads in front of me, then placed a glass of milk by my right hand.

Slowly, because of his aching bones, he sat to face me. “Now,” he said, voice soft and gentle. “Can you tell me why you ran away?”

“I already told you.” I reached for a hot cookie.

His hand came over mine so fast I barely saw it. He gently pushed it away from the cookie tray. “These need to cool a bit.”

I pouted.

“Why did you say bad words to the others?” Sno’s voice was calm. He never raised it, not even whenever I got loud, screaming, shouting in anger and hurt. He only spoke lower and lower until it was a whisper and I had to stop myself to hear what he was saying.

“Because they called me names first,” I replied. Like spoiled and brat and son of a Santa. The other kids teased me about my father who was one of the Santas who delivered gifts to kids on Christmas Eve. Without even trying to get to know me, they decided I must be conceited living in a mansion in Santa’s Village while they all lived in small townships on the outskirts.

“Oh, I see,” Sno said, nodding. “So, you thought it was okay to do to them what they did to you.”

I nodded, biting my lips. “I said they were monkey poop milk chunks. Only I didn’t say poop. And I said they were penis breaths, too. Our teacher heard.”

Sno’s mouth twitched. His blue eyes grew large as he rapidly blinked several times.

I continued. “Then my teacher said I had gone through all my warnings and now I couldn’t go to the Christmas party.”

“And you ran out of class?”

I bit harder on my lip, a strange sound escaping through my nose as I nodded.

“Come here,” Sno said, gesturing for me to get up.

It was like a lot of air was filling me up fast, yet I couldn’t breathe. Numbly, I got up and went to him. When I was standing in front of him, I said, nearly yelling, “I don’t want to go back!”

Sno just looked at me. That was all it took, and I burst apart, sobbing like a baby. I’d disappointed my teacher, the other kids and now Sno who’d had to come out in the cold to get me. And then there was my father. Santa Christero. He’d be so mad when he got home.

Sno held out his arms and I immediately fell into them, crying against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I’m sorry I messed everything up for Christmas.”

“Baby, you said a few bad words. We’ll work on that later, but right now you need to know as the son of a revered and highly respected Santa, life won’t be fair. More will be expected of you. You’re just a little one now, baby, but you’ll understand better as you get older. I promise.”

Sno rubbed my back and kissed the top of my head. I wiped my face on his collar, but he didn’t seem to mind.

When I sat back, the tears finally slowing, he had a holly embroidered hanky in his hand and gently stroked my cheeks and eyes.

“You can be a big boy and help me around the house for the next two days, right?”

Begrudgingly, I nodded. I hated chores but I loved Sno. I’d do what he said.

“And then when you go back to school⁠—”

“But I don’t want to go back!” My eyes welled up again.

Sno cupped my chin. “Baby, your teacher and I talked. The other boys are being warned not to name-call again.”

I crossed my arms. “But they still get to go to the party.”

“We’ll have a party here. Make a cake. Plus, you’ll have a real Santa at your party,” he offered.

I shook my head. “It won’t matter. They’ll keep teasing me next year and the year after that.”

Sno turned me to face the table. “There, there,” he said, picking up one of the tree-shaped cookies. “It’s cooler now but still warm.” He handed it to me, then dragged my glass of milk closer.

Later, when my father got home, I heard Sno telling him, “It can’t be helped that you are his father. You rescued him as an orphaned baby and adopted him. The other kids are jealous.”

When Father tucked me into bed that night, I prepared myself for a lecture on using bad words. Instead, he said, “Don’t worry, Sugar, everything will work out. I’ll make sure.”

By third grade, when things had most definitely not worked out, Father took me from the school permanently and hired a tutor.

By then it was too late. I’d already formed a firm belief system inside my mind that I was a bad boy. The tutor felt like further punishment because I couldn’t do anything right.

I was a fuck up and that was that. What was the point of paying attention to lessons, or doing my homework? Besides, my father was, in essence, royalty. I was merely an elf with no magic, and I wouldn’t ever become a Santa like him. Plus, he was super rich. Which meant I was rich, too. Which meant I’d never need to work anyway.

When I became a teenager, sneaking away at night to hang out with other errant and wild elf kids, I knew Sno and Father had all sorts of words between each other about me. About how to better handle me.

Sno, ever patient and loving, still called me baby. I felt most guilty about being a disappointment to him. He had given me all his love and caring, and this was how I repaid him. But that didn’t change how much I didn’t fit in here in Santa’s Village, and how angry that made me.

Father liked to say to me, “You just need to grow up and be more mature.”

I hated that word. Mature. What in all the elven hells did it even mean to me in an environment where so many of my fellow elves were jealous while at the same time looking down on me.

I secretly continued to run the streets at night. I had my first sexual experience as an omega during a snowstorm, the alpha elf topping me underneath the green and pink-lit Christmas pavilion stage in Candy Cane Park.

I could’ve frozen my ass off. I could’ve gotten pregnant if I’d been in my first teen heat and didn’t realize it. Also, it was a terrible first time and hurt badly. Who knew sex totally sucked?

One more thing I couldn’t do right.

One more thing to reinforce what a bad, naughty elf I was.








Wendy Rathbone
Hi, I'm Wendy and I'm a voracious reader as well as an author.

Currently, I write all male/male romances and am lately focused on omegaverse. For many years mm has been my first love.

The stories of my characters rattle around in my brain until I have to write them down or lose sleep!

All my books are available in Kindle Unlimited. Happy reading!


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Naughty Elf: Sugar

Santa's Naughty Elf  Mates Series


Friday, May 22, 2026

πŸ“šπŸ“˜πŸŽ₯Friday's Film AdaptationπŸŽ₯πŸ“˜πŸ“š: Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg




Summary:
The game under the tree looked like a hundred others Peters and Judy had at home. But they were bored and restless and, looking for something interesting to do, thought they'd give Jumanji a try. Little did they know when they unfolded its ordinary-looking playing board that they were about to be plunged into the most exciting and bizare adventure of their lives.

In his second book for children, Chris Van Allsburg again explores the ever-shifting line between fantasy and reality with this story about a game that comes startingly to life.

His marvelous drawings beautifully convey a mix of the everyday and the extraordinary, as a quiet house is taken over by an exotic jungle.






When two kids find and play a magical board game, they release a man trapped in it for decades--and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game.

Release Date:  March 12, 1995
Release Time: 104 minutes

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast:
Robin Williams as Alan Parrish
Bonnie Hunt as Sarah Whittle
Kirsten Dunst as Judy Shepherd
David Alan Grier as Carl Bentley
Jonathan Hyde as Sam Parrish & Van Pelt
Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd
Bradley Pierce as Peter Shepherd
Malcolm Stewart as Jim Shepherd
Annabel Kershaw as Martha Shepherd
Patricia Clarkson as Carol-Anne Parrish
Adam Hann-Byrd as the younger Alan Parrish
Laura Bell Bundy as the younger Sarah Whittle
















Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg is the winner of two Caldecott Medals, for Jumanji and The Polar Express, as well as the recipient of a Caldecott Honor Book for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. The author and illustrator of numerous picture books for children, he has also been awarded the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement in children's literature. In 1982, Jumanji won the National Book Award and in 1996, it was made into a popular feature film. Chris Van Allsburg was formerly an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife and two children.



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Film
πŸ‘€B&N is a triple pack with sequelsπŸ‘€
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Sunday, May 10, 2026

🌷🌹Sunday's Short Stack🌹🌷: It's All Relative by Jordan Castillo Price



Summary:
The ABCs of Spellcraft #14
If Spellcrafters value anything, it’s family. (And a good deal from the clearance rack, and an exceptional hand of poker. But mainly family.)

So, when a long-lost relative surfaces, everyone is absolutely thrilled…until the newcomer challenges Dixon for the title of Hand.

Yuri is perfectly willing to force the usurper back under whatever rock he crawled out from, but Dixon insists on proving himself the best man for the job. A magic string chose him as the Hand, after all. And while Spellcraft can be capricious, surely it would never let Dixon down.

Would it?

To make matters worse, Dixon’s attention is divided. Not only is he scrambling through town on a magical scavenger hunt, but a Handless customer with a sob story has him searching for her lost dog. Because, as Yuri points out, there’s always a dog.

From one end of Pinyin Bay to the other, the whole family pitches in to help Dixon keep his rightful place in the final installment of this heartwarming series.

The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where M/M romance meets paranormal cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.

Original Review February Book of the Month 2023:
Say it ain't so! The end is here! No more Dixon and Yuri!  As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end . . . doesn't mean I have to like itπŸ˜‰.  

The ABCs of Spellcraft may be over. No more new adventures for the always over-optimistic and endless ray of sunshine Dixon and his stern but never not supportive man-friend Yuri, and the incredibly intriguing cast of wacky family, friends, and occasionally not-quite friendly characters.  Yes, that's sad to hear but their adventures will live on in re-reads and re-listens and they will never get old, I will never tire of re-visiting Pinyon Bay for a ride-along.  For me, that statement alone is the best way to explain how much I enjoy this series and characters.  I have a list of books that I re-read/re-listen to every summer, it's not that long but the year would never be complete without them and I am 99.999% certain Spellcraft has just hitched a ride on that list.

Now, as for the final entry, It's All Relative, itself.

What can be said that hasn't already been mentioned in my previous entries reviews?  

Jordan Castillo Price has a unique and creative way to bring the world of magic to life, to make it real, to make one look up and expect to see a crafting, or the result of a crafting, float by your front window.  Frankly I don't know how Yuri stays so calm. If my significant other had the never-ending energy that Dixon lives life by I would be off my rocker.  My mother always looks at life postiviely but her views on "it's going to be okay" has nothing compared to Dixon, so I don't know how Yuri does it but he manages to not only stand by his man sanely but he does so with Dixon's family as well.  His desire in Relative to see Dixon keep his place as the Hand probably tests his control more than any other obstacle the couple has tackled but he maintains his voice of calm and focus.

I've probably given away more than I intended to so I won't say more but know it's brilliant and if this series had to end, I can't think of a better way to do so.  This series is simply put: FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! and what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah: FUN!!!!!

Now I realize that for some 15 books, even novellas, can seem daunting if you haven't been reading as they've been released.  That's a lot of zany, madcappery magic to digest but trust me, you won't regret it.  Dixon and Yuri and the whole Spellcraft gang is so enjoyable the time will fly by and before you know it you will be where I am right now, the end with no more new coming and you'll be a little sad but also happy for having discovered such a crazy, fun, romantic, entertaining universe.

RATING:




1 
DIXON 
The Practical Penn Spellcraft shop has been in my family for years. My folks partnered with Uncle Fonzo to start the business while I was still in diapers—and, for the record, I was very easy to potty train, unlike Tuesday. Probably because even at that tender young age I was so concerned about disappointing anyone—while Tuesday is probably the least motivated baby I’ve ever known. Though she’s so utterly adorable, no one really minds. 

I’d spent my childhood at Practical Penn playing hide-and-seek with my cousin in the various offices. My school years doing homework on a desk where enchantments were Scribed. And, more recently, the occasional weekend helping clean out the cages of the various small animals we’d inherited from Precious Greetings. 

But as for actually working there as a Spellcrafter? Between my walkabout after college and the span of time I’d endured as an unquilled WheelMeal driver, the hours I’d clocked in the family business were surprisingly few. 

I plucked a curved piece of metal from the supply cabinet and held it up for inspection. While my inventory list did contain some pretty obscure items, we Scriveners do know our stationery well. Surely it was just a matter of eliminating the various tools I recognized, and whatever was left would cause recognition to dawn. 

I was debating whether the object seemed more like a distance page-turner or a rubber band stretcher when I realized a shadow had fallen across the curve of the metal. I turned and found my mother filling the doorway to the supply room, hands on hips, looking very businesslike indeed. She knew this office inside and out, so surely she’d know what it was. The trick was in not letting on that I didn’t. I smiled my winningest smile and said, “So, if one were looking to loosen up his rubber bands….” 

“Give me that.” Mom snatched the mystery object out of my hands and tucked it into her cardigan. Either she has extra pockets in there or she’d just developed the ability to hold onto various small items with her body mass—a handy trick to be sure. “It’s the arm that holds a globe on its stand, but the globe shattered years ago and the stand turned to rust. I’d better get rid of it while your father’s off running errands.” 

I turned to the list in my hands and added the words Globe Holder…then dutifully crossed them off. 

Mom blinked in that way she does when she’s counting to ten. “Dixon, is this really necessary?” 

“The Annual Reckoning must be completed in an orderly manner,” I said brightly, quoting a pamphlet I found stuck to the back of a desk drawer in Shirque Mansion. It was printed in 1948, so all the men in the photos are wearing hats and smoking cigarettes—but fortunately, Spellcraft traditions themselves are pretty timeless. 

“Everything’s there in black and white on the spreadsheet I printed out,” Mom said. “All you need to do is sign it.” 

“If I wanted to scrape by doing the bare minimum, then sure. I could read through the spreadsheet, ink my very fetching signature at the bottom of that form, and be done with it.” 

“You think that’s the bare minimum? Your uncle never even bothered to sign the darned thing himself, let alone read it. Look, I get that you take pride in being the Hand of the family. None of us can argue with that. But no Hand in their right mind would do all this manual bean-counting unless they were planning to Fold.” 

Obviously, the last thing I wanted to do was liquidate the business and leave everyone in my family unemployed. Not to mention invalidating the work order that kept Yuri in the country. 

However…. 

“These beans you’ve just referenced—I’m not seeing them on the spreadsheet.” 

The chime of a customer coming through the door interrupted our lively debate, and Mom threw her hands in the air and bustled off to go see what they wanted. And since the tallying of staples, pencils and paperclips had indeed grown truly tedious, I followed her out to the front counter. 

A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties stood in the lobby, visibly fretting. There was a nylon strap of some kind in her hands, and she twisted and re-twisted it nervously as she rocked from foot to foot, scanning all the various signage, from the jaunty “Got Problems? Spellcraft is the solution!” to the stern, “No Bad Checks…Or Else.” 

“Can I help you?” Mom asked the woman, in a brusque, no-nonsense way most Handless find oddly comforting. 

“Gosh, I sure hope so. I was told that—” 

Outside, a car horn blared. Not just a polite toot-toot, either, but a long and weirdly loud bellow that went on and on. I hurried around the counter and pressed my face up against the glass to see what such a beepable offense might be, only to find a little old lady pawing desperately at her steering column trying to get her horn unstuck. A truck driver had stopped to help her, but despite his intervention, the honk just kept right on honking. Eventually, he gestured in the direction of the nearest mechanic, and the old woman hastily drove off, the beep fading behind her as she turned a corner and was gone. 

“Wow,” I said, “that must’ve been painfully loud from inside the car. I’d hate to have all that beepage blasting right in my face. Good thing the horn on our truck stopped working ages ago.” I turned toward the customer. “Now, how can we help?” 

“This is a prime example!” she said. “Every time I—” 

A raucous clatter cut her off. I whirled around and saw the truck that belonged to the helpful driver had opened up, and hundreds upon hundreds of cans had fallen out the back. I was excited for a split second there, imagining such syrupy delights as fruit cocktail and cherry pie filling up for grabs, distributed throughout the neighborhood like tiny treasures waiting to be stumbled upon later. But then the vegetables painted on the side of the truck quashed my nascent fruity fantasies. 

Still, the spill was entertaining. Those cans could really roll! Though why they were just loose in the back of the truck to begin with was anyone’s guess. 

Eventually, the cacophony ebbed long enough for the red-haired customer to say, “I can’t take much more of this. I need someone to—” 

Suddenly, we were enveloped by the rousing sound of a marching band. Through every speaker in the building, from the stereo that usually piped in Musak to the intercom no one ever used (as it was a lot quicker to just yell) some vaguely patriotic parade music blasted forth. Rufus Clahd reeled out of his office with an empty CD case in his hand—the title of which was March! March! March! He waved it around a few times, then stumbled back in. 

Mom held up a Just-a-Sec index finger and bustled off to help our Seer with his musical selection. That left me standing there in the lobby with the customer—not usually a problem, but the fact that we couldn’t talk was surprisingly awkward for me. I offered her an encouraging smile and she tried her best to smile back, though really, it came out as more of a wince. 

Banging and clanging ensued, and the rousing march went skip-skip-skip, sounding oddly techno as it stuttered over the end of a cymbal crash replaying the blat of a trumpet. Several bangs later, the march fell silent, and my mother stomped out of Mr. Clahd’s office, muttering, “Why we let him have access to the sound system, I’ll never know.” 

The customer was just about to try again when Mom cut her off with, “Not one more word, young lady. Not until I get a look at that piece of Spellcraft in your pocket.” 

The customer sagged all over with relief, pulled out the paper, and slid it across the desk. 

The Seen was adorable—something right out of a children’s book, with a poodle frolicking in a green field of grass dotted with pastel wildflowers, puffy clouds overhead, and a butterfly circling lazily in the sky. 

But the Scribing overlaid on the clouds was downright puzzling. 

Nobody listens to me. 

“I see the problem,” Mom said, as the customer nodded so vigorously I was worried she’d make herself dizzy enough to keel over. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Lately. “Crafting a Spell is challenging enough. It’s part discipline, part innate ability, and part luck. Most people who discovered a Crafting like this on their person would just tear it up, and it’s a good thing you didn’t. That might only make things worse. If you figure out who saddled you with this thing, you’d have a good case against them—though bringing it to the authorities would be a challenge in the state you’re currently in.” 

The customer shook her head no.

“That’s good. I don’t recommend involving the law where something like this is concerned. Litigation and Spellcraft are an unpredictable combination. My advice would be to neutralize the Crafting—which just so happens to be my son’s specialty. But it doesn’t come cheap.” 

The customer whipped out a credit card and flapped it up and down. 

“Fine. Dixon?” Mom gestured at the Crafting. “It’s in your capable hands.” 

Bursting with pride over my mother’s genuine praise, I gingerly picked up the Crafting and took it back to my office. It was the smallest office with the worst view—and it smelled like burnt mozzarella—but now it was so much more than a place to keep the nocturnal animals no one wanted in their house. Don’t get me wrong, the super loud toad was still there…but he was currently asleep, so he made a perfectly acceptable office mate. 

Aside from the cages and tanks, there were now various Spellcrafty things a Hand might need. Copies of all the contracts and forms involved with the business. A giant box of dubious receipts. Contact info for the other local families, as well as a pile of generic gifts I might give if a social obligation cropped up…though someone had broken into the chocolates and taken a bite out of them. The fancy soaps, too. 

In short, my office was a real office. And while I had once balked at the thought of joining my family business, now that I was actually rolling up my sleeves and getting down to work, I found it surprisingly empowering. 

Though I had to admit, it was a lot more fun now that I was technically in charge. 

I cleared my desk, drew my quill from its case, and lay the Spellcraft on the blotter. It wasn’t a curse—curses are in a horrific category all their own, and I’d be just as glad to never see one again—but it was definitely a hindrance. I would have expected the vibe it gave off to feel negative somehow. But when I turned it this way and that and tried to get a sense of the telltale tingle, it just felt…tingly. Nothing more. 

If it weren’t for the actual words, I would’ve taken it for a perfectly benign Crafting. Maybe it was meant to teach someone a lesson. Or maybe it was just a poorly thought out practical joke. Whatever the reason, the only thing that mattered now was how to Uncraft the Spell.



Saturday Series Spotlight
Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Part 3
Part 4  /  Part 5

Audiobook Collection Reviews
Volume 1  /  Volume 2  /  Volume 3




Jordan Castillo Price
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s recently settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.

Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. And her quirky, sweet, magical series The ABCs of Spellcraft is sure to make you smile.


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It's All Relative #14

ABC Spellcraft Series

The Complete Collections


Thursday, February 12, 2026

πŸ’πŸ’‹πŸ’˜⏳Throwback Thursday's Time Machine⏳πŸ’˜πŸ’‹πŸ’: Quill Me Now by Jordan Castillo Price



Summary:
ABC Spellcraft #1
What if the words you wrote came true? 

Spellcraft isn’t exactly a respectable business, but it does pay the bills. At least, it should. Unfortunately, Dixon Penn failed his Spellcraft initiation. Instead of working in his family’s shop, he’s stuck delivering takeout orders in his uncle’s beat-up Buick.

Winning a Valentine’s Day contest at the largest greeting card company in the tri-state area would be just the thing to get his life back on track—but something at Precious Greetings just doesn’t add up. And despite numerous warnings to quit pestering them about his contest entry, he just can’t stop himself from coming back again and again.

It doesn’t hurt that the head of security is such a hottie. If Dixon had any common sense, he’d be scared of the big, mysterious, tattooed Russian.

To be fair, no one ever accused him of being too smart….

The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where MM Romance meets Paranormal Cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.

Quill Me Now originally debuted in the Bad Valentine collection, with Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan, Hidden Hearts by Clare London, and Temporary Dad by Dev Bentham. 


Quill Me Now #1
Original Review February 2019:

We all know what happens when it comes to wishes, it is all in the wording well in Quill Me Now, magic and spells is all about the wording too.  Who knew the extent of the headache it would be when no one ever wants to leave a restaurant because of the slogan?  Dixon knows but unfortunately for him, spellcrafting that runs in his family doesn't seem to run in his veins but he can spot a poorly thought out one a mile away.  Having been summoned after sending in an entry to a greeting card contest, Dixon meets Yuri when he warns him to stay away but needing the money a winning entry would bring him Dixon is not easily kept away.  That's it about the plot you'll get but let me tell you, Quill Me Now is a lovely holiday gem that I would love to see more of but if this is all we get then it is absolutely delightful.  Magic, love, humor, good guys, bad guys all brought together by the writing style of Jordan Castillo Price, what more can a person ask for?


Volume 1 
Original Audiobook Review February 2020:
The brilliance of Dixon and Yuri, who shouldn't work on the surface but are a perfect fit once you see them together, is brought to life in this audiobook collection of the series.  There really is nothing new I can add to my original reviews for this delightfully fun series other than it is quite possibly even more zany and romantic the second time around.

Since there isn't anything new for me to add let me just comment on the narration.  Often when it comes to audiobooks, I rarely find the narrator's renditions match the voices I heard in my head when I originally read them(I should mention to those new to my reviews that I very rarely listen to audios that I haven't previously read as I tend to zone out here and there as I find myself concentrating on what I'm doing and by having read the story first then I'm not "lost" when I zone back in) but Nick Hudson's version of Dixon was spot-on.  The nuances of Dixon's zany-ness & peppy-ness was pretty darn perfect to how I "heard" him originally, now Yuri was slightly different but I found his take on the character even better than my own.  Could someone else have done as good a job?  Sure, but now that I've heard his Dixon and Yuri I can't imagine anyone else bringing the guys to life.

One last note, I mentioned in my review for Something Stinks at the Spa how these stories made me nostalgic for the movie serials of the 30s & 40s my parents collect.  That still rings true but having listened to them on audio now they also make me nostalgic for the old radio shows of the same era that I collect.  I kept expecting to hear Harlow Wilcox, Bill Goodwin, or Harry Von Zell break in with a sponsor's commercial and that is all down to the incredibly amazing meshing of Jordan Castillo Price's storytelling and Nick Hudson's narration.

RATING:





“Nothing good ever came of a valentine,” Sabina declared with great vehemence and utter conviction. “You hear me, Dixon? Nothing.”

I love my cousin. I do. But there’s opinionated…and then there’s Sabina. I said, “You haven’t even heard the details.”

“I don’t need to, either. Everyone knows those contests are a bunch of baloney.”

“Who’s everyone?”

She ignored the question. “And this ‘big prize’… what’s it even supposed to be?”

I squinted at the fine print. It was smudged with barbecue sauce, but if I held it up to the light, enough came through for me to get the gist. “A thousand dollars.”

Sabina waded through the furniture we were saving for someday. She squeezed between two heavy oak dressers, veered around a massive roll-top desk, climbed over a pile of boxes, and worked her way into our kitchen. It was really just an old utility sink and a microwave perched on top of a mini fridge, but both of us liked to keep up the illusion that we still lived in an actual house, not just a hastily converted attic. She attempted to clatter some dishes to demonstrate how ridiculous she thought my idea was, but we’d sold the maple kitchenette on Craigslist to keep creditors off our backs. And since the only flat surface to slam her mug against was a vinyl card table, it just gave off an unsatisfying thwack. She filled the mug with water and stuck it in the microwave, then crossed her arms, turned to me and said, “A thousand dollars for a few lines of schmaltzy poetry?”

“The verse doesn’t have to rhyme.” I slid the ad across the table for her to look at.

Sabina ignored it. “There’s no possible way anyone could afford to pay that kind of money to produce a valentine.”

“But Precious Greetings is the biggest card company in the state.”

“Even if every lovestruck dope in the city bought one, they’d barely recoup their outlay. Plus, who spends money on paper cards anymore when everything’s digital?” She slammed down a box of hot chocolate with an even quieter thwack, then glared at the microwave as if it would heat her water faster. “You’re just the type to fall for this kind of scheme, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A soft touch. You’re always giving your spare change to that wino down by the underpass. And he probably lives in a cushier place than we do.”

Well, no argument there.

No one would ever take Sabina for a soft touch. As we were growing up, strangers usually thought she was a boy. The weird, too-short haircuts from my Aunt Rose and hand-me-down clothes from me didn’t help. Nowadays, the ratty denim vest and bleach-tipped fauxhawk tomboy look were entirely deliberate. Plainly female…and no one pegged her for a pushover.

Not like me.

Trustworthy. Sensitive. Nice. This was the opinion strangers formed of me before I even said hello. I guess I just had one of those faces.



Saturday Series Spotlight
Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Part 3
Part 4  /  Part 5

Audiobook Collection Reviews
Volume 1  /  Volume 2  /  Volume 3




Jordan Castillo Price
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s recently settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.

Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. And her quirky, sweet, magical series The ABCs of Spellcraft is sure to make you smile.



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Quill Me Now #1

ABC Spellcraft Series

The Complete Collections