Author Spotlight

Magic Underground Giveaway + Excerpt by Anela Deen

Today I’m here to tell you all about an awesome trilogy of anthologies giveaway which is FREE to enter and you can win a lot of goodies. Books are involved. I will also share an exclusive excerpt of one of the authors involved with the Magic Underground anthology books, Anela Deen. Right. First things first.


About the Anthologies

This project required each author to write 3 interconnected fantasy novellas, like installments in a TV show, that make a complete story by the end.

With 20 authors involved, this means you’ll get 20 complete magical action/adventure tales with the full series!

Treat yourself to a trilogy like no other! Fans of Patricia Briggs and Tamsyn Muir will love the Magic Underground trilogy of anthologies.

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No matter the world, life can be dangerous. Be they wizards and shamans, assassins, or everyday people, Hidden Magic tells their stories about escape, consequences, and most of all, magic. From Earth cities and fantastical new worlds comes a collection of stories where heroes grapple with the seen and unseen in order to save themselves, their families, and often the world.

This collection features: Elderly antiques experts interacting with souls

Shamans growing outlawed magic

Baby chimeras battling for their lives

Children sprouting fluffy tails

A king’s boat thrown off-course

A perfect life coming at a not-so-perfect cost

Vikings defending a village against the unseen

A lone shifter atoning for his past mistakes

Trolls and pixies tumbling through the doorway to another world

And more!

To learn more, visit their website!

Right now, you can pick up the first book, Hidden Magic, for only 99¢!


About the Magic Underground Giveaway:

FREE to enter! To celebrate the March 10th release of the first book, Hidden Magic, they’re giving away an awesome fantasy-themed gift box through Rafflecopter. International friends included!

Enter up to FOUR times for a chance to win:

  • A $25 Amazon Gift Card
  • A volume of Irish Fairy & Folk Tales with gold sprayed edges
  • 8 Hand-drawn fantasy illustrations
  • A shiny journal
  • A sparkly black book sleeve
  • A unicorn magnet
  • A dragon bookmark
  • 5 bookish candles
  • 4 Fantasy art prints
  • One pair of unicorn earrings

The Rafflecopter runs from Feb. 25th to midnight on March 10thHidden Magic’s release date!

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Don’t miss out and enter today by clicking HERE!


About Anela Deen

If you follow my blog, you might have seen her name around. Her book, Beneath Cruel Fathoms was one of Team RockStarlit BookAsylum’s SPFBO 5 semi-finalist, and she also provided a piece to Tales from the Asylum (which is still one of my personal favourites). She is one of the authors involved with the Magic Underground trilogy as was kind enough to share an exclusive excerpt of one of her novellas!

Anela DeenA child of two cultures, this hapa haole Hawaiian girl is currently landlocked in the Midwest. After exploring the world for a chunk of years, she hunkered down in Minnesota and now fills her days with family, fiction, and the occasional snowstorm. With a house full of lovable toddlers, a three-legged cat, and one handsome Dutchman, she prowls the keyboard late at night while the minions sleep. Coffee? Nah, she prefers tea with a generous spoonful of sarcasm.


Excerpt of A Veil is Parted from book one, Hidden Magic

Simith of Drifthorn is tired of war. After years of battle between the Thistle court and the troll kingdom, even a pixie knight known for his bloodlust longs for peace. Meeting with the troll king in secret is the only hope for a ceasefire. When the trolls ambush him instead, Simith flees through a doorway hidden by magic into another world. Wounded, he’ll need to defeat his pursuers and get home before anyone realizes he’s gone. If his commanders find out what he’s been up to, the trolls will be the least of his worries. In Skylark, Michigan, Jessa leaves a party after some devastating news. Cutting through her neighbor’s sunflower farm, she runs into a fight between creatures straight out of a fantasy novel – only the blood is very real. When one of them falls to his attackers, Jessa decides to intervene. She’s known too much death to stand idly by, but what does a poet like her know about fighting? As their weapons turn against her, Jessa realizes how much she stands to lose, even for someone who’s already lost everything.

The arrow took Simith in the back.

It punched through his left wing and lodged itself below his shoulder blade. Flitting between the trees on his way to the meeting place, he almost lost his hold on the next branch as pain exploded across his body. He scrambled for cover amid the foliage, swallowing his pained gasps, but leaves were sparse at this spot in the Jaded Grove. He didn’t find it in time.

The second arrow drove through his right wing, ripping the aft membrane, but he was fortunate. The arrowhead only split the leathers by his ribs. He found a nest of twisted branches and crouched behind them, trying to quiet his ragged breath—trying to think. He’d made certain he wasn’t followed when he left camp. No one saw him depart and he hadn’t dared tell anyone his plans, not his fellow knights and certainly not the Helms. Who was attacking him?

The arrowhead burned in his back. With sinking dread, he noted the numbness in his left arm. Iron. It was made of iron, which meant his magic was inhibited and he couldn’t heal the wound. Simith pressed his brow to the black bark. Only one creature could wield iron without poisoning themselves. He clunked his head against the wood, cursing himself. Of course, the trolls would ambush him. They had no reason to believe his appeal for a truce was in earnest, not from a knight who’d butchered more of their kind than any other. What better way to kill him off than when he was alone, on a mission no one knew about?

Hollow disappointment blended with his fury. He wasn’t sure whether it came by their blatant betrayal, or that he’d failed to make Rim’s dream come true. What did it matter? He’d been a fool. He was a fighter, not a peacemaker, and the dead buried their dreams in the ground along with their broken flesh.

Maybe soon, he’d be buried along with them.

Simith’s keen ears picked up on the whisper of footfalls over the mossy earth below. He could no longer fly and he couldn’t outrun them. He had his knives though, and his crystal blade. If he could wield it. He folded his limbs closer, shielding as much of his body as possible behind the wood. The muted green of his leathers should’ve camouflaged him, though night had fallen hours ago. The shadows were more friend to trolls than pixies. Their arrows couldn’t pierce these enchanted trees at least. Simith might have been a fool to trust them, but he hadn’t chosen the Jaded Grove as the meeting place by happenstance.

“Little Moth,” a gravelly voice called from below. “Your flight is done.”

“You’re not that precise with your bow,” he called back. “A sprite has better aim than your kind.”

“The scent of your blood is as sweet as sugar, pixie,” came another’s eager chortle. “Come down and tarry with us a while.”

“Join me up here and I’ll tarry all you want.”

Silence followed. Only stone welcomed the touch of a troll. No tree would abide them. He’d witnessed it before, the way the bark groaned in warning and the branches trembled with outrage before the wood shook them off like a tick. The roots would draw themselves from the soil to squeeze throats and ribcages. The Fae of the former Seelie and Unseelie courts had made sentinels of the forests that ringed their respective domains. Even a century after the destruction of their race, the Fae’s powerful influence lingered in the green world.

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If you’d like to get in touch, you can find Anela Deen on social media:

Website | Twitter | Magic Underground website

And don’t forget:

The Rafflecopter giveaway runs from Feb. 25th to midnight on March 10thHidden Magic’s release date!

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Don’t miss out and enter today by clicking HERE!

You can also pre-order the first book, Hidden Magic, for only 99¢!