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A Sense of Belonging
Tales of New Stenchford follows a scrappy petty criminal navigating a filthy, dangerous, and absurd fantasy city filled with crooks, nobles, monsters, and chaos. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I was born and raised in Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, I was always drawn to the city’s underbelly. I explored deserted subway tunnels, decommissioned ship piers, condemned buildings—anywhere with a “Keep Out” sign.
I met all sorts of marginalized people and discovered elaborate worlds hidden away inside the city. Still, it wasn’t any one thing in particular that I was seeking; it was a feeling, a sense of belonging that coaxed me onto buses and under bridges to commune with something I couldn’t describe but knew felt right.
Alongside all of that, I had a family that introduced me to opera, museums, and fine dining. I experienced the world that lived high above the scrappy streets and had to wrestle with the dissonance. I experienced the city on many levels and brought its richness to New Stenchford.
I think it’s fair to say that when you ask about “navigating a filthy, dangerous, and absurd fantasy city filled with crooks, nobles, monsters, and chaos,” you might be referring to New Stenchford, but you could just as easily be talking about my hometown.
Rizzle is treated as an outcast by many people, yet he seems perfectly at home in the city’s streets. What does his relationship with New Stenchford reveal about his character?
The book had to begin with Rizzle. It had to start with something base and real, not a square-jawed hero with wavy blond hair.
Rizzle is a dirty little scoundrel, but he has a big heart, not unlike Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy. Rizzle is pragmatic and can bend his morals to fit whatever situation he might find himself in, but he is not a sociopath. He has empathy for his fellow city dwellers, even if sometimes he uses it to con them.
People look down on Rizzle, but he doesn’t need their approval; he has the city. New Stenchford keeps him warm, fed, and protected, even if those things require a bit of thievery and stealth to acquire.
Rizzle can see the rich living high on the hog, but he knows their secrets. He knows who is addicted to what and who is cheating with whose wife. It gives Rizzle a no-nonsense point of view that allows him to see the world clearly.
The novel contains numerous intersecting plots, including political corruption, organized crime, forbidden romance, religious conspiracies, curses, and magical disasters. How did you approach bringing those seemingly unrelated threads together?
Believe it or not, when I sat down to write the book, I had nothing but a cluster of characters and locations. I didn’t have a plot, a theme, or an outline.
I just sat down one afternoon and started writing the book chronologically, moving from one scene to the next without knowing anything about where I was going.
The resulting book is a little scattered, but I don’t think I could have written it any other way. I needed to let the characters and situations dictate what happened next; otherwise, I think it would have felt stale.
It wasn’t until I was more than halfway through the book that I started jotting down notes and making plans. It wasn’t until I reached the last chapter that I knew how the book ended.
If you could spend one day in New Stenchford, where would you go—and what would you do your best to avoid?
The answer to both of these questions is one place: the Last Resort. It is probably the smelliest, most dangerous place in town, but that’s where all the action is. It’s a dirt-floor bar down by the Pue River near the center of town. In a later book, I explain that although the Last Resort has windows, sunlight does not come through them for fear of what it might illuminate.
You don’t know what might happen in that rundown little shack, but that’s what makes it interesting. Yes, it’s possible you might lose a limb or end up with vomit in your hair, but you won’t be bored. The palace will no doubt be a predictable pageant of arrogance and sycophancy, and the inns will be crowded and hot, but in the Last Resort, you might see something truly novel. It might be something you wish you had never seen at all, but it won’t be boring.
Tales of New Stenchford is the first in the New Stenchford Series. There are ten books in the series. A new one will be published approximately every five months.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Queen Strongbottom, brave of heart, strong of bottom, runs the place, but has no idea that Wanda Stickybuns, the secret mistress of Queen Strongbottom’s father Gluteus, is plotting to overthrow the King and install her illegitimate two-headed son on the throne.
If you choose to come and see for yourself you’ll want to keep a close eye on your belongings and wash your hands thoroughly when you get home, if you get home.
Tales of New Stenchford
Tales of New Stenchford, by Ben Rubin, is a sprawling comic fantasy built around a city that feels equal parts medieval kingdom, pop-culture junk drawer, political farce, and fever dream. The book follows a large cast, but Rizzle the Weasel serves as its scruffy gravitational center. He’s a homeless petty criminal who knows the city’s alleys, businesses, crooks, nobles, and monsters better than almost anyone. Early on, Rubin captures his relationship with New Stenchford nicely: while the citizens treat Rizzle as someone to avoid, “the streets themselves seemed to welcome him.” That idea ends up fitting the whole novel. Rizzle belongs to this filthy, dangerous, ridiculous place because he’s every bit as resourceful and morally flexible as the city itself.
The book’s biggest pleasure is its relentless world-building. New Stenchford is crowded with witches, orcs, trolls, vampires, talking spiders, cursed hybrids, corrupt officials, crime families, brothels, breweries, temples, sausage shops, and fountains nobody should drink from. Rubin keeps adding jokes at the level of names, businesses, creatures, historical references, and background details, so even a walk across town can become a string of comic discoveries. Characters named Janet Jackson, Sid the Vicious, Taylor the Swift, Colonel Mustard, and George R. R. Martin coexist with creations like snittens, crabbits, Sharkaroos, and Camoostapuses. The references are usually folded into the fantasy world, which gives the setting its peculiar personality. The result feels like a place that has been allowed to grow wildly in every direction.
Underneath all that silliness, there’s a surprisingly elaborate collection of intersecting stories. A doomed brewery, a forbidden romance between Ananas and Piña, Michael Jackson’s lycanthropy, Grimenail’s secret religious conspiracy, the Followers of Tim, a philosophical giant spider named Cilantro, Hernia’s curses, organized crime, political corruption, and an increasingly unstable monarchy all begin as separate threads and gradually crash into one another. The novel’s episodic structure gives Rubin room to wander, and that abundance is both part of its charm and occasionally a source of drag. Some side stories and extended bits temporarily bury the larger plot, but the payoff is that New Stenchford starts to feel populated. By the time the palace falls and Rizzle accidentally emerges from the rubble wearing the queen’s crown, the joke works because the book has spent so much time establishing how this society operates.
Rubin’s humor is broad, profane, pun-heavy, frequently grotesque, and committed to escalation. Deaths can be gruesome, sex jokes can get cheerfully tasteless, and philosophical quotations may turn up in the mouth of a thirty-foot spider that’s considering eating somebody. The political satire becomes especially funny once Rizzle is mistaken for a divinely appointed ruler. At his coronation, he offers the crowd a mangled bit of motivational rhetoric: “This’ll be one uh dem real win-win type deals fer all uh us.” It’s a good example of the book’s method. Lofty institutions keep colliding with characters who are venal, confused, horny, hungry, frightened, or simply trying to get through the day. Even when the jokes are absurd, the selfishness, incompetence, ambition, and accidental consequences underneath them are recognizable.
What I liked most about Tales of New Stenchford is the sense that the book genuinely enjoys its own world. It keeps finding another door to open, another resident to introduce, and another ridiculous consequence to set loose. The ending makes that especially clear. After revolutions, curses, magical disasters, political reshuffling, and a brief hope that things might settle down, Rizzle discovers that another enormous problem is literally stomping toward him, and his response is simply, “Oh no.” It’s an apt final note for a novel whose basic rhythm is order, chaos, temporary recovery, and fresh chaos. Tales of New Stenchford is a rowdy ensemble fantasy satire with an unusually dense comic world, and its strongest quality is the sheer enthusiasm with which it keeps that world moving.
Pages: 253 | ASIN : B0H7DGGBVP
Cowboys, Wizards, & Liars
Cowboys, Wizards, & Liars is a genre-blending fantasy western that follows Noah Farmer, a young wizard and new private investigator, as he goes looking for a missing woman named Gloria and gets pulled through a magical rupture into a version of the Arizona Territory shaped by myth, outlaw energy, and time-bending consequences. What starts as a search mission opens into something bigger: a lost-gold legend, a second story unfolding inside an enchanted paperback, a growing mystery around identity and fate, and a long ride through a past that feels both dusty and unstable. By the end, the book becomes a story about how greed warps people, how stories rewrite the world, and how Noah slowly learns that solving a case is not the same thing as understanding it.
The story has that friendly, front-porch voice that makes you want to keep going, and Noah is a big reason why. He’s funny without trying too hard, unsure of himself in a believable way, and just self-aware enough to keep the story grounded. I also liked how author VJ Garske lets the western and fantasy elements sit side by side without making a big show of it. Horses, ghosts, guns, spells, prospectors, con men, and enchanted books all share the same trail dust. That mix could have felt gimmicky, but here it mostly feels natural. The book has a steady charm to it as well. It’s not slick, not overly dark, just confident in its own odd little weather.
I also appreciate the author’s choices around structure. The story inside the story could have been a mess, but instead it gives the novel an extra pulse. It creates this feeling that the ground is shifting under Noah even when he thinks he has his footing. At the same time, the book is strongest when it slows down and lets character do the work. Noah’s bond with animals, his awkwardness with people, and his reactions to figures like Jack and Fisher gave the novel its real heart for me. I liked how ambitious the book is with its many moving parts. The plot keeps introducing fresh turns and new layers, which gives the story a lively, restless energy. I found myself wishing a scene would linger a little longer, not because it lost me, but because I was enjoying the world and wanted to stay in it. I was engaged the whole way through. The whole thing has the pull of a campfire story told by someone who knows exactly when to grin and when to lower their voice.
I’d recommend this most to readers who enjoy fantasy westerns, light historical fantasy, and adventure stories that care as much about voice and companionship as they do about magic and mystery. It feels like a good pick for someone who wants genre fiction with personality, humor, and a strong sense of place rather than grimness or heavy lore. I think readers who like their fantasy a little scrappy, a little heartfelt, and a little strange will have a good time here. And if you’re the kind of reader who hears a title like Cowboys, Wizards, & Liars and immediately thinks, well, that sounds like fun, this book is very much for you.
Pages: 279 | ASIN : B0GKQSPS7J
Mythology or Comparative Religions
Dead and Buried follows a woman learning to manage her Kitsune heritage and magic, who keeps having curveballs hurled at her from psychic attacks, supernatural creatures, and restless spirits. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
If I can quote Aerosmith, “Half my life’s in books written pages. Live and learn from fools and from sages.”
That pretty well sums up my life. Especially my younger years. I was a “surprise” baby, and my siblings were much older than I was. While I was loved, I really didn’t fit in. Then my father died when I was in grade school. By Junior High, my brothers and sister had all married and moved out of the house. So, I learned early to roll with the punches using books as my escape and humor as my armour.
Many of those books were in the Sci Fi/Fantasy realm, and I’ve always had a particular fascination with mythology or comparative religions.
I found Tai’s character to be believable and relatable; her emotions and responses felt real even when dealing with all the paranormal situations she was thrown into. Are there any emotions or memories from your own life that you put into your character’s life?
As I indicated, I had to learn to roll with the punches as a child. I kept Tai as human as she rolled with her punches. She also uses humor as armour, even though she has less of a filter on her mouth than I do.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
It is a lesson that we all need to learn – acceptance, resiliency, and personal growth.
Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?
There are a planned nine books in the series – literally one for each of the nine tails that a Kitsune can have.
Book three has Tai and friends in New Orleans, where she meets distant family and makes new friends. Of course, there is plenty of growth – and it is not all for her. I hope to have the book available on Amazon in February.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Join Tai, Nico, and Magoo as they navigate contractors, heartbreak, and the undead.
All I wanted was a moment to myself. Being back in High School was exhausting. I groaned, contemplating the absurdity of the situation. Having to take summer school classes was lame at the best of times. But taking a High School class when you were eight-plus years out of school was even worse. Especially when it was a class I had technically already passed. Technically. By the skin of my teeth. Which, if I am to understand correctly, is a trait of certain gnomes. Not sure which ones, though.
Dead and Buried: The Last Kitsune Book 2
Dead and Buried picks up with Tai trying to hold her life together while everything supernatural around her spins out of control. The book follows her attempts to manage her unstable kitsune magic, the chaos caused by her two-tailed nekomata Magoo, a strange psychic attack, a dream that might not be a dream, and the frightening discovery that her supposedly dead father, Viktor, may still have a grip on the world of the living. As Tai and her friends confront new dangers, including zombie-like creatures, restless spirits, and a growing conspiracy tied to the Key of Wealth, the story widens into a mystery that reaches from woods to clubs to interdimensional threats. It all builds into a story about identity, legacy, and the messy courage needed to face old shadows.
What struck me right away was how alive the writing felt. The opening scene with undead mice skittering across the floor pulled me in with a laugh and a grimace at the same time. Tai’s voice is sharp and funny, but it carries this constant undercurrent of vulnerability that made me root for her before I even realized it. The book throws wild supernatural moments around like confetti, and yet the emotions always land. I kept feeling this push-and-pull between humor and fear. One moment I was laughing at Magoo acting like a furry little menace and the next I felt a knot in my stomach when Tai described her dreams about Sunreaver or the shock of hearing Viktor whisper that things were not over. The mix worked for me. It felt raw and very human, even when things got weird.
I also loved how the story handled relationships. Ash brings warmth into scenes that would otherwise feel too heavy, and Xunie’s mysterious and chaotic energy adds a spark that made me grin every time she appeared. The club scenes with Nico cracked me up, especially when the supposedly impossible ghost activity starts up again. At the same time, the book digs into Tai’s trauma in a way that is emotionally resonant. Her guilt about Sunreaver, her fear that she might not be in control of herself, and her anger at being treated like a fragile resource instead of a person. I felt those things right alongside her, and the writing did not sugarcoat any of it. It made the fun moments brighter and the frightening ones sharper. If anything, the emotional whiplash made the story feel more real to me.
By the time I closed the book, I felt like I had been on a wild ride through magic, danger, grief, and a whole lot of found family chaos. I enjoyed that messy thrill. I enjoyed the heart in it even more. If you like supernatural stories that mix humor with fear, action with real emotional weight, or if you simply enjoy following a character who stubbornly keeps getting back up no matter what is thrown at her, then this book is absolutely worth your time. Fans of urban fantasy, paranormal mystery, or character-driven supernatural drama will have a blast with Tai and her world.
Pages: 339 | ASIN : B0FBJ89ZZV
The Demon’s Deceit
The Demon’s Deceit is the first book in Andria Carver’s “Divine Evolution” series, and it throws you straight into a gritty, supernatural underworld where addiction, trauma, and power all mix with the occult. The story follows Jeanie Bennett, a washed-up addict who wakes up to find herself under the control of Ms. Cummings, a wealthy, manipulative demon. Cummings offers her a deal, freedom from pain and fear, in exchange for becoming her unwilling assassin. What follows is a twisted dive into the world of the “Divines,” beings who exist beyond humanity, feeding on power, blood, and chaos. The story blends dark humor, philosophical reflection, and raw, uncomfortable honesty in a way that makes you both wince and laugh.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how real Jeanie felt. Her sarcasm, her self-loathing, the way she drifts between wanting to die and wanting to live again. The writing is sharp and punchy, and Carver knows how to make even the filthiest alleyway feel alive. There’s grit under every word, and I loved that the book doesn’t try to glamorize the supernatural. Instead, it makes demons bureaucratic, vain, and disturbingly human. Sometimes the dialogue felt very real, like overhearing someone’s breakdown in a dive bar. I liked that rawness, though. The pacing dips now and then, mostly when the lore gets heavy, but the character work keeps it grounded. I found myself laughing at Jeanie’s bleak humor and then suddenly feeling a lump in my throat when her grief crept through the cracks.
Carver’s ideas about divinity and morality are what really stuck with me. The book doesn’t hand you clean answers, it muddies everything. Who deserves redemption? What’s the price of feeling nothing? And can survival be noble if it’s built on someone else’s pain? These questions hum beneath the action and the blood. I liked how Carver never lets Jeanie off the hook; she’s messy, flawed, and maddening, but she’s trying, and that made me root for her. The mix of horror, dark comedy, and emotional honesty gave the book an unpredictable rhythm that made it feel alive.
The Demon’s Deceit feels like a gritty mashup of Neil Gaiman’s dark whimsy in American Gods, Gillian Flynn’s raw, damaged characters, and the cynical bite of Chuck Palahniuk’s storytelling, all wrapped in a supernatural noir that’s entirely its own. The Demon’s Deceit is a wild story that I heartily enjoyed. I’d recommend it to readers who like their urban fantasy dark, their humor twisted, and their characters broken but fighting.
Pages: 273 | ASIN : B0FLVVHS8J
Self-Deprecating Humor
Spelled in Ink centers around a gifted but snarky mage on a supernatural heist that suddenly goes wrong. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
Plenty of inspirations for my novels come from my travels. This one was inspired by a trip to the French chateaus of the Loire. We visited both Clos Lucé and Chenonceau, and I found them both so magical that I simply had to write about them. Da Vinci was an amazing person, and the exhibition in the chateau gave me plenty of food for thought. I always have paranormal elements in my novels, and Magical Realism is a thing for me. This one borders on urban fantasy; I simply wanted to have more magic than in my other series, the Magical Misfits Mysteries. I also wanted something faster-paced. Poor Cyn and Dan are almost constantly on the run….
Cyn is such a fantastic main character. What was your inspiration for her traits and dialogue?
I prefer characters who break the mold, that’s why she–while grounded in Europe–isn’t purely of European descent. Fortunately, my kind Indian friends made sure I didn’t introduce any bloopers when it came to the Indian part of her heritage. The voice is typical–or so I’m told. My MCs seem to suffer from self-deprecating humor, are intelligent and resourceful, and that makes for some snappy comebacks. I love writing dialogue. Apparently, it’s one of my strengths, or so I’m told.
What is the most challenging aspect of writing a mystery?
Getting the “trail of breadcrumbs,” i.e., the clues aligned so the ultimate conclusion is not only logical, but the reader also has a chance of working it out for themselves. Getting that right requires a lot of careful planning and mapping. Spelled is also a heist, which means I had another plotline to distract from the murder, but it still had to fit.
Can you give us a glimpse into the next book in the Da Vinci Mysteries? Where will it take readers?
The next one, Cursed out Loud, will take readers to Da Vinci’s home country and even his birthplace – Vinci in Tuscany. This book is stronger on the murder mystery aspect. To get hold of the next part of Vinci’s treatise, Cyn and Dan take part in an oldtimer rally. The winner gets the treatise. Well, that’s the theory. When a rally organizer is murdered, things go sadly pear-shaped… I’ve also been asked about the romance – yes, it develops during the series, and the next instalment makes their attraction very clear. But be warned – I’m anything but linear….
Author Links: GoodReads | Bluesky | Facebook | Website | Amazon
With the goddess Kali’s death curse hanging over her head, dark witch Cyn is running scared.
To get help, Cyn must sell her services to DAFT, a top-shelf supernatural society.
The mission is tricky—find Leonardo da Vinci’s missing formula to protect the witches’ fading psychic powers from modern hi-tech. The last thing she needs is more trouble.
Trouble is what she gets.
Mysterious ongoings at the maestro’s final residence in France throw Cyn’s assignment off track, leaving her with a murdered man, Dan the magic-hating art thief—and a pet tortoise.
Now Cyn and her new criminal sidekick Dan must solve the puzzle and flush out an invisible foe, who might or might not be an undead Da Vinci.
Of course, the killer strikes again.
And misses.
Given their clashing characters, backgrounds, and a slow-burn romance sparking between them, Cyn and Dan are a team forged in hell. But, hey, a little creative chaos can work wonders…
“Spelled in Ink”, the first book in this suspenseful series of paranormal cozy murder mystery and fantasy novels, will keep you laughing—and guessing—right to the very end. If you like witty and strong female characters as written by Janet Evanovich, Kristen Painter, Helen Harper, and Colleen Helme, this short and fast-paced novel will have you rooting for team Cyn and Dan.
And now go up and click Read Now or Buy Now to find out why it’s never a good idea to mess with watersprites!
Spelled in Ink
Spelled in Ink, by Lina Hansen, opens with a sharp, funny mix of magic, murder, and museum burglary. Cyn, a snarky and reluctantly gifted mage, is sneaking through Leonardo da Vinci’s old haunts when her job goes sideways. Cue spells, secret societies, and a charming thief. What starts as a supernatural heist at Château du Clos Lucé spirals into a mystery full of curses, dead bodies, and a centuries-old manuscript. It’s witty, fast, and delightfully chaotic.
Cyn’s voice hooked me from page one. From the moment she’s telepathically arguing with her boss while hiding in a bush, it’s clear she’s both capable and a total mess. She’s smart but allergic to her own magic, sarcastic to a fault, and impossible not to root for. When she mutters, “Maggots, what am I supposed to do?” over a corpse and a runaway tortoise, it’s equal parts absurd and oddly tender, a perfect snapshot of the book’s tone.
Hansen’s writing crackles with energy. Dialogue snaps, world-building slides in seamlessly, and every scene feels alive. The humor lands without derailing the tension; when explosions go off in Da Vinci’s bedroom or whispers rise from behind locked doors, the suspense feels earned. The blend of sharp wit and eerie atmosphere gives the book a rhythm that’s hard to put down.
The world itself feels fresh yet grounded. Magic here isn’t lofty; it’s messy, inconvenient, and often treated like an irritating chore. Cyn’s exasperated take on spellcasting (“Decades of toothache, more likely”) adds a human touch that makes the supernatural elements believable.
Between rival factions, magical science jargon, and Cyn’s chemistry with Dan the burglar, it can be hard to track every thread. But the chaos mostly works in its favor; it feels intentional, like watching a magician perform too fast for comfort but with total confidence. Cyn and Dan’s banter especially grounds the story; when he calls her “Cinderella in jeans,” it’s cheesy but endearing.
Spelled in Ink hits the sweet spot between mystery, fantasy, and comedy. It’s clever, brisk, and charmingly offbeat. Fans of Ben Aaronovitch or Seanan McGuire will love it. If you prefer your heroines scrappy and your magic delightfully unglamorous, this one’s a gem.
Pages: 160 | ASIN : B0FPBJHC8V
