FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with our interview featuring author and editor, Kerrie Hughes. Kerrie has worked on several short story anthologies including the newly-released ZOMBIE RACCOONS KILLER BUNNIES and GAMER FANTASTIC.

We’d like to share with you Kerrie’s thoughts on editing short stories, what she likes about the format, and her take on the current market.

One word describes the first novel from author Jack Kilborn: relentless. Much like the works of Jim Butcher and David Morrell, Kilborn’s premiere work, AFRAID, is non-stop tension. Each section break, while short, somehow manages to ratchet up the suspense to the point that you wonder how much more you can take. You won’t want to put the book down once you start it and a small part of you will wonder what possessed you to pick it up in the first place. The story is a non-stop horror ride…once on, you can’t get off.

The story centers on Safe Haven, Wisconsin, a small town that prefers its privacy over even economic depression. Snowbirds flee south for the winter, leaving the 900+ full-time residents to their quiet, peaceful place of fishing and relaxation. That is, until what appears to be a helicopter crash ignites a world of trouble for every one of the town’s 900 inhabitants.

Review by Joe Rixman

After reviewing Natasha Mostert’s book, Season of the Witch, I was curious to see how this up-and-coming author’s next book would fare. Keeper of Light and Dust is not a sequel to Season of the Witch, but was written as a stand-alone story about the duality of healing as it relates to chi. Mia Lockheart is a mystic protector, a healer who works as a tattoo artist in South London secretly guarding the lives of today’s warriors, a group of boxers. The villain of this tale is a modern day vampire, a man who learned how to steal chi, that mystical and ancient energy force that fuels our souls and provides us with life’s energy.

Well-researched, Keeper of Light and Dust is an excellent nod to the modern day sport of boxing mixed with the ancient form of martial arts. Not often do we find athletics at the center of a supernatural tale, and it’s refreshing to read a book where the sport is part of the plot.

You may remember that in my review of Shearin’s Magic Lost, Trouble Found, I expressed some confusion about reading a novel that felt like urban fantasy but was set in an elves-and-goblins style world. Armed and Magical follows the further adventures of Raine Benares as she tries to get rid of the Saghred, the evil stone that has claimed her as its link to the world, and has very much the same style as the first book. In reading the sequel, however, I finally made the connection that I missed in Raine’s first adventure: Raine is a seeker, which is roughly the equivalent of a private investigator for her world. What Shearin is writing isn’t a hybrid of urban fantasy and low fantasy–it’s hard boiled fantasy noir.

Review by Alana Abbott

Within the realm of fantasy books, there are often stories that wander behind-the-scenes of a traditional sword-and-sorcery plot, describing knights, princesses and faraway places as real as if the author imagined Merlin himself lived right next door to you.

In James P. Blaylock’s The Knights of the Cornerstone, due out on December 2, 2008, we meet Calvin Bryson, a recluse deeply affected by his broken engagement and his love of rare books and pamphlets. Carefully living off of his family’s inheritance, Calvin dabbles in drawing cartoons and doesn’t really care to think much about what’s going on in the world.

Changeling: the Lost is a very different game than Changeling: the Dreaming. Some of the terminology may be similar but each book explores fairy tales in a different way and offer up very different types of games. Some fans will want to compare the two games, others will look at Lost as something new and original. I’m a fan of both games. Changeling: the Lost is an amazing book, full of great writing and tons of story elements.

How did you get into gaming?
I was in a Gifted and Talented Education program in the fourth grade. My parents were given a list of games to help foster a child’s imagination. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was on the list. My mom bought me the “red box” version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BDD) and [...]