Halloween Book Sale

October 28, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings!

I hope you’re all well, and weathering these troubled times with grace and dignity. Yeah, okay, I think most of us are freaking out and flailing around in some way or another. Things are weird. Bad, even. That aside, it is human nature to focus on dreadful things and overlook nice ones — that 9000-year-old reptile brain survival thing that media and algorithms are very good at manipulating. Sadly these days, they have a great deal to work with, god help us.

This is my favorite time of year. Predictably, my writing is full of dark and spooky things, monsters, curses, wicked trees, otherworldly villains and the like, mostly under the banner of high fantasy. But not entirely.

Recently, I broke ranks and wrote a Gothic horror novella about a crossroads bargain, which involves a deal made between a desperate (i.e., stupid) human and an otherworld entity, in the liminal space where two paths meet. Such bargains are tricky and usually result in unpleasant consequences. This one did—a centuries-old curse by the Unseelie Fae, more specifically, a wicked elf with an army and an axe to grind.

Enter Elspet, the unfortunate progeny of this bargain, a sensitive, hyper-vigilant young woman who sees things in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper—including a beautiful elven lord who is the ancient enemy of the aforementioned bastard.

Against the backdrop of an old, neurotic family, a creepy forest bordering the estate, a string of grisly, unexplained deaths and an antagonistic aunt, Elspet lands into a situation that forces her to make a devastating sacrifice that brings her to the threshold of the otherworld…and herself.

For a limited time, A Northward Gaze will be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon.
Read the story for free with Kindle Unlimited.

Be well, stay safe, and Happy Halloween! And remember, even the most ghastly, tragic tales can have a silver lining.

Valentine’s Day Epic Book Sale

February 13, 2023 / F.T. McKinstry

In my never-ending quest to uphold a reputation, I tend to look upon Valentine’s Day with all the warmth of the Winter Warlock. Try to give me a choo-choo and I will sic my monster trees on you.

The thing is, beneath my wintry fortress, I can be a bit of a softie. Despite my curmudgeonly self, I appreciate the people in my life: friends, family, social media peeps, geeks and readers alike. I am grateful.

So, I’ve decided to show my love with a book sale. Depending on what you’re into, it might not compete with chocolate and roses, but hey, that shit’s expensive (especially on Valentine’s Day). A story lasts forever. Dark stories about wizards, warlords, fiends and shadows last even longer. Heh.

February 13-15, all the books in my epic fantasy series the Chronicles of Ealiron will be on sale on Amazon. The first four of these books are normally $4.99.

Want some more chocolate? A Northward Gaze will also be free! In this gothic fantasy tale, an old forest with a dark history, a tryst with an elven lord and a series of grisly, unexplained deaths drives a woman into the labyrinth of a faerie curse put on her bloodline in a centuries-old crossroads bargain.

See? Softie. And choo-choos are cool–especially those elven-made ones.

Love you all. Stay safe and well.

Love, Swords and Fairy Tales

February 14, 2017July 11, 2021 / F.T. McKinstry / 2 Comments

I’m one of those old cynics who thinks Valentines Day is a capitalistic scam. There, I said it. Love, however, that’s another thing. Love makes the universe live and breathe. So today, because we’re thinking about it, I’ll express my love for all of you: thank you for the support, friendship, follows, tweets, RTs, likes, shares, replies, reads, reviews and anything else that shines light and makes the world a kinder place.

Wizards, Woods and Gods is a collection of twelve fantasy stories, all of which involve love in one way or another (because I’m a sucker at heart).

The Otherworld takes shape in this collection of twelve stories told on a rich, fairytale tapestry of swords, sorcery, romance, dreams, visions and verse. Ancient gardens, lost temples, cosmic alignments, immortal predators, assassins, shapeshifters, warriors and maidens will transport you to realms where the rules are different, nothing is as it seems and the heart keeps the balance of ages.

Click on the following stories for illustrations and excerpts.

Earth Blood – The earth keeps secrets. A warrior discovers ancient power in his veins when he’s plunged into the political corruption of a war devised to hide the truth of his mother’s death.

The Om Tree – Trees know things. A tree planted by a god at the dawn of a forest and raised in close proximity to an energy well beneath a wizards’ citadel knows a great many things. In this story, a wizard-assassin loses what is most dear to him and thereby learns the true nature of his art.

Pattern Sense – It all started with a mouse. A knitter discovers the strengths and pitfalls of an ancient power through the love of a warrior.

The War God Sleeps – When a lush, fertile land is seized by drought, a lonely hermit’s son ventures deep into the hills in search of water and there awakes a beautiful, yet terrible god whom the world has learned to live without.

The Fifth Verse – An ancient immortal entity defies the rules of her kind by falling in love with a mortal warrior, an indiscretion that leaves her grieving, pregnant and dependent on the help of a wizard whose army was responsible for the death of her beloved.

Deathseer – Under the influence of a mysterious observatory, the commander of a fearsome army is trapped in a conflict that eventually costs him his honor and the life of his brother, and drives him to accept an inborn magical ability that changes his destiny.

The Trouble with Tansy – An orphaned girl on the threshold of womanhood inherits a splendid, mysterious garden from three generations of wisewomen. When a roguish wizard attempts to impress her by disrupting the seasons, she must turn to the old powers for help.

Marked – The mother of a fey child learns the pitfalls of mingling with immortals when her boy is taken by a ferocious winged monster at the request of the god who fathered him.

Eating Crow – A masterful, wayward shapeshiftress angers a wizard who curses her by summoning a diabolical immortal hunter that puts her near death and forces her to seek the wizard’s cat, a gentle, mystical creature that alone can heal her wounds.

The Bridge – A visionary who spent her life preparing for a planetary alignment that will materialize a beautiful nature spirit only she can perceive, descends into her blackest fears when she is abandoned to a war for which she is indirectly responsible.

The Origin – A woodsman discovers that he is a god who created everything around him to know the love of a woman whose mortality drives him to the brink of annihilation.

Raven of the West – In the calm deep waters of the mind, the wolf waits. This novella is a tale of desire and deception told on a fairy-tale landscape of arcane texts, herbal lore, visions and disasters at the hands of the powerful.

Of Mice and Swordsmen

June 4, 2016August 15, 2019 / F.T. McKinstry

I live in the woods. Mice are a way of life, and while I’ve always had ferocious hunting cats, mice are very resourceful, especially in the fall when they’re looking for winter shelter. Who can blame them? Winter is nasty, here.

You could make an interesting psychological study some 3AM, wide awake staring at the ceiling, listening to a mouse chewing on something, who knows what, insulation, wiring, rafters; it’s stockpiling caches, building nests, making baby mice–the sucker is at least a foot long, has to be–yes, you could be the Great Shaman of all Wildlife Lovers but after imagining the horrible results of nocturnal mouse business you’ll be capable of anything.

A while back, I wrote a little story called Pattern Sense, about a knitter who discovers the strengths and pitfalls of an ancient power through the love of a swordsman. I wasn’t being tormented by mice at the time (past trauma maybe), but in a vivid description of the aforementioned scenario, I came up with the perfect impetus for my protagonist to discover the extent of her skill.

If a mouse in the middle of the night can’t bring out a woman’s hidden powers, nothing can.

Pattern Sense made it to the second round finals with Daily Science Fiction, and then I published it in Tales of the Talisman. And then, something magical happened. This story, it seemed, was a glimpse of a full blown novel. This began to unfold and eventually became Outpost, Book One in The Fylking. In that story, there is more to our knitter’s power than mere hedge witchery; and the love between her and the swordsman goes to dark places indeed, a subplot driven by sorcery, treachery, war, and even the gods themselves.

Who knew? Mice have a good place in my life after all. Besides, they are cute.

Outpost, Book One in The Fylking.

A race of immortal warriors who live by the sword.
A gate between the worlds.
Warriors, royals, seers and warlocks living in uneasy peace on one side of the Veil.
Until now.