Tag Archives: history

I made another something: Laws of Lightning will be out soon!

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My last original romance novel was published in 2020. I believe it was at the height of Covid, when we all thought the world was going to end. I remember people caught on cruise ships and getting stuck because of Covid cases being detected onboard. And I bravely published a romance that took place on board a cruise ship.

Ah, those were the days.

No fear this time, though. Covid has been interwoven into our society (along with some other unpleasant things). So for my comeback, my first novel in nearly SIX YEARS, I chose to write a total escape romantasy set in 1700s England and featuring Greek gods. Yep. It’s like if Jane Austen met the crazy-ass gods of mythology.

Here’s the summary:

In a world where magic and religion are outlawed, the fates of a natural mage and a wandering god collide. 

Callie has hidden her powers all her life while working as a kitchen maid for the St. Clair family—until one night when she is discovered in the woods by Samir, a servant of the Muses. Drawn to the beauty of her magic, Samir recruits his friend Dionysus to help him discover more about the young woman with extraordinary power.

Together, they embark on a search for the lost pithos of Pandora. The journey tests their love, expands their beliefs, and leads them on a wild ride from the excesses of London’s “season” to the mysterious depths of the Oracle of Delphi. 

Can the new love Samir and Callie have discovered survive the demands of London society and the quirks of the gods of Olympus?

And here’s the final cover:

copyright 2026 Michelle Garren-Flye

Laws of Lightning will be released on February 28, 2026. I’ll be posting more about it between now and then. I’ve ordered my preview copy of it, just to make sure it really is going to look as good as I think it will when it comes out. Just FYI, although it’s a romantasy, I doubt this one would get even 3 spicy peppers on today’s spicy scale. Still, I’m old-fashioned and recommending it for 18+ readers. So approach with caution.

Coincidence or Synchronicity? Spooky ties! And an angel?

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I’m currently embroiled in putting the finishing touches to the fourth issue of The Next Chapter Literary Magazine. I’ve often been bewildered (in a good way) by the way synchronicity works in my life. My bookstore for instance. Derby, my bookstore cat, for another. If I hadn’t been on Facebook at the right time, I’d never have seen his picture. And his magical purr would never have been there to help me through the hardest time of my life thus far.

Back to happier thoughts, though. This issue has had its share of confusingly coincidental happenings. I decided back in the summer to use a photo that was submitted for the last issue as the cover for this issue and use the theme of history. I invited one of the local authors to write the introduction. And everything fell together from there, from the submissions I received to the dedication.

Maybe I’ve read too much scifi and fantasy, but I’m a firm believer that there is a force that holds us all together. Some believe it’s their god. Some think the earth itself binds us. Jedi call it “The Force” (based loosely on the Chinese belief in “chi”). Maybe it’s just gravity.

I believe we are more of a hive mind than we’d like to let on, and that mind spans our history as well as our present and possibly our future. Hear me out. There might even be a scientific explanation for it.

In 2016, physicist Ronald Hanson proved Einstein’s dismissal of “spooky action at a distance” wrong by separating two entangled quantum particles to a significant distance and performing experiments on them, noting that the separated particle reacted in the same way as the one being experimented on. Or something like that. At any rate, the experiment proved spooky action was possible at a distance. So there was a tie between those two particles.

The universe is full of these ties, and I believe they can affect lives. But maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s the work of angels. Back in the summer on a day when I was feeling particularly badly about my life, a lovely woman with a cheerful smile and an enthusiastic attitude walked into the store. She exclaimed over everything in the store and bemoaned that she hadn’t brought her wallet with her. She said she’d be back. As she left, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I’m Joy and I’ll be seeing you.”

I haven’t seen her since…but I believe I will.

The next Next Chapter. Coming January 2022. Copyright 2021.

Poem: Recipe for a Hero

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Recipe for a Hero

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Take shackles and guns in a jungle—

Add a lifetime of service.

Make a decision no one likes

Because you feel it’s right.

Stir ‘til smooth.

 

Take a stand for someone else—

Even if it costs you your love.

Make a play for the disadvantaged

Because you know what’s right.

Blend all well.

 

Take a seat and keep it long past

When others have given up.

Make life difficult for those around you

Because they want you to go away.

Shake ‘em up.

 

Take care, false heroes and prophets—

You don’t belong in this dish.

Make your way to the right side of history

Before the heat gets turned up on you.

Fire it up.

 

The Magic of History: My Close Up Magic Facebook Page

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When I decided to write about magicians, I started out the way you’d expect: I started researching how it was done. With very little research on the internet, you can easily find out everything from how to do card tricks to how to vanish the Statue of Liberty. I found the simplicity of it both startling and disillusioning, and I realized something.

I don’t want to know this.

So I turned my attention from the “how to” articles on the internet to the “who did that and when” articles. The people who have populated the world of magic are fascinating. The pioneers of magic, the great illusionists, the tricksters, the card wizards…if they devoted their lives to the art of magic and making people believe, their stories still entertain.

And that’s what I’m putting on my Close Up Magic Facebook Page. Here’s today’s post:

In the 19th century, spiritualism, or the use of mediums to contact the dead on the spiritual plane, claimed a portion of the audience of many of the magicians of the time. Many so-called “mediums” used methods of illusion to convince their audiences that they could establish a connection with the spirits of dead loved ones. While spiritualism had its illustriuous followers including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Queen Victoria and possibly even three American presidents (Lincoln, Grant and Johnson), many magicians took it on themselves to debunk the mediums’ seances. Houdini held shows in which he recreated entire seances in order to expose spiritualism as a fraud.

If you’d like to check out some of my other posts, you can find them here: Close Up Magic Facebook Page.