Raine of Fire
A Wickney Mystery Novel
by Susan Stradiotto
Genre: Epic Fantasy Mystery, Paranormal Romance
Sparks
fly when an exiled Fae prince and a straight-laced detective team up
to solve a murder.
Banished
by his mother from Faerie, Raine Abarta wants nothing more than to
entertain people on the streets of Wickney, Wisconsin. But when the
daughter of a prominent senator stumbles upon his show, he’s drawn
into her world and her mother’s murder.
When Raine takes his
act down to the police department with intentions of helping solve
the puzzle–or, uh, the “case”–he meets the ultra-serious
Detective Kennedi Craine. To his dismay, she views him as nothing
more than a charlatan, but when has that ever stopped him?
Kennedi’s
latest case is open and shut, more of a paperwork and media hassle
than a case. Senator La Point, after all, was holding the smoking gun
over his wife’s lifeless body. So, when a random guy off the street
walks in telling her she’s wrong, she sends him on his merry way.
At least she thinks she does. As he keeps popping up, she begins to
wonder if he’s on to something. And when he broaches a situation
from her past, she just can’t leave him alone.
Raine helps
her solve another small case, and she starts to wonder if there might
be something more to both mysteries before her.
Fabulous
read for fans of the TV shows Castle and Bones.
Raine of Fire
© 2022 Susan Stradiotto
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations,
and events are either a part of the author’s imagination or used
ficticiously.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed
“Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Published by
Bronzewood Books
14920 Ironwood Ct.
Eden Prairie, MN 55346
Cover Design: MIBLART & Bronzewood Books
Interior Design: Bronzewood Books
Edited by: Sonnet Fitzgerald
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-949357-30-1
eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-949357-35-6
Printed in the USA
Chapter 1
Raine
APPLAUSE.
Flames licked a hot trail across his forearm
as Raine caught the third baton, then the fourth. With
two blazing torches in each hand, he held his arms wide
and bowed to the congregating audience, soaking in the
cheers as if they were sweeter than the air he breathed.
At times, the ovation was indeed better than air. It sent
a surge through his body and made stars twinkle at the
edges of his vision, as such a thrill did with all his kind.
If shelter and sustenance weren’t necessary, a solid dose
of human delight each day in reaction to his performance
would be enough to sustain him eternally. Alas, survival
in the mortal realm required him to behave . . . well,
mortally. He had to eat, had to earn money to buy food.
So, ever so careful not to allow his pinky finger, the one
he created with glamour, to get in the way, he palmed the
flaming torches in one hand and took off his top hat with
a flourish. Rather than simply placing the hat for coin,
he dipped his wrist to spin the batons again and elicit an
encore of oohs and ahhs before he laid the hat near the
crowd. From his array of performances on the northeast
corner of Wickney Square he made enough to pay rent on
a tiny flat just down the street from the square and have a
meal or two a day. On a good day, he’d be set for the week
with his low-key lifestyle, but those days were limited to
the weekends when shoppers gathered around the gagworthy boutique shops in the city’s center square. Why
humans paid good money for the crap these shop owners
sold—frilly clothes, smelly candles, and mutilated hunks
of clay they called stoneware—was truly beyond his
comprehension. But why in Ifrinn did he care, as long as
they dumped their fair share of coin into his hat too.
Raine turned toward his equipment, smiling to hear
several coins and the rustle of a few bills drop into the
hat. He dropped the torches flame-first into a metal
canister where the reservoir of fuel extinguished the fire,
then he retrieved a set of staves. As he dipped both ends
into the fuel, he scanned the crowd and pitched his voice
in precisely the manner the humans thirsted for. “For the
next sequence, I’ll need a volunteer.”
Eyes previously bright with amusement turned to the
sidewalk. How utterly predictable. It was a rare mortal who
embraced performing, one who likely had been touched
by Raine’s kind in one way or another, or a síobhra who’d
yet to embrace his or her own power. Raine squinted, as
much to hide the shifting sands in his eyes as to block out
the rays of the sun. He used the sight—or what he called
faedar—to interrogate the individuals who’d gathered, but
none immediately popped out at him. Strangely, not one
single person amid those gathered called to his nature,
not a one emitted the telltale aura that signaled the need
for levity or being worthy of a quaint little prank.
“No one?” he hawked to the onlookers. Then, playing
their emotions like a finely tuned faelute, he added, “Is
there not one sympathetic soul who will assist a poor performer in need?”
Raine turned before the crowd, slowly twirling
the staves as they heated to the proper temperature so
they wouldn’t flicker out as they sailed through the air.
Brilliance, it had to be. Garnering applause and money
required brilliance in his performance, and he remained
patient enough to ensure his audience would be dishing
out a good deal of both. Finally, as he made his way to
the far edge of the crowd, a silvery light above someone’s
head marched through the crowd. Raine strained to see
the passerby, and when he caught a glimpse of the pinch
on her face under her blonde hair and brows, he pointed
a staff.
“You!” He paused as people gasped and looked around,
all turning to where he pointed after they’d assured
themselves he wasn’t calling on them.
“Miss?” he said louder still.
The blonde woman stopped, her pinched expression
opening in sheer surprise, and she hugged a khaki
trenchcoat closer and locked eyes with Raine. She pushed
the shoulder bag up higher and under her collar with the
other hand. The woman’s mouth formed a little O as she
started to shake her head, but the silvery aura kindled.
Yes, she was the right person for the job. He nodded
and stepped through the parting crowd with a hand
outstretched.
She tried to retreat, but her heels and the steps caught
her up while Raine easily closed the distance.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“I-I’m sorry, but I . . .” Blonde curls swung around
her head as she shook it no.
Never releasing his smile, Raine narrowed his eyes and reached for his ability to bend someone toward his
will. With the nudge, the woman eased, her shoulders fell
from her ears, and she placed a hand in his. But she still
hesitated.
“Vanessa,” she said, her voice hollow. She drew her
brows together as if she didn’t quite understand why she
relented.
He turned to guide her to center stage, but through
their touch, an overwhelming sense of shock and
mourning accosted Raine. Something extraordinary
and tragic stabbed into him so hard he couldn’t make
out the cause. He tasted metal, and a deep-seated need
within him to transform her situation almost threw him
off his game. He sighed. That was something he hadn’t
succumbed to in a very, very long time. Most of the time,
he wouldn’t get visions or feelings around the mortals
unless he opened himself up to it. He blinked several
times. The performance—he needed to focus on his show.
He dropped her hand as soon as he had her situated and
took another deep breath to center himself.
Their connection severed, Vanessa made a move
to walk away, so he stepped into her path. He reached
again for the gifts granted by the Goddess and allowed
his irises to shift, easing the familiar contortions flashing
across her face. “You don’t wish to leave now, do you?”
Over so many years, that sequence of brow bunching, eye
widening, and lip pursing had become familiar when he
nudged a human, swayed their will to match his own. And
at last, her dismay no longer distracted him.
The audience murmured, oohed, and ahhed again.
Smiling, he turned back to the crowd and twirled the
staves in several long arcs with the intent of soaking
in cheers from the onlookers, fueling his performance
toward the finale. He’d deal with whatever that was
RAINE OF FIRE
5
later—maybe. As the clapping and enthralled chants
urged him on, Raine once again felt the surge . . . the
high of praise and appreciation rushed back through him.
Relieved for the moment of Vanessa’s trauma and his
unwanted urges, he turned back to her and asked her to
remove her handbag and raincoat.
Vanessa stared at him with her brows drawn together
and her head angled.
“Two minutes, love, and you’ll be on your way and
feeling a mite better,” Raine whispered.
She removed her coat and purse and handed it over.
He thrust the staves toward her, handle first. “Hold
these.”
She staggered a bit under the weight, so he reached to
help. “They’re heavier than they look,” he teased, a brow
raised. “Got ’em?”
Vanessa nodded with a twitching smile, which Raine
returned with more vigor. Good enough. He’d distracted
her from whatever had been sapping her good humor.
Small trick, but it also sated his urges a little. He draped
her coat and purse over the small suitcase he used to
transport his equipment. Before he stood, he sighted
his gloves. Aye, those would insulate him from her
trauma leakage. Needing no further distractions from his
performance, he slowly donned the gloves. The motion
was awkward with the extra numb digit on each hand.
Standing, he joined Vanessa at center stage and positioned
her to face the majority of the crowd.
“Relax now, follow my lead sure, and don’t let go of
the staff unless I tell you.”
She was his tool now, and there wasn’t need for her to
know that he’d enhance her movements throughout the entirety of the performance. As was the case with most
people he influenced, Vanessa would likely be impressed
with her own abilities when it was all said and done. He
smirked. Of course he’d allow that too.
Raine faced her and lifted his staff into a horizontal
position over his head, then suggested with a look that
she do the same. He twirled the staff in several arcs to
one side then the other and flowed straight into the next
flourish, which finished with the staff wrapped around
the back of Vanessa’s waist. The lit ends painted trails of
light that would have been so much more satisfying had
it been dark, but this would do. In natural response to
Raine’s pull, the staff Vanessa held above her head moved
down and behind Raine’s shoulders so that they stood
in a semi-embrace completed by the staves. Then, Raine
began to move, a dance. Her feet followed his as if they’d
practiced together for long hours. Hoots and hollers from
the crowd ensued as he twisted and twirled in the dance,
all the time looking deeply into Vanessa’s eyes to hold the
connection and lead the choreography. He absorbed the
levity from the crowd while he placed footwork carefully
to ensure the trails of flame followed with exacting arcs
and precision.
After several twists, turns, and reversals, Raine
commanded, “Release your right hand.”
Vanessa did, and she grew a bit breathless as Raine
grasped the other end of the staff, sending her outward
so that they stood apart with one hand holding on and the
other outstretched. Then, at precisely the right momentum
point, he barked, “Release,” and pulled. When her hand
freed, she elegantly twirled back toward him as if she’d
practiced ballet since the day she’d taken her first steps.
Meanwhile, Raine extended his arms and pivoted so that
he’d end up directly behind the spot where she would
stop. As he made the final swoops and planted both staves to one side, Vanessa fell toward his now-empty arm.
He went to one knee and caught her in a dramatic dip
with her blonde hair brushing the concrete, and bent his
head to her chest. High on the mortal excitement, Raine
breathed in the delight erupting from the crowd.
Afterward, he helped Vanessa to her feet and bent
at the waist several times, devouring the ovation. He
indicated his partner, because that was the performerly
thing to do, or so the guild said. She offered a weak smile
and patted her hair as if to ensure it was still coiffed. It
wasn’t. Raine returned to his bows. The crowd started to
disperse, several of the watchers dropping money into the
top hat as they went. When he turned back to Vanessa, all
that remained where she’d stood was an empty space on
the sidewalk. Her coat and purse were gone too. He looked
over the heads, squinting until he found the silvery cloud
moving away at a quick clip. Metal flooded his mouth
again, and his stomach growled.
“Danu help me,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He
dunked the ends of the staves to put out the flame,
collapsed them, and dropped them into the suitcase. He
looked back over the crowd to make sure Vanessa’s aura
was still in sight.
Following the cloud over the heads of the people in
Wickney Square, Raine dumped the lighter fluid in a
nearby garbage can. Yeah, that’d cause him trouble, but
why not? He slid a match from his pocket, flicked a nail
across the sulfur, and smirked as he tossed it inside.
BOOM!
Screeches. Chaos.
Perfection. He grabbed his case handle and hurried
after the silvery cloud just as it took a right at the next
corner. “Shite.” Raine dodged one group then the next until
he passed the crowd and turned at the corner.
To his good fortune, he had a higher vantage point
looking downhill toward the college at the low end of
High Street. He caught the glimmer just as Vanessa, aura
and all, ducked into a prominent pub in Wickney, the
Local. That slowed his step back to normal and painted
a smile across his lips. With a single nod, he took the
first satisfied steps toward his normal after-performance
routine: a whiskey with Dick, the afternoon bartender
and a close friend.
Raine pushed into the pub through the ornately carved
doors, dropped his suitcase at the coat check, and headed
for the long, dark-wooded bar. Beyond, Vanessa’s aura
glinted but faded fast—a clear indication that she was
coming to terms with whatever had her shaken so badly
in the square.
As Raine approached the bar, Dick lifted a towel-covered hand. “Neat?”
“Is there another way?” Raine took his normal
barstool at the end where he could see the door. Vanessa
sat in the booth behind and to his right, close enough
that he could eavesdrop if he felt so inclined—and, at the
moment, he did.
Dick slid over an empty glass and poured the whiskey.
“How was the show?”
“Good turnout. I haven’t counted, but I think I made
twice the normal Monday haul.” Raine downed the dram.
“Another?” the bartender asked, then refilled the
glass without waiting for confirmation.
Raine’s attention piqued when the door opened again
and a shadow stepped inside. Wearing a knee-length raincoat expensive enough to match Vanessa’s, the man
marched directly down the length of the bar. Raine kept
his nose pointed toward the glass but glanced up and tried
not to react as Vincent La Pointe—a prominent candidate
in the current elections and someone who’d never, ever
frequent the Local—made it into viewing range. Just then,
everything clicked. Vanessa had looked familiar, and the
reason behind that? She belonged to the most powerful
family in the city, the La Pointes. So Raine had danced
with the little sister of Wickney’s future mayor.
Raine looked up at Dick, curling his fingers into fists
and releasing them. The desire to move in on whatever
was happening almost overwhelmed him. His tongue
twinged with metal, his instincts begging to be set free.
Puzzles, a new scheme, something twisted, manipulative
. . . and fun. His mouth watered. But, no. He wouldn’t
give into that nature now or ever again. He’d sworn it off.
He downed the second whiskey, needing to chase away
the taste of metal along with the urge that’d certainly get
him thrown into lockup down at WPD.
Just being who you are is illegal in this realm, wanker.
Remember? But that didn’t stop him from stretching his
ear, trying to listen in on the La Pointe conversation in
the booth.
Brother and sister exchanged hellos, and Vincent
scolded her. “Do you know how poorly this could reflect on
me and my campaign? Frequenting pubs isn’t something
that the good people of Wickney accept easily.”
“I needed . . . ” Vanessa started then lowered her
voice to a point the remainder only came in unintelligible
murmurs.
Vincent sighed audibly. “Very well.” then his voice
took on the same mumbling tone. Raine rolled his eyes and tapped a finger on the glass.
A third wasn’t the norm, but the frustration and curiosity
egged him on. As Dick reached for the bottle, a news
bulletin interrupted the game on the TV. In front of the
Wickney Court House, a group of reporters hoarded around
a pair of police officers escorting in an older version of
Vincent La Pointe into the building. Raine lifted his face
to the television as his mouth gaped. The man wasn’t in
handcuffs, so not arrested—yet, but it seemed ominous. A
headline in a red bar across the bottom of the screen read,
“William La Pointe Named Suspect in Wife’s Murder.”
Well, well, well. The murder of her mother would
certainly explain Vanessa’s agitation in the square, as
well as why the La Pointe siblings were having hushed
conversations in a pub. Raine tried to listen to the
conversation again but came up empty. Too bad being Fae
didn’t come with a heightened sense of hearing.
When the two officers and the senior La Pointe
disappeared into the building on the TV, a woman stepped
forward, and the headline switched to read, “Detective
Kennedi Craine, Wickney Police Department” across the
bottom. Raine listened, but Detective Craine answered
very few of the questions shouted out from the cloud of
reporters.
With a hand raised in a motion to silence the questions,
she said, “We are merely questioning Mr. La Pointe at this
time. When we have narrowed the suspect list and charges
are filed, a formal statement will be issued. Thank you.”
“Detective Craine!” one reporter shouted. “Can you
tell us about the affair Mrs. La Pointe was having?”
The detective replied, “No further comment at this
time,” turned away from the cameras, and marched up
the few remaining steps into the courthouse. The camera switched to a young reporter, maybe
fresh from journalism school, who adjusted his glasses
before he realized the camera was focused on him. “Oh.”
He perked up and put on a mask that clearly showed his
hunger to break the next big story in Wickney and make
a name for himself. “Stay tuned to Channel Four for the
latest updates.”
The game resumed.
“Hell in a hand basket,” Dick said, shaking his head
as he poured the next shot of whiskey.
Raine turned on the stool and scanned over to the
booth. He locked eyes briefly with Vanessa. She tilted her
head, and he replied with a small smile, then pretended
he was looking for the restroom. He asked Dick in a loud
voice to further the rouse. Dick furrowed his brow, clearly
confused as to why Raine—an afternoon regular—would
ask such a thing, but he pointed to the front of the pub.
Raine downed the last dram and slapped a bill on the
bar. “Thanks, mate.”
As he walked to the door, he pulled out his phone.
Careful to hold it only by the rubber case, he pressed a
side button to wake it up, held it so the face-recognition
would work, then tapped the voice icon and said, “Text
Morgana” quietly into the speaker.
The electronic voice replied, “Did you mean M-ZeroR-Six-Four-N-Four?”
Raine said, “Yes.” Because he couldn’t touch the
device for long, he’d done this enough times that the
thing was learning, and he was grateful that he’d finally
found a way to use the latest tech.
“What would you like to text?” the voice asked.
Continuing with the voice-to-text feature, he started the conversation.
Raine: Need a lookup
M0R64N4: Not now. Busy.
Shite. She was the only person he knew who could get
the info quickly.
Raine: Please? I’ll make it worth your while.
No reply.
Raine: Name your price.
Nothing for a minute.
More seconds passed. He sank to begging.
Raine: I said please. Silence burns.
Three little dots scrolled across the bottom of the
screen, and Raine pumped his fist and hissed, “Yesss!”
M0R64N4: Fine. What?
Raine: Address for Vanessa La Pointe
M0R64N4: 100 Devereux Court #3
That reply came too quickly. Raine grabbed his suitcase
from the coat check, pursed his lips, then texted back.
Raine: You know her?
M0R64N4: Seriously, Bard, next time you need such
common intel, ask that bartender you just passed.
Raine could feel the eye-roll in those words as he
looked back down the bar at Dick. Shaking his head, he
pushed through the door and lifted the phone again once
he had both feet pounding the pavement.
Raine: OK what do I owe?
M0R64N4: Some peace and effin quiet. OUT! Raine shoved his phone into his pocket and marched up
the hill, catty-corner across Wickney Square, navigating
around the plethora of creepy statues and the fountain.
He went two blocks up Main Street, then turned onto
Aldgate. He ducked into the third doorway, typed in a
door code, and climbed the stairs to his tiny flat above a
cheap lawyer’s office. At the sink beside the closet-like
room that barely contained a three-by-three shower and
toilet, he splashed a little water on his face. If he were
mortal, that third shot probably would have done him in
for a good afternoon nap. As it was, his Fae constitution
was only a little fazed by the human distilled spirits. No,
his conundrum was whether or not to fight the desperate
need to interfere with the situation that’d presented itself
to him when he’d made contact with Vanessa La Pointe.
Unfortunately, he feared he’d already lost the battle with
his nature.
Raine ran a towel over his face, opened his suitcase,
and counted his proceeds from the performance. Indeed,
it’d been a fantastic performance and overly profitable to
boot. “Thanks, Vanessa!” he called to the empty room.
Raine tucked half the cash into the puzzle box he stored
under his nightstand, closed it back up, and glamoured
it to look like just part of the furniture. Beyond the
glamour, the intricate series of steps required to open
the thing could only be discerned by another royal Fae.
His wealth was safer there than in any of the mortal
institutions that touted to hold someone’s money but
really invested it somewhere, charged the account holder
tons of fees, and got richer and richer off the dividends
the tiny print allowed them to collect on everyone else’s
money. Somewhere deep inside, Raine admired these
bankers for pulling one of the better hoaxes ever on the
unsuspecting public. Yeah, he had a bank account, but
he only put enough cash in to be able to use those little pieces of plastic where cash just wouldn’t do. If anyone
was going to invest his money, it’d be him, so that he
could manage his returns with better precision.
He paced for several moments, then gave in to desire
and left his flat, bound for Devereux Court.
By the time Vanessa finally arrived back at her
home, it was well past dark and likely past most normal
mortals’ bedtimes. Raine had wandered her entire
townhouse—a British terrace-style home similar to the
brownstone townhouses in New York City. The facade
looked unoriginally identical to the other four homes in
Devereux Court, and Raine double checked the number
before letting himself into #3 with little ordeal. The
standard steel lock was the cheapest puzzle in the book,
and to any onlooker, it would have certainly appeared as
if he just used a key and walked right inside—another
resident of said home.
Raine sat on a stool at the uncharacteristic high-top table in Vanessa’s breakfast nook, just on the other
side of the modern kitchen. Mortals always went to the
kitchen first when they came home, so he’d determined
that was the best place to await her arrival. At the front of
the townhome, the door closed and papers rustled, then
everything fell still. Presumably she’d dropped the mail
on the foyer table. Her heels clicked on the hardwood
toward the kitchen for three, four, five steps, then she
stepped onto the tile, dropped her purse on the counter,
and flipped on the light. She didn’t look up immediately,
so Raine cleared his throat.
Vanessa gasped and stumbled backward into the door
of her stainless-steel refrigerator.
Raine stood, holding up his hands. “Nach tú, Vanessa.”
She scrambled for her purse, but she’d left it too close to Raine. He snatched it up before she could.
Jerking backward with jitters in her voice, she
demanded, “Wh-what are you doing in my house?”
“Calm down,” Raine said as a knee-jerk reaction,
then slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand.
Shite—that’s what all the crooks say, right?
Vanessa went for the drawer beside the cook top.
Raine stepped closer. “Please. I’m sorry to scare you.”
That wasn’t true. He didn’t care if he scared her in the
least, but it’s what he wanted her to believe. Narrowing
his eyes, he nudged her a little. “Just listen for a minute.”
Her shoulders dropped “You’ve been following me
since that spectacle in the square earlier. You were in
the bar. Why are you here?” Her hands trembled as she
reached slowly for the drawer.
“I-I . . .” He faltered on what came next. Strange.
He never came up short of words. He looked around the
room, over the whitewashed cabinets, and along the
darker grout lines between the lighter floor tiles. What
did he want? Why was he here? This Danu-damned Fae
addiction was going to land him in more trouble than
he’d been in since New Orleans. What words could he
possibly use to explain? Suddenly, it struck. Truth, kind
of. His eyes stretched to their fullest extent then narrowed
again as his lips peeled back. “You believe your father is
innocent, sure. I can help you prove it so.”
Creative Inspiration for Raine of Fire
By Susan Stradiotto, author of Raine of Fire
I find that life and sometimes the tiniest situations offer much in the way of creative energy for me. The world and characters in Raine of Fire are no exception. In truth, the book does have some little gems that crept in from my day-to-day life. I probably have no way to name them all, but I thought I would share a few in this article.
When I wrote this novel, I had recently visited Glasgow, Scotland. Wickney Square, where Raine performs, is greatly inspired by George Square in Glasgow. Many photos of that can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Square. I took liberties with what kinds of statues were in place and the shops on the northern length of the square, but WPD (Wickney Police Department) and the courthouse are largely based on the buildings you see in these photos.
I live in a suburb of Minneapolis, and we have a bar downtown called The Local. So, I’m sure you can guess where Wickney’s Local and Local U came from. It’s namely the inspiration for the upstairs portion of the club in Wickney. The lower level could really be attributed to any nightclub you might have visited. There are some fabulous photos of the inside of Minneapolis’s Local on this website: https://www.minneapolis.org/directory/the-local-an-irish-pub/.
When I conceived of this series, my aim was to create characters in the vein of Richard Castle and Kate Beckett from the TV series Castle or Bones and Booth from Bones. I wanted it to be that kind of romantic banter that teases people into “shipping” the characters and craving the next episode to find out if they’ll ever have the first kiss or date. The one I never planned to emulate was Lucifer. In fact, I’d never watched it before I started getting reviews telling me how similar they are. I agree, but I do assure you it’s total coincidence.
Raine’s love for whiskey is greatly based on my son, who doesn’t drink but found his love for Scotch while we visited Scotland. Kennedi’s mother’s name is a family name. And her migraines, well, I suffered from those for many years.
The choice of Wisconsin for placing my fictional city was entirely random, but I once traveled to Minocqua to visit a friend and loved the area. So placing the Minocqua Mental Health Center there was because I found it quite peaceful in northern Wisconsin.
Susan Stradiotto is passionate about the written word, whether it is in her own writing or her editing practice. She is a fan of well-told stories. Susan is always searching for unique voices and stories that tell a truth. As Neil Gaiman said in his master class, “Write the truest story you can.” She believes that is what makes a story sing.
Susan is an author of fantasy and romance and has professional editorial experience with genres such as romance, memoir, mystery/thriller, cozy mystery, fantasy, and women’s fiction. She attended Capella University for her BS in Information Technology and the University of Chicago’s Graham School for her professional editing certification. She lives in Eden Prairie with her husband, a hoard of Bernese Mountain Dogs, and one Miniature Dachshund.
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
$10 Amazon
Join us on the #NewRelease Tour with Guest Post & #Giveaway
#Epic #Fantasy #Mystery #Paranormal #Romance #PNR #RaineOfFire #SusanStradiotto
@susanstradiottoauthor #OnTour with @SilverDaggerBookTours | #SilverDaggerBookTours
Comments
Post a Comment