"Sacrifice" by Dena Doval

Current Tags

vampire romance, vampire, romance, love, paranormal romance, witch

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Sacrifice

Author's Description

I may have opened a portal to hell. I may have gotten suspended from my own coven. I may have hooked up with a hot-as-hell Vampire King. But in my defense - I didn't intend to do any of those things. They just sort of happened. The consequences though...

Why I Chose it

I love a story that starts with the main character accidentally screwing up in the first episode!

[5 episodes, with 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If paranormal romance involving vampires is your thing, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

As suspected, the BookDoggy promotion didn't cause a lot of page reads. That might be due to a variety of things. (Do BookDoggy readers even read serials? How about fantasy as a genre? And who knows, maybe my cover and blurb just didn't grab people.) In any case, it was an $18 experiment that I probably won't repeat any time soon.

"Sapphire Marionette" by Chloe Knight

Current Tags

clones, pyrokenisis, romance, science fiction, fantasy, hawaii, adventure

Categories

Romance / Science Fiction

Affiliate Link

Sapphire Marionette

Author's Description

Sadie grew up believing she was nothing more than a clone to be sacrificed on a battlefield of Nexan's war, until unexpected freedom and a dangerous ally help her question everything, but is it enough to save her people? Or will her justified mistrust destroy everyone she cares about, including her new soulmate?

Why I Chose it

The first episode starts when our main character is woken from cryostasis and given her mission, and from the first, the voice of the main character comes through strongly. This is an excellent example of how to give necessary information without turning the episode into an infodump.

[21 episodes, with 4 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If science fiction romance is your thing, you should definitely check this out!

Unrelated Griping

No complaints today. My scheduled BookDoggy promotion for Dragon Freehold is tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if their audience is open to checking things out in Vella.

"NRDS: National Recently Deceased Services" by Jeff Elkins, JP Rindfleisch IX

Current Tags

funny, ghosts, comedy, horror, mystery, adventure, humor

Categories

Humor / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

NRDS: National Recently Deceased Services

Author's Description

So, ghosts are real and there is an underfunded government agency that help the recently deceased transition into the afterlife. Spiritual energy is running wild in the rural Midwest and when a remote NRDS office settles in, nothing goes according to plan. Follow this cast of NRDS as they work through spirit cases, struggle with small town politics, and try and dig themselves out of tons and tons of paperwork. Because what is a government agency without an insurmountable amount of red tape?

Why I Chose it

Watching grizzled veterans try to deal with paranormal emergencies while also being hampered by rookies and bureaucracy is one of my favorite tropes, and this hits that spot nicely.

[22 episodes, with 4 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If humorous ghost hunters are your thing, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

I may have told the person who rage quit Vella in two separate groups over the span of three days that they need to hire an editor. Because they do. I doubt they're going to thank me for that, but... if you aren't willing to follow conventions like having a consistent point of view or putting your dialog in quotation marks, I don't think you can blame Vella for your lack of success.

I mean, everyone knows I complain about how poorly the Vella launch was done, but if the author doesn't respect the readers enough to do some basic editing, I fail to see why readers should flock to the story.

"The Fields of Bliss (Season One - Summer)" by EA Comiskey

Current Tags

mystery, female lead, vampire, shifter, fairies, small town, fantasy

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

The Fields of Bliss

Author's Description

Days after she graduates college, Martin's parents are killed by a drunk driver. Lost and alone, she discovers she's inherited more than she ever expected-a sizable amount of cash, a house in a small town she's never heard of, and a supernatural debt that can only be paid in blood. She's got until the summer solstice to convince the mysterious citizens of Blissfield to save her, but small towns have long memories and her family's dark secrets have not been forgotten. NEW EPISODES DAILY!

Why I Chose it

This one has a nice mix of mystery and exposition starting from the first episode. Plus, who doesn't love a dog as a major character?

[7 episodes, with 7 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If magical mysteries and old family secrets are your thing, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

I almost missed today's story because it was recently posted and didn't have any likes on it yet, making it hard to distinguish from all the stories dumped onto Vella by bots that also have no likes on them. I think it's worth it for authors to at least give likes to your own first three episodes to show that somebody cares.

"The Bestiary" by Kaye Draper

Current Tags

reverse harem, bisexual main character, urban fantasy, witches/ghosts/demons, fae/necromancer, poly romance, harem

Categories

Romance / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

The Bestiary

Author's Description

I was a just a kid when my family was executed, forcing me to live my life in the human world, far away from the judgment and scorn of the magical world. But when a cursed grimoire containing enslaved magical beings falls into my lap, I can't avoid my family's craptastic legacy of pain and suffering. Now, thanks to the nagging of an annoying ghost, I'm off to free the powerful (and pissed-off) creatures in the bestiary. The danger's a given...but do they all have to be so freaking hot?

Why I Chose it

I love stories that have a structure that lends itself to episodes like Warehouse 13 and its magical item of the week. So a story that starts out with the main character discovering a book trapping magical creatures that need to be freed? Right up my alley.

[21 episodes, with 3 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If reverse harem hot creature of the week sounds like your sort of fire, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

No griping today. Hard to believe, right?

"Lily" by E. G. Creel

Current Tags

misadventure, dark fantasy, antihero, short episodes

Categories

Fantasy / Action & Adventure

Affiliate Link

Lily

Author's Description

Lily was born with a shadow, and everyone knows shadows are very bad luck. Join in the misadventures of Lily and her shadow with episodes only on Kindle Vella.

Why I Chose it

This story starts with a child being born under such a terrible omen that the baby needs to be killed. Then, of course, that goes wrong and the plot tumbles along from there. The feeling evoked is familiar (but the story definitely isn't one I know) and I finally decided it's because it feels like the book of Russian fairy tales I had as a kid — things go wrong, everyone agrees about what must happen next even though they are very sad about it, but then something thwarts that action to the secret delight of the main characters. In any case, the episodes are very short and move things along at a quick clip.

[Complete at 12 episodes.]

Who Might Like This

Are you a fantasy fan who likes the feel of fairy tales? Check this out!

Unrelated Griping

Apparently Kindle Vella is now available for Android users.

(This is the point as an Apple user where I have to refrain from making jokes about Android users and whether they can read. I guess I should point out my proofreader is an Android user...)

"Elliot True-Paranormal Investigator" by Steven Clark

Current Tags

weird western, ghost story, supernatural, demon fighter, action, mystery, western

Categories

Paranormal / Historical Fiction

Affiliate Link

Elliot True-Paranormal Investigator

Author's Description

Elliot True practices a rare vocation, especially for a citizen of the Old West. He is a paranormal investigator. Traveling the plains with his portmanteau full of equipment, he faces off against ghosts, demons, witches, night creatures, and all manor of beings from this world and beyond.

Why I Chose it

I'm a fan of stories about private investigators, and this fits the bill — a paranormal private investigator story set in the Old West.

[5 episodes so far, with 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Fans of the "lone gunslinger for hire" trope who also love paranormal twists should check this out!

Unrelated Griping

The "Completed" carousel has added a few new stories and the "Christmas ass" story is finally on the second page. There can't possibly have only been 5 stories marked complete in the last week, can there?

The latest Vella "scandal" is stories using other authors' names in their tags. This tracks back to Vella's crappy user interface (quelle surprise!) in which you can't click on an author's name and get a list of all their stories. (Seriously. How could you design a system this badly?) So authors with multiple stories use one of their seven tags as a unique identifier so readers can find their other work — click on the tag and it will show you the other stories with that tag.

Now new stories are starting to show up with other, more popular authors' tags. The good news is this is already against the Terms of Service. The bad news is Amazon is so inconsistent when enforcing the TOS this may last forever.