"Fae Rose Bride" by Jessica M. Butler

Current Tags

fae, royalty, fantasy romance, high lord, fae romance, kissing

Categories

Fantasy / Romance

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Fae Rose Bride

Author's Description

She came to save her village from drought and curses. A tree spirit decided he needed someone to love. Deemed curse, Taya is willing to risk everything if it saves her village. Versal, Lord of Fire and Winter, finds himself drawn to her. Mystery surrounds the curses that were part of an ancient treaty. He can't violate the treaty & must not fall in love with her. But fate & danger keep thrusting them together. Can he resist the strange human woman or will he bring about war and banishment?

Why I Chose it

This one had interesting descriptions, a sense of mystery which let me know the story was heading somewhere, and the first episodes ends on a nice little hook.

[9 episodes so far, with 4 updates in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

High fantasy mixed with romance — if that's your catnip, this story is for you!

Unrelated Griping

Either I'm especially picky today, or the bonuses being paid each month are encouraging people to dump stories into Vella knowing that it doesn't really matter if nobody reads them. Whew! I went through about 80 before I found this one.

Many of the 5-star reviews have to be generated by author swaps (independent of quality) or else some people are far more forgiving about plot and character than I am. Possibly both. All I can say is that filtering on 4 stars or higher doesn't produce a list of better stories (aside from the top 10 which get shoved at everyone on every page) than searching on random nouns.

"Dead Girl Next Door" by Carly Butterfield

Current Tags

paranormal, polyamory, ghosts, romance, quirky, college students, mystery

Categories

Paranormal / Mystery

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Dead Girl Next Door

Author's Description

I moved to boring Banyan Bluffs three years ago to get away from my overbearing charlatan mother and our ancient house filled with dead relatives. I spent my entire childhood working for the "family business," and I'm over it. I don't see ghosts anymore. I've got pills for that now! My roommate and I were living happily ever after...until SHE showed up. No, I don't mean his girlfriend (although she showed up too, and it was totally weird). I'm talking about the dead girl who ruined everything.

Why I Chose it

This one was in the featured list, but it doesn't have as many likes as I think it should (yet). Hopefully getting featured will solve that. The writing is solid, the main character is well-defined, and after two episodes I'm finding the mystery intriguing.

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

Who Might Like This

If you're looking for atmospheric paranormal mystery with a main character who is a little off kilter, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

The Facebook Vella groups are full of authors swapping likes & faves with each other, which seems scammy if not downright unethical... and yet, I think it works to get stories visibility. It explains how some completely incoherent garbage has a fair number of thumbs up.  (I'm not talking about stories I just don't want to read -- I'm talking about stories where I can't figure out what the author is even trying to say.) I still wouldn't do it, but I understand why some people do.

"Those Who Serve" by Linda Teppler

Current Tags

macrodiae, kangaroo, space, backstory, spaceships, spaceadventures, colonization

Categories

Science Fiction / Action & Adventure

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Those Who Serve

Author's Description

In Macrodiae, the wars between the gene edited Macrodiae who look like giant kangaroos and humans have ended. The attention of both turn to space exploration. These are the background stories of all who will go on to explore space together as a crew. Get to know them before they set out on their epic journey!

Why I Chose it

Each episode is a story in itself, showing how one of the crew members joined the space navy.  (I'm not familiar with the other works by the author -- I suspect there is a series -- but you can definitely still enjoy this serial without that knowledge.) The characters are interesting and the worlds are immersive. The two episodes I read were interesting and a lot of fun. I look forward to reading the rest of them.

[11 episodes so far, with 1 update in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Fans of space opera will love this!

Unrelated Griping

I look forward to the day when Amazon improves the Vella search capabilities. Until then... finding a new story that I'm willing to invest time in can take a long time.

"Leviathan: Inception" by N. Y. Seely

Current Tags

epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, elemental magic, coming of age, politics, gods, n.y. seely

Categories

Fantasy / Action & Adventure

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Leviathan: Inception

Author's Description

In a world where the gods are the elements personified, the once-powerful magic has ebbed away like the tide. In a ruling house whose power is threatened by treachery, three royal scions must find and embrace their own personal destinies. In a realm beset by intrigue, murder, and betrayal, the contest for power is a deadly one, and the game is just beginning.

Why I Chose it

This is epic fantasy with all the trappings -- competing heirs to the throne, women who don't want the roles thrust on them, and multiple viewpoints so you catch all the angles.

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

Who Might Like This

Fans of epic fantasy will want to settle in with this one!

Unrelated Griping

Seriously... I looked at probably 15 new stories today, and all of them followed the weird one sentence per paragraph thing. After a bit, I can't even pay attention to the words because all I'm doing is trying to find one paragraph with more than one sentence. Either there's some website out there recommending this approach, or someone dumped about twenty stories onto Vella in the last week with different author names. I think it's actually the latter -- none of the episodes have any likes, which is a little odd if they're unrelated.

"Beyond the Thistlethorn" by Taverlee Shaw

Current Tags

hedgewitch, tinydragons, naturemagic, yafantasy, witches, fairytail, folklore

Categories

Fantasy / Teen & Young Adult

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Beyond the Thistlethorn

Author's Description

A bright and charming magical fantasy about a young witch sent to the wild and magical Kingdom of Kittlewick to become the new Hedgewitch. A magical romp with tiny dragons, opinionated imps, suspicious elves and one very determined Hedgewitch!

Why I Chose it

This starts with a tiny dragon (unsuccessfully) stalking a bird on the slate roof of the girls' school where the main character lives, and it's just a nice touch that won me over despite being designated a prologue.

[6 episodes so far, with 6 updates in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

The cute & likability factors are off the scale -- you should check this out!

Unrelated Griping

Today I saw a post from someone whose story is in the top 25 and I think she's spending over $500 per month on Facebook to achieve that. I guess it makes sense, but I worry that indie publishing margins are just going to keep dropping as it becomes a requirement to keep dumping that kind of money into advertising.

The thing is, if the Vella interface were improved, with better searching and categories that niched down to the level that would be useful for someone looking for a new story to read, it would be possible for Vella readers to go to Vella to find something to read. As it is now, all the readers are being drawn in directly from some external site to one story by the author, which isn't really building the platform.

"The Forest of Bone" by Elaine Isaak

Current Tags

epic fantasy, shapeshifters, magic, angry gods, animals, alchemy, secondary world

Categories

Fantasy / Action & Adventure

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The Forest of Bone

Author's Description

Treacherous gods, shapeshifting spies, and a new threat rising from the waves. When the high alchemist's wolf clan lover chooses his family over her, a single spiteful act suggests the bones of their world rise from dangerous ground. Eager to atone and to defend her unborn child Sorcha convinces the lord of the rat-shifters to aid her in a quest for redemption that may shatter lives and foul the very source of the magic that binds them. New episodes twice weekly! Mon/Fri (or more)

Why I Chose it

There is some really rich world building going on here, and the author is skillfully balancing on the line between giving the reader just enough information and dangling immensely cool concepts just out of reach.

[4 episodes so far, with 4 updates in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Anyone who enjoys secondary world fantasy should dive into this!

Unrelated Griping

For a company that started by selling books, Amazon is weirdly ignorant about everything related to authors when it comes to Vella. There's no way to list more than one author on a story, there aren't author pages or any way to give people more information, and the author name isn't even linked to other stories by the same author.

But this also means the author field has descended into complete anarchy, so it's kind of funny. People are making up all sorts of crap. Since there aren't many ways to get information about a story without multiple clicks (BECAUSE THE VELLA USER INTERFACE IS SO FREAKING TERRIBLE, GAH!), the author names have become the entrails by which it is possible to foretell the quality.

Someone who puts numbers in their name? Probably going to write like a teenage boy.

Someone who just uses the first initial of their surname? Total lack of imagination and professionalism.

Someone with obvious typos in their name? Very likely to quit the story after two episodes.

"Defender in Stone: A Gargoyle Romance" by Diana Nelson

Current Tags

paranormal, gargoyle romance, romance, paranormal romance, supernatural, fantasy, love

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

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Defender in Stone: A Gargoyle Romance

Author's Description

Aideen was considered to be one of the most powerful magic wielders of her generation. She only had one problem now. Her power was beginning to fail, with madness or death being the two outcomes that awaited her. She only found solace when she was near her sleeping gargoyle, but he no longer sleeps. New episodes every Tuesday + Saturday

Why I Chose it

The first paragraph, which is the first time the not-quite-alive gargoyle meets the girl (and also the first time he's been awake for hundreds of years) was interesting enough to pull me in.

[37 episodes so far, with 8 updates in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Paranormal romance readers should check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

I ran across a story today which was a diary of someone who was convinced that if they repeated some mantra, good things would come. Each entry talking about the things the mantra had brought them.

So... standard unhinged ramblings of someone who doesn't understand bias, but the interesting part was each entry had links to YouTube. One of the things that has been so frustrating for authors in Vella is they don't want any links in the author notes that direct people away from Amazon. For other serial platforms, having communication between the author and readers is a big part of it, but that doesn't exist on Vella and they make it hard to even direct readers someplace else for that conversation. But there they were -- a whole bunch of links inside the story. I'm not sure if the Vella rules have changed, or if this is an anomaly.