A Conjuring of Ravens

 In a world where magic is a science, Siobhan is a genius.

But even geniuses need schooling.

 A Conjuring of Ravens

A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book 1

by Azalea Ellis

Genre: Epic Fantasy

In a world where magic is a science, Siobhan is a genius.

But even geniuses need schooling.

When Siobhan stumbled into the theft of a priceless magical book, she thought her dreams of becoming the world's most powerful sorcerer were destroyed.

But then a mysterious spell changed her life forever...

Siobhan is now wearing the body of a strange man and has a new identity—Sebastien. With a new chance for a new start, she allies herself with a local gang—secretly a revolutionary party funding itself through crime. Now, she is bound by vow to repay them in magic and favors.

But as Sebastien's reputation begins to bloom, and Siobhan's old enemies still lurk in the shadows, she quickly realizes that the secrets of this world are deeper and darker than she ever could have imagined.

Forced to juggle the two sides of her double life, Siobhan is determined to uncover the truth and take control of the name they gave her—The Raven Queen.

A Conjuring of Ravens is the first book in a hard fantasy series that includes: an intelligent protagonist, a rules-based magic system, and some hilarious misunderstandings.

Get it now.

 GUEST POST

        What is something unique/quirky about you?

I've been an entrepreneur from the time I was very young. I earned my first dollar at the age of 7 in a little roadside stall, and saved it in a frame. This entrepreneurial spirit remained throughout my childhood, where I would re-sell candy and gum at school for a profit, or make rigged bets for coveted items or money. Now, of course, I work for myself in a more official capacity.

But some might say I actually started off as a...conwoman?

When I was young, we lived on a budding homestead far out in the country, where we had several different gardens, fruit trees, and animals.

One day, my little brother got a package of Pez candies. You know, the multi-colored sugar tablets that you could load into a cartoon-themed dispenser and pop out one at a time?

I did not get any.

I wanted those Pez candies, but my little brother wouldn't share or trade for them.

So I told him that if he planted a piece of candy, he could grow a tree that would bear Pez candy leaves.

And if he planted ALL of his candies, the tree would have leaves of all the different candy colors. Obviously, a bigger investment would result in a better outcome. (And also mean that he had no candy left not to share with me.) It would only take a few days of watering for this tree to sprout.

The logic behind it was clear. If you plant a peach seed, you get a peach tree. We had both seen the evidence of this at work, all over our miniature homestead. So he wasn't hard to convince that if you plant a candy seed, you get a candy tree.

I took him out into our backyard and helped him dig a hole for his candy, again encouraging him not to be stingy and pour them all in. Then we covered up the candy with dirt and watered it.

I took him out to water his Pez candy tree several times over the next few days, just to make good and sure the candy melted sprouted.

But children are impatient, and after about three days he started to cry that his tree wasn't sprouting. I tried to console him that it just needed more time, but he wasn't having it, and his tears inevitably got our mom involved.

She made us take her to the scene of the con, where she dug up the spot and revealed the mostly-melted sugar tablets mixed with mud. She was almost as astonished as she was outraged, but she had to turn away to stifle her laughter.

I got a good scolding out of it, and my brother got replacement candy. Which he, being too kind of a soul, shared a portion of with me.

However, I can't really say that I learned any lesson other than, "If you want your schemes to succeed, keep your brother from tattling by any means necessary."

EXCERPT

casting magic, magic school,

Sebastien’s magic spun her ball even faster, until the sand began to heat with its passing, and then slowed it abruptly. The minimalist spell array glowed with inefficiency as the ball slowed, and then dimmed as the ball began to spin the opposite direction and gain speed again. Undoing the momentum the ball had built up so quickly required a level of energy she couldn’t channel all at once.

Perhaps one day, the ball would stop in an instant, with a cracking sound like a miniature bolt of lightning. She could dream, at least. “But is there any actual way for the coppers to catch the thief, if she or one of her accomplices doesn’t carelessly reveal themselves? Are there any leads?” she asked another student, trying to seem nonchalant.

Westbay looked from her spell Circle back to his own with a frown, spinning his ball faster. He was good, better than most of their classmates, but it was obvious to Sebastien that he hadn’t practiced as much as her. “The Raven Queen is skilled, and has been careful,” he said. “But she’s cocky, too. She wants to be seen, to be noticed, that’s why she commits such outrageous crimes in broad daylight. She will act again, she cannot help it, and when she does, she will make a mistake, and we will catch her.”

Sebastien raised her eyebrows, indignation at that assessment rising up inside her. She clamped down on the emotion and sent her ball on a series of fast, jerking turns back and forth.

Alec Gervin, who had grown bored with losing his game, stood up and stepped closer, watching with interest. “How are you doing that?”

Without thinking, she replied, “I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you.”

The cogs between his ears moved slowly as he processed her words. His eyes widened. “Did you just insult me?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you. My intention was to insult you without you noticing.” The words spilled from her in a bout of ire, and it was only after they were out, hanging in the air like little guillotines over her neck, that she realized it may have been slightly uncalled for. Perhaps even a little rude?

short, funny, introduces her disguise

“Katerin, Mr. Oliver’s here, and he brought a man disguised as a homeless person with him.”

Siobhan stared at the bright hair on the back of the child’s head. “What?” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until both Dryden and Theo turned to look at her.

Theo gave her a little smirk that held no malice. “Well, I’m not gonna tell anyone. But your cloak seems to’ve been taken off a homeless man, and the jacket underneath doesn’t fit you properly. But you talk and walk like someone from a Crown Family, and when Mr. Oliver looks you in the eyes, you stare right back at him. So, I figure it’s a disguise.”

Siobhan struggled to keep the surprise from her face. She had indeed stolen the cloak from a man passed out on the side of a street in hopes it would help disguise her. The clothes beneath were meant for a female, of course, and too small for this new body, in addition to having been torn and dirtied in her escape. “Well, you may be right about the clothes and the mannerisms, but I can assure you, I am quite homeless.”

magical theory, desperation

I can’t let something this trivial stop me,’ she thought, glaring at the wood-bordered glass panes. ‘I need my grimoire.’

She made sure her feet were stable, then released one hand’s death grip on the windowsill. Her cold, clumsy fingers fumbled in one of the pockets of the ratty jacket she wore under the even more ratty cloak. She pulled out a soft wax crayon and carefully drew a small Circle on the glass, completely enclosing one of the hand-sized panes.

That was where the magic would take effect.

There could be no gaps in the Circle. Mistakes could be deadly.

Though she shook with the effort, Siobhan slowly drew a larger Circle around the first, dragging the crayon over the wooden divisions between the panes with careful precision. That was where she would write the Word, the instructions that would help guide the magic to the right purpose.

She drew a third, small Circle on the windowsill itself, then connected it to the outer Circle on the glass with a line. That was a component Circle, where she would place the Sacrifice, which would be consumed as she cast the spell.

She wrote the glyph for “fire” within it, though she would sacrifice no actual fire. It was close enough to the idea of heat to work. More fumbles into her many pockets turned up a vial of honey, of which she tipped a sluggish drop into the component Circle on the windowsill. Next, a small, rolled-up ball of similar stickiness—spiderweb. She reached for a wad of cotton, but found she had none.

Biting back a curse, she reached again for the wax crayon and wrote the glyph for “silence” in the space between the two overlapping Circles on the glass. She didn’t know the glyph for “stillness,” but she did know “slow,” so that’s what she wrote. She squeezed in what further detailed instructions would fit, but it wasn’t much. Finally, Siobhan drew a pentagon within the inside Circle.

She made the mistake of looking at the ground below and had to swallow down her lurching stomach and steady her trembling legs.

Magic required concentration. She couldn’t allow her circumstances to dull her wits if she wanted to succeed. ‘Grandfather didn’t teach me to be the type of sorcerer who has performance problems,’ she thought, sneering at her faint reflection in the glass.

‘He also didn’t teach me to make up spells out of desperation…’ This thought popped into her head unbidden, and she pushed it away. Untested spells were always dangerous.

It was always safer to copy a spell you already knew to work, which, ideally, had been proven over generations of regular use, than to try something entirely new.

If the magic rebelled and she lost control, she might die.

Disguises, ominous feeling, deals with the devil

"As for clearing your name, you may be slightly underestimating how seriously the University and the Crowns are taking this offense. The young woman who I helped out of the alley, the one with the dark hair, those cheekbones, and those eyes? She will never attend the University.”

He looked her up and down. “This blonde young man with the aristocratic features, though? He is a different matter.”

Siobhan narrowed her eyes. “And you can secure a sponsorship for this…young man?”

He shook his head again. “I believe my acquaintances can provide you something to make a sponsorship unnecessary, if your intelligence can earn you a spot deservedly. They can provide you with the money to pay your own way.”

She nodded thoughtfully, acknowledging and then ignoring the alarm bells in the back of her mind.

Even if this transmutation was not permanent, if it held up for a reasonable amount of time and could be repeated, the man’s idea could work.

The realization made her feel as if the world had shifted around her, bringing with it a ray of light, shining through a new opening into the cage that had been confining her.

Knowledge, magic, was at her fingertips, almost within reach.

Suddenly the artifact didn’t feel so frightening against her chest, and when she spoke, the idea that this voice, this body, might allow her to learn magic gave it a certain charm. “A loan, I assume? What do the attached strings look like, Mr….” She trailed off pointedly. ‘I know there will be strings attached. I only hope the strings aren’t barbed.’

He grinned like a fox, the edges of his lips curling up a little too far in a way that made her think of skinjackers and the cautionary tales mothers recited for children before bed. “You can call me Mr. Dryden. Let me take you to my associates. We can speak more there, out of the dark and the damp.”

 

Amazon * Apple * B&N * Google * Kobo * Smashwords * AzaleaEllis.com * Bookbub * Goodreads

Book Links:
Amazon: https://a.co/d/bgRKntq

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-conjuring-of-ravens/id1551224049

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-conjuring-of-ravens-azalea-ellis/1139743095

Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Azalea_Ellis_A_Conjuring_of_Ravens?id=FZoXEAAAQBAJ

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-conjuring-of-ravens

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1068187

AzaleaEllis.com: https://www.azaleaellis.com/the-books

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/a-conjuring-of-ravens-by-azalea-ellis

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60101571-a-conjuring-of-ravens

 

**Don’t miss the rest of the series!**

Find them on AzaleaEllis.com

 

About the Author

I’m the type of person that often has a wacky, shocking, or silly–but totally true–story to tell about my life.

(Like the time my brother and I were chased through a secluded strip of woods in the middle of the city, for over a mile, by a naked man with an erection.)

(Or the time a trucker threw an open bottle of pee out his passenger side window without looking right as I was walking by. You can guess what I got splashed with.)

(Or the time a man hit me with his pickup truck on purpose while I was riding my bike to school, and then insisted I get into the vehicle with him so he could drive me the rest of the way as an apology. Needless to say, I resisted.)

The early part of my childhood was spent on a small farmstead, and I’ve got an active imagination that tends toward the outrageous and the macabre, which led to me being voted “most likely to borrow someone else’s car to transport a dead body.”

 

Website * Facebook * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

 

Author Links

Website: https://www.azaleaellis.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AzaleaEllis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schroedingersspy

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/azalea-ellis

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Azalea-Ellis/author/B012DLAI0K

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14179879.Azalea_Ellis

Giveaway

$20 Amazon

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

https://bit.ly/AConjuringOfRavensTour