Spotlight & Giveaway: Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Ruby Dixon to HJ!

Hi Ruby and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Bull Moon Rising!

Hi there! Thank you for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Bull Moon Rising is about Aspeth, a sheltered noblewoman on a quest to save her (secretly) impoverished family lands. She decides that she’s going to join the Royal Artifactual Guild and become an artificer who hunts for magical relics in the ruins underneath the city. But to get training, she’ll need a chaperone…and decides to marry her teacher.

Who is a minotaur.
With a rut on the horizon.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, but this one always makes me smile!

“This is damned inconvenient,” I point out to her. “You being a virgin.”
“Why?” She rolls over and presents her back to me, as if done with the conversation. “All I have to do is lie there, right? It’ll be fine.”
I sputter, glaring at her back.
Lie there?

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

The working title of this book was Sparrow and the Royal Artifactual Guild because my initial inspiration (beyond mining and digging up artifacts in video games like My Time at Portia) was the Royal Geographical Society of the UK. It’s a society that was very popular in the 1800s for explorers, such as Percy Fawcett, Ernest Shackleton, and Sir Edmund Hilary. While researching, I found out that one of the first women in the society was named Isabella Bird, and so it was natural to me to go with a bird theme for the book itself as a nod to her. Each artificer that graduates chooses a bird name as their guild name, and the students are called fledglings, their dorms called nests.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

They start as a marriage of convenience, so neither one is particularly attracted to the other until they get to know each other a bit better. It was a lot of fun to write it reversed, so to speak (first comes marriage, then comes the attraction).

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I gave the heroine a cat very similar to mine who had passed away not long before I started writing this book on a whim, but every time the cat showed up on page, I’d get teary-eyed because I missed her so much. So I’m including a quote about Squeaker! And a funny one between the heroine and her friend, just because. 🙂

“Then pick a bird. What’s your favorite bird?”
“To eat? Turkey.”
“Mmm, I don’t think calling yourself ‘Turkey’ is a good idea, though I doubt it’s taken.” I purse my lips, thinking, and adjust my heavy cat in my arms. Good gods, she’s shedding like a dandelion all over my dark traveling dress. I try to put Squeaker back into her satchel but she howls with anger and digs her nails into my arm, so I sigh and heft her onto my hip like a fat orange baby. “What about ‘Blue Jay’? ‘Robin’? ‘Wren’?”

Readers should read this book….

If they like exploring, found family, and a scholarly heroine who marries a big grumpy monster.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I am currently working on the second book in the Royal Artifactual Guild, called BY THE HORNS. I’m also working on more alien novellas, because I just love writing in my alien universe.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One print copy of BULL MOON RISING for a U. S. only winner.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: The characters in this book hunt down magical items. Some of them are useless (a goblet that makes endless…onions?), but some of them are extremely useful (like a mirror that lets the viewer spy on another). If you could have any magical artifact, what would you want it to do?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Bull Moon Rising:

One

Aspeth

27 Days Before the Conquest Moon

The coach taking us to Vastwarren City is creaky, the seating is uncomfortable, and I paid far too much for the ride. But it’s also very obviously an artifact, which is why I wanted to take it. The exterior looks the same as every other coach that was waiting on the street in front of the inn, but this one had no horse harnessed to the front, nor a yoke for it. Instead, there was a symbol carved into the wood that I recognized as Old Prellian.

The coachman charged a pretty penny but I didn’t care. I wanted to ride in that damned artifact coach.

And now here we are, and it’s a dreadful, bouncy ride. I can’t help but eye the coach covetously anyhow. It speeds along the cobbled roads without a horse to draw it, heading for the city in the distance. The driver is a cheerful sort, too, and seated inside with us instead of riding on a bench atop the coach. He faces the windows and holds reins as if he’s steering a horse, yet there’s nothing pulling us along. More symbols in Old Prellian crawl over the front of the coach and I’m absolutely dying to lean forward and read them, but I’d have to shove my face into his lap to do so because my vision is so dreadful. I have to content myself with the knowledge that the coach is indeed magical and the merrily chatting coachman won’t sell it. No one sells an artifact.

Well, no one except my foolish father.

I bite my cuticles, squinting out the window as the magic coach barrels past a field with a great deal of people standing in it. They dig at the dirt with shovels, and it looks as if there’s a booth at the far end of the muddy land. A sign next to the booth reads in bright, colorful letters, DIG FOR ARTIFACTS! YOU FIND YOU KEEP!

“Does that work?” I blurt out to our driver as we pass by. “Does anyone truly find an artifact in the fields?”

The driver chuckles. “Oh, no, that’s purely for the tourists. Everyone shows up with a few pennies and their spades, ready to turn their luck around. They all think they’ll find the next automaton or Pitcher of Endless Wine. No one does, but they leave at the end of the day happy. I heard some of the more unscrupulous sorts take broken artifacts and bury them in the fields so people can find something.” He shakes his head. “You’re better off avoiding that sort of thing.”

“But your coach is an artifact,” I point out, ignoring the stomp of Gwenna’s foot on mine. “How did you acquire it?”

He reaches out and pats the coach like it’s a person. It might as well be. Any working artifact is more prized than gold. “A gift to an ancestor from the king. It’s been in the family for generations. I’m lucky to have her.”

“It’s quite rare,” I agree. “No one’s tried to steal it from you?”

This time Gwenna pinches me.

“It’d be useless if they did,” he tells me cheerfully, oblivious to my line of thought. “It dies at sunset and there’s a magic word to make it activate at sunrise. That word is a carefully guarded secret in my family and we wouldn’t share it, even upon pain of death.”

I think perhaps this man just hasn’t been pressed enough yet. Surely someone could coax a magic word out of him with the right sort of convincing. Then I’m disgusted at my own thoughts, because I’m imagining someone torturing a coach driver (who’s been quite lovely, honestly) over his artifact.

It’s just that the Honori family needs artifacts dreadfully. I debate how to approach my next question in a delicate manner, and all the while Gwenna stares at me with narrowed eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d sell it?” I ask. “I’d make you a very wealthy man.”

I’m lying, of course.

If I had two pennies to rub together, I wouldn’t be fleeing Honori Hold. If I had two pennies to rub together, I would have married Barnabus Chatworth despite the fact that he’s a title hunter. As it is, I am quite, quite broke . . . but that doesn’t mean I can’t try. If I could get him to sell this carriage to me, it wouldn’t solve my problems, but it’d be a step in the right direction.

It’d be something.

“Oh, I can’t do that,” the coachman says, and I’m not surprised. “I inherited this girl from my father, and she’ll be going to my son after me.” He caresses the front of the coach again, like a lover. “I can’t sell my family out for money when the money will come in simply because of the artifact.”

“I understand.” I still think someone could torture the word of power out of him, but I understand.

He glances at the back seat of the coach, where Gwenna huddles next to me, holding my cat’s carrying sack. “Some things aren’t for sale.”

If they were, then my problems would be solved . . . or would they? Considering I have no money as well as no artifacts, I wouldn’t know. “Indeed.”

“So you ladies are heading into Vastwarren? This your first time in the city?”

“First time,” I agree, glancing back at the dirt field as it disappears from view. I’m tempted to grab a spade and try my luck with all the others, just to see if one can truly find an artifact in all that mud. If there’s even a chance, it’s worth trying, isn’t it? For a moment, I dream about shoveling a few spadefuls of dirt, just enough to put in a bit of effort, and then striking down upon metal. I’d pull it up and uncover a gilded, gleaming artifact. Not just any artifact, either. One with endless charges, just like the coach we’re in right now. Or perhaps one of the ones that recharge in sunlight.

And it’d have to be something useful, too. Nothing like the glass candle that creates an endless wisp of rose-scented smoke. Something like one of the shielding crystals that are used in the capital would be perfect. Or something that creates a sought-after item from thin air, like the decanter that pours serpent venom. An artifact of war from Old Prell, that’s what Honori Hold needs. Several of them, actually. We need defense, and a way to fund our hold.

And we need those artifacts to actually work. The ones currently filling our vault are all dead. A dead artifact is as useless as . . . well, as a holder heiress with no funds and no artifacts to defend her family’s holdings. I bite back a sigh and lean my head against the window of the coach, watching as another family hurries toward the field with buckets and spades in tow, chattering excitedly.

Gwenna nudges me, and I realize the coach driver was talking to me.

“Mmm?” I inquire, straightening.

“You didn’t say who you are and why you’re heading to Vastwarren City. Attending a party of some kind?” The way he says it sounds hesitant, as if he doesn’t understand why anyone would host a party in Vastwarren. The king avoids the place because it’s said to be rough-and-tumble. That makes me a little nervous. When I envision “rough-and-tumble,” I think of some of my father’s stableboys and how they get loud after they’ve had a few drinks. But that’s only a few stableboys. I cannot imagine an entire city of that. Leaning forward, I peer out the windows of the coach to the city in the distance. It looks like a great big stain spread over a hill, with the smog of a thousand chimneys polluting the air overhead. All of it looks dirty, but that doesn’t mean it’s unsafe . . .

Does it?

Excerpted from Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon Copyright © 2024 by Ruby Dixon. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

In a world of magical artifacts and fantastical beings, a woman determined to save her family joins forces with an unlikely partner—a minotaur—in this captivating special hardcover edition of USA Today bestselling Ruby Dixon’s new steamy romantasy.

As a Holder’s daughter, Aspeth Honori knows the importance of magical artifacts . . . which is why it’s a disaster that her father has gambled all theirs away. Now that her family is in danger of losing their hold—and their heads—if anyone finds out the truth, Aspeth decides to do something about it. She’ll join the Royal Artifactual Guild and the adventurers who explore ancient underground ruins to retrieve the coveted arcane items.

It’s a great plan—with one big problem. The guild won’t let her train because she’s a woman. Aspeth needs a chaperone of some kind. The best way to get around this problem? Marry someone who will let her become an apprentice. Who better than a surly guild member who requires a favor of his own? He’s a minotaur (it’s fine) who is her teacher (also fine) . . . and he’s about to go into rut (which is where it gets tricky). He also has no idea she’s a noble (oops), and he’ll want nothing to do with her if he discovers her real identity.

Now Aspeth just has to pass the guild tests, thwart a fortune hunter, and save her hold—oh, and survive a rut with her monstrous, horned husband, whom she might be falling in love with.

It’s time to dig deep. Literally.
Book Links: Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Ruby Dixon is an author of all things science fiction and fantasy romance. She is a Sagittarius and a Reylo shipper, and loves farming sims (but not actual housework). She lives in the South with her husband and a couple of goofy cats, and can’t think of anything else to put in her biography. Truly, she is boring.
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