Spotlight & Giveaway: The Apothecary’s Dark Fate by Sarah Fischer

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Sarah Fischer’s new release: The Apothecary’s Dark Fate

Magic, danger, and a love that could kill…

Potion master Brooklynne Belle thought she’d left heartbreak behind—until her former professor shattered her heart and used it as an ingredient in one of his deadly brews. So when her sister’s boyfriend, the Governor’s son, plans to propose, Brooklynne braces for a quiet celebration. But before love can bloom, she’s kidnapped by the Black Bird Coven, a group of rogue witches determined to bring down the government.

Enter Drake Romeo: the city’s most notorious playboy and elite magical detective. His charm masks a deadly secret—and Brooklynne is driving him wild in ways he never expected. Forced to work together to unravel the coven’s dark schemes and an underground potion ring, their chemistry sizzles even as danger closes in.

Every clue draws them deeper into a world of forbidden magic and hidden agendas. Drake’s secret could destroy them both—but their growing desire may be the only thing that keeps them alive.

Packed with suspense, forbidden romance, and high-stakes magic, this urban fantasy romance delivers thrilling adventure and sizzling chemistry for fans of witches, magical intrigue, and dangerous love.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Apothecary’s Dark Fate 

CHAPTER ONE
Brooklynne

Five years and one heartbreak later…

It was lunch time on a random Tuesday. I’d left work with my coworker, Opal, and walked across the street to grab some food. The sun was out and there was a beautiful breeze blowing through the city center, but I barely registered any of it. I hardly noticed the line of suits in front of us or listened to their gripes about their boss or the economy. I continued on through the line, grabbed two slices and a salad, then headed to my usual window booth. Donatello’s Deli was my usual lunch spot. It was a tiny mom-and-pop restaurant tucked into a high rise building that offered the city some kind of financial advice and management. The deli had a variety of options for relatively inexpensive prices. But most importantly, it was close enough to work so I made it back before my boss had to fill too many orders on his own, something that was always a little frightening. Opal, was telling some dramatic story about her latest date this week. To be fair, I usually loved her stories. Mostly because she had amazing commentary and partially because her picker was so unbelievably broken that all the men she dated were the worst. But at least she was trying. Me, I hadn’t been on a date since, well, for five years. By choice. My choice, that was.

Today though, I wasn’t in the mood. I couldn’t explain this weird feeling in my gut. It’d woken me up before my alarm clock, a feat rarely ever achieved, and I hadn’t been able to shake it since. It wasn’t dread, though I was feeling a bit of that when I thought about going back to work at the Customer Apothecary Station. The deli was across the street, and from my spot in the slightly ripped red, leather booth, I could see the bright red lights of the CAS, lit up at all times, warning me. If you come back, Brooklynne, you’ll spend the next four hours of your day bored out of your mind, mixing basic potions a monkey could put together!

But no, it wasn’t that dread that kept me from eating my slice of cheese pizza. I didn’t know what it was. I shook a little bit in my seat, trying to brush it off, ignore it, send the juju back out to the universe or something, but all that did was get Opal’s attention.

“It wasn’t that bad a night,” she’d insisted. “Really, I am actually thinking of calling this one back.” She brushed a bushel of pink curls behind her ears before leaning down to take a sip of her tonic water. Opal was one of the most unique and colorful characters I’d ever met in my life. Her eyeshadow was always brightly colored and matched her lipstick perfectly. Her olive skin always had a light layer of glitter, and under her apothecary smock, she wore fun skirts and tops that did not look like they should match but somehow made perfect sense on her. Her personality was as bright as the rest of her.

“Oh, no, sorry. I just…” I didn’t know how to explain it. “I guess I feel off. Maybe something is up with my aura, or my star sign is up Jupiter’s ass or—”

“Don’t offend the stars in front of me. I need to be far away from you when they smite you.” Opal was a big believer in fate, in the stars and their influence on our future. Most members of the magical community were. As I didn’t have a lick if magic flowing through me, I didn’t so much think the stars cared about my role in the cosmic design.

Opal then held her hand out to me. “Let me see.” She was a witch with some limited healing abilities.

Her specialty though, was reading palms. She was so good at it, in fact, our manager, Fagen, had put it on the list of services we provided. She couldn’t exactly see into the future or predict what would happen. No, that kind of power had to be recorded with the governor’s service. And low key, those people tended to get forced into government servitude to help keep the man in power. Opal hadn’t tested well enough in university to require that she register. But she could kind of read vibes, current circumstances, and even feelings. So, when people were all mixed up inside, she could generally sort them out. For a fee. Funnily enough though, she never used it on dates. She said it was cheating. I think she just didn’t want to scare them away. Could you imagine, a couple swipes on your palm and your girlfriend would know everything you were feeling at that moment? You’d never be able to hide things from her. Actually, considering what happened to me, that might be nice.

“Mh-mm,” she murmured while tracing the lines on my palm.

With each gentle brush of her fingers, I felt a tickle of energy. Not enough to make me laugh out loud or squirm. Just enough that I knew her magic was working. After a few rotations around my hand, the lines began to light up a bright pink color, the same bright neon pink as her hair.

“You may have that back now, sugar.” She folded my hand and let go.

“Am I going to win the lottery?”

“Why do you ask me that every time I look at your palm?”

“Because I keep hoping that one of these times, you’re going to tell me yes.”

She shook her head at me slightly. “Well, I don’t know if you’re going to win the lottery, though you would need to buy a ticket first. But I can say that you’re feeling conflicted and insecure about your relationship with someone. I believe it relates to your family or a close friend, maybe a boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes. “No boyfriend. You know that. Why do you keep asking about one?”

“Because one of these times I’m hoping you’re going to tell me you have one or at least a date.”

“Why do I need a boyfriend when I have all the drama I could ever want listening to the stories about your boyfriends?”

“My dates,” she corrected. “I’m not attached to anyone yet but maybe I will be. I’m telling you, the guy from last night may be different.”

Opal continued to talk about her date, and I tried to pay more attention. We actually were good friends, and without her company at the Customer Apothecary Station, I’d never have been able to get through the day. But I was also trying to process her words from my palm reading. What could I be feeling conflicted or insecure about? Layla, my best friend? She and I had dinner two nights ago and it’d been a good time. I hadn’t left feeling any sort of negative way after that. Considering she and Opal were my only real friends, it couldn’t be another friend.

As for family, my parents were generally proud of me. At least they said they were. But I guess I did sort of feel insecure about my job. I’d originally wanted to be a researcher. To help discover potions and to really help people medically. But after the disaster of the love potion, I couldn’t get back into it. I knew what true success had felt like and I knew what it felt like to have that success ripped from my fingers. Maybe it was fear or anxiety of that happening again that kept me from sharing any of my potions outside of my immediate circle. But I just couldn’t do it.

So, I’d taken the first job I could find out of college. A tech at CAS. It allowed me to rent my own place, pay my own bills, and even afford a pretty nice car. Obviously, I wasn’t loaded or anything like that, but I was generally comfortable for a twenty-five-year-old. Though, I think my parents knew I settled. They had expected me to help cure cancer, reverse MS, or help reinforce bones for the elderly. Not fill and mix prescriptions for recipes that I knew by heart at this point.

There wasn’t anything wrong with my job. Opal found great pleasure in it. And she did genuinely help people every day. I did too. Just not in the way I’d always imagined I would.

But overall, that wasn’t a new feeling. It certainly wouldn’t wake me up before my alarm and leave me uneasy all day. It was more of something that I lived with. The only other family I had in this city was my little sister. Melanie and I typically talked once or twice a week. We were close, but lately, she’d been busy figuring out her new adult life and we had not been in touch as much as before. I hoped as things settled down, we would resume our usual fun banter. She’d just finished school with her marketing degree, had gotten a job with a big firm, and moved into her own apartment. And what she didn’t know was that her boyfriend was going to propose soon.

While I thought it was too soon, I also knew that they were in love. Real love. The kind of love that made an older sister tear up at the joy it brought to her little sister. And the kind of love that made an older sister slightly jealous that her little sister was going to be married first. Maybe that was it. Maybe I was feeling insecure and conflicted about that.

On the one hand, I would be thrilled for Melanie. She deserved that kind of happiness and true devotion. On the other hand, she was really young. He was the son of the governor and the heir to the city’s leadership. Her future looked amazing. But yeah, maybe I was jealous that her first love had worked out whereas mine had blown up in my face.

With that sorted, I focused on Opal and her latest story. And I absolutely did not think about the little tickle in the back of my mind that asked, Are you sure that’s what you’re really worried about?

An hour later, Opal and I were back at the apothecary working on a stack of orders Fagen left for us. I was mixing a laughing potion that was supposed to be a prank on a friend when Opal turned off the music we’d been listening to and flipped on the television in the corner.

“I wanna see the weather report, do you mind? I’m thinking this weekend should be a beach weekend. Wanna come? If you’re not gonna go on a date, I gotta find another way to get you some vitamin D.”

“I hate you a little bit, do you know that?”

“You couldn’t hate me if you tried.”

“I could make a solid effort.”

The Weather Warlock was beginning to explain to us that our beach weekend would only work if we wanted to lay out in a thunderstorm. We both groaned loudly.

“I guess I’ll have to get my vitamin D the old-fashioned way, a pill.”

“How antiquated.”

“And now we have a special bulletin from the governor’s mansion,” the news anchor said when she came back on the screen.

I reached for the remote to turn it off because I had no interest in whatever political garbage they were going to announce, but Opal stopped me.

“Oh, just wait a minute. Maybe it’ll be something fun?” she said.

I looked over and noticed her smile was a little forced.

“Yeah, maybe it is,” I said.

I nodded a couple times and tried to be positive on her behalf. Lately, there had been some increasingly restrictive laws affecting the magical community. The latest law required witches and warlocks to register which spells they used in their daily life. And if they were caught using a spell that hadn’t been registered, then they could be fined or arrested, depending on the type and severity of the spell.

I just hoped, for her sake, it wasn’t anything like that, and I didn’t blame her for wanting to listen just in case it was.

“We have exciting news from the governor’s mansion that will affect all of our futures,” the anchor said. “The governor’s son is engaged.”

I squealed loudly, clapped my hands, and then nearly fell off my stool.

Opal looked at me with her eyes wide. “I didn’t actually think you cared that much about Frederick Van Der Moore.”

“You don’t understand,” I cooed. “He’s dating Melanie, my little sister.”

“Oh, my stars! That’s amazing. Congrats! Did you know?”

“Sort of, I knew he was proposing, but I didn’t know he’d already done it. Hold on. I have to call Melanie. I’d be low key offended the news found out before me if I didn’t know just how sneaky the paparazzi could be.” I took my cell phone out of the pocket of my lab coat and tried to call Melanie. Her phone was off, so it went straight to voicemail. I groaned and yelled at the phone. “Answer me, Melanie!”

Of course, she didn’t. I had no magical abilities whatsoever and neither did she, but I still liked to think we had a sisterly bond that was more powerful than magic.

“And here is the lovely bride to be,” the anchor continued.

I turned back to the screen all kinds of excited to see Melanie’s beautiful face. But the picture on the screen? It was the furthest thing from the one I expected them to use. Mostly because it wasn’t Melanie at all. It was some woman named Mindy Banks and sure, she was beautiful, but I had no idea who she was. More than that, I couldn’t understand what happened. Did Melanie and Frederick break up? Was she the side piece while Mindy had been his main girlfriend? And if that was true, why had Frederick been sending me pictures of rings to give to Melanie? None of this made sense.

I tried to call Melanie again, but she didn’t answer. Shit, she was probably devastated. That was likely why her phone was off. How could that asshole cheat on Melanie? I sent her a text and said I’d stop by later. I’d have to go there after work with ice cream and some strong alcohol. Maybe I could even see if Opal’s grandma would bless the wine to help us avoid a hangover. We were sure gonna end up drinking a lot tonight.

After my shift ended, and with two bags full of snacks and blessed wine, I knocked on Melanie’s door. I waited for the poor thing to pull herself out of bed and let me in. But after a few minutes, she still hadn’t come to the door. I knocked again. Still nothing. Then I banged on the door. Maybe she was sleeping or in the shower?

“Melanie,” I mumbled under my breath with a slight hint of irritation.

Where was this girl? After a few more minutes and no further answers, I took my phone out and tried to call her again. Nothing. Straight to voicemail.

Okay, cool, now I was getting worried. I had been a right mess with Lewis, and during that time, I had gotten pretty low. Alarmingly low. I couldn’t let Melanie go through that alone. The memory of that one bad night flashed back into my mind before I could stop it. I quickly tried to push it away, but the damage was done. I started to tear up. I was gonna break down this fucking door if she didn’t answer. She couldn’t be alone.

Oh, wait. Maybe she was with Mom. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I should’ve thought about that. I dialed my mom’s number.

“Hello, Brooke. How are you, sunshine?”

“Mom, is Melanie with you?”

“No, why? Is everything okay?”

“No, I just saw on the news that Frederick is engaged, but the woman they’re claiming is the bride isn’t Melanie.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe they got false information.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to me. Honestly, it wouldn’t be the first time the media got something completely wrong. Though, this would be a massive mistake. I couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t the kind of news that was put out there into the universe when it hadn’t been verified. Especially because the governor wasn’t exactly a forgiving man.

“Maybe, but I tried to reach out to Melanie, and she didn’t answer. So, I came over to her place to check on her, and she isn’t answering her phone or her door.”

“It’s too late for her to be at work.”

“Mom, I’m worried.”

“Well, I am now too but maybe she just isn’t up to talking to anyone. If it is true and her little heart is broken, then it might be best to give her some time.”

“No, Mom, she doesn’t need time. She needs carbs, and salt, and chocolate, and wine, and potentially a hit man.”

“Before we hire the hitman, why don’t we give her twenty-four hours to herself and then we can impose on her doorstep tomorrow?”

“I don’t think—”

“I know, sweetie, but this is Melanie’s life, and she is allowed to deal with this however she sees fit. Maybe she is talking to Frederick or something like that.”

“Fine, but ten a.m. tomorrow, we’ll meet back here.”

“Yes, I’ll bring the battering ram. Good night, honey.”

“Night.”

I knocked on the door one more time for good measure, but there was still no answer. Despite just about every instinct in my body telling me not to leave, I did any way.

I couldn’t sleep at all. I tossed and turned in my bed with memories of Lewis forcing their way back into my mind. I remembered how he used to cradle my face with his strong hands just before he kissed me. I thought about how safe I felt when I slept pressed up against his firm body. And I felt the pain and anguish from the night he told me he hadn’t loved me.

“Brooklynne,” he’d started. “You are a wonderful girl, and I’ve enjoyed our time together these last two years. Truthfully, I’d never have been able to come up with the love potion without you. I’ll forever be grateful for your help.”

He reached out a hand and brushed the back of his knuckles against the side of my cheek. I leaned into his touch, soaking up the heat that always emanated from him. I inhaled the smell I’d long ago associated with him, peppermint, sage, and a bit of cauldron fire. It was intoxicating to me. I was aroused, almost completely on that smell alone, when I was in his presence. And then he pulled away. He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks and walked away from me. Lewis took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and then falling. When he turned to me, his head was tipped to the side and the smile on his face was long gone.

“But I don’t feel the same love for you that you feel for me. I think we should see other people.”

And that was the beginning of my world shattering around me.

But I wouldn’t cry in bed any longer. This wasn’t about Lewis and me. It was about Melanie, and she would need me. She was my little sister, and I’d be there for her. So, I went to my kitchen to whip up a little something to help me sleep.

I took several ingredients out from my potions rack and pulled out the most expensive item I owned. My cauldron. It was made of solid platinum, heated up on its own without a stove, and had an auto-stir function. Layla had given it to me as a graduation present. Whenever I used it, I reminded myself just how amazing of a best friend she was. The cauldron was perfection, and it made potion making significantly easier. I pulled my instant potion mix from the pantry. Since I didn’t have my own magic, I had to rely on the storebought instant brew.

I mixed together a sleeping draft and added a dash of chocolate so my dreams would be sweet, then a few forget-me-not petals so I’d forget my worry for the night. When you just added the petals and not the center bud, they caused you to forget. But the bud made you remember everything. Tonight, I didn’t exactly have an issue remembering. No, there were some things that would be glued in my mind forever.

I’d been good, though. It’d been about three months since I’d had to whip these babies up to try and forget what Lewis did. And that was a victory. At one point, it was the only thing that would help me sleep, and I’d built up such a tolerance, it was becoming crazy expensive to keep up my supply.

After the cauldron stirred itself thirty times counterclockwise and then fifty-two times clockwise, the liquid in the cauldron turned a misty silver. The perfect color. I poured the concoction into a glass and then downed it like a champ.

Within fifteen minutes, I was back in bed, with my eyes heavy, a smile on my face, and not a worry in my heart.

Excerpt. ©Sarah Fischer. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Giveaway: An ebook copy of THE APOTHECARY’S DARK FATE + one additional Tule ebook of the winner’s choice

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Meet the Author:

Sarah Fischer works hard fighting the good fight in personnel security. She graduated with a degree in criminal justice and married the calm to her crazy. Then Sarah had a health scare and needed heart surgery. While recovering, she finally had the time to write the stories playing out in her mind. Her college romantic suspense series, Elton Hall Chronicles, is now available in its entirety on Amazon. First Semester, Second Snowfall, and Third Wheel remind you what you loved about college, show you what you missed, and make you yearn for what could have been. Sarah also has a contemporary short story in the Craving Bad anthology. In her spare time, you’ll find her with a book in her hand, at the movies, or watching just one more episode of reality tv.

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