Dowser

If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you that the best cupcakes were dark chocolate with chocolate cream cheese icing, that dancing in a crowd of magic wielders — the Adept — was better than sex, and that my life was peaceful and uneventful. Just the way I liked it. That’s what twenty-three years in the magical backwater of Vancouver will get you — a completely skewed sense of reality.

Three months ago, I lost my foster sister, Sienna, to the darkness. As in blood magic and chaos and general mayhem. No one saw it until it was too late, but I should have. Now, I have a wounded heart and soul that I can’t even reveal to anyone around me, because I’m supposed to hate Sienna with the fiery passion of the justified. And I do. I just wish I didn’t feel so lost without her.

I hadn’t set foot in the human world for more than a few hours in over three months. Sure, I was stronger and faster than I’d ever been before, and I had a shiny new sword, but I was seriously chocolate deprived. I don’t recommend quitting cold turkey. And the new sword was a problem — to my mind, anyway. It represented all the expectations of a powerful father and a new otherworldly life.

I had new cupcakes to bake, a new treasure to hunt, and a new dragon in town — literally. Who wouldn’t be ecstatic filling their days with chocolate, trinket collecting, and martial arts training? Yeah … me.

Three months ago, I nearly lost my best friend while retrieving the first instrument of assassination. I also released a rival who was definitely unhinged, way more powerful than me, and obsessed with harnessing the deadly power of the artifacts I’d been tasked by the guardian dragons to collect. Add a sexy sentinel and a nearly immortal vampire to the mix, and what could possibly go wrong?

Baker of cupcakes, maker of trinkets, half-witch, half-dragon, dowser, alchemist … Why couldn’t I just be Jade?

I had everything I’d ever wanted — a successful business with a second bakery in the works, a sexy fiance who I adored, and good friends who loved to laugh. So of course it couldn’t possibly last. Unfortunately, this time the trouble was homegrown in Vancouver, threatening my own backyard and those who were under my protection. I was, after all, the wielder of the instruments assassination.

Who didn’t love wielding deadly weapons, opening a bakery, and marrying their soul mate in the same week? Or was that just my sort of thing?

Even a baker of cupcakes and a maker of trinkets occasionally had to set aside the chocolate, the spice, and everything nice to save her friends. And her city.

The warriors have fallen. And those they previously protected must now band together to keep the invaders at bay. Mory, a young necromancer; Rochelle, a pregnant oracle; and Jasmine, a fledgling vampire, will do whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to prevent the fated future from unfolding. Even if that means they must become warriors themselves.

Dowser 9.5 is a short novella (17k) written in celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1). And yes, this is what happens when the dowser and her two BFFs find themselves bored and restless. Mix in magical doorways, other dimensional ramifications, and cupcakes and chaos are guaranteed to ensue!