Fair Winds and Foul Play Cover Reveal

Coming Soon! 

Fair Winds & Foul Play: an Amity Landing Mystery

Fair Winds and Foul Play is off to be galley proofed. It won't be long now! Save this space. 

The Blurb:

What do a government official, a loony environmentalist, and a batty old lady have in common?

Zoe’s run-in with the newcomer in Albion Cottage is hardly promising, but his gunmetal gray eyes and air of mystery stick with her. Why is he hiding? Who is he? His prickly attitude grates on the neighborly—well, to be honest, nosey—folks of the village of Amity Landing, but when he confesses to Zoe that he is the witness to a gruesome murder, she jumps at the chance to help the handsome stranger.

Two more corpses make their appearance in quick succession, but their connection to the first body is murky at best. Is it simply a series of unfortunate incidents? Has Amity Landing become a hotbed of homicide? Or is there a pattern to the madness? Do more have to die before Zoe and the stranger can fit the puzzle pieces together?

Welcome Chelsey Ortega & Bondwitch: Hybrid

Please welcome the inimitable Chelsey Ortega. She’s going to tell us about her new release, book 2 in the Bondwitch series: Bondwitch: Hybrid.

Bondwitch: Hybrid is the sequel to Bondwitch. In book 1, Annamaria learns that she is a witch on prom night by getting her powers unlocked by the very person who locked them sixteen years prior. She goes on an adventure to learn how to use them, and picks up new friends and love interest along the way.

In book 2, Annamaria is well-versed in the use of magic, but is still a baby in the larger magical world that she belongs to. She has responsibilities she does not want, has to fight to keep her boyfriend in her life, and must choose between forming her own found family or staying within her controlling grandmother’s clutches. Meanwhile, her sister, Marianna has been elevated from side character in book 1 to secondary main character in book 2. She will need to confront her past in order to become the witch her grandmother expects of her.

The larger Bondwitch world was inspired by a single conversation with my brother: Witches would have been great in Twilight. What started out as verbal fanfiction for another series, turned into its own world, story, and characters. As I veered into my own story, I discovered that I really like writing from the underlying theme of family dynamics. Annamaria fights with her grandmother in almost every chapter, works out deep emotions with her aunt, and constantly focuses on protecting her sister. Marianna yearns to win her grandmother’s approval while also protecting her sister. The families in Bondwitch are messy, but real and relatable.

Blurb

Annamaria Lyons is finally with her grandma, but Libby holds unyielding control of her coven and granddaughters. Betrothed to a male witch, Annamaria’s heart secretly belongs to her vampire boyfriend. When Libby threatens deadly consequences if she refuses the arranged marriage, Annamaria faces an impossible choice: obey or risk everything to follow her heart?

Marianna Lyons is a big disappointment. Stripped of her magic when she was forcefully turned into a vampire, she is now an outcast, desperate for Libby’s approval. When Marianna is tricked into breaking coven rules, she faces a difficult decision: endure brutal rehabilitation, or leave her new home. As Marianna struggles to rediscover herself, will she accept her new identity, or conform to Libby’s impossible demands?

Excerpt:

“Open the gate.” Annamaria stood as tall as she could in front of the two inside guards.

 “I’m sorry, Miss. Madam Libby’s orders. No one goes in or out tonight.” His face was a mask of neutrality.

“But tonight’s the night Anthony returns.” The guard’s eyes softened, pity swirling in their chocolate brown depths. She pinched her brows. Was this why Libby snooped through her phone this morning? Annamaria looked to her left. The other guard was talking to Zeke, who bobbed his head with folded arms. She looked to her right. No one. She ran along the perimeter, calling on the air to give her a boost. Annamaria leaped upward, a strong wind from her palms catching and guiding her.

“Miss!” 

The guard ran right behind her. His fingers grazed her ankles. Annamaria’s control of the air flickered and she wobbled. She kicked at him, planted her foot against his head, and used his sturdy form to thrust herself upward. She called on a final boost of air, landing on top of the wall. The guard cried out as he landed flat on his back on the ground below. Annamaria looked over the wall. Four figures stood near a vehicle in the dark. 

She jumped and used the air to slow her fall. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she ran toward the group. The figures became clearer. Two shifter guards, Marianna, and Anthony. Annamaria made a beeline to Anthony and threw herself into his arms. He caught her without changing his stance or breath. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he wrapped his arms around hers, nuzzling his nose into her hair. 

She kissed him in front of their small audience, and anyone else who might be watching. Anthony kissed her back, parting her lips with his tongue and lightly sucking on her bottom lip. Though they had been “dating” for the past month, their last kiss had been before she fled Will’s over a month ago. She kissed him until she ran out of breath, then inhaled and rested her forehead against his.

“Welcome home,” she whispered, gazing into his dark brown eyes and dropping her feet to the ground.

Anthony chuckled, and his black skater hair fell forward as he looked down to meet her gaze. “I’ll go away more often if this is how you’ll greet me.”

 

Bondwitch: Hybrid

The Wild Rose Press: 5/11/26

Genre: Romantic Fantasy

392 pages

Heat level: Warm

 

Buy Links

Amazon Barnes & Noble The Wild Rose Press Walmart

Other buy options: https://chelseymortega.com/bondwitch-2/

About the Author

Chelsey M. Ortega is a teacher by day and award-winning author by night. History is her first love, and any story involving magic and romance, her second love. She especially loves witches and is still awaiting her acceptance letter to a well-known school. Chelsey received her Bachelor's in History Teaching from Brigham Young University. In addition to writing, Chelsey teaches high school U.S. History and ELD. She lives in Utah with her husband, three children, and two cats. Follow Chelsey at www.chelseymortega.com

Socials:

Facebook: Chelsey M. Ortega -Author https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086032045677#

Instagram: @chelsey_mae_o https://www.instagram.com/chelsey_mae_o/ 

TikTok: @chelseym.ortega https://www.tiktok.com/@chelseym.ortega

Bluesky: @chelseymortega.bsky.social  https://bsky.app/profile/chelseymortega.bsky.social

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The World of Amity Landing

 The World of Amity Landing

My mysteries, The Penhallow Train Incident and Mrs. Spinney’s Secret, take place in midcoast Maine, in the fictional towns of Penhallow and Amity Landing. My upcoming release, Fair Winds and Foul Play, is set there.

Midcoast Maine is not perhaps as well known as the southern beaches or the Down East sites such as Bar Harbor, but it has its own special charm. Towns like Bath, Camden, Rockland, and Belfast showcase the Maine of lobstermen, shipbuilders, and farmers, while towns such as Thomaston on the many small peninsulas that jut into Penobscot Bay offer gorgeous views and pleasant cottages.

Amity Landing is a small village almost ready to tumble into Penobscot Bay. Established as a Methodist revival camp, people would come from the many small towns in central Maine. At first they pitched tents, then built platforms for the tents, and finally erected walls and roofs. The narrow dirt roads are lined with gingerbread cottages stuck cheek by jowl next to each other.

The city of Penhallow lies four miles from Amity Landing, nestled in the curve of Penobscot Bay, just below the point where Maine begins its journey Down East. Here, the Passamaquoddy River debouches into the bay, splitting Penhallow into east and west halves. The nineteenth-century red brick buildings of an old factory town line Main Street and High Street on the west side. The east side is mostly businesses catering to sightseers heading toward Ellsworth and Acadia National Park.

In the Penhallow Train Incident an ancient mystery comes to a small Maine town and brings with it murder, romance, suspense, and treasure.

In Mrs. Spinney’s Secret Amity Landing is being invaded by Hollywood and Cassidy Beauvoir, chairman of the board of overseers, doesn’t like it. That is, until she meets Jasper MacEwan, the director of American Waterloo: the Rout of the Penobscot Expedition. Their budding romance is interrupted by a series of deadly incidents, sending them on a quest for long-lost English gold.

Soon to be released is Fair Winds and Foul Play. It’s about a man in the witness protection program whose boss was dropped from the sky to his death on a wind turbine. The question isn't so much who murdered him as who wanted him dead. Suspects include developers, environmentalists, NIMBY protesters, and even lovers.

New Contract: Fair Winds & Foul Play

Coming Soon: Fair Winds and Foul Play: an Amity Landing Story

I just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for my 19th novel! It's a mystery set in Maine at my favorite little village called Amity Landing.

Here's the unofficial blurb:

At midnight on a deserted island, Gunnar Nordstrom, assistant secretary of the Interior, falls from the sky, to be ripped to shreds by the blades of a wind turbine. Was it murder or a dreadful accident?

Sebastian Guthrie—the lone witness—is rushed into the witness protection program, but is it for his safety or that of someone else?

Nordstrom was about to approve an offshore wind farm in Maine, a project opposed by all but a handful of people. Sebastian finds an ally in Zoe Thibodeau, the owner of a local pet adoption center, and together they sort through a Gordian knot of dead ends, red herrings, murders, and suspects. Is it all to do with the wind farm, or is there a much darker secret buried under the trail of corpses?

Amity Landing