We’re so pleased to have author Don Allmon dropping in today on the tour for his latest release in the Blue Unicorn -verse, The Burning Magus. Don is here to chat about one of the ‘minor’ characters in the series and is also offering up a giveaway, so be sure to check out all those details below.

Welcome, Don!

Howdy all! And welcome to the blog tour for book three of the Blue Unicorn trilogy, THE BURNING MAGUS!

THE BURNING MAGUS is a cyberpunk/fantasy Ocean’s 11. Or it would be if Danny and Rusty had been an orc and an elf, they’d been lovers, and the Bellagio casino had been an evil wizard’s tower.

If you’ve been following the series, BURNING MAGUS brings the whole gang together: JT and Austin, Comet and Buzz, the Blue Unicorn and Roan.

It’s the final book in the series where the heroes get their HEA, the villains their come-uppance, and well… I won’t spoil everything.

For this book tour I’d like to introduce y’all to some of the minor characters in THE BURNING MAGUS and this time around I’m gonna talk about DANTE:

Okay, this one almost feels like cheating because Dante isn’t very “minor.” Dante was introduced in book one of the series, THE GLAMOUR THIEVES, and appears again in book two, APOCALYPSE ALLEY. And in those books she was definitely a minor character. But in BURNING MAGUS, Dante steps up front and center.

Dante is a teenage orc girl, a car thief who JT tried to rescue from a life of crime by taking her on as an apprentice mechanic. But as JT’s old life catches up with him, it also drags Dante into a world even more dangerous than the one JT had saved her from.

Dante’s still recovering from her wounds in APOCALYPSE ALLEY and isn’t taking it well.

She didn’t like the way everyone treated her, especially Austin. Austin looked away from her when she had to hold a counter for balance or lean against a wall while she took a deep breath, like it was his fault her body wasn’t working so well. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t … but pride kept her from saying that. […] That pissed her off too. It made her feel petty.

If this were a YA book (which it’s not) she’d be my YA hero. She’s cocky and uncertain, capable and fragile, trying to sort out her place in this group of overbearing adults and clashing egos.

And to make it all that harder, along comes a boy that Dante falls hard for: Nicolás Ruiz-Chavez, an elf.

What of him was glamour and what of him was him? Was the polish on his nails really that shade of purple? Lips matching red? Did his hair always fall in his eyes, or just now? Did JT see Austin this way? If so, was it any wonder JT was a fuckin’ basket case around the elf?

Dante learns a lot in THE BURNING MAGUS and I hope y’all cheer for her the way I did!

About the Book

Love can make a good crime go bad.

JT was a perfectly happy orc building cars in the Arizona desert until his old friend and sometimes lover Austin showed up and talked him into one last crime. Now “one last crime” has snowballed. With a new team of thieves — a supersoldier, a hacker, a driver, a graffiti artist, and a seafaring wizard — JT and Austin are determined to free an artificial intelligence from the dungeon of the Burning Magus.

For JT, this job is more than a prison break; it’s a do-over of The Job That Went Bad two years ago, the catastrophe in which JT lost his closest friend and then chose to abandon everything, even Austin. Maybe this time no one will die. Maybe this time JT can return to Arizona and bury his old life for good.

Except Austin won’t be buried. After two years alone, Austin knows he wants JT — not just as a partner in crime, but as the lover he always should have been. Maybe this time they won’t make the same mistakes, especially when it comes to each other.

Now available from Riptide Publishing!

About the Blue Unicorn Universe

JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day.

Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.

Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT — this time as more than just a friend — and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.

The Blue Unicorn stories can be enjoyed in any order — jump in wherever you’d like!

About the Author

In his night job, Don Allmon writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance. In his day job, he’s an IT drone. He holds a master of arts in English literature from the University of Kansas and wrote his thesis on the influence of royal hunting culture on medieval werewolf stories. He’s a fan of role-playing games, both video and tabletop. He has lived all over from New York to San Francisco, but currently lives on the prairies of Kansas with many animals.

Connect with Don: Website || Twitter: @dallmon || Pinterest

The Giveaway

To celebrate the release of The Burning Magus one lucky person will win a hardback copy of the cookbook BIG GAY ICE CREAM by Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on November 24, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!