Mandy Burkhead's Blog: The Burkshelf

Mandy’s short horror story “The Cursed Isle” won second place for the Inkd Pub Short Story contest at Multiverse!

While A Single Spark did not make it into the semifinalists for Philip Chase, he gave it a nice review on his YouTube channel.

We created an anthology of irreverent poetic trash. You can buy it here.

Mandy’s new YA fantasy novel A Single Spark is now available! Click the image for more information and the universal book link, which will show all major retailers.

https://shepherd.com/best-books/fantasy-featuring-a-lady-spy-assassin

Tainted Love: Women in Horror Anthology launched in February 2021 and features Mandy’s story “My Lady Báthory.”

“My Lady Báthory” is a queer romantic historical horror story following a young lady named Mariska, who is unfortunate enough to find herself at the finishing school of the notorious serial killer and sadist Countess Báthory.

Read by Dusk included this in their review of the anthology: “My Lady Báthory by Mandy Burkhead is a take on the real-life horror of Hungarian Countes...

Well, we made it to the last 50 out of the original 300 titles before our book was cut. While The Black Lily didn’t make it into the top 10 finalists, our reviewer Kitty G enjoyed our book and left us a wonderful review on her Youtube channel. Check it out!

Video not loading? Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/lkM7fQMnmR0?t=780

Heart of Sherwood was an enjoyable read. I love the idea of Robin Hood being a woman in disguise, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it done before (the closest I’ve seen is the movie Princess of Thieves, in which Keira Knightley played Robin Hood’s daughter disguised as a boy). The story included the well-known beats and characters of the Robin Hood legend but also sprinkled in historical details and political intrigue appropriate to the time period of the Third Crusade.

I really appr...

Our dark fantasy novel The Black Lily is a contestant for SPFBO 6. SPFBO is short for Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off. It is a competition for self-published fantasy books that is currently in its sixth year.

This year, 300 books were entered in the competition. We’re currently in the first round, where the 10 judges read (and often review) the 30 books, weeding out the ones that won’t go on to the semi-finals.

After that, each blogger chooses their favorite book to go on to the semi-...

I absolutely loved this book. I love faerie lore (both traditional and reimagined in a second world setting), and Shadowfell is full of faerie creatures. While there are your more well-known creatures like will-o-wisps, pixies, brownies, and redcaps, there were a few new ones to me, such as the stanie mon, brollochan, and urisk. Probably my favorite was the Guardian of the South, a trickster figure of fire that can shift between an old man, a young boy, and a fierce warrior. He definitely re...