• Reading (and chatting)

  • Mar 12 2025
  • Length: 13 mins
  • Podcast

  • Summary

  • I was in the mood to read from a new story. Don’t hate me because I haven’t finished the other ones yet. I can’t help myself.

    Blue Blood - Set in The Apocalypse Keys World (Claiming Starlight)

    Introduction

    The world broke on January 1, 2000—Apocalypse Day, they call it, when the veil between realities shredded and time itself fractured. No one knows why, though I know some people blame secret societies, sorcerers meddling with powers they couldn’t leash. What I know is this: the Earth I was born into isn’t the one my parents knew. Cities crumbled, governments dissolved, and magic flooded in, dragging blue bloods—vampir, shifters, fae, and worse—out of myth and from between veils into the ruins.

    Humans like me, a red blood, became prey, pawns, or prizes, depending on who caught us first.

    If you’ve been here before, you know Old City—what used to be Chicago—where the book Claiming Starlight began. There, Sophie hunted for her lost brother in a sprawl split between Hyde’s vampir lords and South Bloc’s shifter packs, dodging the fog-choked Barrens and their hungry ghosts. She found more than she bargained for in Micah, a wolf who claimed her under the stars on a wild hunt. That’s their tale—gritty, raw, and tangled in a world where trust is a blade that cuts both ways.

    This is mine. I’m Margo, and my story, Blue Blood, drags you south, past Old City’s chaos, into the saltwater flats and humid swamps of Greenly Foggart. Here, stilts prop up shacks against the tide, and the air’s thick with heat and rot.

    It’s a crossroads for trolls, naiads, shifters—creatures of lore and time who’d sooner trade your soul than shake your hand. I ran here to escape a sorcerer father who brain washed me into his cult of blood magic into thinking cutting off parts of my body would save us from the monsters.

    Turns out, he was the biggest monster of them all. I found safety in a red house but nothing’s free in a world like this.

    For those new to this mess, welcome to a world where magic’s real and ruthless, where the Reaper stalks violators of the First Law—killing innocents is forbidden, but everyone bends it—and where humans like me cling to scraps of survival.

    This is Blue Blood—a tale of scars, swamps, and a love I don’t trust, in a world that’s forgotten what trust even means. Step in, if you dare.

    This is a choose your own smut novel, where readers vote on some of the chapters. Be kind.

    Read the first 3 chapters here: Blue Blood

    Let me know in the comments if you want me to read more.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit isoellen.substack.com
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