Corvids Press: Specials & Releases

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Update 2024-05-16
“The Mission's Talent” will be released soon.
"Under the Stone of Destiny" is now free to download, because "Goths and Rooks" has been released.


Always check LAST post for current offer(s)
30th June 2021: New sale starts 1st July 2021

Talents Universe
I'm no good at blurbs or marketing. So no hard sell here.

It's not really an Alien First Contact Story, book #3 in the series is really the First Contact story.

The Apprentice's Talent.
Now free everywhere except on Amazon (99c)
At Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble

The Kindle version on Smashwords is "Dual Mobi", you get plainer version on ancient Kindles but from Kindle Keyboard current Firmware you can select Publisher and you see the AZW3/KF8 version that Amazon would supply to newer Kindles.
The epub is epub2. On some readers you might have to put it into a specific folder/directory. The epub version is recommended for Calibre conversion.
If you really want PDF, best to convert the epub version yourself.



The first two books and the fifth are Maisie's career. There is no over-arching plot like the Wheel of Time, but characters and situations develop. Book #3 "The Solar Alliance" (not people selling PV solar panels) is parallel to book #1 and #2 and needs to be read before #5, the third Maisie book, "The Master's Talent". The Starship Chief is an adventure twenty five years before "First Contact" with Earth. There are only eight books in the series. "The Mission's Talent" #7 , was released in July 2024, if ready and polished.

There is no DRM. You can read on any device and share with immediate Family. You may not upload copies.
We recommend download, backups and Calibre, though Smashwords do have a Cloud library and let you download the version you bought any number of times and also give you free access to any later revisions.

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Celtic Otherworld
I'm no good at blurbs or marketing. So no hard sell here.

It's not set in the past; the timeline in our world is sort of contemporary, though starting in 1962, jumping to 1975 and finally roughly contemporarily with when it was written. The published books in the series were started in the 1990s.

Under the Stone of Destiny.
Now free to download everywhere since "Goths and Rooks" was released.

At Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble.

The Kindle version on Smashwords is "Dual Mobi", you get plainer version on ancient Kindles but from Kindle Keyboard current Firmware you can select Publisher and you see the AZW3/KF8 version that Amazon would supply to newer Kindles.
The epub is epub2. On some readers you might have to put it into a specific folder/directory. The epub version is recommended for Calibre conversion.
If you really want PDF, best to convert the epub version yourself.



The first three books are a sort of trilogy named after three of the four treasures of the Tuath Dé. There is no over-arching plot like the Wheel of Time, but some books do connect closely. The first three cover Eilis's coming of age, though not an adult. Alice is Eilis in English, which can be pronounced Ailish, pronunciation varies in Ireland with region. Some are parallel stories focusing on other characters.

In the oldest legends, Manannán Mac Lir leads the Tuath Dé away to an Otherworld via the mounds. The Irish word Sidhe or sí, or Scottish Sìde or sith (all pronounced roughly Shee) literally means mounds. The stories are about what the Sidhe, Elves, Faerie, Norse Demigods and Tuath Dé are doing today! Obviously some of the same characters mentioned in legends from Oral Traditions that might date from the Bronze Age in Ireland are still alive. It's not a spoiler to say that the Tuath Dé are mistaken about the nature of the Sidhe, Dwarves, Elves and Dryads.

The Tuath Dé (Tribe of God) were later renamed Tuatha Dé Danann (The tribe of God(ess) Danu) by monks, because the Israelites were the Tribe of God. Danu is Celtic, but not Irish. Her river is the Danube. Before the Romans invaded Gaul (their name for a collection of Celtic Tribes), the Celtic Culture and tribes stretched as far as Turkey. Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Brittany and part of the North Coast of Spain is where Celtic culture and sometimes Celts survived.
Lir is a different Lir to the King in "The Children of Lir".

Note the pillar at Tara, Co. Meath, Ireland isn't the Stone of Destiny as it was a low dished seat. It was sent to Scotland. But the Stone of Scone is a fake copy given to the English. Oddly the current one loaned from Westminster to Edinburgh might be a copy of that stone. Even the one loaned by the King in Ulster for the King in Scotland to sit on for his coronation, or recognition as Rí. However the stories are not about the Treasures.

Also Morrígan and Morrígna are titles, not names, Terror Queen and Terror Queens. The modern Irish has Banríon as Queen, rígan is old Irish, also in modern Irish "mór" means Great or Big. Here it's an older word. Irish words often have an unrelated meaning accented or not.

There is no DRM. You can read on any device and share with immediate Family. You may not upload copies.
We recommend download, backups and Calibre, though Smashwords do have a Cloud library and let you download the version you bought an

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The Contact Us form is working (June 2021)
2024 The Contact Us form is gone again due to the 3rd party developer breaking it!
July 2024: The Contact Us form is is back

I've enabled private messaging to any member as an alternate to the Corvids Press Contact Form.
We don't pass on any info to third parties or have trackers. Sometimes a Theme on our site might have a Google font (stupid), you can block that.

Feel free to make private comments. We don't peck.

If you look closely at the avatar image you can see Ray McCarthy sleeping beside the wall after a hard night … writing.

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All reduced from $3.99 to 99 cents till Midnight 31st December 2020, so only a few days left!
Still full price on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google PlayBooks, Barnes & Noble and others.
All are complete stories though the characters develop in the series and some books have some sort of overall background story arc.

All titles by Ray McCarthy, an Irish Writer.

The Smashwords Kindle Version is Dual Mobi, all later Kindles get the KF8 format giving better appearance and also option for the Publisher Fonts.
The epub is suitable for all epub based eink readers and all epub Apps on the Fire, Apple, Android, Windows and Linux platforms. Aldiko for older Android or Lithium for newer versions. It's better to use a 3rd party epub App on iOS than Apple Books unless you buy the titles from the Apple Store.

The Apprentice's Talent
Series: Talents Universe, Book 1. This series has seven books. The last title is having final revisions.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/627843

Under the Stone of Destiny
Series: Celtic Otherworld, Book 1
By Ray McCarthy
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/656868

Hero Genesis
Series: Celtic Otherworld, Book 4
By Ray McCarthy
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/716440

No Silver Lining
Series: Celtic Otherworld, Book 5
By Ray McCarthy
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/716453

Online previews on Amazon, example:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JZXNXFG

Corvids Press: https://www.corvidspress.com/
Ray's Blog: http://www.raymccarthy.corvidspress.com/

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Probably the sale is ending Midnight US Pacific time on 31st December 2020.

No idea when we might run a sale again.

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Some news:
We are upgrading the website to have samples of all the books. Work is progressing on paper and audiobooks. Audiobooks will be on Audible, Findaway, Online purchase of SD card with ebook, and cassette tapes with an SD card MP3 version and the ebook.

First one completed is Under the Stone of Destiny. You can download samples in epub2, kindle dual mobi (select publisher font if available) or a preview of mass market / pocket book size book as a PDF.
Five chapters of audio as online media player or a zip file to download. That's three and a half hours. Audio maybe needs a bit more work.
It's binaural for headphones, not stereo speakers. You can also try right channel only as mono, or a mono mix.
The Contact Us form is also fixed.

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The Contact Us form is back.

Also the next Celtic Otherworld book is now available for pre-order.

It's ‘Dwarves and Rooks’. An eccentric young woman is now an established Consulting Detective and is hired by the Aés Sidhe to investigate the murder of a Dwarf Chief on the Reservation. But the Fay Minister for Refugees, who is responsible for her hire, and is her adoptive mother, has decided to have a holiday horse riding on the Peacestead at Asgard.

Free samples in epub and Kindle format are on our site.

You can pre-order. The release date is the 6th of May 2021. We recommend Smashwords, but you should be able to use your favourite ebook store. You can contact us with proof of purchase for a free DRM free copy (mobi, azw3, epub or even pointless PDF) if the version sold by your ebook store has DRM.

We believe in Copyright, but oppose DRM. It doesn't stop commercial pirates.



P.S. The next two titles are polished up and ready to go!

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Smashwords Annual Summer-Winter Sale
From 1st July 2021

All Ray McCarthy's books are at various sale prices from Free* to $2.99 for reading on Kindles & ePub (Kobo, Nook, Old Sony, Pocketbook, Boyue) or Apps. You can still pay the full price on Amazon, Apple or Google.

https://smashwords.com/books/view/627843

Download Kidle or ePub samples on Corvids Press: https://corvidspress.com/fiction/oth...ne-of-destiny/

* Though none have DRM, you mustn't give away copies.

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All the Celtic Otherworld books have been revised and covers updated. Click on a book cover icon for details and cover medium thumbnail in text for larger cover view.
No change to plot/story/characters just some formatting and 10 to 20 fiddly mistakes per book fixed. A strangely missing paragraph re-inserted in two books.

“Under the Stone of Destiny" is now free to download

Retail sellers for the ebook of Under the Stone of Destiny:
Smashwords, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon (including Preview), Play Store

"Goths and Rooks" is now released.


"Jewels and Rooks" is soon to be on preorder.

We also have a fresh rook on the team.

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The Mission’s Talent is now released. It's the 7th and penultimate book in the Talent Universe Series (80,600 words). The last book is in a draft stage with a completed beginning and ending (currently 50,000 words).


The Mission’s Talent
This novel is set about four years after the events of “The Legal Talent.” Maisie has just returned from Morglun, but has to assemble an unusual “First Contact” mission to Andromeda with the support of the Arch Chancellor and the Military.
The UN can’t agree on a team due to the Russian invasion annexation of Crimea in 2012.
https://www.corvidspress.com/fiction...ssions-talent/
Retail ebooks (DRM free except for Amazon KFX)
Smashwords (inc dual Kindle mobi+azw3) https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1569755
Apple https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6503664979
Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940167711815
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Se...=9781801022316 (maybe USA only?)
Amazon/Kindle https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D58H1K2Q (USA, edit .com for other marketplaces)
Google https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=A0gKEQAAQBAJ


About the Talents Universe Series
The ‘Talents Universe’ series are all stories connected by characters with the mysterious Talent, of which there are seven kinds, or with some involvement of the Caemorian Empire, a world 80,000 light years away from Earth (Tellus) on the other side of the Milky Way. Apart from Jump Drive for the starships and the psychic-like Talent, the Science Fiction attempts to be compatible with known science.


The first book in the series, "The Appprentice’s Talent" (160,450 words), is now free everywhere except Amazon (99c USD).
https://www.corvidspress.com/fiction...ntices-talent/
Retail ebooks (DRM free except for Amazon KFX)
Smashwords (inc Dual Kindle) https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/627843
Apple https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id1100808098
Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940152960006
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Se...=9781310866012
Amazon https://kdp.amazon.com/amazon-dp-act...ink/B01DWDAF1A
Google https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=J44FEAAAQBAJ


The prequel standalone novella, "Starship Chief" (#4) is reduced in price.
https://www.corvidspress.com/fiction...tarship-chief/