Morgan Brice – Thunder Road

Today, author Morgan Brice is guesting. She’s talking about her later release Thunder Road, book seven in the Badlands series, a m/m paranormal, steampunk romance.

“Can Simon and Vic end the deaths and disappearances, or have they finally found a foe too powerful to stop?”

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The Witches of the Badlands series:

We’ve run into a number of types of witches over the course of the Badlands series and in other series which overlap. In Thunder Road, the girlfriend of the leader of the motorcycle club is a witch named Maret and she runs a coven. She and her witches play an important role in helping Simon and Vic deal with the monster and stop the curse. Maret is sassy and cautious, slow to trust, but once she accepts that Simon and Vic are legitimate, she is fully committed.

As for the other witches, they have a wide variety of backgrounds and specialties. Miss Eppie is a root worker, coming from a long tradition of African folk medicine and magical cures. Gabriella is a bruja, whose magic is steeped in Hispanic lore. Father Anne is a priest with the St. Expeditus Society whose magic draws on liturgical roots. The nuns from St. Cyprian come from a Greek Orthodox background. Rowan is a powerful witch who draws from a variety of traditions and has a generalist approach to magic. Archibald Donnelly, who we meet in the related Deadly Curiosities series, is a necromancer who can deal with spirits on a magical level.

Over the course of the books, we run into good and bad witches with varying levels of power whose ‘flavor’ of magic is determined by their upbringing, the specialty of the witches who taught them, or their area of interest, as well as special talents, like speaking with the dead.

I love incorporating witches with various abilities because they are very helpful dealing with supernatural creatures and paranormal situations. They make great allies (or formidable foes) and I enjoy researching the different magical traditions.

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Title: Thunder Road
Series: Badlands, Book 7
Author: Morgan Brice
Tense/POV: Third person, past tense, alternating POV
Genres: MM Urban Fantasy/Paranormal/Psychic romance, Historical/Steampunk
Tropes: Established and developing relationship, co-worker romance, forbidden romance in Victorian era
Themes: Newlyweds, trust, depending on each other
Release Date: December 17, 2024
Heat Rating: 4 flames
Length: 61 000 words/204 pages
Publisher: Darkwind Press

Simon and Vic are home from their honeymoon, just in time for a brand new case!

Blurb: Mysterious missing person reports, a cursed motorcycle club, and an ancient entity add up to trouble. A bad bargain to stop a long-ago gang war requires a yearly sacrifice from a tightly-knit group of riders, and even their coven of witches hasn’t been able to stop the deaths.

Then the granddaughter of a former lighthouse keeper comes to Simon for help. When the lighthouses were automated, they lost their live-in guardians, who worked protective spells to shield the coast from killer storms and a murderous creature. Those protections are fading, and an old evil has gained power, growing stronger with every life it claims.

Can Simon and Vic end the deaths and disappearances, or have they finally found a foe too powerful to stop?

THUNDER ROAD is an action-packed MM paranormal romance chock full of old magic, protective guardians, found family, an ancient monster, brave motorcyclists, helpful ghosts, loyal friends, psychic visions, hurt/comfort, supernatural suspense, and an evolving, established romantic relationship with all the feels.

Note: THUNDER ROAD is part of a series but can be read as a standalone. It does not end on a cliffhanger.

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Available at:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

“For the amount of time we spent naked, we sure have a lot of dirty laundry,” Simon observed, looking at the overflowing basket. “How did that happen?”

“It was too chilly to go out without clothing, and we didn’t want to get arrested.” Vic tossed another pair of socks into the pile.

“Have you heard from Ross? Did the department survive without you? No crime sprees?”

Vic rolled his eyes. “Myrtle Beach isn’t exactly known for its crime waves, but apparently, things stayed pretty quiet. Ross hasn’t given me a lot of details—said he’d fill me in when I went to the station. I think he’s doing his best to help me extend that honeymoon feeling as long as possible.”

“Yeah, Pete keeps telling me that nothing much happened with the store.” Simon closed his empty suitcase and zipped it shut. “I mostly believe him, and I appreciate that he handled everything well on his own. But I guess we had to return to the real world sooner or later.”

As much as Simon had relished the time away with Vic, he also liked running Grand Strand Ghost Tours and enjoyed helping people—living and dead—with his psychic abilities. He knew the value of being able to provide answers and closure, and his insights had brought killers to justice and solved long-cold murder cases.

“Of course, we’re getting back just in time for the craziness that happens in the fall.” Vic set his empty suitcase aside. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that, but it is what it is. Motorcycle season is starting. That’s always busy—for good reasons and bad.”

Myrtle Beach had been a favorite destination for motorcyclists and cycle clubs practically since the bikes were invented. Road rallies ended in town with celebrations on the Boardwalk. Cycle clubs held fall gatherings once the beaches weren’t quite as crowded and the temperatures more leather-friendly. Local cops cracked down on cars and cyclists cruising Ocean Boulevard, but people managed to make several passes before being shooed away and then returned.

Bikes and bikers were a subject of conversation. Businesses appreciated the influx of visitors in the shoulder season—the months when the weather was warm, but most of the tourists had gone home. It picked up some of the slack from the exodus of beachgoers. Locals grumbled about traffic and noise, and some held outdated impressions that raised questions about crime or violence.

As Vic frequently pointed out, thanks to how expensive good bikes had become, the average bike owner was forty-seven. Which was at odds with the perception of young toughs from fifties-era movies.

Not that carousing didn’t happen, but the average rider was also married and much more likely to be an accountant or a doctor than a drifter.

“It’s usually not the bikers causing the problems,” Vic said. “It’s the people who come to the bars to hang out and pretend. They’ve seen Roadhouse a few too many times and want to live the dream.” That usually meant they woke up hungover and needing bail.

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Morgan Brice is the romance pen name of bestselling author Gail Z. Martin. Morgan writes urban fantasy MM paranormal romance, with plenty of action, adventure and supernatural thrills to go with the happily ever after. Gail writes epic and urban fantasy, with less romance, more explosions.

All of the modern-day Morgan Brice and Gail Z. Martin series crossover, so characters from one series appear in cameos and on page in important secondary roles in books from other series. Each book can be read as a standalone, but the more you read the more the expanded universe of friendships and connections becomes clear.

Morgan and Gail believe that paranormal elements make any story even better, and her worlds are full of ghosts, psychics, shifters, creatures, vampires, monster hunters, and magic.

She’s also a huge fan of the TV show Supernatural. (Chibi art by Kamidiox)