By the Horns

Ruby Dixon

In a world of magical artifacts and fantastical beings, a woman with a deadly magic secret needs the help of the minotaur she’s trying to forget in the sizzling sequel to Ruby Dixon’s New York Times bestseller Bull Moon Rising

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐    Spice Level:   🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Minotaur monster sex and a girl who takes life by the horns make this spicy romantasy one that you won’t want to miss. In Bull Moon Rising author Ruby Dixon created a world where with a guild in charge of finding magical artifacts from the now extinct population that used magic for everyday life. These magical items are prized because anyone who had magical talent had been killed centuries ago. If you are a mancer, you could be put to death. Unfortunately, Gwenna has recently developed the unfortunate ability to hear the dead. In By the Horns, the story follows Gwenna during her second attempt as a fledgling training to join the ranks. People who have failed and are trying again are repeaters. And someone is killing the repeaters.  The book begins with a very spicy scene and follows with mystery, romance, and found family. In many books of this nature, the book is all about the sex, but despite the insta-lust, the romance that develops is believable too.  Ruby Dixon manages to create characters with depth. The book is written in dual first-person point of view and the reader gets to know the characters every thought. The mystery is also well written, and the ending was believable. This is the second book in the series, but the book was easily read as a stand -alone. The author weaves in the necessary backstory without resorting to an info dump. I received an advanced reader edition from the publisher.  I can honestly recommend this story and can’t wait to read the next one. At the end of the book are couple has their Happily Ever After. One lone character points out “Am I the only one without a mate?” I wonder if his story is next? If sexy steamy stories are your guilty pleasure, you will want to read this one.Minotaur monster sex and a girl who takes life by the horns make this spicy romantasy one that you won’t want to miss. In Bull Moon Rising author Ruby Dixon created a world where with a guild in charge of finding magical artifacts from the now extinct population that used magic for everyday life. These magical items are prized because anyone who had magical talent had been killed centuries ago. If you are a mancer, you could be put to death. Unfortunately, Gwenna has recently developed the unfortunate ability to hear the dead. In By the Horns, the story follows Gwenna during her second attempt as a fledgling training to join the ranks. People who have failed and are trying again are repeaters. And someone is killing the repeaters.  The book begins with a very spicy scene and follows with mystery, romance, and found family. In many books of this nature, the book is all about the sex, but despite the insta-lust, the romance that develops is believable too.  Ruby Dixon manages to create characters with depth. The book is written in dual first-person point of view and the reader gets to know the characters every thought. The mystery is also well written, and the ending was believable. This is the second book in the series, but the book was easily read as a stand -alone. The author weaves in the necessary backstory without resorting to an info dump. I received an advanced reader edition from the publisher.  I can honestly recommend this story and can’t wait to read the next one. At the end of the book are couple has their Happily Ever After. One lone character points out “Am I the only one without a mate?” I wonder if his story is next? If sexy steamy stories are your guilty pleasure, you will want to read this one.

Excerpt from By the Horns

BY THE HORNS by Ruby Dixon

Ace Hardcover | September 2, 2025

Excerpt

“Be sure and get the patients’ rooms,” Umala calls after me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I yell back, probably more forcibly than I should. Maybe one of the patients will have something I can use to get this feeling out of my head. A bottle of wine would be nice. At this point, I’d even be willing to cut myself with a knife if the pain would distract me enough, though I won’t be able to work if I carve up my hands. I need a better solution.

I race down the hall as quickly as I can, opting to start with the rooms that overlook the alley, since they’re the ones closest to the body. Get it over with already. Maybe I can open a window and pour the soapy water down on someone on the street and force them to veer into the alley.

Then again, maybe it’s not a dead body. Maybe I’m panicking. Maybe it’s something else. Didn’t Ma say once that she grew up in a house where the cook couldn’t eat shellfish or his lips puffed up? Maybe this feeling I have-like I’m being gnawed from the inside-is like that. As I approach the room farthest down the hall, though, the sensation grows stronger. I get to the window, but I don’t even have to look outside to know that there’s a dead man there.

I can feel him. He’s about my age. Throat cut. Been there a few hours now, limbs stiffening. Spirit lurking until he can go to Romus, the god of the dead.

And I’m terrified about the fact that somehow I know all of this.

I’m just a maid trying to be a guild artificer. Not a mancer. Mancers are trouble. Mancers are burned at the stake because they’re a threat. Because magic is outlawed and forbidden, unless it’s in one of the old artifacts.

I just want to blend in. Get a decent job that doesn’t involve handling other people’s chamber pots or a broom, maybe make a little coin to send back home to my ma so she won’t have to work so hard for that skinflint Lord Honori.

I’m not a mancer, though. I can’t be. I’m not anything special. This must be a sickness. That must be it. Scrubbing the window viciously, I tell myself the dizziness is due to something I ate last night. Nothing more. Soon enough I’ll get the sweats and then go running for the garderobe. I mean, I am sweating. But as time passes, more bits about the dead man leak into my brain. That he was a repeater, just like me. That he was doing a stint on guard duty. That he was supposed to meet someone in the alley last night for an exchange when someone came up behind him and a hot flash moved over his throat. Then he couldn’t breathe-

Choking on air, I grab my bucket and haul it toward the next room. The moment I’m inside, I slam the door behind me and lean against it, gasping.

“Who’s there?” asks someone with a deep, irritated male voice.

Shit. Mucking shit. I must have awoken the healers’ patient. Sure enough, when I look over, there’s the big, pale white form of a Taurian sprawled over the bed, which seems far too small for him. He’s naked except for a sheet tossed over his loins and what looks like a cloth covering his eyes. His bed has an overly tall footboard, upon which his hooves press. I guess that’s more comfortable for him on his back than lying flat like a human would, because his legs bend backward at the knee. He looks mucking grumpy that I’m here, too.

“Sorry, sir,” I chirp, sliding into my old friendly-helpful-maid persona. I step forward, clutching my bucket, and notice that his eyes aren’t just covered, they’re blindfolded. Good. He won’t be able to say it was me who interrupted him. “Name’s Sarya.”

Maybe I shouldn’t lie about my name, but I figure he doesn’t need to know who I really am. If I annoy him, the last thing I want is someone reporting back about how terrible Gwenna is. I set down the bucket near the window and then glance back toward him. This is the guild medics’ main hospital, so I reckon that he’s a guild artificer. He’s enormous, this Taurian man. There’s a glinting golden ring in his bovine pink nose, and his shoulders are so broad that his arms hang over the sides of the narrow bed. His horns jut forward over his bandaged brow and look sharp and deadly. Someone, one of the nurses perhaps, has tied a bright red ribbon in a colorful bow on the end of each one so the staff notices if he swings his head.

I don’t think they’re necessary. He’s impossible to look away from. I’ve seen him around guild headquarters, but I don’t know his name, just that he’s one of the guild’s hardworking Taurians. His barrel chest is nothing but muscle and the occasional scar, with two flat nipples decorating his delicious pectorals. The hooves on the footboard are equally enormous, and his tail swats the side of the bed with irritation. He’s magnificent.

Grumpy as muck, but magnificent.

The Taurian grunts, shifting his big body on the bed. “You’re the female they sent up?”

To clean the windows? “Aye, that’d be me. I’ll get you taken care of and then I’ll be on my way, promise.”

“Good” is all he says, and then he drops the sheet covering his loins to the floor and gestures at his fully engorged cock.

Excerpted from By the Horns by Ruby Dixon Copyright © 2025 by Ruby Dixon. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.BY THE HORNS by Ruby Dixon

Ace Hardcover | September 2, 2025

When a book begins like this, you know that you are in for a wild ride. Grab the bull by the horns and get between the covers of this book!