Showing posts with label #Blogger Guest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Blogger Guest. Show all posts

Monday, December 1, 2014

Guest Blogger: Nessie Strange, Author of the Living Dead World Series

Welcome to: Nessie Strange on the Reaper Madness Blog Tour

Nessie is a Massachusetts native and mother of two who has dabbled in everything from abstract painting to freelance sports reporting. She also loves a good story, whether it’s reading or writing one. Living Dead Girl and Reaper Madness, the first two novels in her urban fantasy Living Dead World series, were published by Etopia press in 2014.

How did you come to write a series?

When I first started writing Living Dead Girl (book 1), I hadn’t quite planned on sequels, or series. I just had this story in my head that was fighting to get out. It begins with Jen MacLellan, who’s a fairly ordinary young twenty-something woman who happens to have an unusual job: she’s a mortician. She’s kind of going through the motions with life in general--never really challenging herself or venturing out beyond the safe little bubble she’s created. Not to mention, her family takes advantage of her, and her boyfriend doesn’t appreciate her. Basically, she’s stuck in a rut. Then she meets Jack and all that gets turned upside down.

Jack is a musician. He’s a free-spirited, happy-go-lucky type guy. While he’s tattooed and can be a bit of a troublemaker (more of the wise-ass variety) he’s not really what I’d call a typical bad boy. He’s actually a really kind soul. He’s the type of guy who looks out for his friends and the people he cares most about, and with Jen, he finds a partner who has many of the qualities he lacks.

It begins as a hate-to-love, opposites attract type story. The romance between these two builds slowly, but when they do finally get together, their bond grows really strong. They complement each other. Unfortunately, once they find that happiness, tragedy strikes. While it’s harsh, and the things that happen to these characters are terrible, we learn later that this isn’t really the end of things. In this series, death isn’t final--it’s a new beginning.

Living Dead Girl is really a gateway story, because it shows this transition from regular, everyday life to death and what happens after. From book two on, we’re following both Jen and Jack on their journeys through the afterlife. The connections between the characters, as well as their history comes into light, and we learn there is a much bigger picture.

I haven’t decided exactly how many books will be in the series. There will be at least three, leaning more toward four. There is also a book coming from Jack’s POV that begins before and then overlaps some of Living Dead Girl. I look back at when I first started writing Jen’s story, and that first spark of an idea, and I never imagined how complex it would become. I also never imagined how attached I’d become to the characters. It’s funny how that works. Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you will follow along on Jen and Jack’s journey.

Living Dead Girl is available at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / KOBO / Etopia Press / GoodReads / ARe

You can visit Nessie at:
her website / Facebook / Twitter / Amazon / GoodReads / Pinterest

Monday, October 6, 2014

Book Launch: Reap & Redeem by Lisa Medley

Welcome to Lisa Medley! I'm pleased to say Lisa's new book is out: Reap & Redeem. So cool!

Just the Facts:

Urban Fantasy Romance: Reapers and Demons and Angels and Sex. 
Words 78K * 
Series: The Reaper Series, Book 2
ISBN-13: 9781460337769
ASIN: B00KV62OP2
AMAZON | NOOK | KOBO

About Reap & Redeem:

He’s a reaper who has given up on saving souls. Will a dying woman be his salvation?

After a century of enslavement to pure evil, Kylen Larson is finally free. But he’s long past caring. The only woman he ever loved is dead, and he’s tormented by memories of the horrors his demon parasite forced him to commit. Now, he lives for nothing more than hunting down the infernal creatures invading Meridian, Arkansas, and destroying them.

Olivia Evans is in the final stages of cancer when Kylen accidentally saves her from demonic possession. When he rescues this innocent soul, Kylen rediscovers his mission—and his heart. All he wants is to help Olivia stay alive. He’ll just have to fight off an invasion from Hell first…

Excerpt Chapter One

Kylen kicked the head across the floor of the dark shed with his steel-toed boot. Blood dripped into a pool on the floor from his scythe, which he still gripped tightly with one hand. He straightened to his full height and tilted his neck from side to side, listening to his spine crack and pop. Another demon down.

“You don’t have to keep killing them yourself, you know,” Deacon said, grimacing at the black ooze spilling out of the severed neck.

“Yeah, I do.” Kylen turned and walked to the door, taking a quick survey of the cemetery. A dark, sticky trail marked his course.

“You have to admit, he’s efficient.” Nate picked up the head by the hair and dropped it into a black garbage bag.

“That’s one way to look at it.” Deacon pressed his hand, which was glowing with Reiki energy, to the center of the dead male’s chest, directly over his heart chakra.

Kylen watched as light radiated from Deacon, encasing him and the body in a soft glow. The demon boiled forth from the dead human host in a thick black torrent of sulfurous haze. Spreading his arms wide, Deacon summoned the stream, which penetrated through his sternum. His body shuddered and the light around him sparked and cracked like the arc of a welder. The glow intensified to supernova status before winking out. Several smaller streams of gray light flowed forth from the ruined body, too, entering through Deacon’s mouth.

“Well? Did you retrieve all the souls?” Nate lifted the feet and legs of the body onto the tarp he’d set beside it.

Deacon frowned. “Yes.”

“How many?”

“Three.” Deacon rose and grasped the body by the shoulders, helping Nate maneuver it. “And the demon.”

“I really hate this shit.” Nate said, pulling a spool of duct tape from his backpack.

They rolled the man tightly in the tarp, taping both ends so that none of the bodily fluids would discharge in transit.

“How many more demons do you think there are?” Nate wrapped the head in a plastic bag and walked toward the door.

“Grim thinks there are at least two dozen more,” Deacon reminded him.

“Great. Slow and steady wins the race, yeah?”

“I’m not sure we have the luxury of slow and steady anymore. At this rate, we’re never going to find them all. There’s already way too much collateral damage. This many missing humans in town won’t go unnoticed much longer. We need to find their exit portals and shut down the rest of the demons. Sooner would be better than later.”

Kylen waited in the doorway, dividing his attention between the business in the shed and the cemetery grounds. Deacon was right of course. They needed to close the portals. Permanently. As it was, they were playing a game of supernatural Whac-A-Mole. Close one portal and another popped up. New entrance portals continued to open each week, which then had to be closed by Grim and Deacon. And while one batch of demons gathered their fill of souls before sliding down the small one-way shoots to Hell—the exit portals, the next batch waited for their chance. It had become a never-ending battle and the reapers needed to press on.

They didn’t bother cleaning up the black ooze or the blood trail. The only way to make sure the scene was completely clean was fire, but arson would be sure to draw more attention to the mower garage by the edge of the cemetery than a few stains that could easily be oil or fuel. None of them were concerned about the law. There were far worse things for them to worry about.

They’d burn the body at home, and then bury the ashes and bits of bone. Just as they’d dealt with the other eleven. This host’s disappearance would never be explained. Good thing, since the guy’s head was detached.

About Lisa Medley:

Lisa Medley writes reapers. The grim kind. Her urban fantasy romance, Reap & Repent is available now. Look for book two, Reap & Redeem, coming October 2014. A lover of beasties of all sorts, she has a farm full of them in her SWMO home including:  one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands of Italian bees and a guinea pig. Not so in love with the guinea pig. She can do ten pushups IN A ROW and may or may not have a complete zombie apocalypse bug-out bag in her trunk at all times. Just. In. Case.

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