Dead
Girls Don’t Cry
The Undead Space Initiative, #1
by Casey Wyatt
Date of
Publication: August 18th 2016
Cover
Artist: Kim Killion, Inc.
Genre:
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
From The Book Junkie Reads . . . Dead
Girls Don’t Cry (The Undead Space Initiative, #1) . . .
I don’t wish to give away this one
but I can at least tell you that this one held me captive. The notion of a
world opening and accepting of vampires and willing to use them to colonize
other world for the Earth’s vampire races benefit. Well let me say that was
something. This Urban Paranormal Romance gives you excitement with action,
suspense, conflict, a bit of family drama and deceit (conspiracy).
We get ourselves a feisty, high
spirited, stripper heroine with Cherry Cordial. She sweet and kind. And the
community of vampires want to kill her. She has little option possible die, on
Mars, or die the permanent way. Ian
McDevitt, handsome vampire he is, finds his way to Mars also. Experiment or experiment??
It’s do or die time for both Cherry and Ian and with that comes the chance to
make things happen.
Cherry Cordial has a time with this
one. She was colorful and then some. I do say come visit her and see what it is
all about.
**This eBook was provided via Bewitching Book Tours in
exchange for an honest review.**
The
Undead Space Initiative series:
Dead Girls Don’t Cry – The Undead Space Initiative, #1
Dead Girls Don’t Sing – The Undead Space Initiative, #2 coming 2017
BLURB
Cherry Cordial, vampire stripper
extraordinaire, spectacularly messes up her life with a single act of kindness.
How could she have known when she rescued gorgeous rogue Ian McDevitt that she
would be implicated in the vampire queen’s murder?
Soon, she faces the wrath of the
entire vampire community. To escape retribution, she joins a settlement program
to colonize Mars. Her choices are grim: hurtle through space to the red planet
to face the unknown and possible death, or stay on Earth and face certain
annihilation.
To make things even more complicated,
a certain gorgeous rogue seems to be shadowing her every move...
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Suddenly, I wasn’t
the biggest, baddest thing on the block.
Revenants.
They always traveled
in packs. Enough of them could take me down. Revenants were cousins to
vampires, undead beings with too much spirit. Essentially ghosts with physical
reality.
I picked up the pace,
steering toward the middle of the street and well away from dark corners. If I
had a heart rate, it would have been pounding. My blood was rare and prized.
One sip and the revenants would keep me alive to serve as a drink dispenser.
I fished through my
bag. Where was my cell? Jonathan would come. Provided I could find the damn
phone.
Meaty thwacks rang
out in the alley as I passed by.
Do not look.
A soft oomph,
followed by a clipped English accent, “Try that again, bastards.”
I looked.
Shit.
A lone and gorgeous
male vampire had been captured. Three revenants had him pinned against the
wall. Two held his arms and one pinned his legs. Three more surrounded him like
a pack of knife-wielding hyenas.
The vampire snarled.
Long fangs bared, presumably pissed off at his capture. With his sculptured
physique, he could handle the situation. Right?
None of the baddies
had noticed me yet. I could leave.
Another punch landed,
connecting with the vamp’s mouth. The crack echoed in the alley. Liquid
splattered, followed by cruel laughter.
The vampire hottie
spat, his lip broken. Blood trickled down his jaw, seeping into the stark white
collar of his button down shirt. “Think twice before you cut me, mate. I’ll
smash all of your fucking heads in.”
“Shut up, meat.”
One added, “I’m so
scared,” before swinging his knife and tearing a gash in the vampire’s chest.
The pack laughed. A revenant approached the vampire with IV bags.
Crap-a-roni, now I
had to get involved. They planned to bleed him out. That’s what revenants did.
They took a vampire’s blood and drained him or her dry. The blood was then sold
to the highest revenant bidder. They believed our blood could remove the excess
spirit from their bodies, returning them to their true vampire form.
Problem is—it’s a
myth. There’s no way for a revenant to become a vampire, any more than I could
become a zebra if I wanted to. These guys were zealots. Deranged lunatics.
“This is your last warning, blokes,” Mr. Sexy
English accent said. I tried not to shiver at the sound of his rich voice.
Heady whiffs of his sweet scented blood drifted my way. Like a fine wine, the
smell promised a delicious and satisfying taste. Saliva pooled in my mouth. My
fangs dug into my bottom lip.
“Well lookee here!”
Damn. I should have
run when I had the chance. The pack turned in my direction, their faces eager
for more blood. I cringed under the gaze of the hollow-eyed, pale-skinned
nightmares who all wanted a piece of me.
The nearest one
licked his gray, rubbery lips. “Yum. Dessert.”
I was too stupid to
live. Why didn’t I run? My feet were frozen to the spot. I did the lamest,
girliest thing possible. I swung my purse. And connected. A solid hit to the
nuts.
The revenant
shrieked, clutching his junk. “Bitch!”
The male vampire
bucked, tossing the revenant off his left arm. Partially free, he ripped the
arm off the other revenant before the thing could even react. With balled
fists, Mr. Hottie crushed the skull of the captor holding his feet.
“Don’t stand there
like a daft pony!” the vampire scolded. He snapped the neck of the nearest
revenant, then motioned. “Get out of my way!”
“What? Without my
help, you’d still be trapped against a wall!” I ducked and stepped aside,
narrowly avoiding the gray-lipped revenant who had thought I was dessert.
“The rubbish bin
would be more help than you!” Mr. English silenced two more revenants with
brutal, neck-twisting efficiency.
“Oh really?” What a
prick.
The revenant
recovered from the nut bash and charged me again. His fingertips knocked off my
ball cap. I kicked him in the stomach, grabbed the garbage barrel and slammed
it over the revenant’s head as he honed in on me. The plastic bin wouldn’t kill
the thing, but he couldn’t see either.
“Pathetic,” the
vampire said.
Mr. English and I
watched as the last revenant bounced against a brick wall before falling over,
his legs scissoring.
“Time for this one to
bugger off as well.” Mr. English yanked off the barrel and snuffed out the
revenant with a bone-shattering blow to its head.
One by one the
corpses disintegrated into dusty husks. A breeze blew through the alley and
scattered the remains. Gray vaporous clouds floated around before dissipating
into the air. To a passerby, the revenants’ final passage would look like dirty
car exhaust.
“Well, I’m off then.
Have good evening.” He brushed dirt off his tailored trousers. “Sod it, they
scuffed my shoes. And this shirt is ruined.”
“Yeah. What a
tragedy. You’re lucky. You could have been a revenant Slurpee.”
He sniffed at the
suggestion. “I was never in any real danger.”
“You could have
fooled me,” I retrieved my ball cap from the grimy sidewalk.
A late afternoon
sunbeam penetrated the alley, illuminating the vampire’s blue-green eyes and
highlighting the fine bone structure of his face. I tried not to gawk.
I gathered my tangled
hair and mashed it under the hat. “Looks to me like they had you pinned against
the ropes.” Did I mention he was gorgeous? Like a cover model. An underwear
cover model. I cleared my throat. He was a total stranger, and while I bet he
looked divine in only underwear, I needed to stop ogling him.
When he stared at me
and didn’t reply, I lamely added, “You know? Down for the count.”
“I understood the
reference, luv,” he said in his damn fine accent.
A man-shaped shadow
shifted from across the street, forming a dark blot in the alley’s entrance. We
weren’t alone.
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Author
Info
Casey Wyatt grew up in a mid-size
Connecticut town where nothing exciting ever happened. To stem the boredom, she
spent plenty of time reading fantasy and sci-fi novels and imagining her own
adventures in her head. Not much has changed since she’s grown up, only now she
shares those made up stories with her readers and earns a coin or two.
Author Links:
INTERVIEW WITH CASEY WYATT
How would you describe you style of writing
to someone that has never read your work?
Fast
paced, action oriented romance with fascinating world building. I like to take
the usual tropes and twist them sideways.
What mindset or routine do you feel the need
to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project
or just free writing)?
I don’t
think that hard about it. I don’t have any routines other than to be sure I’ve
eaten breakfast and had a cup of coffee. I tend to write a few hours each day
during the week and take the weekends off. The only exception is when I have a
publisher deadline or if I’m near completion on a draft. I tend to write 2,000
to 3,000 words a sitting so I tend to finish novels fairly quickly. I actually
spend more time plotting and thinking about the story than I do writing it. So
by the time I do sit in the chair to write, it happens fairly quickly because I
know what I want to say.
Do you take your character prep to heart? Do
you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do
you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character
during story creation?
I find
that I can’t do character bibles and such because I only know very basic things
about my characters. I really learn about them through writing them and by
listening to their voices. If I trust the process, then they tend to veer the
story where it needs to go. Cherry Cordial, the heroine of Dead Girls Don’t Cry is the only exception to this rule. She seemed
to bounce out of my head fully formed.
Have you found yourself bonding with any
particular character? If so which one(s)?
I do
love Cherry. But she isn’t the character I’m most bonded with. That character
is in a book that I have yet to finish called Aethera Lost. His name is Galen Archer. He’s an elven warrior and a
healer suffering from a severe case of guilt. I like to joke that he’s mad at
me which is why I haven’t finished his story yet. I take it as a sign that I
don’t have the plot where it needs to be. Sooner or later that book will be
written to completion.
Do you have a character that you have been
working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
I have
several of them. In fact, once Dead Girls
Don’t Sing is done, I’ll be addressing them for 2017.
Have you ever felt that there was something
inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what spurs you to
reach for the unexperienced?
I think
we all have impulses that we need to learn to master and others that we need to
trust. My “out of control” habit is eating sugary things. Cake is my Kryptonite. I am learning to curb
the sugar cravings (and it hasn’t been easy or fun). As far as reaching out for
experiences, creativity kind of demands that I make the effort because it
refuels the well. There is always more to learn, more to make (hello bag of
knitted socks!) and more adventures to be had. I don’t have the time or money
to travel the world but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to experience other
places. I’d much rather go someplace and spend time with my family than receive
gifts. For the last several years, my family and I have purchased weekend
passes to ConnecitCon (a mid-sized fan convention in Connecticut). That’s our
Christmas present only we enjoy it in July. I have blog posts and photos on my website
about the convention for anyone interested.
One
urge that I had after attending ConnectiCon 2015 was to present a panel and a
workshop. So this year, rather than just thinking about it, I acted. Long
story, short, I applied for panels and was accepted. I recruited two other
writer friends and we did great. The organizers invited us back for 2017. In
this case, I’m glad I ignored that voice of doubt that otherwise would have talked
me out of it. I’m still working on the one that makes me want to eat sugar.
Thank
you so much for having me as your guest today. For more information about my
convention adventures, please check out my website. Comments and questions are
most welcome.
Thank you, Casey Wyatt
For allowing me the opportunity to read Dead
Girls Don’t Cry and the interview. I enjoyed both a great deal. I am looking forward
to the release of Dead Girls Don’t Sing. I also look to the future for Galen’s
story.
Thanks again,
The Book Junkie Reads . . .
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