My Respite From YA: A Spotlight on Blood Chimera by Jenn Lyons

Faithful readers and followers know that I am a huge YA fan. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't also enjoy novels geared more toward adult readers. On the rare occasion that I feel like a full-fledged grownup, or when I'm simply in need of a respite from the angst and turmoil that is coming-of-age while attempting to thwart an enemy even greater than Calculus--like say an entire dystopian government--I often turn to paranormal mystery.

Parts fiction, fantasy, and horror, the basic structure of a paranormal mystery is that of a mystery story...more often than not, a detective mystery. Someone has been murdered or some other serious crime has been committed.  Who (or what) did it?  Because it's paranormal, that answer could range from vampires, ghosts, or werewolves to a myriad of other dark fantastical beings. Awesome, huh? And what better escape from reliving over and over again (the sometimes funk of) maturing into a young adult?

Susan Abel Sullivan's Cleo Tidwell series has been a recent favorite, so when I began to feel particularly grownup this week, I was delighted to discover another of World Weaver Press's latest paranormal mystery releases:  Blood Chimera by Jenn Lyons.

Here's what you need to know:

Some ransoms aren’t meant to be paid. Kidnap and Ransom negotiation used to be straightforward. The bad guys kidnap someone, and K&R expert Jackson Pastor negotiates their release, skillfully traversing a maze of bloodthirsty monsters: criminals, terrorists, police, and especially the FBI.

But that was before he met real bloodthirsty monsters.

When Jackson Pastor arrives in Los Angeles to help a new client recover his kidnapped wife, he finds himself dropped in the middle of a 500-year-old war between rival European and Mexican vampire clans, a conflict that threatens to escalate into a full-on public gang war. Worse, Jackson hasn’t been brought to Los Angeles to be a negotiator.

His new boss wants to turn him into an assassin.

With Jackson about to be caught in the middle of a war, his only hope of escape may lie with a secret FBI monster-hunting task-force led by a very dangerous, eccentric wizard.

Which could be a problem, since Jackson’s a monster himself.

Blood Chimera is a gritty, noir-style mystery of paranormal proportions where nothing is as it seems, not even the term vampire.

Excerpt:

“How are you feeling, Mr. Pastor?”

I looked down at myself. I seemed to be hale and hearty enough, with all the right number of limbs in all the right places. My ribs didn’t ache when I breathed and my arm wasn’t swollen. I felt great, but I looked ready to play one of the walking dead. “Like I need a bath,” I told him. “And clothes would be nice.” There’s nothing quite like being naked and filthy in front of a lot of people who aren’t, to make you all self-conscious about it.

He nodded. “You’ve looked better.”

“Why do you have me in a cage?” I shook my head. “What happened?”

“I would think the reasons for the cage would be obvious. You don’t remember?”

“No, of course I don’t remember. I was Tez’s prisoner and then--” I looked over at the carcass in the corner. I swallowed. “Who did that?”

“You did.” Darius said as he took a swig of his beer. “You also wrecked one of my vans.” He pointed to an unmarked black van over in the garage area. The back doors were hanging awkwardly and the metal was twisted. Great gouges had been raked into the door and sides as if something had tried to smash its way out with some kind of very sharp ram.

I blinked at that. “That--that couldn’t have been me. I didn’t--”

“Oh, you very much did. We had a hell of a time getting you back here. We were lucky you were stunned by the explosions, and even luckier that we had tranq darts. That--” he pointed to the rotting, fly-infested pile of flesh using the long black feather. “--used to be a pair of goats. Juan thought you might revert if we fed you something. As it happens, he was right.”

I felt sick to my stomach, and, although I certainly wasn’t going to mention it to Darius, a bit peckish.

Goat wasn’t as filling as human.

 Read it now, direct from World Weaver Press in ebook or trade paperback, or from any of these retailers:
Amazon (Kindle)
Amazon (paperback)
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

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Jenn Lyons lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, three cats and a lot of opinions on anything from Sumerian creation myths to the correct way to make a martini. At various points in her life, she has wanted to be an archaeologist, anthropologist, architect, diamond cutter, fashion illustrator, graphic designer, or Batman. Turning from such obvious trades, she is now a video game producer by day, and spends her evenings writing science fiction and fantasy. When not writing, she can be found debating the Oxford comma and Joss Whedon’s oeuvre at various local coffee shops.

·         Website: JennLyons.com

Slow and Steady Wins the Race?

Some of you may be aware of this already, but I've spent the past couple of months toiling as a field hand on my sister and brother-in-law's farm/plan to end world hunger.

While the work has been extremely rewarding--my family has never eaten so well in the history of my being in charge of meal planning, procurement, and preparation--the death of the prepackaged meal has come at the cost of my timely completion of the second book in my Genie Chronicles, Solomon's Bell.

Farming has not proven conducive to creativity in my experience.  Sure, I still talk to my characters while I water the green beans with the very sweat cascading from my brow as I bake like a crab cake in the Alabama sun, but mainly I just wish for a genie in the form of a tiny tornado that would gleefully take out half of the rows I'm supposed to pick before lunch.  I haven't much mental energy left after a day in the dirt and itchy squash, zucchini and okra plants. That I manage not to claw my own skin off because of the chiggers seems like accomplishment enough some evenings.

I am taking advantage of less demanding days to write, but I think the sun has liquefied parts of my brain.  Today I wrote for NINE STRAIGHT HOURS and got down a mere 597 words.  That's less than 67 words per hour!  Still, I got them down and I'm pretty satisfied with them and the direction of the story.  In celebration, I'm sharing them here (with a few others for context) as a sort of teaser.  I hope you enjoy them!

Remember me, as I labor away this summer in the Green Bean Forest.  And pray for rain--it's good for the crops and gets me out of the fields for awhile to write!

(Unedited Excerpt:  Genie Chronicles, Book Two:  Solomon's Bell, All Rights Reserved)

(The Shops of Golden Lane, Prague)

The old man’s bald scalp, the only part of him not wrinkled, protrudes from the thick dark garment he wears and glows in the firelight.  His nose is large and hooked, his bushy brows heavy over eyes that hang like watery black moons in his weathered face.  In the firelight, his dewy eyes make him appear on the verge of tears.  He plucks a crumpled hat of some kind from a wall peg near the door, shooing a fat yellow cat from its perch atop a stool underneath, and places it over his glowing dome.  He looks embarrassed for a moment, pursing his narrow, thin lips as he makes minor adjustments to the cap, and this makes me feel embarrassed, too.  Caleb, Haley and I are strangers, come to his door unexpectedly and uninvited, and it looks like we’ve caught him in his night clothes.

I avert my eyes and see the cat dash through a narrowly opened door at the back of the room.  Then I take the opportunity to study my surroundings for signs of the djinni I’ve detected.  The front room’s primary purpose isn’t altogether clear.  There’s a sturdy wooden counter near the center of the space, the top of which is crowded with a number of small wooden trays, each one divided into compartments.  Some of these hold glinting spools of bronze, silver and gold thread.  Others hold semiprecious stones:  topaz, garnet, jade, and opal.   Along one side of the room a rough worktop sits covered by more trays holding thin strips of dull metal and partially unraveled spools of yarn that look like they’ve been dipped in liquid gold.  There are also cauldrons of various sizes sitting alongside some kind of small press and racks of slender tools.  An apparent work in progress—a string of sparkling orange topaz—lies  atop a small square table nestled in a corner and bathed in a pool of light from a simple but beautiful gilt candelabra holding three candles of pale yellow wax.   In the opposite corner, haphazardly stacked, sits a pile of books with leather bindings of a dozen colors; the spines visible to me are marked with curling words and symbols.  Books of magic?  A distinct but faint odor reminding me of fireworks hangs in the air.  Whatever this shopkeeper is up to, it almost certainly involves magic.

“What is it that I can do for you?” the man asks, raising his arms and bowing his covered head.

“You are Alois Kovar, are you not?” Haley asks, drawing all four feet, five inches of her slight frame into a stance of confidence and command.  “Goldsmith to the Maharal himself?”

The man’s head jerks up, his orb-like eyes betraying his surprise.  He looks from Haley to me and then to Caleb, and seems to notice our appearances and clothing for the first time.  “You are certainly well informed.  I had not known my service to the Maharal to be the knowledge of anyone so young…and foreign to the Great City.”

The door leading to what I presume to be the inner quarters of the shop opens a few more inches and the fat yellow cat slinks back into the room.

“Marek!” the old man shouts.  The cat meows loudly and, before I can do anything to stop it, is engulfed in a sudden convolution of yellow smoke.  I dash forward, grab Haley, and shove her behind me.  Caleb is near.  I can feel one of his hands on my upper arm and hear him shout my name above the loud hum in the electrified air swirling around my head.  I look over my shoulder to see my friend and foster sister fall to the ground, palms pressed tightly to their ears against the noise.  Even the shopkeeper Alois Kovar crouches near the floor with his silly cap pulled low and pressed to his ears.

The noise begins to fade, lifting like a dissipating fog.  I regard the scrappy yellow-haired man standing in front of me with genuine interest.  I’ve never met another genie other than Rashmere before.  This Marek is nothing like Rashmere, however, with his fluffy tufts of blond hair and emerald green eyes.  His smile is wide and toothy but insincere and never reaches his cold, languid stare.   Where Rashmere is calm and centered, Marek seems nimble and spry with an innate capacity for cunning; he looks ready to pounce.  “What do we have here?” Marek purrs.