I’ve already posted this cover on FB and Twitter (because, obviously, I couldn’t wait) but since I wanted to share an excerpt too, well–here we are! Between Jobs is the first book in my new urban fantasy series, The City Between. I’m hoping to publish it some time in May, with the next two swiftly following; but for those of you who are worried about not seeing the next Two Monarchies book this year, have no fear! I’m still on track to publish the fourth in that series by the end of the year, and Lady of Weeds should also be finished by the end of the year.
In the meantime, check out the gorgeous cover from Jenny at Seedlings Design Studio, along with the blurb and an excerpt!
Between Jobs
The City Between, Book One
She’s orphaned, struggling to make a living, and technically homeless. The last thing she needs is a murdered guy outside her window. Things like that tend to draw the attention of the local police, and when you’re squatting in your parents’ old house until you can afford to buy it, another thing you can’t afford is the attention of the cops.
Good thing she isn’t used to things going her way, because a hanging corpse outside her window is just the beginning of it all. Now two fae and a vampire have moved into her parents’ old house, and they’re not too thrilled to find her there.
Oh well, at least only one of them wants to kill her.
–oOo–
Excerpt
JinYeong snatched his sleeve from my fingers and dived beneath Zero’s swinging arm with a snarl. Someone said, “Idiot!” but I couldn’t be sure if it was me or Zero, because it was what I was thinking, but my voice couldn’t be that gruff.
I stayed behind Zero. Now that I wasn’t trying to hold up JinYeong I could see the full scope of the attack; there were still two men—or were they men? those four arms!—attacking Zero, and another two that JinYeong was ripping into—literally ripping into, his white shirt soaked in scarlet and his throat slick with the sheen of blood. My fingers instinctively curled themselves around one of the leather straps of Zero’s jacket, pulling me forward, pushing me back, as Zero’s footwork scuffed across the blood-slicked tiles that were somehow still grocery store tiles even though the rest of the scene wasn’t. Did he have a sword again? Where the flaming heck had it come from?
Those men, or things, or whatever—they were trying to kill me. Or maybe they were just trying to kill JinYeong. But JinYeong was tearing someone’s throat out, and really, should I be more afraid of four-armed men with knives or someone who tore people’s throats out? I stayed behind Zero anyway, slipping in the blood and clinging to that leather strap for dear life.
Two more of the four-armed men went down, JinYeong looking around in swift hunger for someone else to kill, but Zero’s arm wasn’t swinging anymore, and I wasn’t being dragged across the tiles.
Wait. Was JinYeong looking at me—
Zero said, “JinYeong.”
Those eyes flicked away from me and up to Zero’s face. “Hyung?”
“That’s enough for today.”
JinYeong’s tongue ran over his teeth thoughtfully, and this time I gripped Zero’s sleeve instead of the leather strap, glaring at JinYeong.
“Don’t hurt the pet,” Zero said. “Who do you think is going to clean the blood out of your clothes if it doesn’t?”
JinYeong seemed to consider that. He tilted his head to the side for one instant, then very deliberately wiped the blood from his face with the remainder of one formerly white sleeve.
“That’s gross,” I told him, but he only gave me the smirk that displayed one warning tooth. Great. I was sharing a house with three homicidal maniacs, and at least one of them wasn’t averse to killing me.
“You’d better do something about the blood before you go back,” Zero warned. “You can’t walk around in that when there are humans around. They’ll get agitated.”
“Back where?” I asked. That was sort of stupid: it was obvious we weren’t exactly in the grocery store anymore. But in my defence, it wasn’t as if it was actually possible for us to have left the middle of the grocery store during the fight without moving a heck of a lot more than we had.
JinYeong rolled his eyes and stripped off his suit jacket, then his bloody shirt. Zero, as if he’d just remembered I was there, clinging to his sleeve and glaring at JinYeong from behind his arm, shook me off and looked down at me in a confusion that was as sudden as it was suprising.
“Wait, what are you doing here?”
Well, that wasn’t good. He’d just seen me–just warned JinYeong not to kill me. Had one of the four-armed men clipped him around the head? I said cautiously, “You told me to come here with him and get supplies so I could cook tea.”
Zero shook his head impatiently. “Not there. Here. Hobart Between.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about; I’ve been with you the whole time. Why do those blokes have four arms? Also, why were they trying to kill us?”
JinYeong replied in Korean, and Zero agreed, “That’s right; they weren’t trying to kill you. They were trying to kill JinYeong.”
“Oh,” I said. “Nah, I understand that.”
–oOo–
Keep an eye out, guys; there will be a preorder announcement toward the end of the month! Let me know what you think–are you excited? I am!