Monday's Muse~Vampire's Trill

Today I'd like to wish a happy release day to Vampire's Trill, a novel by author Lorelei Bell. She's been gracious enough to give us an excerpt but here is about about Lorelei to start us off:

Lorelei: When not at my day job, I work on my novels, inventing new characters and places/worlds where they dwell. My writing has been compared to Anne Rice's more gritty novels, but with a humorous twist in the tradition of Charlaine Harris.

My interest in vampires came in my teens watching the old horror classics of “Dracula” on TV late at night. As a result, I was considered odd because of my interests in the macabre, horror/vampire movies—way before it was 'cool'. I wanted to create a heroine who has to learn who and what she was from the beginning and throughout the series, rather than plopping my readers in the middle of things and doing a lot of back story.
Here is the excerpt:

I landed on something solid, yet it wasn't flat. It had form.

I clearly had some sort of form myself, now — thank you! Meanwhile, landing knocked the breath out of me, and it took me a while to pull it back in. There’s nothing quite as scary as being unable to get air for a few seconds. Whatever I was laying upon also took one giganticbreath and let it out with a deep groan. My panic rose anew. I thought I was lying on a bear.

I looked up and saw Tremayne's face above mine. As his head rose from its reclined position, I realized I lay right on top of him, chest to chest, as though we had both landed exactly this way.

“Oh, sorry,” I said as I pushed up. My hands grasped each of his wide, muscular shoulders, my legs were sandwiched between his thick thighs putting my knees in a decidedly awkward position against him. Oh Momma! It was too late to remedy this situation, and my panic cord had broken.

“Not at all. You can be on top any time,” he smirked. Hands grasping my waist, he helped me sort of roll off him to land awkwardly on my butt. Oow.

Face burning, I threw him a well-deserved scowl. Then, someone's muffled voice caught our attention. It seemed to be coming from underneath Tremayne. He rolled to the side, and underneath was Rick, sputtering swears that nearly burned my ears.

“You stupid blood-sucking pantie wipe!” Rick fumed as he slowly rolled over and struggled to his knees, his body bent in half.

“Uh-oh, you crushed the leprechaun,” I said.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tremayne said, dipping down. He grabbed Rick by the back of his coat and hoisted him up with one swift motion. Righted and standing on his two feet, Rick looked as mad as a rumpled leprechaun could look. I wasn't sure why Tremayne was so accommodating, apologizing again and again, but it probably had a lot to do with the fact that leprechauns were magical. I guessed that if Rick were truly mad, he could do something to Tremayne. Something nasty.

In the next moment, I lost sight of Tremayne and felt, rather than saw him move with lightning speed somewhere in front of me. We were in a dark place. My eyes were trying to adjust. I saw red and purple lights flashing, mostly, above me, and they seemed to bombard the walls that surrounded us. I didn't look up to see where it came from. Instead, my focus was on Tremayne whose body blocked my view of something that was in front of him. Hunched over, he was in a fighting pose. Growling from both Tremayne and the other creature in there with us filled the chamber. In one swift move, Tremayne had slammed someone, or something, up against a stonewall.

“Holy crap! Come here, darling,” Rick said with a hoarse squeak. He didn't touch me, but I launched away from the fracas that was going on mere feet away, and slammed into the opposite wall.

“Sorry. You okay?” Rick asked in a soothing tone. I realized he'd used his magic to move me quickly out of the way of something long and undulating.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Stunned, but fine.” What's a little bump on the head if it saves me from real danger? I turned my attention to the affray. “What is that?”

“I'm not quite sure yet, but it is buuuutt ugly.”

Their struggling breaths and hissed curses in some other language filled the room, if it were a room, I couldn't yet tell. I couldn't see everything, because Tremayne's huge body was in the way, but slowly I made things out in this weird light, I saw enormous leathery wings, like Vasyl's. They flapped a few times and then cruel, clawed fingers curling into Tremayne's unprotected back. It wasn't until I looked down that I saw a greenish and brown mottled tail coiling around his legs. I was thoroughly confused. Was he fighting an ancient vampire, or a giant snake— or both? Then I realized it was two tails, not just one. It serpentined about Tremayne's body. It was large enough to crush him, but I had a feeling it was merely toying with the big vampire.

Then, they broke apart. Laughing.

Congratulations to Lorelei on this latest installment in your series! 

Comments

  1. Great excerpt. My hat's off to you, Lorelei, writing such gritty, humorous stuff about, um *whispers* vampires. Vampires scare the breath out of me! Thanks for sharing this with us, Heather.

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  2. Love the excerpt, and a mix of Rice and Harris is okay in my book! :D

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  3. Any vampire book with a leprechaun in it is okay by me! LOL Nice excerpt.

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  4. What could be better than a mix of Anne Rice and Charlotte Harris? Great excerpt. Thank you, Heather, for having the back of yet another fellow author, Roland

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  5. Sounds like a cool yet creepy book. :D

    Or is that creepy yet cool book? Hmmm

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  6. Now the leprechaun is a new twist :-) Thanks so much for the excerpt.

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  7. Wow... this sounds so cool! I can hardly wait to read it. Thanks for sharing it.

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  8. Ooh, this looks and sounds creepy. Like it!!

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  9. Thank you, Heather for hosting me!

    I'll admit that the leprechaun was a bit of a stretch for me, but Rick is sort of special. And since this portion of book doesn't show his "special" disability, I won't go into it here.

    Thank you Angela, Stina, Roland, Lisa Gail, Tina Moss, and Linda Gray for leaving encouraging comments about it. It often amazes me that I actually can write something that some people find too scary to read! (I found out one woman couldn't get past the third chapter of the 1st book because it was so scary).

    You're all great to stop by and hope to stop by your blogs soon!
    ~Lorelei

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  10. Nice excerpt with a great teaser, I love the cover. It looks spooky and intriguing at the same time. I love that the story has a humorous side to it as well. Nice..

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