Welcome to our Grand Finale celebrations for the amazingly talented
For today's post, we'll take a look at
Hellsinger and
Half Moon Bay, with excerpts from the latter, and we'll have our Q&A with Rhys. All the way at the bottom, there's also one more chance to win.
Let's begin with
Fish And Ghosts
Blurb:
When his Uncle Mortimer died and left him Hoxne Grange, the family’s Gilded Age estate, Tristan Pryce knew he wasn’t going to have an easy time of it. He was to be the second generation of Pryces to serve as a caretaker for the estate, a way station for spirits on their final steps to the afterlife. The ghosts were the simple part. He’d been seeing boo-wigglies since he was a child. No, the difficult part was his own family. Determined to establish Tristan’s insanity, his loving relatives hire Dr. Wolf Kincaid and his paranormal researchers, Hellsinger Investigations, to prove the Grange is not haunted.
Skeptic Wolf Kincaid has made it his life’s work to debunk the supernatural. After years of cons and fakes, he can’t wait to reveal the Grange’s ghostly activity is just badly leveled floorboards and a drafty old house. The Grange has more than a few surprises for him, including its prickly, reclusive owner. Tristan Pryce is much less insane and much more attractive than Wolf wants to admit and when his Hellsinger team unwittingly release a ghostly serial killer on the Grange, Wolf is torn between his skepticism and protecting the man he’d been sent to discredit.
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And the sequel,
Duck Duck Ghost
Blurb:
Paranormal investigator Wolf Kincaid knows what his foot tastes like.
Mostly because he stuck it firmly in his mouth when his lover, Tristan Pryce, accidentally drugged him with a batch of psychotropic baklava. Needing to patch things up between them, Wolf drags Tristan to San Luis Obispo, hoping Tristan’s medium ability can help evict a troublesome spirit haunting an old farmhouse.
With Wolf’s sister handling Hoxne Grange’s spectral visitors, Tristan finds himself in the unique position of being able to leave home for the first time in forever, but Wolf’s roughshod treatment is the least of his worries. Tristan’s ad-hoc portal for passing spirits seems to be getting fewer and fewer guests, and despite his concern he’s broken his home, Tristan agrees to help Wolf’s cousin, Sey, kick her poltergeist to the proverbial curb.
San Luis Obispo brings its own bushel of troubles. Tristan’s ghost whispering skill is challenged not only by a terrorizing haunting but also by Wolf’s skeptical older cousin, Cin. Bookended by a pair of aggressive Kincaids, Tristan soon finds himself in a spectral battle that threatens not only his sanity but also his relationship with Wolf, the first man he’s ever loved.
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From Half Moon Bay,
Fish Stick Fridays
Blurb:
Deacon Reid was born bad to the bone with no intention of changing. A lifetime of law-bending and living on the edge suited him just fine—until his baby sister died and he found himself raising her little girl.
Staring down a family history of bad decisions and reaped consequences, Deacon cashes in everything he owns, purchases an auto shop in Half Moon Bay, and takes his niece, Zig, far away from the drug dens and murderous streets they grew up on. Zig deserves a better life than what he had, and Deacon is determined to give it to her.
Lang Harris is stunned when Zig, a little girl in combat boots and a purple tutu blows into his bookstore, and then he’s left speechless when her uncle, Deacon Reid walks in, hot on her heels. Lang always played it safe but Deacon tempts him to step over the line… just a little bit.
More than a little bit. And Lang is willing to be tempted.
Unfortunately, Zig isn’t the only bit of chaos dropped into Half Moon Bay. Violence and death strikes leaving Deacon scrambling to fight off a killer before he loses not only Zig but Lang too.
Excerpt:
There
were very few little girls in Lang’s life. And by
few, he concluded, he meant none. None of his nearby siblings had
children, and the Harrises’ extended family truncated pretty
quickly when searching for anyone not old enough to drive.
So when Deacon’s niece stomped into
his shop and flopped onto a chair where Fafhrd lounged, Lang’s
first instinct was to save her from the cat.
His second reaction was to save the cat
from her.
Lang studied Zig from his spot behind
the counter. They’d had a few bits of contact since she’d come to
town, mostly shouts of hello as she trudged by after being dropped
off by a school bus, and a long ten-minute conversation about
unicorns and rhinos once when Lang was covering the checkout on a
rainy afternoon. He’d be the first to admit he was more focused on
her uncle, but Zig was fairly pleasant as children went.
The little girl sitting down next to
Fafhrd seemed about as far from pleasant as humanly possible. Lang’d
never seen her without a frilly skirt of some kind, regardless of any
other clothing she wore, and today was no exception. Unlike other
days, Zig’d gone from disheveled and was now firmly ensconced into
grubby. She’d definitely been in an altercation of some kind. One
eye sported a growing swell, while the other seemed to be on the tail
end of a bruise. Mud caked one side of her once-pink tutu, and her
green-striped leggings were ripped across her knees and in spots on
her calves. Her eye-bleeding orange socks were similarly speckled
with dirt and grass stains, the left one wadded down around the top
of her boot.
“I need to pet your cat.”
There was no arguing with her. She’d
obviously reached her breaking point, and it seemed like only a
feline interaction would make it better.
“It’s up to him,” Lang replied
softly. “If he growls, then it’s a no.”
“He won’t growl,” Zig declared,
giving Fafhrd a test rub along his ears. “Cats know when you’ve
had a fucking shitty day.”
Surprisingly, Fafhrd didn’t seem to
mind the company, vibrating with deep, rumbling purrs as Zig worked
her way in next to him and scratched at his head. Torn between asking
her if she wanted hot chocolate or needed anything, Lang came out
from behind the counter as her uncle strode into view outside. The
bells over the door rang, clanging softly together to announce the
man’s presence, as if the heat of his hard body wasn’t enough of
a notice. Deacon made eye contact with Lang, a question poised on his
strong lips, then spotted Zig sitting in the chair near the
fireplace.
Zig’s uncle made a face, regretful
and slightly sad. “Sorry, I’ll—”
“No, no, don’t worry about it.
Looks like she needs….” Lang glanced over to where Fafhrd lay
sprawled over Zig’s lap. “Apparently she needs a cat fix.”
“Yeah, kind of a crappy day, I think.
I’ll pay for cleaning the chairs.” Deacon crossed over the space
between the door and the counter in three powerful strides. “Think
she brought about ten pounds of mud in with her.”
“It’s fine. They’re treated for
that sort of thing. Mud’s nothing compared to cat hork.” Lang’s
insides warmed at Deacon’s broad, wistful smile. “She can stay if
she wants. She’s not in the way.”
The mechanic’s off-kilter grin
punched Lang in the stomach, and he spread his hands on the counter
to steady himself. Up close, Deacon Reid was deadly. Masculine with a
hint of pretty, he was perfection in his flaws. From the quirk of his
lips twisting to the side in a wry smile to the ruffled spiky mess of
his choppy brown hair, he was a warm, long stretch of strength and
tenderness smelling of sunshine, masculine heat, and lemons.
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And the 2nd book,
Hanging The Stars
Blurb:
Angel Daniels grew up hard, one step ahead of the law and always looking over his shoulder. A grifter’s son, he’d learned every con and trick in the book but ached for a normal life. Once out on his own, Angel returns to Half Moon Bay where he once found…and then lost…love.
Now, Angel’s life is a frantic mess of schedules and chaos. Between running his bakery and raising his troubled eleven-year-old half-brother, Roman, Angel has a hectic but happy life. Then West Harris returns to Half Moon Bay and threatens to break Angel all over again by taking away the only home he and Rome ever had.
When they were young, Angel taught West how to love and laugh but when Angel moved on, West locked his heart up and threw away the key. Older and hardened, West returns to Half Moon and finds himself face-to-face with the man he’d lost. Now, West is torn between killing Angel or holding him tight.
But rekindling their passionate relationship is jeopardized as someone wants one or both of them dead, and as the terrifying danger mounts, neither man knows if the menace will bring them together or forever tear them apart.
Excerpt:
Buying the house on the bluff had been
irrational. West had no intention of ever living at Half Moon Bay. It
was too full of memories—painful ones at that—but the house was…
perfect. Even if he’d been the one who’d preferred a stately
manor with a deep, dark cave in its bowels, the bright white
crystalline house on the shore seemed like destiny.
He’d thought it funny how dreams died
quietly, their passing unmarked until the moment when he’d stood in
the middle of a hard-angled castle, and it made him long for a
gray-eyed, sweet-mouthed love he’d turned his back on.
“What’d ya get me?” Zig plopped
the bag on a backless couch set in front of the wall of windows. The
sun flirted with the gold in her hair, teasing out the brightness in
her curls. “Can I open it?”
“Yes, you can open it, brat,” West
murmured. “Just let me get settled. Forget someone tried to run my
car over with their truck?”
“Yeah, kinda.” Zig bared her teeth
at him in a mockery of a smile. “I just figured you were moving
slow ’cause you’re old.”
“Nice. I’m sure Lang loves to be
called old by someone younger than most of his socks,” he teased
back.
“Crap.” She grimaced. “You just
don’t look alike. Kind of. You look different.”
“Same face, same body,” West
reminded her. “I just got more of the personality and brains.”
“Says the person who regularly pisses
enough people off he needs a bodyguard,” Lang shot back as he took
off his jacket. “And Zig, you can’t just—West is….”
“Take what’s offered and then take
more when no one’s looking?” Zig parroted West back at her
father. “What? He says that’s what you do.”
“Good to know someone’s listening,”
West drawled. “Leave her alone, Lang. She’s busy right now.”
As much as he reluctantly liked Lang’s
adopted daughter and mostly tolerated the grease monkey his brother’d
married, their happy, all-smiles family was a little much to take. To
be fair, it wasn’t all smiles. There were dark days, struggles when
Zig fought with her fear of every adult in her life leaving her
alone. Lang’s marriage hadn’t been a magic cure for that. Her
changing her name to Zig Harris-Reid helped, but there were still
times when the world pressed in too close for his niece, and from his
point of view, spoiling the hell out of her seemed to make her smile.
Her fathers were not so pleased about
it, which made West even happier for some age-old sibling perverse
reason.
The couch seemed too far away, but West
was going to be damned if he let anyone see how much it hurt to move.
The painkillers he’d been given rattled about in one of the bags
Marzo was carrying in, and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. The
cushions collapsed around him when West finally eased onto one of the
couches, and something sharp dug into his back, probably his wallet
or phone in his pocket, but he didn’t care. He was off his feet,
and the pounding in his head faded a bit as he closed his eyes and
blocked out the sunlight.
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Our Q&A with Rhys:
1. What inspires you? What gets you
writing?
I love the examination of personalities
and how they fit into one another. Toss in a love for cities and
world building and you’ve pretty much got what I love about
writing. There’s a flavour to a book, a recipe a writer has cooked
up for us to taste. Writing is like cooking, some dishes take a
delicate hand while others are like a stir fry with an explosion of
savory flavours.
2. What's your writing process? Seat
of your pants, lots of sticky notes, complex spreadsheets?
I sit down. Figure out the who of what
I’m going to write and then fit in the pieces around them. I do
plot a little bit, especially around the murder mysteries because
you’ve got to know where you’re going. I also love finding the
little truffles of ideas I get while I write because something will
click in my brain that changes the whole book. But I do have notes
and a bible to keep me on track.
3. Which character from your books
is your favorite, and why?
