Blogtour: Demon on the Down-Low by E.J. Russell

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Demon On The Down-Low

Supernatural Selection #3 

Blurb:

After decades of unrequited love, this kangaroo will jump at the chance for a date. Any date.

Lovelorn kangaroo shifter Hamish Mulherne, drummer for the mega-hit rock band Hunter’s Moon, waited years for the band’s jaguar shifter bassist to notice him. Instead, she’s just gotten married and is in a thriving poly relationship. How is Hamish supposed to compete with that? But with everyone else in the band mated and revoltingly happy, he needs somebody. Since he can’t expect true love to strike twice, he signs up with Supernatural Selection. Because what the hell.

When Zeke Oz was placed at Supernatural Selection through the Sheol work-release program, he thought he was the luckiest demon alive. But when he seems responsible for several massive matchmaking errors, he’s put on notice: find the perfect match for Hamish, or get booted back to Sheol for good. The only catch? He has to do it without the agency’s matchmaking spells, and Hamish simply will not engage.

But Zeke starts to believe that the reason all of Hamish’s dates fizzle is because nobody in the database is good enough for him. And Hamish realizes that his perfect match might be the cute demon who’s trying so hard to make him happy.

About Supernatural Selection

Are you a shifter who’s lost faith in fated mates? A vampire seeking a Second Life companion? Or perhaps you’re a demon yearning to claim a soul (mate)? Congratulations! Your search is over!

Welcome to Supernatural Selection, where our foolproof spells guarantee your perfect match.

Until they don’t.

Check out Supernatural Selection today.

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Drive-by descriptions

Anyone who’s read any of my books probably knows that my characters tend to talk. A lot. My first drafts are always dialogue-heavy as I let them natter on to one another, but the final versions tend to be chock full o’ conversation too. I blame my theater background for that—the ratio of dialogue to stage direction in the average play script is… well… not particularly balanced. Consider any Shakespeare play, where the most you usually get is an exeunt here and there, or the occasional alarum.

Maybe that’s why I have a tendency to use what I call “drive-by descriptions.” I don’t like to spend a lot of time describing things when people could be talking about them instead—and besides, as a reader, I always prefer to imagine a scene from an author’s hints, building the picture in my mind over time, so I can get back to the action.

In Demon on the Down-Low, for instance, I’ve introduced an entirely new realm—Sheol. What’s Sheol like? What do demons do all day? Rather than spending too much time on dumping that information all at once, I’ve peppered bits of it throughout the book, usually in drive-by descriptions, like this one when Zeke first sees the Willamette River:

The lights of the city reflected in the water and a boat, big and white and full of laughing people, glided by. Zeke rushed to the railing and leaned over, watching as the boat sailed under a bridge. Or rather, one of the bridges.

“There are so many bridges!”

“Yeah. That happens when you build your city on two sides of a river. I take it rivers are in short supply in Sheol.”

“If you don’t count the lava. Oh, it’s beautiful.”

Or this one, when Zeke is explaining to Hamish that a demon’s true name is a vulnerability:

“In the days when alchemy was popular, magicians and wizards used to summon demons into a restraining circle and compel them to do their will. It was a thing.”

“A bloody revolting thing,” Hamish muttered. “Can’t you refuse to go?”

“No. If someone knows the appropriate ritual and has a demon’s true name, we’ve got to obey. Luckily, it’s out of fashion these days.”

“Out of fashion? Why?”

“There are easier ways to get what demons used to provide them. Plus Sheol is much more vigilant about security and identity theft, so it’s harder for unscrupulous magic users to discover our true names.”

“Harder? Not impossible?”

Zeke shrugged. “There are hackers everywhere. In fact, they sort of originated in Sheol, same as the internet and cell phone technology.”

Hamish grinned, and for some reason, that sent a shiver up Zeke’s spine. “Demons invented modern communication tech? That explains so much.”

Incidentally, the way magicians and wizards procure their supplies nowadays rather than resorting to blood sacrifice and potentially fatal demon-summoning?

Amazon.

About the author:



E.J. Russell holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business-intelligence consultant. After her twin sons left for college and she no longer spent half her waking hours ferrying them to dance class, she returned to her childhood love of writing fiction. Now she wonders why she ever thought an empty nest meant leisure.

E.J. lives in rural Oregon with her curmudgeonly husband, the only man on the planet who cares less about sports than she does. She enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.

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Giveaway:

To celebrate the release of Demon on the Down-Low one lucky person will win a $25 Riptide Publishing gift card and an ecopy of either Single White Incubus (first in the Supernatural Selection series) or Bad Boy’s Bard (the book from the Fae Out of Water series that influences this one). Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on March 2, 2019. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

Promotional post. Materials provided by the publisher.