All The World’s An Undead
Stage
Author: Angel Martinez
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Release Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: eBook, paperback
Price: $3.99, $10.49
Story Type: Novel
Word Count: Approx 55K
Cover Artist: Emmy Ellis
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Humor
Pairing: m/m
Tropes: law enforcement, established couple
Keywords/Categories: paranormal, police, Philadelphia,
magic, vampire, zombie, humor
Series Name: Offbeat Crimes
Position in Series: 6
Necessary to Read Previous Books? No, But Doesn’t Hurt
Blurb:
Carrington
Loveless III, skim-blood vampire and senior officer of Philly's paranormal
police department, has long suspected that someone's targeting his squad. The
increasingly bizarre and dangerous entities invading their city can't be a
coincidence. So when a walking corpse spouting Oscar Wilde attacks one of his
officers, Carrington's determined to uncover the evil mind behind it all.
As a rare books librarian, Erasmus Graham thought he
understood some of the stranger things in life. Sharing a life with
Carrington's shown him he didn't know the half of it. They've survived attack
books and deadly dust bunnies together and got through mostly unscathed. Now
his world and his vampire's appear ready to collide again. Books are missing
from the rare books' collection—old tomes of magic containing dangerous
summonings and necromancy. He's certain whoever's been stalking the
Seventy-Seventh is composing their end game. It's going to take a consolidated
effort from paranormal police, librarians, and some not-quite-authorized
civilians to head off the impending catastrophe.
All The World’s
An Undead Stage
Offbeat Crimes Series Blurb:
Every region has them, but no police department talks
about them—the weird crimes, the encounters with creatures out of nightmares.
The 77th Precincts exist in certain cities to handle paranormal crime and
containment, usually staffed with experienced officers exhibiting psychic
abilities.
In Philadelphia, through an odd mix of budget issues and
circumstance, the 77th is manned entirely by officers with bizarre or
severely limited psychic talents. The firestarter who can’t get a spark when
it’s humid. The vampire who can’t drink whole blood. These are the stories of
the misfits, the outcasts from even the strangeness of the paranormal
community. Call them freaks, but they’re police officers first, serving and
protecting, even if their methods aren’t always normal procedure.
Excerpt:
"Hunter?
It's all right. I promise." On his knees in the room LJ and Hunter shared,
Carrington peered under the bed where Hunter huddled in the far corner.
"No one here will hurt you."
To
Carrington's relief, his mom had taken care of nearly all of the arrangements
for this open house luncheon on and left him out of it. He would've preferred
something with less fuss and fewer caterers but it was only for a few hours.
The squad room would survive. His only task now was to try to coax an obviously
spooked Hunter out from under the furniture.
"I
have a theory," Jeff said from where he leaned in the doorway.
Carrington
smacked his head on the bedframe trying to reach far ther underneath, so his
next words were sharper than necessary. "Oh, yes? I don't suppose you'd
care to share this brilliant bit of enlightened thinking."
Jeff
let out a little huff. "Not if you're going to take my head off."
"My
apologies. I'm not in the best position to be civil at the moment."
"I
can wait until I’m not talking to your butt."
"Fine."
Carrington eased out from under the bed and sat back on his heels. "What's
your thinking here?"
"When
Hunter was living on her own, she was pretty careful and particular, wasn't
she?"
Living
on her own translated as when she was homeless, and careful and particular into
skilled and cautious thief but Carrington appreciated his colleague's care with
Hunter in the room. "So one is given to understand."
"I'm thinking maybe someone or several someone's invited today might have been a target. Maybe Hunter's afraid of someone recognizing her and making the connection."
Carrington
leaned down far enough to peer under the bed again. "Is that it, Hunter?
Are you concerned that someone will recognize you from your previous
life?"
Even
with Hunter scrunched in the corner, she still managed a collar nod.
"Very well, then." Carrington patted the mattress. "We'll close the door, Ms. Hunter. You don't have to see anyone if you don't wish to."
A
sleeve poked out from under the mattress to pat Carrington's hip. He took the
hint and got to his feet to give Hunter room to wriggle out. She floated up and
settled carefully on the blankets with her sleeves crossed.
"My
word of honor." Carrington held up both hands. "You can lock the door
behind us."
She
slumped as if in relief and nodded. Then she twitched up straight, holding up a
sleeve to ask them to wait. Jeff peered over Carrington's shoulder as Hunter
pulled a box out from the steamer trunk she shared with LJ. She handed the box
to Carrington with a sleeve motion that appeared to mime pulling up a zipper.
"This
is for LJ?" He waited for her nod. "I'll bring it right out to
him."
As
he'd promised, he shut the door behind them to give Hunter her privacy and
found LJ in the squad room with Audacity under one arm. Their kitten wore a
scaled-down version of a black K-9 vest.
"Don't
you look official?" Jeff let her catch one of his fingers to gnaw on.
Carrington gave her an approving nod. "It suits you. Do you like your new uniform?"
Mew.
Miii-iiw. Audacity pedaled with all four paws until LJ set her down. She turned
in an obvious modeling pose to show Carrington one side of the vest with POLICE
stenciled in white block letters, then turned to display the other side with
CADET FAMILIAR. If that wasn't Jason's idea, Carrington would eat his police
hat and Amanda's.
"Outstanding,
Cadet Audacity. Very sharp." Carrington carefully kept the laughter from
his voice since she was taking it all so seriously. But it was difficult in the
face of such monumental cuteness.
"LJ, Hunter refuses to come out but she
sent you this."
He
handed over the box and stayed to watch LJ ease it open by pinching the top
with his sleeve. The long slender shape of the box made guessing the contents
easy and Carrington wasn't disappointed when LJ held up a regulation police
uniform tie. LJ stared at it a moment, his version of staring at any rate, then
gave a sharp nod before he handed tie and box to Carrington to hold.
"You
don't—" Carrington nearly asked if he didn't want it but LJ's intentions
became obvious when he zipped up his front and straightened his collar.
"Ah. Would you like me to do the honors?"
LJ
gave another nod as he held himself straight and still. Strange to see him that
way. He almost never zipped himself closed and never floated completely still.
Carrington stood behind him to get the tie on just right, easier than trying to
think about tying one backward, and finished it off with the silver tie clip
Hunter had provided.
"There,
sir." Carrington clapped him on both shoulders. "Almost as sharp as
Audacity."
LJ had no way to blush, but his front puffed out just
enough to be noticeable and who would ever have predicted that? A jacket
entity, former street thug and informant proud to wear police issue anything.
Buy Links:
Pride Publishing: https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/all-the-worlds-an-undead-stage
Note: The general release date for this title is 1/2/18
Zombie
Origins – More Horrid Than You Thought
What do
you think of when someone says zombie?
Most modern humans will immediately think mindless unfortunates hungry for
brains, zombie apocalypse, and the recommended methods of disposal. Whether
they're the shambling corpses in The
Walking Dead, or the horrifyingly fast, infected monsters of Twenty-Eight Days Later, zombie hordes
have become part of our collective psyche. We watch them, have nightmares about
them, joke about them—and buy the merchandise.
Zombies
are big business.
We can
even trace horrific portrayals of undead hordes back to Mesopotamian writing
where Ishtar threatens to raise the dead and order them to eat the living.
Western culture certainly has precedence for fear of the undead. In modern
media, it's the apocalyptic horde has become predictable and familiar, and even
lacks, for the most part, the social concerns underlying the earlier iterations
of the zombie apocalypse imaginings of George Romero (Night of the Living Dead,
etc.) There's nothing wrong with a bit of monster fun – except that it
obliterates the tragic origins of zombie lore. We have to go back to the
enslavement of Africans in Haiti for that.
Conditions
for slaves on the sugar plantations of Haiti were so brutal, so inhumane, that
slaves looked forward to death as their only escape. Their belief was that
death would allow them lan Guinée, a
return to Africa to be at peace. While suicide certainly occurred, the fear
among the enslaved was that if they committed suicide, the lan Guinée would be
closed to them, that someone taking their own life would be doomed to remain in
Haiti, working as an undead, tireless slave of the plantations for all
eternity. For people living in the constant state of fear and agony of slavery,
to be consigned to an eternity of slavery was surely the worst fate imaginable.
As Haitian
and Haitian Creole culture developed, during and post-slavery, zombies became
the creations of bokor, voudou
sorcerers who raised the dead and enslaved them for their own evil purposes. While
there are parallels to European necromancers who disturbed the dead to ask
questions or perform a single nefarious task, the roots of voudou zombies in
slavery make their state more horrifying while the enslavement is meant to be
more permanent. (Also unlike necromancer raised undead, there are ways a
regular non-practitioner can rescue zombies and release them to death again.)
A bit of a
heavy post for a not-so-serious story? Probably. Watch the zombie shows. Read
the books. Enjoy the genre. But please take some time to remember where they
came from.
Author Bio:
The
unlikely black sheep of an ivory tower intellectual family, Angel Martinez has
managed to make her way through life reasonably unscathed. Despite a wildly
misspent youth, she snagged a degree in English Lit, married once and did it
right the first time, (same husband for almost twenty-four years) gave birth to
one amazing son, (now in college) and realized at some point that she could get
paid for writing.
Published
since 2006, Angel's cynical heart cloaks a desperate romantic. You'll find
drama and humor given equal weight in her writing and don't expect sad endings.
Life is sad enough.
She
currently lives in Delaware in a drinking town with a college problem and
writes Science Fiction and Fantasy centered around gay heroes.
You can take a look at Angel's Website and follow her on Facebook
and Twitter.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngelMartinezrr
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