~Blurb:
Maple Lane returns to the
retirement home where she grew up, after ten years away, and must face the
music. How can she rebuild the dilapidated building, repay a massive mortgage,
and restore her residents’ faith in her with her arch-nemesis – Stacy Three
Names – breathing down her neck, hungry for an artifact said to grant
immortality? As Stacy sabotages Maple’s efforts, the gorgeous new handyman
Derek complicates matters with his demon blood and hot attraction.
How can Maple and her residents fight Stacy, find the artifact, and save their home with the rich and powerful of the town arrayed against them?
…And can she trust a demon to help her?
How can Maple and her residents fight Stacy, find the artifact, and save their home with the rich and powerful of the town arrayed against them?
…And can she trust a demon to help her?
~Excerpt
As of about four and a half minutes ago, I officially quit college. I’ve
decided that after attending not one but two separate colleges during my
nine…okay ten years of switching majors and still not knowing what I want to be
when I grow up, that I was never meant to be a serious intellectual. I was not
designed to run a corporate enterprise or wow the art world with genius
sculpture and paintings. I was studying to become a teacher until I realized I
don’t like children. I would have made an excellent veterinarian, except I’m
allergic to cats. Or, more accurately they are allergic to me. I wanted to be
an engineer, but it turns out I’m also allergic to math, which also eliminated
engineering and accounting. I even tried psychology, caseworker, and business
major. So after trying everything that ever caught my attention, I switched to
a technical college, where I discovered I had no talent for mechanics,
carpentry, plumbing, heating, or cooking anything in an oven. And I literally
flunked out as a dental assistant when I vomited on a patient while I was
cleaning his teeth during final exams. So because of this, or rather despite
all of this, I’m going into the family business.
My decision for this very sudden and life-altering change might have been
prompted by the three-page, single-spaced letter I am now holding. It’s written
in legal speak and since I did a very brief stint in law – after watching a
marathon of Law and Order while recovering from a vicious and unprompted cat
attack – I will summarize; “Your grandmother is dead, and she’s left you the
house and its current occupants.”
This is the letter telling me that my Granny Nan has passed away. It was
unexpected, and I’m not saying unexpected as in she was always so healthy and
she never said she was sick. No, I’m saying unexpected because she was a
vampire. Granny Nan was the first in our family, full born. She came with all
the perks of the undead. She could turn into a bat and she never aged. She
drank the blood of the living, but she never took more than necessary. She
could hypnotize people with a wink of her long black lashes, and any whispered
suggestions she made became the victim’s lifelong mission to fulfill. She
stayed inside on sunny days and avoided anything resembling a wooden stake. On
top of all of this, she was very fast and very smart and very full of life.
She raised me from six months old, as my mother had met her untimely
demise in an unfortunate car accident involving a truck transporting picket
fence posts. As far as anyone knew in the small town where I grew up, Granny
Nan wasn’t my very young-looking, nearly two hundred year-old grandmother. She
was just my mom.
I’m a second-generation vampire. Vampires aren’t made, or even bred. As
far as we can tell, they just happen once in a while, and the only way they can
have children is if they choose to do so with a human. Long story short, that
makes me a quarter vampire. Meaning I don’t get to live forever, I can’t turn
into any cool animals, and I will never be able to hypnotize people with a look
or a whisper. The only thing I got from that side of the family is that I have
to wear sunscreen year round and I’m mildly anemic. I don’t drink blood, but I
like my steak extra rare. I have a pretty good metabolism, but unlike Granny
Nan I do have to burn a few calories on the treadmill a few times a week if I
want to eat cupcakes.
Having been raised in a retirement home, I am probably more aware of my
own mortality than most. What I learned from my somewhat different childhood
experience was that I didn’t want to die without living a full and happy life.
The only problem was I seemed to be having trouble getting that life of
excitement started. I was so scared to make the wrong move that I ended up not
moving at all. So at twenty-seven – okay twenty-eight, I was now the newest
caretaker of Maple Lane Manor, Home for Retired Supernaturals.
~Bio:
Cree
Walker lives in Northern Maine with her very patient debate partner and their
furry love child, mini rat terrier, Titan. When Cree isn't plugging away at her
computer she can most likely be found at the hospital where she works as an
advanced psychiatric technician for both children and adults.
To date, Cree has four novel
length publications with Naughty Nights Press. Paranormal werewolf romance,
Whisper on a Scream, and it's sequel, Urban Fantasy nominated book for 2012,
Willing Sacrifice. She also has paranormal romantic comedy, A Winter's Grave, book
one to the Reaper series and her most recent publication, Maple Lane Manor,
Home for Retired Supernaturals. So far, Maple Lane Manor has been a finalist in
the 2013 Up Authors Fiction Challenge and all have received the coveted 5 star
review rating from the Paranormal Romance Guild.
~Contact Links:
Twitter https://twitter.com/CreeWalker1
Blog/Website http://creewalker.wordpress.com
~Buy Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Kobobooks
Allromanceebooks
Goodreads
Smashwords
Indigo
This is certainly a new twist on vampires! I'd love to read this book.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great read!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the chance to win!