Give Away & Spotlight On: The Taken by Vicki Pettersson

Urban fantasy author Vicki Pettersson, author of the popular Zodiac series, has expanded her repertoire to include mystery. She has a UF mystery noir series, Celestial Blues, and the first book, "The Taken", was released a few days ago on June 12th. I haven't been wildly impressed with the one book and two short stories in her Zodiac series but I do like mysteries so I will give this book a try.

At the end of this post is a giveaway.

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Photo from author website

A little about Vicki: She's the author of the NYT-bestselling Signs of the Zodiac series – a six-book urban fantasy series set in her hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Vicki holds a BA in English, essentially qualifying her for nothing (her words, not mine! ~ Bea), which was why she opted for a decade-long career as a showgirl in the now-retired Folies Bergere. That’s fine; she's now retired too, passing the time as a scribbler until she's old enough to join the cast of the Palm Springs Folies (55 is the minimum age requirement). There she hopes to once again fritter away her nights with sequins, eyelash glue, and her best girlfriends. You gotta have a dream, right? Besides, you know the saying: You can take the girl out of the show, but you can’t take the show out of the girl.

Since Vicki has a few years yet before she can un-retire, she's now writing a new supernatural noir trilogy, also set in Vegas, but with an entirely new world and cast of characters. Featuring a supernatural private eye, and a rockabilly reporter with a nose for trouble, the Celestial Blues series debuts with THE TAKEN, on July 12, 2012.

She currently divides her time between her family in Las Vegas and Dallas. It’s a hell of a commute.

By the way, Pettersson is pronounced “Pet-ter-suhn” – it’s Swedish.

Book Blurb:

He’s a fallen angel. She’s a rockabilly reporter. Together they must solve a deadly string of murders plaguing the mortal and the immortal worlds.

Griffin Shaw used to be a PI, but that was over fifty years ago when gumshoes hoofed the streets . . . and he was still alive. Now he’s a Centurion, an angel who assists other murdered souls through their journey to the afterlife. But while Shaw might be an angel … he’s no saint. Haunted by the mysterious events surrounding his own death, he seizes a chance to wreak some vengeance when he witnesses a deadly attack on journalist Katherine “Kit” Craig.

Joining forces, the unlikely avengers take to the streets, hunting a killer whose trail of bodies stretches across Las Vegas and into an immortal netherworld. It is a dangerous trek that lead them into the darkest corners of Sin City and into the heart of an evil conspiracy extending beyond the lights of the Strip that could destroy them both.

But destruction isn’t the only threat Griffin faces. The closer he gets to Kit, the more he finds himself bewitched by her mortal charms. Can he resist falling under her spell? And does he want to?

THE TAKEN
By: Vicki Pettersson
Publisher: Harper Voyager
ISBN: 9780062064646
Genre: FICTION, URBAN FANTASY, MYSTERY
Format: EBOOK, PAPERBACK
Length: 711 KB, 432 pages
Release Date: JUNE 12, 2012
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Buying Links:  Amazon    The Book Depository 

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Thanks to Harper, I have one paperback copy of "The Taken" for one lucky US resident. Harper will mail the book directly to the winner. 

To enter, follow the directions in the rafflecopter widget.

Please read my Giveaway policy. 

Iron Fey Blog Tour Interview with Julie Kagawa

We'd like to thank Julie for stopping by to answer a few questions on her blog tour!

Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California.But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, when she was nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dogtrainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks is at an all- time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyperactive Papillon.

You can find Julie at her blog,  website, twitter, or facebook, Plus more information about the Iron Fey series here.

What is your favorite part of being an author?

I don’t know if I have a favorite part; I just love it all so much.  This was what I always wanted to do, and now that I’m here, it’s a dream come true for me.  =)

If you could pick one of the characters from The Iron Fey series to have dinner with, who would it be and why?

I’m going to have to go with Ash, because I know he’d at least be polite.  Unlike a certain faery prankster, who might put something in my food or turn the waiter into a hedgehog.  Meghan would also be a good choice, we could catch a movie afterwards.  Grim…not so much; he’d order the most expensive thing on the menu and then turn up his nose at it. 

When you first started this series, with The Iron King, did you know then that there would be multiple books? And did you know you’d want to write them with a changing point of view?

When I first began The Iron King, I knew I wanted to write at least a trilogy, but I left an open ending on the first book in case the publisher didn’t want to buy the whole series.  Fortunately, they did, though I did intend the series just to be a trilogy.  I didn’t think I would write a fourth book from Ash’s POV, but it made the most sense to continue the series with him.

The Iron Knight is the fourth book in the Iron Fey series. Will there be more? What can we look forward to?

Meghan and Ash’s journey has come to a close, but it’s not the end of The Iron Fey series.  In 2012 there will be a new series starring Ethan Chase, Meghan’s little brother, when he is older.

Welcome New Reviewer!

     Please welcome Jax, from Tangled Yarns. She will be filling in for me while I am computerless. I have known Jax for several years, she's a good friend of mine. Despite being a very busy lady, she has agreed to post some reviews here while I shop for a new laptop and sort out my internet connection issues.

     Jax is a a student, a mother, a wife, a knitter, a blogger, a reader, a writer, a woman of many talents. She will post one to two times a week, mostly reviews but she may also post some book news or other book topics too.

     Thank you Jax for helping me out, and I hope you all will enjoy reading her posts. :)

Bea