Cover & Excerpt Reveal
by Sotia Lazu
Vampire Cherry Book Two
With her murderous maker still on the run, Cherry has enough on her mind even before her newly turned boyfriend, Alex, demands they meet each other's parents. Constantine, her ex and now member of the vampire council, is suspiciously quick to allow this breach of vampire law. It soon becomes clear there's a lot Cherry doesn't know about her family's past.And it's threatening her present and her future.
Alex is changing, Ádísa is dead but not as gone as she should be, and feelings forced aside are reconsidered. Back in her hometown, and faced with an overabundance of new information, Cherry is determined to fight for herself, her family, and her man.
That's when her world is turned upside down. Again.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content/Theme(s): Vampires, Mystery, Dubious Consent
Release Date: December 18, 2014
Publisher: Acelette Press
Prequel, Excerpt & More
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Cherry Blossom Excerpt:
I like big beds.
I like wide, comfy mattresses that allow me to stretch to my heart’s desire and roll over as many times as I please. What’s more, I like bedmates that don’t take up the entire space I lovingly try to maintain around me.
Alex wasn’t that kind of a bedmate.
Alex was a cuddler, which I more than appreciated right after naughty-times, but suffocated me when I woke up to the weight of an arm pressing my chest down or a hard body keeping me from turning around.
He also snored from time to time, which made no sense, since he no longer needed to breathe. I guess old habits die hard.
I wouldn’t have made a big deal out of any of those things that morning, if I hadn’t woken up to Alex spooning me from behind, both of his arms wrapped around me like steel bars, and his voice whispering in my ear, “I want you to meet my mother.”
And I certainly wouldn’t have kicked him out of bed, if he hadn’t added, “And I want to meet your family.” I mean, that’s not the way to wake someone up.
“What did you do that for?” Alex rubbed his head where it had impacted with the wall. He was still on the floor where he landed, glaring at me with those gorgeous grey eyes of his.
I sat up and bunched the covers around me, still not fully believing I’d done what I had—or that he’d actually said what I’d heard.
“Cherry? What’s up? And ow, by the way!” He didn’t seem as pissed off as I’d be in his place. “Did you have another nightmare? Think I was Willoughby again?”
His concern made me feel bad. To be honest, I’d never had any nightmares of Willoughby. At times when Alex was too clingy in my sleep, however, I may have elbowed him in the ribs or kicked him in the shin, and afterward implied I thought he was my maker, haunting my dreams. He was having nightmares of his turning too, so he believed me. It made me feel the tiniest bit like a horrible person.
I shook my head. “Not him. Different nightmare. About you wanting us to meet each other’s folks.”
His dark eyebrows came together in a fierce scowl, and he sucked in his cheeks. That usually preceded yelling, which worked out quite well, because I wasn’t exactly feeling all lovey-dovey at that moment.
“Why’s that so bad? My mother’s been hearing about you for two months now. She wants to meet you.” And that was a glaring example of why we should let our family think we died after our turning. If the vampire council caught a whiff of Alex’s still staying in touch with his mother, they might resort to extreme measures.
Then again, they’d have to know he was a vampire for them to even care, so it was a moot point. After the havoc that resulted in Alex’s turning, the vampire council reinstated the Vampire Social Services—VSS for short—to help tighten the bonds within our community, and decreed a census, to record all vampires currently in the United States. We kept Alex’s change of status a secret from them, to avoid dealing with the repercussions of breaking the law against turning new fledglings.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” ’Cause loveable as I am, there was always the possibility of that. I didn’t voice my worries that I might not like her. “And you can’t meet my family. I can’t meet my family again. They think I’m dead.”
A familiar lump formed in my throat at the memory of the pain I’d caused my parents. I followed the news for the first few months after my turning, and saw them cry and beg for word from me time and again. Once my disappearance was bled dry by the press, my parents disappeared from the public eye. I tried looking them up online, since going anywhere near my hometown was punishable by vampire law, but found nothing. Since then, I consoled myself with the fact they didn’t show up in the obituaries.
“Your parents think you’re missing. Finding out you’re still”—I could see he was searching for the right word, since alive wouldn’t cut it—“around would be the greatest thing to ever happen to them.” He was using his rational voice, which probably worked when he interrogated suspects, but which I hated when I was feeling unreasonable. He got on his feet, and dusted plaster from his hair. “And my mom will love you. Just like I do.”
Yeah, okay. Play the I-love-you card, why don’t you? “We’ll talk about it,” I said, more to avoid a fight than because I was considering it. “I’ll ask Constantine what he thinks. He knows the council better than I do, and they like him. If he thinks it’s safe for me to go home, we’ll visit my family.”
There was no way my ex would condone something like that. It was reckless and might endanger us all. Plus, he might be acting all cool and superior, and have taken us in to keep us safe until we found my murderous maker, but I could tell he wasn’t exactly happy about my relationship with Alex.
Alex must have realized Constantine would say no, because he kicked dejectedly at the floor and approached the bed still scowling. I hated it when he was petulant, and his turning seemed to have intensified the specific aspect of his personality.
His turning had also ensured us a future, so I would put up with a little childishness.
“I’ll talk to him too,” he said, standing right in front of me in his birthday suit. “Maybe I can convince him.”
He could certainly try. Meanwhile, I’d do my best to make him forget about the whole thing. I smiled, slid to the edge of the bed, and let the covers drop to reveal a state of undress that matched his, before using my fingertips to trace the lines of his body—hard muscle under soft skin that shivered ever so slightly under my touch.
~~~~~~
Cherry Blossom Purchase links:
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by Sotia Lazu
Vampire Cherry Book Zero
Release Date: December 11, 2014
"The significance of things is rarely apparent at the moment they occur. People don’t know it’s the last time they’re making love with a significant other or the last time they’re seeing a friend, until long after the moment has come and gone. Lovers grow distant, friends drift apart, and one day you look back at that time you dug your nails in his back, or that phone call you ended way too soon, and wish you’d known you’d never get another chance. Wish you’d savored it while it lasted, instead of taking it for granted.
I often wish I’d realized the last time I felt the sun caressing my skin.
Or the last time I heard my mother’s voice.
Hell, I wish I’d known the last time I heard my heart beat."
Follow Cherry's first steps into a world she was never prepared for, in this prequel to the Vampire Cherry series.
Cherry Pop Purchase links: Amazon Smashwords
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Be on the lookout for Sotia Lazu's future release(s): One Last Night coming March 2015 and Colin coming May/June 2015
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