TKA Serials: Maria Geraci's THE BOYFRIEND OF THE MONTH CLUB
Today our TKA serial post is hosted by romantic women’s fiction author, Maria Geraci. Her third novel, THE BOYFRIEND OF THE MONTH CLUB, comes out December 7, 2010. Enjoy her excerpt below. You can find out more about her books at http://www.mariageraci.com/.
CHAPTER ONE -- The Ghost of Boyfriends Past
Grace O’Bryan didn’t believe in ghosts. She also didn’t believe in witches, vampires, love at first sight, that there was anything real about reality TV, or the ridiculous claim that you could lose ten pounds on the three-day cabbage soup diet (she’d tried it twice). If you couldn’t see it, feel it, touch it, or taste it, then in all likelihood it didn’t exist. Which made for some very practical thinking on Grace’s part. Except for the one ripple in the otherwise smooth seas of her personal logic. Like her abuela Graciela—the Cuban grandmother Grace was named after—what she did believe in was curses.
How else could you explain tonight?
She had waited a whopping two months for Brandon Farrell to ask her out, only to wake up this morning on her period. Not that that in itself was a problem. She wasn’t a have-sex-on-the-first-date kind of girl. Nor did she suffer from bad cramps. But she’d also woken up five pounds heavier than she’d been last night (maybe she should have given the cabbage soup diet one more try). So instead of the outfit she’d planned on wearing, she’d ended up borrowing her best friend Sarah’s little black dress. Sarah had excellent taste in clothes—the dress was a winning combination of elegant yet discreetly sexy. Sarah was also a size larger than Grace, and the dress had fit perfectly. At least it had fit perfectly back at Grace’s town house. It wasn’t until Grace had folded herself into her tiny red VW Bug that she’d noticed the dress was a tad too short.
And now, thanks to some heavier than average Saturday evening Daytona Beach traffic, she was late for her date. She tugged on the hem of Sarah’s dress and opened the door to the city’s newest, most exclusive restaurant, Chez Louis, only to find herself nose to aquiline nose with Felix Barberi.
Grace sucked in a breath. It was a Dickensian nightmare. Too bad the man standing in front of her was one hundred percent real. Grace might not subscribe to love at first sight, but substitute lust for love, and in Felix’s case she’d been a firm believer.
At first, Felix had been incredibly charming, despite his annoying habit of wanting to make out to Celine Dion’s number one hit, “My Heart Will Go On.” But Felix worked in the restaurant business and the brutal hours had strained their relationship and tarnished his charm. The ultimate strain had come when Grace had returned early from a business trip to surprise Felix on Valentine’s Day. She’d gone to his apartment with a bottle of red wine and a pepperoni and anchovy pizza, only to catch Felix going at it with a dancer from the Topless-a-Go-Go.
Grace didn’t know which was worse: the fact that Felix had cheated, or that the someone he had cheated with had a rack that must have cost six months’ worth of lap dances. The incident had confirmed however that the St. Valentine’s Day Curse was alive and well. Read more »
UPDATE: THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS is onPublishers Weekly's 2010 Best of List for Sci-Fi/Fantasy! Congrats N.K.!
Last week we posted the first chapter of N.K. Jemisin's THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS. This week we will continue with the second chapter.
Since our last post, the second book in N.K.'s critically acclaimed Inheritance Trilogy, THE BROKEN KINGDOMS, was made the November feature on the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi/Fantasy discussion board; she scooped up two RT nominations for THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS and THE BROKEN KINGDOMS, respectively in the Epic Fantasy Novel and Fantasy Novel categories; THE BROKEN KINGDOMS made Borderlands October Bestseller list at #7 in the paperbacks category; and finally, THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS was chosen as #5 on Amazon's Best of Sci-Fi/Fantasy List for 2010. Whew! That's a lot of excitement for one week!
So, now's the time to find out what all the buzz is about. Read below for the second installment of THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS. Also, don't forget N.K. will be our featured guest author in the Knight Agency chat room next Thursday (11/18) at 9pm ET!!!
Next on TKA Serials -- Maria Geraci, author of THE BOYFRIEND OF THE MONTH CLUB (11/29) --------------------------------------------------
THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, Sample Chapter 2 (missed Chap 1? Click here.)
The capital of my land is called Arrebaia. It is a place of ancient stone, its walls overgrown by vines and guarded by beasts that do not exist. We have forgotten when it was founded, but it has been the capital for at least two thousand years. People there walk slowly and speak softly, out of respect for the generations that have trodden those streets before, or perhaps just because they do not feel like being loud.
Sky — the city, I mean — is only five hundred years old, built when some disaster befell the previous Arameri seat. This makes it an adolescent as cities go — and a rude, uncouth one at that. As my carriage rode through the city’s center, other carriages went past in a clatter of wheels and horseshoes. People covered every sidewalk, bumping and milling and bustling, not talking. They all seemed in a hurry. The air was thick with familiar smells like horses and stagnant water amid indefinable scents, some acrid and some sickly-sweet. There was nothing green in sight.
Today, we are excited to introduce a brand-spanking new feature on our blog -- TKA Serials. This month two authors, N.K. Jemisin and Maria Geraci, will share free reads. N.K. will be up first with excerpts from THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, the first book in her Inheritence Trilogy, on November 1st and 8th. Maria will share an excerpt for THE BOYFRIEND OF THE MONTH CLUB on November 29th.
Also, don't forget to mark your calendars for our next chat event. N.K. will be the featured guest author on Thursday, November 18th at 9pm ET to celebrate the release of the second book in her Inheritance trilogy, THE BROKEN KINGDOMS.
About N.K. Jemisin: N.K. Jemisin is an author of speculative fiction short stories and novels who lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. Her short fiction has been published in pro markets such as Clarkesworld, Postscripts, Strange Horizons, and Baen’s Universe; podcast markets and print anthologies; and has received Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Year’s Best Science Fiction.
Her first novel in the Inheritance Trilogy, THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, debuted in February 2010. The second book in the trilogy, THE BROKEN KINGDOMS, will be released this November.
She is the recipient of a Gulliver Travel Grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation, and a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop.
I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore.
I must try to remember.
My people tell stories of the night I was born. They say my mother crossed her legs in the middle of labor and fought with all her strength not to release me into the world. I was born anyhow, of course; nature cannot be denied. Yet it does not surprise me that she tried.
My mother was an heiress of the Arameri. There was a ball for the lesser nobility — the sort of thing that happens once a decade as a backhanded sop to their self-esteem. My father dared ask my mother to dance; she deigned to consent. I have often wondered what he said and did that night to make her fall in love with him so powerfully, for she eventually abdicated her position to be with him. It is the stuff of great tales, yes? Very romantic. In the tales, such a couple lives happily ever after. The tales do not say what happens when the most powerful family in the world is offended in the process.
