It's another book spotlight! I found Housetrap by R.J. Hore thanks to Reading Addiction Blog Tours, and it sounds so good I can't help but sign up for the pre-publication promo!
Publisher: Champagne Books
Publication Date: Dec 3, 2012
Website: R.J. Hore | Housetrap on Goodreads
Synopsis via Goodreads:
In a world ruled by committees of wizards, and packed with every creature imagined, or un, at least in the sleazy back streets of Central City you can always count on Randolf C. Aloysius to solve your problems, for a price. That is, assuming his trusty girl Friday, (a Banshee actually, name of Bertha Wildwater) can track him down and steer him on to the case. Randy is a sucker for a pair of long legs, and that is what the Elf displayed when she came into the office, in need of assistance to locate a missing boyfriend. Sounds like a simple case, right?
Of course, nothing is ever simple in Randy's life, what with avoiding commitments to his long-suffering lady friend, an attempted murder, an actual murder, stolen baubles, and another damsel in distress, what's a private eye supposed to do?
Simple really, follow the clues off-world, avoid demons, vampires and other assorted miscreants, and hope that he comes home with enough coin left over to meet Bertha's back wages.
Keep reading for an excerpt from this book, which will be out today!
I don't like Elves, never have. I sat tilting back in my chair counting the stains on the ceiling when she walked through the open door of my inner office unannounced. Unannounced because I’d just given Bertha the afternoon off to visit her sick brother. Bertha's half Banshee, thin as a lamppost with long straight dark hair and big brown eyes. She's always got a relative down with the Black Death or some obscure curse; I think she has twelve brothers, but I digress.
The Elf arrived in my office wrapped in a full-length gold lame coat with a large hood covering her head and hiding most of her features, but I could tell she was pure Elf. Those yellow eyes are a dead giveaway even if you can't spot the pointed ears. I'm a student of nature, have to be; the breed often determines character, or motive, or veracity. In my business you have to stay two jumps ahead or you're squashed like a scarab. I'm a Mongrel myself. You can never tell about Mongrels, and there are more of us around now ever since the Goldilocks affair. Now there was a real witch, not the kind with just a warty nose, but she married that Wolf back in the days before they gave femmes the vote. Then they went overboard and made it all legal in the Intermarriage Act of 1812, and everything has tumbled Jack over Jill downhill ever since.
The Elf glanced about the room nervously, then in a single fluid motion crossed her long legs and slid into the battered chair opposite me like maple syrup poured from a mason jar. I sighed deep inside, rocked forward to rest my elbows on the scratched oak desk, painted a smile across my ugly mug and waited. I had all day; it had been two weeks since my last case. She fidgeted for a minute and I matched her, stare for stare, until my eyeballs screamed for mercy. The Elf had the kind of face you see perched high on a mantelpiece, thin bone china, pale, delicate, and carved by a master.
I like how the whole scene unfolded with the narrator all tongue-in-cheek! I'd love to know more about this world the author is building, together with all the characters.
What do you guys think about Housetrap? Please comment below!
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