Death and the Girl Next Door Blog Tour!

Hey all! The FABULOUS, WITTY, and TALENTED Ms. Darynda Jones is stopping by today for Death and the Girl Next Door blog tour! This is Darynda's first YA book and it was pretty awesome! Check out my review here.

I had a few questions for Darynda that she was kind enough to answer for me! Thanks again, Darynda!

Q. How did you get the idea for your new YA series?

A.When I started it years ago, I just knew that I wanted to work on another YA project and I wanted it to be paranormal, so I just asked myself, if I were still in high school, who would be the last person I would expect to show up at my school. Somewhere on that list was the Angel of Death. The fun part was figuring out WHY he was there. Mwahahaha!

Q. What can you tell us about Jared? He seemed almost villainous at first to me.

A. While I hate giving away the fact that he is the Angel of Death, it’s kind of all over the place, so I can tell you that. :)

I can also tell you he’s rather hot and cryptic and breaks a supernatural law to save our heroine, Lorelei. Because of that, he gets stuck on our plane, a fact that does not make him happy at first.

Q. Are Lorelei and Charley perhaps distant relatives? They seem to have the same sense of humor--which I loved!--so I was wondering if they come from the same family tree? ;)

A. LOL, well, not so much the same family tree as the same storyline. Confession time: I wrote Death and the Girl Next Door several years ago and, figuring it would never sell, I stole a lot of the storyline and put it in the Charley Davidson series. Yes, I cannibalized my own work. So, Charley was very much a byproduct of Lorelei with a little more sass thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure if that is 100% why they are a little alike or if it’s just my writing style that I am unable to escape, but I enjoy writing both characters so much. When DGND sold, I had to go back and rewrite the foundation of the story. Fortunately, the main story didn’t change much, just the underneath stuff.

And can I just say, I’m so glad you like the humor!

Now for a special excerpt of Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones:

I laughed to myself and headed toward the back of our favorite and pretty much only hangout. It sat a mere block from our alma mater, Riley High, and we practically lived in our corner booth. I ducked past the snack counter and into a very dark back hall. Judging by the boxes lining the narrow passage, I’d be taking my life into my hands if I risked a journey to the little senorita’s room without illumination, so I ran my hand along a paneled wall. Where would I be if I were a light switch? Just as the tips of my fingers found the switch, a silhouette stepped out of the shadows and brushed past me. I startled with a gasp.

“Excuse me,” I said, placing a hand over my heart.

“Sorry.” The guy paused slightly before continuing on his way, and in that instant, I saw the makings of utter perfection: a long arm with shadowy curves that dipped around the fluid lines of muscle; a tall, wide shoulder; dark hair that curled playfully over an ear and led to a strong, masculine jaw. Something inside me lurched, craving a closer look at his face, but he walked by too fast and the hall was too dark for me to catch anything else.

After a couple of seconds, I realized my hand had brushed against his arm. It was enough to send a vision crashing into me, like the flash of a nuclear bomb, bright and unforgiving. Tamping down my surprise— I hadn’t had a vision in a very long time— I pressed shaking fingers to my forehead to wait out the familiar storm, to see what treasures would wash ashore in the aftermath.

Yet the things I saw were unreal, impossible, and certainly not of this world: A desolate landscape lay before me with scorched clouds and a roiling, violet sky. The air was stagnant and so impossibly thick, breathing it took effort. Then I heard the clanging of metal. I turned to watch in horror as a being, a boy of no more than sixteen or seventeen, fierce and somehow not quite human, struggled with a dark, monstrous beast. The boy’s arms corded as tendon and muscle strained against the weight of the sword he wielded. He slashed again and again, but the monster was fast, with razorlike talons and sharp, gleaming teeth, and the boy knew what those teeth felt like when they sank into flesh, knew the blinding pain that accompanied defeat. But he also knew the power he himself wielded, the raw strength that saturated every molecule of his body. 

Another herculean effort landed a thrust in the monster’s shoulder and continued through its thick chest. The monster sank under the boy’s sword with a guttural scream. The boy looked on while the beast writhed in pain, watched it grow still as the life drained out of it, and somewhere in the back of the boy’s mind, he allowed himself to register the burning of his lungs as he struggled to fill them with air. 

Blood trickled between his fingers, down the length of his blade, and dripped to the powdery earth beneath his feet. I followed the trail of blood up to three huge gashes across his chest. Evidently three of the monster’s claws had met their mark, laying the flesh of its enemy open. I gasped and covered my mouth with both hands as the boy spun toward me, sword at the ready. Squinting against the low sun, I could almost make out his features, but the vision evaporated before I got the chance. A heartbeat later, I was back in the dark hallway, gasping for air, one palm pressed against my temple, the other against the wall for balance. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, fought the memory of the vision, the fear that summoned the taste of bile in the back of my throat, the feel of blood dripping down the boy’s arm. 


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