Seventh Grave and No Body by Darynda Jones + Giveaway

Seventh Grave and No Body

by Darynda Jones

Blurb: 

Twelve. Twelve of the deadliest beasts ever forged in the fires of hell have escaped onto our plane, and they want nothing more than to rip out the jugular of Charley Davidson and serve her lifeless, mangled body to Satan for dinner. So there’s that. But Charley has more on her plate than a mob of testy hellhounds. For one thing, her father has disappeared, and the more she retraces his last steps, the more she learns he was conducting an investigation of his own, one that has Charley questioning everything she’s ever known about him. Add to that an ex-BFF who is haunting her night and day, a rash of suicides that has authorities baffled, and a drop-dead sexy fiancé who has attracted the attentions of a local celebrity, and Charley is not having the best week of her life.

A tad north of hell, a hop, skip, and a jump past the realm of eternity, is a little place called Earth, and Charley Davidson, grim reaper extraordinaire, is determined to do everything in her power to protect it.

We’re doomed.

Excerpt:

In an act of desperation, I summoned Angel—a thirteen- year- old gang kid who’d died in the ’90s—my best investigator. But he’d been AWOL for a couple of weeks. Ever since I found out he wasn’t exactly who he said was. From the first time we’d met, he told me all about his family, how his mother was a hairdresser and had a shop with his aunt. He told me about his nieces and nephews, his uncles and cousins. And it had all been a lie. He’d been posing as his best friend, the one who’d died the same fateful night he did, and pretending his friend’s mother, along with her entire family, was his.

Who could blame him? He’d come from nothing. Grew up with nothing. Unfortunately, he thought that just being Angel— the precious boy I’d grown to love the way someone who’s grown numb to the pain of tattoos learns to love them— wasn’t enough. As though he could ever fall short in my eyes. He could be a royal pain in my donk, but he was family.

So, I understood why he did what he did. Deep down, he knew that— but he was embarrassed nonetheless and hadn’t come around for a while. I was trying not to force the issue, but I needed advice. And grim reaper info.

He popped into the backseat, one foot on the hump thing in the middle of the floorboard, an elbow propped onto his knee as he, too, stared out the window to pout. I had a lot of pouters today. I really wanted to say, A pouter’s a doubter, but couldn’t think of how it applied to this situation.

“Hey, mister,” I said, hoping to brighten the somber mood.

“Who’s the babe?” he asked without looking at me or Jessica.

She turned around, fuming with a spark of indignity until she spotted him. He had his usual bandanna headband worn low over his brow with a smattering of peach fuzz along his young jaw. He’d been on the verge of becoming a man. No, he’d become a man the night he stopped his best friend from fi ring into the house of a rival gang member by crashing the car they were in and killing them both.

Jessica chilled instantly. “That’s rude,” she said, facing front again.

“Sorry.”

“You haven’t been around much,” I said, looking at him in the rearview. “No complaints about how you were in the middle of one of your nieces’ birthday parties or at a quinceañera when I summoned you?”

“You know they aren’t my family.”

I pulled Misery over, even though we were only a couple of blocks from our destination. Turning in my seat, I nailed him with my best nurturing glower. “Angel, you heard what Mrs. Garza said. You were like a son to her, and she welcomed you into her life with open arms.”

And she had. Mrs. Garza, who’d been hoping the presence she was feeling was her son, was not terribly disappointed when it turned out to be her son’s best friend. She’d loved Angel. I could tell. But getting him to face that fact now could be difficult. Stubborn little shit.

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Meet Darynda Jones:

  NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal. As a born storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.

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