Every Friday, we here @ Del Rey Spectra will place a 50 page excerpt of a selected title on Suvudu. Whether it is science fiction, epic fantasy, alternate history, horror, urban fantasy, paranormal, the possibilities are endless.
This week’s excerpt comes from the latest installment of the Dreg City series by Kelly Meding. WRONG SIDE OF DEAD has all the fixings of a great paranormal novel: half-blood vampires, shape-shifters, and a kick-ass, monster-hunting heroine who’s trying to do everything she can to save the world. Author Kelly Meding tells us more about Evy Stone and her latest adventure below:
“This is my first time being asked to write something for 50 Page Fridays, so I have a confession to make: I had to search through older postings and see just what kinds of things I was supposed to write about. I usually skip the intro and go straight for the pages, so I suppose this goes to show you that you never really stop doing research for your books.
Wrong Side of Dead is the fourth book in the Dreg City series, which follows paranormal hunter Evangeline Stone from the moment of her mysterious resurrection into a new body (in the very first paragraph of book one), as she learns to adapt to her new life and some nifty new powers. She faces her own prejudices about the vampires, goblins and shifters she was once paid to hunt and kill, as well as some unexpected feelings for her ex-boss Wyatt Truman. There’s action, suspense, humor, a bit of romance, and a healthy heaping of horror.
Writing this particular installment in the series was a fun challenge for me. As the fourth book, I not only had quite a bit of back story to weave into the current story, but I also had three other books worth of loose plot threads to try and tie up. The story structure is also a bit different, because it relies more heavily on the use of flashbacks. Instead of picking up where the third book ends, it begins a month later and everything is different. Evy and Wyatt’s relationship isn’t where you might expect, a supporting character is now an enemy, and former allied species are not to be trusted. As the story advances, flashbacks are used to fill in that missing month of time and catch the reader up on everything that’s happened to the characters and why so many things have changed. The major challenge was deciding which scenes were absolutely necessary to write out as flashbacks–some things can easily be told, but other things must be shown to have maximum impact.
I’m very excited to share this installment of Evy’s journey. Waking up in the morgue, in a stranger’s body with no idea how you died or why you were brought back isn’t an easy thing to deal with–especially when you’re a hot-tempered hunter with trust issues. Evy has come a long way since those first three days, and I think readers will be pleased with where she goes from here. ”
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Please enjoy this excerpt of WRONG SIDE OF DEAD, on sale January 31st!
