Hello Readers! Today I bring you paranormal fantasy author, Boone Brux. Boone has lived in the beautiful state of Alaska for nearly two decades. She spent many of those years in the bush, where the internet and flush toilets were a luxury. Now published with Entangled Publishing and Red Hot Publishing, she spends her days enjoying a full-time writing career and her own bathroom. If you spend any amount of time with Boone, there’s a good chance something you’ve said will end up in a book. You’ve been warned.
Boone is here today to share with us a little about living in Alaska and preparing for AADNOLA, and tell us about her upcoming Grim Reality series. The first book, To Catch Her Death, releases this June.
Boone is a featured author attending Author’s After Dark in New Orleans. For more information about AAD2012, click HERE.
Please help me welcome Boone to That’s What I’m Talking About. Take it away Boone…
Thanks so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.
For several months I’ve been excitedly talking about attending Authors After Dark in New Orleans this August. I’m looking forward to everything, the readers, events, and yes, even the heat.
Let me qualify this by saying that I live in Alaska and as I write this, I have no concept of warm weather. This has been an exceptionally harsh winter. Our snow piles are so high I can only see the peak of my neighbor’s roof out my office window. I dress in layers of polar fleece, have socks and slippers on all the time, and sleep with several layers of blankets, even though I’m slightly claustrophobic. The moose have taken to the roads because it’s easier to walk.
I dream about lying by the pool at the Royal Sonesta Hotel and letting my sun deprived skin soak up some much needed rays. This would be a frightening sight right now with my fish-belly white skin that can only be glimpsed through the layer of fur that has kept me warm during my hibernation months.
Even after a team of beauty experts and a large vat of wax have stripped me bare, forced my body into the spandex swimsuit of torture, and squeezed on a bottle of SPF 1000, I’ll still only last 3.6 minutes in the New Orleans sun before I start to fry like a big slab of bacon. But I’m not afraid or disheartened. I’ll relish those glorious, humidity drenched minutes.
There is no doubt that living in Alaska has had a profound effect on my new humorous paranormal Grim Reality series. Book one, To Catch Her Death releases this June.
My character, Lisa Carron, is an overweight, 35 year old mother of three, who has just found out she’s a reaper. Think Sarah Palin meets Dead Like Me. Barely holding it together after the death of her husband, Lisa finds out that she’s been assigned to the Darwin Division, or in layman’s terms, reaping stupid people. But because Alaska is huge and severely understaffed, she is partnered with Nate Charleston, a hot and somewhat arrogant reaper of violent criminals.
Now you may be asking, Boone, are there violent crimes in Alaska? Perhaps not as many as in other states, but my 18 years of living in the bush have given me an unlimited well of humorous stories to draw from. Some of the events Lisa Carron experiences are true life encounters I’ve had. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
I thought I’d share a peek at the cover for To Catch Her Death. It’s not quite finished, but Jennifer Meyer, the artist who created this cover for me, did such a magnificent job, I wanted to share. My favorite part is how the mop and moon make her scythe.
Be sure to track me down and say hi if you’re attending Authors After Dark. If not, I’d love to connect on Facebook, Twitter, my blog or website.
An excerpt from To Catch Her Death
(Grim Reality, Book 1)
The shotgun exploded, catapulting the robber backward. His body hit the white tiled floor, bounced once and stopped. Nobody moved, just stood there with our mouths hanging open. The ringing in my ears sounded overly loud in the silence of the aftermath.
I think I spoke for everyone in the mini-mart when I said, “Holy crap.”
I slung my Big Gulp aside and raced toward the injured man. The good looking guy, who had been fondling the snack cakes, seemed to have the same idea. He barreled around the corner shouting, but I was too amped up to make sense of what he said. I dropped and slid the last foot, my body stopping when my knees plowed into the robber’s ribs.
The good looking guy waved his arms at me. “Don’t touch him!”
I’m sorry, but I’m a mother. When I see a scraped elbow or somebody with a hole the size of a DiGiorno pizza in their chest, my ninja paramedic skills kick in and I react. I pressed my fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse. Nothing. My hands drifted across his chest. There was no place to start compressions, not that it would have helped.
Mr. Snack Cakes skidded to a stop.
I glanced at him. “He’s dead.”
“Oh my Go…”
His eyes rounded to the size of Hostess Ding Dongs. Obviously he’d never seen a dead person before. Good thing I’d developed a rather unhealthy obsession with those CSI shows after my husband died. I knew what to do.
I looked over my shoulder at Constantine. He still held the shotgun, but appeared to be in shock. “Call 911.” His eyes tracked to my face but it didn’t look like my words were sinking in.
“Connie.” I used his name, trying to snap him back to reality. “Call 911.”
The gun clattered to the ground and he fumbled for the phone. When I pushed up, using the dead guy’s chest for leverage, a sensation of being pulled downward tugged on my arms. The hunk leapt over the body and gripped me around the chest. At first I thought he was some kind of pervert, trying to cop a feel.
“Hey pal, what the what?” I struggled a bit, but my hands seemed to be glued to the dead guy.
“I told you not to touch him.” He yanked me upright.
You know how it is when you eat something sticky and then try to wipe it off with a napkin? No matter what you do the paper tears and clings to your fingertips. Well, what happened next was a lot like that.
The stranger and I stumbled backward. I won’t swear in public, but I’m almost positive he palmed my boobs. I can’t be sure because at the same time a sound like a zipper rasped and suddenly the dead guy was hurdling toward me. I braced myself for impact, but instead of colliding, the mini-mart robber passed right through me. I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.
You can find Boone online at:
Thanks so much for having me!!!
Hi Boone!
Well, I certainly can hear your voice in this awesome excerpt. I know full well how living in Alaska can make you funny–it’s that or go to the funny farm, yes? Seriously, this sounds like a fun series. I can’t wait to watch the journey of all these stories!
Can’t wait to read more of “Catching Her Death.” Too funny!
Thanks for the love guys! I appreciate it;)
Oh my gosh, I can’t wait for this to come out. Ms. Awesomeness, you rock.
Congrats on the new release from your fellow AAD author. Can’t wait to hear that sense of humor live and in person in NOLA (where we like to say “It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity”).
Sounds like a great new series, going to have to read it.
And speaking of August I just bought my AAD airline tickets to NOLA and having panic attacks already.
NOLA will be a blast! Suzanne, I want more stories about your mother. Roxanne, I haven’t bought my ticket yet. Maybe I should be the on panicking.:)
Roxanne & Boone: I haven’t gotten my plane tickets yet, either… should I be worried?
Thanks for coming by today, Boone! I look forward to NOLA!
Let’s pretend we shouldn’t be worried. Thanks again for having me!
Let’s pretend we shouldn’t be worried. Thanks again for having me!
LOL can’t wait to read the finished product!
Great post, can’t wait to read the book. I envy you the New Orleans warmth too! Have a blast there! 🙂