Book review: Undead and unwed by Mary Janice Davidson

The book: Undead and unwed

The author: MaryJanice Davidson

Pages: 100

Betsy had a boring annoying life; divorced parents, an evil step mother and a rich talkative friend. She joined the undead after a car accident and she just went back to her house after she woke up in her coffin.
The vampire community wasn’t okay with her letting her identity public, so they locked her with them before discovering that it was their lost queen; she didn’t burn under the sun, instead she yawned and dropped asleep.

After Sinclar; who ends up being the king; teaches her vamp 101 and persuades her to help them fighting some evil vampires as he brides her with her favourite expensive brand shoes, she finally accepts her status as the queen and tries to use it to convince other vampires to join them.

This first book of the Queen Betsy series is a lot of fun. It’s an easy read. It is weird at first to see a vampire mixing casually with human and spreading all over the news about her nature. But then she has a point, she doesn’t want to lie to her parents especially her mother, who takes the news very well, or her best friend, who was frightened at first but is happy to have her friend back.

For a paranormal comedy book, undead and unwed is not so bad, it has a lot of events going on. But the style is very simple that you can barely add any new linguistic forms into your brain.

Teaser Thursdays

Title: Club dead

Author: charlaine Harris

Pages: 128



Bill was hunched over the computer when I let myself in his house. This was an all-too-familiar scenario in the past month or two. He'd torn himself away from his work when I came home, until the past couple of weeks. Now it was the keyboard that attracted him.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said absently, his gaze riveted to the screen. An empty bottle of type O TrueBlood was on the desk beside the keyboard. At least he'd remembered to eat.
Bill, not a jeans-and-tee kind of guy, was wearing khakis and a plaid shirt in muted blue and green. His skin was glowing, and his thick dark hair smelled like Herbal Essence. He was enough to give any woman a hormonal surge. I kissed his neck, and he didn't react. I licked his ear. Nothing.
I'd been on my feet for six hours straight at Merlotte's Bar, an every time some customer had under-tipped, or some fool had patted my fanny, I'd reminded myself that in a short while I'd be with my boyfriend, having incredible sex and basking in his attention.
That didn't appear to be happening.

I inhaled slowly and steadily and glared at Bill's back. It was a wonderful back, with broad shoulders, and I had planned on seeing it bare with my nails dug into it. I had counted on that very strongly. I exhaled, slowly and steadily.

Teaser Thursdays

Title: Vampire kisses


Author: Ellen Schreiber


Pages: 86



Chapter one: Little Monster



It first happened when I was five. I had just finished coloring in My Kindergarten Book. It was filled with Picasso-like drawings of my mom and dad, an Elmer's-glued, tissue-papered collage, and the answers to questions (favorite color, pets, best friend, etc.) written down by our hundred-year-old teacher, Mrs. Peevish.
My classmates and I were sitting in a semicircle on the floor in the reading area.
"Bradley, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Mrs. Peevish asked after all the other questions had been answered.
"A fire fighter!" he shouted.
"Cindi?"
"Uh…a nurse," Cindi Warren whispered meekly.
Mrs. Peevish went through the rest of the class. Police officers. Astronauts. Football players. Finally it was my turn.
"Raven, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Mrs. Peevish asked, her
green eyes staring through me. I said nothing.
"An actress?"
I shook my head.
"A doctor?"
"Nuh, uh," I said.
"A flight attendant?"
"Yuck!" I replied.
"Then what?" she asked, annoyed.
I thought for a moment. "I want to be…"
"Yes?"
"I want to be…a vampire!" I shouted, to the shock and amazement of Mrs. Peevish and my classmates. For a moment I thought she started to laugh; maybe she really did. The children sitting next to me inched away.
I spent most of my childhood watching others inch away.


I was conceived on my dad's water bed—or on the rooftop of my mom's college dorm under twinkling stars—depending on which one of my parents is telling the story. They were soul mates that couldn't part with the seventies: true love mixed with drugs, some raspberry incense, and the music of the Grateful Dead. A beaded-jeweled, haltertopped, cutoff blue-jeaned, barefooted girl, intertwined with a long-haired, unshaven, Elton John-spectacled, suntanned, leather-vested, bell-bottomed-and-sandaled guy. I think they're lucky I wasn't more eccentric. I could have wanted to be a beaded-haired hippie werewolf! But somehow I became obsessed with vampires.
Sarah and Paul Madison became more responsible after my entrance into this world—or I'll rephrase it and say my parents were "less glassy eyed." They sold the Volkswagen flower power van that they were living in and actually started renting property. Our hippie apartment was decorated with 3-D glow-in-the-dark flower posters and orange tubes with a Play-Doh substance that moved on its own—lava lamps—that you could stare at forever. It was the best time ever. The three of us laughed and played Chutes and Ladders and squeezed Twinkies between our teeth. We stayed up late, watching Dracula movies, Dark Shadows with the infamous Barnabas Collins, and Batman on a black-and-white TV we'd received when we opened a bank account. I felt secure under the blanket of midnight, rubbing Mom's growing belly, which made noises like the orange lava lamps. I figured she was going to give birth to more moving Play-Doh.


Everything changed when she gave birth to the playdough—only it wasn't Play-Doh. She gave birth to Nerd Boy! How could she? How could she destroy all the Twinkie nights? Now she went to bed early, and that creation that my parents called "Billy" cried and fussed all night. I was suddenly alone. It was Dracula—the Dracula on TV—that kept me company while Mom slept, Nerd Boy wailed, and Dad changed smelly diapers in the darkness.
And if that wasn't bad enough, suddenly they sent me to a place that wasn't my apartment, that didn't have wild 3-D flower posters on the walls, but boring collages of kids' handprints. Who decorates around here? I wondered. It was overcrowded with Sears catalog girls in frilly dresses and Sears catalog boys in tapered pants and perfectly combed hair. Mom and Dad called it "kindergarten."
"They'll be your friends," my mom reassured me, as I clung to her side for dear life. She waved good-bye and blew me kisses as I stood alone beside the matronly Mrs. Peevish, which was as alone as one can get. I watched my mom walk away with Nerd Boy on her hip as she took him back to the place filled with glow-in-the-dark posters, monster movies, and Twinkies. Somehow I made it through the day. Cutting and gluing black paper on black paper, finger painting Barbie's lips black, and telling the assistant teacher ghost stories, while the Sears catalog kids ran around like they were all cousins at an all-American family picnic. I was even happy to see Nerd Boy when Mom finally came to pick me up.
That night she found me with my lips pressed against the TV screen, trying to kiss
Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula.
"Raven! What are you doing up so late? You have school tomorrow!"
"What?" I said. The Hostess cherry pie that I had been eating fell to the floor, and my heart fell with it.
"But I thought it was just the one time?" I said, panicked.
"Sweet Raven. You have to go every day!"
Every day? The words echoed inside my head. It was a life sentence!
That night Nerd Boy couldn't hope to compete with my dramatic wailing and crying. As I lay alone in my bed, I prayed for eternal darkness and a sun that never rose.
Unfortunately the next day I awoke to a blinding light and a monster headache.


I longed to be around at least one person that I could connect with. But I couldn't find any, at home or school. At home the lava lamps were replaced with Tiffany-style floor lamps, the glow-in-the-dark posters were covered with Laura Ashley wallpaper, and our grainy black-and-white TV was upgraded to a twenty-five-inch color model.
At school instead of singing the songs of Mary Poppins, I whistled the theme to The Exorcist.

Halfway through kindergarten I tried to become a vampire. Trevor Mitchell, a perfectly combed blond with weak blue eyes, was my nemesis from the moment I stared him down when he tried to cut in front of me on the slide. He hated me because I was the only kid who wasn't afraid of him. The kids and teachers kissed up to him because his father owned most of the land their houses sat on. Trevor was in a biting phase, not because he wanted to be a vampire like me, but just because he was mean. He had taken pieces of flesh out of everyone but me. And I was starting to get ticked off!
We were on the playground, standing by the basketball hoop, when I pinched the skin of his puny little arm so hard I thought blood would squirt out. His face turned beet red. I stood motionless and waited. Trevor's body trembled with anger, and his eyes swelled with vengeance as I mischievously smiled back. Then he left his dental impressions in my expectant hand. Mrs. Peevish was forced to sit him against the school wall, and I happily danced around the playground, waiting to transform into a vampire bat.


"That Raven is an odd one," I overheard Mrs. Peevish saying to another teacher as I skipped past the crying Trevor, who was now throwing a fit against the hard blacktop. I blew him a grateful kiss with my bitten hand.
I wore my wound proudly as I got on the school swing. I could fly now, right? But I'd need something to take me into warp speed. The seat went as high as the top of the fence, but I was aiming for the puffy clouds. The rusty swing started to buckle when I jumped off. I planned to fly across the playground—all the way to a startled Trevor.
Instead I plummeted to the muddy earth, doing further damage to my tooth-marked hand.
I cried more from the fact that I didn't possess supernatural powers like my heroes on TV than because of my throbbing flesh.
With my bite trapped under ice, Mrs. Peevish sat me against the wall to rest while the spoiled snot-nosed Trevor was now free to play. He blew me a teasing kiss and said, "Thank you." I stuck out my tongue and called him a name I had heard a mobster say in The Godfather. Mrs. Peevish immediately sent me inside. I was sent inside a lot during my childhood recesses. I was destined to take a recess from recess.

Teaser Tuesdays

 

Ttile: Undead and unwed

Author: Mary Janice Davidson

Chapter one:

The day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry.
I hit my snooze alarm a few too many times and was late for work. And didn’t have time for breakfast. Okay, that’s a lie, I gobbled a pair of chocolate Pop Tarts while waiting for the bus. My mom would have approved (who do you think got me hooked on the darned things?), but a nutritionist would have smacked me upside the head with her calorie counter.

At a nine a.m. meeting I found out the recession (the one the President has been denying for two years) had hit me right between the eyes: I had been laid off. Not unexpected, but it hurt, just the same. They had to slash costs, and god forbid any of senior management be shown the door. Nope; the clerks and secretaries had been deemed expendable.

I cleaned out my desk, avoided the way my co-workers were avoiding looking at me (the ones left, that is), and scuttled home.
As I walked through my front door I saw my answering machine light winking at me like a small black dragon. The message was from my stepmonster: “Your father and I won’t be able to make it to your party tonight…I just realized we have an earlier commitment. Sorry.” Sure you are, jerk. “Have fun without us.” No problem. “Maybe you’ll meet someone tonight.” Translation: Maybe some poor slob will marry you and take you off my hands. My stepmonster had, from day one, related to me in only one way: as a rival for her new husband’s affections.

I went into the kitchen to feed my cat, and that’s when I noticed she’d run away again. Always looking for adventure, my Giselle (although it’s more like I’m her Betsy).

I looked at the clock. My, my. Not even noon.

Happy birthday to me.

* * * * *

As it turned out, we had a freak April snowstorm, and my party was postponed. Just as well…I didn’t feel like going out, putting on a happy face, and drinking one too many daiquiris. The Mall of America is a terrific place, but I’ve got to be in the mood for crowds, overpriced retail merchandise, and six dollar drinks. Tonight I wasn’t.

Nick called around eight p.m., and that was my day’s sole bright spot. Nick Berry was a detective who worked out of St. Paul. I’d been attacked a couple of months before, and…

Okay, well, “attacked” is putting it mildly. I don’t like to talk about it—tothink about it—but what happened was, a bunch of creeps jumped me as I was leaving Kahn’s Mongolian Barbecue (all you can eat for $11.95, including salad, dessert, and free refills). I have no idea what they wante —they didn’t take my purse or try to rape me. Basically, they clawed and bit at me like a bunch of rabid squirrels while I fended them off with the toes of my Manolo Blahniks and screamed for help as loud as I could…so loud I couldn’t speak above a whisper for three days. Help didn’t come, but the bad guys ran away.
Skittered away, actually. While I leaned against my car, concentrating on not passing out, I glanced back and it looked like a few of them were on all fours.

Nick was assigned to the case, and he interviewed me in the hospital while they were disinfecting the bite marks. All fifteen of them. The intern who took care of me smelled like cilantro and kept humming the theme from Harry Potter.

That was last fall. Since then, more and more people—they didn’t discriminate between women and men—were being attacked. The last two had turned up dead. So, yeah, I was freaked out by what happened, and I’d sworn off Kahn’s until the bad guys were caught, but mostly I was grateful it hadn’t been worse.

Anyway, Nick called and we chatted and, long story short, I promised to come in to look through the Big Book O‘ Bad Guys one more time. And I would. For myself, to feel like I was being pro active, but mostly to see Nick, who was exactly my height (six feet), dark blonde, swimmer’s build, and looked like an escapee from a Mr. Hardbody calendar. I’ve broken the law, Officer, take me in.

Making Officer Nick my eye candy would be the closest I’ve gotten to getting laid in…what year was it? Not that I’m a prude. I’m just picky. I treat myself to the nicest, most expensive shoes I can get my hands on, which isn’t easy on a secretary’s budget. I save up for months to buy the dumb things. And those only have to go on my feet.
Yep, that’s me in a nutshell: Elizabeth Taylor (don’t start!), single, dead-end job (well, not anymore), lives with her cat. And I’m so dull, the fucking cat runs away about three times a month just to get a little excitement.

And speaking of the cat…I had just heard her telltaleRiaaaooowwwww! from the street. Super! Giselle hated the snow. She had probably been looking for a little spring lovin‘ and gotten caught in the storm. Now she was outside waiting for rescue. And when Idid rescue her, she’d be horribly affronted and wouldn’t make eye contact for the rest of the week.

I slipped into my boots and headed into the yard. It was still snowing, but I could see Giselle crouched in the middle of the street like a small blob of shadow. One with amber-colored eyes. I wasted ten seconds calling her—whydo I call cats?—then clomped through my yard into the street.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as I live at the end of the block and it’s a quiet street. However, in the snow on icy roads, the driver didn’t see me in time. When he did, he did the absolutely worst thing: slammed on his brakes. That pretty much sealed my doom.

Dying doesn’t hurt. I know that sounds like a crock, some touchy-feely nonsense meant to make
people feel better about biting the big one. But the fact is, your body is so traumatized by what’s
happening, it shuts down your nerve endings. Not only did dying not hurt, I didn’t even feel the cold. And it was only ten degrees that night.

I handled it badly, I admit. When I saw he was going to plow into me, I froze like a deer in the headlights. A big, dumb, blonde deer who had just paid for touch-up highlights. I couldn’t move, not even to save my life.

Giselle certainly could; the ungrateful little wretch scampered right the hell out of there. Me, I went flying. The car hit me at forty miles an hour, which was survivable, and knocked me into a tree, which was not.

I heard things break. I heard my own skull shatter—it sounded like someone was chewing ice in my ear. I felt myself bleed. I felt my bladder let go involuntarily for the first time in twenty-six years. In the dark, my blood on the snow looked black.

The last thing I saw was Giselle sitting on my porch, waiting for me to let her in. The last thing I heard was the driver, screaming for help.

Book review: Marked by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

The book: Marked

The author: P.C. Cast and  Kristin Cast

Pages: 197

Zoey Redbird was going to be one average high school student before being marked. Zoey’s life changed upside down, everything was new and weird to her. Her friends abandoned her, her family wanted to control her. She only found refuge at her grandmother that took her to the house of night that was her home from that day. She was a third former fledgling but not a regular one.

Her mark was different from the others, her affinity was powerful, and her determination to follow Nyx’s path clean and strong as it is, made her a perfect match to be a training high priestess. 

I find the story very interesting since it shows the change and the suffering of a teenage toward being a vampire. It gives us an idea about how much the change can be difficult, and how much strength and belief are needed to go through it. Friendship has a huge part in the story, the whole sticking together in good and bad helped Zoey to win her battle so far against the ex leader of the Dark Daughters.

Zoey’s holding to her family’s traditions was another point that I liked about the story. She actually turned to the Cherokee’s with prayers to help her come up with a plan; I found this brilliant because many of nowadays teenagers grow apart from their traditions and beliefs even when they need them the most.

I couldn’t help but compare the House of night series with the Harry Potter ones. The whole school thing, the fitting issue, and then the typical enemy blond people, for me that is just the same thing, this is really Harry Potter vampire version. I would love to watch it as a movie, it would be fabulous.

The style is easy to read, it is a very simple one, merely like the fanfiction’s. Which can make you bound with the book more, and feel that it was written by your close friend.

I can’t wait to read the other books of the series. It was a great deal to write what Zoey had been through and make you understand her pain and hard times because you can feel the bound between you and the main character. That certainly makes you wonder what will she do next. What changes will she do in the Dark Daughters? And if her relationship with Erik Night will be developed or not?

All that and more will be discovered in the next book. I recommend “Marked”, it’s a very catching and eventful story.

Spotlight author: P. C. Cast

Ms. Cast is a New York Times Best Selling author. Her novels have been awarded the prestigious: Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Prism, Holt Medallion, Daphne du Maurier, Booksellers’ Best, and the Laurel Wreath.

She was born in Illinois and grew up being shuttled back and forth between there and Oklahoma, which is where she fell in love with quarter horses and mythology 

Her first novel, Goddess by Mistake, was published by a small press in 2001. Thoroughly shocking the author, it won a Prism, a Holt Medallion and a Laurel Wreath, and was a finalist for the National Readers' Choice Award. Since then Ms. Cast has gone on to win numerous writing awards. Ms. Cast is thrilled that with her Parthalon series for LUNA Books she has been given the opportunity to continue the world she created in her first book.


P.C. Cast is an experienced teacher and talented speaker. She lives in Oklahoma with her fabulous daughter, her spoiled cat, and her adorable Scotties!

Book review: New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

After I read Twilight, and as for many readers, I grew attached to Edward. Bella in the other hand was just one normal character for me, even though she was the main character and the one telling the story, I had a hard time sympathizing with her. 

Bella Swan, the daughter of the town’s sheriff, fell in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. She went through many problems because of her boyfriend’s nature. The Cullens decided to leave town to make Bella safe and get her normal life back. That's how the second book of the Twilight series begins and left me in big disappointment as Edward had to leave the pages and left me and Bella face to face. 

When I started reading more, I found that that's how Bella succeeded to get my attention, and make me feel her pain during what she was going through. I actually had been drowned by those pages, and attracted by the style and the use of the description. 

But after thinking things through, I could see that Bella was over reacting during the absence of her vampire. She was a lot negative and suicidal than it should be. And she didn’t calm down until another guy came giving her care and attention. It was bad example for teenage girls, to make them believe that they can’t live without the one they love. 

As for Edward, he was one dependant vampire that I’ve never seen anyone alike. Usually vampires are not that attached to their lovers, even the ones that are mainstreaming. But Edward broke the tradition and grew more dependant and attached to his “prey”. He put it the right way when he said “The lion fell for the lamb.” For me that's not a bad thing, but for other vampires... that is breaking the law. But Bella had already made up her mind when it comes to crossing to dark side and entering the mysterious world.

Jacob, the werewolf from La Push, couldn’t get me to like him. Him being a werewolf was another reason for me not to like him. I’m more a vampire girl. 
The events were expected but the smoothness of the story made it enjoyable and pleasant. 

Edward and Bella, the famous couple, had moved me by the sacrifices that they did for each other. The death was going to be the price for not living without each other. 

The scenes were touching, and the events were in row that you can’t let go of the pages to do anything else. It was like nibbling on a piece of an ice cream bar not willing to let it finish.
To sum it up, I really enjoyed the book more than I expected. The story is easy to read and the events made it easy to follow.

Spotlight author: Stephanie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer is the American author of the bestselling young adult Twilight series, which revolves around the relationship between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. The Twilight books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide, with translations into 37 different languages around the globe. A film adaptation of Twilight was released domestically on November 21, 2008. Meyer is also the author of the adult science-fiction novel, The Host.
Meyer was the biggest selling author of 2008, having sold over 22 million books in one year alone, with Twilight being the best selling book of the year.

Stephenie Meyer was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in December 24, 1973 to Stephen and Candy Morgan. She grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, with five siblings: Seth, Emily, Jacob, Paul, and Heidi. She attended Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she received a B.A. in English in 1995. Meyer, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met her husband Christian, nicknamed "Pancho", when she was growing up in Arizona, and married him in 1994. Together they have three sons: Gabe, Seth, and Eli.

One of Meyer's short stories was published in Prom Nights from Hell, a collection of stories about bad prom nights with supernatural effects. Other authors who contributed to this collection are Meg Cabot, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe, and Lauren Myracle. Prom Nights from Hell was released in April 2007.

In May 2008, Meyer's adult sci-fi novel, The Host, was released by the adult division of Little, Brown and Company; it follows the story of Melanie Stryder and Wanderer, a young woman and an invading alien "soul," who are forced to work as one. The Host debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and remained on the list for 26 weeks.
Meyer has stated that she is "almost done" writing a possible sequel to The Host, entitled The Soul. If she were to continue the series, the third book would be called The Seeker.
Meyer mentions having several other book ideas on file, including a ghost story titled Summer House and a novel involving time travel, as well as another about mermaids.

On August 28, 2008, it was revealed that Meyer had written the treatment for the new Jack's Mannequin music video, "The Resolution", which she co-directed the following week.

Book Review: Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Dead until dark is the first book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries. The story is told by Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress that lives in Bon Temps a small town in northern Louisianna. The young lady is in a relationship with Bill, the only vampire that was tempted by that town because it happens to be his hometown.

The vampire is trying to mainstream so he could live in his father’s house, but some crimes were occurred in that quiet small town the thing that made all the suspicious eyes around him.
Being capable to hear people’s thoughts got Sookie to not feel much as a human and meeting Bill got her the consolation that she needed especially that she can’t hear his thoughts, so she found the peace and relief that she always missed.

I liked the line of the story and the way Bill treated Sookie, I just loved it. Even with all the problems and the disapprovement that Sookie’s friends and colleagues had expressed towards their relationship, Bill didn’t seem to be intimidated, he showed his love in different ways and so did she.

At the end of the book, a very supernatural fact happened that made the story be less believable, and that made me feel uncomfortable at first, because I was starting to believe the story and I am not into supernatural things very much.

Charlaine Harris is one of the best writers that write about vampires in a very deep way, and the Sookie Stackhouse series are one of the series that are believable and make you feel like it is real. The story makes you love vampires through Bill’s trusting character and I personally grew attached to him as the story was going on.

Sookie’s character in the other hand doesn’t influence the readers even if she is the one telling the story from her point of view; I just didn’t sympathise with her.

Dead until dark treats the classical problem of relationships between two races and the issues that they get from both races and how they stand in front of them for their love. A very important matter that is real yet common that Harris expressed it in a very well written, smooth reading novel.

Author Spotlight: Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris has been a published novelist for over twenty-five years. A native of the Mississippi Delta, she grew up in the middle of a cotton field. Now she lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, her three children, three dogs, and a duck.

After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris decided to establish a series. She began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, which garnered an Agatha Best Novel nomination in 1990.

Soon Charlaine was looking for another challenge, and the result was the much darker Lily Bard series. The books, set in Shakespeare, Arkansas, feature a heroine who has survived a terrible attack and is learning to live with its consequences.

After Shakespeare, Harris created an entirely new series for release in 2001. The Southern Vampire Mysteries is about a telepathic barmaid in northern Louisianna named Sookie Stuckhouse. The first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. Each book follows Sookie as she tries to solve mysteries involving vampires, werewolves, and other creatures of the night. The series has gathered a strong following with its unique blend of mystery, humor, romance, and the supernatural.the eightenth, From Dead To Worse was released in May 2008.

Sookie Stackhouse has proven to be so popular that Alan Ball, creator of the acclaimed HBO television series Six Feet Ynder, announced he would undertake the production of a new HBO series based upon the Southern Vampire Mysteries. He also wrote and directed the pilot episode for the series, "True Blood", which premiered on HBO.

October 2005 marked the debut of Harris's new series about a young woman named Harper Connelly, with the release of Grave Sight. Harper's been struck by Lightning and the experience has left her with a strange ability: she can find corpses and see how they died. Afterward, Harper and her step-brother, Tolliver Lang, make their living from finding the dead. Like her past novels, the Harper Connelly books are mysteries set in the sleepy south.

Professionally, Harris is a member of the Mystery writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in crime. A former weightlifter and Karate student, she is an avid reader and cinemaphile. She is also a member of the vestry of St. James Episcopal Church.